Us versus Them (But Who is Them?)

On average, across the spectrum of important issues, I tend to fall slightly left of center, and on the authoritarian/libertarian divide, I fall farther into the libertarian camp than I do in the liberal spectrum. But none of that matters. I would be nearly as happy to see honest conservative policies given a shot as I would if honest liberal policies were enacted. As long as our system is distorted by the lobbyist system of campaign funding, honest policy reflecting VOTER desires is impossible. I have spent my working life as a sales professional (or if you ask my mother, I have been in sales since I first negotiated a spanking alternative) and I learned early on that in sales and virtually every other professional or personal venture one simple rule of human nature applies; Compensation Drives Behavior. When irrational actions are taken, they are virtually always rational for someone, and it is often fairly easy to figure out why. As much as I might support one policy direction over another, and enjoy the intellectual debate supporting my point of view, I just don't think it matters right now, since I do not believe any policy direction can be honestly legislated under our current system of lobbyist influence and Congressional blackmail. In America today, almost of 80% of Americans believe that government is co-opted by special interests and does not represent voters. What is the point of electing someone who you know will say what you want to hear, but do what the lobbyists ask them to do? I am throwing up the white flag of surrender to partisan politics and suggest that partisans on the left and right do the same, eschewing the partisan battle in favor of joining forces to fight the war that needs to be won before anyone on either side has a chance of having the policy desires enacted honestly. There are arguments as to how this can be done, and I plan to address these, but the greatest argument that needs to be won to save our Republic is the case that campaign funding system and lobby/client/elected official dance needs to be stopped. It is poison to representative democracy and whether it is error of the courts or a loophole in the Constitution, until we address and correct the issue of lobbyist influence on politicians and politician’s stranglehold on special interests to keep the campaign dollars flowing, good, honest legislation is never going to happen.