Posted on 02/08/2006 5:04:18 AM PST by DogByte6RER
Hearts of darkness
By: RICK REISS - For The Californian
Avid readers of the classics know the works of Joseph Conrad. In 1898 Conrad penned the novella "Heart of Darkness" and coined the phrase "going native." This phrase has not lost any of its relevance in the 21st century.
The disgraced and convicted former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham now stands as a modern-day icon of the dark-hearted politician who betrays his people.
As a former constituent of Cunningham's, I feel betrayed by a man who swore to represent me but chose instead to serve himself. As a Navy veteran I am still stunned that a bona fide Vietnam hero and ace Navy pilot would betray his country. It's akin to saying that the first man to walk on the moon now sells drugs to schoolkids.
These are strange times indeed.
Washington, D.C., is replete with politicians who have gone native. The Jack Abramoff scandal now percolating is likely to expose further criminal behavior within Congress.
Other political leaders, while not quite rising to the level of criminality, also betray their oaths by using the U.S. Treasury as their own piggy banks to further their incumbencies. The fiscally abusive use of earmarks ("pork") has increased exponentially in the past two decades. Here again, self-interest trumps public interest.
It seems this behavior just gets worse with seniority. The two most senior U.S. senators also rank as the worst abusers of earmarking appropriations to their home states.
Republican Sen. Ted Stevens never misses an opportunity to slather his home state of Alaska with bacon. His latest: the outrageous "bridge to nowhere," which earmarks a half-billion dollars for a bridge to a nearly deserted island.
Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd went native many decades ago. His home state of West Virginia serves as his own personal shrine to himself with scores of federally funded projects, bridges and landmarks named after Sen. Robert Byrd.
In the wake of these scandals there are now calls for publicly financed campaigns. This simply piles insults onto injuries since politicians would just further milk the treasury to protect their seats.
Such self-interest could never pass muster with one of our most respected Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, who keenly observed "To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
Here are some ideas for real reform:
# Congressional term limits.
# Streamline federal election laws.
# Give the Federal Election Commission powers of arrest.
# Mandate that members of Congress read each bill before voting.
The innovative "Read the Bills Act" would require the reading of each bill aloud and in its entirety to quorums in both the House and the Senate. This idea, championed by DownSizeDC.org, would eliminate the wasteful earmarking that is now commonplace.
The heart of the corruption bedeviling America is our leviathan government. A wasteful and overbearing nanny state is the source of the legions of lobbyists that infest our capital. More rules regulating lobbyists or campaign financing only treat symptoms, not the disease.
Rick Reiss of Temecula is a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: RickReiss6@netscape.net.
Well worth repeating. Giving tax dollars to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
It seems this behavior just gets worse with seniority. The two most senior U.S. senators also rank as the worst abusers of earmarking appropriations to their home states.
That is how they become senior senators..$SR.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000.00 of our money.
I had this argument w/ a lib who was moaning corruption in politics. I told her that if you took the money out of government, there would be no money in politics. She got loud and angry and refused to debate further.
The way I see it, there are two "jobs" in life. The first one is getting your piece of the pie. The second one is defending your piece against those who inevitably gather around it and demand "just a little slice." If you can't learn to say "No" loudly and assertively, you'll end up pushing a shopping cart down Broadway.
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