1. Pay-for-play v. pay-for-access
If you live in a conservative state (i.e., Utah), undertake the following experiment: After an election, call every (Utah) Republican Senator and Congressional Rep. and try to talk to them about any subject, whatsoever, that concerns you as a voter. Track how many you are able to talk to, directly, and how long you are able to talk with them. Afterwards, donate $500 to all the same politicians. Repeat, and track the process of contacting them. Wait at least six months, then donate $10,000 each and repeat the same process. What you will find is that those who pay – and those who pay more – have greater access to our politicians. This is called, “pay for access.”
It happens in all relationships. If you spend more time and money with, and on, your dog than any other co-habitant who spends less time and money on the same dog, you will get more attention (whether actual or perceived) by that dog. Spend more time and money on any human being, who is physically and mentally capable of interacting with you, and you will get more attention by that person.
I use the example of Republicans, because my fellow “conservative” supporters of Donald Trump are very ignorant, emotive, and hypocritical about this issue. (Sorry guys, all politicians engage in this completely legal phenomenon.) You just don’t like Hillary Clinton because she is one of the most skillful and dexterous politicians when it comes to raising money and providing access. Using your definition, Donald Trump is one of the most corrupt politicians ever to run from president. He has paid thousands of dollars to politicians to buy access and to evert influence.
Laterally, all politicians who have garnered any success, whatsoever, receive speaking royalties and enormous sums of cash for granting access to them. Currently, whether you agree with it or not, that right has been constitutionalized in the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United.
One other aspect about how this issue is irredeemably hypocritical of Donald Trump supporters is this: Donald Trump has admitted that he engaged in the process of being an equal partner with all politicians. If Donald Trump supporters are angry about their alleged lack of access, they have themselves to blame. They support news organizations that benefit from massive infusions of cash from corporations that have the monopoly on access to their Republican representatives, due to their contributions to them.
Pay-to-play, on the other hand, is payment to a government agency, official, or politician for the right to some government benefit. It is usually legal, if it is part of a specific legal-sanctioned requirement to be considered for receiving certain government benefits. It is generally illegal if paid “under the table,”outside normal channels, or without any accounting, and paid in secret to a specific politician or government official.
Unfortunately, pay to play borders on pay for play when donations in services, goods, or money are made to businesses or nonprofit organizations affiliated with a politician, and then the politician indirectly promotes legislation that favors a constituent who has paid such money, or the politician influences the award of certain government benefits or privileges. However, if these actions are transparent and appropriately accounted for, pursuant to current law, it is usually completely legal.
Here is an idea that would fix the problem (however, conservatives and Republicans would never promote such an idea or allow it to be promulgated into law, because they stand to lose the most under such a system): All donations to all politicians, political organizations, and nonprofit organizations, including churches, must be made anonymously in a system that is transparent, and in which the politicians and political parties never know from whom or from what organizations the money is being provided. The reason that many conservatives – as well as a fewer number of liberals – would rebel at such a system, is because they want to have influence and access. The more powerful and more wealthy want to have more influence and access than the less powerful and poor. This is how you end up with a tax system in which a person like Donald Trump pays no federal tax on his income.
While there is some information, supposition, and speculation to suggest that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have engaged in pay-for-play, there are, thus far, no findings by any judicial or administrative body (that require the procedural and substantial protections to ensure fairness) which has found either party to have engaged in illegal pay-for-play. The suggestion that either are corrupt in this sense is simply false. The argument that this kind of activity should be defined as corruption and proscribed by law is a good one, and I recommend you all get behind a legal movement to put an end to it.
To avoid confusion, you must realize that when Donald Trump supporters accuse Hillary Clinton of corruption, they are engaging in Communal Projection Syndrome, in which the faults of their own leader, organizations, and groups are projected onto their foes.
2. Taking Politically Unpopular Positions
Many Donald Trump supporters label Hillary Clinton as corrupt because she has taken unpopular political positions. She is pro-choice and believes that Roe v. Wade should be upheld. She was an early supporter of healthcare reform. By the way, if any of you have been listening, you would know that Donald Trump, at various times in his life, including much waffling up to the present day, has also been pro-choice and wanted a socialized medical system. Using the label “corrupt,” or “crooked,” to describe either Trump or Hillary – because they have positions that are unpopular among certain constituents – is simply hyperbole and perpetrates a falsehood.
