So if you haven’t heard, Stephen Colbert is running for president in South Carolina, you know his home state. He tried a few years ago and was removed by the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council. So like any good little Southerner, he won’t be told what to do. Colbert is going to take on the system, with the system.
His super-PAC, which in no way communicates with him, is running a series of ads in South Carolina by owner John Stewart that offers some very funny rifts on our already troubled and out of touch Republican candidates while actually making some valid points.
Here is one about Mitt Romney.
Basically in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), the Supreme Court recognized corporations for the purpose utilizing the Fourteenth Amendment which gives a wide definition of what citizenship is, gives Due Process to all of a state’s citizens, and Equal Protection under a state to all of its citizens.
Now, with those rights it gives some basic freedoms to Corporations to help protect themselves (like you and I have) and simplify tax laws. That is all fine and dandy.
Where the problem begins is that is also allows Corporations to make donations to political parties.
Take that and couple it with the ruling of United Citizens v. Federal Election Committee in 2010, basically saying that money equals free speech. Corporations and Unions don’t have a limit on independent spending in politics.
Ask yourself a question, what is it that politicians live and die for?
The answer is being elected.
The second a Senator gets elected, he immediately starts to figure out how he can be re-elected. He isn’t alone in this, all politicians have this gene. politicians love getting elected almost as much as anybody else in the world loves money.
So, how does this happen? Well he/she raises money to travel around and tell people how awesome he/she is. The more he/she advertises explains his/her greatness, the more likely people will vote. (generally). Traveling around, making posters, paying people to organize things, creating TV ads, making websites, and all that costs money. In fact it costs a lot of money. Where does it come from?
Say, how likely are you to donate to a politician? Well corporations donate a lot of money to politicians, they lobby them to make decisions in their favor. Politician gets money to get elected, the corporation gets backing for something they want/need. I’m oversimplifying that process a little, but that is basically how it works.
Everybody wins, except the American people, and democracy insures that we will only be governed as well as we deserve.
Lobbying itself isn’t inherently evil, the donating money to the politicians is what hurts everybody. The law process in our country starts to shift (and has in some areas) a tug of war game between big corporations where the American people are caught in the middle.
COUGH – SOPA- COUGH. Media v Tech.
So cue the current Colbert super-PAC ad. Romney said that corporations are people. Romney also used to dismantle business and sell what he could. So if corporations are people, and Romney dismantled business and sold what he could….. he is then a serial killer?
If Corporations are people, why hasn’t one ever been executed and why when a corporation is brought to court is it not judged by other corporations?
It’s a joke of course, but he raises a good point. Which is basically in a nut shell what Colbert is trying to do in the big picture. He is not actually trying to run for President of the United States, he is just trying to show the idiocy that is our current system.
It amuses me when news channels blast Colbert for missing his deadline to register for the ballot, like he didn’t know that? Him and his army of writers and political aficionados aren’t likely to look over that detail, just saying.
Now before you dismiss what he is doing as nonsense, tomfoolery, and/or mockery of our voting system, I urge you to look at a few things.
Elections are less and less about actual policy and law and more about entertaining the people with non-sense and things a President has no control over rather than addressing difficult issues.
Whether you agree or not with a person’s decision, is it the place of the government to tell somebody who they can and can’t marry? I guess it isn’t that surprising considering it wasn’t that long ago various groups of our nation didn’t have rights, we seem to still be stuck in some backwards mentality.
See I probably just hit a button. Now watch when a politician is being asked a question that is best left unanswered, watch how quickly they jump to a social hot button and avoid tough questions. No single party is innocent of this tactic either, oh no. In fact there are no innocent parties in politics. Everybody is guilty of something. I just happen to believe that right now the conservative side is showing just how weak it is.
No, I didn’t vote for Obama. But I will with the crowd we have now. We have Newt complaining about how Romney came into money by the very laws that Newt helped pass. We have people not voting for Romney even though he is the poster child for fiscal conservatives. We have people who think Freedom of Religion means every religion but Judeo-Christian. We have another guy who, although he is honest and sticks to his guns – I really, really do admire that, is kind of crazy. Then again maybe we need crazy?
Anyway, just because I don’t agree with the conservative doesn’t make me a liberal. In fact I’m a moderate. I believe we need balance between states and federal government and I believe Republican and Democrats have valid points on some issues and believe they are idiots on others.
This “my party or the enemy” mentality needs to go, the my way or the highway approach isn’t working. We need better discussion and open dialog. I think that Colbert/Stewart are the only ones trying to level the field, trying to bring things around from out of touch politicians stuck in their ways and expose the loop-holes in our system.
If you comment, be nice.
Frank C Bishop 