Penalties for Politicians?

The Chinese have the right idea on how to fight political corruption:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-China-Tainted-Products.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Even if we convict the white collar bad guys (Scooter), they get away with it. And our gutless Congress, where are they? I'd make a good bet that Cheney is guilty of crimes worse than bribery. Even if the Congress tries to get that sonofabitch, he'll get pardoned.

We've let America become the land of the entitled ultra-rich, where they can do any damn thing they want with impunity (murder in OJ's case). As history proves, the people will eventually become enraged over this misbehavior and eventually revolt, overthrowing our system, which has become increasingly corrupted by greed and megalomania. We’ll end up losing the idealistic values so beautifully expressed in our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence (documents we should all re-read).

Maybe the terrorists are simply those socially dis-enfranchised, economically challenged and frustrated souls with enough insight to understand the hypocrisy of America’s policy actions, where our lust for money has taken precedence over a belief in God (or simply Good).

As we debate God's existence, we rationalize our egoism and justify elitist attitudes of superiority over our fellow humans. If God doesn’t exist, then the satisfaction of our individual desires and the disintegration of our consciences becomes an inevitable outcome, which is being reflected by the behavior of the popular culture. If it does exist, then one could make an argument that the Jihad is the correct course of action, just as the Christians believed in their Crusades. Personally, I see a distinction between God and religion, and it is humanity’s perversion of religion that is often used as justification for war.

Instead, let us have a belief in Good, and empower our government to act in the behalf of that ideal. If we don’t, what principles do we have worth upholding? Without moral values worth upholding, the cycles of history indicate that ‘Rome’ will burn again.