The root of evil

guest commentary by Jack Moseley, award-winning columnist and former editor of the Southwest Times Record

Does this country need a third national political party to end the polarization of radically opposing views on almost every major issue confronting the American people and the ever widening gulf between Democrats and Republicans that seems to grow more mean spirited and bitter with every passing day? A moderate, common sense party, if you will?

That sounds good, but I don’t think it will change very much in the ugly muddle of life in these United States that just aren’t very united anymore.

The problem is not our current political system so much as it is what we have allowed to happen to it. Amid the apathy and feelings of separation and helplessness that perhaps a majority of Americans have today toward just about everything that goes on in Washington, our government is being bought, sold and sold out by selfish special interests that often seen to not give a damn about what this nation unfortunately has become or what it can be again. I refer to simple patriotism, the endeavoring as best humans can to do the right things that will help build and sustain “one nation under God (if you will with at least the hope of freedom, justice) “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Ours always will be an imperfect system, but there is only one thing to my way of thinking can pull us back from the edge of disaster, where we sit precariously night now. I’m talking about pulling the plug on lobbyists on the right and lobbyists on the left, lobbyists for and against the special interests of so-called defense contractors, health care providers, labor unions, the giant drug companies, the big banks, Wall Street and all the rest who want theirs NOW and to hell with everybody else.

Thousands of fat-cat lobbyists literally have captured our government without firing a shot. Frankly, I fear them far more than Red China. They have purchased the votes of members of both houses of Congress — or at least most of them — with huge contributions to re-election campaigns.

Our media have not objected very loudly for good reason. You see. they get hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollar in the form of paid political advertising that all too often contains outright lies, half-truths and distortions. It makes you wonder if those who are supposed to be the watchdogs of government also aren’t being paid off. Who do you trust these days?

Short of a major scandal, the cards are stacked with campaign funds dollars against anyone who dares challenge incumbents and the sickening status quo of a government that is terribly broken and often unable to do much of anything. It’s as dysfunctional as much of the rest of our total society.

If all this sounds a bit negative on my part, so be it.

The word “negative” doesn’t begin to describe my fears for this nation and its people. Unless we change course, our decline as a force for good in this old world — and with our own people who need and deserve far more than they are now receiving from their supposedly elected officials — will accelerate faster than a roller coaster headed for hell.

It is bad enough when our representatives and senators trade your and my tax dollars — and mortgage the futures of our grandchildren — to fund reciprocal pork-barrel projects that guarantee their re-election. With the current state of the economy, which is still very shaky, and our astronomical and still soaring national debt, that practice surely will at least slow down a bit. But the problem with lobbyists is even larger and more dangerous.

The solution is both simple and almost impossible. Still, we should at least try to implement it.

The answer is to literally abolish and outlaw political campaign contributions from both corporate and individual sources for all elected federal positions. STOP selling America and Americans for the ever-weakening dollar. Instead, fund all campaigns for Congress and the White House with public, taxpayer supplied dollars after any candidate secures a sufficient number of signatures on petitions of support.

I know some will argue this would be unconstitutional, that it violates free political speech. I don’t think that is true. No matter how much money you have, you would still be able to voice your support or opposition for or against any candidate or issue the same as any other citizen. You just couldn’t buy the U.S. government anymore.

Lobbying has come a long way since people who wanted this or that from President U. S. Grant would gather late each evening in the lobby of the Willard Hotel just down the street from the White House and try to argue, educate and otherwise influence the president when he dropped in for a drink of whiskey.

That at least was straight forward. In my view, what lobbyists do today is too often corrupt, immoral and destructive to the very fabric of this country. They have jumped the fences of common sense and decency. They must be tethered.

Life, luck and -30-.