Money Talks....More Money talks louder...In the U.S.

I mentioned at one point in one of the posts that...
Power Corrupts and Absolute Power corrupts absolutely...
From Athens to the current democracies of the West...the charade continues...
And the West wants to teach democracy to Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia, Syria...and all the world....
Here is a sample of recent decision in the U.S. not to mention all the killings and carnage that goes on because of the "gun lobby" with money....

 This is CNN reporting...

(CNN) -- On Wednesday, April 2, the United States Supreme Court ruled that any cap on the overall amount a person can spend to influence an election is unconstitutional. Following on the heels of the court's previous decision ... [this] ruling will allow unlimited spending to influence our nation's political process.

You shouldn't need money or connections to get a fair shake in our justice system. That's the very essence of our American creed. And yet we know that even with previous restrictions, money had a corrupting influence on our democracy.

Here are two recent cases

1) This happened recently....

Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden's decision to order probation instead of prison for a du Pont family heir who raped his young daughter and he later sexually molested his young son…but got no jail time…because his wealth will make him not suitable for prison…the sentencing order signed by a Delaware judge said "defendant will not fare well" in prison and the rapist got eight years of suspended sentence.

2)....and this happened recently too...

Ethan Couch was sentenced to 10 years’ probation after killing four people while driving drunk in June. A defense expert argued that the boy was so spoiled that he didn't know the difference between right and wrong.

A recent Texas case in which a wealthy teenager driving drunk killed four people but received no jail time. Ethan Couch was sentenced last year to 10 years' probation.

A witness in Couch's case claimed the teenager was a victim of "affluenza" -- the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for the boy.

• The same thing happened in Toronto when a wealthy drag racer killer a taxi driver on Don Valley Parkway…and got off...

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•  I love this new word...affluenza. it means addicted to wealth and affluence in such a way that it has corrupted all the human faculties so as the subject cannot distinguish between right and wrong...

Athens invented a new form of government in which people ruled themselves. This way of governing was superb and effective. As a consequence, Athens flourished and grew both in wealth and power. Athens defeated the Persian challenge and established itself as the leading power of the world and produced treasures of architecture and led the way in philosophy and literature…which still we learn and admire in our schools.

But when privilege, mismanagement, corruption, cronyism and patronage corrupted the democratic thought and rule, the beacon of democracy…dimmed and the lights went off….

This collapse ushered in dictatorships and absolute monarchies assisted with clergy and clerical nobility dictated the pace.

The French revolution and the British evolutionary political process ushered a new wave of democratic aspirations.

It will be almost twenty centuries before democracy and democratic thought began to flourish again…this time in the U.S. of A. – the U.S. Constitution reinvented the new democratic order and heralded a new representative democracy.

 Again, government by popular consent proved ingenious. The United Staes grew into the world leading power-economically, culturally and militarily. In Europe, democracies overtook authoritarian monarchies and fascist and Nazi dictatorships…

But democracy defined by “one human one vote” is deficient….The rights of minorities and the defense of those rights by the majority must be also enshrined in the constitution. When the rights of minorities collapse, democracy and democratic institution will suffer and the outcome will be deficient…

The U.S. of A. democratic experiment is approaching 250 years. It has been as successful as the first. But the lessons from Athens are that success does not breed success.

Democracy is a form of government that must be created with determination and be reinvented every day…and that it will disintegrate unless nurtured and protected 24/7…

Democracy in the West, in the United States, Britain and the rest…, has been retreating…The profit motive has corrupted everything….