Phantom
November 27th, 2006, 08:03 PM
How do you feel about corruption in the government? I think that it is very corrupt heres why Politicians from both parties have violated the law and betrayed the public's trust. Last fall, Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham pleaded guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes. The Washington Post reported on May 22, 2006 that Democratic Congressman William J. Jefferson was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 from a Virginia businessman who was wearing an FBI wire. Special interest groups seek favors from members of Congress because they have passed a myriad of laws and regulations that intrude into every aspect of our economy and private lives. Here is a nice video by the local libertarian in my area, it talks about corruption and "special" interest groups in here also: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4880955344317833312&q=libertarian
15 mins into the video the guy talks about how he used to own a used record store. Well a big record store moved into the town and didn't want the little record store to lower prices and force them to compete. So they payed the local politician who then got elected, he passed a law to ban selling used records. Now everyone knows this serves no purpose other than to shut the little guy out of business because of this special interest shit.
In order to sell used records you have to pay thousands of dollars and get a lawyer. Well the big corporation has enough money to get around this but the little guy doesn't. So all in all this is a good example of corruption.
So basically here is how it works. Special interest group gives money to politician to pass a law to help them or destroy opposer's with laws. Politician wins, they return the favor. This happens ALOT.
There are 2 kinds of money donations, soft money which is jack gives money to George, George gives money to politician, no connection. Or just straight hard money which Jack gives money directly to politician.
Both illegal as far as I know.
The politicians of today just want power, they don't really serve the people. Now I am sure there are some politicians that are truly legit but it doesn't seem like much (Tim pawlenty comes to mind)
Funny thing about this topic is that popo and I agree almost completely on this :P
15 mins into the video the guy talks about how he used to own a used record store. Well a big record store moved into the town and didn't want the little record store to lower prices and force them to compete. So they payed the local politician who then got elected, he passed a law to ban selling used records. Now everyone knows this serves no purpose other than to shut the little guy out of business because of this special interest shit.
In order to sell used records you have to pay thousands of dollars and get a lawyer. Well the big corporation has enough money to get around this but the little guy doesn't. So all in all this is a good example of corruption.
So basically here is how it works. Special interest group gives money to politician to pass a law to help them or destroy opposer's with laws. Politician wins, they return the favor. This happens ALOT.
There are 2 kinds of money donations, soft money which is jack gives money to George, George gives money to politician, no connection. Or just straight hard money which Jack gives money directly to politician.
Both illegal as far as I know.
The politicians of today just want power, they don't really serve the people. Now I am sure there are some politicians that are truly legit but it doesn't seem like much (Tim pawlenty comes to mind)
Funny thing about this topic is that popo and I agree almost completely on this :P