NO MORE BS: Outlining the Problems – Candidate to Elected Official

Recently, an email purportedly written or approved by Warren Buffett came through my email inbox.  The email has me thinking about the perks and problems in elections, allowing politicians of all levels of government to act like “Lords and Masters” over other citizens.  Agree or disagree, your call; however, I do passionately believe that America needs better politicians, and the following are my thoughts on obtaining better politicians.

1. 1. Better politicians begin with better candidates. The corporate media has proven how inadequate and biased they are in reporting upon candidates, vetting candidates, and sharing candidate information.  Thus, the first step in improving better candidates is better reporting of information.  Not just websites, not just Twitter feeds, not just the speeches, the candidate needs to be vetted, but games of gotcha and 20-year-old mistakes should not kill a candidate.  However, if a pattern of behavior stretches 20-years, that should be reported and discussed as part of the morals and ethics of a candidate.
      • • • Being a politician should never be a popularity contest as portrayed in Hollywood.
          • Morals, ethics, and living one’s beliefs need to be witnessed long before a candidate becomes a candidate!
          • Stop the emotional game playing. Sexism is stupid, racism is wrong, and playing either card makes you, the player, appear imbecilic, and you have lost my vote forever!
   2. Vetting a candidate should not include a test; however, the candidate should be able to answer basic questions about constitutionality, the US Bill of Rights, a citizen’s role in government, and have a working knowledge of history. Practice in public speaking is helpful but not mandatory.
   3. A candidate should not be elected for life! While I am not fully supportive of mandatory term limits, I am a full supporter of impeaching and replacing any politician for failure to follow the law!  Then the ex-politician becomes a defendant in a court of law, by a jury of their peers, for crimes committed.  Why can’t a mayor, a member of the US House or Senate be recalled and fired?  Let’s make this process easier and running for office less expensive.

Let us Talk Term Limits.

Agency and freedom, liberty, and capability are interconnected principles needed for a Republic to select its politicians.  Term limits unfairly reduce all these interconnected principles, and while I believe in the “Rule of Law,” the framers had good reason not to include term limits.  Please note, I am not advocating for a permanent ruling class, nor am I arguing for career politicians; I urge people to think beyond the current disastrous crop of politicians and how they got there.  Living in a Republic means change requires time, a lot of time, and sometimes the best politicians need more time but do not have that time due to term limits, so they rush, and in rushing, what could have been a good thing, becomes a disaster!

Indiana is an excellent example of the need for time.  Through 10-years of fiscal sanity, the government has been able to accrue $2 Billion that can now be used to aid a lot of people.  But, these funds were not available without a decade of sacrifice.  But, this does not mean the governments can go from fiscal sanity and sacrifice to spend crazy!

Thus, bringing us back to the need for better candidates for elections, and a need for better vetting, lower election costs, and keeping an informed electorate firmly in control over the politician elected to lead.  Does anyone remember when President Clinton faced impeachment in the Senate for lying; he was genuinely scared of being defeated and kicked out of office.  Yet, the governor of California, when facing an impeachment, laughed.  That is where politics have fallen since, and because of President Clinton and his vile blaggard of a spouse!  Why was President Clinton successful in winning the impeachment process.  For two reasons, his wife is an expert in backroom dealing, bribery, and sycophancy, and the Republican Party fell apart without a clear successor that would have been superior to President Clinton.

1. 4. I agree; there IS too much bloody money in politics, especially for candidates.  As a candidate, the need for money leads to promises, deals, and Quid Pro Quo like no other business.  In fact, if businesses operated as candidates for political office, their owners would be arrested and jailed!  But the answer to the problem, like in business, does not require more laws, lawyers, and government, but less!  How many election commissions does it require for a candidate to apply for political office; too bloody many!  This means that the legal process to become a candidate is too expensive, long before the first dollars are ever raised.  The laws governing a candidate for public office have become so convoluted that it makes the election commissions the Praetorian Guard, instead of what they are, flaccid, impotent, bureaucrats with too much time, too many connections, and too much politics to survive much longer!  Do not forget the IRS plays a significant role in the candidate becoming a politician, debt, banks, and other lending institutions (e.g., the mafia, drug manufacturers including illegal and illicit, big business, etc.) all become the “silent partners” in a politician’s life.

Ask yourself how did the fraudulent president win, the counters and election commissions who govern them.  Worse, the legislative and executive branches of the state, city, and county government stood by and allowed, cheered, and promoted the fraud to occur.  Leading to a question; is it possible for any post-2020 election on any level of government to be trusted?  How much money did President Trump have to fork over to election commissions to have a day in court, to freaking much, and even then, too often, all he got was an election commission, not a judge and jury.

1. 5. Corporate Media and Debates. My entire life, I have debated.  As a kid, I learned the rules of debate, and some of those debates ended in fights.  Some won, some lost, but I learned.  In high school, I learned public speaking, debate, and parliamentary procedures.  It did not stop me from wanting to knock a bloke’s block off his shoulders, but I learned how to win using words and ideas!  I still think some arguments should be settled with a duel, not guns, not swords, but quarterstaffs, public forum, and you fight out the problem.  How many current snowflakes in office would quickly retire if the opportunity to fight it out was still allowed?

I have yet to see a “debate” during an election; by the way, neither have you!  I have seen manufactured plastic candidates, witnessed corporate media play gotcha, and I observed weak-kneed spineless people talk, but never a debate!  A debate includes ideas, not emotion, logic, and reason, not hyperbole and media controllers.  A debate does not include commercials!  Nor does a debate include 26 or more people on a stage answering questions and interrupting each other for “points.”  After a debate, I do not need a talking head “explaining” anything, which is why debates in public used to mean something in politics.  A debate should never include more than three people at any one time on a debate platform, and the media are not “asking questions or arbiters of rules, nor are there stopwatches and timed speeches.  A debate begins with ideas, ends with logic, and there is no place for the media to interrupt.  Pick a topic, detail your ideas, and allow the public to decide.

In conclusion, I have some questions for consideration.  I hope to take these questions and form future articles, but before those arrive, I want to spur conversation, and I hope to get mental juices flowing while considering these five fundamental points.

• • • Why isn’t a politician’s pay commiserate with and a ratio of the debt the government owes? For example, get a tax and spend politician in office; they have no incentive not to spend.  But, if their pay is reduced by XX Amount for every thousand dollars in government debt, how would that politician be willing to spend taxpayer dollars?  How would many political appointees be spending if every dollar costs the boss?  How many political appointees would survive the smell test for fiscal sanity?
    • America is a Republic (If we can keep it), why do politicians have retirement packages? Why do they have medical, dental, vision, and other benefits after leaving office?  What would happen if these citizens had to live the laws they created?  Remember ObamaCare and the fit threw when the politicians were “encouraged” to have the same plans for medical, dental, and vision as ObamaCare citizens were forced to acquire?
    • Why are politicians excused from paying Social Security and the other federal and state pay deductions that every other citizen has to pay out of every paycheck? Live and work in DC, but represent a state elsewhere; you should be paying a lot more in taxes, but you have excused and loopholed your paycheck.  Not allowed, and I think those paycheck debts should be backdated and paid.  Imagine how much Speaker Pelosi would owe in back taxes… No mercy, you cut yourself out, now pay up!

Let me reiterate, America is a Republic (if we can keep it)!  A Liberty FIRST Culture knows and understands political accountability and responsibility is crucial to maintaining a free republic.  Better candidates are needed to improve those who win political office.  I do not know about you, but I am through with coddling the current politicians across America.  They need to act for the best of all America or leave office and be held accountable!  There is no third option!

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
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