3 ms·

> If I earn money, should I be able to spend it how I like? You already can't spend it to buy grenades, chemical weapons, illegal drugs, etc. You should not be

by byuu 10y ago

> If I earn money, should I be able to spend it how I like? You already can't spend it to buy grenades, chemical weapons, illegal drugs, etc. You should not be able to spend it to influence elections either. I just explained why. It's not 'fair', sure. But a lot of things aren't fair thanks to stupid people being stupid. Most recreational drugs are outlawed to protect the idiots that can't handle it. (Well, that's the narrative anyway. We'll sidestep the racial undertones, benefits to big pharma, etc.) Because otherwise, those idiots can go on to do the rest of us great harm. There are a lot of stupid people who are swayed by bullshit political attack ads (said attacks are deplorable from both sides), so we need some way to minimize that damage. Campaign contribution laws were not a perfect solution, but at least a stopgap measure. Now the floodgates are wide open. > If we were to take down Citizens United, how would you deal with media outlets like Fox or WaPo? They operated long before Citizens United came down. They concern me as well, as does MSNBC, RT, Al Jazeera, etc. It's probably not possible to get fully unbiased news, but we've definitely gotten way worse in recent years on partisanship in news. And regardless of which party you support, you have to agree that the divide between us is becoming increasingly toxic and dangerous. The media is in large part to blame for stirring that up for their ratings. Of course, even without news, the internet and social media are a big problem now too. Everyone simply follows like-minded people, blocks those they disagree with, and live in echo chambers to reinforce and polarize people even more. It's ... really starting to get very dangerous :/ > what they do isn't classified as campaign support, even though it should. Agreed. Not that it'd matter anymore :(

didgeoridoo 10y ago
Genuine questions here: Should newspapers (i.e. corporations) be allowed to endorse candidates? If so, how is this not spending money (paper, ink, time) to influence elections? If not, how is this not an unacceptable limitation on free speech? And, (to address a common objection to this line of reasoning), if "bona fide media organizations" get special free speech protections not available to the rest of us, who decides who is a "journalist" and who is an amateur?
- byuu 10y ago
  Before this goes on too long, I'd like to stress that I don't have all the perfect answers in life. I don't think my views are perfect, but they are what I believe. I know that often, how things 'should' be require laws that are basically impossible to write. But I really don't think I am being that unreasonable to say there's something grossly unfair about one person being able to pour in millions of dollars into an election to sway votes his way. > Should newspapers (i.e. corporations) be allowed to endorse candidates? That's a definite gray area. I can see arguments for and against that. At least with a newspaper, people are actively choosing to buy it (barring it being in a vending machine with the endorsement on the front page.) It's usually pretty well known and clear that NYT runs liberal, and NYP runs conservative. I don't get that choice with giant billboards as I drive around town. You can argue I can change the channel, but I don't really get that choice with TV and radio ads, either. I'm sorry, but like with complex issues (eg abortion), I don't have a perfect answer for you on this point. Any choice is going to come with consequences. But that doesn't mean I think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater and have a cash free-for-all in our elections.
  - civilian 10y ago
    Good answer. So, what we're really boiling down to, is that it's unfair that Peter Thiel has more influence than other people?
    - byuu 10y ago
      Correct. That was what I was getting at with one vote, one person and buying more raffle tickets than another for a drawing. Money = votes, otherwise there wouldn't be so much money in play. It's not a true democracy when the rich (whether that be the Koch brothers or George Soros) indirectly get way more voting power than the lower and middle classes get. If people weren't swayed by obvious attack ads, then I wouldn't care how much money people wanted to throw away on elections. And indeed, they wouldn't throw any away, because it would be a total waste then.
      - 10y ago
civilian 10y ago
Okay, so... we need to nail some things down for your utopia. What is and is not allowed to be said or printed? I imagine I can say (with my voice) anything I want? What if I'm standing on a soapbox on a busy corner, 12 hours a day? What if I give a speech to 200,000 people in a stadium? What about over a radio broadcast? How do you cap that? Individual contributions to campaigns are capped at something like $2.5k, do I essentially get $2.5k of airtime, as valued by advertising times? What if I'm not specifically supporting a candidate? But I could say: "We should really have a candidate that is good at fixing spine vertebrate, because they'd be good at fixing the spine of America!" or "The next person to appoint a supreme court justice should be pro-life." If I'm near my $2.5k of cap of support, am I even really allowed to say anything? "America needs a _strong_ candidate" could be an interpreted as support for... well, someone. I suspect that your solution is going to be impractical and hard to enforce.

by byuu 10y ago

didgeoridoo 10y ago

Genuine questions here: Should newspapers (i.e. corporations) be allowed to endorse candidates? If so, how is this not spending money (paper, ink, time) to influence elections? If not, how is this not an unacceptable limitation on free speech? And, (to address a common objection to this line of reasoning), if "bona fide media organizations" get special free speech protections not available to the rest of us, who decides who is a "journalist" and who is an amateur?

byuu 10y ago
Before this goes on too long, I'd like to stress that I don't have all the perfect answers in life. I don't think my views are perfect, but they are what I believe. I know that often, how things 'should' be require laws that are basically impossible to write. But I really don't think I am being that unreasonable to say there's something grossly unfair about one person being able to pour in millions of dollars into an election to sway votes his way. > Should newspapers (i.e. corporations) be allowed to endorse candidates? That's a definite gray area. I can see arguments for and against that. At least with a newspaper, people are actively choosing to buy it (barring it being in a vending machine with the endorsement on the front page.) It's usually pretty well known and clear that NYT runs liberal, and NYP runs conservative. I don't get that choice with giant billboards as I drive around town. You can argue I can change the channel, but I don't really get that choice with TV and radio ads, either. I'm sorry, but like with complex issues (eg abortion), I don't have a perfect answer for you on this point. Any choice is going to come with consequences. But that doesn't mean I think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater and have a cash free-for-all in our elections.
- civilian 10y ago
  Good answer. So, what we're really boiling down to, is that it's unfair that Peter Thiel has more influence than other people?
  - byuu 10y ago
    Correct. That was what I was getting at with one vote, one person and buying more raffle tickets than another for a drawing. Money = votes, otherwise there wouldn't be so much money in play. It's not a true democracy when the rich (whether that be the Koch brothers or George Soros) indirectly get way more voting power than the lower and middle classes get. If people weren't swayed by obvious attack ads, then I wouldn't care how much money people wanted to throw away on elections. And indeed, they wouldn't throw any away, because it would be a total waste then.
    - 10y ago

civilian 10y ago

Okay, so... we need to nail some things down for your utopia. What is and is not allowed to be said or printed? I imagine I can say (with my voice) anything I want? What if I'm standing on a soapbox on a busy corner, 12 hours a day? What if I give a speech to 200,000 people in a stadium? What about over a radio broadcast? How do you cap that? Individual contributions to campaigns are capped at something like $2.5k, do I essentially get $2.5k of airtime, as valued by advertising times? What if I'm not specifically supporting a candidate? But I could say: "We should really have a candidate that is good at fixing spine vertebrate, because they'd be good at fixing the spine of America!" or "The next person to appoint a supreme court justice should be pro-life." If I'm near my $2.5k of cap of support, am I even really allowed to say anything? "America needs a _strong_ candidate" could be an interpreted as support for... well, someone. I suspect that your solution is going to be impractical and hard to enforce.