Science Forum

coberst · Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:24 pm Post subject:

Morality of Politicians Buying Votes

This morningâ€™s Washington Post informs us that â€œIts Backâ€. I suspect it never really went away but the article â€œEarmark Spending Makes a Comebackâ€ informs us that what
Congress Pledged in 2007 is already making a robust comeback.

â€œMore than a year after Congress pledged to curb pork barrel funding known as earmarks; lawmakers are gearing up for another spending binge, directing billions toward organizations and companies in their home districts.

Lawmakers had promised to cut back on earmarks and mandated better disclosure of them after steady criticism that they were funding programs with little debate or oversight. The promises led to an initial decline in earmarks last year that was trumpeted on Capitol Hill. But the new data show that they are surging again, at least in the proposed Pentagon authorization budget, which sets out priorities to be funded in a later appropriations bill.â€

We do have a few laws mandating criminal punishment for both politicians and voters when a voter buys a politician but as far as I know we have no such laws when a politician buys a voter.

A politician buying a voter appears to be perfectly legal; but what is the morality of the situation?

I would say that if there is any moral corruption in such a case that most of that moral corruption rests on the shoulders of the voter.

When a voter is bought by a politician that voter is displaying either ignorance of what a citizen in a democracy must understand or that voter is just morally corrupt.

We seldom read about citizens vilifying fellow voters when they accept this bribery. If we had proper intellectuals in this nation they would be leading the chorus of shame directed at such voter behavior.