Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake • Hacker News Board

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#361

Post by brbrodude » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

qPM9l3XJrF wrote: post #302

meowing wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Koch has spent a fortune on destabilizing public infrastructure in midwest cities. If he "believed in people", he could show it by not tearing down public transit systems which disenfranchises poorer people.

Is public transit bottom up? I'd say just the opposite.

Maybe it's a more complex matter? How about if people at the bottom were not continuously smacked by rich libertarian assholes and had a chance of having freedom of leisure, education, movement & all that good stuff that can make a citizen, who then is able to participate in decision making progress instead of being treated as animals for being poor? Feels bottom-up to me.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#362

Post by onelastjob » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:36 AM UTC

The USA needs a law that limits individuals to only donating something like $5,000 per person to any political campaign entity such as PACs, Super PACs, and political campaigns. Companies should not be able to contribute anything, only citizens. CA Props should also have this limit. Otherwise, the USA will be defacto ruled by whichever entities are able to contribute the most to campaigns and advertising for politicians. If the Koch brothers are allowed to put up 1,000 billboards for their candidate, but I can only afford to put up 1 billboard for a candidate, then politicians will only serve wealthy individuals and companies that contribute the most financially to their campaigns. The result will be that the government will not adequately protect ordinary citizens or the environment, which, in my opinion, is already happening.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#363

Post by CWuestefeld » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC

onelastjob wrote: post #362

The USA needs a law that limits individuals to only donating something like $5,000 per person to any political campaign entity such as PACs, Super PACs, and political campaigns. Companies should not be able to contribute anything, only citizens. CA Props should also have this limit. Otherwise, the USA will be defacto ruled by whichever entities are able to contribute the most to campaigns and advertising for politici…

Except that studies show that (at least above some relatively low threshold), money spent on a campaign doesn't correlate with election success. There's no point in throwing out the First Amendment (and possibly the most important aspect of it at that) for something that's not going to make any difference.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#364

Post by salamanderman » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC

frank2 wrote: post #314

bwanab wrote: post #156

This reminds me of George Wallace’s famous realization that his long term institutionalization of racism in Alabama was wrong when he was getting close to death’s door. It was kind of nice to hear, but lots of damage was done.

I found it interesting that Wallace didn't start out racist: he became racist when he discovered it would help him win elections. Before that he was a liberal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixiecrat

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#365

Post by kazagistar » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

onelastjob wrote: post #362

The USA needs a law that limits individuals to only donating something like $5,000 per person to any political campaign entity such as PACs, Super PACs, and political campaigns. Companies should not be able to contribute anything, only citizens. CA Props should also have this limit. Otherwise, the USA will be defacto ruled by whichever entities are able to contribute the most to campaigns and advertising for politici…

The USA had exactly such laws, before they were struck down in the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in the landmark case Citizens United. The reasoning was that the right to free speech was protected at all scales and all categories absolutely, and thusvspending any amount on any political speech like buying ads was protected. The only way for such a law to pass now would be to either have the Supreme Court overturn this decision (unlikely, its still recent) or to change the constitution to specify political speech spending as unprotected by the right to free speech, which is even less likely given the supermajority needed, the natural conflict of interests with the entire existing political class, and thr sacredness with which the American people view the constitution, and that part of the document specifically.

I personally think Citizens United is the worst thing to ever happen to democracy, but I fear a revolution after a prolonged slide into deep oligarchy might be the only way it ever changes.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#366

Post by webmaven » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:49 AM UTC

nokcha wrote: post #194

arcticbull wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elections are in the public interest and therefore should be publicly funded -- exclusively. Each registered candidate with more than a certain number of signatures of support should be given a budget of money and pre-paid airtime on all major networks by the FEC, and that's it. Once it's out, it's out. All other contributions (including in-kind) to political campaigns are tantamount to bribery and should just be ill…

>Elections are in the public interest and therefore should be publicly funded -- exclusively. That doesn't really follow. Why should something be exclusively publicly funded just because it is in the public interest? >All other contributions (including in-kind) to political campaigns are tantamount to bribery and should just be illegal. What about completely anonymous donations? If the receiver doesn't know who is gi…

> What about completely anonymous donations? If the receiver doesn't know who is giving the money, how could it act as a bribe?

It would be pretty hard to set things up so that donations were not only anonymous, but non-verifiable (as in, it should be impossible for a donor to prove to a recipient that they were the one who donated). This attribute in voting systems is part of 'coercion resistance' (as in, if you can't prove how you voted even when you want to, there is no point in trying to coerce you into voting a particular way). In a payments system, we can call it 'corruption resistance'.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#367

Post by arkis22 » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

hacker news is a democrat board.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#368

Post by justinzollars » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

kazagistar wrote: post #365

onelastjob wrote: post #362

The USA needs a law that limits individuals to only donating something like $5,000 per person to any political campaign entity such as PACs, Super PACs, and political campaigns. Companies should not be able to contribute anything, only citizens. CA Props should also have this limit. Otherwise, the USA will be defacto ruled by whichever entities are able to contribute the most to campaigns and advertising for politici…

The USA had exactly such laws, before they were struck down in the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in the landmark case Citizens United. The reasoning was that the right to free speech was protected at all scales and all categories absolutely, and thusvspending any amount on any political speech like buying ads was protected. The only way for such a law to pass now would be to either have the Supreme Court overturn…

Edit: When the Supreme Court had an Activist majority.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#369

Post by storf45 » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:51 AM UTC

wycy wrote: post #344

> Despite Koch's calls for unity, his political contributions largely favored GOP candidates in the 2020 election cycle, with $2.8 million donated to Republicans and just $221,000 for Democratic candidates, the Journal reported. This tells you all you need to know.

Is that a lot of money?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#370

Post by CWuestefeld » Mon, Nov 16, 2020, 3:52 AM UTC

tclancy wrote: post #291

CryptoPunk wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No, lies and bullshit would require self reflection. Both of those things have always been things the well fed and well off let their children play pretend with while making sure they never have to figure out how to feed themselves. I am 44. My entire life, speaking as someone who grew up conservative, libertarianism has either been about weed or drugs. And then about what degree of freedom one should have when arres…

libertarianism has either been about weed or drugs

I'm not sure what libertarianism you've been looking at. Certainly stopping the war on drugs is one plank of the libertarian platform, but it's only one small piece.

Other issues include stopping America's eternal military actions, reining in public debt, stopping abuse of police power (some overlap with BLM here!), ensuring that civil liberties such as speech, voting, self-defense, and sanctity of private property are protected, and so forth. There's a LOT there (and so assuredly there's space for everybody to find disagreement). It's just wrong to claim that it's all about weed and drugs.