A Response to "Has Government Sold Out?"

I believe Christa Vargo hit the nail on the head when she wrote her blog post "Has Government Sold Out?". She feels that there should be a cap on political contributions to limit the need for politicians to sell their votes for donations and to enable them to start focusing on what the people really want.

I agree completely. I also agree that if we place a limit on total contributions it will allow more people into the field that previously would have no chance at winning because they could not raise the same level of funds. Our politicians are so focused on money and so many of the top "1%" of money makers are running the government that it is hard for them to objectively makes laws and run our country in a way that really benefits the majority instead of running it in a way that benefits mostly the rich (themselves).

In the link she shared that shows that money really does win elections, I was appalled to find out that Obama declined the use the public financing that is offered to top ticket candidates and still significantly beat out McCain on money for his election. It is virtually like buying a seat in congress or buying a presidency. This has got to stop. There is no reason why they need to spend a million or more to be elected and with each candidate that raises more, it raises the price it takes to win. This link she shared was perfect for her points. It spells out everything that she was saying. Overall, this was a great opinion piece and I really enjoyed reading it.

Red and Blue

I have been mulling over the differences between Republican and Democrats. I find both of them valid and at the same time flawed.

If Republicans truly want more state oversight and regulation and less government interaction, then where are all the state laws that we need to protect the citizens from money hungry corporations? Why do we not see more Republicans swarming state capitals and influencing more state government issues? If they truly believe in less national government and more state government, they can't expect to walk up to Washington D.C., strip away all of the big government and say "We've fixed all our problems." If the first thing they do is strip away big government then they have effectively left the public at a huge disadvantage. I find it compelling that Texas, being such a Red state, has effectively dismantled our state level government instead of making it bigger. The true idea would be to build up strong state governments and then seek to dismantle the national laws that are redundant. Then as a nation we could ease off expecting the national government to take care of our needs and trust in the states to take care of us.

As for Democrats, I personally am leaving my Republican roots and leaning left more regularly because I feel businesses will not regulate themselves. It has been proven repeatedly that businesses will cheat, lie, steal and abuse their consumers and workers. The states have not protected us well enough and an incident with an insurance company proves the point. In 2008 Conesco had to pay around $32 million because their subsidiaries wrongfully denied claims, delayed claims and misled their elderly costumers. We feel like the states are not protecting us, so the government should step up to the plate. The flaw here is that this is exactly opposite of what the founders of the constitution wanted for us. The Bill of Rights wasn't even supposed to be applied to the states. It was truly only to be applied at a federal level and was almost left out entirely because many of the founders believed the states would be responsible for regulation. We were truly supposed to be independent states where each state could have completely different laws, united only for minimal purposes. I guess I lean more to the left because our 200+ year track record of states regulating things doesn't bode well for the future.

I don't know if there is a better way than what we have going for us now. Sometimes I wonder if we had more options, multiple parties, if that would help address these issues, but right now it seems that any third party (on a presidential level) only serves to detract votes from the only two parties that obtain anywhere close to enough votes to win. However protests and taking test cases before the Supreme Court does seem to have an impact on how laws are seen and used. I guess time will only tell what can make a definite change.

The War on Drugs

My fellow classmate, Caroline Bassett's, wrote an article titled, "The War On Drugs - Where Tax Dollars Go to Die." I would have to say I agree with her for the most part. She notes that we began the "war on drugs" in '71 and we have little to nothing to show for the 40 years worth of fighting. It got me thinking and if you compare that to the 9 year war we have waged in Iraq, Americans are fed up with the battle and crying out to have our troops returned, yet no one is tired of the 40 years of battle against drugs where we have gained little to nothing.

If we range farther back in history, we can even ask the question, when has prohibiting a specific drug ever ended well? We had the opium wars, alcohol prohibition and now the war on drugs. The sad thing is that the ban on drugs only gives jobs to cartels and mob bosses and propagates killing sprees, terror and fear. If we legalize drugs, then it becomes common place and the drug cartels and mob bosses have actually lost their foothold on the market. At least, so the theory goes.

Personally I am against drug use, but it is evident that to stop the increase in crime over drugs we actually have to allow it. The same holds true with Alcohol. We legalized it because the ban on it caused more problems than the actual substance ever did on it's own. As a citizen, spending $1700 on tuition for one semester of classes gives me pause. It is hard to write that check, and our government should have pause when writing that check basically every second of every day, especially when they have to realize that money goes towards making a bad problem worse.