c. 1998 Religion News Service
(The Rev. James Dunn is executive director of the Baptist Joint Commitee on Public Affairs).
UNDATED_”What would it cost to buy me a senator?”asked a good ol’ boy from Texas 20 years ago. The question, asked in a sort of semi-ignorant amorality, was serious. He had the money to buy. Alas, inflation has set in. Today, he couldn’t buy a senator’s wardrobe.
What is the nexus between campaign finance reform and morality?
It’s easy to see the influence of traditional sin peddlers on politics. Big tobacco stops dead in its tracks the promise of reform that would save 3,000 lives a year. Beer barons and liquor lobbies recruit restauranteurs and tourist-trappers to ensure there is no strict standard of .08 percent blood alcohol as a definition of drunken driving. Gambling fat cats lubricate the political machine with their largess. Now that, too, is immoral.
But there’s more to morality than these obvious excesses.
Washington buzzes about morality but too much of that talk is about individual iniquity, sexual sin and personal perversions.
The larger threats to decency and uprightness come in the violation of a sacred trust that occurs when human beings are for sale. That is what was wrong with slavery. Now, persons in the political process are slaves to the system. And that’s immoral.
Gross immorality prevails when respect for the rule of law is diminished or destroyed. Legal loopholes perforate political contribution regulations.
In fact, the very idea that money has absolute First Amendment rights is a concept only recently supported by the United States Supreme Court. Could Satan conjure up a better justification? Simply,”money talks.” Want to grow a generation of cynics? Teach them the Golden Rule is exactly as described by the meanest of mortals:”He who has the gold makes the rules.”Now that’s immoral.
Yet, the connection between campaign finance reform and ethical oughtness is even deeper. Anything that strikes at the sacred precinct of humanity _ of personhood _ is by definition immoral.
The universal understanding of what it means to be a person is entangled with the concept of free moral agency. The ability to respond _ to be response-able, responsible and free is a package deal. Responsibility and freedom are indissoluble _ two sides of one coin.
At least that’s the way the three great religions of”the Book”_ Judaism, Christianity and Islam _ see it.
In this view, every human being has a faculty even God will not trample. People are free and responsible. So for any external force to run roughshod over personal prerogatives is immoral.
A system that steadily invalidates the integrity of individual initiative by intervening between the electorate and the elected is immoral. When the will of the voters is violated, that’s usually bad. When the money of a few sidetracks the will of many, that’s always wrong.
We condemn any ruthlessness that destroys persons. We weep at violence _ like that in Rwanda _ that takes thousands of physical lives. How then can we be so inured to callous disregard for political life? Is not the demise of democracy tyranny?
Perhaps political ruthlessness is simply a prelude to other forms of violence. Maybe denigration of democracy by bosses buying votes obtains a difference more in degree than in kind from the disregard for persons one saw in Rwanda. If ordinary folks don’t count, what does it matter? That’s a question of morality.
Two universals should concern us. One is the respect and dignity that should be afforded to every human being made in the image of God. The other is the fallibility of all humankind.
Even when we know what’s right, understand the differences between good and evil, and appreciate the course of action that serves our own highest interests, we will still blow it. And that’s even more true of groups _ special interests. When we band together it is, in Reinhold Niebuhr’s words,”moral man and immoral society.” And so, political parties, corporations, wealthy individuals, sleazy publications, big contributors, industries, businessmen, labor unions, moneyed interests and even justices of the Supreme Court can see money as having the absolute rights of free speech:”If God says, lovin’ money is the root of all sin, then God is unAmerikin.” A hundred years ago the wealthy Ohioan Mark Hanna said,”There are two things more important in politics. The first is money and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Of course, contributions affect the voting behavior of members of Congress. Not every member, not all the time, not every vote, but sure, how stupid do you think we are?
Fundamental questions must be asked? Ten years ago, Barry Goldwater said:”Liberty depend(s) on honest elections … to be successful, representative government assumes elections will be controlled by the citizenry at large … Elected officials must owe their allegiance to the people.” That’s a matter of morality.
DEA END DUNN
