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Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

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Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#211

Post by hackerboos »

Bud wrote: post #127
zeveb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether or not you like Sanders, he is the only viable candidate whose core issue is overturning Citizens United. Repealing the First Amendment is a tremendously weighty decision, and not one whose prospect should fill anyone with optimism.

Nobody mentioned repealing the First Amendment. It would be quite easy to overturn Citizens United, a weak 5-4 decision borne of highly-questionable provenance, without touching the First Amendment in any way.

I disagree.

Even the ACLU supported the Citizen's United decision. [1]

[1] - https://www.aclu.org/aclu-and-citizens-united

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#212

Post by tptacek »

JamesBarney wrote: post #204
tptacek wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what I think about campaign finance reform. On the one hand I have the obvious concerns about money buying influence. On the other hand, money tried real real hard to buy the 2012 election and failed comically. Meanwhile, the free speech issues involved in regulating campaign spending, while admittedly very inconvenient for all of us, are real, and no appeal to plutocracy extinguishes them. Certainly: th…

You're right that there isn't a lot of evidence about whether money influences elections. But ultimately it doesn't matter whether money influences elections. What is more important is whether elected officials believe money is influential in elections, and I think this is trivially true. What are your fears if "The Democracy is for People Amendment" passed? Are you worried that the congress would limit political spe…

It doesn't separate political spending from political speech at all.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#213

Post by tptacek »

mindslight wrote: post #191
Bud wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're sure Gore wouldn't have "approved the same invasion" because... Wait. Were you even fucking AROUND in 2002? W didn't just "approve" the invasion. Are you aware of recent history? Let me fill you in. Gore wouldn't have "approved" of invading Iraq because his entire fucking administration would not have been packed with Nixon-era holdovers who were criminally obsessed with re-invading Iraq. This isn't complex or…

Sure, Bush II's administration was packed with such people. But it's a stretch to say the inverse would have been true for Gore, especially since he never named a cabinet. National policy had been decided some time before that - remember Clinton bombing etc? Your referenced gang of holdovers shows exactly how that works.

It's not a stretch to say that Gore would not have filled his cabinet with Neoconservatives. He would not have.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#214

Post by tanderson92 »

smacktoward wrote: post #26
WCityMike wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand, at least per Lessig's team: Dems said in order to participate in debate, you must poll 1% in three polls IN the six weeks prior to the debate. Depending on what polls were counted, Lessig either qualified or were one poll away from doing so. Dems then “clarified” rules as being 1% in three polls AT LEAST six weeks prior to the debate. HuffPo op-ed from Lessig's campaign manager: http://www.huf…

Considering that the margin of error is usually around 3-4% for public opinion polls, a candidate whose best argument for inclusion is "I've been hovering at around one percent lately!" is going to have a tough row to hoe.

Perhaps then they should have made the threshold for qualifying higher? That argument sounds like the "Mike Goldman" side of the argument from the $5000 compression challenge.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#215

Post by studentrob »

onewaystreet wrote: post #166
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 .

It's important when discussing topics like this to note that as long as the Republicans control all/part of Congress Sanders has absolutely no chance of getting this plan passed if he becomes President. In terms of what they could actually get done there is very little difference between Sanders and Hillary.

That's totally fair. I'm interested in hearing the proposed solutions of the most viable candidates because I feel they've probably given it the most real thought.

I also think we do should not leave the entire decision to them without further discussion simply because we trust they have a solid plan. We should seek to understand that plan.

I think we as a people need to revisit and discuss the topic of freedom of speech and campaign finance reform given today's climate of large corporate spending. Either a) businesses have figured out how to take advantage of the system in new ways, or b) the public is now waking up to the fact that this is happening and has always happened.

Regardless of whether a) or b) is true, we need to understand this topic and contribute towards an informed decision about it. The first amendment is too important to allow the solution to only come from selected politicians and academics. We need more open discussion, in my opinion, and since Lessig is pushing the issue, let's take advantage of that and support him.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#216

Post by studentrob »

rhino369 wrote: post #169
studentrob wrote: post #59

I'm conflicted or perhaps uninformed about what could be the real solution for reducing corruption in politics. I am against corporations spending large sums of money to influence politics because in the long term the rights of individuals, particularly groups of individuals who do not have a lot of money, erode. This weakens our founding fathers' protections against tyranny of the majority. I'm also very pro free sp…

The best and only constitutional solution is to publicly fund all federal elections. 2 billion a year could fully fund all congressional elections. You don't even need to fund the presidential election because the two parties raise more than enough money themselves. They are already buying literally all the commercial time on TV in swing states. More money doesn't provide much marginal benefit at that stage. That wou…

Okay, I've heard that, but then how do we decide who gets to run? Wouldn't the wealthiest still end up with the best initial campaigns?

