4 ms·

Lobbying as a citizen who happens to own a business is different from a business itself lobbying. I'm perfectly fine with the former.

by milcron 10y ago

Karunamon 10y ago
But then you somehow need to encode that belief into law in a way that doesn't trample on the constitution. And maybe this is a bug in the system, but trying to fix it has some truly scary question marks attached.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  There's nothing about the US Constitution that says that different elements of it don't conflict. The question precisely is working out where boundaries exist, and what trade-offs to make.
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    No, but changing the constitution is not a minor affair. You can't just propose one amendment through the legislative process, you have to launch a convention, and the country you get on the other side of that may not have much in common with the country now.
    - Amezarak 10y ago
      You certainly can change the Constitution without a convention. The federal legislature passes it with a 2/3rds vote and then the states ratify it.
- milcron 10y ago
  I don't think this boundary would be that difficult to delineate and enforce. Political donations ought to come from personal bank accounts rather than corporate ones. Is it any more difficult than that?
  - Amezarak 10y ago
    So then you don't believe individuals have the right to organize to petition their representatives? Because any organization is going to mean pooling resources into a legal structure...like a corporation.
    - milcron 10y ago
      That's a good quibble. People should be allowed to organize. I suppose there should be a distinction between political organizations and profitable ones. So a group "Whigs for America" pooling donations is fine, but a for-profit corporation spending millions on lobbying would not be fine. The difference being that the former group is a non-profit collection of people concerned about some aspect of government. Whereas when for-profit entities funnel millions into lobbying, and we get profit-oriented results like this http://abcnews.go.com/Business/turbotax-lobbies-lawmakers-tax-code-complicated/story?id=18882377 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/turbotax-lobbies-lawmakers-ta...

Lobbying as a citizen who happens to own a business is different from a business itself lobbying. I'm perfectly fine with the former.

by milcron 10y ago

Lobbying as a citizen who happens to own a business is different from a business itself lobbying. I'm perfectly fine with the former.

Karunamon 10y ago

But then you somehow need to encode that belief into law in a way that doesn't trample on the constitution. And maybe this is a bug in the system, but trying to fix it has some truly scary question marks attached.

dredmorbius 10y ago
There's nothing about the US Constitution that says that different elements of it don't conflict. The question precisely is working out where boundaries exist, and what trade-offs to make.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  No, but changing the constitution is not a minor affair. You can't just propose one amendment through the legislative process, you have to launch a convention, and the country you get on the other side of that may not have much in common with the country now.
  - Amezarak 10y ago
    You certainly can change the Constitution without a convention. The federal legislature passes it with a 2/3rds vote and then the states ratify it.
milcron 10y ago
I don't think this boundary would be that difficult to delineate and enforce. Political donations ought to come from personal bank accounts rather than corporate ones. Is it any more difficult than that?
- Amezarak 10y ago
  So then you don't believe individuals have the right to organize to petition their representatives? Because any organization is going to mean pooling resources into a legal structure...like a corporation.
  - milcron 10y ago
    That's a good quibble. People should be allowed to organize. I suppose there should be a distinction between political organizations and profitable ones. So a group "Whigs for America" pooling donations is fine, but a for-profit corporation spending millions on lobbying would not be fine. The difference being that the former group is a non-profit collection of people concerned about some aspect of government. Whereas when for-profit entities funnel millions into lobbying, and we get profit-oriented results like this http://abcnews.go.com/Business/turbotax-lobbies-lawmakers-tax-code-complicated/story?id=18882377 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/turbotax-lobbies-lawmakers-ta...