Campaign Reform A Futile Cop-Out
It’s been a hard day at the silversmith shop and Paul Revere arrives home with barely enough energy to draw a tankard of ale.
He kicks off his boots, sinks into his La-Z-Boy and flips on the Zenith just in time to see a 30-second spot that questions King George’s mental stability and accuses Tories, Redcoats and the British Parliament of conspiring to undermine the American Way of Life even before anybody creates it.
Suddenly revived, Paul leaps up, rushes out the door screaming, “To arms! To arms!” and enlists in the revolution.
Poor Paul. Another victim of big money’s slick use of the media to manipulate the mindless masses.
What’s wrong with this picture? No TV in Paul Revere’s day, you say?
Well, that’s true, too. But the more significant contradiction with historic fact is that the silversmiths and printers, farmers and shopkeepers who established our experiment in self-government did their own thinking.
Tom Paine and Ben Franklin and other pamphleteers articulated the revolutionary cause in passionate, thoughtful treatises that their fellow colonists read, digested and debated.
In the past 220 years, however, most Americans have given up the arduous work of staying informed about public affairs and getting acquainted with political officials and issues. They have become willing clay in the hands of artisans who sculpt public attitudes.
Alarmed at the results, many frustrated citizens now say the answer is to silence the voices that have (a) opinions, (b) money and (c) the convictions to spend b backing up a. This approach is called “campaign finance reform.”
It won’t work. For one thing, it depends on the people who benefit from the current system to change it. For another, it underestimates the ingenuity of those same beneficiaries to find new loopholes in whatever the reformers come up with.
But worst of all, it brutalizes one of the fundamental freedoms American independence achieved - the freedom of expression.
Sadly, nobody talks much about returning to the spirit of the 18th century - a spirit that embraced personal involvement and commitment.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,” wrote Franklin, “deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
As a sound bite? So-so. As a bumper sticker? Utter disaster. But as political advice? Sounder than ever.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Doug Floyd/For the editorial board