I think it is Fair :D

Is It Fair?

I want to be a politician. I used to think if you had good values and a big heart you could become president and single handedly change the fate of the nation. As I grew older this ideolodgy started to show its flaws, by the time I was fourteen I had seen the onset of two wars and the housing bubble burst right in my face. At first I thought that corrupt businessmen were to blame for these hard times, and then later I assumed that in fact the government was out to get me and that all in power were corrupt and inherently evil. These ways of thinking soon left me as I came to understand how people thought, when I started to study philosophy. In my head I saw life as being a flow, a miraculous combination of hundreds of different decisions made by people and people made these decisions on what they thought was best at the time. So I assumed any politician who takes the time to get your vote probably has other incentives than just to benefit his countrymen. Some like the power and prestige, some enjoy the financial benefits associated with the post, and others are people pleasers, out to satisfy the wants of the masses. So I now know I cannot trust any man to govern people unbiasly and not take incentives to do ill that are so heavily propped around him.

My bone worth picking lies in the election process, to be able to give any sort of effective campaign a candidate must raise a boat load of cash. It is ridiculously expensive and the demand for it only serves to raise prices for ad time and marketing strategys. Therefore only the ones with extensive support from the private sector are able to garnish the needed resources to get elected. This system inherently places obligation for that candidate to help his supporters out since they gave him the essential aide to even be in office. This system is flawed.

In Germany they have reasonable restrictions of the amount of spending a person can do on a campaign, and limits airtime for radio and television to try and level the playing field in elections. I like this idea, to have some basic and very loose restrictions to prevent campaigns getting to be worth more than fortune 500 companies and to prevent people from buying up massive amounts of air time to try and outspend opponents. I am not at all a backer of any free trade restrictions but limiting private sector involvement in the voting process I think is fair.

Do you?