ORIGINALLY RIGHT WHEN CFR WAS BEING DEBATED IN CONGRESS:
CFR is not possible or even desirable….OR…..what do John McCain and a used car salesman have in common?” (apologies to used car dealers!)
Campaign Finance Reform. McCain/Feingold.CFR.
Whatever you want to call it…the legislation widely heralded as a magic bullet for all that is wrong with our political system has failed miserably, completely and to those who saw through it, predictably. And why not? The bill, in addition to the annoying little detail that it is unconstitutional, does not solve a problem. Furthermore, “the problem” does not exist. At least not in the form so widely accepted as conventional wisdom. Other than that, it's magnificent legislation.
You see, CFR was going to cleanse our corrupt political system by taking the money out of politics. After all, as we all know…er…all have been told ad nauseum….there is way too much money in politics. The money spent on political elections in this nation is just over the top. It is obscene. It is corrupting the entire system. Every journalist says so. Every commentator says so. (Not that at the NY Times or CNN there is any difference, but that’s another issue). Every candidate says so. Must be true. (“Heard it in a Lu-UV sawng…..kaint be wrawng.”)
Why, the money in a full election year (Presidential year plus) is darn near as much money as is spent in the United States annually on, uh, chewing gum (credit the book Freakanomics). Chew on that for a while.
So, assuming you believe that statistic…and it is true….and further assuming, if you’re one of the minority of Americans who believe that our governance is in fact more important that chewing gum (and I’ll go out on a limb and say you are since you are reading this site)…then you now know that the money spent on politics is not proportionately excessive.
But certainly there is a wide….nearly universal….swath of opinion that there is way too much money in politics. So how can so many people be so wrong yet so sure of themselves? First, this is the law of conventional wisdom. That is, if it's conventional, then it likely ain't wisdom. Example: that there was at one time universal belief that the world was flat, Mesopotamia was all that existed and that there was only one meaning for the word "is."
But since we’ve all been enlightened and delivered from those deceptions, we can entertain the death of another bit of universal-conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is borne of the flaw in us that we tend to gravitate to simple comforting explanations. Just like the first folks who posited the ridiculous notion that this planet was NOT flat….those of us who trail blaze the idea in this artile will face initial ridicule and worse, much offhand dismissal. Not to worry though…one day “maverick campaign reformer” will ring as unflatteringly hollow as does the moniker “flat earther” today.
But enough on the statistical fact that the total GPP (gross political product)is not equal to that of the total GCP (figure it out). There is still the issue of campaign contributions being rewarded quid pro quo for government contracts, appointments, ambassadorships, etc. Sadly, that does happen too often. It's called human nature.
But then again, grungy little kick back arrangements slither their way to the forefront of just about every business imaginable….including the industry this author has some financial interests in. So, is there too much money in property management? By god, we MUST reform it!
(There’s also way too much money in education...as proven by Freakanomics...but the only reform McCain likes for education is MORE money. You get the idea).
BOTTOM LINE: the problem is SOME of the people, not ALL of the system. By analogy, the only problem with capitalism are some of the capitalists. The problem with this adversarial political system are some of the adversaries. Besides, do you want a non adversarial political system? Like say the Politburo or the Baath Party? Jefferson knew better. (yeah, but he was a God fearing meat eating tobacco using heterosexual white guy).
However, the worst flaw in this legislation is really the heart and soul of the movement….the big idea that when you take money out of politics, you’ll by extension take the corruption out of politics. That “big idea” is just totally bass ackwards….or at least bass sideways.
It’s NOT politics that you need to worry about per se. It’s POWER. Remember “power corrupts…and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That pithy little ditty just happens to be backed up by all of recorded history. (not that we learn any recorded history in our government schools).
So that brings us to what CFR is trying to do….or more accurately…to the impossible mountain CFR would be trying to climb were it an honest effort (which I am convinced it is not).
This is a fruitless attempt to split an atom of human nature that is just not divisible. You cannot….ever under any circumstance….separate money from power….or power from money…..in any system for any reason at any time. Money and power always have and always will gravitate towards each other. If for no other reason than the chicken and egg relationship between power and money is almost always indistinguishable….money and power are by definition two sides of the same coin.
And not only is the goal of CFR unattainable for that reason, but it is NOT DESIRABLE either. You see, for all of it’s flaws, our system has separated money and power better than any political system ever known to man. Think for a minute, for all of the motto gobbledy gook about “workers of the world unite” that was supposedly part of the Soviet Union….don’t you think they might have just had a tad more concentration of power and wealth than our supposedly corrupt beyond repair system? Of course it did.
Every totalitarian government in world history had almost total control of money and power for an entire country in the hands of just a few people….and most were founded on class envy and the theory of spreading the wealth by destroying the fortunes of rich business people.
At least in our country, you can have a lot of wealth and pretty much avoid political power and circles altogether. Sure, too many GOT rich by being in the inner circle of some description….but unlike any totalitarian situation…you can do it other ways as well. You see, the idea of forming a “more perfect union” is not to form a “perfect union” because the founders knew no such thing was possible and the best way to form a horrible union was to try and form a perfect one.
CFR and the idea behind it simply confuses a systemic problem with a moral and ethical problem. But since humans always have and always will be involved in moral and ethical problems, there is ONLY ONE SURE way to separate money from power…and that’s simply to shrink centralized power…period.
Which, for so many reasons, is a good idea. Your turn, Mr. McCain.