No, you just don't know history. Back in the 1700s, there were special interests then too, and there were politicians making money off them.
I know a little history, thanks.
Yes, there was corruption in the 1700's. No one denies that. There has always been corruption and there always will be. That's how humans operate. Humans are flawed creatures.
I'll venture the extent and effects weren't nearly as broad as now, but that's no excuse.
That's a subjective statement, just as saying how broad corruption is now, is a subjective statement.
I don't think corrupt is nearly as bad as some would like us to believe.
The difference is only the dollar amounts, and the only reason the dollars are larger, is because we have elected politicians that have raised more tax money.
Government will always be influenced on where the money goes, that they collect.
The only difference between 1780s, and 2010s, is that the amount of money being confiscated and given out, is larger. That's is.
And the only solution to that problem, is simply to give government less money.
Which would do absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Remember Bill Clinton? He was caught selling high tech weapons technology to China? What happened? Nothing.
Al Gore, caught calling companies from inside the Office of the VP, recorded on tape, shaking down companies for money.
What happened? Nothing.
It doesn't matter what law you put in place, when you elect politicians who are corrupt, are not willing to enforce the law on other politicians.
Nothing will happen with your law.
The problem is, you are assuming that the public is against corruption. The public is not against corruption, unless it's someone they don't like. They liked Clinton, so all the corruption in the world doesn't matter. All the laws don't matter. Nothing mattered.
I agree. But you have to have politicians willing to stop it. If you don't, then no law is going to make a difference.
That's debatable. It certainly hasn't affected me.
Again, very debatable. If we push good politicians who have moral and ethical bonds, it can be changed.
The problem is, the public is corrupt. This is why I'll always argue against a revolution approach, because anyone from this culture will be twice as corrupt as the politicians are. You intend to replace imps of satan, with satan himself. That's not a winning plan.
The only alternative is worse.
You say that hasn't worked? No... we haven't tried it. You have try something, before you can say it doesn't work.
Sure we did. It worked for about 200 years..the normal lifespan of any type of government before it gets "replaced".
On one hand you say everyone is corrupt...on the other hand you say we can fix government by electing "different" politicians...who are, by your definition, also corrupt.
Not all of them. I can think of about a dozen off hand, that I would suggest or not corrupt.
But that involves us voting for them, and not for the corrupt ones.
You seem to be painting all the politicians with a broad brush.
Here's the problem with that logic. If you say we can't vote for good politicians because there are none, and instead we have to replace government......
Who do you think we're going to replace government with? Other politicians, which you just said were all corrupt.
What happens when you replace bad politician(S), with a single bad politician?
Right now, all the politicians in government are limited by each other. When you overthrow that system, what happens to whomever takes over? He has no constraints at all, and you end up with, Castro, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, and so on.
You think there was no corruption before the French revolution? Of course there was. But how much corruption was there after the revolution? Tons. Whatever amount there was before, was multiplied many times after the revolution. Things were dramatically worse.
