Politics as hyperbole
I would like to see some civility in the way we debate politics. We treat every election as though if one candidate or another wins half the country should flee to Canada. (It would not be paradise for either side, by the way and why on Earth would Canada want us.) The politics of fear is making it so that we can no longer simply disagree with the finer points and see that we are all still together. I place much of the blame on the divided and contentious media outfits who struggle to fill the now 24 hour news cycle, but the media aren't the only ones to blame. Politicians need to make you afraid in order to win your support. The parties, each in their own way, need to fuel your fear so that you think that if the other party wins the VERY FABRIC OF AMERICA WILL CRUMBLE. Both parties do this. BOTH. Fear mongering in politics is not new. But fear mongering politicians with a 24 hour news cycle sick with the addiction to petty drama and fueled with the money of special interests and super PACS is. So here is my proposal and I think it could be agreeable to members of both political parties:
1. I have seen some stirring about a Constitutional Amendment that makes sense to me. I normally do not think that amending the Constitution is a good idea, because it should only be done for really important and needed changes. The amendment I saw had only two clauses: “Congress shall make no law regarding the American people that does not pertain to it. Congress shall make no law regarding itself that does not also pertain to the American people.” I know that this has some flaws and better minds than mine can help bang out the realities of this kind of thing. Congress has become a problem in so many ways. This is one way to curtail its strange manners.
2. Term limits. I have heard the reasons for not having them. I get it that if we have too much turn over then politicians can not learn the laws deeply and all that. Too bad. When they stay in for life, they get entrenched to the point of becoming unbeatable. Even BEFORE superpacs, if your Senator or Representative has been in Congress for long enough to have power, you want to keep them so your state gets what it needs. Members of Congress have complained that half of their time in office is spent raising money for their next run. If there is a limit, they can not keep doing that and wasting time that they should be working for us trying to get elected by us.
3. Fundraising limits. Extreme ones. No candidate running for any office can raise more than 1 million dollars and no individual, corporation, pac, or foreign body can donate more than $100 or run ads for a candidate that are endorsed by that candidate. The media, starved for stories would cover the candidates anyway. Debates might actually happen! If a corporation, pac, individual or foreign body buys an ad it MUST say this ad was paid for by “Americans who hate puppy dogs.” I know that organizations will give themselves silly names that will have nothing to do with what they really are or really want, but they will HAVE to be traceable and in this day and age they WILL be. The ad campaigns for the candidates will then be pretty clear in terms of who is making them and the candidates will not be allowed to endorse the ads. I know this won’t solve the problem of greed and corruption in politics, but it will make it a little more transparent. It may also mean that you might actually have to be a candidate of substance rather than simply well connected and easily controlled to run for President.
I know that these things come with their own problems and that there is no perfect solution. I just wish that both parties could debate at the highest levels and with the best intentions rather than with all of this greed and pettiness. I was raised in a Conservative household and surrounded mostly by Republican family, but it was a different party then. The party was not interested in indoctrinating Americans with fear and xenophobia. It was interested in telling Americans what was possible. I am sickened by the religious extremism and the fear mongering of the right these days. I am sickened by the greed on both sides. I wish I could be more fair minded about some things, but when a party continues to attack women’s medical needs and not just abortion, but refusing to pay for birth control in the name of religion, but will pay for erectile dysfunction pills, I think they have a strange message. When they want to teach abstinence only as sexual education and deny any form of birth control to teens and then blame Hollywood for teen pregnancy, I find it hard to take. When they scream about freedom and yet want to curtail mine because they find it loathsome that I have made a life with a woman, I want to remind them that 50 years ago people said the same thing about mixed race marriages and that the Bible has some really odd passages about marriage, and that we should actually NOT write our laws based on the Bible. When they want religious charter schools instead of fixing public schools until Moslems want them too, I want to remind them that religious freedom means freedom for all. The GOP used to be different it was not against fixing roads or doing things with tax dollars, it was for doing things with tax dollars that NEEDED to be done. I would like to see a generation of great Republican and Democrat minds come forward and debate the issues and fix the problems and do it together and when the media goes to commercial and says, “Such and Such law passed. Was it a win for Republicans or Democrats? We’ll answer after the break.” They will rise up together and say, “It was a hard debate, but the merits of this law mean that Americans win these specific things.” Wouldn’t that be something?
