Lessig Campaign and the Change Congress Movement 409
GoldenShale wrote a follow up to last week's discussion about Lessig running for congress. He writes "Larry Lessig has created a Lessig08 website, and it looks like he is getting serious about running for congress. In his introduction video he proposes the creation of a national "Change Congress" movement which would try to limit the influence of money in the electoral and legislative processes. Having a technologically savvy representative and a clear intellectual leader to head this kind of movement is exactly what we need to counter the last 8 years of corporate dominance in government."
last 8 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really original thinking here (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for this, but as the old spam form response says, "Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical".
Re:last 8 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Intellectuals make terrible politicians (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, the only way to change the game is to play it - if the congress is run by corporate types, then you need to become a corporate type to change congress. Revolution happens, but it's pretty rare - and frankly I don't think that Lessig has it in him.
Re:last 8 years? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:last 8 years? (Score:2, Insightful)
Only eight years? (Score:4, Insightful)
I recognize the temptation to blame Bush, but this is too old and it runs too deep to pin on him alone.
Re:last 8 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:last 8 years? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's plenty of artists that would like to see copyright be extended as well, so don't pretend that this is merely a right wing corporate thing. There's quite a few liberals earning a living selling books, songs and movies that are delighted to know their grandchildren can inherit their royalties!
Re:last 8 years? (Score:2, Insightful)
Much of the incentive is in tax laws. (Score:2, Insightful)
Implement the FairTax and the power of the politicians goes back to where it should be.
I'd also favor a simpler flatter tax system THAT CAN'T BE TWEAKED once implemented.
But are corporations the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not Walmart's fault that people shop there and buy so much Chinese stuff. It's not Toyota's fault that Americans would rather pay Toyota and get a nicer car than have a better standard of living for American auto workers. It's not just that a banker on wall street is greedy. It is that -every- American is greedy, and therefor, we got the institutions we asked for.
Re:last 8 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Really original thinking here (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time we allow our fundamental rights to be legislated away, we lose...
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Much of the incentive is in tax laws. (Score:2, Insightful)
Think of it in software terms. If you released a product (even a completely absolutely refined product) that was incapable of being patched would you be comfortable? There needs to be SOME way of fixing problems that are unforseen.
Legislation in a lot of ways is like software. Release it early and its full of bugs and exploits, release it late and everyone complains that you are taking to long and that [X] can do it faster.
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_force_in_Iraq [wikipedia.org] A lot of European countries have troops in Afghanistan.
Sorry for not fighting all your ill-concieved wars.
Re:Really original thinking here (Score:1, Insightful)
Why should corporations have any 1st Amendment rights at all?
Sure, the individuals in the corp should have freedom of speech, but there is no guarantee that the collection of individuals gets 'extra' rights. So let individuals spend all they want on lobbying, and let the corporations spend nothing.
Re:last 8 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intellectuals make terrible politicians (Score:3, Insightful)
Congressmen get to vote on issues that affect the country. They pass budgets. They make laws to regulate business. If Lessig had a voice in Congress, that would be One vote plus the number of other Congressmen his logic and arguments can influence.
And hell... a vote FOR LESSIG is a vote for FREE CULTURE [google.com]. He wrote the book on the subject. :)
Anybody who would vote against Lessig clearly is more concerned with stifling American Culture, then freeing it. Culture is music, movies, art, and literature. These are things that shouldn't be stifled by greedy special interest groups who are only looking out for themselves. I think Lessig would do well to represent the copyright of authors, the best interest of the population to enjoy culture, and slam down greedy special interest groups to where they belong.
Re:Intellectuals make terrible politicians (Score:2, Insightful)
If one does it this way, is he still in a position to change congress, or has the system changed him into yet another broken piece of the same-old?
*Cough* *Britain* *Cough* (Score:3, Insightful)
Bein allied with someone doesn't mean "invaeds the same places despite advice", it means mutual defence and giving consideration to any other military actions.
