Our founders fought hard against monarchy and built an unprecedented system of checks and balances in U.S. constitution. Unfortunately, over time this system of checks and balances is vastly eroded. It is a common concern that power exercised by presidency and executive branch of government has grown far more rapidly than any other branch of government. Apparently, recent presidents have been acting and behaving in a manner far different from earlier ones. Executive branch and presidents are often being accused of abusing their authority or violating the constitution. Some of these instances may be more controversial than the others. Other instances may be proven unconstitutional or illegal over time like concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War 2.
The basic idea behind constitution of United States was to make “We the people” most powerful entity and center of power in this nation. They definitely did not want to have a monarchy or monarchy like situation in this country. The immediate problem they faced was that the union was made of several states of very different sizes and populations. The successful and long lasting formation of union was not possible without protecting the rights of all states, especially the small ones. That is why they had to create a balance between the authority and powers, of comprising states, and individual rights. They generated this balance by designing a bicameral legislative system and Electoral College.
Bicameral system provided equal representation to small states in federal government, and Electoral College guaranteed a better representation of small states in presidential elections. Unfortunately, with the passage of time these critical instruments which were basically designed to safeguard the rights of smaller states, ultimately got turned into that organs of nuisance. It is Electoral College which is the root cause of political party duopoly in our country. Over time both parties have built a system around Electoral College which seriously limits the competition in political sphere, and guarantees the dominance of two parties.
Immense growth and improvements in mass media technology while wonderful in many ways, have played a very supportive role in the establishment and continuance of this dominance. Beside, many others, the most powerful invention in mass media, before Internet, was TV. The same big corporations which hijacked our political system through lobbies, were also very successful in establishing and maintaining their dominance on big media, especially TV. With the help of lobbies and political parties, they practically controlled, legislation was passed, one after the other, to guarantee the complete hold of few big corporations over big media.
A very good example of such legislation is licensing only one company to provide cable in any given neighborhood. The reason given for that is that cable is an information technology and business, so, it requires “protection” from government. What a crepe! First of all, this right to protect information technology and businesses is very controversial. Second of all, why cable is not a communication technology which does not need government protection? Third of all, how does government protection means creating monopolies? They use the same argument for regulation of things like utilities and airwaves.
The result? Every one of us knows very well. The limited competition is the root cause of extremely poor service in these sectors. If you have a problem, the best you can do is to file a complaint to consumer protection agency or suit them in court. Because of the regulatory protection they enjoy, in most cases, they would not even respond to your complaint or the notice from consumer protection agency or even a warrant from court. The damages caused by the regulation of airwaves and cable are far worse, wide and deep. For example, in airwaves auctions, usually, only the big corporations have enough resources to bid for the rights on most significant frequencies.
The restrictions on competition in cable industry had the most devastating effects. You were left with no option except to choose from the menu provided by your cable company. What has been on their menu? The same channels owned and ran by big corporations. Most of the smaller, new comers were just blocked out for reasons like not enough demand. How a startup can have enough demand unless it is allowed to compete or it have enormous amounts of money to advertise, everywhere.
So, the big corporations got two most important centers of power, under their control. These centers of power create and mold the public opinion. As a matter of fact, when acting together they have an exponential effect, and become a perfect killer. These two factors are, two remaining political parties, and cable providers. Now the scenario was like this. Okay, my lobby controls these two political parties, and I own these major TV channels, and other media like movie studios, radio stations, recording companies and print media. My interest is in the mutually beneficial relationship between political parties and media.
So, what I would do is to use my lobbies to get the legislation passed which guarantees my continued control over big media, and in turn I would use the big media owned by me, to project and publicize the politicians who belong to my lobbies. I would also make sure that they do not get any competition. So, I will totally black out the third parties and their candidates. With the help of politicians and media, owned by me, I will also design a system which shall systematically kill any competition in media and politics.
So, I will create agencies like presidential debate commission, out of thin air. The purpose of these agencies is going to be to make sure that no voice from a third party competition reaches the voters. Even if it does, it must be presented as useless and insignificant. So, as the elections date gets closer, the media would not stop telling you, how close the race is. Every single vote is critical. If you are a Republican and you vote for a third party candidate, you may be responsible for his or her loss. If you are a Democrat, don’t even think about voting third party. Your vote to third party may result into the victory of a Republican candidate. Therefore, we end up replacing one idiot with other hypocrite.
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