4 ms·

>they would suffer minimal reputational damage and could just go back to being a mechanic presumably they would also go to prison

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Or we could cut their hands off, sentence them to house arrest for life, brand them with a scarlet letter, banish them to an island, etc. there are options other than just shrugging and accepting it as inevitable.
origin_path 4y ago
No they wouldn't, because that's not how bribes work anymore. Basically all bribes of politicians or civil servants are based on promises of jobs or consulting work after leaving the public sector. Look at how frequently politicians show up being paid inexplicably huge speaking fees at major banks despite having nothing to say, or how frequently regulators end up getting well paid jobs at the companies they were supervising immediately after leaving. The issue is you can't prove these are bribes. There's no paper trail, no mysterious payments. Someone's expertise or worth to another is entirely arbitrary, you can't say someone's speaking fee is 'too large' or their experience isn't worth that much money, especially if they've had an unusually interesting position beforehand.
- lapcat 4y ago
  This is actually why bribes to randomly selected citizens would be easier to catch. After a maximum 1 year term, a randomly selected citizen would be expected to go back to their previous line of work. Whereas an elected professional politician who has spent years in "public service" might naturally be expected to take a politically relevant job afterward. If a randomly selected citizen magically starts getting huge bank speaking fees afterwards, that's obviously a bribe.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    this sounds good, but is in practice absolutely impossible to enforce
    - lapcat 4y ago
      Is it? Many elected politicians have been criminally convicted of corruption. Including a seemingly disproportionate number from Illinois...
      - permo-w 4y ago
        let’s say you’re a farmer. you get selected to be a representative. then your term ends and a big company wants to hire you. so you take the job how on earth are you going to legally differentiate this from a company simply hiring someone with experience in the political sphere? how are you going to prove that an after-dinner speech is proceeds from corrupt behaviour, and not just a speech from someone interesting that people may want to listen to? you’re going to ask a court to decide if someone is genuinely an interesting speaker? there’s a good reason they're able to get away with this right now: it’s nearly impossible to legislate for. it’s very easy to spot, but without direct evidence of prior communication between the parties it’s extremely difficult to prove my solution would be to give each of them a huge pension and ban them from ever working again. but that has its own problems
        lapcat 4y ago
        > how on earth are you going to legally differentiate this from a company simply hiring someone with experience in the political sphere? Experience in the political sphere is no longer a thing when the entire government consists of 1 year lifetime term limited random selections. Experience only has value now because there are "career politicians", political parties, campaign fundraising, etc. Also keep in mind that without elections, they are no longer "representatives" and don't have "constituents". Therefore, the legislators no longer have to take private meetings or phone calls with anyone. This doesn't mean they won't listen to anyone or take advice, it just means that this can all occur in public hearings and not in private where deals are made. Lobbyists as such should cease to exist.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    How? You realize companies will have replaced employees who leave after a year, right? You can't just switch people's careers off and on again like that. What if they were self employed? Their company can easily have been destroyed, there's nothing for them to go back to.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      There are various ways to handle this. I arbitrarily chose 1 year, but it could be shorter. It's not clear whether it needs to be a full-time job or just a part-time job. After all, our elected officials tend to spend a lot of time fundraising and campaigning rather than legislating. We could require that companies give unpaid leave, while the citizen legislator gets paid a salary by the government. There would of course be hardship exceptions to postpone serving. As a society, we actually need to do more to make it the norm that people can temporarily switch their careers off and on again, for various reasons. Having a child is one crucial example.
- permo-w 4y ago
  the comment said words to the effect of “get caught taking a bribe”. you’re deliberately misunderstanding my words. if you read my comment history, you’ll see that I said the exact same thing you’re saying about 3 minutes before I posted this comment

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Or we could cut their hands off, sentence them to house arrest for life, brand them with a scarlet letter, banish them to an island, etc. there are options other than just shrugging and accepting it as inevitable.

origin_path 4y ago

No they wouldn't, because that's not how bribes work anymore. Basically all bribes of politicians or civil servants are based on promises of jobs or consulting work after leaving the public sector. Look at how frequently politicians show up being paid inexplicably huge speaking fees at major banks despite having nothing to say, or how frequently regulators end up getting well paid jobs at the companies they were supervising immediately after leaving. The issue is you can't prove these are bribes. There's no paper trail, no mysterious payments. Someone's expertise or worth to another is entirely arbitrary, you can't say someone's speaking fee is 'too large' or their experience isn't worth that much money, especially if they've had an unusually interesting position beforehand.

lapcat 4y ago
This is actually why bribes to randomly selected citizens would be easier to catch. After a maximum 1 year term, a randomly selected citizen would be expected to go back to their previous line of work. Whereas an elected professional politician who has spent years in "public service" might naturally be expected to take a politically relevant job afterward. If a randomly selected citizen magically starts getting huge bank speaking fees afterwards, that's obviously a bribe.
- permo-w 4y ago
  this sounds good, but is in practice absolutely impossible to enforce
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Is it? Many elected politicians have been criminally convicted of corruption. Including a seemingly disproportionate number from Illinois...
    - permo-w 4y ago
      let’s say you’re a farmer. you get selected to be a representative. then your term ends and a big company wants to hire you. so you take the job how on earth are you going to legally differentiate this from a company simply hiring someone with experience in the political sphere? how are you going to prove that an after-dinner speech is proceeds from corrupt behaviour, and not just a speech from someone interesting that people may want to listen to? you’re going to ask a court to decide if someone is genuinely an interesting speaker? there’s a good reason they're able to get away with this right now: it’s nearly impossible to legislate for. it’s very easy to spot, but without direct evidence of prior communication between the parties it’s extremely difficult to prove my solution would be to give each of them a huge pension and ban them from ever working again. but that has its own problems
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > how on earth are you going to legally differentiate this from a company simply hiring someone with experience in the political sphere? Experience in the political sphere is no longer a thing when the entire government consists of 1 year lifetime term limited random selections. Experience only has value now because there are "career politicians", political parties, campaign fundraising, etc. Also keep in mind that without elections, they are no longer "representatives" and don't have "constituents". Therefore, the legislators no longer have to take private meetings or phone calls with anyone. This doesn't mean they won't listen to anyone or take advice, it just means that this can all occur in public hearings and not in private where deals are made. Lobbyists as such should cease to exist.
- origin_path 4y ago
  How? You realize companies will have replaced employees who leave after a year, right? You can't just switch people's careers off and on again like that. What if they were self employed? Their company can easily have been destroyed, there's nothing for them to go back to.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    There are various ways to handle this. I arbitrarily chose 1 year, but it could be shorter. It's not clear whether it needs to be a full-time job or just a part-time job. After all, our elected officials tend to spend a lot of time fundraising and campaigning rather than legislating. We could require that companies give unpaid leave, while the citizen legislator gets paid a salary by the government. There would of course be hardship exceptions to postpone serving. As a society, we actually need to do more to make it the norm that people can temporarily switch their careers off and on again, for various reasons. Having a child is one crucial example.
permo-w 4y ago
the comment said words to the effect of “get caught taking a bribe”. you’re deliberately misunderstanding my words. if you read my comment history, you’ll see that I said the exact same thing you’re saying about 3 minutes before I posted this comment