The way I see it, politics as practiced here in the United States is the exchange of money for the power to control the use of government force.  Special interest groups with huge sums of money have become the major factor influencing government action.  Only a very small minority of politicians seem to be interested in satisfying the needs of their constituents. That is why the current political system is failing the American people and must be changed.

Many times it is the politician who spends the most money who wins the election.  Negative political advertising has shown that it is effective, so it is used frequently.  Sadly, this is an indication that the person using negative advertising really has no positive program or idea on how to best serve his or her potential constituents.  Any voter who casts a vote based solely on negative advertising is stupid.  Both the negative advertising and the spending of huge sums of money are not healthy ways to elect politicians.

These tactics work because the voter has no other information on which to make a decision. The candidates may have a website extolling their virtues and accomplishments, but the voter cannot verify that the information is true. Politicians have been known to lie to get elected.  Newspapers will make endorsements to support those candidates who agree with the paper’s political agenda.  Each political party will nominate a candidate for office who agrees with the party’s philosophy and agenda.  All of this leaves the voter who wants to become informed in the lurch.  In past years this problem may have been insurmountable,  but it should not be in the Internet Age.  If a website was created for every state and the site allowed the public to contribute information about each candidate for office,  it might improve the selection process.  I am not sure how this information would be verified to be true because we do not want propaganda or lies listed.  If there were two webmasters controlling the information on each candidate–one controlling the positive and the other controlling the negative, this might work.  I don’t know the best way to verify the truth of the statements listed, but I am reasonably sure that someone could develop a method.   What I do know is that what we have now is no good and is not producing the quality politicians we need.

To control the spending by candidates, as I have suggested in my book, we the public should pay for the electioneering costs.  Nobody wants to spend money to have politicians elected, but then consider the costs of the sometimes terrible legislation they pass to satisfy the needs of their large special interest campaign contributors.

The politicians practice a form of de facto unionism that rewards those with the most years in that office with increasingly more powerful positions–whether they are qualified or not.  This practice makes the elected official beholden to his political party instead of to his constituents.  This is not a good situation for the electorate.  The best way to reduce the problems this practice introduces is term limits.  The additional benefit of term limits is that it makes the politician live under the rules he passed while in office.  It is insanity to believe that any politician can be effective in creating positive legislation for more than ten to twelve years.  Thirty to fifty years in office!!!!  You have got to be kidding!!!!

The professional politician and the current political parties got us into the mess we are in now.  They preach fairness and practice deceit.  They have only one objective and that is to get re-elected so that they can maintain the power to control the use of government force.