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Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

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Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#101

Post by dantheman »

pdonis wrote: post #59
candiddevmike wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative to majority rule is tyranny of the minority, specifically the minority with the most power/voice/money. I think what you're arguing for isn't against tyranny of the majority, but a limit to the power of the federal government/more local government. For instance, the majority of the country wants universal healthcare and legalized cannabis, yet the tyranny of the minority keeps blocking these efforts f…

> The alternative to majority rule is tyranny of the minority That's one alternative, but not the only one. Another alternative is for the government to not have the power to tyrannize in the first place. As the saying goes, the problem is not that politicians can be bought but that they have something valuable to sell. > the majority of the country wants universal healthcare and legalized cannabis I don't think this…

If the government followed the constituion this wouldn't be problems: 1. Marijuana would never have been illegal at the federal level because an amendment wasn't passed. 2. Healthcare and any other federal welfare policies could be ennacted by passing an amendment.

If there isn't broad consensus across the country to pass an amendment then states can do it independently. There is no reason a state can't have single payer healthcare, except that they don't want to pay for it and want to just add the cost to the national debt.

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#102

Post by rdedev »

rom-antics wrote: post #3

So last time this story made the rounds, the legislature had passed the bill. Then the mayor signed it into law - but not before adding some legalese that roughly amounted to "just kidding lol". Afaik nobody could explain why it was legal for the mayor to add arbitrary language without legislative oversight. Has anyone dove in to figure out how that happened?

https://youtu.be/pEZcRR61Bqg

Louis Rossmanns video on what happened. Basically amounts to adding a provision at the last minute when almost everyone in the house is on vacation

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#104

Post by twblalock »

vivekd wrote: post #78
twblalock wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're casting a populist distinction between "economic elites" and "the People" you've already fallen for an oversimplified, cynical, inflammatory framing of the issue that has always been used by demagogues throughout history.

I'm not sure what you mean by that? Isn't there a pretty obvious distinction between the interest and desires of the mass of people vs the interests of powerful special interest groups like corporations and the very wealthy. I mean we have no problem looking at historical society and drawing a distinction between nobility and the masses. Why does that logic fall apart in modern day societies

Populists would love to convince you that "the elites" and "the people" are distinct groups that are pitted against each other in an eternal struggle. They do this in many cases to convince "the people" to adopt radical fringe views.

In the past (and present!) this false narrative has been used to push mostly bad things: nativism, xenophobia, and really dumb economic policy. By falling for this false distinction you are priming yourself to be susceptible to demagoguery and similar bad ideas.

If you look at reality you'll find that most distinctions between "the elites" and "the people" collapse and there is substantial overlap between both groups, both in membership and in their political self-interest.

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#105

Post by gruez »

christkv wrote: post #13
user3939382 wrote: post #7

I’ll remind everyone of the Princeton study that proved our democracy is a sham. Policy outcomes are almost exclusively the product of the preferences of economic elites, not of the People. If you do get a legislative outcome you wanted it’s a coincidence that some big power’s agenda accidentally aligned with your own.

I'm more and more convinced that parliament or congress by lottery would be more representative and functional as well as the death of all political parties as they exist today.

How do you prevent the representatives, who are laymen with no political experience from being captured by career bureaucrats and/or lobbyists?

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#106

Post by comte7092 »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #96
comte7092 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/323582/support-legal-marijuana-...

Trusting what you read in a poll is how you wake up the next morning and Trump has won the election.

Name a state that trump won where the polls showed him down over 36 points on the eve on the election.

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#107

Post by rqtwteye »

GeekyBear wrote: post #31
stcroixx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my impression lobbyists usually write the bills themselves. I don't know if this is how it's always done, but my company recently worked with lobbyists and a senators assistant and the lobbyists wrote a paragraph that, once approved by this assistant, went straight into the appropriations bill. Perfect example of pay to play.

> It was my impression lobbyists usually write the bills themselves Here's a fairly recent example: > When the legislation that became known as "Obamacare" was first drafted, the key legislator was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation. As Baucus himself repeatedly boasted, the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Folwer,…

I can’t think of any punishment harsh for what Baucus did to the country during Obamacare. He basically singlehandedly f..ked it up. The damage he did will be felt for decades in the form of bankruptcies and people dying because they can’t afford care.

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#108

Post by rqtwteye »

RajT88 wrote: post #64
rqtwteye wrote: post #11

That’s pretty normal. My ex worked at congress and she said that most bills are reviewed and changed by lobbyists before they are submitted. And a lot of their changes get adopted almost verbatim. Same happens with regulations.

Lawmakers have started saying it pretty plainly: https://gizmodo.com/1850096865 > “We had every environmental group walking supporting this bill,” Fahy told Grist. “What hurt this bill is Big Tech was opposed to it.” > A broad coalition of manufacturers opposed the bill in the spring, and its sponsors had to make significant compromises in order to pass it. “We made a lot of changes to get it over the finish line in…

The whole process would be fine if the legislators listened to all lobbyists. But realistically they only listen to the lobbyists who bring in the most money.

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#109

Post by yamtaddle »

pdonis wrote: post #44
comte7092 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it’s really about identifying rules that are anti majoritarian. On the federal level, the filibuster is an obvious example of a an anti majoritarian rule that creates perverse incentives. Going deeper, the way that the individual houses are structured gives significant power to committee chairs who gain power through seniority and fundraising for their parties, which creates centralized points of leverage for…

> it’s really about identifying rules that are anti majoritarian. You say this as if anti majoritarian is a bug. It's not. It's a feature. The US system is supposed to prevent tyranny of the majority. That's why there are checks and balances in it. That's why the Constitution limits the powers of the branches of government, and why further limits were put in place in the Bill of Rights. The US system is not supposed…

There were a whole lot of things in the US system of government that were put there on purpose but have turned out to definitely be bad. The fact that an element is a "feature" doesn't mean it didn't turn out to be a bad idea, in practice. If a tiny minority of rich people & companies can leverage our "anti-tyranny-of-the-majority" features so well that their use of it is practically the only use... that's broken. "It's that way on purpose" isn't a rebuttal to "it's broken".

There's a reason we don't push our system on other countries even when we're the ones setting up a new government—it's basically a ho-hum fact among people who are into that kind of thing (so, the ones who tend to end up in charge of directing the creation new governments—at least in charge of the boring details) that the US system blows goats, but some of the ways that it's broken also mean that it's nearly impossible to fix without a revolution. This has been essentially regarded as a fact in poli-sci circles since... I dunno, probably the early 20th century I'd say (Germany and Japan didn't get our system after WWII, notably, and that wasn't by accident)

Re: Big Tech lobbyist language made it verbatim into NY’s hedged repair bill

#110

Post by yamtaddle »

TchoBeer wrote: post #99
MichaelZuo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The structure of the U.S. government was explicitly designed to be anti majoritarian. For many people, in fact probably the majority of the population this is a feature.

The ability for a small number of extremely wealthy people to dictate what laws should not be passed is not protection of the minority, and if it was intended by the founders (which in some ways it was, though not in the form it takes today) then it should be opposed.

The founders never even intended that the majority be able to vote.

Really, their core quibble with the Crown, and the sticking point that prevented any peaceful solution (because compromise would have seriously threatened the political power of the nobility in Great Britain), was that they wanted rich people to have the franchise and to be able to hold high-level offices, not just aristocrats.

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