Political Whores

A recent law proposed by the Congress, the gang that supposedly works for the people of the United States, will turn just about every citizen into a lawbreaker. If you copy an article, a photo, any file whatsoever you could be imprisoned for 10 years and any asset used in the “theft” will be stolen from its owner and sold at a public auction or destroyed. Translation, you find a cool picture on a website so you use it on your website. The government finds out you have “stolen” this picture so they arrest you, put you in jail for ten years and destroy your computer. Why? Because we all want that.

Our leaders of today are political whores, compared with earlier leaders. They have forgotten the interests of the American middle class, which is the majority of people in America and who elect the politicians, should factor into all decisions made by leadership. As the middle class goes so the country goes; if the middle class becomes weakened or extinct, the US becomes weakened or extinct.

Our politicians are whores because they sell legislation that conflicts with their values, the values of their constituents and the values of the nation to the highest corporate bidder. They also sell harmful legislation for an obvious payoff. These whores are worse than corporate whores because they are in charge of the interests of the American people. Instead, they have all become just another corporate subsidiary.

Politicians support laws like this because their interests lie with the corporations and not with the people. Too often decisions are made for personal gain that conflict with long term interests of the country, either from payoffs or favors from lobbyists or direct contributions from corporate America. In order to restore validity to our leadership, these steps must be taken sooner rather than later:

• Elimination of all lobbyists from Washington. This will finally restore the hearts of our leaders. Now they will make decisions based on what is good for the country as a whole, instead of selling legislation to the highest bidder.

• Elimination of all political contributions. Everybody politician gets the same amount of money to spend on an election campaign. So when elections are won the politician will not have to promise something to a contributor that conflicts with his values or the country’s values.

• Term limitations for all politicians. Good leaders should realize this is a short term job. Good leaders do not crave power.

• Elimination of the special retirement program for Senators, Judges and Representatives. They should get the same program everybody else gets, maybe then they will fix it.

• Reduce the pay and benefits of Senators and State Governors. How can the middle class be represented when there are no middle class Senators or State Governors? We need a mixture of Democrats and Republicans in the government and likewise we need a mixture of class within all branches of government. These Senators should be treated like average citizens but that is impossible when they are given ridiculous amounts of compensation through political contributions and federal benefits. I realize this will be the most difficult to change of all because they are in charge of their own salaries (what a gravy life).

These changes will force leaders to make decisions based on what is right instead of what is for sale. As it stands today, too many leaders make decisions based upon the amount of personal gain. If you remove personal gain from the equation, you remove the blinders and allow them to see clearly.