[side-rant]

This makes me think that being able to include more candidates, by way of reforming FPTP and using an alternative vote, could be as important as campaign finance reform.

I am over this two party system that controls everything. They're corrupting our democracy by gerrymandering and barring candidates from debates. And since they control the rules about how primaries work, and we really only have these two parties as a result of FPTP, we effectively do not have the democracy our founders tried to promise. The rules that protect democracy at the national level are not operating at the primary level.

[/side-rant]

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#217

Post by 13thLetter »

zeckalpha wrote: post #207
13thLetter wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like pivoting from "I was unable to climb this mountain" to "I'll tear down this mountain with my bare hands." He switched from something achievable that he was qualified for to something immensely more difficult that he had no experience in. What's the result of that been? And, you know. Even if Citizens United is overturned (hooray! It'll once again be illegal to make a movie critical of Hillary Clinton duri…

It's more like "I was unable to climb this mountain because I couldn't breathe" to "Let's pack oxygen tanks".

No, I like my simile better.

Nothing and nobody will stop you from bringing oxygen tanks on your climb, and learning to use them is relatively straightforward. Changing the system of campaign finance in the United States, on the other hand, requires navigating dozens of immensely complex special interests, will be opposed by one or both major parties, and we haven't even gotten to what the courts might say yet. It's hard.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#218

Post by nl »

hackerboos wrote: post #210
nl wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But if you can explain how overturning Citizen's United wouldn't run into that problem while this idea I'd find that helpful. OTOH, Libel in the US is already a thing. I'm saying extending those laws to make "the American people" a group that has standing, and falsehoods something that has harm. There is some existing precedent for that under libel.

The problem with CU isn't the 1st Amendment, it's corporate personhood and the press. It's easy to argue that corporations and unions don't deserve free speech as their directors, employees and members are all entitled to free speech individually. However the press is different. Nobody, rightly so, wants to limit the press to say and print whatever they like (so long as it's not slander/libel) and today's press is ma…

Oh yeah, the corporate personhood thing. I forgot that.

But I only forgot about it because I simply don't see how that matters in an real way.

Even if corporate personhood went away then (actual, real human) people would be paid to speak for a corporation, and then you hit the the 1st Amendment rights issues again.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#219

Post by mindslight »

tptacek wrote: post #201
mindslight wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that if Nader dropped out, "his" voters could have voted for another third party, a write-in, or even simply not voted, right?

Sure they could have. But statistically, we know that they wouldn't. They'd have handed the election to Gore. Nader's core supporters are liberal, and Bush was decidedly not that.

Since you really insist on analyzing things in a two party framework -

It seems then that the democrats simply overplayed their hand from 1992-2000. They were too brazenly incongruent with their grassroots support, causing their constituents to cry uncle and look elsewhere. Getting the people to line up for what their sponsors have bought is the fundamental game, and they failed.

So in effect, Bush's invasion of Iraq was actually set in motion by Clinton. I mean, in addition to that actual bombing he authorized.

Re: Lessig Ends Presidential Campaign

#220

Post by mindslight »

tptacek wrote: post #213
mindslight wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Bush II's administration was packed with such people. But it's a stretch to say the inverse would have been true for Gore, especially since he never named a cabinet. National policy had been decided some time before that - remember Clinton bombing etc? Your referenced gang of holdovers shows exactly how that works.

It's not a stretch to say that Gore would not have filled his cabinet with Neoconservatives. He would not have.

Only Neoconservatives can invade Iraq?

The democratic party is traditionally better at selling domestic totalitarianism, but what exactly would be the point of letting an opportunity such as 11SEP2001 pass them by? I don't think the democratic sponsorship had a different country lined up to attack, and going after Iraq was already on the agenda, so they would have been beating those exact same war drums. There would probably have been more sustained bombing and less ground forces, but I'd call that a flavor.

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