Larry Lessig Reaches Funding Goal and Is Running For President 281
LetterRip writes: Lessig has met his funding goal of one million dollars, and thus is committed to run for President. ABC reports: "After exceeding his $1 million crowd-funding goal, Harvard Law School professor Larry Lessig announced today on “This Week” that he is running for president. 'I think I'm running to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the room,' he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. 'We have to recognize -- we have a government that does not work. The stalemate, partisan platform of American politics in Washington right now doesn't work.'”
Lessig is Runnig? (Score:2)
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The typo is my fault, sorry - the 'spelling error' highlighting either wasn't working or I overlooked it when I submitted - doh!
Interestingly he did do editing. I only submitted the first sentence and didn't have the link inline. He found the second source, quoted the explanatory paragraph, and added the linking.
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Because on Slashdot we are all luddites that don't trust technology to automate anything, let alone checking for proper spelling of words!
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Interestingly he did do editing
Slashdot "editing" is not editing as the rest of the world understands it.
It's editing Jim, but not as we know it.
Lessig is hard to listen to (Score:5, Insightful)
I watched the TV interview. I'm not American but US politics has a way of affecting everyone, so I think it's cool what he's trying to do.
That said, I think he needs to practice his TV interviewing style a bit. He spoke VERY fast, sounded kind of shrill, and the tumble of words didn't communicate as much as I expected given their quantity. There were a lot of things that sounded like generic political soundbites any candidate might say. The basic ideas of political reform are solid - he could slow down, hit one or two points solidly and then stop.
There are a few other issues I don't really understand.
The main one is that he's strongly Democrat. For reasons I don't fully understand (electoral college mumble mumble) it seems US candidates cannot ever be independent, they have to pick a side. So that's going to cause issues right there. Reform of Washington should be a bi-partisan issue: I had expected him to run as an independent and then resign and trigger fresh elections once his platform was passed. That way anyone could feel secure voting for him. But I guess that sort of thing isn't possible.
The other is that surely he it takes more than one man to deliver the reforms he wants. Why isn't he creating a political party rather than running for President? This must be the only-two-parties rule again? I heard once that there are more than just Dems and Reps in the US political system but I never hear much about them.
He chose Democrat because reasons (Score:5, Informative)
The original superpac was strictly non-partisan. However, it turned out that almost zero Republicans wanted anything to do with him, it, or campaign finance reform. So in practice, only Democrats supported the idea. The Republicans MAYDAY reached out to actively oppose campaign finance reform...
There really aren't viable candidates on the national stage outside of our two main parties. The vast majority of other parties are extreme fringe single-issue parties, and most of them are far right-wing or deeply religious. The only two parties that come even close to being worth mentioning are the Green Party and the Libertarian Party. The former can't get nationally elected, and the latter has caucused with the Republicans for over a decade now.
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While I don't give him good odds of getting elected, mostly because people can't seem to do more than vote for the candidates that get the biggest media campaigns, he's the only current candidate I'd even think of voting for. Lessig isn't my perfect candidate, but he is far more like it then any primary party candidate could ever be and still be part of their party. The greens and Libertarians have much the same issues as he does. The last good presidential third party candidates to get any traction have al
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There really aren't viable candidates on the national stage outside of our two main parties.
Reasoning with republican and democrat voters is utterly futile. We have to work on the non-voting block. It is a large enough majority that we can simply ignore the ruling parties and vote in something else. And we can render all campaign money absolutely worthless at the same time. There is no need for this phony baloney "campaign reform" bullshit. It is thinly disguised censorship.
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The Republicans thought they would have the upper hand in the post Citizens United era.
No, they just thought it would be nice not to have their First Amendment rights infringed, that's all. And plenty of liberal-minded groups agreed with them. You don't give up your freedoms of speech and assembly based on the calendar, nor based on the manner in which you assemble. Large media operations were allowed to pursue candidate and issue advocacy while other groups were set up to become criminals for doing exactly the same thing. A plain and simple violation of the First Amendment, not to mention a
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No, they just thought it would be nice not to have their First Amendment rights infringed, that's all.
