October 30, 2009

How To End Corruption In 3 Steps

By wise sloth

Cartoon of four men facing away. Behind their backs, each one is handing another papers in exchange for stacks of money.

 

1. Hold all government officials to the same level of screening used when hiring school janitors and the lowest level enlisted military troops.

That includes a drug test and a criminal background check. If it’s too dangerous to have a janitor on drugs then why don’t we make sure our leaders aren’t on drugs? If it’s too dangerous to give a soldier with a felony conviction a gun then why give members of Congress with felony convictions the ability to control our troops? About two weeks ago Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska got convicted of 7 counts of felony corruption. Guess who got re-elected to the Senate two days ago? Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. Guess who couldn’t vote for Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska because he has a felony conviction on his record? Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska. What the fuck? Is this any way to run a government? This is shit you expect to hear about in the Philippines, not the most powerful country in the world.

 

2. Make corruption a treasonous offense. 

(Political) corruption is defined as:

“the use of governmental powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain.”

Treason is defined as:

“1. the offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or to harm or kill its sovereign.

2. A violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.

3. The betrayal of trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.”

If George Bush stole the 2004 election, then he overthrew the government. He’s also violated his allegiance to the nation by selling out our safety to big business, and by lying to us about the war in Iraq which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and 1 million Iraqis, he has betrayed our trust, our faith, and committed atrocious acts of treachery. It would be impossible to argue he’s not guilty of treason.

When a politician uses government powers to for illegitimate gain, treason is committed. The punishment for treason in America is death. I’m usually not all about the death penalty, but when George Bush lied to us and Dick Cheney handed the keys to our treasury to Halliburton, they both committed treason. Anybody who is given as much power over other people as our leaders on Capitol Hill should be held to the highest level of accountability, and if they abuse that power, they should be punished not only for the wrong they committed but also for the good they failed to accomplish. Once you have to worry about being killed for a bribe I’ll bet you’re not going to be likely to take it. At the very least, make corruption punishable by life in prison… and certainly don’t let people who’ve been convicted of corruption run for public office again.

 

3. Outlaw campaign contributions and lobbyists.

Our government already gives money to political campaigns. Take all that money and make a couple of websites/television stations devoted solely as a platform for campaigning. If it’s illegal to spend any money on campaigning you automatically accomplish two things. First of all, anyone can run for office. You don’t have be a millionaire or well connected. As it stands, those are the two most important requirements to run for office…as opposed to be qualified. Secondly, politicians won’t have to pay back their campaign contributors with political favors. If lobbying is outlawed then they can’t do under-the-table personal favors for politicians in return for political favors.

If we can do at least these simple, common sense things we can eliminate the vast majority of corruption in our government and begin to head away from the fate of Rome, Russia, and every other corrupt nation that has fallen from glory. Then we can begin to move towards Utopia and the glory that we ignorantly boast so loudly about having today.

 

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 5:13 am and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , and posted in Corruption and Election Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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