h a l f b a k e r y"Not baked goods, Professor; baked bads!" -- The Tick
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Some consider wealthy patrons circumventing the
political process by bankrolling their own pet parties in return
for tax breaks & other concessions when they get in (as well as
the professional lobbying industry) to be something of a
problem.
After all what's the point of one person one vote
if whoever
you vote for gets bought by someone else.
It does appear to
somewhat invalidate the entire democratic
process a little.
So a solution..
Legally limit the maximum annual donation of an
individual to a political party (including campaign donations)
to one weeks worth of the minimum wage (after tax) while
also banning all contributions from corporations, charities,
NGO's & any foreign nationals (anyone or thing that
isn't a legal voter), make it a crime to circumvent this with
some really draconian penalties (something on a par with
those for treason, the whole dragged naked through the
streets on a hurdle thing plus confiscation of all assets &
possessions, no execution though, that might be going too
far).
Enshrine it in the constitution (or locale equivalent) &
make it
a
crime of treason to try & change it.
That should do it..
But / also..
Besides impeding the rich from getting the equivalent
of a lot more than one vote (by just bribing whoever gets
in to do what they want them to) it has another
advantage..
We essentially just index linked every political parties
maximum contribution receipts to the minimum wage ...
which
should concentrate their minds wonderfully on raising the
standard of living & pay for those at the bottom.
Inspired by
Inverse-Capital_20Vote-Weighting
Inverse-Capital Vote-Weighting [Skewed, Dec 10 2017]
[link]
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I have a friend whose favorite criticism of under-thought
proposals is that they are "just" advice, as in a "why don't
you just do xyz" as a response to a complicated problem. |
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Putting aside the at least currently demonstrated
unconstitutionality of limiting money. |
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Putting aside that half our country is convinced that <
$1M in ads by Russians changed the election |
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Putting aside that self-organization, whether for ISIS or
for "pick hot topic of the day", including crowd funding of
causes, will defeat any attempts to limit influence of
money |
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Putting all of those aside, it's still a horrible idea. |
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// Putting aside the at least currently demonstrated
unconstitutionality of limiting money // |
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// Putting aside that half our country is convinced that <
$1M
in ads by Russians changed the election // |
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So you both approve of people buying government (over
democratically voting for it) & disapprove of it ... it just
depends on who's doing the buying does it. |
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// favorite criticism of under-thought proposals // |
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It seems your response was a little under-thought too. |
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Censorship? or accident? Seems my latest annotation was
deleted |
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accident, re-post & I'll be more careful where I swing my
pointer. |
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OK, the previous version was much more eloquent :) |
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The point about Russian money was that even if you
accept the premise, it was aiming, not amount, that
mattered. It's universally accepted that the Democrats
were both better organized and spent a ton more
money. |
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Lobbying is necessary so long as politics actually
influences money. It would be irresponsible for any
steward of money to not attempt to protect it or grow it
-- if government is a great way to do so, of course they
will. That cannot be stopped any more than water can
be made to flow up hill. |
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As an aside, eliminating earmarks can legitimately be
said to have damaged out politics. That's a great
example where the "just eliminate earmarks" turned out
to be a bad idea because of the unforeseen
consequences of not being able to get legislation
through. |
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Undoing absurd gerrymandering can truly improve our
politics. I'm glad Schwarzenegger spent his own money
to help the drive get started, and I'm glad the Supreme
Court is looking at it. |
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// the previous version was much more eloquent // |
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sorry, rolling a cig in my right while waiving the mouse with
my left wasn't the cleverest thing to do :) |
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Errr...don't have lobbies? It would save space as well.. |
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// Lobbying is necessary so long as politics actually
influences money. It would be irresponsible for any steward
of money to not attempt to protect it or grow it // |
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That's not actually an argument against this though, all
you've really said there is "rich people won't like it" |
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To use the absurd to illustrate my point (about that
particular comment, nothing else). |
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What you've said there is like saying those who kill people
for fun & profit (in a world with no law against murder)
won't like a law against it & would be sensible to attempt
to influence law makers to prevent one. |
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It's not an argument against having that law, just a
statement of what a (not yet a) murderer (because, no
law against it yet) will prefer. |
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// Undoing absurd gerrymandering // |
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Gerrymandering is about manipulating votes so mentioning
it (as you have) is an irrelevant red herring. |
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The idea is about preventing someone bypassing the voting
system after the fact of the vote so gerrymandering can't
be
relevant to it, because (by the premise of the idea) the
vote isn't relevant. |
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The idea is (if anything, given the premise behind it, that
votes aren't relevant because the candidates are all bought
men) about making votes relevant again ... so, a return to
democracy, from the current (alleged, by
Vernon, if I didn't misunderstand him?)
