So the latest is that Joe Biden did some shady book keeping back when running for president in 2008 before becoming Obama's vice presidential running mate. What disturbs me about this linked article, aside from the surface subject of Biden's objectionable accounting, there is commentary to suggest that Biden's campaign accounting flaws are common practice. Therefore audits are regularly performed and campaigns are often fined and assessed certain penalties for favors either not accounted for initially, or obvious miscalculations. In other words, hiding campaign money or doing Enron style accounting in presidential campaigns is common place and therefore acceptable.
I am not willing to sit back and accept the idea that we should allow for illegal practices to be the methods by which our nations highest leaders become elected. Some make the claim that corporations are the corrupt and dishonest people, but the reality is that they are just taking their cues from the elected leaders of our country. Our government "watchdogs" and citizen protection vehicle are the very people facilitating the corruption in the first place. Perhaps this is a bit of the chicken and the egg, but would businesses act more ethical if they felt that they didn't have unethical precedent in viewing the successes laid out by corrupt and dishonest elected officials?
To your average citizen, if a law is broken or if common deceptive practices are used to sell a product, or service, that individual, upon due process of law, is required to pay restitution or punitive damages for the actions they have caused. Some go to jail. Others forfeit ALL PROFITS and all circumstances that the lie and deception created for themselves. In the state of Utah there is a statue that allows the division of real estate to sue an individual who earned money from fraudulent real estate practices for every penny they made from the fraud and then some. If this were the case with our elected officials, if there wasn't a double standard, Joe Bidden would not be our Vice President. He would have to return all his campaign money to those who donated it, and then serve time along with forfeit his position. I for one would think the country would be better off. But according to this article, the commonality with which these types of "errors" are committed happens to with such accepted reality that such enforcement would have yielded different presidents, senators, and so on for several years previous.
For now, a slap on the wrist is offered, taken, and forgotten. Till next election when fines and these sorts of penalties are assessed to the "winners" who most assuredly took such fines and penalty figures into the equation as a cost of doing business. This seems like the metaphor of the leaky roof. Why stick a bucket under the leaky roof and keep switching buckets as they become full.... heaven forbid actually fix the leak in the first place. One can only keep repenting for the problem for so long before their sincerity and sorrow for the "sin" are called into question.
James, when you "take your case" to your elected representatives, do you also supply them with a few hundred thousands dollars in campaign "contributions"? Do you offer them use of your private jet? If you did, you wouldn't be complaining about this because your every political desire would be realized. Obscure provisions that benefit your business would be sneaked into bills in the conference and voted through before anyone can read them. The regulations that interfere with your profitability would have special exemptions that seemed only to apply to your business. You could transfer your assets to a post office box in Aruba and stop paying taxes altogether. That's the difference between speaking with your mouth and speaking with an unlimited wallet.
ReplyDeleteI am hardly going to defend Biden or Obama or Bush or any other politician for this kind of behavior, but we have a system in which they either play this game or get voted out of office.
I disagree. I feel that people like Senator Bennett and others like him are being voted out of office with nothing more than the grass roots efforts of those willing to work at it. I honor the people in Utah who so much took their disenfranchisement of their leader and the unprincipled practices of our current elected officials to get them out. Jason Chafetz is another individual who defeated a well seated incumbent to officiate in a position in congress where he is voting for the will of the people, to stop government spending and to not abuse the office he was voted into.
ReplyDeleteI do agree in that for sometime the people have looked past the corrupt practices of our elected officials, but I am not so sure that such will always be the case. I don't blame the system as much as the apathetic voters who have not all become enraged as they should be.
Utah may well be a special case, and it is a bit easier to oust someone in a primary than in the general election. In New York, our appointed Senator has not drawn any significant opposition but she has millions from Wall Street. One difference is that there are actually differences within the Republican Party and those who insist on conservative principles are more powerful because the politicians need them to win. Obama co-opted the progressive opposition and the party apparatus is not only supporting the status quo politicians but actively discouraging and attacking those who run against them. The fact of the matter is that Democrat politicians can often win because they play up fear of the horrible Republican candidate.
ReplyDeleteYes, voters are apathetic, but there's a good reason for that. You should be thankful to live in a state where voters care enough to throw the bums out. Unfortunately most of the country isn't like that.
I didn't mean to mention such as a bragging point for Utah as much as a belief that the system still has hope. Not Obama type hope - REAL HOPE. Hope that the people can still be in charge of their own elected officials, hope that nothing but freedom and democracy are permanent. If one elected official screws things up, they can only screw things up so far.
ReplyDeleteThere is clearly a double standard at work here. When Republican former Senator Ted Stevens faced similar accusations, he wasn't merely "fined"; he was subject to a criminal trial by a rogue prosecutor in the Department of Justice. He was found guilty, but the role of the prosecutor in persistently refusing to make evidence available to Stevens' defense team was so blatant that Eric Holder found it necessary to abandon the effort. Consequently, the judge set aside the verdict.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, all of this played out during the 2008 election season. As a result, the outcome of a free election was affected. Instead of Ted Stevens being re-elected, Boy Wonder Mark Begich was elected in his place by a razor-thin margin.
The only time the government gets indignant about ethics violations is when there's political hay to be made. Otherwise, they continue their corrupt ways and hope the voters stay apathetic or simply don't find an acceptable alternative.
ReplyDeleteYes, it would be possible for ordinary citizens to rise up and throw the bums (of both parties) out, but that strikes me as a vain Obama-style hope. The "tea party" has some clout in a few states, but mostly because the great preponderance of their policy positions actually benefit the big corporations and the wealthy elites so they get lots of media coverage and often have a prominent news network promoting their rallies for free. If a collection of voters who advocated for freedom and democracy and citizen's control of government (as opposed to corporate control), I doubt they'd get more than 2 minutes of air time per week on the major news outlets.
While voters can oust one set of corporate-paid legislators and replace them with new politicians just as loyal to corporate interests as their predecessors, but a candidate who actually advocates systemic change is not going to get to square one.