5 ms·

Not necessarily personally - all sorts of exchanges here should be banned, including contributions to the election campaigns, which in true democracy should be

Not necessarily personally - all sorts of exchanges here should be banned, including contributions to the election campaigns, which in true democracy should be funded solely from public money. Being allowed to bring the case does not mean that you have to or should be allowed to pay for that.

anovikov 9y ago
Isn't funding election campaigns from public money a quick and sure route to totalitarianism? I'll say the opposite - any kind of public money involvement into elections should be banned. Don't get fooled with 'democracy' thing. Election and democratic process are the way for the elites to decide matters between themselves without resorting to civil wars/violence, in an orderly, regulated manner. They were invented for that purpose in the middle ages England which got tired of civil wars and serve that purpose perfectly. 'Opinions' of ordinary people are not important because they effectively, don't exist: propaganda decides what their opinions will be.
- vvillena 9y ago
  Funding campaings from public money is widespread in Europe. Sometimes the opposite argument is made: public funding ensures a level field, in which no one has a disproportionate advantage. Of course, this has the effect of displacing the battle to the real battlefields, one of them being propaganda, as you said.
  - gbacon 9y ago
    Democrats and Republicans already control ballot access laws, a clear conflict of interest. Let us wave our magic wands and — poof! — campaign expenditures are now tax-funded. Nothing meaningful changes. The Republicrats still control who has access to the ballot and thus who will receive campaign largess. “Public campaign finance” is no magic fix, rather it is welfare for already wealthy political parties.
    - ivan_gammel 9y ago
      If campaign financing will be restricted to public money, they won't be wealthy anymore and they will not be able to use to their political benefit any unrestricted hidden wealth in the form of super PACs. And this will also open way for the smaller parties and independent candidates to the fair competition.
      - gbacon 9y ago
        Smaller parties and independent candidates will still be left out because the Big Two control access to the ballot.
        sverige 9y ago
        And people whose only jobs as adults have been elected or appointed positions will still mysteriously become worth 7 or 8 or 9 figures by the end of their careers, even though their only reported income has been a government salary.
      - anovikov 9y ago
        If politicians are denied chance to get silently wealthy on their positions, we will have different kind of politicians: not relatively benign fat cats who are after nothing but money, but ideologically explosive 'great leaders' who want to change the world in the name of their 'great' ideas (there won't be much reason to go into politics otherwise, if you can't make much cash there). Do you really want any of them? Corruptioners are the best kinds of politicians you may have.
        ivan_gammel 9y ago
        Well, I already have plenty of politicians representing me as a result of recent elections, and they belong to neither of the kind, as far as I know. Here in Germany we probably have few fat cats, but the 'great leaders' are political marginals. The politics are done by parties, which leadership periodically changes, and the government isn't run by a single person able to impose their will on other ministers.
- ivan_gammel 9y ago
  >Isn't funding election campaigns from public money a quick and sure route to totalitarianism? There's no causal link between public funding and totalitarianism and there's no historical proof that this ever happened. When and if democracy fails, it happens for a number of other reasons, but this is certainly more likely to happen, when a) there's no equality in voter's influence on the outcome, b) there's no fair competition between candidates. Public funding usually addresses those two problems and at this moment does it quite successfully in Europe, which, despite all the recent turbulence and the rise of the far-right parties, is still in much better shape than USA, when it comes to the elections.
  - 18pfsmt 9y ago
    Nobody in the US is going to get behind banning me, an independent citizen, from making Bernie Sanders bumper-stickers or yard-signs. Nor me making TV ads about how great Bernie would be for our country. Your proposal is at complete odds with the US Constitution with respect to an individual's right to free speech. Lobbying creates a paper trail of sorts and is therefore more transparent (How do you think opensecrets exists?).
    - ivan_gammel 9y ago
      Freedom of speech is just one of the many freedoms granted by the rule of law, it's not a law of nature and not something unquestionable in any circumstances. There are always limits to it, even in the US constitution itself (which is quite outdated document, as we already know from the mass shootings made possible by it). Limits can and should be imposed to defend the sane way to elect the government, but of course it's up to you, American people, which way do you want to go. I just hope that you'll finally sort this out somehow, because the world cannot let America being a self-proclaimed "leader of free world" ruled by Trump-like oligarchy.
