Those Who Said Our Government is Just Incompetent are Wrong. It is Corrupt Too.

Every week brings a new scandal. All those who said that our federal government is just incompetent were wrong. It is that, of course, but it is more than that. It is corrupt too.

This is more than just politics. Our political parties have always viewed the world differently. The left wants to shape a world that is warm and secure and fair for everyone. That requires a bigger government with more bureaucrats making more decisions for you; and their mistakes affect us all.

The right doesn’t want to shape your future. They don’t even know how. They seek to have more freedom and less government so that you can make those choices. You will make mistakes too, but your mistakes will not affect others.

The U.S. Capitol on November 19, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images) 

Today the stakes are higher than ever because the nation is as divided as it has ever been. The winning side shapes the future, and since the two envisioned futures are so diametrically opposed, politics has become war.

Lately, agencies of the government have enlisted in that war. They are natural allies of the left since they too support a bigger government, but for somewhat different reasons. To them a bigger government means more dues paying union members yielding larger political action committees to elect more people from the left who agree with them.

What is new is that the bureaucrats have blatantly begun to use the immense powers of the institutions they manage to achieve political results.

The IRS scandal is an example of that corruption. A scheme was developed to delay the approval of tax-exempt status of conservative groups so that they could not be active in the 2010 and 2012 elections. They went so far as to communicate with the Department of Justice, the Federal Election Commission and the FBI in order to “piece together” criminal charges against one or two of the groups to intimidate the others.

A corrupt FEC was already a part of the war. This non-partisan agency was established to fairly monitor election laws. They also make judgments as to what is permitted in the political process. In 2004 they decided that the virulent anti-Bush documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” was not political and could be shown. On the other hand, “Hillary: The Movie” was judged to be political in 2008 and not allowed to be shown.

(Source: Shutterstock)

During the congressional investigation of the IRS, four IRS commissioners (Steven Miller, Daniel Werfel, Douglas Schulman, and Josh Koskinen) lied under oath. The IRS earned four criminal referrals and a contempt of Congress citation.

Ten days after a demand from Congress for production of emails, the principal player’s hard drive crashed and, as luck would have it, so did the hard drives of six others who were in the line of the investigation. This is a lie and the public knows it.

All of this activity was undertaken with equanimity because the guilty parties knew that they wouldn’t be prosecuted since the attorney general was as corrupt as they. Indeed, Attorney General Eric Holder even lied under oath to a judge to get approval to wiretap reporter’s phones. To this date no one knows why.

He also lied to Congress and refused to respond to a subpoena. He was found in contempt. He won’t be prosecuted either.

Congress is investigating the Environmental Protection Agency's effort to stop the development of a copper mine in Alaska. The employee involved retired and left the country. His hard drive crashed and his emails are lost. Imagine that!

The White House blames it all on politics. After initially expressing shock and anger at the IRS targeting scheme the president has changed his tune and now says that it is a phony scandal dreamed up by Republicans.

Credit: AP

The president ignores laws he doesn’t like and changes laws at will. His overreaching was just overruled by a unanimous Supreme Court. It was the 12th time the administration has been struck down by a unanimous Supreme Court. Speaker John Boehner has said that he would sue the president next month over his abuse of power.

I’m not encouraged about the prospects of judicial action. Judges too have corrupted the political process. Overstepping their constitutional charge, judges routinely strike down state laws that were passed by an overwhelming vote of the people.

So we turn, don’t we, to the ultimate leveler in a free society, a free and robust press.

In a letter to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free no one ever will."

As stated by Justice Hugo Black, “The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.”

The press has a unique role in keeping government honest and America free. Our founders could never have envisioned the media becoming so corrupted that they would enlist in the War on Freedom.

But they have and we are left alone and bereft.

John Linder served in Congress for 18 years from Georgia. He and his wife, Lynne, have retired to a farm in Northeast Mississippi. He can be contacted at: linderje@yahoo.com

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