Although I don’t intend to sell my vote, I do appreciate that the opening bid is in the six figures. I suppose it’s a sort of respect to assume the bribe would need to be quite high.
If bribery is the platform, Bernie’s going to be hard to beat. Maybe Kamala will promise to cancel my mortgage.
Problem is, bribes from the public treasury have to be taken from someone-he is counting on the hope most will not realize this. We really have quite the collection of fools and knaves running for office this time around.
ReplyDeleteLets suppose, for the sake of argument, we removed a certifiably crazy individual from the criminally insane ward, and installed them as the President. Would anyone feel obligated to obey any laws issued from that "authority"? If no, now we have to define where the obedience line is. That is where they find out if they have power or not. Compliance with new controversial gun laws suggest many are done with obedience.
Was it Tocqueville who spoke of the risk of a fine mesh of laws inhibiting free action? I think that net is getting torn more every day. People are just getting fed up with being micro managed in every aspect of their lives.
So this approach, rather than reinforcing the obedient, is instead teaching us all to be scofflaws.
I think the same thing is going to happen with the Chinese social credit system- they are at risk of alienating a population that is heretofore mostly compliant, and nagging them into being being aware of what a police state is. Nobody wants their ex-mother in law looking over their shoulder all the time.
Of course Sanders will win the bribery game (at least in the offer stage), he’s a communist. Delivering on the bribes will be another matter altogether.
ReplyDeleteSilly me, I paid off my student loans with income from the job they qualified me to acquire.
ReplyDeleteAnd I--I paid off my ROTC scholarship with some time in the Air Force.
ReplyDeleteI want my reparations. Or at least my Obamaphone.
Eric Hines
How come it's illegal to spend money getting a representative to vote the way you want (not just good old fashioned bribery but think of all the restrictions on political contributions and even spending on political advocacy unrelated to an office) but perfectly fine to offer bribes to voters to elect you to office?
ReplyDelete...perfectly fine to offer bribes to voters to elect you to office?
ReplyDeleteHeh. Reminds me of my house girl when I was in the Philippines during the Marcos ejection and subsequent elections. The lady was a very honest woman, by Filipino standards, but extremely so nonetheless. She came back from an errand and proudly told me that she'd been offered 20 pesos to vote for a particular politician. She turned him down, though: she'd already sold her vote to another politician, and she wouldn't welch on the deal.
Eric Hines