How do I find a candidate to vote for who isn't corrupt?

Political corruption, the two words together almost seem to be redundant in this day and age because most voters believe that politicians are, by their very nature, corrupt.

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I have heard rumors that there are some good people out there running for elected office but, I often find these rumors hard to believe. Many politicians will tell you one thing, make grand sweeping promises and then, when they get into office, they will do what their financial backers tell them to do, the voters be damned.

All the politicians out there are telling us what we want to hear. They are all telling us that they are the outsider candidate who will clean house and clear out the corruption if they get into office. They are telling us that they will make the changes we would make if we were to get into office but, how are we supposed to believe in their claims?

Look at these ads for the Pennsylvania Governor’s race and tell me which one of these guys is the REAL anti-establishment candidate:



They both have the same basic message; Harrisburg is awash in corruption and I’m the guy who’s gonna go in and clean house. Which one are we supposed to believe?

I was wondering if anyone out there has any suggestions for getting past the lies and obfuscations and finding out what these guys are really planning once they get into office. Is there any way to cut through the lies and find out which guy, if any, is the real deal?

How do I find out which of the many candidates out there is worthy of my vote?

great question

i would have to say that the whole 'government' 'system' was actually CREATED by those seeking corrupt power, for instance the american two party system

so anytime that you actually 'vote' you are simply playing their game because it's their system built in such a way so that they can always win

even if the 'right' person was ever elected to any position, a person not corrupt in any way, you can bet that those running the show behind the curtains are prepared for that situation and have plan B's to follow to make sure their agendas are still carried out even under those circumstances

however, i think any average joe has the potential to see the truth and figure out a way of living it no matter what their circumstances

reply to post by FortAnthem


"How do I find a candidate to vote for who isn't corrupt?"

Find the one that doesn't believe in government.

reply to post by mnemeth1


one problem, anyone can lie

and those that want power will find the best and most effective ways of lying

i do, though, agree with you... the only person who could be in government power and effective have a successful positive impact on things WOULD be someone who would fit the criteria you have mentioned...

however, if the average person is smart enough to figure that out, then the system of control that has been implemented on humanity and government for quite some time likely would come to the same conclusion

thus the corrupt system's candidate for government office and vote would say things like " i don't beleive in government " etc etc

reply to post by FortAnthem


step 1 find a man who doesnt seek power or woman

step 2 fire every last congressman and official in washington dc...

step 3 outlaw corporate funding and special interest groups funding

step 4 rinse and repeat until desired effects are seen

step 5 run like hell after you do all that cause theres gonna be some angry people....

the kind of thinking in this post really makes me revert to some thoughts on the dalai lama and how he delt with the chinnese

Originally posted by neo96
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

step 1 find a man who doesnt seek power or woman

So, you're sayin I should vote for a gay guy with no ambition?

Originally posted by indigothefish
the kind of thinking in this post really makes me revert to some thoughts on the dalai lama and how he delt with the chinnese

Care to elaborate on that statement for those of us who aren't Dalai Lama history buffs?

reply to post by FortAnthem




um well yeah i if he wants to clean house in dc and set term limits and gets rid of all the bs

yeah id vote for the dude..........

reply to post by FortAnthem

How do I find a candidate to vote for who isn't corrupt?

No such thing exists outside the realm of peoples' wildest imaginations.

How many laws are there?

How many mandatory expectations exist that any member of society must conformt to in order to be a law abiding citizen?

If we locked up all Supreme Court Justices and all Senators/Congressmen in a big plush hotel/resort with all they needed, and did not let them out until they wrote down from memory (collectively) all laws word for word, would they live long enough to get out of the hotel/resort?

Insanity is sometimes defined as doing the same thing over and over and over and over again, while expecting different results.

What chances do you have of learning the number of laws, what they all are, and what they all mean when held in context with eachother simultaneously? I'm guessing the chances are 0%.

Voting for people who want to get paid for making new laws, when no child born today has a chance at learning the existing ones within one lifetime is not promoting sanity.