1. I have seen some stirring about a Constitutional Amendment that makes sense to me. I normally do not think that amending the Constitution is a good idea, because it should only be done for really important and needed changes. The amendment I saw had only two clauses: “Congress shall make no law regarding the American people that does not pertain to it. Congress shall make no law regarding itself that does not also pertain to the American people.” I know that this has some flaws and better minds than mine can help bang out the realities of this kind of thing. Congress has become a problem in so many ways. This is one way to curtail its strange manners.
2. Term limits. I have heard the reasons for not having them. I get it that if we have too much turn over then politicians can not learn the laws deeply and all that. Too bad. When they stay in for life, they get entrenched to the point of becoming unbeatable. Even BEFORE superpacs, if your Senator or Representative has been in Congress for long enough to have power, you want to keep them so your state gets what it needs. Members of Congress have complained that half of their time in office is spent raising money for their next run. If there is a limit, they can not keep doing that and wasting time that they should be working for us trying to get elected by us.
3. Fundraising limits. Extreme ones. No candidate running for any office can raise more than 1 million dollars and no individual, corporation, pac, or foreign body can donate more than $100 or run ads for a candidate that are endorsed by that candidate. The media, starved for stories would cover the candidates anyway. Debates might actually happen! If a corporation, pac, individual or foreign body buys an ad it MUST say this ad was paid for by “Americans who hate puppy dogs.” I know that organizations will give themselves silly names that will have nothing to do with what they really are or really want, but they will HAVE to be traceable and in this day and age they WILL be. The ad campaigns for the candidates will then be pretty clear in terms of who is making them and the candidates will not be allowed to endorse the ads. I know this won’t solve the problem of greed and corruption in politics, but it will make it a little more transparent. It may also mean that you might actually have to be a candidate of substance rather than simply well connected and easily controlled to run for President.
I know that these things come with their own problems and that there is no perfect solution. I just wish that both parties could debate at the highest levels and with the best intentions rather than with all of this greed and pettiness. I was raised in a Conservative household and surrounded mostly by Republican family, but it was a different party then. The party was not interested in indoctrinating Americans with fear and xenophobia. It was interested in telling Americans what was possible. I am sickened by the religious extremism and the fear mongering of the right these days. I am sickened by the greed on both sides. I wish I could be more fair minded about some things, but when a party continues to attack women’s medical needs and not just abortion, but refusing to pay for birth control in the name of religion, but will pay for erectile dysfunction pills, I think they have a strange message. When they want to teach abstinence only as sexual education and deny any form of birth control to teens and then blame Hollywood for teen pregnancy, I find it hard to take. When they scream about freedom and yet want to curtail mine because they find it loathsome that I have made a life with a woman, I want to remind them that 50 years ago people said the same thing about mixed race marriages and that the Bible has some really odd passages about marriage, and that we should actually NOT write our laws based on the Bible. When they want religious charter schools instead of fixing public schools until Moslems want them too, I want to remind them that religious freedom means freedom for all. The GOP used to be different it was not against fixing roads or doing things with tax dollars, it was for doing things with tax dollars that NEEDED to be done. I would like to see a generation of great Republican and Democrat minds come forward and debate the issues and fix the problems and do it together and when the media goes to commercial and says, “Such and Such law passed. Was it a win for Republicans or Democrats? We’ll answer after the break.” They will rise up together and say, “It was a hard debate, but the merits of this law mean that Americans win these specific things.” Wouldn’t that be something?