Don't Call the Arsonists to Put Out the Fire: Democratic-Republican Government as On-going Criminal Enterprise in New York State

Due to a minor technical glitch, The Whig was down for a brief period over the holidays, but it's now back up and running. In a recent post, Septimus relays a NYT editorial calling on the people of New York to vote out all of their state legislators this year. Here are a few excerpts from what The Times calls "the worst of the worst" of the NYS legislature:

New York has been on the brink of economic collapse, but the Legislature blithely ignored the problem for months. When the deficit reached a truly alarming $3.2 billion, the lawmakers grudgingly agreed to last-minute fixes while carefully protecting their political buddies and donors . . .

Senate Republicans had abused their 40-year majority and secretly used state money to pursue party business. Among the discoveries: a secret plant, with 75 employees, to print Republicans’ mail to constituents; a Republican-only television studio; secret Republican Party research staff . . .

The Republicans’ longtime Senate leader, Joseph Bruno, stepped down in 2008 before he was indicted on eight counts of exploiting his office for personal gain. Earlier this month, Mr. Bruno was convicted on two felony counts involving “theft of honest services." . . .

let’s not forget the Republican coup in June, abetted by two of the least-qualified Democrats: Senators Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens. Never mind that Mr. Espada was — and is — being investigated for allegedly living outside his district and failing to report campaign contributions. And Mr. Monserrate already had been indicted for assaulting his girlfriend.

This is not the first time the NYT has made calls for blanket anti-incumbency. But, as Septimus argues, simply voting out incumbents does not go nearly far enough. From The Whig:

While replacing everyone might help in the short term, it doesn't get to the core of the problem. If you vote out all of the current crop of corrupt Democrats and Republicans, you will only be replacing them with other Democrats and Republicans, and the political machines that we call the two major parties will keep humming along under different names.

We need more profound and deeper change. It is becoming apparent that we need to rethink how we conduct the serious business of politics. Just replacing Democrats with Republicans, or vice versa, is not enough. If you replace an office holder with another who embodies the same political culture, you will get only a change of rhetoric, but not a change of any substance.

That is the main reason I am not more enthusiastic about efforts to simply vote out incumbents. One of the main efforts is at goooh.com. GOOOH stands for "Get Out Of Our House" and is an effort to replace incumbents. This effort does not go nearly far enough.

If we were to replace every Democrat with a Republican, and every Republican with a Democrat, the control of the House would change, and that would be about it. Not only did the corrupt political culture not change when the Democrats took over from the Republicans, but the downward trend of our politics only accelerated. Didn't the "Contract With America" Republicans of 1994 degenerate quickly into the corruption of Tom Delay?

Replacing one with the other is not the answer. We need more political competition. Only this will produce the fairness, common sense, and moderation we need so badly.