How Can A Rigged System Be a Clean System?

At Downsize DC, I've blogged a letter from a diverse coalition opposing grassroots lobbying regulation. One paragraph from the letter:

H.R. 2093 is also disturbing because it refers to someone contacting his or her representative as “lobbying,” which would probably come as a shock to most constituents. Most would consider this action as “democracy” rather than “lobbying.” The term “lobbying” has a different connotation, and is regulated because of the possibility of corrupting influence. By equating constituent contact as “lobbying,” the bill opens the possibility of future regulation and reporting of citizens who contact their elected representatives.

Also at Downsize, Jim Babka reports on Doug Stanhope quitting his campaign for the Libertarian Presidential nomination, because of the nation's campaign-finance laws. Babka writes,

Ed Crane, of CATO fame, after years of top party activism, had told the libertarian world back in '83 or so, that minor parties had no chance in the current campaign finance regime.

But Crane wasn't listening either. He could've paid attention to former 1968 Democratic Presidential aspirant Eugene McCarthy who had said that the system of registration, reporting, and contribution limits, entrenched by the 1974 Buckley v. Valeo case, would've killed his campaign -- would've made his New Hampshire primary shocker, which provoked Lyndon Johnson to drop out of the race, "impossible."

Johnson would've won the Democratic nomination that year if we had the campaign finance laws we have today. Perhaps that's a clue as to why we have them?

Money is always necessary to get anything done, even, (duh!) organizing and communicating. The drive to get "money out of politics" can only favor incumbents and the two major parties who already have an adequate support infrastructure and media access. Corruption isn't eliminated by such "reforms," it is entrenched by them. If you support efforts to prevent the grassroots from communicating with their elected representatives, and laws that prevent ordinary men and women from running for office, then you are actually favoring a form of corruption far worse than what you complain about. The "clean" system you want is a rigged system that pisses on the First Amendment and undermines representative democracy.