In 1985, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Charles Krauthammer, began
writing a weekly column for The
Washington Post. Meg Greenfield, then editorial page editor of The Post, called Krauthammer's column
"independent and hard to peg politically. It's a very tough column.
There's no 'trendy' in it. You never know what is going to happen next."
I first heard the name Charles
Krauthammer in the late nineties when I started to read The Post on line. At first, I didn’t like his stuff very much. He
was too right wing for me. I shudder at CK’s appearances on Fox News! He was a
neo-conservative, an expression popular in those days, which included the
thinking of the newer version of members of the Republican Party. However, I
was pulled up short when I remembered that President Franklin Roosevelt was a
neo-conservative.
What really made me change my
mind about CK was his criticism of President Bush and his War on Terror. In
2001, he categorically stated that told President George W. Bush was fighting
the wrong wars. Iraq and Afghanistan were not the right targets. He scolded,
saying the Bush administration should be looking closely at, if not fighting,
Iran. How right CK was. Since then, I have taken seriously CK’s forthright
opinions.
In an article published last
month entitled “The Zealots Win Again,” CK posed the issue that “the debate
over campaign contributions is never-ending for a simple reason: both sides of
the argument have merit.” The context is the recent Supreme Court rulings, approving
effectively no limit to the contributions individuals and corporates can make
to political campaigns.
CK states “money is speech”
without explaining why he believes this, nor does he seek to justify this
opinion. Perhaps he has the Jeffersonian advantage of knowing a self-evident
truth. CK argues that contributions to politicians and their causes is the most
effective way to augment and amplify speech with which one agrees. But he also accepts
that money is a corrupting influence and that “the nation’s jails are well
stocked with mayors, legislators, judges and the occasional governor who have
exchanged favors for cash.”
The nub of CK’s argument is
transparency. Provided a donor’s political views are open and published, what
does it matter how much money is donated? However, what if the donor wants free
expression without transparency? CK does not address this position directly though
he does express concern that donor lists are now used by political opponents to
persecute donors with contrary views.
If the “money is speech” argument
has traction, you could counter-argue with George Orwell’s idea in Animal Farm:
“All donors are equal but some are more equal than others.” CK sees no problem
in the fact that the more money you donate, the more speech you might get. He
also doesn’t address the potential problem of a good cause smothered by lack of
promotional cash.
Let me consider CK’s position in
a different way. While there is nothing in the Constitution nor The Bill of
Rights that entrenches the “one person, one vote,” principle in American law,
all states provide for this in their statutes. The intelligent and downright
dumb have an equal right to vote, provided they are of age. How would CK feel
if that rule was changed so that the amount of votes a person makes was
adjusted by examinations which had been passed or failed? Votes might be
allotted as follows:
High School drop-out: One vote.
High School graduate: Two votes.
Bachelor’s degree: Four votes.
Master’s degree: Six votes.
Ph.D. Ten votes.
As a principle, this is no
different to donors contributing vast sums of money to politicians in the
probable expectation of some advantage if their chosen candidate wins. The more
money donated, the more influence.
I have written before about my
concern that America’s political campaigns are becoming more fit for a casino
than a parliament. They now consist of vast expenditures, not political ideas. The
gridlock that is Congress, whether federal or state, is unlikely to be broken
if legislators can buy their seats so openly.
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