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...about Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlan, and apparently every elected Republican official at the federal level is, like, totally corrupt. I was very shocked!
My question to you guys is, what effect do you think this is going to have, if any? I'm kind of leaning towards not much.
Now, you might ask, 'Storm! How come you don't say nothing 'bout no Democrats?'
I will freely stipulate that Democrats are as guilty of accepting stuff they shouldn't as Republicans. Happy?
So, what effect is this going to have now that the level of naughtiness is becoming clear? For instance, there's very strong evidence that the president of, I think it was Gambia, payed Abramoff 9 Million dollars for an interview with the president.
I am also curious if any of you would like to make the argument that Abramoff & Co. have done nothing wrong, that their money is just 'political speech'.
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One point that was made during the interview was that while, yes, corruption has been around for a long time in politics, the level of corruption now is a bazillion times greater than it was 20, 30 years a go.
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I'm sad to say that I take political corruption as a given. On both sides.
Reform doesn't seem to help, as who are the reformers? The corrupt politicians! It's like the fox saying, hey, there's foxes in the henhouse. Don't worry, little hens, I'll fix up the henhouse so no foxes can get in.
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*nods* That's kinda how I've always felt. There are non-corrupt politicians, but they're hard to find, and their staff may be corrupt anyway, and they don't usually last too long. *sigh*
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I don't even take Mormon politicians as being non-corrupt. Orrin Hatch? I've heard some things, and I've heard worse about Harry Reid.
My wife doesn't want me to become a politician because she's worried that I would become corrupted. Fortunately, I'm not very charismatic, so becoming a politician is not exactly a career option for me. Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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So, come election day, none of this stuff is really going to influence who you vote for, since if everyone is corrupt, it's better to at least have the corruption working for you?
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I stay registered as an independent, but when I vote I go by this:
One party is fairly open that they believe in things opposite to what I believe in, and overall, they do things opposite to what I believe in.
The other party makes noises that we have many common beliefs, and then doesn't bother to follow them.
So, I figure I'll vote for the party that at least pretends to agree with me, than the party that doesn't bother.
And sure, I could vote for a third party candidate. Right, and I could also vote for Mickey Mouse, but I'd like to at least pretend that my vote has some impact.
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It's better to have someone who at least stands up strongly for something you believe in. I tend to check out educators' and nurses' endorsements and evaluations on politicians.
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I vote for whomever has a record most in agreement with my highest priorities (health care, education, the environment, freedom of religion, etc.) Often I end up with several Democrats, a few Republicans, and a lot of third-party candidates (who do sometimes win-- not national offices, but local ones.) I'm also registered as unaffiliated-- which means I can vote in any one primary election, in case I have strong feelings for or against a particular candidate.
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the interview mentioned that it wasnt necessarily frequency of corruption, but rather scale.
In the 70s there was there were corruption charges of tens of thousands of dollars. Now its in the several millions. Even taking inflation into account, for 30 years that's ridiculous.
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FG, what is the point of your last post? I've already said that corruption is on both sides, and it doesn't disprove that 'present day' corruption is much greater in terms of the amount of money/gifts being offered or funneled to candidates.
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: It's better to have someone who at least stands up strongly for something you believe in. I tend to check out educators' and nurses' endorsements and evaluations on politicians.
I do as well...and then, given the uselessness and biases of the CTA and NEA (my dad is a teacher in Cali, and let's just say that education has NOT been improving under the teacher's unions), I then proceed to vote exactly opposite.
They're sort of a immoral compass. They can usually be relied to choose the wrong. CTW.
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I honestly beleive that we should consider making taking bribes while an elected official a capital crime.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I honestly beleive that we should consider making taking bribes while an elected official a capital crime.
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quote:and then, given the uselessness and biases of the CTA and NEA
Not talking about them, though. I'm talking about local groups of educators and nurses, and individual ones I know.
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I think, however, it's still important to at least pretend to be attacking political corruption, lest we become like some other countries or the UN where corruption is open and commonplace.
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quote: I think, however, it's still important to at least pretend to be attacking political corruption.
Yeah, because hypocrisy is so much better than the alternatives.
If you won't vote the bums out because they share your opinion on the war, it's your fault we've got crooks in office.
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quote:Now, you might ask, 'Storm! How come you don't say nothing 'bout no Democrats?'
I will freely stipulate that Democrats are as guilty of accepting stuff they shouldn't as Republicans. Happy?
Well, everybody takes money from AIPAC.
quote:I honestly beleive that we should consider making taking bribes while an elected official a capital crime.
Hasn't it been shown that the death penalty is a pretty poor deterrent? Maybe they should just be banned from remaining a politician or becoming a lobbyist... After all, if "Dukey" had just waited a few years and taken a lobbyist job he could have gotten the yacht and gold toilet legitimately.
quote:Well, since everyone is corrupt, no one is corrupt, eh?
Oh, C'mon... Evil needs some sort of good to define itself against.
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Well, I hope something happens as a result of this Abramoff scandal. As it is, everybody's corrupt because the strait-n-narrow guys can't seem to get enough money to win the election against the guys who, already flush with money from corporations, are taking some more on the side.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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We shouldn't accept corruption, just as we shouldn't accept torture. The toleration of hypocrisy is just is ignominibleddd as toleration of the evil itself.
