Financing Politics Instead of Freedom

Although its not a current hot topic perhaps one of the most important needs for change in the American government is campaign finance. The last time this issue was discussed on the national stage with any meaning effectively ended with the McCain-Feingold Act. This is important for two reasons. First, this Act did not solve the problem. Secondly, to add a little insult to the injury the Act took away some of our freedoms in the process of trying to do a good thing.

What’s Wrong with McCain-Feingold

McCain-Feingold limits free speech 30 days prior to a primary election and 60 days prior to a general election. During these periods groups of voters are not allowed to engage in political advertising. Whether its the NRA or the ACLU political ads are off limits during these times. I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to personally pay for TV time to address the public on the issues. The only way I could accomplish such a goal is to join together with other like minded individuals. This is part of what groups like NRA and ACLU do. This is a gross encroachment on freedom of speech.

McCain-Feingold doesn’t really deal with the problem. Ask yourself, “why is it illegal for me to make my own decision about wearing a seatbelt, but a big corporation is free to take that choice away from me by manufacturing buses without seatbelts available?” (Even School Buses) This is only one example of many ways corporations have freedoms we do not. Part of the reason for this is their ability to make large donations to political candidates. My question is why are business’ permitted political donation in the first place? We don’t allow companies to vote for a reason. The government is supposed to be by and for the people not the companies. Adding little “tweaks” to the broken system only makes the system more complicated, and do little or nothing to address the true problem.

Possible Solutions

Throw out the old system and start from scratch. The new system should be simple enough to be read and understood by a high school student. (In fact almost no law should be passed which cannot be understood by the average graduate of the highest grade level provided by the government.) Only radical change will make a real difference.

First, outlaw all political contributions and political ads by for profit corporation’s. While I’m sure the current influence of for profits will make this next to impossible it is still a goal which should be worked toward.

Next all direct contributions to political campaigns and parties must be secret. This seems wrong at first, but consider the following. In our Nation’s history we once had an open balloting system. Under this system it was possible to buy votes because the purchaser of the vote could watch the voter to ensure they voted accordingly. In this system it would be impossible for anyone to pay a congressman, for example, with a political contribution to vote a certain way on a bill because they would have no legal way to contribute money that the candidate would know came from them. All contributions would be through the FEC.

Individual contribution limits should be maintained. Without limits on personal giving the voice of the poor and middle-class are drowned by the giving of the rich. This is one attribute of current rules which should be kept. No more than $2,000 per individual per an election cycle annually adjusted for inflation.

Political Action Groups must be regulated similarly to candidates and political parties concerning financial donations. Each individual could only give $2,000 annually to non-profit political action groups. Groups which pursue charitable or other missions outside of political activity may separate donation dollars so limits do not apply to other charitable efforts. This is necessary for the same reason’s limits on direct personal giving are. The voice of the rich cannot out weigh others. Further, monies used for political contribution or advertising must be give for such purpose. General giving to a church or dues for a labor union should not be used to support political action the giver may not agree with. Churches, Unions, and the like should be able to contribute to the political process, but only with dollars given for that reason. Any money given to any group engaged in political activity should be given for that purpose, and be within individual giving limits.

While these ideas may not cover everything there adoption would be a vast improvement over the current system. It is unlikely these changes will be adopted anytime soon. I am sure they have been advocated before, and very likely in more eloquent prose. These changes are perhaps the most necessary changes for our government. Without these changes or ones like them our government will be less and less for the people and more and more for the corporation and politician.

I’m Now a Novelist

At the beginning of NaNoWriMo I heard about a guy who had a nervous break down during a NaNo attempt. I thought to myself, <i>This guy had to be nuts</i> Now having successfully written a novel in a month I feel I understand how he felt. It was not easy. I decided to quit many times, but I kept writing. Several times I checked my progress against how long I had left in the month and decided it was mathmetically impossible for me to finish on time, but I kept writing. My wife and daughter hate NaNoWriMo now. I don’t think I will write for the whole month of December, but it was all worth it because I kept writing. YA I’m done!!!!!!!!!!!!