3. Reacting to a Spouse’s Infidelity
If I threw various items into a very small room in which you and a few others were confined, you would all probably react in very instinctive and almost unpredictable ways. Such items could include a bucket of burning gasoline-soaked rags, a bucket of poisonous snakes, a skunk, something vile, like a bucket of blood or feces, or an Africanized honey bees’ nest. In reacting to such stimuli, you may brake things, swear, and throw elbows in your rush to get free.
A marriage is a very confined, emotional, and temporal space in which two people coexist – some very well, and others not so well. While hoping you would act better or make better choices, faulting the nonparticipating spouse for the other spouse’s infidelity, without intimately knowing the details, and being overly critical of their reaction, is despicable.
The criticism that his been heaped upon Hillary Clinton for Bill Clinton’s infidelities is simply preposterous. This is even true of her reactions to his accusers. In view of Donald’s reality, this should be especially understood by Donald Trump supporters. We must judge each candidate based on what we know they have said and are saying, and what we know they have done and are doing. It is preposterous for Donald Trump supporters to be critical of Hillary Clinton’s alleged criticism of her husband’s accusers. Hillary’s reactions to her husband’s behavior did, and does not, make her corrupt. Donald Trump’s behavior does not make Melania corrupt. However, if statements and behavior that would suggest condoning sexual assault and intemperance is deemed “corrupt,” then Donald Trump is corrupt.
3. Having a “Public Position” and “Private Position,” In and Of Itself, Is Not Corruption
I, like Hillary Clinton, have a private, and a public position. Sometimes I think someone is unattractive, boorish, rude, or does not look well-dressed, but I don’t tell them publicly. Sometimes I am critical of something, privately, but do not share it publicly.
I, like Hillary Clinton, have a private, almost faith-based belief that the world would be better off if we had open borders, complete and unfettered free trade, and free taco Tuesdays. However, because I live in an imperfect world (i.e., a world in which many do not play by common standards of democracy and decency, a world in which other countries do not abide by our environmental and labor standards, a world in which other countries may not be as careful about the safety and sustainability of their services and products, and a world in which there are malevolent actors), I publicly believe we cannot have open borders and complete and unfettered free trade.
I hold a private position, instilled in my religious upbringing, that the world would be a better place if property could be held in common, and that everyone was given according to their needs and rewarded in accordance with their effort and merit. However, because we live in an imperfect world, where there are “freeloaders,” as well as human beings that need my grace and assistance, I maintain a public position: We cannot hold things in common, but we must act in ways that lighten the burdens of the disproportionately disadvantaged. We must continually be adjusting our system so that effort and merit are rewarded, while the fruits of that effort and merit are not squandered by those who would use their wealth, power, and fame to preserve the status quo at all costs, and thereby stagnate and squander our societal progress.
Furthermore, while my thoughts and communications with others have, at times, been petty, unduly critical, reactionary, and demonstratedly biased, I am grateful that I have made them rarely, and not often publically. I try to quickly apologize for these private statements and do not re-purpose them in public tirades time and time again. Manifesting these private statements and thoughts are truly a matter of character. Donald Trump has demonstrated that his allegedly private positions, private comments, and private actions are truly a manifestation of his character and how he acts publicly.
To the contrary, Hillary Clinton is not corrupt just because people who have worked for her have made injudicious statements, and may hold intemperate opinions about religion, as well as other political opponents and parties, and about certain public issues.
4. Benghazi, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, etc.
After millions of dollars spent investigating Benghazi, there is absolutely no proof that any American action, at the time the attacks were occurring, could have prevented the four American deaths that occurred therein. Moreover, as Donald Trump and others irresponsibly suggest, there is no proof that Hillary Clinton instigated the attacks, nor made the problem worse by failing to label it a “terrorist attack.” It is simply preposterous for Donald Trump and his supporters to blame Benghazi and all of the Middle East’s woes upon Hillary Clinton.
At the same time, it is equally preposterous not to give her any credit for any successes in the Middle East. It may surprise many Americans, but these countries (for better or for worse) have populations, religions, organizations, institutions, and citizens that act completely independent of American influence. It may also surprise Americans that while these countries have independent actors within them, we as a nation have acted in ways that have contributed to the instability of the Middle East long before the presidencies of the last 20 years. It may further surprise many Americans that we cannot often predict what any of our “best of the bad choices are” in attempting to resolve problems in the Middle East. Educated, rational, thinking human beings understand that there are pros and cons to many different strategies, including when not to give a timetable for withdrawal and when to give a timetable for withdrawal, when to alert adversaries of your intent, and when not to.
Moreover, while specific decisions regarding operational plans in a war zone necessarily need to remain confidential and secret, proposing overall strategies to defeat an enemy or a threat does not mean that the government has given the enemy the battle plans.