Want to explain to me why Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the ruling why Republicans supported it? Do Democrats not want their first amendment rights or is it much more likely that Republicans thought they stood to gain from the ruling while Democrats thought that they stood to loose.
Re:He chose Democrat because reasons (Score:5, Informative)
Want to explain to me why Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the ruling why Republicans supported it?
Because the majority of media outlets, which weren't impacted by McCain-Feingold's limitations on pre-election opinion broadcasting, are run by editorial boards and staff that skew left. The Democrats truly enjoyed that un-infringed support. Simple as that.
It's not that Republicans stood to gain by having their constitutional rights re-protected, it's that they stood to RE-gain something that had been taken away from them out of proportion, in political terms.
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When the First Amendment was written the authors clearly didn't predict the rise of broadcasting and mass media. Unfortunately the effectiveness and the high cost of using broadcast media has broken US democracy.
There was a bit of hope with social media for a while, but the spin doctors quickly learned how to manage that too.
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Newspapers were in regular print in the Americas during the 18th century, so the founding fathers would have been well aware of mass media as it had already started.
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Back then there were many newspapers, and the distribution methods of the day didn't allow them to publish daily news in every state simultaneously. There simply wasn't the concentration of ownership or power that there is now, rather lots of smaller outfits.
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So? Its the same progression mass media has undergone since it was first created - even with radio, TV and Internet, news reporting has increased in speed and acceptable delays have decreased to the point where if you break a news story minutes before another outlet then that is considered a success.
We have gone from daily news bulletins to hourly news bulletins to constant news channels - and now we have the internet where anyone can break some major news with a few lines of text as the event happens...
So
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Okay, try to think of it another way. The amount of money needed to get into office has increased dramatically. Even accounting for inflation, it's rocketed. It seems clear to me that the people who wrote the constitution and the First Amendment didn't intend for people to be able to buy power with money. They wanted ordinary people to be in control of the democracy, not a rich elite.
Later on slavery was abolished and women given the vote. Democracy was spread to as many people as possible. I can't imagine
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You mean the First Amendment as it was interpreted before Citizens United or the First Amendment as it has been interpreted since Citizens United? Because they're not the same thing.
Prior to the Citizens United case, McCain-Feingold hadn't BEEN interpreted in constitutional terms. Not by the courts. Just because it passed in congress doesn't mean it's constitutional. That's the whole point of bringing such things before the court.
Re: He chose Democrat because reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
The original superpac was strictly non-partisan.
This isn't actually true. The group's rhetoric assumes that businesses (and buisnessmen) shouldn't be able to fund politics because business (and businessmen) are evil, while government (and so called public interest groups) are righteous.
By and large, that is the argument of the American Left, rather than the Right. If your argument assumes that to be true, you shouldn't expect support from the right. Also, he named his group after a socialist holiday... Because it's a leftist group, and he's lying when he claims it isn't.
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The only democratic option is to take money out of politics. State funded candidates, no gifts or deals, no industry jobs after leaving office. No supporting TV ads especially.
Will never happen of course.
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If we had only state funded candidates, what would happen when someone like Donald Trump wanted to run for President? Would we give him tax payer money to spew his misinformed and occasionally hateful opinions? What about someone from the KKK? Would we give that person money? And if not, who decides who is allowed to run and who is not?
Also, keep in mind that keeping money out of politics inherently gives more power to the mainstream media to endorse (or suppress) candidates. They might not do it conci
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The way state funded candidates and parties work in most democracies is that they have to have a minimal level of success by themselves. When they have established this low level they qualify for state funding. So yeah, people with really horrible things to say are given state money to say it. But it's worth putting up with that to get all the benefits of taking the money out of politics.
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So yeah, people with really horrible things to say are given state money to say it.
All non-tyrannical governments protect the right of the people to freely associate, or to freely withhold their association. (The United States recognizes this, which is why "freedom of association" is explicitly enumerated in the First Amendment to the Constitution.)
