One big step to end corruption and make a fundamental change to government
An honest look at what goes on today shows it is desperately needed.
If we really want the people who get elected to represent the people voting, instead of just acting as paid shills or even employees of the companies who donate big bucks, we have to stop businesses from buying politicians. Now more than ever, corrupt and weak politicians are bought and paid for by big business and big money individuals.
In order for that to stop, businesses and billionaires MUST be completely prohibited from funding any campaign, any candidate, and any office holder anywhere in any way, shape, or form. This would include PACs, front groups like Soros uses so many of, voter “outreach” groups, election interference by Mark Suckerberg pouring millions into various states, etc., etc.
And it must be a felony for any business to attempt to do so, and any politician who fails to report any and all attempts by businesses or the wealthy to fund them in any way would also be a felony. Sting operations would be conducted on a very frequent basis to enforce this, with undercover law enforcement posing as representatives of businesses using various methods to reach out to politicians promising campaign cash and/or gifts of all kinds.
Any failure to report any of those attempts would then be a felony and the politician is removed from office or removed from his/her campaign for office. And all meetings of all office holders would have to be recorded at least in brief written form, and those records must be made public. I’m open to the idea of requiring video recording of all in person meetings of political candidates and/or office holders. It’s cheap and easy now with cell phones. And audio recording of phone calls. And all recordings are also public information.
At the same time, law enforcement would also put up undercover candidates to look for businesses trying to break the law. In all cases, in the absence of very compelling evidence that the CEO and other senior company leaders were not involved and did not know, the entire upper management team of the company would be arrested and charged if the company did not report that a politician was soliciting money or any other support from a business.
Of course like every other defendant the management team would be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but the threat of immediate arrest would be a strong deterrent such that companies would have strong policies in place for reporting anyone seeking illegal support. Large companies already have ethics policies and requirements for reporting violations of those policies, and the companies that do also have employee education programs. Adding specific provisions to require that any employee at any level being approached for illegal donations would be very simple. Any attempts to manipulate the system by buying law enforcement or making false charges* would also result in felony charges.
This means “lobbyists” are “lobbying firms” are completely banned from privately contacting any politician in any way, as is ANY private communication between businesses and/or billionaires and political office holders or political candidates. A formal public forum would be made available for businesses to use their 1st amendment rights to free speech. They could also use any existing public forum, whether online or in print.
One additional requirement of businesses speaking out publicly would be a requirement to truthfully answer legitimate questions posed to them. One good example would be “What percentage of your workforce is located in communist China, and how do you plan for that to change in the next 5 years.” (An extra rule I would have is that any mention of a communist country would HAVE TO include the word “communist” preceding it. In both questions and in written or verbal answers. So ALL mentions of China would HAVE to be “communist China”. Keep saying “communist” and many more people will get the idea that bankrolling communist China for decades has been a horrible idea.)
In any public forum the business and its leadership team would be free to support or oppose any policy or position as they see fit. Similarly, the public would then have a right to respond on that forum to support or oppose the same issues, and/or to simply counter the arguments made by the businesses. Censorship of views would be strictly prohibited. (Of course profanity, lewd material, threats of violence**, etc. could be excluded.) In this way businesses and billionaires would be free to try and sway public opinion with their speech, but they would NEVER be allowed to have politicians in their back pockets doing their bidding. Their arguments would always be on equal footing with the general public, and they could never use their money to override voter preferences if voters found their arguments to be lacking.
Of course part of this would be an absolute prohibition on lawmakers getting any sort of kickbacks in any way, any sweetheart stock deals, etc. In fact lawmakers would be prohibited from owning shares in any company which would be affected by legislation that they were voting on. Ditto for close family members or staff members, and for board memberships. And they would be prohibited from owning stock or serving on boards for at least 5 years after leaving office if they voted for a bill favorable to a company. In no event would you have corrupt Nancy Pelosi and others like her raking in millions via various payback schemes.
Similarly, no tech company would be allowed to interfere in any election by censoring or by restricting access to information or even by “downgrading” information. Left wing content could NOT be elevated over that on the right. In all cases, algorithms, database contents, etc. would be public information. And the employee makeup of the tech companies would be required to be balanced. In no event could any tech company have less than 30% actual Republicans (not RINOs) and 30% independents with a range of views. For the latter a bit of work would have to be done, as in most election cycles more “independents” vote in lockstep with democrats. BTW, rules requiring the above are actual “diversity and inclusion”. (To hell with the Marxist “equity” part.)
And there would be oversight boards of citizens at the state and federal level to look into complaints of bias. As it stands right now, there is a left wing researcher, Robert Epstein, who loves Hillary Clinton (But is no relation to the guy who didn’t kill himself and Clinton likely did have killed.) yet still documents left wing bias in Google search results with great detail:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/13/hillary-google-bias-confirmed-experiment/
https://sputniknews.com/20160912/google-clinton-manipulation-election-1045214398.html
This guy estimates many millions of votes are swayed by Google’s left wing search results, and he’s almost certainly right. Some of his his newer data and commentary is here:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dr-robert-epstein-ramps-up-exposure-of-google-election-bias/
Since the entire practice of businesses and billionaires having undue influence is unethical and often already illegal, of course it means it heavily favors the left, whether or not the bought and paid for politician has an ‘R’ next to his name. It must be stopped if the Republic is to survive.
* Another topic worthy of it’s own post, but we have another massive problem in this country that people who make false sworn statements do not get punished. People can make all sort of false accusations, and the accused can be arrested and charged with crimes, and in many cases the accused even has to go to trial. Even if it is shown in open court that the original accuser lied through their teeth, they are rarely charged even with simple perjury, let alone being subject to the same punishment as the crime they made the false accusation about.
** Of course “microaggressions” and all other refusals by sane people to go along with various forms of left wing lunacy, such as refusing to use false pronouns, would NOT be considered violence.