Caught again having some thoughts miles from a keypad.
Anyway was watching Jon Stewart on the Daily show the other evening and a couple of things that happened made me think about accountability in political ads. He was doing a spoof on the new New York laws, first the soda law that you cannot drink over 16 oz. and the State legislature making small amounts of marijuana a fine instead of a misdemeanor. He basically did some comparing that ended up with it is now more illegal to drink large amounts of soda than have small amounts of marijuana which on the surface seems to be true.
The second was his interview with an author and by the end of the TV portion of the interview he admitted he set up some of his comments unfairly. Said would get into it on the full version continued on the internet. Never saw the rest, but for my purpose here it was the show that got me thinking.
Hate to say it, but the original thoughts I had were a few evenings ago and earlier today when I was out and about. So here goes trying to re piece together my brain.
As you well know campaign season will be in full swing soon and with it all sorts of claims and promises by candidates. Now promises will always be full of stuff to make the basic constituents happy, but it is the claims and "facts" that are interesting. Not to pick on Mitt, but I am going to use one of his examples as part of this post. He has recently been saying he was able to balance the Mass state budget without raising taxes and if you have been reading through all this in the press you hear that yes no taxes, but they increased fees pretty significantly and that had a big part in the balance. And this is pretty common news now. So how does it affect accountability. Well you have to let him have the pass in this situation, sure it is mincing of words, but unfortunately we have come to expect that in political ads and speeches. Which should be a shame, but at this point in time we just are stuck until we start holding politicians accountable we get this. This isn't the exact incident or situation I am trying to address today.
What happens though is there is no official (and yes who would be in charge) verification of facts and even more important consequences. There are some news sites that have fact checker reports, but this is unofficial and even that tends to be biased at times. Like the example above because with the way that was done you can play around with it and each partisan side will pick their own definitions to try and promote the success or derail the facts. Again we cannot stop these nuances for now, but what about inaccuracies or even downright lies? At what point can we stop some of the crap that is about to happen? Who judges and what consequences do we hold these politicians to? Seriously every year is getting worse and we are talking about people who are trying to make policy for the general good of the country, state, or their locality. Do we accept this as the way it is, or can we as a society say, hey wait a minute I have to trust you to make good decisions for me, even if I voted for you, are you the best choice? Most in this country will say my last question is moot. We want our side to win, and win at all costs. Well when it comes to the greater good, maybe that isn't the best course of action.
Yes no answers yet, because they are hard to find. Lets say the country can agree on some type of fact monitoring and having to publicize them. What next, do we fine the candidate? At this point in our history, fines are useless. Everyone makes plans to fight them when assessed. Athletes, corporations, individuals with speeding tickets all plan not to pay them even if they know they are wrong. Fines have become a useless way to affect behavior. So what do we do, say the candidate can't run if they lie so many times. That won't work because there is actually a fairness issue to the constituents that originally supported the candidate through primaries etc. Some sports are starting to bypass fines or add to them by suspending players and taking away pay. We will have to see if this becomes effective, but a team has a bench player to replace the starter that gets suspended. There are no bench players in a political race. And yes no answers yet, but I wanted to get it out there to get people thinking more seriously about this problem. Going back to my comment, we are talking about people we are trusting with public policy and public money, where can we hold them accountable to their actions before they get elected. Is this pie in the sky thinking, unfortunately I thinks some of you will feel that this is, but I say to you are you sure? Sooner or later this comes back to haunt us, we just cannot accept this behavior as the way it is and go on.
The above is fragmented memories of what I thought earlier, but it still gets most of the thought process out there. There was more about ineffectiveness of fines, but more to support the premise, not new ideas.
Reliability is also part of the above. Can we count on candidates and politicians that behave one way and expect them to change once elected? Piggy backs on above, we have got to find ways to hold everyone accountable. These days we have way too many problems that are fixable to rely on what has gone on historically.
And I cannot remember the other things, some attempts at semi humorous thoughts around the above.
And I have been bungling about in my brain for a more comprehensive Progressive Conservative platform. I haven't clarified in my thinking what I think is most appropriate or fits the concept of progressive conservative, but I want to post a platform. I see the coming election to be nothing more than a charade of past policies, nothing new, and there is some serious economic problems on the horizon. Re: Europe. We need to get creative and be prepared. I feel we can do more than survive if we take the bull by the horn and build our job base now, not rely on what others do and go our own way. Europe is headed for socialism if the people in charge demand too much. Right now it is not inevitable, but you have to think ahead and head off disaster by getting ahead of the job curve there too, plus keep individual wealth more spread out. Not the best way of expressing it, but I hope you see the point.
Just cannot put to paper my thoughts today, they are coming and going faster than a 14 year old girl changes clothes for a party.
Have a good rest of your weekend and if I can I will try and come back to some of the above to better piece it together and soon hopefully I will have a more clarified definition of the Progressive Conservative platform.
Oops one last thought, why is it that conservatives don't realize that protecting the environment is just as conservative as being pro life. It amazes me that letting our planet go to shit is considered okay.
And yes I know campaign reform and laws exist; that this isn't a new thought, but I have a hard time as a person to sit there and be lied to and accept it. We would all love the wonderful world of dream land that would exist above, but at some point we have to stop the madness.
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