Taking what you euphemistically call "state money" but which is really a citizen's tax money and handing it out to people that citizen hates flies in the face of freedom of association.
Meanwhile, under the current system, if a citizen suppo
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The problem is that dirtbags (and there are plenty in both parties) use money to get elected and then make decisions that intrude on your rights too much. But the problem isn't the money, it's the dirtbag.
A strictly limited government wouldn't attract as many dirtbags, simply because there wouldn't be enough opportunites for graft or potential rewards to hand out to cronies. You'll notice Lessig isn't advocat
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> only Democrats supported the idea.
Uhh, the last major reform bill we had was McCain-Feingold, and McCain is a Republican and it had bipartisan support.
That was also back in 2002. I don't know exactly when it happened but at some point in the ensuing 13 years the mainstream Republican party went off the deep end, bought a backhoe, then kept on digging. It might be possible to build support for campaign reform among Republicans but only if you play the extremist at the same time.
There might be someone who can sell moderate bi-partisan policies to Republicans, but it's not Lessig.
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Isn't it interesting that both McCain and Feingold had their planes shot down. In the case of Feingold, it was fatal.
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Why isn't he creating a political party rather than running for President? This must be the only-two-parties rule again? I heard once that there are more than just Dems and Reps in the US political system but I never hear much about them.
The reason why is because it's dead easy to run as one of the major parties and use their ballot line. In some states it is practically too late to try to start a new party or run as an independent; it's an incredibly time-consuming and resource-draining process. If he runs as a Democrat, he's on the ballot in all 50 states and DC. If he runs as an indy, he might be able to reach somewhere in the 30-40 state range.
Unlike the UK (which I'm assuming you're from just because that's the easiest assumption),
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The reason why is because it's dead easy to run as one of the major parties and use their ballot line. In some states it is practically too late to try to start a new party or run as an independent; it's an incredibly time-consuming and resource-draining process. If he runs as a Democrat, he's on the ballot in all 50 states and DC. If he runs as an indy, he might be able to reach somewhere in the 30-40 state range.
Unlike the UK (which I'm assuming you're from just because that's the easiest assumption), where a few signatures and a deposit gets you on the ballot, here each state has different rules, and most states unabashedly try to keep independents or minor party candidates off the ballots with unequal laws.
The main political parties in the U.S are heterogeneous and not only loosely bound in ideology but even somewhat accepting of members with contradicting positions. There are Republicans and Democrats which differ with their own party even in defining issues such as abortion, gun-control and fiscal policy. MP voting against their own party is a sure way to a party split in Parliamentary systems, in the United States Congressman and even Senators regularly vote against the parties leadership.
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He can't trigger a re-election by resigning. There is a well defined succession of power that will be followed.
However, he does offer a variety of potential VPs and is leaving it up to his supporters to tell him which one to choose. So pick your President from that list or suggest a write in.
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The main one is that he's strongly Democrat. For reasons I don't fully understand (electoral college mumble mumble) it seems US candidates cannot ever be independent, they have to pick a side.
It's a common characteristic of first past the post systems, of course it's not inevitable, particularly in the US. I could easily imagine the US supporting a Tea Party based in the deep south and the rest of the country being fought out between moderate Republicans and Democrats at the legislative level.
The only issue is the Presidential elections, the concern isn't vote splitting, either a Republican or Democrat could win, but I suspect both Republicans and Democrats would unify to make sure the Tea Party
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I had expected him to run as an independent and then resign and trigger fresh elections once his platform was passed.
That isn't how it works...
If the President resigns, then the Vice President becomes President. We don't have new elections until the 4 years are up, even if 15 people in a row resign. There is a long list of people in line to be President.
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To recap: winner-take-all systems force two-party systems.
And two-party systems perpetuate winner-take-all/first-past-the-post systems.
Commercial barriers to entry can be judicially torn down. Political ones, not so easily.
