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Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

politicianmarket.com

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Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#71

Post by hermannj314 »

JanezStupar wrote: post #33
wladimir wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no longer a democracy, but at least it'd be transparent and honest.

Democracy in classical sense means participation of the aristocracy, not wide populist participation as practiced in 20th century. I along with many of people I discuss politics agree that for wellbeing of democracy the civic duties and privileges should be limited and not available to everybody as a universal right. Ignorance is the worst enemy of democracy. Letting the ignorant majority participate in democratic pr…

It is hard to agree or disagree with you when you don't say exactly what your eligibility criteria would be.

I, for one, find felony disenfranchisement to be deplorable.

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#72

Post by noonespecial »

RockyMcNuts wrote: post #67
llambda wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Feature request: Bribes to those in appointed positions for special favors. Thanks. That would constitute a felony.

IANAL, and possibly a blinding glimpse of the obvious (BGO), but without some kind of parody get-out-of-jail card, the site already meets the test of bribery, paying an official to do something. More serious comment... not sure what people have against so-called czars. The president (or congress-critters) have staffers who focus on specific issues, talk to affected constituents, recommend policy. Ultimately, the elec…

Its actually not the "czars" per se, that I have a problem with. Its more the persistent, appointed, un-elected positions that span administrations but still have the full force of the executive branch.

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#73

Post by hermannj314 »

wladimir wrote: post #50
toyg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bollocks. Democracy is, literally, "rule by the people"; you can twist the definition of "people", but once you do, they stop being "people" in other contexts too, and you really don't want to go there, if you really care about your fellow man (if you don't, you can pick your preferred system that favours your preferred type of assholes: with the right blood, with the right money, with the right degrees, with the rig…

A literal democracy would have everyone being able to vote on any law at any level, which is clearly impractical It used to be impractical due to obvious infrastructure reasons. But with the internet, is it still? And I'm not sure that there always needs to be an "ignorant majority". If people are closely involved with any aspect of lawmaking, they'll feel more responsible for being educated about political issues. M…

It sounds like Congress needs an ignorance quorum before passing any law:

"Congress shall pass no law, unless 51% of the electorate can pass a quiz on the content of said law. Also, individual legislators must abstain from voting until they receive passing marks."

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#75

Post by vukk »

tomkin wrote: post #69
vectorpush wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dramatically limit the size of government Any specifics? "Limit the size of government" is a trite platitude that anyone could agree with on some level. Shove 100 random people in a room and you have 200 conflicting ideas about the appropriate role of government.

It's about small government vs. large government when it should be about good government , regardless of size.

Small government vs. large government IS about good government, because it's about if the government CAN be good.

If yes, it might be small or large. If no, then it must be small.

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#76

Post by toyg »

wladimir wrote: post #50
toyg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bollocks. Democracy is, literally, "rule by the people"; you can twist the definition of "people", but once you do, they stop being "people" in other contexts too, and you really don't want to go there, if you really care about your fellow man (if you don't, you can pick your preferred system that favours your preferred type of assholes: with the right blood, with the right money, with the right degrees, with the rig…

A literal democracy would have everyone being able to vote on any law at any level, which is clearly impractical It used to be impractical due to obvious infrastructure reasons. But with the internet, is it still? And I'm not sure that there always needs to be an "ignorant majority". If people are closely involved with any aspect of lawmaking, they'll feel more responsible for being educated about political issues. M…

It used to be impractical due to obvious infrastructure reasons. But with the internet, is it still?

The history of electronic voting is not particularly encouraging for the various "democracy in technology" theories.

Besides, even if you sorted out the infrastructure requirements (see security etc), you'd still be left with the day-to-day drudgery of real politics: reading thousands of pages of bills, proposals, analysis, point, counter-point, etc etc etc, is boring and a time-sink. Which is why a professional "political class" has emerged in most countries, and why part-time politicians are invariably rich from the start (i.e. they have a lot of spare time). To fix that, we'll need good AIs to summarize and simulate. I'd actually prefer to have that over a fully-networked, always-on poll booth.

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#77

Post by iamdave »

bad_user wrote: post #11

This is a parody, but something like this could work: (1) show a list of bills that are passing Congress / the Senate (2) for each proposal, show a list of politicians that supports or opposes it (3) have a way for the user to flag politicians he wants to reward (4) plus a way for the user to setup a recurring monthly donation, distributed towards the politicians he supports, with a note pointing to your online profi…

http://www.opencongress.org/

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#78

Post by troygoode »

david927 wrote: post #38
scottdw2 wrote: post #16

I don't think that public funding of elections or free advertising (see the bottom of the page) are the solutions to government corruption. That would just force bribers to be more covert. It's analogous to the fact that SOPA wouldn't stop piracy. It seems to me that the real solution is to dramatically limit the size of government, so that there is nothing to be bought, rather then just changing the currency used to…

The wealthiest countries in the world have large governments and don't have these problems. Still, if we can bank online, we can vote online. I see nothing stopping a proposal where if 25% of the public vote online, the result is accepted over what Congress voted. No advertising allowed. Suddenly, bribing/lobbying Congress would no longer make sense.

Perhaps instead of voting on legislation directly, it would be a public (online) veto-only vote once the House/Senate passes a bill?

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#79

Post by kbutler »

tomkin wrote: post #69
vectorpush wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dramatically limit the size of government Any specifics? "Limit the size of government" is a trite platitude that anyone could agree with on some level. Shove 100 random people in a room and you have 200 conflicting ideas about the appropriate role of government.

It's about small government vs. large government when it should be about good government , regardless of size.

"That government is best which governs least." -- attr. Thomas Jefferson

Re: Show HN: I'm tired of corrupt US politicians, so I created this

#80

Post by JanezStupar »

hermannj314 wrote: post #71
JanezStupar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy in classical sense means participation of the aristocracy, not wide populist participation as practiced in 20th century. I along with many of people I discuss politics agree that for wellbeing of democracy the civic duties and privileges should be limited and not available to everybody as a universal right. Ignorance is the worst enemy of democracy. Letting the ignorant majority participate in democratic pr…

It is hard to agree or disagree with you when you don't say exactly what your eligibility criteria would be. I, for one, find felony disenfranchisement to be deplorable.

Lottery would be way better than what we have today.

I would also prohibit government employees from voting. With an exception of military veterans.

But these are not honest criteria. I have no idea about what would be a set of good criteria. Thus far I can only see that populist rule is leading us nowhere fast.

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