No, not the band, though they're terrific, of course. I put this up because Glenn Beck represents three things we owe it to ourselves to get out of our politics. To wit:
The first is religion. We need to get it--all religion and religions--out of our politics and government. Before anyone gets started, I want to make perfectly clear that this absolutely doesn't mean morals. It just means everyone's "god" or "God" needs to be extracted. If you let one in, you have to let them all in and that's just not workable. We have to disconnect these two--organized religions and government--so we don't have theocracies and so we can get to defining and solving our problems without fighting, in the meantime, about whose god is correct and all that other nonsense.
The second thing we have to get out of politics and government is emotionalism. (See above). We need to logically, clearly and calmly, again, define our problems, prioritize them and then define and select solutions. If tears and crying and whining and other obfuscating emotions get thrown into the mix, we lose sight of where we are and what needs to be done. It's only an ugly distraction, at least. The one who is most sincere (e.g., crying or wailing, etc.) is not necessarily correct.
Finally, the last thing we need to get out of our government and politics is money, for sure. And we can do this, too, for those who don't think we can. Here's how it could happen: 1) Get true, stringent campaign finance reform so lobbyists, corporations and other "fat cats" can't give money to our politicians to run for office. We need to make this illegal, not condone it with laws giving ways it can be done; 2) Shorten the campaign season by law, as Britain did long ago (can we learn nothing?) so the big money isn't needed by politicians for these absurdly long, annoying and ridiculous campaigns that annoy the daylights out of us anyway.
It just wouldn't be that difficult. We'd have to demand that our representatives do this. It's possible. We can do this. But it will take work.
It likely won't happen but we could do this.
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6 comments:
Since corporations are "individuals", their free speech can't be limited. Current SCOUS will not change that but rather give even more "individual rights" to corporations. Need to change Constitution to limit the rights of corporations vs rights of individuals. Corporations are crying for the right to privacy (and getting it) while the individuals right to privacy and unreasonable search and seizure is shrinking.
The two parties are nothing more than The Beast-With-Two-Heads, trying their best to be THE PARTY o special interest money. We average Joes are already third class citizens.
Perhaps P.J. O'Rourke is right, DON"T VOTE; IT ONLY ENCOURAGES THEM
and this, ladies and gentlemen (I'm not being sarcastic here) is why I said this wouldn't work, this campaign finance reform and taking money out of our politics: " Since corporations are 'individuals', their free speech can't be limited."
I do think we could get around this with both campaign finance reform AND shortening the campaign season, but we won't. We don't seem to have the desire to see and work for solutions because we can't imagine our system or ourselves or our country any differently than we are now--any differently than we have been. We have no imagination for solutions, I believe.
You're right about the corporations and individuals and rights, etc., of course. Sick, huh? But we let it keep happening because NASCAR is on or football or TV or whatever and so far we're not starving.
PJ O'Rourke may be cute with his sayings--like this one--but he's not right on this. We have to go in and kick butt to change the system.
here's hoping.
mr
mr
This Christian person actually agrees with you about religion! Most of your posts on religion annoy me with their patronizing tone, but here we can agree. The Founders had all been burned by the state church in England and they did not want to repeat that error in the new republic. Thus the Constitution, clearly based on Judeochristian moral principles, but absolutely four square against any established state religion.
I agree with you on the other stuff too. The system we have now 1) discourages talented people from participating in government. 2) Draws dysfunctional people into government. 3) Ruins the few good people who do venture in. Somehow, it must be changed, or our problems, already difficult, will become impossible.
We can't get totally get religion out of politics--no matter what, people are going to vote based on their religious beliefs. We do need to get religion out of the government--The federal government should not hire churches to run programs. In most of these cases, if a church wants to be involved, the feds should not be.
Emotionalism is on both sides, just that the emotional issues are different. Liberals tend to be emotional on economic and crime issues. Soak the rich, ban scary looking guns, criminals deserve another chance. force business to pay people more to eliminate poverty, evil corporations sending our jobs to China.
We need to listen to economists on economic issues, and not try to find economists whose solutions fit our preconceived notions. We need to look at recidivism rates for criminals who harm others and quit putting people in jail who are only harming themselves.
Any campaign finance reform MUST NOT favor incumbents, period. It also must not be so complex that teams of lawyers are needed to navigate.
I wish we could force all donations to be completely anonymous--Money could be spent however its owners desired, but politicians wouldn't know who they owed favors to. Unfortunately I can't see a way to implement this where the anonymity could be maintained.
Thanks for your note.
I swear I don't try to sound or even be patronizing, in spite of how I come off (too frequently?) but I have strongly held opinions on religion and here I really put them out there. My biggest directive, most frequently, regarding religion is that everyone should leave everyone else alone on the subject and area and we'd all get along far better.
As for our political system, again, we don't seem to have the will or the imagination, either one, to change it into something better. The Brits are capable of evolving politically and even socially. We don't seem capable of that, at least politically.
mr
Sevesteen,
Anyone can keep religion in their pointy little heads (and hearts), that's fine. But we have to keep this person's "god" and that person's "god" and their respective rules (religion) out of government, that's all I'm saying. As long as they observe it privately (they way the Bible says to do, anyway, btw), and out of gov't, we're good.
I said emotionalism out of gov't, period. I mean it on all sides. I took no sides here, intentionally.
Anonymous donations to political campaigns? That's wrong. That would make it unaccountable, the way it is now. Big mistake. No, if a person is going to back someone for a political race--or a political party--they need to put on their "big boy shoes" and 'fess up. That shouldn't be a problem. We need accountability in all areas of gov't, but maybe particularly political races.
mr
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