We The People wonder why our politicians do not listen to us. They seem to only be interested in securing their own power and growing their political careers. We, as a nation, have set ourselves up for inevitable failure. Political campaigns are skewed toward special interests, corporate lobbyists, and wealthy elites.
Our public offices are effectively for sale to the highest bidder. How can we possibly expect to be represented by those in office, when they are beholden to those that hold the purse strings. The politicians who can raise the most money (not necessarily the candidates who represent the best choice for the united States), usually win.
Politicians distort the truth about themselves, wrap themselves in populist rhetoric and appeal to the compassionate side that nearly everyone has. They know that our current political system will not hold them accountable for their promises nor their actions. They will be "above the fray", so to speak.
The political campaign process stacks the deck against citizen politicians.
Our Founders felt that the government should be run by people with integrity and honor, not elites who could buy elections. What madness is this political campaign process that we use today to elect our representatives and leaders? Not only is it a convoluted mess, it is ripe for corruption and distortion.
We can debate policy on health care, immigration, green energy, etc., until hell freezes over, but the debate will have no meaning until our representatives actually represent our interests. The people who are most qualified to represent us are not even allowed to compete in the campaign semifinals. The political elite censor the debate by purchasing the most powerful megaphone and drowning out the more qualified, lower-volume candidates.
Our current political troubles will never be corrected until we can level the playing field to allow the truly competent citizen politician to equally compete against the wealthy elite. Our society places far too much emphasis on celebrity and physical attractiveness, which are typically poor resume entries for the governance of a nation. Common sense, honor, integrity and piety surely must be better entries for a representative's resume.
We need a system that removes the advantage of wealth in the political process
We need a system that removes the advantage of wealth in the political process. Each candidate must be afforded the same public air time and exposure. We must have rigid guidelines for the campaign process or we will never hire the truly capable citizen representatives that our nation requires. Please understand, this idea seems to fly in the face of a free enterprise system, but the current system has not been working out so well for We The People.
There should be some sort of non-partisan job evaluation group that keeps track of our representative's job performance with respect to their campaign promises. Then, put in place some type of system for a representative's removal that is tied to their job performance, very much like the employee review process in private enterprise. We must begin holding our leaders to a much higher standard. They are our representatives to the world. Did YOU feel the need for the united States of America to apologize to the world for being the greatest nation in the history of the world?
Why this problem has not been addressed long before now is incredible. The problem is so transparent and the solution is so obvious. We The People must fix this madness now, not later. Until our political campaign problem is corrected, we will continue to lose our liberties and unalienable rights to the political elite.
Mark Odenbach, is a California Licensed Land Surveyor. Has only recently become a student of history and American government.
Mark can be reached at: odewan@msn.com