Frankly I've more respect for those that didn't go than those that did.
The First Ammendment... (Score:3, Insightful)
You can not "limit influence of money" without trampling the First Amendment-provided right to free speech. McCain-Feingold [washingtonpost.com] did just this, but it does not make it right (it is the primary grudge against McCain, in fact)...
Funny, how the same people, who complain about First Amendment violations almost all the time — right to sell porn, right to distribute copyrighted (by someone else) material, right to create/publish law-breaking software are all deemed protected by the same Amendment by these people — not only fail to see this trampling, but actually demand more of it... Or, rather, it would've been funny, if it weren't sad.
I thought more of Lessig...
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
That's fine and dandy, and I think you were unfairly modded troll, by the way. All I'm saying is, if Europeans aren't fighting for us, why should we fight for them? Why does it matter to the USA if Poland or Germany are independent from Russia any more than Iraq is liberated from Saddam? There's no difference. I'm saying, let Europeans deal with their own security, the USA can trade with them, but lets end NATO now and move on with life.
Nothing to get mad about.
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
2. If the dumbest thing you can think of is to appease the largest economic power outside of North America, then you clearly haven't watched American politics for the last 50 years.
3. Europeans ARE fighting with Americans in Iraq. United Kingdom, Poland, Romania, Denmark, Bulgaria, Latvia, Albania, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Estonia (in decreasing number of troops) all have troops in Iraq. Not all of these are EU members, but some are, and all are part of Europe. Europe is not France and Germany, no matter what France and Germany may say about that. That said, Germany is a staunch US ally, host to US bases that are key in moving troops and equipment around the world, and a key member of NATO that helped us during the cold war. Discount such an ally at your own peril....
4. All of the above nations are quite concerned that they've done quite the opposite of what they intended (bring instability to the region rather than stability).
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:1, Insightful)
Your sort of thinking is exactly the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
One compromise after another, until eventually we're in this mess. What we *need* are people who actually have some ideals and well thought out principles and are willing to stick to them or go down in flames trying. Then we might actually see some change, rather than continued appeasement of the entrenched interests.
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Much of the incentive is in tax laws. (Score:3, Insightful)
The FairTax is anything but.
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
As to what the difference to the USA is, in case you have forgotten you were involved in a cold war with the USSR. The USA and Europe provided a counterbalancing force to the USSR and China. How long do you think the USA would have lasted if the USSR, Europe and China had been allies? US involvement in Europe, as in South-East Asia in the last century was all about national security.
[1] Yes, unlikely, I know.
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but that's pretty arrogant. I understand the notion, but you have to look at it this way. We are considered the evil war monger superpower now. That's not a good thing. If we were to take a step back, let the world work it's magic and help them instead of inhibiting them, we might actually make it off this planet and on to better things. The whole idea behind living a cooperative existence is to NOT go to war unless absolutely necessary. This is why it should take a paramount shift in the popular vote of Congress to go to war. This allows time for minor skirmishes all over the globe to play out... good or bad. If it gets bad. We are there to help. Like your neighbor stepping in and calling the police when your house is broken into. (Or are you the same type of person that assumes that your house value will not depreciate because your neighbor was broken into?)
There was a reason that everyone wanted to live in America in the past. It was a goal (of sorts) for many people to aspire to. Today? We are "stupid ignorant Americans with our tanks and bombs." The reason people want to live here now? The Feds will pay for your health care, education and Social Security. I'm sorry, but that's not the America I feel my ancestors bled for.
But how? (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, there is a 'donation cap' of $2300 per person for individual contributions to a campaign or party, I believe. I could think of ways to get around such a donation cap. Most people don't have $2300 to give to political campaigns or parties. So, if someone 'arranges' for the people without the money to get the money to give to the favored candidate, it could be used to funnel a lot of money from one person/corporation to the candidate. I mean, there's nothing stopping me from giving $2300 buck to the campaign, then giving you, my close friend, who just so happens to support the same candidate, a gift of $2300, or a job with a 'signing bonus' of $2300.
