Dirty Money In An Even Dirtier Game

So I was talking to my buddy the other day and he pointed out that although I have strong political views, my blog has yet to address this particular aspect of my views on life. I agreed that he made a valid point, and decided this week to make the blog a bit more political. Before I start however, I'd like to say a few things. First of all I am only 22 years old and I was born in a rural state, therefore my life experience is somewhat limited at this point. It should also be noted that I have only recently become interested in topics of a political nature and as a result I do not know everything there is to know about much of anything. My views are precisely that and because I have neither been exposed to every ideology, nor am I intelligent enough to have considered every possible position, I can only speak from my own limited experience. That is the only time I will say this. From here on out, expect me to present my views as though they are the only correct path and everyone else is retarded for not seeing things my way.

So the first thing most people want to know when you start discussing politics is whether you are speaking as a Democrat or a Republican. This speaks volumes about the partisan nature of politics in this country, but I'll wait for another day to get into that. The simple answer is that I do not consider myself a member of either party, and I will let my views speak for themselves in terms of my beliefs. I do not feel the need to categorize myself in this manner. If I were forced to choose one over the other I would probably say that my beliefs overall mesh better with the views of Republicans than Democrats, but it's hard to say. If you need a label I suppose I would consider myself a Classic Liberal. If you don't know what that means, look it up but do not confuse classic liberalism with modern or contemporary liberalism as they frequently have contrary views. I apologize for this long preamble, I'll get on with the post now.

So during this talk with my buddy the other day, I started talking about various problems with the government and politics in general. Unlike most people who do this, I was not referring to the war in Iraq in any capacity, but rather domestic issues. At one point I mentioned the problem with campaign financing as I saw it, and now I think maybe I'll talk about that here for a moment or two. Although in theory, and certainly as a matter of principle, I believe in a lassez-faire economy, I have recently become cynical of some aspects of direct free market capitalism. No, I'm not a fascist or a socialist in any sense, just hold on. What I hate are the unintended social consequences such as greed and corruption. This issue is, I believe, directly related to campaign finance in our current political climate. To quote what I said to my buddy, "Special interest campaign financing is a dirty finger in the asshole of our political system." Eloquent, don't you think? Here's the problem, and I know you've heard it before: large corporations with an agenda donate large quantities of money to political candidates and in return, they expect the candidate to vote agreeably to their own interests. For example, if a man running for president is financed largely by an insurance company, they might expect him to veto a bill currently in development that would place restrictions on the monopolistic and collusive nature of the insurance industry. This is commonly referred to as quid pro quo (literally translated: this for that) financing. The issue here is an obvious one, those with a lot of money and power use both to make the world a better place for them to live in while, in many cases, making it less pleasant for the rest of us. This issue is the center for most discourse on the topic, and deservedly so. The extent and frequency of this is debatable, but if it's happening at all it's a direct attack on liberty. But I'd like to talk about something else for a moment.

Do you know how much money was spent during the last presidential election? Somewhere in the ballpark of $5,000,000,000. Lot of zeroes, but just so we're clear that was 5 billion dollars. I'll get right to the point. Let's say I decide that I would like to make a difference and I talk to a few people and they say that they'd vote for me if I ran, so I toss my hat in the ring for presidential candidate. Cool, just a normal guy off the street running for the highest office in the country. Here's the problem though: I only make $60,000 a year. In addition, I know almost nobody in big business or political circles. How am I supposed to compete with those candidates who are raising hundreds of millions of dollars? I can't, end of story. I know that theoretically, if my message is strong and I'm a really good candidate, I should be able to snowball into a serious contender, but that just isn't realistic. People can't think your ideas are great if they never hear them, certainly not if they've never even heard of you at all. I fully believe that democracy is the best political ideology currently in existence. I believe that because it means the people are ruling themselves, from a selection of themselves. But politics, unfortunately, has come to rely strictly on politicians. It's not impossible for a regular, determined individual to run for office, but the barrier to entry is huge, and I see that as a contradiciton to the ideals of democracy. The high cost of running for office has created a quasi-aristocracy full of people from the same class and lifestyles, rather than a true cross-section of America.

That's the problem, but a decent solution has been elusive. In 2002 the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act attempted to fix these problems but it didn't go far enough. Those who oppose finance reform say that limited contributions also limit free speech. Because people should be able to voice their support monetarily for whoever they like. Those who say we need reform argue that the corruptions I have listed require us to take action. I don't plan on offering you a solution, I just wanted to shed light on the problem. There are, however, a couple of interesting ideas out there that blend public and private funding in a synergistic manner. We'll see where this goes in the near future.

For those who don't like the seriousness of this post, I promise that next week I'll lay off the politics. But I really feel that it's important for people to think about these things, if only once in a while. Especially young people such as myself. Find something that pisses you off and look into it. See what the opposing side says and strengthen your own argument. If you're really moved, do something to change it. Politics isn't just a boring, controversial subject, it's the way our world is being run and it affects each one of us. I love America but it's far from perfect. And if something about it isn't pissing you off at this very moment, you need to open your eyes.