- hn0 9y ago
  > Don't get fooled with 'democracy' thing. Election and democratic process are the way for the elites to decide matters between themselves without resorting to civil wars/violence, in an orderly, regulated manner. They were invented for that purpose in the middle ages England which got tired of civil wars and serve that purpose perfectly. That’s a fascinating thesis, can you point me to sources on it?
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    I think they are talking about the Magna Carta.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Don't get fooled with 'democracy' thing. Election and democratic process are the way for the elites to decide matters between themselves without resorting to civil wars/violence, in an orderly, regulated manner. They were invented for that purpose in the middle ages England" Democracy was most certainly not invented in the middle ages or in England. Neither of those statements is even remotely true. Democracy is a product of Ancient Greece around 300BC. And then the Romans after that. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
  - gbacon 9y ago
    The ancient Athenians would reject our form of democracy because they regarded popular elections as a tool of oligarchy. They also executed officials for abuse of power.
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      None of which changes the fact that democracy was not invented in the Middle Ages or England as per the context of my comment.
      - gbacon 9y ago
        No dispute there, friend.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  And those city states in the Greek peninsula which were doing it 1500 years prior?
Anon1096 9y ago
In this theoretical democracy with publicly funded elections would I, a completely independent citizen be able to buy ads in support of my desired candidate? How about making lawn signs to campaign? Or even just going door to door for him or her? All of the above is a gift of either my time or my money. Should all of that be banned? It's the problem people face when opposing Citizen's United. Money is inherently connected to speech.
- rayiner 9y ago
  No you wouldn’t be able to. Campaign finance contributions can be circumvented if political expression is not banned, making such political expression a perpetual target: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-myth-of-campaign-finance-reform https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-myth... > But in the course of the argument, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Stewart and inquired: "What's your answer to [the] point that there isn't any constitutional difference between the distribution of this movie on video [on] demand and providing access on the internet, providing DVDs, either through a commercial service or maybe in a public library, [or] providing the same thing in a book? Would the Constitution permit the restriction of all of those as well?" Stewart, an experienced litigator who had represented the government in campaign-finance cases at the Supreme Court before, responded that the provisions of McCain-Feingold could in fact be constitutionally applied to limit all those forms of speech. The law, he contended, would even require banning a book that made the same points as the Citizens United video. > There was an audible gasp in the courtroom. Then Justice Alito spoke, it seemed, for the entire audience: "That's pretty incredible."
  - smaddox 9y ago
    Very interesting read. Thank you for linking it. It has significantly altered my perception of the Citizens United issue. I see now that there's no simple way to balance campaign finance reform against freedom of speech. Edit: Perhaps instead of focusing on campaign finance reform, we should focus on polling reform, and expanding the house? If we used a better polling system, e.g. candidate ranking, and increased the number of representatives, then it would be much more costly to buy a majority.
rayiner 9y ago
Two states have moved to public funding. There has been little difference in outcomes: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/2...
- dd36 9y ago
  I live in AZ and that bill does nothing to stop outside spending. AFAIK, it also doesn’t cap what can be raised. If it does then most politicians here don’t access it.
sib 9y ago
There is no such thing as "public money." There is only money that the government has taken from people via taxes. So, if the government takes money from me, under threat of force, and then spends it on a candidate with whose views I disagree, it has forced me to support a candidate that I do not want elected. That sounds extremely un-democratic to me.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  To agree and rephrase, "public funding" looks like incumbents controlling how campaigns are funded and how those funds are spent. Add that on top of the existing gerrymandering issues and it sounds like we'll have a government even less accountable to the average voter.
lr4444lr 9y ago
How do you stop thousands of people from cramming the ballot just to have a little fun at the taxpayer expense? There has to be some qualification process which will cost money to complete.

