6 ms·

So who's going to prosecute them for it? If the government, police and judiciary are all in on it, who can stop them? There's only 2 political parties in the

by Mikeb85 12y ago

So who's going to prosecute them for it? If the government, police and judiciary are all in on it, who can stop them? There's only 2 political parties in the US and they're both in on this, you can't even vote for a party to reform this...

pstuart 12y ago
The foundation for this is the War on Drugs, which many well-meaning citizens support. Only if those attitudes can be changed can we expect any change.
Sorgam 12y ago
No. In America, you can do a "write in" vote whereby you can vote for anyone you want. So the problem is with the voters. If you voted for Obama, then you're partly responsible for this. The problem is people who will only vote for parties that are expensively advertised.
- jonpaul 12y ago
  I agree with this. My strategy as of lately has been to just write "Libertarian" in the write-in box. I realize that it will have little impact as of now. But if enough people do it, news media will start reporting this. Potential liberty minded candidates may then see an opportunity. The liberty movement is growing as demonstrated by the success of Ron Paul's campaign in 2008 vs 2012. It just takes time.
  - baddox 12y ago
    As far as I know, most jurisdictions require write-in candidates to officially register as such, and will count yours as an invalid ballot. Literally no one will see your "message" except for the one person counting write-in ballots.
  - tlrobinson 12y ago
    "Potential liberty minded candidates may then see an opportunity." Legally change their name to "Libertarian"?
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  While it is true that you can "write in" anyone you want, the reality of all voting means that the winner is (Generally) going to be the person who is most well known - and like it or not that means campaigning aka advertising. So in practice, this doesn't get you anywhere. What we need is a nationwide NOTA (None of the above) vote option, wherein if the NOTA vote gets a plurality, the race must re-occur with different candidates. Like in Brewsers Millions.
  - acjohnson55 12y ago
    I think instant-runoff voting is a better idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
    - eru 12y ago
      Or approval voting. It's much easier to understand, and not really gameable.
      - pateras 12y ago
        The thing I don't get about approval voting is when do you stop voting for your second choice? It seems like every vote with approval voting is a strategic vote, whereas with IRV you just always vote for your preferred candidates in order. Yes, favorite betrayal is possible, but it requires a very specific set of circumstances, and the only gaming of the system is people throwing their top vote to the opponent, which is very risky and requires a freakish amount of insight into the race to know if the conditions of a spoiler are even possible. To me, strategic voting seems much more likely with approval voting than it does with IRV, and it's that strategic voting that is maintaining the two party system. I think the possibility of a possible spoiler effect under IRV is small, and that its chances of actually allowing 3rd party victories are much higher, and thus worth the risk, especially because, to me, approval voting doesn't really remove the spoiler effect, but just delays it. I like approval voting, but IRV seems like a better solution, overall. Also, I disagree that approval voting is much easier to understand. IRV isn't significantly more complicated than approval voting, and neither are significantly more complicated the current plurality/FPTP system. TL;DR - In my opinion, IRV's rewards outweigh its risks and IRV > approval voting > FPTP.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
maerF0x0 12y ago
At the very least there are independents. But yeah, I understand your frustration.
raquo 12y ago
Nothing scares politicians more than a million people protesting on the streets of each major city, angry about a very specific issue. Politicians are lucky that the population is not organized enough and/or doesn't care enough to do that. And they make sure to keep it that way.
smsm42 12y ago
Don't blame the parties. The parties react quite readily when called on something - when the electorate demands it. Look into the civil rights - is there any politician now openly opposing equal voting rights? No. Why - because all politicians are suddenly so high minded? No, because it's an extremely unpopular position and will get one's behind kicked on the election day. Now look at more controversial issue - say, gay marriage. Here we have politicians which wouldn't dream of taking position for or against - in certain places - and politicians readily taking the same position in another place. Why? Is it just random? No, it's because their electorate wants it, and politicians whose position does not match their electorate do not get elected. In fact, the president himself notably changed his position quite recently on the issue. Etc., etc. - I could name dozens of issues where politicians did whatever their electorate asked, and changed their tune when the electorate changed their opinion. So why civil forfeiture is not an issue that effects change? Not because politicians are bad - they are bad in different ways, but at least in the US, their badness still can be controlled to a large measure. But because US citizens are not threatening to kick their politician's asses if they don't fix it. Like they do with many other hot topics of the day, quite successfully, one way or another. Why is that? I'm not sure. Maybe because civil forfeiture is something that usually happens to people that either linked to the criminal world or live in the places which are "sketchy" or don't have money and connections to raise the hype. Maybe because people are reluctant to criticize law enforcement. Maybe because it is served as a part of "war on drugs" and "think of the children", etc. Maybe there's another reason I completely miss - but whatever it is, the problem is not the politicians, the problem is that this issue is not taken as a serious problem by the society. If you want to blame somebody who could effect the change - blame the press. They probably could raise the profile of the issue if they wanted to. But they do not. So the answer to the question of "who can stop them" - US citizens can. If only they'd want to.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  Maybe that's the problem. The two parties are at best reactive. If we'd have a third or fourth party, we'd get parties actually pushing for something and raising awareness about a problem. Most people can't be bothered with this because "it doesn't happen to them".
viggity 12y ago
Most libertarians, and a healthy chunk of republicans really hate this nonsense. Enough that Republican opposition is explicitly called out in the article.
Shivetya 12y ago
Well there is always that petition process the White House started, why not go there?

by Mikeb85 12y ago

pstuart 12y ago

The foundation for this is the War on Drugs, which many well-meaning citizens support. Only if those attitudes can be changed can we expect any change.

