Draining Swamps

Reformation in the Body Politic

Corruption in the body politic eventually results in a nation tearing itself apart from within.  Government is sustained upon the respect of citizens for the rule of law.  Government's foundations are always moral.  When governments and governing authorities become corrupt the dissolution of the body politic beckons.

Rome is the classic illustration of the point.  The Roman Republic fell apart because of the vaunting ambition of the political classes, coupled with bribery, corruption, and the misuse of public funds for personal gain.  It was replaced by the Empire--which was even more authoritarian and even more corrupt--only finally to rot away from the inside.  Rome ended by being run over by a bunches of successive marauding barbarians--that is, primitives.  It ended not with a bang but a whimper, with its insides all rotted out. 

When government expands its role to engage in commercial, civil, and voluntary activities (such as ruling, regulating and delivering heath education and welfare) the vast sums of money involved, together with the natural corruption of human beings, presents temptation too much to resist.
  Both rulers and politicians together with those vying for government payments for services turn into venal, amoral pocket-liners.  They steal from the people and feather their own nests.  The ruling cliques and the government commercial suppliers turn into Thenardiers, ripping off and exploiting everyone that comes within their grasp.

In a small country or polity, such as New Zealand the very smallness of the administration restrains the corruption.  Years ago Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out that creeping soft-despotism and its attendant corruption is less likely  when a polity is small.  Secrets are harder to hide.  Public outrage and subsequent retribution are more easily marshalled and therefore more potent.  But when a polity is large, corruption is much harder to detect, expose, and punish.  It becomes systemic.  It becomes the norm.  Too many allies in corruption run too much interference in the path of would-be reformers.

The United States is in just such a phase on the downward spiral.  Sarah Palin and others have talked about the need to drain the swamp of Washington.  The immorality, the theft, the venality, and the corruption is not just confined to one party, although it would seem that it rests more on the Democratic side.  Nevertheless, there have been plenty of Republican pocket-liners.  As this becomes more and more known, cynicism grows.  Disrespect for government and the state burgeons.  The moral foundation for law erodes.  Internal dissolution is inevitable, barring a national reformation in truthfulness and morals--and that can only come from outside.  The wicked do not reform themselves.

It is our view that it can only come from a broad, grassroots revival of the Christian Gospel in the hearts and minds of millions.  In other words, the "outside" is God Himself. 

Michelle Malkin documents just a few examples of Democratic corruption in the area of state funded health services.  They serve to confirm just how deeply corruption has entered the vitals of the Republic.

Democrats Heart Medicare Fraudsters 

By Michelle Malkin
February 15, 2013

Hey, remember when President Obama crusaded against Medicare fraud and vowed to crack down aggressively on scammers who’ve bilked the program out of an estimated $90 billion? Like Archie and Edith Bunker used to sing: Those were the daaaays.

While Democrats pretend to protect the elderly and disabled, leaders of the People’s Party have pocketed gobs of campaign contributions from fat-cat donors tied to massive Medicare rip-off schemes.

Let’s talk some more about Dr. Salomon Melgen, shall we? We now know that the jet-setting Florida eye doctor who flew beleaguered Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., to several alleged sex romps in the Dominican Republic also overbilled the government by $8.9 million for care at his clinic. That’s according to Menendez’s own aides. They acknowledged last week that their boss met with federal health bureaucrats at least twice to lobby on Melgen’s behalf.

“Federal investigators and health-care auditors have had concerns about Melgen’s billing practices at various times over the past decade,” according to two former federal officials who spoke to The Washington Post. “In part, they have examined the volume of eye injections, surgeries and laser treatments performed at his West Palm Beach clinic.”

Now, brace yourselves. A Menendez aide says that while Sen. Sleaze-Bob intervened, he didn’t know nuttin’ about Melgen being under investigation. Just like he didn’t know nuttin’ about his longtime aide working for Melgen’s port security firm in the Dominican Republic, on whose behalf Sen. Sleaze-Bob also intervened.

And just like he didn’t know nuttin’ about yet another ride on Melgen’s plane in 2008 (exposed this week by the conservative Daily Caller), which he forgot to disclose to the Senate.  Senate Democratic leaders have done nuttin’ to prevent Menendez, who also sits on the Senate Finance Committee overseeing Medicare, from playing a prominent role in Medicare reform negotiations while Melgen’s Medicare fraud investigation unfolds.

It’s all par for the Democrats’ conflict-of-interest course, of course. Recently departed Obama health care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle raked in millions from her positions on a handful of corporate boards under fire for various regulatory violations, whistleblower complaints and Medicare fraud.

One of the companies for which DeParle served as a director, kidney dialysis empire DaVita, has been plagued by whistleblower fraud allegations for nearly 20 years. These include long-standing claims (many still under investigation or the subject of ongoing litigation) that the company overused the anemia drug Epogen and then billed Medicare for it; submitted fraudulent Medicare claims for dialysis drugs; and forged alleged kickback schemes between doctors and joint ventures.

Another Medicare fraud suspect, the Stryker Corporation, paid nearly $17 million to settle allegations about false claims submissions in 2007. Pat Stryker, liberal heiress to the Stryker fortune, is an Obama bundler and one of the Democratic Party’s wealthiest progressives. She was also behind the now-bankrupt Obama green energy boondoggle in Colorado, Abound Solar.

While the Obama campaign (aided and abetted by the lapdog media) viciously smeared Mitt Romney by tying him to Medicare fraud he had absolutely nothing to do with while at Bain Capital, this White House has escaped any scrutiny of its own ties to accused Medicare scammers. Instead, the administration was happy to powwow with Menendez and other Democratic leaders on policy strategy this week.

What did they have to say about Menendez’s lobbying on behalf of Medicare exploiter Melgen and the conflict-of-interest cloud stretching from Capitol Hill to 1600 Pennsylvania? Nuttin’.

At one level its easy to become worked up at plutocratic politicians and their corporate enablers.  But that's too easy.  Corruption is present in every heart.  You change society by changing human beings--family by family, household by household.  The most important government of all is self-government.  You cannot reform the moral foundations of a nation until you reform households and communities.  It begins here, now, today--and tomorrow, and tomorrow.  It begins and continues when individuals and households surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Republic.  There is no other effective alternative.  There are no short-cuts.