Love, Live Faith, Choose Hope,
Inspire Action, Seek Change
 

POWER
TO THE PEOPLE

CORPORATIONS
ARE NOT PEOPLE

MONEY
IS NOT SPEECH

It shall be a serious felony for any elected official, person campaigning for public office, or any person employed by any governmental entity or political subdivision to take any payments of money or anything of financial value from any source except for:

a.       their duly authorized salary and reimbursement for authorized expenses,

b.      non-transferable campaign contributions to be used only to pay the cash expenses of campaigning for public office in the current election cycle and for no other purpose

                     i.      only from qualified contributors defined as natural persons who are eligible to vote for the candidate to whom contributions are made and limited to a maximum aggregate contribution from any qualified contributor of $2,500 USD or equivalent value within a campaign period beginning not more than six months prior to the election day and ending upon said election day on which the candidate is seeking election.

1.      ( Qualified contributors shall not be organizations, clubs, corporations, unions, cooperatives, limited liability companies nor any other entity created by contract or legal fiction.)

c.       and small gifts of a personal nature from members of the direct family of the elected official or person employed by any governmental entity or political subdivision.

No political campaign in the United States of America shall be extended credit nor incur debt; all expenditures arising from any political campaign in the United States of America shall be on a cash basis drawn only from legal contributions as authorized by this amendment or the personal funds of the candidate.

Violations shall be punished by forfeiture of all money or financial value received in violation of this amendment, a fine equal to three times the value received in violation of this amendment and confinement in federal prison for a term of at least two years but for a term that that shall not be less time than the term of the elected office sought while receiving any payments of money or anything of financial value in violation of this amendment.

$2,500 per voter is a good maximum that should not need to be changed any time soon. Wealthy folks could afford $2,500 for every candidate, from their local and state elections through federal, so those who have done well will still have more influence than us slackers but they won’t be able to buy elections.  

Even more importantly, this would outlaw the practice of lobbyists speaking with large campaign contributions and political junkets. Yes, lobbyists will still speak but only with their voices, not with money. That levels the playing field so that any voter can lobby just like corporations and other large business interests do now.

Currently, we wonder why politicians seem so passionate about helping the people while running for office but become corporate shills as soon as they begin to serve. That is only because politicians are beholden primarily to “funders,” big money folks who actually pay for campaigns. We need to take those “funders” totally out of politics to the point that they cannot contribute to anyone for whom that contributor cannot personally caste a legal vote and then not more than $2.500 per candidate per election cycle.
 

"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan. November 12, 1816.
 

 – Soren Kierkegaard

"...Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob..."

 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Cowardice asks the question:
Is it safe?
Expediency asks the question:
Is it politic?
Vanity asks the question:
Is it popular?
But conscience asks the question:
Is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular -- but he must take it simply because conscience tells him it is right. – Martin Luther King Jr., from his address, "To Chart Our Course for the Future" (1968).

Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices

  on the side of love, not hate;
  on the side of inclusion, not exclusion;
  tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountain top,
  help us to hold on to the
  spirit of fellowship and the
  oneness of our family.

  – Rev. Joseph Lowery, Jan. 20, 2009,
     from his inaugural benediction.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms in not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. - Address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower "The Chance for Peace" delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16,1953

Paul's Charge to Timothy 

¹¹ But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.

Give until it hurts,
because real love hurts.
– Mother Teresa: In My Own Words

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
 – 1 John 4:18

...do not worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.
 – Matthew 6:34

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. – Albert Einstein

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form.  – Albert Einstein

And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  – Matthew 6:5‑6

They that can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
 – Benjamin Franklin