Sorgam 12y ago

No. In America, you can do a "write in" vote whereby you can vote for anyone you want. So the problem is with the voters. If you voted for Obama, then you're partly responsible for this. The problem is people who will only vote for parties that are expensively advertised.

jonpaul 12y ago
I agree with this. My strategy as of lately has been to just write "Libertarian" in the write-in box. I realize that it will have little impact as of now. But if enough people do it, news media will start reporting this. Potential liberty minded candidates may then see an opportunity. The liberty movement is growing as demonstrated by the success of Ron Paul's campaign in 2008 vs 2012. It just takes time.
- baddox 12y ago
  As far as I know, most jurisdictions require write-in candidates to officially register as such, and will count yours as an invalid ballot. Literally no one will see your "message" except for the one person counting write-in ballots.
- tlrobinson 12y ago
  "Potential liberty minded candidates may then see an opportunity." Legally change their name to "Libertarian"?
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
While it is true that you can "write in" anyone you want, the reality of all voting means that the winner is (Generally) going to be the person who is most well known - and like it or not that means campaigning aka advertising. So in practice, this doesn't get you anywhere. What we need is a nationwide NOTA (None of the above) vote option, wherein if the NOTA vote gets a plurality, the race must re-occur with different candidates. Like in Brewsers Millions.
- acjohnson55 12y ago
  I think instant-runoff voting is a better idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
  - eru 12y ago
    Or approval voting. It's much easier to understand, and not really gameable.
    - pateras 12y ago
      The thing I don't get about approval voting is when do you stop voting for your second choice? It seems like every vote with approval voting is a strategic vote, whereas with IRV you just always vote for your preferred candidates in order. Yes, favorite betrayal is possible, but it requires a very specific set of circumstances, and the only gaming of the system is people throwing their top vote to the opponent, which is very risky and requires a freakish amount of insight into the race to know if the conditions of a spoiler are even possible. To me, strategic voting seems much more likely with approval voting than it does with IRV, and it's that strategic voting that is maintaining the two party system. I think the possibility of a possible spoiler effect under IRV is small, and that its chances of actually allowing 3rd party victories are much higher, and thus worth the risk, especially because, to me, approval voting doesn't really remove the spoiler effect, but just delays it. I like approval voting, but IRV seems like a better solution, overall. Also, I disagree that approval voting is much easier to understand. IRV isn't significantly more complicated than approval voting, and neither are significantly more complicated the current plurality/FPTP system. TL;DR - In my opinion, IRV's rewards outweigh its risks and IRV > approval voting > FPTP.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

maerF0x0 12y ago

At the very least there are independents. But yeah, I understand your frustration.

raquo 12y ago

Nothing scares politicians more than a million people protesting on the streets of each major city, angry about a very specific issue. Politicians are lucky that the population is not organized enough and/or doesn't care enough to do that. And they make sure to keep it that way.

smsm42 12y ago

Don't blame the parties. The parties react quite readily when called on something - when the electorate demands it. Look into the civil rights - is there any politician now openly opposing equal voting rights? No. Why - because all politicians are suddenly so high minded? No, because it's an extremely unpopular position and will get one's behind kicked on the election day. Now look at more controversial issue - say, gay marriage. Here we have politicians which wouldn't dream of taking position for or against - in certain places - and politicians readily taking the same position in another place. Why? Is it just random? No, it's because their electorate wants it, and politicians whose position does not match their electorate do not get elected. In fact, the president himself notably changed his position quite recently on the issue. Etc., etc. - I could name dozens of issues where politicians did whatever their electorate asked, and changed their tune when the electorate changed their opinion. So why civil forfeiture is not an issue that effects change? Not because politicians are bad - they are bad in different ways, but at least in the US, their badness still can be controlled to a large measure. But because US citizens are not threatening to kick their politician's asses if they don't fix it. Like they do with many other hot topics of the day, quite successfully, one way or another. Why is that? I'm not sure. Maybe because civil forfeiture is something that usually happens to people that either linked to the criminal world or live in the places which are "sketchy" or don't have money and connections to raise the hype. Maybe because people are reluctant to criticize law enforcement. Maybe because it is served as a part of "war on drugs" and "think of the children", etc. Maybe there's another reason I completely miss - but whatever it is, the problem is not the politicians, the problem is that this issue is not taken as a serious problem by the society. If you want to blame somebody who could effect the change - blame the press. They probably could raise the profile of the issue if they wanted to. But they do not. So the answer to the question of "who can stop them" - US citizens can. If only they'd want to.

higherpurpose 12y ago
Maybe that's the problem. The two parties are at best reactive. If we'd have a third or fourth party, we'd get parties actually pushing for something and raising awareness about a problem. Most people can't be bothered with this because "it doesn't happen to them".

viggity 12y ago

Most libertarians, and a healthy chunk of republicans really hate this nonsense. Enough that Republican opposition is explicitly called out in the article.

Shivetya 12y ago

Well there is always that petition process the White House started, why not go there?