After watching the documentary, "Big Sky, Big Money" and reading the article by Azmat Khan about the future of our Campaign Finance I can say that I somewhat understand where people are coming from when it comes to the donating of money in our Political Campaigns to monitor corruption. However, I do not believe it is an issue that is necessary to fix or even an issue that is specifically negatively affecting our country. In a nation where the freedom of speech is the most important personal right it can be displayed in a number of ways, one being money. Yes, it is obvious that some have more money than others and our country has been like that and will be like that forever, it is the essence of the United States. With it being like that obviously others can donate more to political campaigns than others but that is their choose to do so and their right. There are already strict limits on hard money being donated in the Political world as we all know so that right there stops lots of corruption. But, I know there are those who use 527s and 501c4s to donate more and try to have more of an influence, everyone knows it, well at least those who care. With that, many people in our nation do not care about elections and even if they say they want to know where the money is coming from they wouldn't go out of their way to see. Additionally, these 527 groups and 501c4 that we witnessed in the movie are not doing anything illegal technically. In class, Mr. Balanda as a hard left winger, asked me, "even though it is legal, does that make it ethical" and I thought about it for a while. No, everything these groups do is not ethical but in reality according to the law they are not doing anything wrong so I do not see a problem in it. In the movie there was one case in particular where two elderly people talked about how out of state groups are influencing the elections and taking control of their state. That isn't true, you as a voter have the ultimate decision on who you would like to vote for and you may say that it is influenced by large groups with money, but if you see that these people are trying to take over and are heavily supporting a candidate that isn't good with people, and doesn't show up to events with the people of your town why would you vote for him? The blame is on you really if you do so. So, I don't think that any reforms need to be made to our system because like we know the money will always find the leaks and that does not necessarily mean that it is a bad thing. Corruption is inevitable and I do not support it, but I think that our system now does enough to stop it to a point where it hurts no one. Although others disagree this is my view on the topic.
"Mr. Balanda as a hard left winger.." Who me? Ha!
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, I'm glad to see you being thoughtful Megan, well done!