Donald Trump has no consistent, understandable, viable plan to bring about Nirvana, let alone peace, in the Middle East. He has no plan on how to protect us from terrorism. All he offers are insults and dramatic rants devoid of substance or intelligibility.
6. Nonprofit Organizations like the Clinton Foundation
Many nonprofit organizations capitalize on legal pay-for-access, or even pay-for-play dynamics.
For instance, some of them claim that if you pay certain sums of money, you will get access to God, access to blessings, access to forgiveness, and access to essential ordinances for salvation. Some of them purposely stock their boards with individuals who have, or have had, great political power and influence.
If you took stock of all of the most successful nonprofit organizations in a conservative state, like Utah, you would find that many board members have, or have had, political positions and influence within the Republican Party. You would also find that they use their political influence and power to legally ask wealthy individuals and corporations to donate to such nonprofit organizations. None of them are accused of corruption, so long as such activities and donations are properly acknowledged and accounted for.
Currently, there is no proof – nor any judicial or administrative investigations – establishing that the Clinton Foundation has engaged in any illegal behavior. The reason Donald Trump’s supporters detest Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation is simply because they have been more transparent and more successful than the allegedly nonprofit “Trump Foundation.”
Moreover, establishing and working for a nonprofit organization is just as admirable as working for or creating a for-profit corporation. Many people work for the LDS church, many people work for the International Red Cross, many people work for Catholic Relief Agencies, and there are dozens and dozens and dozens more nonprofit organizations that do not manufacture goods, nor work on a profit basis, that have thousands of employees. These organizations provide as much good and as much honor as any for-profit business. It is astounding to me that on one hand, conservatives have the mantra that they want nonprofit organizations and volunteers giving to meet the needs of the disproportionately underprivileged, yet they despise them and criticize them when they are successful doing so.
In summary: Keep in mind that when Donald Trump supporters accuse Hillary Clinton of corruption, they use that term in a general sense, to mean someone they don’t like and does not share their political positions. They also use this term to mean that she has perfected what they wish their own candidates had perfected: a successful presidential campaign, a command of self, and a successful non-profit foundation. Realize that they are engaging in Communal Projection Syndrome, in which the faults of their own leader, organizations, and groups are projected onto their foes.
Loren M. Lambert © October 23, 2016
If you live in a conservative state (i.e., Utah), undertake the following experiment: After an election, call every (Utah) Republican Senator and Congressional Rep. and try to talk to them about any subject, whatsoever, that concerns you as a voter. Track how many you are able to talk to, directly, and how long you are able to talk with them. Afterwards, donate $500 to all the same politicians. Repeat, and track the process of contacting them. Wait at least six months, then donate $10,000 each and repeat the same process. What you will find is that those who pay – and those who pay more – have greater access to our politicians. This is called, “pay for access.”
It happens in all relationships. If you spend more time and money with, and on, your dog than any other co-habitant who spends less time and money on the same dog, you will get more attention (whether actual or perceived) by that dog. Spend more time and money on any human being, who is physically and mentally capable of interacting with you, and you will get more attention by that person.
I use the example of Republicans, because my fellow “conservative” supporters of Donald Trump are very ignorant, emotive, and hypocritical about this issue. (Sorry guys, all politicians engage in this completely legal phenomenon.) You just don’t like Hillary Clinton because she is one of the most skillful and dexterous politicians when it comes to raising money and providing access. Using your definition, Donald Trump is one of the most corrupt politicians ever to run from president. He has paid thousands of dollars to politicians to buy access and to evert influence.
Laterally, all politicians who have garnered any success, whatsoever, receive speaking royalties and enormous sums of cash for granting access to them. Currently, whether you agree with it or not, that right has been constitutionalized in the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United.
One other aspect about how this issue is irredeemably hypocritical of Donald Trump supporters is this: Donald Trump has admitted that he engaged in the process of being an equal partner with all politicians. If Donald Trump supporters are angry about their alleged lack of access, they have themselves to blame. They support news organizations that benefit from massive infusions of cash from corporations that have the monopoly on access to their Republican representatives, due to their contributions to them.
Pay-to-play, on the other hand, is payment to a government agency, official, or politician for the right to some government benefit. It is usually legal, if it is part of a specific legal-sanctioned requirement to be considered for receiving certain government benefits. It is generally illegal if paid “under the table,”outside normal channels, or without any accounting, and paid in secret to a specific politician or government official.
