How do you make a bribe free government?

[CCS]

Anytime a law maker has a lot of power, there is a big incentive to bribe them to give you other people's tax money. Often you tell them to give you a million dollars, and then you give the law maker ten thousand as a reward.

The reason we have government is because most of us with our 9-5 jobs don't have time to read every law, every day, or are not experts on the implications of laws. It also is difficult to take a million drafts of the same law and merge them into one version that most people can agree on. And sometimes some things have to be done secretly, especially on issues of national defense.

So we elect people to office, and then hope they will rule in our interest and not rob us blind and give to whomever bribes them off.


Before 1900, senators were elected by state governments, not by the people. State governments formed the union, and this was their way of having a say in the federal government. Citizens voted for representatives. That changed with a constitutional amendment around 1908. Why? Because when you have a small number of people who pick senators, there is a big temptation to bribe them to elect a senator who will work in your favor. And it happened a lot for close to 100 years. There were many years when a state did not even have a senator because their government could not agree on a senator. Now that the people have the vote, the next group to bribe is the media. Afterall, the people don't know who to vote for, or who has a realistic chance of winning, without media polls and other info coverage. If you bribe the polsters, burry stories, and pay for the most ads, you can get the voters to elect anyone, even if they are smart. It helps if a politician lies about their intent during a campaign. Once they are in office, they may vote however they want, and have no laws to answer to.

When people don't get the results they want from a governing body, they sometimes want to give power to some overseers who can repremand that body. But then what if the overseers control stuff and do bad things? Makes you want to go back to direct democracy, but we don't have the time to investigate everything, do we?

What if we had some kind of rating system, where everything is shown to 10,000 people, less than 1% of the population, so that decisions and divided up amoung many people? I think that would be the best form of government, except how a poll is phrased will alter people's results. And we would have to worry about computer hackers. And minorities would get voted down bad, etc.

 

[Anarch]

Withhold your taxes.

It's all fungible to them. You think it's going to a particular program that they're asking for, but they'll use it for other programs that you don't agree with.

 

[The Gardener]

Bribe free government?

LOL... you need to realize that there are governing entities and powers FAR greater than those in elected government that are running the show behind the scenes. Lords and serfs, patricians and plebians... hate to say this, but feudalism never left us. Its just that the patricians of today have learned the hard way to be more discreet about their manipulations, so as to avoid the torches and pitchforks.

This reply also goes in contradiction of your views on the other thread about your desire to see "pure" capitalism implemented. "Just let them go bankrupt" you say. Well I totally agree in principle, but in practice, the ruling elites would never allow a rigged banking system to leave them high and dry, and in bankruptcy. They will ALWAYS use the system to maximise their own gains from loaning out the vast capital they control, and if they take losses, they will always make sure that it is the citizenry that bears them, and not themselves.

 

[CCS]

Well, Obama is making an exception to the bankruptcy laws:

Normally, first money in is first money out. So if you loan someone money, you can put a lein on their property until they pay you back. And if someone else loans them money, they can't take that property since you have first dibs on it.

The bond holders of Christler have dibs on Christler capital, but Obama is giving the capital to the unions first, instead of to the bond holders first, in the bankruptcy that is going on. I don't know how he can do that if it should be the courts that decide.

I also heard no one is suing for their rights because they are all afraid of Obama and don't want to be his next target. I heard he told GM stock owners that he wanted their stock at 20 cents on the dollar or else. Then he used government money to buy the stock, then used the voting power to either elect a new board of directors or get the existing one to fire the current CEO.

As for Ford, Ford is not near bankruptcy. But we all know the government will substidize Christler and GM. So how can Ford possibly compete with tax payer substidies? Ford will probably be forced out of business by price competition.
Just as crop substidies make it hard for south american farmers to compete with american farmers, I bet America could put Toyota out of business just by substidizing the auto industry enough.

And if you boycot the government car companies, then you just willfully pay a higher price while your political counterparts get a lower price on your tax dollar.

 

[ClayShaw]

I think the only fool proof way to do it is to make sure that politicians don't need money to win elections. Public financing of campaigns was an attempt at this, but it didn't work.
As long as there is a lot of money in politics, undue influence by those with lots of money will be the norm.

 

[CCS]

Campaign contribution limits attempts this too, but it just removes the power of the rich minority to support candidates who would protect them from theft by socialists.

I also thought of removing contribution limits and instead having total campaign spending limits. But that gives too much power to the media. What if the media spends 3/4 of their time promoting one candidate and the other 1/4 putting down the other candidate, and the second candidate is not allowed to spend enough to out blast their message? There is also the problem of what if people who are not part of the campaign go out and distribute their own flyers for or against someone: how does that factor into spending, when the candidate did not authorize it?

 

[ClayShaw]

I really don't think the media has the agenda you ascribe to them. It would be too difficult to control. There are too many companies, too many editors and too many reporters for them to all be on the same page. In addition to that, there are TV stations and newspapers on both sides of the spectrum. I doubt that MSNBC and Fox would be pushing the same candidate. Same goes for the New York Times and the New York Post.
One of my favorite reporters, Tom Ricks (does Pentagon stuff for the Washington Post and wrote the book "Fiasco" about Iraq) has said that he does not vote in elections because he does not want to "have a dog in the race". I know people who work for newspapers, and while most still vote, there is an effort to be as even as possible in coverage.
What really makes a candidate viable is not media coverage, but fundraising. You're a Ron Paul guy, if I remember right. Ron Paul was a fairly strong candidate (other than the supposed KKK connections), but he didn't get enough money, and therefore was never taken seriously. Obama was only taken seriously when his internet operation began to raise the enormous amount of money necessary to challenge HRC.
I still think the only way to have a "bribe-free government" is to end the permanent campaign status of many elected officials. Even senators are thinking about their next election as soon as they've won the last one. In the House, with their 2 year terms, its even worse, although many Congressional representatives come from districts so safe that elections are relatively pointless. Elections are expensive, and that money has to come from somewhere.
Interestingly, I find campaign finance to be the most compelling argument for the electoral college system. If presidential campaigns were truly national, and every vote in every state was truly in play, instead of the campaign being waged only in the so-called swing states, the amount of money needed to finance a presidential campaign would be astronomical, therefore increasing the potential for bribes.