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> I don't think that contributions to political campaigns would be considered "private life", at least in our small corner of the continent. I'm not sure the i

> I don't think that contributions to political campaigns would be considered "private life", at least in our small corner of the continent. I'm not sure the issue is really about privacy. Let's go on a small tangent here. Do you know why secret voting is considered important for democracy? In fact, it's seen as a good feature of a voting system if a voter cannot prove to a third party that they voted a certain way, even if they really want to. The reason is that democracy works best if your vote is a free expression of your political views, and can't be easily influenced by money or threats. If you have the option of proving your vote to a third party, then the third party can bribe or extort you. If you don't, they can't. (Of course there are more complicated vote buying schemes, but it's worth having some safeguards against the simplest one, at least.) Note that we don't just have laws that stop the government from buying people's votes, because the government is not the only actor that can buy people's votes. We also want to stop third parties from doing completely legal things that add up to vote buying or vote extortion. As you can see, the issue isn't really about privacy. The issue is that people should be free to support the political movements they like, and not be punished for it. If you make it harder for people to support the political movements they like, even if your actions are completely legal, you'll get fewer people supporting the movements they like, and more people supporting the movements that others tell them to support. In other words, you get less democracy and more mob rule, or "rule by social pressure" if you prefer. I'm not saying that "rule by social pressure" is a bad system, it might even be better than democracy in some ways, but you have to be honest with yourself if that's what you really support. And that's why I think attacking Eich for his donation is wrong.