How could it possibly "work" for 300M people? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no way you can effectively centrally plan for a country of 300M people. People keep saying we should be more like Europe and I agree. There are very few decisions made by the EU. Most of the decisions are made by the member States. Let's try that. One state could be very capitalistic but with a big welfare state like the Nordic countries. Others could be more socialist like the French. Some can be crazy libertarian gun and gold nuts like the Swiss.
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There are 2 basic philosophies at work.
1. "We know The Right Way for everyone to live their lives and make their choices." This philosophy won't agree with you. The Right Way goes for everyone, regardless of how many they are. If they don't agree, they're stupid or whatever, and their objections can be thoughtlessly dismissed.
2. "We'll live our own lives and make our own choices." These people might agree with you, but it's hard for them to rein in government because of all the money and power to be mad
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Europe has a third way.
3) The government works for the people, and acts in their interests.
When we have regulations that Americans say limit our freedom, we often consider them to be increasing our freedom because we no longer have to be an expert on everything. We can go and buy an appliance and know that it meets minimum quality, safety and efficiency standards, and has been rated by our government for us.
Freedom to enjoy life is very important to Europeans.
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We have counterparts to those agencies, but ours are hostile [cnsnews.com]. When we buy appliances, we know we are paying extra and getting something inferior because the government prohibited the sale of the old version that worked better and cost less.
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Don't believe the hype. I don't know about US dishwashers specifically, but we had a similar panic in the EU when they brought in efficiency regulations for vacuum cleaners. People said they wouldn't clean anything any more. Of course it was rubbish, they were actually much better than the old ones because the EU started testing them and putting the ratings on the box, and because manufacturers could no longer complete on wasting the most energy with the biggest, most inefficient high power motor.
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Or adverts that tell everyone that greed and privatization is the answer?
If you think that someone else's so-called "greed" is any of your business, you're saying you know The Right Way for them to make their choices, and that you should have the power to impose your choices on them. (Of course, the power structures you build and sustain always eventually end up being used against you by them. But that's nothing that can't be fixed by centralizing even more power, right?)
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Sounded to me like the AC was saying he doesn't want people to push greed and privation as "The Right Way". Greed is one thing that can impact others negatively including the push for big government. Same with privation as it is way of enclosing the commons and stealing from everyone.
Re:How could it possibly "work" for 300M people? (Score:4, Interesting)
Greed is one thing that can impact others negatively including the push for big government.
"Greed" can't impact others. Greed is an implication and/or a motive. Motives without actions impact self only.
An action may impact others. But an action motivated by greed has the same impact on others as the same action motivated by love or unmotated at all, by accident.
In fact, a greedy tormentor can be bribed or bought, whereas do-gooders who'd cause you the same harm are much more dangerous.
C.S. Lewis said it best: [goodreads.com]
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You're correct that greed is only a motivation, just like do-gooding is a motivation. In both cases the motivation can lead to removing the freedoms of others and it seems that they usually go together so the robber baron teams up with the do-gooder to repress others and increase profits and the do-gooders look to the robber baron to finance their "good works". Between them they can lead to greater repression then either alone, especially in modern society where they capture the government.
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Inevitably governments do have to make choices
Government should make very few choices, only when absolutely necessary.
Thomas Paine: [bartleby.com]
If government is, at best, a necessary evil, then any government that's
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Can you explain what you mean with: socialist French and welfare state Nordic countries ? Because I would lump them all in the same category, but you clearly have 2 different categories.
I'm from Europe and I would think I know more about European countries than the average US citizen, so maybe it's just a cultural divide why I don't understand what you mean.
Re:How could it possibly "work" for 300M people? (Score:5, Informative)
The Nordic Countries are very Capitalist. There aren't too many state owned companies and the laws allow for a very unregulated, free, dynamic, and productive free market. This is coupled with a large welfare state backed by high taxes. So the state takes that tax money and distributes it out to the citzens in different forms of welfare.
France, Spain, Italy, etc have a more socialist system where the state actually owns and runs companies or regulates them so much they are effectivly state owned.