NaNo Update Part 2

I am now halfway. I have 25,000 words. As you can see from the calendar it is more than half way through the month. (Play scary theme music now) We also have thanksgiving to contend with, and my wedding anniversary. At the beginning of the month I heard a guy on a podcast say he had a nervous break down during NaNoWriMo. I thought the guy must have been nuts to start with. Now that I have tasted the fruit for myself I can say that is an understandable response. Being far behind I have thought of giving up several times. I even mentioned to my wife that I would keep writing, but that the pressures off cause I’m not gonna try to make the 50k mark. Now, with 25k under my belt I find myself thinking, “I might just kick this donkey’s a*$.” Anyway, I didn’t get to have the all out writing weekend I wanted to, but I’m still in the running. If any other NaNoers are reading I hope you are too.

NaNo Update

As of this writing I am at the 2127 word mark and pushing forward. I hope to hit at least 3000 words before I got to bed. That will be a good start for the first day I guess. Here is an exert from what I have written so far. I probably won’t post anymore of the Novel until I have had time to edit it some time in late December early January. I will post updates and other stuff before then.

     My name is Jonah, and I am evil. They don’t say it that way to my face of course, but they do when they don’t think I can hear them. I have been told we live in a “perfect society”. War, racism, hunger, and pollution are things of the past spoken of in history classes and fiction novels. But I do not live in the same world as everyone else. Oh, I live in the same place. But my world is a world of subtle avoidances, less than subtle “your not welcome heres”, and outright hate. As you have probably already guessed I was genetically screened and found to be in possession of the genetic markers for both cruelty and dishonesty at a very young age. What you probably aren’t aware of is what that means for the person who has now become a precriminal. When the doctor asked to speak with my parents alone I thought that I must have done something wrong. Had I been older I would have thought I had some deadly disease. It was soon after this that I experienced my first rejection based on my genetic profile. My parents packed my belongings and sent me to a boarding school for precriminal children. I wrote to my mother for some time, but I never heard from them again. In school I was taught that I was destine to commit horrible acts, but if I worked hard I could avoid this nearly sure fate. They of course didn’t share the truth that only one in every five precriminals actually ever commit a violent act. Half never even break the law, but all receive our society’s scorn. It is true that I went on to do some horrible things. Whether they were wrong or not depends on who you talk to. What follows is an accounting of these acts told based on much research and hundreds of interviews. I have no doubt that you have heard them spoken of as “the crimes of Jonah”.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writers Month. Most of the time a month is dedicated to honor a group of people, but NaNoWriMo is a HUGE group of writers who all decide to write a whole novel in one month. NaNoWriMo will take place during the month of November, and this will be my first year making the attempt. If you’re interested in NaNoWriMo click here to visit their webpage. My real goal is to just get my butt in the seat and write. If I get a good start on a story I’ll be happy, but I will pursue the goal of finishing the first draft of a novel.

Many will say that you can’t do quality work on this type of schedule. This may by true, but my goal is to finish the story. This is more to prove to myself that I can do it than anything else. I can do extensive editing latter. For those who are interested you can track my progress here. I want to try to finish 2,000 words a day. If I can average 1,700 a day I will hit my goal of 50,000 words by November 30th.

Right now I am planning on starting a new project for NaNoWriMo. I have no notes, characters, or anything else but an idea and a title. The Crimes of Jonah will be about a man who is genetically profiled as a violent “pre-criminal” at a very young age. He will be the first to fight for equal rights for pre-criminals. I will be working on characterization and a plot outline until November 1. Then I start writing ready or not. . .

Earth’s First Colonies

This is an incomplete early draft, so please excuse any grammatical or spelling errors. Please also feel free to comment about the errors so that I can fix them. Thanks for your interest, and remember this is my original work. I do not authorize anyone to copy, download, distribute, or use in anyway other than to view on the “The Raving Muse” blog.

