Reply #39: "It is coming." How? [View All]

[library_max]

Are the thirteen colonies going to send out their Minutemen to repel the foreign rulers and their representatives? No? Then perhaps the American Revolution reference is a little off.

But how do you propose to get this change you want? The real obstacle is Buckley v Valeo, which established as the law of the land that campaign contributions are constitutionally protected speech. As long as that stands, campaign finance reform is going to be meaningless, easily evaded and easily manipulated against the good guys. And under that state of affairs, we are stuck in one-dollar-one-vote, which means the big money interests will decide.

So how best to get Buckley v Valeo overturned? The best hope is to get Democrats into office to appoint more reasonable Supreme Court Justices to replace the mostly whackos we've got in there now. We're not going to accomplish that by declaring war on the Democratic Party and kicking them in the crotch every chance we get.

But perhaps you have even a bigger target in mind - getting rid of our winner-take-all system which has confined US politics to two relevant parties at a time for more than 200 years. In that case, I'd like to remind you that the only way to change the Constitution is to start in Congress, each and every member of which was elected under winner-take-all. I estimate your chances of success in that endeavor at zero. Maybe you'd better start oiling up that musket.