To me the argument between voting Democratic or Republican boils down to one thing, what is worse, big government or corporate America. There is no absolute right answer to this question because both are corrupt and you could make an argument either way. The experiences of my life lead me to choose big government as the lesser of two evils, but if your life leads you down a different path, then I can respect that, as long as you consider the alternatives.
The reason I vote Democratic revolves around where I came from. Michigan is a state that became prosperous during the labor revolution. The sit down strikes happened there. The Unions expanded the middle class and made the American dream of a TV in every living room and a car in every garage accessible to the average guy. The Board of directors of General Motors and Ford blame the high price and decline in quality of American cars on the unions. Meanwhile, they kept giving themselves raises as they made every possible wrong decision regarding the trends in the auto industry. They pissed away billions of dollars by doing things like developing electronic automobile technology and ignoring it despite rising fuel costs. Hey while we are at it, lets eliminate our fuel efficient cars and focus on giant gas guzzlers, that'll be great! Wait we tried that already, a few years before they asked for a government bail out.
Flint and Detroit's entire economies were based upon the auto industry, an oversight that later resulted in the virtual collapse of these two great cities. Should the city governments gotten other businesses to come in to diversify their economies? Obviously that would have been better. The auto industry seemed to be thriving and everyone was fat and happy. By the time this became apparent, Michigan was firmly attached to the Auto industry's teat, to the point that they knew they would starve if they didn't appease the beast. In the end, most of the jobs left anyway, the company's got bailed out by the government and the CEO's kept their money and their vacation homes while the retired workers lost their retirement funds. Flint was left with a huge unemployment rate and several city blocks of toxic ground where Buick city once stood.
The governments of Flint and Detroit were naive in trusting the Auto Industry, but what these companies did to the state was evil. And they are no worse than thousands of other huge corporations out there. Corporations are motivated by greed, period. That is their function, to make as much money as they can. To give corporations ultimate power and expect them to act responsibly and morally is ridiculous. They can't. If they don't make more money than a competitor, they lose. There is no motivation for them to ever do what is right on their own. The individuals in the company are not evil, they most likely have good intentions like providing for their family or leaving a legacy. But a corporation has to make money and all you will ever be to a corporation is a dollar sign before a number with a plus or minus afterwards.
Government's function is to set and enforce rules to protect us from threats foreign and domestic. Government's purpose is good at it's core, then people get involved and screw it up. In government, it is the individuals that are often motivated by greed. In the worst cases of corruption, a government official gets caught trying to make extra money by selling contracts or appointments. Mostly politicians just lie or stretch the truth to tell us what we want to hear, much like advertising does for big business. So at their most corrupt, politicians are selling things for personal gain and lying to us to gain our approval, both standard corporate practices.
So based upon these arguments, I trust the corrupt individuals in big government rather than the multimillion dollar corporation whose purpose is blatantly evil. We need both, I just feel better with somebody watching over the evil crap that the corporate CEOs are doing. Even corrupt politicians aren't that bad, its not like they lie to us about weapons of mass destruction so that they can profit off of a war for a fossil fuel that their family built their fortune on, now that would be evil!
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