Unfortunately, pay to play borders on pay for play when donations in services, goods, or money are made to businesses or nonprofit organizations affiliated with a politician, and then the politician indirectly promotes legislation that favors a constituent who has paid such money, or the politician influences the award of certain government benefits or privileges. However, if these actions are transparent and appropriately accounted for, pursuant to current law, it is usually completely legal.
Here is an idea that would fix the problem (however, conservatives and Republicans would never promote such an idea or allow it to be promulgated into law, because they stand to lose the most under such a system): All donations to all politicians, political organizations, and nonprofit organizations, including churches, must be made anonymously in a system that is transparent, and in which the politicians and political parties never know from whom or from what organizations the money is being provided. The reason that many conservatives – as well as a fewer number of liberals – would rebel at such a system, is because they want to have influence and access. The more powerful and more wealthy want to have more influence and access than the less powerful and poor. This is how you end up with a tax system in which a person like Donald Trump pays no federal tax on his income.
While there is some information, supposition, and speculation to suggest that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have engaged in pay-for-play, there are, thus far, no findings by any judicial or administrative body (that require the procedural and substantial protections to ensure fairness) which has found either party to have engaged in illegal pay-for-play. The suggestion that either are corrupt in this sense is simply false. The argument that this kind of activity should be defined as corruption and proscribed by law is a good one, and I recommend you all get behind a legal movement to put an end to it.
To avoid confusion, you must realize that when Donald Trump supporters accuse Hillary Clinton of corruption, they are engaging in Communal Projection Syndrome, in which the faults of their own leader, organizations, and groups are projected onto their foes.
2. Taking Politically Unpopular Positions
Many Donald Trump supporters label Hillary Clinton as corrupt because she has taken unpopular political positions. She is pro-choice and believes that Roe v. Wade should be upheld. She was an early supporter of healthcare reform. By the way, if any of you have been listening, you would know that Donald Trump, at various times in his life, including much waffling up to the present day, has also been pro-choice and wanted a socialized medical system. Using the label “corrupt,” or “crooked,” to describe either Trump or Hillary – because they have positions that are unpopular among certain constituents – is simply hyperbole and perpetrates a falsehood.
3. Reacting to a Spouse’s Infidelity
If I threw various items into a very small room in which you and a few others were confined, you would all probably react in very instinctive and almost unpredictable ways. Such items could include a bucket of burning gasoline-soaked rags, a bucket of poisonous snakes, a skunk, something vile, like a bucket of blood or feces, or an Africanized honey bees’ nest. In reacting to such stimuli, you may brake things, swear, and throw elbows in your rush to get free.
A marriage is a very confined, emotional, and temporal space in which two people coexist – some very well, and others not so well. While hoping you would act better or make better choices, faulting the nonparticipating spouse for the other spouse’s infidelity, without intimately knowing the details, and being overly critical of their reaction, is despicable.
The criticism that his been heaped upon Hillary Clinton for Bill Clinton’s infidelities is simply preposterous. This is even true of her reactions to his accusers. In view of Donald’s reality, this should be especially understood by Donald Trump supporters. We must judge each candidate based on what we know they have said and are saying, and what we know they have done and are doing. It is preposterous for Donald Trump supporters to be critical of Hillary Clinton’s alleged criticism of her husband’s accusers. Hillary’s reactions to her husband’s behavior did, and does not, make her corrupt. Donald Trump’s behavior does not make Melania corrupt. However, if statements and behavior that would suggest condoning sexual assault and intemperance is deemed “corrupt,” then Donald Trump is corrupt.
3. Having a “Public Position” and “Private Position,” In and Of Itself, Is Not Corruption
I, like Hillary Clinton, have a private, and a public position. Sometimes I think someone is unattractive, boorish, rude, or does not look well-dressed, but I don’t tell them publicly. Sometimes I am critical of something, privately, but do not share it publicly.
I, like Hillary Clinton, have a private, almost faith-based belief that the world would be better off if we had open borders, complete and unfettered free trade, and free taco Tuesdays. However, because I live in an imperfect world (i.e., a world in which many do not play by common standards of democracy and decency, a world in which other countries do not abide by our environmental and labor standards, a world in which other countries may not be as careful about the safety and sustainability of their services and products, and a world in which there are malevolent actors), I publicly believe we cannot have open borders and complete and unfettered free trade.
I hold a private position, instilled in my religious upbringing, that the world would be a better place if property could be held in common, and that everyone was given according to their needs and rewarded in accordance with their effort and merit. However, because we live in an imperfect world, where there are “freeloaders,” as well as human beings that need my grace and assistance, I maintain a public position: We cannot hold things in common, but we must act in ways that lighten the burdens of the disproportionately disadvantaged. We must continually be adjusting our system so that effort and merit are rewarded, while the fruits of that effort and merit are not squandered by those who would use their wealth, power, and fame to preserve the status quo at all costs, and thereby stagnate and squander our societal progress.