How do I find a candidate to vote for who isn't corrupt?

The fact that they seek to get paid for making new laws when they do not know the existing ones, let alone the number of them, proves they are already corrupt.

There is no such thing as a candidate who is not corrupt.

Perhaps look at voting for ANY 'Independants'.

That will weaken the 2 major parties power base.

Not taking the 'party vote' on a bill, may mean that they ALL have to debate it.

Not following the 'party guidelines' on a bill, may mean that they ALL have to READ it.

Keeping their nose's out of the trough, thats the hard one and down the their morals and the security provided to them.

reply to post by FortAnthem


run for office yourself it is the only way you can be sure that you are voting for someone who is not corrupt.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Its all rather simple, you look for the guy or female thats not going to PROMISE everything under the sun,and deliver nothing. The person which tells you up front that there going to take bribes from corporations, going to take bribes from the lobbists, to pad there own pockets. And maybe they'll actually do something during there term of office. Course you'll never see this kind of person running for any office. Nope you'll only see them LIe about everything. Like my dad told me years ago. "All politicians lie, and best liar gets to be president".

So if you want to be one of the MANY that get caught up in the hoopla of big rallies where the canadate whips up the people to a frenzy and promises the Moon. Then you get what you voted for.

In the end it comes down to which one is the lesser evil..

Use your own brain.

Let's say there was a truly incorruptible candidate who makes it in to office. It would be a simple matter of time until some scandal arose, or until he 'broke some law'. There's only the lesser of evils to select from. I believe that in order to be political, you must avoid political office. Always, tptb can make life difficult, for anyone. But as a politician, they make certain that your career ends. It's simple; they simply use their budds at the state media center.

The question seems to imply the false premise that if one could find a non-corrupted candidate, this individual could actually have a chance at getting into office and making a real anti-establishment change.

That's just not the case.

From the media influence, to electronic voting fraud, the system is rigged. The sooner we understand this and revolt the better.

reply to post by FortAnthem


if enough people vote for the liberalist party it will occur, but than again the system is set up to where the majority doesn't matter, it's based on the electoral college who isn't forced to how their constiuents wish, bc voters aren't wise enough according to the system.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

"How do I find a candidate to vote for who isn't corrupt?"

Find the one that doesn't believe in government.

who lobbies to be in government in order to fulfill a self fulfilling prophecy of some sort

I mean that is a racket there Mnemeth

your mates go in there and just fawk everything up with intent, systematically, pretend it is the nature of government and achieve some 1800th century Parisian goodness!

I like that, I'll be damned if I didn't just uncover Bush's MO!

But seriously, that is a good idea, just malicious and devious to the bone, play the role

Your ideal candidate sounds like this concept I am dabbling with BTW, spread the news boys

PS - I am eagerly awaiting the first Trillionaire

George Washington does not only have the distinction of being the first President of the United States under the federal Constitution we now accept as Supreme Law of the Land, he was also the only President who was not ever affiliated with a political party. In fact, his Farewell Address addresses the evils of political parties, and he gave dire warnings to the consequences of lending too much credence to them.

Thomas Jefferson once said:

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

If there is any truth to this assertion, then it is pointless to seek any candidate not corrupt, however, taking Jefferson's assertion, and combining that with the warning Washington gave regarding the evils of political parties, we can surmise that the rottenness that exists in any person who has cast a longing eye on offices, is profoundly increased by the political party that casts a longing eye on offices.

Years ago I abandoned the Republican party convinced they were not at all in line with my political values and I joined the Libertarian party. However, while I do think the Libertarian party best reflects my political ideal, I no more trust this party than I do the any other political party. In fact, the Libertarian's expect a fealty from me that I can not countenance, and because of this, I no longer belong to any political party.

When I vote, and I do vote, I always seek out the most independent candidate and vote for them. Of course, this means that I rarely, if ever, vote for a winning candidate, which sadly lends credence to all those who argue that my vote is a "wasted" vote, but more so than lending credence to the idea behind that assertion, it lends credence to the profound laziness, and ignorance of the majority of the people. Voting for the lesser of two evils when there are more than two candidates is just voting for evil.

