"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." - Henry David Thoreau
As long as big money continues to dominate our political system, railing against the countless examples of unfairness or incompetence in our government is just idle chatter. Trying to solve any government problem without first addressing big money is merely hacking at the branches of evil. Big money in government is the root cause of practically every woe discussed on our political blogs. Until we solve the supreme political problem, everything else will remain essentially unchanged (or get even worse).
Big money in government is a cancerous rot that leaves no part of our government unscathed. Other than letting off steam, what good does it do to prattle on about various examples of our corrupt government when we're hardly putting any effort into solving the underlying root cause? Unless we start striking at the root of evil, our government will continue merrily down the road to world destruction.
Getting big money out of government won't be easy. In fact, it can't possibly be done using our current political system (because big money controls our political system and obviously won't let that happen). We need a revolutionary change in our political system before any real change (change you can believe in) can even begin to happen.
Forced accountability: the revolutionary change we need
Our "representatives" are never forced to explain or defend their positions using clear, rational arguments (in writing so they can be easily scrutinized). On the contrary, members of Congress are allowed to get away with "explaining" their positions using shallow, specious, evasive justifications that are rarely seriously challenged. Legislation isn't decided by the best rational argument, but rather by the best players in a political game of deceit.
Why a game of deceit? Our "representatives" need deceit to pass unfair legislation (which is exactly what big money pays for). Deceit is never needed to pass fair legislation. A system of forced accountability would clearly expose specious arguments; which would make it much more difficult for our "representatives" to deceive us; which would make it much more difficult to pass unfair legislation; which would make it much more difficult to sell political influence; which would significantly curtail big money in government.
Only dishonest members of Congress would resist forced accountability
Honest politicians would never shrink from explaining and defending their positions in writing. When truth is on your side, it's relatively easy to explain and defend your positions using clear, cogent arguments. Of course there would be great resistance to any system of forced accountability because it would devastate our current corrupt political system where lobbyists transfer millions from big money special interests to our "representatives" in return for billions of our tax dollars.
Why aren't we demanding forced accountability?
Surely it's not asking too much of people that supposedly work for us to explain and defend their positions in writing using clear, cogent arguments? Why aren't we demanding this? Probably because things haven't gotten bad enough. When things finally do get bad enough, the American people will revolt and demand real change.
A comprehensive, clear, cogent argument for a simple forced accountability system and why it would curtail big money in government:
Until we solve the supreme political problem, real change is impossible.