For example the Nordic countries (and Germany until recently) don't have a minimum wage. This allows the unions and employers and the market to set rates. This leads to very low unemployment. The Southern European countries all have high minum wages which causes high unemployment.
IMHO the Nordic countries have a better system because if you have more people working and producing your country is going to be much wealthier. Even if you have high taxes and redistribution.
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Ahh, that is what you mean. Yes, I can see now how you'd call it more capitalistic.
I do think it was a mistake to sell some of those national state owned companies. I hear English rail is kind of a mess. Ironically the well run train companies are usually partly state-owned by foreign European countries. ;-)
Yes, I agree it's a better system in the Nordic countries. They spend a lot of money on education and at least one makes it easy to fire people but also spend a lot of money and effort on getting the une
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The main reason capitalism works the best is because companies are allowed to fail and new ones take their place. You let the market allocate resources to the private companies and individuals that make the best (most profitable) use of it. The Nordic countries let that process work and then just tax it to pay for the welfare state.
The problem with actual socialism (State ownership of the means of production) is that it is extremely wasteful and inefficient. Nobody has to do a better job because they are no
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"For example the Nordic countries (and Germany until recently) don't have a minimum wage. This allows the unions and employers and the market to set rates. This leads to very low unemployment. The Southern European countries all have high minum wages which causes high unemployment."
The difference being that the unions in said Nordic countries (and Germany until recently) are prolific, powerful and actually serve the people that they supposedly represent.
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Re:How could it possibly "work" for 300M people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Crazy idea...a confederation of states, each nominally sovereign and controlling their own systems within the bounds of a federally agreed set of boundaries, nominally tied by a minimalist federal government that only is responsible for a basic set of functions like defense and printing money and the post office?
In short, You mean, like how the constitution was originally written?
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There is no way you can effectively centrally plan for a country of 300M people. People keep saying we should be more like Europe and I agree. There are very few decisions made by the EU. Most of the decisions are made by the member States. Let's try that. One state could be very capitalistic but with a big welfare state like the Nordic countries. Others could be more socialist like the French. Some can be crazy libertarian gun and gold nuts like the Swiss.
This was tried, it led to the Civil War. The south, more than anything else, wanted strong states rights and weak federal government. The north disagreed and it ended up in war.
Slavery and other issues were just the hot button topics that got the average person engaged, that isn't really what it was about.
That is why the US has a strong federal government today, the north won the war, reconstruction happened, and you have what we have today.
What most people don't know is that the US Government that we hav
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This was tried, it led to the Civil War. The south, more than anything else, wanted strong states rights and weak federal government. The north disagreed and it ended up in war.
This isn't really true. In the antebellum U.S., both the South and the North tended to favor the federal government when it suited their interests and to favor "states' rights" when it suited other aspects of their interests.
For example, the South favored states' rights for Western territories to decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery or not, but they favored the federal government when it came to protecting the rights of slaveholders to take their slaves into free states or when it came to en
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Exactly my point. They are in Europe but don't belong to the EU. They have some agrements like free trade and such but maintain their independence.
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It's an argument for Subsidiarity.
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You do realize the Governors have access to nuclear weapons through the Air National Guard?
Also each state has their own land management system for state forests and parks. It would be pretty simple to transfer federal land to the respective states.
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Of course, there are many military installations within individual states that could be co-opted during a secession or breakup of the Union,
just as happened in member States of the former Soviet Union.
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Country and State are synonyms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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But sovereign country and federal state aren't.
The money guy ? (Score:2)
From what we hear about him, he seems to be a guy who raises money to spend to promote himself and his favorite political causes. And that's about it. Maybe he has ideas, but they're not news. Only the fundraising is news.
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I googled that, but all I got was promotional pages. Nothing about how they're planning to have people arrested and imprisoned for funding campaign speech. Maybe they're not planning that. It's not clear either way. Arresting and imprisoning people for speech is evil, so I would never support that.