undemocratic rule of the rich. |
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No idea what that's about, must be a US thing? |
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Allow me to explain. "Earmarking" is an activity that takes place in the senate. Members who support a particular bill, prior to the vote on that bill, can wear an "earmark" (originally, literally a mark on the right earlobe; nowadays a green or orange badge on the right lapel, depending on whether they wish to see the bill promoted to the legislative assembly or commended to the upper chamber). If sufficient members wear a green earmark, or wear an orange one but have previously worn a green one in relation to a bill proposed by the same member on any day except Tuesday (which is, of course, Federal Day), then the person proposing the bill (or the endorsed second-party quarterback for that member, except in Alabama where it needs to be the antecedent's keyholder or baffle-guard) is entitled to a Huff, which passes them directly to a trinoval hearing in the Presidential Chancelry Room. Then, as long as it's not one of the Days of Recede, they can oatsack their proposal without fear of hall-warding from the opposing quarterbacks. Obviously this only applies to boundary divisions during any period of Sessional Contest. |
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So sort of like rugby then (before it got all the silly rules &
terminology). |
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Yes, although I didn't really go on to explain the rules on Sledge Law or Privileged Readings, which are more reminiscent of curling. (Of course, that only applies to Third Representatives except, again, in Alabama.) |
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gerrymandering is a big problem because it reduces the
number of representatives in the House that must appeal
across partisan lines. |
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Lobbying is not a problem. Lobbying is the imperfect
solution to a problem, which is access to power for those
who are not themselves in power. |
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// gerrymandering is a big problem // |
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So it may be but it's still entirely irrelevant to this idea as I
already explained, until the vote itself is relevant it's a non
issue, it certainly has nothing to do with this. |
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Your thinking about shoes before you've even put your socks
on. |
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// Lobbying is not a problem. Lobbying is the imperfect
solution to a problem // |
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At last!! finally, something relevant (edit: you finally
addressed the idea rather than talking about something
different as if it wasn't). |
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// which is access to power for those who are not
themselves in power // |
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I'd disagree with the idea that the wealthy have any more
right to access
to power in a democracy than the not-wealthy. |
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Which is
what the idea is supposed to address, by limiting cash
donations (which should include entertaining
representatives to lunches etc.) to a level affordable by the
lowest paid all would have equal access. |
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But at least the point (if not
one I agree with) is pertinent :) |
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//I'd disagree with the idea that the wealthy have any
more right to access to power in a democracy than the
not-wealthy. // |
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Given that the US was started over taxation without
representation, it is not surprising that money would
seek to be proportionally represented if it is
disproportionally affected by policy. |
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Let's stop pretending you came up with a new idea here,
or an idea that would have any bearing on the result: in
the US the maximum amount of money you can give to a
federal candidate is $2700. Corporations and unions are
not allowed to contribute directly at all. |
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so I stand by the criticism "why don't we just limit how
much people can give to politicians" is neither a new
idea, nor a good one, nor one that has been
demonstrated to have any chance to achieve the kind
of result the idea seeks to achieve. |
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// If sufficient members wear a green earmark [...] period of
Sessional Contest. // |
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Ah, you got me, a good point, a palpable hit sir :) |
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I can only put my hands up to
that one (& hang my head in shame), this "idea" was really
only started as a (sort of) response to
Vernons (see link). |
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edit: though in my defense I would jut like to assert that
I have no personal knowledge of it ever having been put
about
elsewhere before (mainly because I didn't bother to go &
look,
which was mostly because I was sure it would have
been.. it is a
pretty obvious idea after all). |
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That rather depends who you are & what you want. |
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// nor one that has been demonstrated to have any chance
to achieve the kind of result the idea seeks to achieve // |
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Oh I don't know, it's not the idea that fails so much as the
execution of its enforcement, not enough people being
dragged through the streets on a hurdle (we should
probably
tar & feather them as well) while having all their assets
seized. |
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// Oh I don't know, it's not the idea that fails so much as the
execution of its enforcement// yeah, that's right next to
communism would work if it wasn't being practiced by actual
humans. |
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// right next to communism // |
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Your last comment makes no sense accept as a lie &
propaganda hyperbole, let me translate how that read to
me. |
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I say: "well it might work if it was actually enforced" |
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You reply: "you're a communist" |
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So, we're resorting to the dark arts of propaganda, namely
the "just call them communists or pedos or something, that
always automatically wins every argument, yeah!" tactic. |
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Which can only mean you really have nothing better than
name calling (which is to say, you have nothing) :) |
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What I'm saying is that saying "this idea would work
great if people would only implement it the way I
envisioned it" is a weak argument versus the reality --
which is money is already limited in various ways in
every democracy, and the influence of money on politics
has not been eliminated. |
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In my view the point you made was quite similar to the
argument that "communism would only work..." -- that is
all I sought to point out. |
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I'd do a somewhat more thorough search of the HB
before presuming that I would be conceding a debate
loss, especially on something as intellectually lite as
this. |
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Just out of interest, what scoring system do you use? |
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The easiest one would be by last annotation :) |
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Unfortunately, anyone who mobilised / organised / motivated /
inspired enough people to do that would ipso facto be a
politician. |
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The anarchist's paradox strikes again. |
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