The lies continue and the liars persist of course, thats a human nature. So there is always more work to do. Before going any further here, I should interject that pretty much everyone Ive ever encountered in politics, liberal, moderate, or conservative or independent, got into honest desire to do something good for their country, their state or their community. But to run and win, you need money, and candidates learn quickly that folks whore able to provide it almost always want something in return. Sometimes an elected official can deliver what a donor wants in good conscience because it dovetails with the officials sense of the public interest. But issues quickly come along that force politicians into uncomfortable choices -- choices between helping donors and doing what they know is right. And when the donors involved have given lot of money, or promise to use a lot of money against you unless you deliver, the temptation to go along becomes powerful. And thats where the lies, the dangerous lies, begin. So lets attack the lies by attacking the money that drives them, by following the example set by our founding fathers and building more safeguards into our system. One thing we can do quickly is add more transparency to our politics by toughening disclosure requirements so that no individual or group can anonymously pump large sums of money into our elections, and through it acquire secret IOUs from our elected officials. Over a short term, we need to get around the Courts ruling in all electoral cases erroneous in my view -- that money is equivalent to speech and that limits on how much of it can be spent on political ads violate the Constitutions guarantees of free and. fair election come 2015. They most go to court and the courts decision will stand until we the people change the Constitution to make it clear that money isnt election and that in the context of political campaigns and elections spending must be subject to reasonable limits. I know that writing such an amendment will be challenging getting it passed across wiill be a big task and will be even harder. But if we want to do something about all the lies that will have come our way during this political year and all the corrupting money behind them, we need to think of money not as speech but as an amplifier. We need to understand that if the volume of one candidates supporters is. great the other(s) shouldnt use money as speech cos it. will diminish our nacent democracy
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 00:50:18 +0000
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