Carl Parker's archive

It has often been said the rich man dances while the poor man pays the fiddler. With the the Supreme Court’s recent Citizen United opinion, money is more influential and important in politics than ever before in the history of America. A perfect example of how multi-millionaires and billionaires are influencing America can easily be found in an organization primarily sponsored by the Koch brothers called the “American Legislative Exchange Council,” aka A.L.E.C.

Of late, in conversations with my conservative leaning friends, I have detected a greater frequency of the use of the term “socialism.” From our extensive conversations, I am somewhat skeptical as to whether some of these friends really know the true definition of socialism. Webster, Wikipedia and others simply describe socialism as a method of government by which the government controls the means of production and distribution of wealth. As to distribution of wealth, the current tax system that favors the rich over the middle class is clearly a method of distributing wealth.

Lack of participation at election time is counterproductive to the efficient operation of a democracy. Theoretically, the more people who vote and participate in the selection of our leaders, the better the result should be. There are even some fledgling democracies in the world who make it mandatory that their citizens vote. While I doubt if such a proposition would fly in the United States, our various levels of government should not engage in activity that would discourage or diminish the number of people voting.