Where there are no other choices than the two primary political party candidates, then write in your vote and vote your conscience.

The most important thing to understand when it comes to voting is that the act of voting is the absolute very least one can do when it comes to keeping government in check. It is not the pinnacle of checking government, it is the minimal act one can do.

Protest is yet just another minimal act one can do in keeping government in check.

Suing the government for a redress of grievances is much stronger, but requires a certain knowledge of the law. Of course, since we are all presumed to know the law, presumably knowing the law is not a bad idea.

Non acquiescence to acts of tyranny is the best and surest way to keep government in check. Consider the Sprit of Defiance the American people embraced during the Prohibition of alcohol. The people, by and large, flipped a collective finger at the government and continued to drink in spite of the 18th Amendment, and subsequently that Amendment was repealed. It was not repealed because politicians had a change of heart, nor did they have any epiphany that made them realize that the 18th Amendment was folly. What they faced was an undermined legislature and executive branch, and even judicial, because the people just simply refused to acknowledge governmental authority regarding this prohibition.

Of course, since the repeal of the 18th Amendment, the American people have faced the insidious incrementalism of prohibition that has circumvented any Amendment process and simply just legislated the use of certain "illicit" drugs as "criminal". How Congress came to the conclusion they needed to write an Amendment in order to prohibit alcohol, but needed no such process to prohibit drugs is a long and sordid story, but suffice it to say, that while drinking alcohol had long been America's pastime, taking other types of drugs were not, and for most, accepting the demonization and criminalization of drug users was easier to swallow than of drinkers of alcohol.

Thus, began first the rumors of war, and finally the "war on drugs" that has steadily and most assuredly eroded the rights of all people in the United States, not to mention radically increasing violence on the streets, and prison populations. It has been a long steady war where it has taken a few generations for people to come to realize the imprudence of this so called "war on drugs" and even now, there are many who would argue still that this "war" is a necessary "war" and that "decriminalization" is out of the question. Even so, more and more people are coming to the conclusion that the "war" must stop and saner policies be implemented.

However, where the people are deciding this, not the politicians. Several states are now facing legal battles with the federal government over the decriminalization of marijuana. Talk of jury nullification has grown in recent times, due in a large part, to the stubborn nature of the federal government over drug policies, and the horrifying truth that the U.S. has 23% of the world's prison population despite the fact that the U.S. has only 5% of the world's population. So stubborn are politico's and government agents regarding this issue that when Time Magazine featured an article written by the writers of the HBO show Wired, titled; The Wire's War on the Drug War, where the authors made the assertion that they would acquit any person charged of a crime for drug possession, Mark Bennett, a Texas prosecutor, but up a blog where he made this assertion:

The writers of The Wire, in advocating the actions that they have, are essentially promoting the commission of a crime. Had they made the statements contained in the Time magazine article in Texas, then they would almost certainly be guilty of aggravated perjury. Outrageous, no? How dare I suggest that the exercise of their First Amendment rights could possibly constitute a crime? Pretty easily, actually. Just look at the law.

How ironic that Mark Bennett relies upon his own First Amendment right to justify lying while asserting that if in Texas, the writers of Wired would have no protection of their First Amendment right for simply being honest. How has Bennett lied? He has lied because he has ignored the fact that the people, when acting as a jury, have the right of jury nullification, and juries can never be punished for the verdicts they return, and as the holders of the inherent political power, they have the right to not only judge the facts of a case, they have the right to judge the law:

It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision... you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy

~First Chief Justice; John Jay: Georgia v Brailsford~

Who is a petty little man like Mark Bennett, nothing more than a prosecutor for the State of Texas, to overrule the Supreme Court and declare the unalienable right to speak and publish freely null and void simply because some writers claimed they would judge the law as a member of the jury? Bennett is demonstrative of the brutish and loutish thuggery present in current day government, both state and federal, and it does not take violent revolution to put these pimply faced little pukes in their place. What it takes is laughing at their arrogance openly and brazenly, and directly challenging their pouty petulance with more free speech and published admonishments. Texas was once a great State before this stupid "war on drugs", but is no longer, and will never be great again as long as impotent government agents such as Mark Bennett are allowed to bully people and insist that their temporary and limited grant of power is more than that of the inherent political power of We the People.