“Dear Lord, . . . I think they’re human.”
The captain walked over to the helmsman’s console to see what he was talking about.
“What else would they be?”
“But sir they’re, . . . well, they’re living like animals.”
The captain leaned over the helmsman’s shoulder and considered the image on his view screen. What the captain saw could have been a scene from earth during the dark ages. Men carrying swords, others tending fields, buildings made of stone and thatch.
“Its not possible for humans to survive like that anymore is it? I mean how would they cope with the extended life spans and elevated birth rates? How would they maintain their implants?”
The helmsman looked around the bridge after putting the image up on all the screens around the room.
“Obviously its possible or we wouldn’t be seeing it,” the captain said walking back to his own console.
One of the xeno-agriculturalists offered, “They wouldn’t have implants if they were born on a world like this, but they would still live hundreds of years even without modern medical science.”
“You think the whole planet is like this?” The helmsman’s voice rose in pitch as he spoke
“Alright,” the captain interrupted, “We’re a colony ship not a rescue group. We aren’t equipped to help these people. I want all applicable departments to start working on an alternate destination and begin harvesting any resources we can from this system without touching this planet or any others we find that are inhabited. Any department not involved in those tasks I want you to study this planet’s inhabitants the best you can without interfering with our primary mission, and prepare a report to send to Earthgov with our updated mission status. No one goes to the surface without my express consent, and I won’t be giving consent unless its a life or death issue so don’t ask. “That’s it. Get to work.”
The command center instantly began to buzz with activity and noise. The captain leaned in close to the colony governor’s ear, “I sure would love to go down there.”
“Me too,” she whispered back, “but that’ll be somebody else’s mess to clean up.”
“Too bad.”
“Do you think this means the stories are true?”
“They must be, why else would there supposedly be no sightings of the original hundred colony ships after so many hundreds of years? It would be a hard thing to keep quiet, but then again we’ve all heard the stories.”
“It seems unbelievable.”
“Which is probably how they’ve been able to keep this secret so well for so long.”
They both watched the captain’s screen as a scene played itself out on the planet below. A man holding a sword striking a pile of hay while speaking to a child. The boy nodding and imitating with a stick as his weapon.
“If they are keeping it quiet that means nobody’s coming to clean this up.”
The captain began cycling through different places on the planet which had human activity as they were talking.
He responded, “but why change it? These people have obviously overcome whatever problems living with modern altered DNA in a less than modern society would cause.”
The image fell to a scene of massive battle. At least a million lay dead as hundreds of thousands more continued to battle. A castle of monumental proportions stood with multiple breaches in its walls. From the piles of dead it was obvious the invaders had been held outside the walls be sheer force of numbers, but the defenders seemed to be falling back little by little into their own walls. The invaders having even greater numbers than they.

The governor broke the silence first speaking to no one in particular. “The struggle for resources must be enormous. Trying to feed billions with only pre-modern era technology must be impossible.”

“That’s if the vegetation is edible on this planet at all. It’s impossible to tell from here in orbit, but the vegetation could be piousness or just not have the right make up to be nutritious at all. If the plant life isn’t just right they could eat until the burst and still die of starvation. . .” the xeno-agriculturalist’s voice trailed off considering what seemed to him as a most annoying way to die.

“Obviously they have something to eat or they would have all died off long ago,” the captain pointed out the obvious fixing his xeno-agriculturalist with a less than amused gaze as he continued, “it still not anything were equipped to even start to deal with.”

The governor leaned forward looking even more closely at her monitor, “but we could start the snowball rolling down the hill.”

The captain’s eyebrows immediately sprung up as he noted that she had spoken loud enough for others in the room to hear her. “In my office,” the captain said quietly being careful to hide his sudden frustration with the governor in front of the crew. Once they were safely in the office he let his frustration slip a little. “What Exactly do you mean by that?”

Her response was unaffected by his frustration and came only after giving him a pause pregnant with indifference. “I only meant that you know as well as I do that Earthgov is just going to cover this up like they have been all along. If we want we can send our reports to others . . .”

“What others?” He interrupted and then continued,

‘Who would believe us anyway? After so long no one really believes the first 100 even survived. A few people even deny they were launched at all . . . something about a government scheme to calm the public about over population. Look, I understand you want to help those people. So do I, but Earthgov pays the bills around here. I know we’re self sufficient now, but don’t you think they don’t have ways to make things a lot harder for us. Especially if we get stuck in a long term terraform situation.

 

About my Raving Muse

The Raving Muse is where I will be posting what comes to me from my muse. What is a muse you ask? The muse is what writers sometimes call the mystical place from which inspiration comes. It isn’t uncommon to think of your muse as a woman who gives much, but is fragile in many ways. Often this blog may have short fiction, or other times a rant about current (or less-than-current) events. I’ve decided that I’ve mistreated my muse long enough. I’ve ignored her. I’ve even spoken harshly to her, “Go away I can’t write right now!!” But today is the day I start listening again. While much what I will hear is in the form of story; I also have rants which come to me. Sometimes these rants are about politics. Other times they are about Christian issues. These rants mixed with short-fiction both come from my very own personal muse thus the name of this page, The Raving Muse.