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Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

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Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#81

Post by ermacaz »

gee_totes wrote: post #27
jonathankoren wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lessig never wanted to be president; he wanted a podium. But you can't say that. If he indicated he wasn't serious about being president in any way, they never would have let him on stage. I guess that's the difference between the Democratic party debates and the Republican party debates. I know that sounds like a troll, but it's not. The GOP primary debates had 17 people running, the Democratic primary had 5 (not c…

As much as I hate to defend Lindsey Graham, I honestly think he's running for the VP slot. He would make an appealing VP for the Republican base -- hawkish on defense and a veteran of senate dealmaking.

And he also is against free speech, perhaps they should run together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSV6iqxL2s0

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#82

Post by tptacek »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #80
tptacek wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: given that he didn't have a snowball's chance, why did you give him money, as opposed to giving money to some other change agent that does have a chance?

Sometimes its about sending a message. After all, its not a horse race; you don't win any prize by backing the winner.

Is that why you supported Lessig?

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#83

Post by damoncali »

tinco wrote: post #42

I'm not a citizen of the U.S. so maybe I'm missing something. Why is he not just switching to the Republican party? What's this nonsense about his ideals being more in line with the democrats? I thought the Republicans were all about the founding fathers and making sure the United States are not ruled by the old-rich?

Democrats and Republicans are more similar than different. They both represent the financial elite to the detriment of those with less power. Sure, they may trade off from year to year on issues of little relevance (which party did Andrew Jackson belong to again? Abe Lincoln?), but in the end they're in lock step when it comes to who owns whom and what.

Who keeps Wall St in control of our banking regs? The popular answer is Republicans - the party of big business. The actual answer is that 4 of Hillary Clinton's top 5 all time donors are Wall St banks. In return Clinton talks tough about wall st - but only be saying we ought to "enhance" the volker rule. You can guess who will come up with that "enhancement" as well as I can. Ask a small bank what they think of Dodd-Frank (named after two Democrats, btw - and vocal "opposition" to Wall St excess). So much for the party of the little guy. You can go on and on like this for both parties. The only constant is that they support the rich.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#84

Post by studentrob »

ermacaz wrote: post #74
tptacek wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanders supports a Constitutional amendment to allow Congress to regulate campaign finance; in other words, Sanders would support the first Constitutional amendment in the history of the US to deliberately abridge the First Amendment, and would do so to regulate political speech .

Because regulating speech could never end badly...

Yeah, exactly. Even if they try to limit it from US corporations, couldn't a multi-national or seemingly separate foreign company just start advertising online?

Then you have to deal with regulating the internet. And, we don't want that because it opens the door to individuals' voices being censored too.

What a can of worms. I'm glad I'm just a programmer.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#85

Post by tptacek »

studentrob wrote: post #72
tptacek wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sanders supports a Constitutional amendment to allow Congress to regulate campaign finance; in other words, Sanders would support the first Constitutional amendment in the history of the US to deliberately abridge the First Amendment, and would do so to regulate political speech .

Thanks for your reply. So presumably this would bring us back to the state of things from 1971 with the entrance of the Federal Election Campaign Act, including the limitation on spending money on media? It sounds tricky. The most powerful thing about free speech is the right to say whatever you want about your government. But given the apparent level of corruption, maybe it's time to limit corporations' ability to m…

Sanders' amendment essentially says that nothing in the First Amendment can be construed to limit Congress's ability to protect the integrity of elections, and (this is explicit in the amendment and without precedent anywhere else in the Constitution) from the wealthy.

He delegates to Congress the details on how to use that new power to suppress the First Amendment.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#86

Post by tptacek »

ThomPete wrote: post #75
tptacek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's easy to "just be a critique". But critiques of Lessig aren't "just critiques". Lessig's critics understand something Lessig himself seems not to: his campaign is quixotic, his goal of being a "single-issue President" is incoherent given the structure of the US government, and, in a close election year, his prospects of somehow acting as a spoiler for the party he purports to support are far greater tha…

Thats an opinion you are entitled to have but which I do not share. Politics is the art the possible and sometimes it takes several years for something to gain momentum, something that often starts in futile attempts and yes often ends with not succeeding. But once in a blue moon it does and that is the important part. You keep arguing as if there is a right way to think about these things. If that is your claim then…

No. Stop. I'm not telling you to agree with me about Lessig. I'm saying that you can't suppress my critique of Lessig by arguing that criticisms is easy, and starting a doomed Presidential campaign is hard. You know what else is hard? Perpetual motion. I get to criticize people for trying that too.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#87

Post by tptacek »

zeveb wrote: post #61
tptacek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for humanity, we have other people who are willing to take action that others would find ill-advised because they are, in fact, ill-advised. Risk aversion does not make for incredible discoveries, but has the virtue of mitigating disaster. And an adventurous can-do sensibility drives people onwards in all directions, including off cliffs. Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practic…

> Ralph Nader is also a pretty compelling guy, on paper. In practice, he turns out to be the reason we invaded Iraq. Or, possibly, the reason we didn't nuke Afghanistan. Remember, prior to the actual invasion Clinton sent more missiles into Iraq than the Bushes put together; JFK started and LBJ escalated the Vietnam Wars: who knows what Gore would have done, presented with the attacks on 11 September 2001?

There are a total of zero serious observers who believe Al Gore would have "nuked Afghanistan", but there's a nonzero number who believe 9/11 might not have happened had he been elected.

Al Gore is not a particularly great human being, but in addition to the banal malevolence George Bush shares with Al Gore and every other politician, and the additional evil he shares with the Neoconservative political movement he belonged to, Bush was also, as it turns out, alarmingly incompetent.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#88

Post by jonknee »

morgante wrote: post #76
tptacek wrote: post #47

He hasn't ended his Presidential campaign. He's ended his bid for the Democratic nomination. David Weigel at WaPo asked him if he would run (pointlessly) as an independent; Lessig would (unsurprisingly) not rule that out. Note that he is still taking donations.

I really, really hope he doesn't. That will destroy any goodwill I ever held towards him. My only consolation is that his campaign is such an abject failure that it probably can't even function as a spoiler.

Why? He's not going to get any noticeable amount of votes and won't cause any damage to another candidate.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#89

Post by danielodio »

dankohn1 wrote: post #34

I supported Lessig's presidential campaign monetarily, even though I never thought he had a snowball's chance and also didn't think that his model of affecting change was fully thought through. As entrepreneurs, I think many of us can sympathize with the idea of knowing that there is a huge, massive problem that needs to be fixed, without necessarily having the solution fully formed. It would have been so easy for Le…

Same here on all counts!

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#90

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tptacek wrote: post #82
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes its about sending a message. After all, its not a horse race; you don't win any prize by backing the winner.

Is that why you supported Lessig?

That's why I support {whomever}. Marginally my vote/money is worth more by supporting an outlier.
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