Problem is the opposite - lack of stalemate (Score:4, Insightful)
Lessig is exactly wrong.
Stalemate is great, because it keeps the inept groping hand of government from raping all of us, either from the left OR the right.
The problem recently is lack of a stalemate. One party held too much control and was able to progress, and after that period ended the president has decided to keep progressing despite a stalemate via executive orders. The next president, left or right, will decide that is a fine idea and carry on to a much greater extent.
Nope, the problem we have now is not lack of the ability of congress to do anything, but the lurching shambling mass of government has freed itself from the thin tethers we were trying to use as a bridle and is now unstoppable and un-steerable.
I'm in a position where it will not affect me too much personally; I just feel really bad for the younger generation being trodden upon.
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That's a vivid image you're painting there. And it's also one that ensures only those who are hopelessly corrupt will seek a career in the government, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. People take their cues on how they should behave from their surrounding cu
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That's a vivid image you're painting there. And it's also one that ensures only those who are hopelessly corrupt will seek a career in the government,
It's quite odd how you phrase a description of the federal government as-is in the future tense.
Because, frankly, setting your goal as "paralysis" is pretty unambitious.
To the contrary - at this point that is unreachably ambitious, as I've stated. It's not a goal, it's a description of why things worked as long as they did, and why they no longer do.
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Since you cannot produce numbers that measure what I am talking about, I will assume you are simply insane or desperately trying to spin a message for someone.
Either way, reader: I would be suspicious of someone these days without any kind of history to judge from. Very likely this is a staff member of some political campaign.
Politicians Please, Not Professors (Score:3)
I'm glad Lessig was moved to action by the needless and cruel death of a fine young man. Lessig is right that the wealthy control our politics, and he is right that they are leading us down a path of spectacular self-destruction.
But I don't want a noble Harvard professor -- if there is such a mythical beast -- who promises to resign in favor of his Vice President, so as to avoid soiling his hands once he has saved us all.
Instead, I want a spectacularly good politician, who can rally crowds to bring about the change we all want and need. I'm guessing that such a politician will not be willing to say exactly the same things a noble Harvard professor may be willing to say, primarily because any spectacularly good politician values the idea of getting elected and having power more than s/he values the idea of returning to the ivy covered halls. But I'd still like that spectacularly good politician to be willing to stick his or her neck out for things they believe in, whether it makes them ultra-popular or not. And, if they believe in things like putting citizen's health above the needs of corporate health insurers, or things like educating all of a nation's children to the best of their abilities, regardless of their parent's ability to pay, and in the idea that even a full time burger flipper is entitled to enough money to participate comfortably in our society, regardless of whether that means raising the marginal tax rate on CEOs... I can actually drum up some enthusiasm.
Bernie is looking good.
Article subtitle: (Score:2)
"How to spend $1 million dollars and have nothing to show for it"
To all the naysayers... (Score:2)
All the same, here is to hoping that those posts equate to Roblimo's post about the first iPod and what actually followed. Well, so to speak.
Meh (Score:2)
I like him, of anyone I could want for president, he would probably be at the top of the list.
Thing is, I am just done with this broken system. I don't even want another President at all, I want to see the entire federal level eliminated and maybe re-created from scrtach....maybe just left dead.
Re:How is this (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is not for nerds, then who is it for? Certainly nerds are the only people that will potentially vote for Lessig?
Re:How is this (Score:4, Insightful)
If it is not for nerds, then who is it for? Certainly nerds are the only people that will potentially vote for Lessig?
It's only nerds who will even have heard of Lessig.
Re:How is this (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose it's "news for nerds" in the sense that:
* they're using a more publicly accessible technology for funding than we're used to in politics
* Lessig is a member of the FSF and EFF, which are institutions that matter to nerds mainly
* he's active in stuff that matters to software nerds like IPR
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You left out; some nerds pay attention, and even vote occasionally.
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Yes, but the way we stop GOP voters from voting for Ben Carson is just before the election we tell the GOP base that he's, you know, b-l-a-c-k.
