Responsibility for the degradation of political honesty

Our entire country cringes from our politicians. It doesn't matter how political you might be, the nature of the word "politician" gives off a bad vibe.

A job designed to be one of compromise and consideration turns into a lobbyist free-for-all at the expense of the citizens, regardless of the level of government - city, county, district, state or nation.

Politicians, since the beginning of time, have all been the same. Even our founding fathers weren't politicians. They were leaders who worked in politics.

And THAT is our key lack, here. With good reason, of course. Most good leaders hate politics because of the Janus-like qualities they all seem to come with like fries to burgers - almost inseperable.

This year seems especially polarizing as we have an inordinate number of politicians running for office, and none of them invoke the confidence in citizenry we hope for. Instead, we're left shaking our heads wondering when our nation will end from the endless squabbling our politicans do for their own personal gain.

The problem of political integrity, however, does not fall on the politicians. The men and women of our federal government who never fail to fail us are there for one simple reason - we let them stay. Instead of demanding in a unified voice that we want politicans of real integrity, and that in one voice we will denounce those who do not fulfill their political promises, we shake our heads and do nothing.

It's our fault. It's our responsibility as citizens of a country that can elect our own leaders, and we're squandering it. We shake our heads, and do no thing; that's exactly what those two-faced civil abusers count on time and time again.

What began as a simple process for electing our government officials, with a series of proper checks-and-balances, has turned into a series of political loopholes and government-speak; something similar I'd associate with lawyers who can sound so smart when speaking about something so simple, that they make you feel you don't have the intelligence to make a proper decision about what's write for yourself.

We've let these men and women bamboozle us. And it's still our fault. A man committing a crime in a community is a tragedy. The community letting that man stay is absolutely horrific beyond words.

I don't want to elect another politican to office again. I want to elect a leader - a man who says what he means, means what he says, and will do exactly what he promises before entering office once in office. Is that too much to ask? Is there some meeting politicans have once they've 'joined the club' that says, "Okay, here's what you can do, and what you can't do. We don't care what you promised before hand because we're not going to help you fulfill any of them."

While society in general is not conducive to positive change, that is no excuse for a person willing to fight his way to the top. He, or she, should be adept at circumventing such opposition to change.

What would someone say is the best way to solve the problem of complicated and easily abused politics?

Simplify them.

Simplify politics. Create transparent government leadership while preserving the trust and integrity of the job. Destroy loopholes and complications. Call politicians to account for following their promises through that transparency, and when they fail, to be removed so improvement can progress.

This isn't an attempt to micromanage our leaders. Instead, it's simply to call them to account for what they say and what they do.

It's time for citizens to find a better way than politic-dependant news agencies (conservative or liberal) to see exactly what the government is doing without direct governmental influence, while preserving the nature of classified operations and national security issues.

The formation of such an agency is not the purpose of this commentary. The need for political integrity, is. While firing all politicians isn't realistic, finding greater ways to make them accountable is.

It's the responsibility of the citizenry of a nation to hold their leaders accountable. We aren't. We're depending on talking heads and biased news to tell us how well they're doing. Greater impact analysis is welcome if it's objective and nonpartisan.

We must fight, once more, to make politics more hands on and rid ourselves of the complications created by those in power, who desire to stay in power, at the cost of citizen benefit.

Otherwise, we're just waiting for the government to return itself into a tyranny. It happened in Greece and it happened it Rome. It will, eventually, happen here in the States. No nation has ever survived its own humanity. The best we can hope for is God to preserve us for as long as possible. But until that day comes, we must fight for the preservation of the integrity of our own government.

For ourselves and our children.

Johnathan Cross
Marietta