anovikov 9y ago

Isn't funding election campaigns from public money a quick and sure route to totalitarianism? I'll say the opposite - any kind of public money involvement into elections should be banned. Don't get fooled with 'democracy' thing. Election and democratic process are the way for the elites to decide matters between themselves without resorting to civil wars/violence, in an orderly, regulated manner. They were invented for that purpose in the middle ages England which got tired of civil wars and serve that purpose perfectly. 'Opinions' of ordinary people are not important because they effectively, don't exist: propaganda decides what their opinions will be.

vvillena 9y ago
Funding campaings from public money is widespread in Europe. Sometimes the opposite argument is made: public funding ensures a level field, in which no one has a disproportionate advantage. Of course, this has the effect of displacing the battle to the real battlefields, one of them being propaganda, as you said.
- gbacon 9y ago
  Democrats and Republicans already control ballot access laws, a clear conflict of interest. Let us wave our magic wands and — poof! — campaign expenditures are now tax-funded. Nothing meaningful changes. The Republicrats still control who has access to the ballot and thus who will receive campaign largess. “Public campaign finance” is no magic fix, rather it is welfare for already wealthy political parties.
  - ivan_gammel 9y ago
    If campaign financing will be restricted to public money, they won't be wealthy anymore and they will not be able to use to their political benefit any unrestricted hidden wealth in the form of super PACs. And this will also open way for the smaller parties and independent candidates to the fair competition.
    - gbacon 9y ago
      Smaller parties and independent candidates will still be left out because the Big Two control access to the ballot.
      - sverige 9y ago
        And people whose only jobs as adults have been elected or appointed positions will still mysteriously become worth 7 or 8 or 9 figures by the end of their careers, even though their only reported income has been a government salary.
    - anovikov 9y ago
      If politicians are denied chance to get silently wealthy on their positions, we will have different kind of politicians: not relatively benign fat cats who are after nothing but money, but ideologically explosive 'great leaders' who want to change the world in the name of their 'great' ideas (there won't be much reason to go into politics otherwise, if you can't make much cash there). Do you really want any of them? Corruptioners are the best kinds of politicians you may have.
      - ivan_gammel 9y ago
        Well, I already have plenty of politicians representing me as a result of recent elections, and they belong to neither of the kind, as far as I know. Here in Germany we probably have few fat cats, but the 'great leaders' are political marginals. The politics are done by parties, which leadership periodically changes, and the government isn't run by a single person able to impose their will on other ministers.
ivan_gammel 9y ago
>Isn't funding election campaigns from public money a quick and sure route to totalitarianism? There's no causal link between public funding and totalitarianism and there's no historical proof that this ever happened. When and if democracy fails, it happens for a number of other reasons, but this is certainly more likely to happen, when a) there's no equality in voter's influence on the outcome, b) there's no fair competition between candidates. Public funding usually addresses those two problems and at this moment does it quite successfully in Europe, which, despite all the recent turbulence and the rise of the far-right parties, is still in much better shape than USA, when it comes to the elections.
- 18pfsmt 9y ago
  Nobody in the US is going to get behind banning me, an independent citizen, from making Bernie Sanders bumper-stickers or yard-signs. Nor me making TV ads about how great Bernie would be for our country. Your proposal is at complete odds with the US Constitution with respect to an individual's right to free speech. Lobbying creates a paper trail of sorts and is therefore more transparent (How do you think opensecrets exists?).
  - ivan_gammel 9y ago
    Freedom of speech is just one of the many freedoms granted by the rule of law, it's not a law of nature and not something unquestionable in any circumstances. There are always limits to it, even in the US constitution itself (which is quite outdated document, as we already know from the mass shootings made possible by it). Limits can and should be imposed to defend the sane way to elect the government, but of course it's up to you, American people, which way do you want to go. I just hope that you'll finally sort this out somehow, because the world cannot let America being a self-proclaimed "leader of free world" ruled by Trump-like oligarchy.
hn0 9y ago
> Don't get fooled with 'democracy' thing. Election and democratic process are the way for the elites to decide matters between themselves without resorting to civil wars/violence, in an orderly, regulated manner. They were invented for that purpose in the middle ages England which got tired of civil wars and serve that purpose perfectly. That’s a fascinating thesis, can you point me to sources on it?
- nerdponx 9y ago
  I think they are talking about the Magna Carta.
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Don't get fooled with 'democracy' thing. Election and democratic process are the way for the elites to decide matters between themselves without resorting to civil wars/violence, in an orderly, regulated manner. They were invented for that purpose in the middle ages England" Democracy was most certainly not invented in the middle ages or in England. Neither of those statements is even remotely true. Democracy is a product of Ancient Greece around 300BC. And then the Romans after that. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
- gbacon 9y ago
  The ancient Athenians would reject our form of democracy because they regarded popular elections as a tool of oligarchy. They also executed officials for abuse of power.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    None of which changes the fact that democracy was not invented in the Middle Ages or England as per the context of my comment.
    - gbacon 9y ago
      No dispute there, friend.
lr4444lr 9y ago
And those city states in the Greek peninsula which were doing it 1500 years prior?

