One reason politicians get away with so much is that most people don't care what they do. I'm skeptical that a clearing house Web site would do much good. Most political Web sites don't get that much traffic as it is. There's plenty of information on the Web for people, if they just use it, but mostly they don't. And for years before the Web, there were all kinds of scholarly publications and think tanks that provided tons of information -- and mostly it went ignored.
Term limits haven't worked in states that have them. Lobbyist lobby away. Besides, the term "special interest" group is a political semantic game. It's meaningless. We all have the right to form ourselves into alliances and petition the government for grievances, or to do it singularly. We can also find any number of competing special interest groups to represent one side or another of our pet cause. So-called special interest groups are a key component of representative government. What is not a necessity in a republic, and George Washington made this quite clear in his Farwell Address, are political parties. The greatest reason politicians do not do the people's business as often as they should is not campaign finances, or lobbyist or even their own egos -- it is party loyalty, a partisanship that puts political alliances ahead of the national or regional good. Political parties are the last refuge of scoundrels. Because of the 1st Amendment, you cannot outlaw political parties, but there is no reason that political parties should receive the blessing of the government to operate. Political parties receive that blessing every time you register to vote or vote -- why should your political affiliations be an issue at the polling place? To me, the very question on a registration card is a violation of privacy. If you do away with that question, and do away with the affiliation mention on ballots, you take a big step toward destroying the party system as we know it today. Political parties can still exist, and people can still join them if they like, but political parties should be far removed from sanction at the ballot box. H. -----Original Message----- From: Nick McClure [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 3:15 PM To: CF-Community Subject: RE: Canada-U.S. border deal This wouldn't help. We have term limits on the presidency, they are still subject to special interest groups. Special Interest groups and lobbyist aren't based on people, they go after the different parties all together. What we really need is campaign finance reform. We also need a place where the American people can easily gain knowledge about what their elected officials are voting for and against. And what candidates are promising they are going to do. That we can know what the people we vote for promise to do, and then what they do so we can make intelligent decisions based on facts. Right now this information is hard to get and takes time to sift through. One of my co-workers has an idea about making a web site for this purpose. But he is still not sure about how he can do it without funding from groups that may seek to keep some people or things off of the site. >The U.S. government is to beholden to special interests with influence. >This is >bad. Canada may also have the same problem. One solution would be for the >U.S. elected people to have term limitations of one term that could be six or >ten years. Maybe, just maybe, they will not be so beholden to those groups >which can influence them with votes and money. The lobby industry is bad. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