Also, besides human ingenuity at getting around any type of rule/law, there is the simple, fundamental fact that corporations are made up of people. Boards of directors, executives, employees. Those people have free speach rights, and they have money. You will never, ever, ever be able to eliminate the influence of people with money and power from politics. It cannot be done. The influence of the rich and powerful on politics goes back far beyond the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. The definition of 'powerful' is that you have influence that you can wield.
The best you can hope to do is either convince the people with money and power that it is in their so-called 'enlightened self-interest' to use their influence and powern in such a way that benefits everyone, and not just themeselves and their allies, or else try to accumulate more power, influence, and money than they do.
Might may not make Right, but Right without power is meaningless and useless. Don't get me wrong, this post is not a defense of the way government is currently being run. I'm disgusted by the way Republican majority governments under Reagan and Bush have expanded the Federal Governments spending outrageously, expand earmarks outrageously, and are generally running the country bankrupt. I'm disappointed with the 'leadership' of a government which has gotten us into an occupation which wasn't necessary, under false pretenses, ticking off the rest of the world, and dropping the ball in Afghanistan, a country we absolutly needed to invade and remove the current government from power because it was clearly aiding, abetting, and providing safe harbor for the enemies of the United States who had actively commited crimes against us. By the way the government is systematically attacking our constitutional freedoms and privacy, justifying torture on a scale and with a lack of transparency or accountability that is horrifying to me as a us Citizen. By the way they have been continuousy expanding patents and copyrights, in the name of trying to protect the economy, but which is most likely having the opposite effect.
But, it's just a statement of plain truth: If you want to change government, you must influence the people around you, and it certainly helps to become famous, or run a large company. So go out and start your own company, or your own political group or blog or news organization and start building your power and accumulating wealth. Find friends who can give you $2300 (if you don't have it yourself) to donate to campaigns and causes you believe in, and donate it.
Re:Much of the incentive is in tax laws. (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything else is unfair, but necessary simply because not everyone can afford their fair share.
The tax code boils down to extracting unfair amounts of money from whomever can pay and the way that is done is by the politics of helping friends, punishing enemies and pandering to the voters.
So, in the US, with a $3T budget and 300M citizens, if your family is not paying $10,000 a head in federal taxes you are not paying your fair share. If that seems like too much, maybe the government should spend less.
Re:Much of the incentive is in tax laws. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would guess, from your comment, that you have some (small-l) libertarian leanings and so believe that the government should not manipulate the economy in this way. That's fine, and if the majority in a democratic state believe that way then the government shouldn't, but you also aim to make impossible for any future government to do so, which will be a lot harder to garner support for.
Influence of government - influence of money (Score:3, Insightful)
The government has exactly one job: to monopolize violence to ensure that people can make arrangements free of violence. Everything else, people can arrange for themselves through voluntary peaceful means.
Re:Really original thinking here (Score:3, Insightful)
To change Congress, we first have to change the attitude of the voters who think their CongressCritter is giving them a "free lunch" by stealing someone else's tax dollars and funding a local project. Earmarks are just the tip of the iceberg.
How about a Constitutional Amendment requiring all money raised for a campaign MUST be raised from registered voters in the District you intend to represent?
Then another that states that all monies budgeted must have a corresponding Constitutional Article that allows the agency of project funded to be paid for by the Federal Govt.? That alone would cut 80% of our Federal Budget. Granted, much of that would then have to be paid for by State or Local Govt., but at then you get a better return on your dollar, as there are not as many thieves in line to steal some before they return the remainder!
