American Government Essay Research Paper Politics is — страница 2

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his best interest to perform as many as possible. Reports and rumors of corruption further aggravate an already difficult situation. This conflict of interest boils down to a matter of human nature. Despite the heavy emphasis of equality in American culture, the people expect their representatives to be selfless, super-humans that can and will serve all the diverse needs of their constituents. But the simple fact is that politicians are humans too, and humans by nature are selfish and greedy. Every official has first and foremost his own interest and self-advancement in mind. Serving the every need of his constituents might not be conducive to a long and prosperous political career. They can rely on the fact that with poor voter turnouts, serving only the majority needs could

garner the necessary votes for re-election. On the other hand, policy making must take campaign contributors into account. Special interest groups influence political decisions through means of supporting campaign expenses. In fact, the power held by these interest groups has grown substantially over the years, so much so that ignoring their demands could lead to a loss in the next election. The structure of the government’s bureaucracy itself is a problem. Although Congress (Senate and House) is elected directly by the people, power within Congress is usually determined by the seniority system. In the majority party (the party which controls Congress), the person who has served the longest has the most power, a situation quite unfair in the democratic sense. Congress itself is

of limited ability; it is good at serving particular individual interests, but poor when it comes to general interests (due to its fragmented structure of committees and sub-committees). In fact, vote for a party/candidate only in principle, because in practice, there isn’t much difference. Bureaucracy is not unlike a great fast-moving train; even if another engineer takes control, it is incredibly hard to make any large adjustments without severely destabilize the train. Similarly, it wouldn’t matter which political party is in power, because any fundamental change would upset a lot of people (one of the unwritten laws of politics: to make an extreme change is to invite political suicide). America might be two-party in theory, but they are still two groups rowing the same

boat. When a task is voluntary, there will always be non-participants. This applies to voting as well. Many feel it is not their responsibility to vote, although the outcomes affect their lives drastically. The general suspicions towards government could be a contributing factor, which is further fueled by instances of non-representation by elected officials. Yet, in a system where rule is by representation, conflict of interests is bound to occur. To its defense, the American system of governance affords the most freedom and choices to its people. The many internal checks and balances make it difficult for officials to abuse their positions. Unlike many other ‘democratic’ nations, the press is under private interests and is almost completely out of government censorship. As

such, the American people are afforded an objective perspective of their government’s activities. Despite its faults, America still possesses one of the strongest and fairest system of governance in the world. Perhaps there will come a time in the future when a new system of politics will prove itself superior to what we have now. But such change will be gradual and continuously adaptive to the needs of its participants. Until that day, we can only hope for greater political awareness and a higher incentive to vote. We might not eliminate all the problems but we can reduce the needless ones. 32e