Don't even let the issue be framed as a lesser-of-two-evils situation. Refuse to accept corruption in public officials and try to recall them whenever possible. I have no qualms about voting against both the Republican and the Democratic senators from my state the next times they come up for election because they supported policies I don't agree with.
(One thing I don't like about the two-party system is that the people who would be removed from office very quickly in any other system frequently remain in power because their party fears that a fresh same-party candidate wouldn't fare as well in an election against the opposition's strongest candidate.)
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quote: Oh, C'mon... Evil needs some sort of good to define itself against.
You would think so, but it took about 20 posts for conservatives to start saying that what the Republicans did was, well, o.k., maybe wrong, rather than make excuses.
That's what I meant about the corruption probably not mattering. This thread has proven me right, and the guy from the Times who said that it would matter wrong.
I don't want to single out conservatives, though. If the state can form national character and mold the nation, then the badness (I'm not going to use the word 'evil', sorry. )of individual senators and presidents doesn't matter when looked at within that larger scheme of things. After all, when talking about millions of lives lost in the abortion debate, what is a few million dollars if everyone does it? When talking about the ability to be free of the other side meddling in your affairs, what is a hundred thousand dollar trip to Scotland? Honestly, realistically, not much.
The state has become too integral to the life of the nation for one party to clean house. In order for that to happen, something must happen where each side feels safe enough to do it, where its agenda is not threatened, and I just don't see how that can happen. I'm not talking about the people in Washington, I'm talking about conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, communitarians and libertarians, Environmentalists and Capitalists. None of these groups can exist without the state. It has become everyone's best friend, their protector, their champion without which nothing can happen.
I am not an anarchist. I'm not pointing the finger at some other group of people and saying that I am better. I'm just stating a fact of modern life that this thread totally, completely underlines.
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The death penalty doesn't work as a deterrent in large part because the people we're applying it to tend not to think about long term consequences. Punishment only works as a deterrent when people actually add it into their decision on whether or not to do something.
I'm willing to give most politicans the benefit of the doubt in terms of this. Right now, if they get caught, nothing all that awful happens to them. So, the CBA is strongly weighted towards taking the bribe. If, if they get caught, they're liable to suffer some pretty major penalties, I think their decisions would change. Abuse of the public trust should be considered a very serious crime. If we're going to have the death penalty at all, I can't see why it wouldn't be applied in cases like this.
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I am an anarchist, which means that in this case, I don't believe that anything the parties or our government officials are going to do is going to solve this. I think the capital punishment thing would decrease corruption, but it will never happen and even if it did, it would be a pretty poor solution. The only solution to corruption comes from the people. The way (from what I see, pretty much the only way) to fix this lies outside the political arena. But anarchy requires responsibility at a much high level than apologetic fascism or apathy, so it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem.
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quote:Storm Saxon: The state has become too integral to the life of the nation for one party to clean house. In order for that to happen, something must happen where each side feels safe enough to do it, where its agenda is not threatened, and I just don't see how that can happen.
I think you're right. Everybody's too scared that they'll lose elections to play it clean. Canada managed a step forward against corruption this week. I think the two-party system is much harder to quickly reform because people dig themselves in too much.
If we tolerate bribery and corruption among our representatives in government, aren't we just allowing the people with the most money (and Big Business) to run the country?
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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McCain is a far cry from perfect, but I'm actually starting to hope he'll run for president again.
My suggestion: Elected politicians get a basic salary with certain expenses (travel and away-from-home lodging) paid. Not the six-figure salaries most of our fine friends in D.C. are getting now. They aren't allowed to accept anything from anyone, not so much as a lunch. They get a pension they can live on when they leave office, but sign a contract that they will accept no other money for a period of five years afterward: no consulting fees, no book deals, no cushy jobs on the boards of companies they might have been tempted to fund from the pork barrel. They will be, in short, public servants. If you're really interested in public service, leave your wallet at the door.
Of course, I don't know whether such laws would increase the interest in our representative democractic systems or eliminate candidacy from most offices all together, given how many officials run unopposed under the current system anyway...
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Well, the fact is that your suggestions are not only bad (IMO), but unconstitutional in some cases....
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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There are far worse things than hypocrisy. Being open about doing something bad and making like it's a good thing, because at least one is not a hypocrite, is a worse thing.
"Well, I may be a corrupt politician, but at least I'm honest about it!"
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Well, the fact is that your suggestions are not only bad (IMO), but unconstitutional in some cases....
Completely unrealistic, certainly. If you're going to go as far as "bad", it would be nice to suggest why.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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It's already hard enough for poeple without large sums of money to run, win, and serve. You're idea would make it almost impossible for any but those with a lot of money to afford to run for office.
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So we'd need public election funding. Is the salary of a public official really supposed to be their campaign chest anyway?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:It's already hard enough for poeple without large sums of money to run, win, and serve. You're idea would make it almost impossible for any but those with a lot of money to afford to run for office.
What am I missing? I don't see how Sterling's suggestions would make it any more difficult for the non-rich to campaign.
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