Funny, I figured this out a long time ago. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
You won't overcome the republicans or democrats in one big presidential election. Never gonna happen. If you want to make any progress, you will have to build from the bottom up. Start getting candidates into local and state positions, and build on a track record of good governance at the local and state level to leverage your party into the House and the Senate. Once you have enough support in the House and Senate (at least 1/3rd of each), and are nationally known as a party people like and trust, then you are in an excellent position to run a Presidential candidate as a true, meaningful alternative to the two establisment parties.
Otherwise, your just a flash in the pan.
Re:But are corporations the problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
Much of the reputation that American cars have for being unreliable isn't entirely earned -- the Japanese own large portions of American media conglomerates and use their influence to convince people that American cars suck and Japanese cars are the only thing they should buy if they want reliability.
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:1, Insightful)
I would. You don't understand how it works. The only thing that's really wrong with america (for lefties) is it's power, and it's size, and the mere fact that it functions. Not how it's using that power, we're more than happy to buy oil from Iraq, we have no moral standing ourselves (we only shout loudly, but giving up a single percent of GDP for morality is not something any leftie would go for in Europe). In short anything that might kill America, the bastion of capitalism, is considered a good thing for European lefties*. (keep in mind that by American standards, the most "right" parties are really lefties in comparison, certainly to republicans, but mostly also to democrats).
* even though, and I agree on this, it would be a terrible thing indeed
Hate for america is not based on hate for it's citizens, but on american symbols. The capitalism. The military-industrial complex. The space program. The huge cities. The freedom. It is NOT based on any foreign policy that the US implements. Yes Iraq didn't help, but to say it's the cause of anti-americanism anywhere (except perhaps amongst the baathists of iraq) is not just delusional but outright danguerous deception.
Europe is anti-america because it's the devil. It shows that, while lefty politics are failing all over the globe, policies to the extreme right, and extreme liberty amongst citizens largely holding the Christian faith is a working, stable state structure.
Therefore the mere EXISTENCE of America is the enemy (of European, extreme-and-"moderate" lefty parties, and as I said, the Vlaams Belang of belgium is located to the LEFT of the democrats). Not really anything America does.
You might want to follow that ancient advise "don't listen to what a person says, look at what he does, and you will know his thoughts".
The problem isn't the Bill of Rights (Score:4, Insightful)
If the First Amendment wasn't an obstacle, what would you want to do? Limit political contributions, and all you do is restrict the power of middle class individuals' money (which must be pooled to buy a single commercial) in favor of the rich (who can afford to advertise without going through campaign middlemen. We've seen some of that in these primaries, where the $2,300 cap on ordinary Americans' contributions obviously doesn't apply to wealthy candidates who can "loan" millions of dollars to their own campaigns. Limit political advertisements, and all you'll do is force some of those advertisements to call themselves "fair and balanced news", concentrating power still further into the hands of media owners. Limit news that doesn't pass "Fairness" laws, and that just moves the power into the hands of the incumbent politicians and judges who get to write and arbitrate such laws.
The best we can do is encourage the dissemination of less corrupted political information, to inoculate people against the misinformation that money can buy. By the time a voter is watching the commercials that have been pushed at him rather than trying to pull information on issues and candidates for himself, it's practically too late.
Re:But are corporations the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:last 8 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
It would also be the single largest transfer of money from the poor to the rich. That is why it'll never happen: because there is still some sanity in government, even if it's not much.
Dan Aris
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
And once the radioactive cloud drifts over your midwest and destroyes the agriculture there, you'll feel really stupid for doing so.
Completely disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Europe is anti-American solely because of what they perceive to be American militarism. I think Europe is so scarred from the World Wars that anything that smacks of a risk of a war terrifies them. And, I think that is understandable. Everyone in Europe, especially Germany, has a family member that was killed on the Eastern Front. Everyone in Europe has families tales of occupation, the bombings, the postwar starvations, the homelessness. They have had enough war to last for generations and they see us as fools for seemingly seeking it out.
