I hear your point, and it might be true, but it's only a hypothesis because, in the grand scheme of things, they aren't paid well relative to other work with significantly lower amounts of responsibility.
A young software developer working at Netflix or Amazon would be making more than them. A Congress person in a whole foods in silicon valley could very easily be the poorest customer in the store.
Scarface said "First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women". I believe that this is the American dream, at least in the eyes of people who end up in high government.
Their path is different though, power comes first, THEN the money, THEN the women. If we paid them at least enough to enable sexy affairs, I think they could round out the three without as much incentive to go full on corrupt
I hear your point, and it might be true, but it’s only a hypothesis because, in the grand scheme of things, they aren’t paid well relative to other work with significantly lower amounts of responsibility.
"We should pay these corrupt pieces of shit even more money, and maybe they'll stop taking bribes" is a hypothesis we've tested PLENTY of times. The results are conclusive: the people we put into office are overpaid at any price, and are corrupt no matter how much money we waste on them.
To represent something as fact, when it isn't, for the purposes of drumming up popular support is a type of moral corruption.
I don't think you're corrupt because you're too poor though, I think it's because you're too stupid.
But that actually does drive into a larger (but more difficult) issue... How do you keep stupid people from public office without undermining democracy itself?
It's kind of a chicken and egg problem: education has been gutted so the electorate is pretty stupid, so they get confused about simple things ( like if a hypothesis has been tested ir not) and elect stupid people who just assert things without any actual backing... Taking complex issues and dragging it down to a second grade level (they still all corrupt).
How do you build back education to the point where you could have a functional relationship between candidates of substance and the general electorate, when substance requires the electorate to reject reactionary performative statements (like yours) from people who make them (Like Trump, DeSantis, or you)?
I think at one point, that was the naive dream of the 90s, that the internet would make us all smarter. Unfortunately it just gave retards a platform. It used to be every village had an idiot.
But now all the village 's idiots have been able to find eachother, start a club, and organize around it. So now we have the Tea party and flat earthers. The internet failed us.
If someone did a study on whether raising the minimum wage impacts people's quality of life, raised it a penny, found that people were still in poverty, and said "we should give up on minimum wages," would that convince you? Your statement, that we've raised congressional wages and corruption is still present, is an equivalent argument. No one is arguing that giving politicians any raise will completely eliminate corruption. I would argue that we should give members of congress wages comparable to the amount of money they would get from taking bribes, and the result will be reduced, not eliminated, corruption.
If someone did a study on whether raising the minimum wage impacts people’s quality of life, raised it a penny, found that people were still in poverty, and said “we should give up on minimum wages,” would that convince you?
Comparing someone who makes 6 figures to someone who makes minimum wage is insulting to the latter.
Particularly since the former is responsible for keeping the latter's wages stagnant while whining about how he's not compensated enough for doing so.
You're right. The point I was making was that congressional members are like people with minimum wage. Your response is definitely not dodging my argument.
The point I was making was that congressional members are like people with minimum wage.
The point you were making is that congressturds aren't rich enough and that we should just spam money at them and that will magically make them less corrupt. Bringing up minimum wage workers who haven't seen a raise in decades in that context is utterly disgusting.