We must do more than we are as people, and if we honestly believe that all we can do is vote, then we are not at all being honest with ourselves. We must not convince ourselves that all we can do is vote and hope the Supreme Court will protect us from illegal legislation. We must know that we have a right as members of a jury to judge a law when we are confronted with it as a juror. We must know that as long as we acquiesce to tyranny, we will get tyranny. And finally, we must know that when we vote, and vote we should, that if we vote for an incumbent, we are voting for corruption, for surely Jefferson hit upon a truth when he suggested that any one who cast a longing eye towards offices invites rottenness into their soul.

Fire the incumbents, elect novice politicians, and demand that these novices know the law! For surely, if we the people are presumed to know the law, then those we elect can be expected to know the law as well. What is that law? That law is that just governments are instituted by the consent of the governed, and that the grant of power given them comes with specific mandates and limitations, and the most important mandate is that they are charged with protecting our individual rights, not eroding them, nor eliminating them.

Governments exist to serve the people, not the other way around!

As well as getting rid of all the incumbents, you'd also need the new government to:

1. Take back the power to issue currency.
2. Tell the Federal Reserve banking cartel, and others, to go take a hike. The previous administrations ran up the debts, so go speak to them about recovering what they owe! In effect, starting with a clean slate.
3. Outlaw ALL political lobbying, by all groups, domestic or foreign - anyone caught accepting any inducements gets to serve prison time.
4. Pull all troops back to the US, for the defence of the US. If the corporations want conquest for profit, let them finance it and suffer the consequences in the international criminal courts.

That'll do for starters. The banks won't like it, but hey, what are they going to do when faced with having all their assets seized and their execs thrown in prison for a very long time?

That is the only way we can ever take our countries back from the control of the bankers and their lapdog politicians. They won't go quietly, but without the control of the political system through debt and the creation of currency, they'll be easily dealt with. Same goes for most of the western nations!

Anything less will just see the same old faces running things, and we've all seen how well that works!

JPZ,
I always enjoy reading your posts, and appreciate your contributions

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
Fire the incumbents, elect novice politicians, and demand that these novices know the law!

This may not be humanly possible. I know of no one individual who knows the number of all the mandatory expectations (laws) that American citizens must conform to in order to be law abiding citizens, let alone what they all are word for word, and what they acually mean when held in context with eachother simultaneously.

For surely, if we the people are presumed to know the law, then those we elect can be expected to know the law as well. What is that law?

Law is the direct reflection of peoples' fears, hates, and loves.
If people are afraid of losing something, they make laws to preserve it.
If people hate something, they make laws to abolish it.
If people love something, they make laws to protect it.
If law makers love making laws, and getting paid for it, they will make laws that preserve the existence of their profession, they will make laws that abolish things that may threaten their profession, and they will make laws to protect their ability to make laws.

That law is that just governments are instituted by the consent of the governed, and that the grant of power given time comes with specific mandates and limitations, and the most important mandate is that they are charged with protecting our individual rights, not eroding them, nor eliminating them.

Protecting individual rights? It is illegal for homeless people to sleep outside. This is a law in many cities, in many states.

Governments exist to serve the people, not the other way around!

I wish I could concede that the laws actually support the above statement, but I do not know if this is true.

Respectfully,
John Paul G., USAF Firedog (retired)

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Nice as always JPZ!

We really could use many more options as far as candidates go -

I swear I think the DEMAND and Enthusiasm for such a positive systemic development would be very hard to quell by the media or the two party system. I am sure revolutionizing the status quo is very possible in this day in age, technology and the massive discontent is just waiting to be "exploited", it seems like the time is now.