I interviewed an author recently, he had written a book about the Supreme Court. I asked him what the "hot" topic coming up was. His answer was political campaigns, maybe more importantly, the money behind them. It seems that you need a gazzilion dollars to do anything these days! I don’t know if you have been following the news, but there is an interesting piece doing the rounds about an anti-Hillary Clinton ad. It surfaced on You-Tube, it was (or so we are led to believe) just an individual viewpoint. TV has for many years been the weapon of choice for the politicians, the internet may change that. What are your thoughts?
Campaigns are a complete waste of time. The simple fact is that, beginning in 1960, presidential races are won by the guy with the best hair! Look it up. There are only two very explainable exceptions (LBJ won because everybody was afraid Goldwater was going to blow up the world; and while Dukakis had better hair than Bush the Elder, nobody could remember his hair because of that dopey picture of him sitting in a tank with that huge helmet on). That means Guiliani and McCain don’t have a chance. And who knows how a woman will change this time-honored tradition?
The You-Tube ad you mentioned is a perfect example of politics today - it’s all style over substance. It’s a cool-looking ad, but no one really knows what it means. Television time is extraordinarily expensive, so campaigns must try to win their votes in seconds. Hit pieces fill the bill; deep thoughts take too much time. We are a society demanding instant gratification. We don’t want to spend time making cookies, let alone educating ourselves on the ramifications of promises to deliver national healthcare insurance for all. Consider this: Campaign volunteers stand on street corners waving their signs on election day because it’s effective. What does that tell you about voters who are making their decision based on the last sign that they saw? Small wonder we have hanging chads.
Elections have become increasingly contentious, with lots of new players like 527c pressure groups, because, again, as government grows so grows the power prize. The Internet has opened the doors for a whole new — and important — kind of information dissemination, but the intelligence filter on it isn’t necessarily better than the ones on television or newspapers.
Article comments
1 - Jack Everett
Mr. Wickes,
Without big government the USA would be another Mexico!
What is your alternative?
2 - Sarah Johnson
You said that anyone decent enough to be trusted wouldn't get involved with politics. Does this mean you think Obama, Clinton, et al aren't decent enough to be trusted? Thanks for taking the time to comment.
SJ
3 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
4 - Simon Barrett
I am pretty certain that Robert will want a piece of this action! I will use the cattle prod on him! There will be answers soon!
5 - Rob Wickes
Mr. Everett,
I believe that without big government the USA would be the USA"as designed! The Founding Fathers intended a limited government whose primary charge is to provide an umbrella of protection of individual rights under which we could all manage our own lives through the free enterprise, personal accountability, and the voluntary associations which we call civil society.
The U.S. Constitution very clearly and very precisely states all the powers that were to belong to Congress. Later, in the Bill of Rights it very clearly and very precisely states that any power not specified as a power of Congress is reserved either for the states of for the people. There are two loopholes: The commerce and welfare clauses. They have been used to justify virtually unlimited government expansion beyond the approximately twenty powers listed in Article I, Section 8 even though the Founding Fathers intended none of it. Madison even said something to the effect that if they’d wanted Congress to have unlimited power they wouldn’t have bothered listing their specific powers.
So, if we get rid of everything else from the federal budget outside those 20 things do we end up with Mexico? Heck NO! Mexico's government has much corruption and the rule of law has been subverted to the rule of whim.
We maintain our law and order with a limited government, and society is what happens underneath the umbrella. Our country became great not because of what the government DID, but because of what the government did not do. It mostly left us alone to take our risks and seek to discover, to innovate, to create, to explore, and to produce. And so we did.
The question you should be asking is “If we keep allowing Big Government to get BIGGER, what will happen? The answer is to look at the past century of failed experiments in big government"socialism, fascism, communism, and a whole bunch in between. There are but three political states: Liberty, tyranny, and chaos. In any society in which there is law and order, the real political spectrum, therefore, spans from individualism to totalitarianism. All human conflict springs from the imposition of will by one person or group over another. Therefore the further you wrest control of one’s own life from his own grasp the more likely you are to create conflict and the closer you venture towards tyranny in order to maintain law and order.
6 - Rob Wickes
Ms. Johnson,
We are at an interesting time in our democracy. We used to have philosophically distinctive candidates advocating either for private sector expansion with limited government control over our lives versus those who lobbied continuously for a bigger government role. Since 2000, we seem to only manage to field candidates who main differences contrast Republican Big Government solutions versus Democrat Big Government solutions.
Candidates Obaba and Clinton are certainly big government advocates. With their past actions and stated intensions to take over the US healthcare industry that actually raises their title to full-fledged socialists. Americans don’t want to here those kinds of words on their candidates or in their political conversations, but that’s what big government is all about. I delve at length in the first few chapters of the book into the various economic and sociologic philosophies and once we’re finished the reader has a pretty clear view of the flaws of each.
Candidates today are running for offices from which they will be able to wield enormous influence in a multitude of ways over my personal and business life. No way am I going to yield that trust easily. By the time most candidates are running for national offices, their lust for power easily replaces the desire to do good they may have entertained at one stage in their careers.
My rules: Challenge convention. Question everything to hear. If I’m going to get something only because someone else is going to give it up, there’s something seriously wrong.
7 - Rob Wickes
Please excuse the typos in my last post. I ought to claim that I am the victim here! The medicolegal/pharmaceutical industrial complex forced me to have shoulder surgery 2 days before and I should not be held responsible for writing under the influence of insufficient REM time and excess pain medication. If I were a big government advocate I'd point to this as a perfect example of why we ought to have universal health care, because people are obviously incapable of looking out for themselves.
Instead, I'll use the classic phraseology of such philosophical libertarian icons as John Locke and simply say,"Me Bad!"