IS THERE ANY WAY OUT TO MAKE POLITICIANS MORE REFINED AND RESPONSIBLE OR VICE VERSE? 3/11/2011
Personally I would like to unite of Indian Parliamentarians salaries to the average salary of a working western or European people for example a member of Parliament can earn no more than five times times the average European salary or create a system where if they can't balance the budget, their salaries are automatically lowered by a certain percentage. My other ideas include dramatically limiting earmarks and only permitting votes on tax laws with 60 days of a general election.
If only we could all be gifted with the ability to say the perfect thing, at the right time, at all events. Trying to balance the time you have to speak with the words that impart what you are trying to convey, often in an impromptu setting, is difficult.
If you see the western scenario no matter what issue or problem in Canada concerns you, making the largest corporations and banks in Canada more responsible and accountable will help win the changes and solutions you are seeking.
A total of 155,000 corporations and 40 banks that the federal government regulates are not effectively required to act honestly, ethically, openly, responsibly or to prevent waste.
Incredibly, the laws and enforcement of parking a car illegally are stronger than most corporate responsibility and bank accountability laws and enforcement systems in Canada, and in some cases the penalties for parking illegally are higher than for corporate executives who act dishonestly, unethically, secretively, irresponsibly or wastefully.
No federal political party has focused on Canada's corporate responsibility system in the past 140 years. Most recently, the federal Liberals had majority power from November 1993 to June 2004, and then after the June 2004 election controlled a minority of seats in Parliament, and then the federal Conservatives have controlled a minority of seats in Parliament since the January 2006 election until they won a majority in the spring 2011 election.
The federal Liberals did not do nearly enough between 1993 and 2004 to ensure that Canada's largest corporations and banks are effectively required to act honestly, ethically, openly, representatively or to prevent waste, and the federal Conservatives have also not done enough since January 2006.
In fact, the federal Conservatives used the public's money through the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation to bail out Canada's big banks by buying $70 billion of home mortgages from the banks, and also used the Bank of Canada and other subsidy programs to help the banks, for a total of almost $200 billion in subsidies in 2009 -- yet they did not require anything from the banks in return.
And while the federal New Democratic Party (NDP), the Bloc Québecois Party, and the Green Party have focused more than the Liberals and Conservatives on strengthening the federal corporate responsibility and bank accountability systems, they have also not made these changes a top priority issue.
Canada's largest 1,000 corporations spend more than $25 billion annually on their lobbying and promotion efforts, including on about 10,000 full-time lobbyists across the country. In contrast, there are only about 500 full-time citizen group lobbyists, and citizen groups spend only about $50 million annually on lobbying and promotion. As a result, Canadians must all work together and push hard if there is any hope to counter the corporate lobby and win key corporate responsibility changes.
According to that country’s constitution, an incumbent President cannot run for presidency for the second time. Experts have argued that if Estrada was allowed to seek the presidency for the second time, he might have been less corrupt in his first term. It is possible to rebut their argument by citing the Indian example: the chance to run for an elected office again has not been sufficient to discipline most Indian politicians.
But in India every politician understands what is in his or her short-term interest. They know what the party leadership wants, what their campaign contributors want, and what lobbyists want. At what point does the longterm interest of the nation as a whole come into play? Who represents the interests of future generations? Today, our future is determined by cowardly politicians who can only think as far as the next election. Our economy is guided by short-sighted corporations that only care about hitting their quarterly numbers, lest their stock nosedives and they get taken over by a rival corporation.
However the no of MLAs with criminal cases have gone up from 18 percent to 20 percent and more to that. This has happened in spite of the fact that before elections, leaders of both the major national parties promising that they will not field any candidates with criminal records, again shows the need for making our parties more accountable. As we enter into a new year, getting ready for general elections to put a new government in place at center, can civil societies mount enough pressure on our establishment to make them more responsible as stated by Anil Bairwal.
