Denys - It has been proposed to simply abolish all campaign finance laws 
with the provision that every contribution be posted on the Internet for all 
to see - and see who is paying for what.

That way politicians could openly solicit money from the People's Liberation 
Army, the Buddhists or anyone else ;-)

As far as "lobby reform" the solution is simple - don't vote for dishonest 
people. I think having this law - or "campaign finance reform" is simply a 
whitwash for a (perceived) gullible public. They always find ways around the 
laws.

If we had term limits with people truely there temporarily most of these 
problems would go away - with no expectation of making this a career. I 
don't believe the framers anticipated career politicians - but then they 
make the rules.

On Canadian politics had a good conversation with a Canadian friend this 
morning - who lives in Quebec and works for Bombardier (don't call it 
Bomb-ba-deer) - I was asking him about Belinda who it seems was a bit 
opportunistic and left the Conservatives for the Liberals and mentioned to 
him about our own Jim Jeffords who in a similar (temporary) opportunistic 
move left the Republicans to be "Independent" and give Tom Daschele at the 
time majority control.

One of the few politicians I can say I truely like is the Senator from 
Oklahoma who refuses lobbiest money and got the ire of both Dems and 
Republicans for complaining about all the pork barrell spending in the last 
budget. He really ranckled Ted Stevens from Alaska for daring to critisize 
his $400 million bridge in Ketchikan to service an island of 50 people.

Had a wonderful time in my drive though Alberta and BC last May but thought 
the cost of living was pretty high - but then maybe it was just the tourists 
stops where we ate and stayed.

Bill

*********************
Denys wrote:

I would not indict all politicians and government worker because of bad
apples.  People are corrupted because there are people who corrupt them,
Abramoff, Soros, etc.  Take away their importance and these lobbyists will
go away.


There are 2 quick and easy remedies to the corruption of the few:

1- Institute term limits.  (BTW, are Democrats here happy to be represented
by Ted Kennedy at the hearings this week?  If this is not the poster child
for term limits, I don't know what is.)

2- Throw out the campaign finance laws, especially the McCain-Feingold one.
These laws created lobbyists, concentrated their power and created the
current situation.  In the age of the Internet, simply let anyone give as
much as they want to their candidates and post all transactions of the
Internet.  Total transparency in campaign financing.

Back to the salt mines.

Denys

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