Furthermore, while my thoughts and communications with others have, at times, been petty, unduly critical, reactionary, and demonstratedly biased, I am grateful that I have made them rarely, and not often publically. I try to quickly apologize for these private statements and do not re-purpose them in public tirades time and time again. Manifesting these private statements and thoughts are truly a matter of character. Donald Trump has demonstrated that his allegedly private positions, private comments, and private actions are truly a manifestation of his character and how he acts publicly.
To the contrary, Hillary Clinton is not corrupt just because people who have worked for her have made injudicious statements, and may hold intemperate opinions about religion, as well as other political opponents and parties, and about certain public issues.
4. Benghazi, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, etc.
After millions of dollars spent investigating Benghazi, there is absolutely no proof that any American action, at the time the attacks were occurring, could have prevented the four American deaths that occurred therein. Moreover, as Donald Trump and others irresponsibly suggest, there is no proof that Hillary Clinton instigated the attacks, nor made the problem worse by failing to label it a “terrorist attack.” It is simply preposterous for Donald Trump and his supporters to blame Benghazi and all of the Middle East’s woes upon Hillary Clinton.
At the same time, it is equally preposterous not to give her any credit for any successes in the Middle East. It may surprise many Americans, but these countries (for better or for worse) have populations, religions, organizations, institutions, and citizens that act completely independent of American influence. It may also surprise Americans that while these countries have independent actors within them, we as a nation have acted in ways that have contributed to the instability of the Middle East long before the presidencies of the last 20 years. It may further surprise many Americans that we cannot often predict what any of our “best of the bad choices are” in attempting to resolve problems in the Middle East. Educated, rational, thinking human beings understand that there are pros and cons to many different strategies, including when not to give a timetable for withdrawal and when to give a timetable for withdrawal, when to alert adversaries of your intent, and when not to.
Moreover, while specific decisions regarding operational plans in a war zone necessarily need to remain confidential and secret, proposing overall strategies to defeat an enemy or a threat does not mean that the government has given the enemy the battle plans.
Donald Trump has no consistent, understandable, viable plan to bring about Nirvana, let alone peace, in the Middle East. He has no plan on how to protect us from terrorism. All he offers are insults and dramatic rants devoid of substance or intelligibility.
6. Nonprofit Organizations like the Clinton Foundation
Many nonprofit organizations capitalize on legal pay-for-access, or even pay-for-play dynamics.
For instance, some of them claim that if you pay certain sums of money, you will get access to God, access to blessings, access to forgiveness, and access to essential ordinances for salvation. Some of them purposely stock their boards with individuals who have, or have had, great political power and influence.
If you took stock of all of the most successful nonprofit organizations in a conservative state, like Utah, you would find that many board members have, or have had, political positions and influence within the Republican Party. You would also find that they use their political influence and power to legally ask wealthy individuals and corporations to donate to such nonprofit organizations. None of them are accused of corruption, so long as such activities and donations are properly acknowledged and accounted for.
Currently, there is no proof – nor any judicial or administrative investigations – establishing that the Clinton Foundation has engaged in any illegal behavior. The reason Donald Trump’s supporters detest Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation is simply because they have been more transparent and more successful than the allegedly nonprofit “Trump Foundation.”
Moreover, establishing and working for a nonprofit organization is just as admirable as working for or creating a for-profit corporation. Many people work for the LDS church, many people work for the International Red Cross, many people work for Catholic Relief Agencies, and there are dozens and dozens and dozens more nonprofit organizations that do not manufacture goods, nor work on a profit basis, that have thousands of employees. These organizations provide as much good and as much honor as any for-profit business. It is astounding to me that on one hand, conservatives have the mantra that they want nonprofit organizations and volunteers giving to meet the needs of the disproportionately underprivileged, yet they despise them and criticize them when they are successful doing so.
In summary: Keep in mind that when Donald Trump supporters accuse Hillary Clinton of corruption, they use that term in a general sense, to mean someone they don’t like and does not share their political positions. They also use this term to mean that she has perfected what they wish their own candidates had perfected: a successful presidential campaign, a command of self, and a successful non-profit foundation. Realize that they are engaging in Communal Projection Syndrome, in which the faults of their own leader, organizations, and groups are projected onto their foes.
Loren M. Lambert © October 23, 2016
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