Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by chad 6 years, 11 months ago
    Interesting idea that all that needs to be done is to pass an anti-corruption law, to be passed by the corrupt politicians. If the contract (constitution)) to protect a republic was enforced there would be no power to purchase. If power cannot be purchased because it does not exist there would be no incentive to bribe politicians. Passing another law just enables the lawyers and politicians to have a stamp of approval so they can say we are covered under the anti-corruption law, I didn't break the law, just bent it a little to get what I wanted, just to protect those that I serve!
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  • Posted by term2 6 years, 11 months ago
    There is a good book that I just finished. The title was something like "the greatest superstition". He makes a very serious and great case for limiting, if not eliminating, the concept of authority where there is a protected group that can control the others.
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  • Posted by Storo 6 years, 11 months ago
    I’m not sure you can limit lobbyists using politicians because the politicians themselves would have to pass legislation to limit lobbyists’ access, or ban lobbying all together. I recall that Lincoln bemoaned the constant lobbying and job seekers that plagued his administration.
    Perhaps the best way to deal with the corruption that results from lobbying is an Article 5 Convention of States which among other things can propose a Constitutional Amendment which could outlaw and prohibit lobbying by lobbyists, consultants, and the like. There could also be penalties included for members of Congress such as removal from office. If such an Amendment were to pass and be ratified the Supreme Court could not declare it unconstitutional since it would be part of the Constitution.
    Short if that, the only other means of dealing with lobbyists and the attendant corruption is a revolution by the People. Isn’t it Jefferson who said that the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots?
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    • Posted by $ haseloff 6 years, 11 months ago
      I’m deathly afraid of an Article 5 Convention. I think it would be highly corrupted at the last minute and whatever was promised would be flushed in order to add/detract from the Constitution in a progressive way.
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      • Posted by Storo 6 years, 11 months ago
        Many people are afraid of an Article 5 Convention. What you need to know is that the Convention requires 2/3 of the States to request a Convention: the Convention can only PROPOSE Amendments to the Constitution that then need to be ratified by 3/4 of the States.
        Even if the Convention went wild and tried to, say, delete the Second and Fifth Amendments, 38 States would need to ratify it.
        Look at the map of the last Presidential election. Even if ALL the Blue states ratified it, that would only be 18 states. Do you really think they could get 20 Red states to ratify it? I don’t think so.
        I used to be opposed to a
        Convention on the very grounds you state, but I’ve became much more comfortable with the idea after realizing what the process would be.
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        • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 6 years, 11 months ago
          The convention that wrote our current constitution was convened to modify the Articles of Confederation. The attendees were generally given specific authorizations by their states as to what they could and couldn't agree to, in some cases explicitly against a new constitution.

          Once they got together they ignored all that and wrote a new constitution -- which then had the authority of having been created by a duly constitution convention and they set about selling it to the states.

          No matter what restraints you place on an Article 5 convention, the people who attend can do anything they want and try to sell it to the states. If it comes out with, for example, a constitutional right to health care, many people will support the ratification. Removing the second amendment would also be popular. There are a lot of socialists out there and the media efforts to promote the new "progressive" constitution that had been created would be non stop.

          I would count on not getting it ratified.
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  • Posted by philosophercat 6 years, 11 months ago
    A moral society cannot create a corrupt government. The founders created a limited government because after they cleaned house of the Monarchists they had a moral society, not every one was moral, but the few government jobs could be filled from a pool of moral people. Todays vast government jobs dealing out favors and wealth in an a or immoral society can only be filled from a pool of immoral or anti- moral people. SO what did you expect?
    As Ayn Rand said only until there is reason leading a moral revolution can there be personal freedom,
    Government corruption is inversely proportional to the size of the pool of moral people as a percent of the total. Hows that for a law of nature?
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    • Posted by lrshultis 6 years, 11 months ago
      All societies are moral societies and reflect the morals of the individuals within those societies. Every individual has virtues and values obtained by those virtues. There is nothing in the concept of moral that necessarily links it to being rational and it can be evil in nature. Religious leaders believe that their individual virtues and values will lead to the good for those willing or unwilling to follow if only they will live by them. Rand gave what might be considered a rational moral code linked to individual selves. One certainly does not want to live under a collectivist set of virtues and values, though I sometimes wonder as to why so many individuals choose to not want to live as just a rational animal within a society with a few social rules keeping individuals from harming each other.
      Time to take back morality from the mentally disturbed and do-gooders who have defined it throughout history. Moral societies have continually created corrupt governments, just as the USA has done several times in its history.
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