a fool’s game
Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been over a year since my red pill post. For those who care (yeah, right), here’s an update on my current opinion of politics:
– still fundamentally immoral? check
– still OK to vote, as a potential means of self-defense? check
– still unclear what an effective alternative is? check
– thoughts on the fact that some people are actually hoping Ron Paul will run for President again, cuz this time he’s really gonna save us? oh god, surely you can’t be serious
Speaking of being serious, I read an excellent article earlier today by the fine folks at Downsize D.C.. They seem most of the way towards swallowing the red pill themselves. Sadly, they’re not all the way there yet. They still think that if they can just get a couple of new laws passed, specifically, the Read the Bills Act and the One Subject at a Time Act, that things’ll be DIFFERENT, goshdarnit. Nevermind the fact that politicians routinely break existing laws all the freakin’ time, so why should anyone expect that they’d follow new ones?
Anyway, I thought I’d share the part of their almost-daily dispatch that makes sense to me (leaving out the part about how things would be ever so much different if we just get some new laws passed). Here ya go, and don’t forget to, at some point this Memorial Day Weekend, bow your head in memory of the millions of people who have lost their lives in various wars for the health of the state; their decomposing remains thank you.
I hear it all the time, in the emails that flood my In-Box and on the radio shows I do. Everyone thinks we need to replace our current Congress with better people. I always have the same reaction — “Are you serious?”
What would it take to get even ONE “good person” elected? You’d need . . .
* A good candidate
* A great campaign
* A ton of moneyAnd you’d still probably lose because incumbents have powerful natural advantages. But even if you did win, one politician can’t pass or repeal laws. You’d need . . .
* Hundreds of great candidates
* Hundreds of great campaigns
* And hundreds of millions of dollars to get them all electedBut before you could even begin to acquire these things you’d have to build a HUGE list of supporters from which to recruit your supposedly good candidates, and from which to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars you’d need. But there’s a problem. Several problems actually . . .
* If you’re trying to do this through a political party many people won’t want to join you because they don’t like the partisan label you’ve chosen
* Many more people won’t like some of your supposedly good candidates as much as you do
* And many more won’t want to join you because either you or your candidates favor some position that’s a deal breakerBut it gets worse . . .
* The campaign finance laws limit how much you can raise from your list of donors
* You must report your contributors to the government, thereby intimidating some large donors who will fear retaliation against their business interests by the incumbents you’re trying to unseatSo, even with a huge army of donors you’ll have a hard time raising the money you need. It will be like trying to fill a swimming pool with a teaspoon. But let’s say you overcome these obstacles, after decades of hard work (because that’s how long it will take). You’re still going to be frustrated . . .
Most of the supposedly good candidates you elect will turn out to be bums. They’ll get to Congress and start behaving like the old gang you worked so hard to replace. This is almost inevitable, because . . .
The system is designed to work that way!
All politicians, even YOUR politicians, have huge incentives to say yes to special interests, to trample your rights, and to give away your money. After all . . .
* They get an ego-boost from saying yes to special interests
* They also grow more powerful by saying yes, NOT by saying no
* They’re spending you’re [sic] money, not their own, so saying yes is easy
* Their new special interest friends can replace you as their source of funding and votes
* And now that they’re in office they know it will be hard for you to fire themThis means you’ll have to start the process all over again, finding new supposedly good candidates to replace the people you thought were good before. Either that, or . . .
You’ll have to find a way to control the people you worked so hard to elect. But, assuming that’s possible, why didn’t you just do that in the first place? Why didn’t you just skip all the time, pain, effort and expense of electing a new set of bums to replace the old set of bums?
Given these realities, why don’t you take the road less traveled, by doing things in reverse?
Instead of recruiting a huge army to replace the existing Congress, recruit that army so you can PRESSURE CONGRESS to do what you want. After all, public pressure brought down the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, as well as forced Red China to change its ways. It ought to be even more effective here in the United States. . . .