Sometime I feel the government system , i mean whole government machinery is responsible for putting restriction on both Politicians and the people. They are the ones who are responsible for making sure that everyone follows the law. But under pressure from government and under pressure of corruption, they not only allow everyone to be engaged in unlawful activities but they themselves also get involved in unlawful activities. Could anyone escaped from law if these government servants would have done there job properly? Would court cases would have been pending for 15-20 years, would criminals dare to contest in elections and roaming free on road, could people dare to get illegal water connection, could some used a wall as public toilet, could someone paid some money and got illegal passport if these government servant would have done their job?
As a saying goes "Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible".It is a fact that when we start accusing or start pointing fingers for the present condition of the nation, the first community that comes into our mind, is the community of Politicians. Politicians, who were responsible to rule the nation for us, for their personal benefits, did all sort of corruptions, found holes in the law, tool wrong decision and messed up this nation.
Some people object to many ideas because there are too many irresponsible people in India especially, people who will cause trouble if the government doesn't restrain them.They say we must have big government because some people won't act decently toward others, some people won't plan for their own retirement, some people are too stupid to take care of themselves properly.
In fact, the entire effort to wed morality and politics is based on the assumption that there are immoral or irresponsible people whom the government must control.It's because politicians don't use the power and money you give them to do the things you want. They use those resources to do what they want. And all they want is more power and more power and more power.
Give people the freedom to make their own decisions, to face the consequences of their own acts, to see for themselves what their actions do to others and how others respond to them.Only free people have an incentive to be virtuous. Only people who bear the consequences of their own acts will care about those consequences and try to learn from their mistakes.A free society rewards virtue and punishes irresponsibility. Government does just the opposite subsidizing irresponsibility while taxing work and responsibility.
If other states keep taxes constant, voters may punish the incumbent by defeating him in the next election - even if the tax increase is relatively small. Elections are a weapon that voters have to discipline politicians. Sharp and effective though this weapon is, it can be used only once in a while, say once in five years.
We need to have a fast and effective judicial system to discipline corrupt and inefficient politicians, at the same time enjoying the fruits of democracy and the services of the few good politicians we have. Otherwise, the democracy remains lame duck most of the time, becomes active and effective only once in five years, or two years, to go by the frequent elections we have had in India in the past few decades.
It's often said that freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin that if you want freedom, you must first accept the responsibility that goes with it.
The truth is simpler. Freedom and responsibility aren't interconnected things. They are the same thing. Freedom is responsibility. Responsibility is experiencing the consequences of your own acts not the consequences of others acts or making others pay for what you do.
And that's what freedom is. Without government to force others to pay for your pleasures or mistakes, and without forcing you to pay for what others do, you are a free, responsible human being. We have to decide whether we want a nation of self-reliant individuals who improve their own lives by offering needed services to others or a nation in which everyone is responsible for everyone else and so the government must control every aspect of our lives. We don't need a moral revival, we don't need politicians making moral decisions for us, we don't need more controls. If we want people to act more responsibly.
There are plenty of people who won't act responsibly. There are people who have no regard for the consequences of their own acts. There are people who seem incapable of behaving wisely or nicely.
Meaningless shouting, sloganeering and protesting are futile efforts to express dissent. Today's youth is a beautiful concoction of good, creative minds with great insights. So why not choose creative means of expression as the key mantra?
Very often, the youth is misled and provided a wrong perspective. The confusion that leads them in a state of aggression must be addressed. Nobody is born corrupt, they learn it from their elders. Meaningless shouting, sloganeering and protesting is not the right way. The youth consists of good, creative people with marvelous brains, which is going to waste. The effort should be to provide them creative means of expression. One must take an individual stand and never indulge oneself into mindless protest. There are better option also.
Indians may call itself a "democracy" but it is only in name. And we are forgetting the key element to any functioning democracy, a free press that properly informs its citizenry. We have had neither for a long, long time.
SIDDHARTHA SHANKAR MISHRA,
BUREAU CHIEF,
TASVER E HIND, THESE DAYS,
ORISSA , SAMBALPUR
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