[ale] OT: Republicans Outsource

[Hogg, Russell E]

I don't generally comment on this stuff.  But it's been about 6 months since my last attempt.  So here goes.




>>>And power should not be for sale to the highest campaign donor.




Power flows to those with money because our current political system is becoming increasingly bogged down in the quagmire that is too much democracy.  

Since the late 60s there's been a large movement to make our government more transparent in the interest of the common man.  The way the committees in congress work has been changed so that every vote in those committees is recorded for the people to see.  Discussions that used to take place behind closed doors are now aired on C-SPAN.

The goal of these changes was to give you and I the voting, tax-paying public more insight into what our government is doing, to give us more confidence that our best interests are being served.  It has had decidedly the opposite effect.  The average man doesn't, won't and can't afford to sit in front of C-SPAN all day to keep track of what his representatives are doing.  The only people that can are the watchdogs of the special interest groups.  

It's reached the point now where there are so many people watching every move of every person in congress that as soon as one of them proposes something that would hurt some particular special interest group, stop federal funding to rich left handed people with 9 toes, or stop paying farmers to destroy their own crops a call goes out and the faxes, emails, and phone calls begin to pour in.  Someone proposes something that would cut funding or affect some tiny percentage of the population in a committee meeting and by the time she's back in her office the Fax machine has run out of paper and the Voice Mail boxes are full of threats to pull support and promises to pull funding.  Near blackmail I'd say.

In that same time period that state of CA has fallen in love with the referendum.  What could be better?  Pure democracy is action; we'll let the public vote on it.  What's happened is that the voters in CA have consistently voted to have more services and lower taxes.  That explains at least partially how the state with the 6th largest economy in the world is facing a budget crisis.

I think out first mistake was in 1920 or whenever (Grant can correct my dates I'm sure) we decided to let senators be elected by the popular vote.  This changed the roles of those people from "statesmen" (for lack of a better word) to politicians.  Prior to their being elected by the public our senators were free to vote their consciences instead of what would keep them in office.  Out journey down a slippery slope begins with one confident step.

The truth is that the key to being a good representative of your constituents consists of doing what needs to be done, not doing what they would do.  There's a great quote by JFK out there that says basically the same thing.  Someone may know it and can post it.

In order for us to get back on track were going to have to learn to trust our government just a little more.  We're going to have to realize that democracy like all other human institutions isn't perfect.  We're going to have to realize that liberty and democracy are often directly opposed.  Our constitutional fore fathers had enough sense to make this a republic, not a democracy.  The differences are profound.  Let's have enough sense to keep it that way.

</pontification>


Russ








 





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