coldpie 13y ago
> The issue is that people should be free to support the political movements they like, and not be punished for it. Do you have a loved one? Suppose I use my political clout to separate you from them, permanently. You can never see your partner again. Do you think I should be punished for such behavior?
- gcp 13y ago
  Do you think I should be punished for such behavior? I think you should be applauded for enacting laws that make it possible to protect a woman from an abusive man, or for locking up dangerous criminals. Your example is a bit too vague to be useful.
  - coldpie 13y ago
    Abuse is generally the exception to the loving relationship rule. You're being intentionally obtuse. If I had intended abuse to factor into the decision, I would have specified that. Obviously I'm trying to draw a parallel between homosexual relationships being deemed as deviant or second-class and something the parent may have understood, namely the pain of being separated from a loved one for no reason.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Yorrrick 13y ago
  There is a cause I believe in pationately, but somehow not everyone sees it the way I do. Do you think it's ok for me to use hyperbole, if I'm sufficiently convinced I'm defending the right viewpoint?
- cousin_it 13y ago
  It seems to me that you're basically declining my offer to have a discussion on the meta level ("what should be the rules of the political game?"). You're trying to discuss the object-level issue instead ("what should be the outcome of the political game?"). That could be an interesting discussion for some people, but I'm not interested in it, sorry...
  - coldpie 13y ago
    See my post below for a response. There are two different kinds of political issues and it's entirely rational to treat them separately. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7515083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7515083
ubernostrum 13y ago
The issue is that people should be free to support the political movements they like, and not be punished for it. When the political movement has as its sole and only goal depriving a subset of the population of a basic right, your argument falls apart. And that was the goal of Proposition 8. Additionally, freedom to speak comes with the freedom of others to shun you for what you say, or to speak freely in condemning your opinions. It cannot be a one-way street.
- cousin_it 13y ago
  Sorry, I don't see how the argument falls apart. Can you point out the specific step that fails? I can see how it would fall apart if the goal was to deprive certain people of their right to vote, but that seems to be different from what you're saying.
  - ubernostrum 13y ago
    The right of consenting adults to enter, unfettered, into loving committed relationships is rather fundamental to the way Western society works. If you think it should be put up for vote, be prepared to put your right up for vote first.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - icebraining 13y ago
      As someone who was brought up in a non-married home, I can assure you that marriage isn't required to have loving committed relationships. I'd vote against Prop.8 because eliminating the gender/sexuality discrimination is still a positive move, but if there was an option to eliminate all State-granted marriages, I'd vote for that instead.
parasubvert 13y ago
You're taking this too far. It's one thing to expect a private donation to remain private, or a private vote to remain private. Brendan donated to a cause with a public database. When it comes to combating interests, the powerful have money, the masses have numbers. Social pressure is not less democratic, it IS democratic in its purest form - it's a group of people standing up for what they believe in. To dissuade social pressure is to defend the status quo. I would much rather have noisy, angry cantankerous democratic debates than a world that purely does what it is told. And I would also prefer more civilized, structured and rational debate on public policies such as these to the angry/noisy pressure approach. But the disagreements themselves aren't rational, and the powerful have long used their power to dissuade such debate from occurring lest people recognize their irrationality. So you get noise.
- cousin_it 13y ago
  Aren't you sort of conflating democratic debate with social pressure? I think it's okay to have loud debates against someone who disagrees with me politically, but it's not okay to refuse to hire them for that reason. Boycotting their products is sort of an intermediate case, but I feel that it's closer to the latter than the former. > Social pressure is not less democratic, it IS democratic in its purest form - it's a group of people standing up for what they believe in. I think I slightly disagree with you on that as well, but it's a subtle point so it's okay if people miss it. Basically, by your standards civil war would be the most democratic thing ever. Groups standing up for what they believe in! Yeah! But to me democracy is at least partly about preventing civil war, like ritualized aggression prevents killing in the animal world. Two armies agree to settle the conflict by counting the soldiers on each side, instead of having a battle, and agree to not escalate the conflict if they lose. In other words, if you pressure your political opponents by any means outside the political process, then you're moving away from democracy as I see it. (Though of course there are Prisoner's Dilemma considerations because your opponents might use these tactics even if you don't.)
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - 13y ago
icebraining 13y ago
I never said it was about privacy, per se. sentenza wrote that here in Europe, there's a separation between private and professional life, in that people aren't professionally judge by actions in their private life. I argued that such is true, but that at least in the subset of Europe I live in, contributions to political campaigns are not considered to be part of the private sphere.
- cousin_it 13y ago
  Well, it seems to be considered kind of private in Germany: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php The parties, in return, must submit yearly financial statements to the legislature. In these, only contributors of more than €10,000 per year must be named. (...) In addition, the accounting responsibilities of the parties free individual members and candidates from burdensome paperwork, while the focus of the disclosure rules on large donors protects the privacy of candidates, elected officials, and small donors. In general I agree with the view expressed by Kent Pitman (famous Lisp hacker) here: http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/11/06/on_the_privacy_of_political_campaign_contributions http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/11/06/on_the_pri... . Basically he says privacy outweighs transparency for small donations, but not large ones. In particular, he mentions Keith Olbermann being suspended by his employer for making a small donation similar to Eich's.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    But that's whether the campaign should have divulged (or be forced to divulge) the donation; that's not the question at hand. We already know that they did, and that the information is public. If you want to argue that the Campaign for Prop. 8 shouldn't have to be forced to divulge who made small donations, we can discuss that. But that doesn't imply that we should bury our heads and ignore information which is already public (and which the donors knew was to be published).

coldpie 13y ago

> The issue is that people should be free to support the political movements they like, and not be punished for it. Do you have a loved one? Suppose I use my political clout to separate you from them, permanently. You can never see your partner again. Do you think I should be punished for such behavior?

gcp 13y ago
Do you think I should be punished for such behavior? I think you should be applauded for enacting laws that make it possible to protect a woman from an abusive man, or for locking up dangerous criminals. Your example is a bit too vague to be useful.
- coldpie 13y ago
  Abuse is generally the exception to the loving relationship rule. You're being intentionally obtuse. If I had intended abuse to factor into the decision, I would have specified that. Obviously I'm trying to draw a parallel between homosexual relationships being deemed as deviant or second-class and something the parent may have understood, namely the pain of being separated from a loved one for no reason.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Yorrrick 13y ago
There is a cause I believe in pationately, but somehow not everyone sees it the way I do. Do you think it's ok for me to use hyperbole, if I'm sufficiently convinced I'm defending the right viewpoint?
cousin_it 13y ago
It seems to me that you're basically declining my offer to have a discussion on the meta level ("what should be the rules of the political game?"). You're trying to discuss the object-level issue instead ("what should be the outcome of the political game?"). That could be an interesting discussion for some people, but I'm not interested in it, sorry...
- coldpie 13y ago
  See my post below for a response. There are two different kinds of political issues and it's entirely rational to treat them separately. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7515083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7515083

ubernostrum 13y ago

The issue is that people should be free to support the political movements they like, and not be punished for it. When the political movement has as its sole and only goal depriving a subset of the population of a basic right, your argument falls apart. And that was the goal of Proposition 8. Additionally, freedom to speak comes with the freedom of others to shun you for what you say, or to speak freely in condemning your opinions. It cannot be a one-way street.

