The rousing defense of lobbying (somehow I don’t think the founders had Jack Abramoff pimping members of congress in mind) written in the Post is by someone who has given almost $6,000 to support the corrupt Republican majority.
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I guess they’re not paying you much at MM, Oliver, because $6,000 ain’t squat compared to what so many other PAC’s and various interests pay.
The author (in spite of donations) makes a point.
However, the entire class of students is often punished because
of a few wrongdoers. The innocent often suffer along with the
guilty. The knee-jerk response to this is inevitable because
everyone has to convince the public they are not Abramoffs.
If the honest and honorable lobbyists and their benefactors
cannot regulate the environment, the law will do it for them.
Social controls are either built into a culture, or they are not.
Anyway, I am willing to see my special interests do something
else with their money for a while. Re-electing the same idiots
over and over again has bent the spine of progress in this
country.
Well I sure as hell don’t have a free 6k to hand out to politicians.
I see Mr Baran gave $200 bucks to Little Ricky in May of 2005. Now that was wasted.
H*ll, I’ve made $6,000 just posting here.
Dugger
You post from work too, eh dugger? We do have something in common.
I heard an editorial on NPR this morning advocating making it illegal to fundraise in Washington DC. Sounds like a fantastic idea.
I mean, personally, I like strict term limits, line-item voting for all members of congress on most votes, and computer generated districts based on a neutral algorithm, but hey, thats just me.
Unfortunately, the chances of convincing enough americans that there is a problem before the country implodes is somewhere between slim and none.
Yes, from work sometimes, plus I get $10 a post from Mr Rove.
But, as I told Semant, I disagree completely Quickie. All of this is about the presumption of stupidity on the part of the average voter. My congressman, as far as I am concerned, can take millions from whomever he wants. If he votes wrong and takes no money, we kick his *ss out. If he votes right and takes millions, he gets re-elected. I don’t care about his guessed at motivation as long as he does the right thing – in my book. (now I realize there is a little libertarian naivete in that position)
I like Newt a lot but his guys, my guys, deserted the ship on term limits and I’m glad they did. Voters should have the right to have tehir COngress person as long as they want. Again, vote her out if she messes up.
Dugger
I laughed at this, but then I said, “Hey…”
Dugger;
I never said the average voter was stupid. What I said was the average
voter doesn’t give a crap why his car starts when he turns the key. He just
wants to get where he’s going without having to think about it. When he
hires a congressman to take care of business, he doesn’t want to be
bothered with the details.
Now I will say that the average person is mentally lazy and thinks of
mental activity in the same vein as physical labor; something to be
avoided. That laziness leads to doing minimal homework on issues
and candidates before going to the polls and I think it results in poor
performance in the legislatures. You can say, ‘…stupid is as stupid
does’ if you choose to characterize it that way. I don’t.
It’s about using the brains god gave you, or letting it go to waste.
Such persons do not have the excuse of low intelligence.
Semant,
Ok, but my point is that voters have to hold their congress people accountable for what they actually do. Not why they think they did it. We tend to lose sight of that in all this hoopla.
Dugger