Anon1096 9y ago

In this theoretical democracy with publicly funded elections would I, a completely independent citizen be able to buy ads in support of my desired candidate? How about making lawn signs to campaign? Or even just going door to door for him or her? All of the above is a gift of either my time or my money. Should all of that be banned? It's the problem people face when opposing Citizen's United. Money is inherently connected to speech.

rayiner 9y ago
No you wouldn’t be able to. Campaign finance contributions can be circumvented if political expression is not banned, making such political expression a perpetual target: https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-myth-of-campaign-finance-reform https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-myth... > But in the course of the argument, Justice Samuel Alito interrupted Stewart and inquired: "What's your answer to [the] point that there isn't any constitutional difference between the distribution of this movie on video [on] demand and providing access on the internet, providing DVDs, either through a commercial service or maybe in a public library, [or] providing the same thing in a book? Would the Constitution permit the restriction of all of those as well?" Stewart, an experienced litigator who had represented the government in campaign-finance cases at the Supreme Court before, responded that the provisions of McCain-Feingold could in fact be constitutionally applied to limit all those forms of speech. The law, he contended, would even require banning a book that made the same points as the Citizens United video. > There was an audible gasp in the courtroom. Then Justice Alito spoke, it seemed, for the entire audience: "That's pretty incredible."
- smaddox 9y ago
  Very interesting read. Thank you for linking it. It has significantly altered my perception of the Citizens United issue. I see now that there's no simple way to balance campaign finance reform against freedom of speech. Edit: Perhaps instead of focusing on campaign finance reform, we should focus on polling reform, and expanding the house? If we used a better polling system, e.g. candidate ranking, and increased the number of representatives, then it would be much more costly to buy a majority.

rayiner 9y ago

Two states have moved to public funding. There has been little difference in outcomes: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/2...

dd36 9y ago
I live in AZ and that bill does nothing to stop outside spending. AFAIK, it also doesn’t cap what can be raised. If it does then most politicians here don’t access it.

sib 9y ago

There is no such thing as "public money." There is only money that the government has taken from people via taxes. So, if the government takes money from me, under threat of force, and then spends it on a candidate with whose views I disagree, it has forced me to support a candidate that I do not want elected. That sounds extremely un-democratic to me.

humanrebar 9y ago
To agree and rephrase, "public funding" looks like incumbents controlling how campaigns are funded and how those funds are spent. Add that on top of the existing gerrymandering issues and it sounds like we'll have a government even less accountable to the average voter.

lr4444lr 9y ago

How do you stop thousands of people from cramming the ballot just to have a little fun at the taxpayer expense? There has to be some qualification process which will cost money to complete.