ARKANSAS — Your humble writer is in a bit of a blue funk this week. For one thing, this week is the decision point for college football recruiting. High school players across the country will sign letters of intent to play football at various universities. The Razorbacks are having just an awful time of it.

Their rivals are locking in one all-star recruit after another. Many SEC schools are signing classes of young football players that are ranked in the top 10 nationally. The Razorbacks are running dead last in the SEC in recruiting this year.

Even Vanderbilt is edging them out. That does not bode well for our grid iron fortunes over the next four or five years. We might get by with one weak class, but if we don’t do significantly better next year then we are in serious trouble down the road.

But that after all, is a game played with a ball.

Politics has become a game played with the truth, and the consequences for not recruiting well are disastrous. It seems we have lots of candidates running fora couple of open seats, but quantity is not the same as quality. I question whether we the people are “recruiting well” in our efforts to get people of character and ability to seek out public office. And why should they? The system is such a mess and the special interests are very well entrenched.

I can’t help but wonder if, for the federal government at least, it is not too late for even good people to turn things around. And it’s not just me with the winter blues saying this.

I heard House Minority leader John Boehner just the other day say that “the federal government will not continue to exist” with spending at its current outof-control rate.

Think about that. He literally said that the federal government of the Untied States will not exist anymore if it stays on itscurrent path! And I see no indication that it will do anything but more of the same until the Chi-coms decide to quit loaning it the money that it uses to buy votes and pay off big donors. Maybe we better start thinking about how we could get on without them after they implode!

In related news, the courts have ruled that two provisions of the Mc-Cain-Feingold “campaign finance reform” law are unconstitutional. McCain-Feingold was definitely unconstitutional, so much so that apparently even a federal judge could see it.

The two main provisions the courts ruled unconstitutional were the ban against candidate criticism in the days leading up to an election and a ban on corporate contributions.

It is the ban on criticizing politicians before elections that I objected to. In principle I support a ban on corporate contributions to political campaigns. Corporations are not real persons, and they don’t have natural, that is God-given, rights the way actual persons have.

In spite of this, the waythings are done now such giant artificial persons have more access to our political system than real persons do. Many of these corporations are global, not simply American, entities. They have no special loyalty to this country, yet they have inordinate influence in the political process. Big corporations are driving much of the government spending that Boehner spoke of as such a dire threat.

Contributions to politicians and causes should come from real persons only, in my humble opinion. With a few historical exceptions like the British East India Company, giant corporations are a recent phenomenon. Can government by, of, and for the people survive this new era?

Mark Moore is the lead writer for an Internet blog on matters pertaining to Arkansas culture and government, Arkansas Watch, and on Tuesday nights is the host of an Internet-based radio program, The Guide for the Perplexed. He writes a weekly column for The Times of Northeast Benton County.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 02/03/2010