John McCain is the high priest on political corruption and the nefarious influence of money in politics, if you listen to the mainstream "drive-by" media. He should know. His involvement in the Lincoln Savings and Loan Scandal as one of the Keating Five has been dramatically covered up for almost twenty years, but in covering for the head of Lincoln Savings and Loan's Charles H. Keating is pretty well documented by sources outside the MSM and represents the very corruption he claims to loathe (now that Keating's campaign contributions don't flow anymore).
But the problem never was Keating's money. It was a lack of character in a career politician class that lacks the fundamental standards of decency exhibited by so many of the Americans they claim to represent. Career Politicians like Senator John McCain.
McCain was only one of two Senators who got away scot-free in that scandal. Senators DeConcini, Riegle, and Cranston all bailed when their terms expired (Cranston in '92, DeConcini and Riegle in '94). John Glenn was re-elected in '92, but left in '99. Only John McCain is left, and for his penance, he decided to "get religion" and attack campaign finance as the root of all evil. Of course, had his own character not been so shallow and weak -- a problem he had going back to his days at Annapolis, interrupted only when he showed great strength and courage as a guest of the North Vietnamese government -- his evil would have never even occurred.
And that is the problem. Money is not the root of all evil. Sin is. Moral bankruptcy is. And career politicians have it in spades.
The problem with government at all levels is not that citizens exercise their First Amendment rights to organize for the purpose of political influence and affecting the course of government. Whether it is a union, a PTA, a community organization, a political party, or five Dundalk bowlers in a bowling league -- exercising their right to redress their government is not only their God-given right, it is their God-given duty.
That's right, it is our duty to exercise that right. For, like a muscle that will atrophy without exercise, those rights will be wittled away into nothingness if they are not flexed aggressively. That was the real message of Jefferson's often misused quote that "the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with blood." Too many Americans have died for our right to live free under a government OF THE PEOPLE. American citizenship isn't easy, folks. It's not 9th grade civics. It's graduate-school politics. We have to be involved, otherwise we will all die at the hand of tyrants. It doesn't matter if it is one tyrant three thousand miles away, or three thousand tyrants one mile away. We must constantly work to address, redress, and when necessary, dress-down our government. Only the government reined in through the muscular defense of liberty by the people will govern best.
Does money stand in the way of that? No. Career politicians do.
Career politicians are those fat-cat tyrants who occupy the halls of government for years on end, declaring themselves experts on every single detail of minutae about our lives from the flushing of the crapper to how much we should pay for gas to the number of welds on an aircraft carrier. Never having accomplished much in their own lives, they seek to control ours in ruinous fashion because they "know how government works". They are experts only at their own inability to fail, not our capapbility to live without the ever-present nannystate of government.
Career politicians spend years spouting off on subjects in a manner that demands no accomplishment nor credibility, and in ways that provides no accountability for their words. Their logic for their presence in government is circular at best: "I am the best person for this office because I have been here the longest. I should stay longer because I am the best person for this office." If you or I tried such logic in a performance review with our employers, we might be given points for creativity, but not utility.
Career politicians like Barbara Mikulski, Wayne Gilchrist, Ben Cardin, Elijah Cummings, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, John McCain-- and countless others -- build mini-fiefdoms on Capitol Hill and within the bureacracy itself. In a symbiotic relationship, both the politician depends on the bureacrat to build their need, and the bureacrat needs the politician to guard their gravy train. Our tax money, our freedom, and our rights run through this system like shit through a goose.
What these politicians understand is that the more government regulates, the more money government receives. What they refuse to accept is that the more government regulates, the more money people spend of their own volition to fight that regulation. Where we might have taken up arms in the past to effect change in our leaders (and, we have!), we now take up contributions. This is how it should be.
We send politicians to the seats of government not to decide, but to represent. They should represent our collective will, not their petty fiefdoms. That they do not-- and so many are willing to give so much-- is what drives the money into politics. But what corrupts the political process is the insistence of the fat cat career politicians to guard his fat derriere.
Would our politicians men and women of character, they would recognize that the willingness of so many Americans taking so great an interest in politics is a fulfillment of the greatest dreams of our forefathers-- not corruption.
Like with so many other things, money in politics is a force multiplier. Not everyone has the time to spend volunteering on campaigns, letter writing, and making phone calls. So they contribute what they do have-- disposable income -- to people more inclined to do those things. This isn't corruption. It is specialization.
Does John McCain milk his own cow every morning? Or raise his own hens for eggs? Does he slaughter a steer for his cheeseburgers? No. He pays farmers to do this for him. There is nothing corrupt in that. In fact, our entire economy-- our entire way of life -- is built upon this exchange. We call it "commerce".
Political contributions are no different. And they shouldn't be treated that way.
That John McCain is a man who is weak of character (along with his colleagues) and susceptible to the bile and sludge of corruption is not the fault of the citizens, it is the fault of John McCain and his fellow career politicians.
So stop blaming us for exercising our rights and obligations, and starting blaming yourselves for not exercising yours.