Solution is not One Election, but All Elections

Americans are inflicting a lot of unnecessary pain on each other right now over who we vote for, what we believe and sometimes even who we are.  Every few years, one party gets the advantage, makes changes, then the other side takes-over to undo them.

With each cycle the words get angrier, the fights more vicious.  Are we making progress?  Where is all this headed?  Are half of our fellow-Americans really bad people, or are they struggling in a bad system just like us?

Maybe we should look at the system because it’s no longer working like it's supposed to.  Our politics are driven by money and our leaders have to chase that money to get elected, all of them.  They promise one thing to voters, then do something else because that something else was paid for.  They try to sell us ideas that make sense only to the big campaign donors paying for that sales-job.

Meanwhile, the rest of us scramble for the crumbs from a rigged system, and wonder why the jobs disappear or don’t pay as much, or why powerful people keep getting more, of everything.  We can’t understand how a few tycoons can wreck the entire economy and come out ahead.  Then we blame other average folks who think or look differently than us, but deep down we have a lot in common.

Let’s stop this.  We don’t have to accept a government that doesn’t represent us and we don’t have to stay angry at each other.

There is a way to fix the system, but it won’t come from electing any candidate no matter how bold and decisive he is.  We the people have to take this initiative ourselves like prior generations did.  Ordinary Americans with extraordinary commitment to freedom paid for this country through hard labor, fought injustice through protest and sacrificed their lives on foreign soil to keep us free.  It’s our turn to keep this country free, just, and prosperous for everyone.

The place to start is to get big money out of politics because that distorts all other issues. Without this change, many other causes will come to nothing, fall into that cycle of do and undo.  And we can’t reform campaign finance through half measures or by sacrificing our freedoms as suggested by the proposals offered so far.  CFR28 was carefully crafted to be effective while protecting free expression. 

Michael J. Kyvik