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Thursday, January 5, 2006
It would be all too easy to join in the feeding frenzy over lobbyist and superfraud extraordinaire Jack Abramoff. All too easy - but hardly right. For the principles Jack Abramoff represents are the very principles that have built up America from the time of its earliest founding, and to turn on corruption now is to betray everything this nation stands for.
A bribe is nothing more than the handshake of money, and money is nothing more than the badge of an honest day's pay - or an honest day's bribery. A man who bribes is a man who has worked, whereas a man who can't afford to bribe is a man whose sloth has deprived him of the stature that a solid work ethic affords. Indeed, bribery is the natural moral corollary of Protestantism to American democracy: it distinguishes the merit of the productively powerful from the stagnation of the slothfully powerless. A world without political corruption is nearly unthinkable: what would prevent America from falling under the pernicious influence of ordinary citizens? Indeed, free of corruption, the nation's leaders might fall prey to the devious machinations of any indolent wastrel with a vote, and millions of laggard commoners would wield their new, unearned power over a hapless plutocracy. No, my friends, we must stand up for the ethical power of bribery: bribery, which empowers the working man by allowing decent, industrious Americans to convert their hard work - and that of their countless wage slaves - into the precious coinage of corruption, which Congress in its wisdom accepts in order to reward the diligently fraudulent over the apathetically honest. At the heart of the bribe are the core values on which this country was founded: a solid work ethic, trust in a higher power, and the belief that anyone, through diligence and perseverance, can one day own their own piece of America, complete with his choice of lawmaker. If we prosecute the leaders Jack Abramoff bribed, we prosecute nothing more - and nothing less - than the American Dream itself. Somewhere on some distant, godforsaken shore is a lowly peasant dreaming of a chance someday to travel to America, to walk its fabled streets, to work hard for the day when he too can buy a congressman of his very own and say, "This land is my land, this law is my law, this illegally approved casino belongs to you and me!" Don't crush that lowly peasant's dreams, my friends. America is for sale to everyone. Labels: majestic equality
posted by the Medium Lobster at 3:43 PM
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