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I believe he is about 3.5 orders of magnitude of money away from a serious run for President.
Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:4, Funny)
“I think I'm running to get people to acknowledge the elephant in the room,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
Was Trump in the room with him? And does he really need more attention than he's getting now?
Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe he is about 3.5 orders of magnitude of money away from a serious run for President.
Serious run, eh?
I don't believe you could get any more obvious that elections are bought with a statement like that, no matter how truthful.
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I wish we could figure out how to limit the money they can spend or "is spent in their behalf". And I am annoyed as hell with paying for serving officials working on behalf of their own or a member of their party's campaign. It's our money they're being paid with.
Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish we could figure out how to limit the money they can spend or "is spent in their behalf". And I am annoyed as hell with paying for serving officials working on behalf of their own or a member of their party's campaign. It's our money they're being paid with.
There's really no good solution here.
The problem is that campaigning is synonymous with marketing plus a healthy dose of propaganda thrown in.
This takes manpower & organization. Leasing and staffing hundreds of offices. Buying TV/radio airtime and media production staff. That all costs money. A national/worldwide campaign for president of the US, astronomically so.
Handing each qualified candidate (and who determines who is "qualified" and who decides what the hurdles are and if they've been met?) a set amount to spend totally disadvantages challengers vs incumbents and/or already publicly well-known candidates. Plus, different candidates with different campaign issues, styles, and demographic footprint require differing strategies and different spending levels. There's no way to account for all the factors involved for a meaningful comparison. It would effectively eliminate any remaining and already-marginal chances of any 3rd-party/independent candidate or anyone else not approved by major-Party 'establishment'.
The authors of the US Constitution warned again and again against large political parties and the threats they pose. Combined with a large government that means the apparatchiks have plenty of government to sell large donors.
One thing that absolutely has to be stopped is the foreign money coming into US political campaigns & political organizations, along with "bundling" and other methods used to avoid leaving trails back to the sources to obstruct any future detection and/or investigation as well as skirt legal limits on contributions.
Strat
Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
In Japan, people running for office aren't allowed to use radio or tv to campaign. They are essentially limited to posters and driving around and actually meeting the voters. Granted, trucks driving around in the morning and evening during election times with loudspeakers blaring is fairly annoying for a few days, but you don't get this kind of spending that they have in the USA. It seems like the news reports it as a race to see who can raise the most funds. "So and so has raised 2 billion dollars whereas so and so #2 has only raised 500 million. Looks like candidate #1 is going to win". It's sickening.
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This takes manpower & organization. Leasing and staffing hundreds of offices. Buying TV/radio airtime and media production staff. That all costs money. A national/worldwide campaign for president of the US, astronomically so.
Why'd you make a worldwide campaign? I was under the impression that 'muricans don't care much about how the other 94.5% of the world look at them.
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There's really no good solution here.
The problem is that campaigning is synonymous with marketing plus a healthy dose of propaganda thrown in.
This takes manpower & organization. Leasing and staffing hundreds of offices. Buying TV/radio airtime and media production staff. That all costs money. A national/worldwide campaign for president of the US, astronomically so...
Uh, other than the weak excuse of "creating jobs" every four years, why do we do all this again? Perhaps it's been too long since we've asked that question, as we sit here communicating across a global HD multimedia platform that didn't exist 25 years ago.
Times have changed. Voters now live in the online world. I'd like to see Congress force the entire damn campaign online for every candidate, in order to make a green statement and mean it by applying it to the elite.
Hey Presidential candidates, you want
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Are you trying to insinuate that, if Trump were elected, he would not try to raise taxes for himself?
blasphemy.
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What we need are voters who don't live in fucking Lala land.
Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of problems with what he is doing. If he runs as an independent, he will siphon votes from the Democrat, and help the Republican win. His only real issue is "campaign finance". To fix that, he would need to either amend the constitution, or replace a few Supreme Court justices. That is not something he can "do quickly and then resign". There is also little evidence that campaign finance is at the root of our problems. Sure, a candidate needs a certain threshold of funding to be competitive, but after that, more money makes little difference. In 2012, nearly everyone the Koch Brothers backed, lost. Money cannot just buy elections. The voters are not that stupid. But don't take my word for it: Go ask President Romney, Governor Whitman or Senator Fiorina.
Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a lot of problems with what he is doing. If he runs as an independent, he will siphon votes from the Democrat, and help the Republican win.
This is the old "strategic vote" or "vote for the lesser evil" argument.
Not only does this kind of reasoning lead to the two party system but it also leads to a situation where neither of the parties has any reason to cater to anyone but the voter who is just in between them which means that the two parties becomes the same in anything but the name.
There is only one thing you should vote for and that is whoever you feel represents you the best. It might not win you the election in short term, but it adjusts the political landscape towards your view in the long run. The alternative is to vote for someone that doesn't represent you which not only makes things bad for you now but keeps them that way in the future.
Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the old "strategic vote" or "vote for the lesser evil" argument.
In a two party system, this is a valid argument, whether you like it or not. In 2000, there is no question that Nader threw the election to Bush.
the two parties becomes the same in anything but the name.
Except the two parties are not the same on the only issue that Lessig cares about. ALL of the Democratic candidates (including Hillary) have said they will work to overturn Citizens United, and if elected, they will almost certainly follow through on the only way to change it: appoint more liberals to the Supreme Court.
Lessig adds nothing new. His position is no different than the Democrats, and a vote for him is equivalent to a vote for the Republican. His campaign makes no sense.
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OK, so clearly at least one of the two major parties works well for you.
Don't pretend that they work for all voters or that it is anything wrong with voting for another alternative or that those who do are to blame when your favorite party doesn't win.
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In other words, eliminate the Free Speech, Freedom of Press, and Peaceful Assembly clauses of the First Amendment. I don't think that's a 'fix' for anything.
Some might say that AC's should be banned, or perhaps even that /. should be eliminated because 'all propaganda channels are bad'. Who gets to decide? Putin, Kim Jong-un, Ali Khamenei, or perhaps whoever is at the head of ISIS currently?
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Re:Giving it the old "college try" eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but the Republicans have their own Ralph Nader/Ross Perot in 2016. His name is Donald Trump.
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No Trump is not running running as a 3rd party. He already signed the loyalty pledge.
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Do you have any idea how Donald Trump feels about pledges?
You know, like pledges to pay back money he borrowed?
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As I recall, Bush won the election after a massive amount of fraud gave him Florida and the Supreme Court decided they liked it that way.
And, of course, let's not talk about the 2004 elections...
He'll siphon exactly nothing. (Score:2)
He'll run out of money long before campaigns really begin.
He'll be invited to exactly 0 debates.
He won't even get a chance to be laughed out of the room.
Rand Paul has better chances than him. WAY better chances.
Rand Paul won his seat in 2010 with 755216 votes.
Lessig reached his "MILLION DOLLARS!!!" with donations from 8328 donors.
So, to reach Rand Paul numbers he would have to have over 90 supporters not willing to donate a dime, for every supporter that DID donate money for his "campaign".
Which would be it
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The voters are not that stupid.
Check who is #1 in the polls before you say that.
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There are a lot of problems with what he is doing. If he runs as an independent, he will siphon votes from the Democrat, and help the Republican win.
He knows that, and he has already promised that he will not run as an independent.
There is also little evidence that campaign finance is at the root of our problems. Sure, a candidate needs a certain threshold of funding to be competitive, but after that, more money makes little difference. In 2012, nearly everyone the Koch Brothers backed, lost. Money cannot just buy elections.
The problem with campaign finance is not that money wins the election. It is that you become beholden to your contributors, if you want to continue being a politician. In many countries this is considered as corruption.
I am no fan of Lessig, but I know his policies atleast. If it makes no sense to you, may be you should do some research.
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He's hacking the election, not human nature.