Day 7 - Blogathon Challenge - The End of Political Assassination Ads....for now.

While I can't hide that I am a little pleased with the outcome of our recent elections, I still have plenty of concerns for our country and our governments position on how to improve it public education system. But, I will save that rant for another day.  Tonight my concerns are with the political ads that both sides subjected its citizens to over the past year.  Sometimes I think that those bottom dwelling mental midgets forget that children witness their TV ads as well.  Its one thing for a person my age that has figured out that politicians will stoop to anything, to have to bear witness to the name calling, and country bashing, but my children shouldn't have to listen to grown men tear each other down and bash the very    country I try to teach them to love.  I spend hours at school each day trying to teach children to be kind to to each other, to not bully each other, to try to make this world a better place by trying to see another person's point of view.  I use the mantra daily that, "I don't need you to be friends with each other, but I do need you to be friendly."  So when these same kids see the grown-up (debatable) leaders of the most democratic country in the world bickering and bashing each other......well, I start to lose a little hope.

The positive thing on the end of the election season is, we are done being subjected to the bickering.  Well, for the most part.  If you are one of those sad people that feel the need to listen to MSNBC, FOX News, or  are really needing to blame others for all that is wrong, so you listen to Rush Limbaugh, then you can go on listening to the political garbage and finger pointing each and every day.

Then to top things off last night, one of the reporters on NBC shared that there was a total of $6 Billion dollars spent on the political campaigns this year.  $6 BILLION!!!  Do you realize what we could have spent that money on?  Why do we do this?  Aren't we better off raising taxes minutely on sales tax or income tax, and lets face it $6 Billion would hardly be a drop in the bucket of the US budget.  Better yet, if we really reformed election campaigning we could say, you get this much for a budget, you get this time frame for advertising, the networks each get one debate to sponsor for no charge since we allow them to use the airways (Ok, they mostly use cable & satellite now) but supposedly the government owns the airways and they run the FCC that controls them.  So, I say we make them provide debate time for elections.  I also say that no one (including those newly recognized humans called corporations and SuperPacs) can donate money to political campaigns.  All of the funds come from tax payers.  This way, politicians don't need to feel beholden to their benefactors with large pockets.  They also don't need to try to appeal to the eccentrics in their own party and they can start to focus on the center and start working together to compromise and fix some of our problems.

Alright, I will quickly lay out my ideas for ending the TV rants.  The rants that go on in the car, and at the dinner table, well I can't stop those.  My plan for fixing politics, and therefore almost everything else in the US, would be to 1. publicly fund all elections and campaigns with tax dollars, 2. all political offices come with term limits, and 3. Reverse Citizens United.  

I know I must be on to something as even Chuck Woolery agrees that term limits would be a good thing:



Well, this will be my last political rant on here.  Although I guess I should put a qualifier on that.  If in 2 to 4 years things get even crazier than this last 2 years, then maybe I will be on here again saying how I am still dumbfounded as to how things have not changed, but as long as we are forced to go along with this highest bidder, 2 party system we have now, I am not sure we have much chance of changing things.  Its not in a politicians interest to change the system, and we, the voting public, are too easily distracted to stay focused on the changes we need to make for long term change.

By the way, tomorrow I am holding my first "No Office Day" and I am looking forward to it like you wouldn't believe.  I can feel a blog post coming on.