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Al Gore: US democracy has been hacked

12 points by iProject 14y ago

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
I have agreed with very few things Gore has ever said (I won't get into details because this shouldn't devolve into a Gore flame war). However, I agree with this one. And I hope he can use the influence he has to influence change. Citizens United may have been a death blow to our functioning republic. It was already on life support previous to that, but with the addition of unlimited amounts of corporate funding, Congress now has little incentive to look at "real" people. Instead, its constituents are now people of the corporate variety, and all of its decisions are made for them[1], even if a veneer of "it's for you" is laid over it. Without a way to undo the damage of Citizens United (and the path that led up to it), I don't see how we can solve the fundamental problem of Congress not representing the "real" people. And any attempt to solve Citizens United would be met with huge amounts of lobbying and media buying against it, making a grass roots effort nearly impossible, especially when most people would much rather just pick up some coins on Dullsville. I'm greatly disheartened with the US at the moment, and I'm not sure it is going to get better. We need another social revolution akin to the 60s, but I think it will be much harder to make happen today. I know I have no ideas of how to make it happen. 1. I believe there are a few representatives who are outside of that mold, but they tend to be freshmen with little political power. By the time they've gained political power, they generally fall into the "mold". Of course, there are always exceptions, whom I admire greatly.
peatmoss 14y ago
I think there are many incremental improvements that could be made to the US political system that would enable future, more wholesale improvements. I'd love to see someone like Mr. Gore champion the cause of instant runoff voting / ranked choice voting. IRV/RCV effectively removes the risk of supporting candidates that aren't already hooked into (and beholden to) the existing political fundraising machinery. What's better, is that IRV/RCV could be adopted without constitutional amendments or other up-front, wholesale changes to our system of government. I'd like to imagine that, with the spoiler effect removed, data-savvy third parties would be able to most effectively use the Internet to increase their votes-to-dollars ratios. In fact, I'd hope that intelligence in this arena would be a filter function. Of course this doesn't solve everything--money would still largely dictate candidates' levels of exposure. The difference would be that people could stop using party affiliation (and by proxy money raising potential) as a pre-filter for candidates.
snowwrestler 14y ago
The U.S. political system was hacked decades ago, by political parties. Parties, not special interests, undermine the design of the U.S. federal government. They have baked themselves into the basic structure of the government through power structures like debate commisions, special spending restrictions, and legislative rules--none of which are anywhere to be found in the nation's founding documents or concepts. Special interests were not only anticipated by the framers of the Constitution, they are an essential aspect of the government's functioning--see Federalist #10 for instance. Political professionals like Al Gore do not like the Citizens United decision because it reduces the power of political parties, by giving any organization the same power to communicate political messages. But in that respect it is very closely aligned with how our political system was supposed to work from the beginning.

12 points by iProject 14y ago

I have agreed with very few things Gore has ever said (I won't get into details because this shouldn't devolve into a Gore flame war). However, I agree with this one. And I hope he can use the influence he has to influence change. Citizens United may have been a death blow to our functioning republic. It was already on life support previous to that, but with the addition of unlimited amounts of corporate funding, Congress now has little incentive to look at "real" people. Instead, its constituents are now people of the corporate variety, and all of its decisions are made for them[1], even if a veneer of "it's for you" is laid over it. Without a way to undo the damage of Citizens United (and the path that led up to it), I don't see how we can solve the fundamental problem of Congress not representing the "real" people. And any attempt to solve Citizens United would be met with huge amounts of lobbying and media buying against it, making a grass roots effort nearly impossible, especially when most people would much rather just pick up some coins on Dullsville. I'm greatly disheartened with the US at the moment, and I'm not sure it is going to get better. We need another social revolution akin to the 60s, but I think it will be much harder to make happen today. I know I have no ideas of how to make it happen. 1. I believe there are a few representatives who are outside of that mold, but they tend to be freshmen with little political power. By the time they've gained political power, they generally fall into the "mold". Of course, there are always exceptions, whom I admire greatly.

peatmoss 14y ago

I think there are many incremental improvements that could be made to the US political system that would enable future, more wholesale improvements. I'd love to see someone like Mr. Gore champion the cause of instant runoff voting / ranked choice voting. IRV/RCV effectively removes the risk of supporting candidates that aren't already hooked into (and beholden to) the existing political fundraising machinery. What's better, is that IRV/RCV could be adopted without constitutional amendments or other up-front, wholesale changes to our system of government. I'd like to imagine that, with the spoiler effect removed, data-savvy third parties would be able to most effectively use the Internet to increase their votes-to-dollars ratios. In fact, I'd hope that intelligence in this arena would be a filter function. Of course this doesn't solve everything--money would still largely dictate candidates' levels of exposure. The difference would be that people could stop using party affiliation (and by proxy money raising potential) as a pre-filter for candidates.

snowwrestler 14y ago

The U.S. political system was hacked decades ago, by political parties. Parties, not special interests, undermine the design of the U.S. federal government. They have baked themselves into the basic structure of the government through power structures like debate commisions, special spending restrictions, and legislative rules--none of which are anywhere to be found in the nation's founding documents or concepts. Special interests were not only anticipated by the framers of the Constitution, they are an essential aspect of the government's functioning--see Federalist #10 for instance. Political professionals like Al Gore do not like the Citizens United decision because it reduces the power of political parties, by giving any organization the same power to communicate political messages. But in that respect it is very closely aligned with how our political system was supposed to work from the beginning.