Ladeer&Co.

(This article was originally posted on my personal blog here and promoted to this [more formal] blog on Oct 28, 2006 for Digg.com access.)

"Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when the only idea left is power."

The TIME cover story on cnn.com sheds light to what has gone wrong within the GOP. It also makes me think whether we shall take a different approach toward corruption. Our traditional expectation of a corruption-free government is perhaps impossibly idealistic; such expectation only breeds coverups. Instead of zero-tolerance for corruption, why don't we manage corruption like how we manage the UV ray (by using sunscreen accordingly)? We shall just publicly admit our shortcoming and forgive one another; intervention is administered as need arise.

For example, if you are a congressman and a pedophile, go public about it! Keep your job as long as you don't serve on the missing children committee. If you once a while send a distasteful email, well, we will forgive you.

What I am saying is of course impossible to implement, so we will forever discover new scandals from respectful figures. What the Republican bothers me most though, is how they are so damn legalistic, or how this article puts it--their lofty moral ground. If you ain't a priest, don't try to act like one because you ain't fooling nobody! (Actually now days, even if you are a priest...) You see, I think the Democrats are more with the people, truer, less perfect and closer to the working class.

Actually this is like the two types of learner theory. To learn about alcoholism for example, some people prefer to learn from a MD who never drank (the authoritative model), while some people prefer to learn from an ex-alcoholist (the incarnational model). I gravitate toward the later kind, maybe because I recognize myself as the most wrestch person constantly. Maybe that is why certain "moral perfectionists" with their naive and sheltered pursuits simply disgust me.

Excerpt from the article:

"If I fold up my tent and leave," said Dennis Hastert (Speaker of the House, the head of the Gang of Eight), "then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we'd have no ability to fight back and get our message out."

That may have been the most damning admission yet in the unfolding scandal surrounding Florida Congressman Mark Foley: Holding on to power has become not just the means but also the end for the onetime reformers who unseated the calcified Democratic majority that had ruled the House for 40 years.

# posted by Gary Chou @ 11:10 AM