Weiland: ‘What is wrong with our democracy is that we have allowed selfish interests’

It is fashionable these days to dump on politics and on government — fashionable, but very stupid.

The alternative to politics is on display on the news every night.  It comes to you from places like Syria, Afghanistan and the Ukraine.  It is called war.

Our politics may get a little noisy at times, noisier than it has to or should. But at its very worst politics in our democracy is infinitely preferable to the only alternative that exists, the settling of public policy differences with bombs and young lives.

And so far as the trendy trashing of government goes, think about it.

All those “fools” down in Washington — all those clowns who bring us huge deficits and endless programs that seem to help everyone but us — they were all sent there by our votes, or by our failure to vote or to pay attention to what or who we were voting for.

I am running for the United States Senate because I respect politics, and I deeply believe the government of the United States of America, the government created by us through our democracy, once was, and can again become, the finest government ever created by humankind.

All that is missing is us.

What is wrong with our democracy is that we have allowed selfish interests, inspired by personal greed and love of power, to take control of what used to be our government.

Instead of the impartial referee that kept the powerful in check so each one of us had the opportunity to go as far as drive and determination could take us, they have turned government into a cheerleader for privilege and unearned profit of unimaginable size.

Government is not the problem. When it is OUR government it busts trusts, defeats tyrants, authors GI Bills and referees the healthy competition that once made our economy the envy of the world.

But when we let huge contributions from the owners of gigantic, often ill gotten fortunes, buy off what used to be our representatives, how can we be surprised that they get what they pay for?

I am running for Senate to try to take back our government.

Step one in that fight will be to reverse the perverse decision of the Supreme Court that said money has the right to speech, and thus the billionaire can speak a billion times louder than the rest of us.

Step two will be to fight to put the interests of ordinary folks in ordinary things, like jobs and health, affordable education and a livable world, above the special interests of big money in huge profits created through insider favors from the government they have bought.

This, in my view, is a fight for the future of America.  If we get into it, if we take the democracy Jefferson gave us and use it, we will win because we are the majority, and they are not.

But if we throw up our hands in disgust at the government we now have, if we give up on politics, and government, and democracy, then we will lose, and America will continue turning into the land of the insider deal and the quick, unearned buck.

The choice is ours.

-Rick Weiland