cousin_it 13y ago
Sorry, I don't see how the argument falls apart. Can you point out the specific step that fails? I can see how it would fall apart if the goal was to deprive certain people of their right to vote, but that seems to be different from what you're saying.
- ubernostrum 13y ago
  The right of consenting adults to enter, unfettered, into loving committed relationships is rather fundamental to the way Western society works. If you think it should be put up for vote, be prepared to put your right up for vote first.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 13y ago
    As someone who was brought up in a non-married home, I can assure you that marriage isn't required to have loving committed relationships. I'd vote against Prop.8 because eliminating the gender/sexuality discrimination is still a positive move, but if there was an option to eliminate all State-granted marriages, I'd vote for that instead.

parasubvert 13y ago

You're taking this too far. It's one thing to expect a private donation to remain private, or a private vote to remain private. Brendan donated to a cause with a public database. When it comes to combating interests, the powerful have money, the masses have numbers. Social pressure is not less democratic, it IS democratic in its purest form - it's a group of people standing up for what they believe in. To dissuade social pressure is to defend the status quo. I would much rather have noisy, angry cantankerous democratic debates than a world that purely does what it is told. And I would also prefer more civilized, structured and rational debate on public policies such as these to the angry/noisy pressure approach. But the disagreements themselves aren't rational, and the powerful have long used their power to dissuade such debate from occurring lest people recognize their irrationality. So you get noise.

cousin_it 13y ago
Aren't you sort of conflating democratic debate with social pressure? I think it's okay to have loud debates against someone who disagrees with me politically, but it's not okay to refuse to hire them for that reason. Boycotting their products is sort of an intermediate case, but I feel that it's closer to the latter than the former. > Social pressure is not less democratic, it IS democratic in its purest form - it's a group of people standing up for what they believe in. I think I slightly disagree with you on that as well, but it's a subtle point so it's okay if people miss it. Basically, by your standards civil war would be the most democratic thing ever. Groups standing up for what they believe in! Yeah! But to me democracy is at least partly about preventing civil war, like ritualized aggression prevents killing in the animal world. Two armies agree to settle the conflict by counting the soldiers on each side, instead of having a battle, and agree to not escalate the conflict if they lose. In other words, if you pressure your political opponents by any means outside the political process, then you're moving away from democracy as I see it. (Though of course there are Prisoner's Dilemma considerations because your opponents might use these tactics even if you don't.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- 13y ago

icebraining 13y ago

I never said it was about privacy, per se. sentenza wrote that here in Europe, there's a separation between private and professional life, in that people aren't professionally judge by actions in their private life. I argued that such is true, but that at least in the subset of Europe I live in, contributions to political campaigns are not considered to be part of the private sphere.

cousin_it 13y ago
Well, it seems to be considered kind of private in Germany: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php http://www.loc.gov/law/help/campaign-finance/germany.php The parties, in return, must submit yearly financial statements to the legislature. In these, only contributors of more than €10,000 per year must be named. (...) In addition, the accounting responsibilities of the parties free individual members and candidates from burdensome paperwork, while the focus of the disclosure rules on large donors protects the privacy of candidates, elected officials, and small donors. In general I agree with the view expressed by Kent Pitman (famous Lisp hacker) here: http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/11/06/on_the_privacy_of_political_campaign_contributions http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/11/06/on_the_pri... . Basically he says privacy outweighs transparency for small donations, but not large ones. In particular, he mentions Keith Olbermann being suspended by his employer for making a small donation similar to Eich's.
- icebraining 13y ago
  But that's whether the campaign should have divulged (or be forced to divulge) the donation; that's not the question at hand. We already know that they did, and that the information is public. If you want to argue that the Campaign for Prop. 8 shouldn't have to be forced to divulge who made small donations, we can discuss that. But that doesn't imply that we should bury our heads and ignore information which is already public (and which the donors knew was to be published).