Accusations fly all over the place, left and right. Obama sent the IRS after his enemies. Trump did the same. Biden is compromised by Hunter’s deals with China. Etc.
And almost nobody believes the investigations, which are usually just partisan witch hunts.
We have a situation where we know for certain there’s a lot of bad stuff going on, and sensible people have no confidence in anyone’s ability to get to the bottom of it, or to report on it truthfully.
This is a recipe for disaster and collapse. We have to have a decent level of confidence that our system works, and that it’s fair. But partisanship has infected everything. Nobody trusts the news. Nobody trusts Congressional investigations. Nobody trusts the Department of Justice.
Nor should they.
How do we create an independent, trustworthy organization to monitor and combat corruption? If we don’t figure that out soon, I think the country is in a very bad way.
QUOTE: How do we create an independent, trustworthy organization to monitor and combat corruption?
That type of resource already exists, the problem is a significant swath of people don’t believe them…even when they are telling the truth. For instance, the allegations about a supposed Obama IRS scandal have been disproven long ago and it’s still repeated as if it’s true. https://www.newsweek.com/remember-irs-scandal-it-was-fake-news-all-along-681674?amp=1 The same about the birther lie. The same about the Kracken and the 2020 election “Big Lie”. Truth, evidence, and facts don’t seem to matter to many. It’s all about partisan tribalism. In fact, in some circles “bipartisanship” has become a dirty word. It recently got some once considered loyal politicians booed and accosted by their own party. Politicians are shying away from it because it could cost them votes given their base would rather fight than cooperate with the alleged “enemy”. So, you could have the best structured independent committee in the world but if people don’t have confidence in nature of their work and outcomes, it won’t improve things.
ISTM, the “ideal” is to prioritize truth, facts, bi-partisanship and the greater good over tribalism. When those things become more desirable and rewarded than if “my group” succeeds, people will have a tendency to have more confidence in well structured, productive investigative committees because they will know the “true” goal is public service over self-service. I don’t have a lot of hope this will happen (because there’s too much power, money and influence to lose by making that shift). Yet, I believe that’s what it will take to effectively monitor and combat corruption.
You missed the point. People don’t believe the “resources” we have now. We need resources people will believe.
You seem to want to put all the fault on the people. I disagree. I think the “resources” we have now are overly politicized and not reliable, and people are right now to believe them.
But of course there is also a problem with the people. Even if we had a panel of angels, some people might not believe the findings if they contradicted their preferred narrative.
I believe that problem has been largely created by the “resources” you cite, and that if we fixed them, the disbelief would fade over time.
QUOTE: You missed the point. People don’t believe the “resources” we have now. We need resources people will believe.
No, my point was that it’s not the “resource” that will create a change. You could create a “new” resource and it will be shackled with the same problems…because people don’t believe.
You continue to make the same assumption — that people don’t believe independent of the reliability of the resource. I dispute that assumption. I think people have been trained to disbelieve because the “resources” are crap and have been corrupted. If we had better resources, we would (probably slowly) move back towards an environment where people trusted them.
You continue to make the same assumption that people will believe if we had better resources (mouse trap)…I dispute that assumption. There is no concrete evidence that a so-called better resource will make any difference in people’s confidence. What could possibly increase people’s believe is *if* a resource is objective, representative of a variety of stakeholders, truthful and tangibly *demonstrates* over time that it’s output is in the best interest of the public.