During the last election cycle the Koch Brothers spent in
excess of four hundred million dollars. The money was used by super PACs in an
attempt to influence elections across the United States. These men, like many
others, use their position and resources from the private sector as an
instrument to make adjustments to our government and reshape society at large
to suit their own self interests. They game the system by lobbying sympathetic legislators
and through advertising used to generate disingenuous and irrelevant informational
attacks against people running against those who would serve their own
interests.
We allow our democratically elected officials some
flexibility to legislate based on their wisdom and experience while giving
deference to the will of the people they are there to represent. That is how our government was intended to
work at least. For any elected official to accept any measurable favor from a
sphere of influence outside these guidelines creates a situation fertile for a
kind of third part coup d'état. The existing government still stands, but is manipulated behind
the scenes in both broad strokes and in a slow methodical process intended to ultimately
suit the interests of those with the means and position wield such influence.
For any outside party to seek influence in the halls of government, for
any reason, is not how our government was intended to operate. We elect our
representatives and delegate power to them with the expectation that they will
work for the common good. It is idealistic to assume that this will always be
the case, but now we see entities such as the Koch brothers using their status
and resources to assume power through control of those we have assigned with
the public trust. The Supreme Court made this matter worse with the ruling over
Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission. This one ruling has reshaped our political system and corrupted the
ideal put forth by our founding the founders of a representative government of
duly elected people charged with the duty of representing the interests of
those who delegated that trust onto them. A select few are attempting to usurp
power for their own purposes, and like when our country was founded, it is up
to we the people to deal with it.