Please stop with the "USian" nonsense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bush's foreign policy is awesome (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but you really think they hate our "freedom" and not our meddling (i.e., causing wars and installing dictators when it suited the US)? Sorry, I don't think that's it. Its our foreign policy, which exploits other nations much like the corporations exploited people here in the 1900s before regulations stopped it.
Re:But are corporations the problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't turn a startup company into a national giant without being better than your competition. That's what Walmart has done. Some companies when they get big get lazy, and start to charge higher prices. To their credit, Walmart has done the opposite - they've used their size and influence to create even more efficiencies and provide their customers even lower prices.
The result is that millions of Americans are better able to afford the necessities of life. And that sounds like a Good Thing to me.
Now since you've proven yourself a moron... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the reason we are in Iraq is that for over a decade, Saddam Hussein flaunted and refused to comply with the terms of an armistice he himself had signed.
And then he added to that by doing far too good a job blustering and trying to convince people that he had an active WMD program - so good a job that the Russians, French, Germans, Spanish, Chinese, and even the Swiss thought he did still have it going. Why was he doing it? Because it was the only thing keeping Iran off his ass. Problem? He fooled everyone else too, and his history scared the crap out of people that he'd lob a nuke towards someone (Turkey, Israel, Kuwait, Iran) that he considered an "enemy" and touch off even more crap.
We're in Iraq today because the Middle East is ruled by a bunch of fucktards who use a 7th-century religion to justify barbarity and evil, towards each other just as much as towards the "dar al-harb" they profess to hate.
Re:But are corporations the problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't take a conspiracy theory to see why the Japanese own the car market. The truth is the American companies dropped the ball on engineering.
Saying that every American is greedy probably wasn't meant as an insult either, but as a point about how we view economics. The common argument is that capitalism counts on each individual to make decisions that benefit themselves which results in a greater whole. The problem is that it doesn't always work out ideally as seen in Walmart.
Re:Now since you've proven yourself a moron... (Score:4, Insightful)
We're in Iraq today because the Middle East is ruled by a bunch of fucktards who use a 7th-century religion to justify barbarity and evil, towards each other just as much as towards the "dar al-harb" they profess to hate.
No, we're in Iraq today because the U.S. is now run by a bunch of petulant chicken-hawks (funny how Clinton didn't feel the need to invade Iraq whereas Bush couldn't wait) who use a 0th-century religion to justify the murder and torture (yes, kids, you can watch Christians defend torture!) of people in a different religion who happen to be sitting on a bunch of oil that wasn't being used enough. What's that? They shot at our soldiers? Guess what, our soldiers wouldn't be getting shot at if we had not invaded in the first place. What's that? We really thought Saddam had nukes. Sorry but anyone with an ounce of sense knew that he didn't have them because if he had them he would have used them (argue this all you want but the fact is that Iraq didn't have them and wasn't working on them). I think this is the point where you bring up 9/11 and implore me to support the troops.
Re:Now since you've proven yourself a moron... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we're in Iraq because we really, really though they had, or were about to have, nukes and threatened nearby countries? Okay. Why aren't we in North Korea? They have nukes, and they sure as hell pose a threat to South Korea. Why can we deal with North Korea through diplomacy, but we had to invade Iraq?
Excepting that Iraq was one of the few places in the Middle East with a largely secular government and peace between different religious groups. Saddam Hussein was a terrible, brutal dictator, but he wasn't a religious zealot, he was a powermonger. He paid lip service to religion because it gave him some political benefit.
Anyone who thought Hussein and Iraq presented a credible threat that was imminent enough to warrant an unilateral invasion was deluding themselves.
Clueless moderators? (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I checked, it was the US government which tried to convince those countries that Iraq had WMD, and they used a significant amount of fake or exaggerated 'evidence' to do so. Look up Colin Powell's address to the UN, for example.
Europeans opposed the invasion of Iraq because they didn't let themselves be fooled by that. If the US had had a case, most Europeans would have supported the invasion.
Re:Now since you've proven yourself a moron... (Score:3, Insightful)