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Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

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Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#71

Post by jfb »

riggins wrote: post #24
adrr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all 100k people chipped in a $100, it would have more effect than this petition. We live in a time where it takes money to get elected.

If all 100k people chipped in a $100 I've actually thought for some time this is an area the tech community could make a positive impact addressing the inefficiency of a small focused interest prevailing against a much larger, but unfocused public interest. Thinking more like if 100M people contributed $1 to fund politicians that protect the public interest.

How are you going to find 100M people who agree on what is in the public interest?

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#72

Post by roc »

eshvk wrote: post #22
mtgx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I think financing campaigns should only be done by individuals and with a cap of $100 each to "equalize" the money vote, just like you equalize the regular vote, by giving a person the same vote everyone gets. But the way the system works now, the "money vote" seems to be much more powerful than the real vote, and because certain individuals or corporations can put as much money as they want on that vote,…

I think the logic behind corporate financing/lobbying is that if you allow individuals to contribute money separately, there is no reason why organized groups should not band together, analyze the election, choose a candidate and pay $100 for every one of their members to that candidate's campaign. This organized machine is going to always trump a bunch of individuals haphazardly contributing money.

You have two situations when it comes to organizations:

The first, is typically called 'bundling'. An organization, say PETA, organizes a donation drive and encourages its members to make their personal contributions to campaigns PETA has researched and through such bundling the donations have a clear statement of why they were made and what policies are important to those donors.

The second, is an organization donating its money politically, effectively increasing the net donation impact of its members. (as they can donate to the organization and still donate individually)

The argument against the second situation still allows for the first. But conflating the first and second is begging the primary question of whether organizations themselves, in their limited-rights-having-but-clear-non-person status, ought to have their own right to political speech.

Because we can deny organizations the right to contribute directly without denying them the right to bundle. And such a situation would actually massively multiply the power of organization itself: as engaging an increasing number of voters becomes more important than being able to convince a small number of wealthy backers to contribute increasing sums of money.

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#73

Post by chimeracoder »

mmanfrin wrote: post #35
riggins wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all 100k people chipped in a $100 I've actually thought for some time this is an area the tech community could make a positive impact addressing the inefficiency of a small focused interest prevailing against a much larger, but unfocused public interest. Thinking more like if 100M people contributed $1 to fund politicians that protect the public interest.

I've been tossing around an idea of setting up a small PAC dedicated to tech issues. It would rate legislators on their stances on issues like net neutrality, patent reform, etc. Additionally, it would have a campaign fund, and each election cycle it would target the most egregiously bad legislators with that campaign fund. I've written some of the code -- but since that time I've learned a lot more so I will probabl…

That sounds interesting - let me know if you're interested in getting that started again; I'd be up for working on it.

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#74

Post by dreamdu5t »

sp332 wrote: post #46
gesman wrote: post #42

Would be great to have this: collect 1,000,000 votes for petition and it goes to Senate for mandatory voting. Otherwise it's impossible to penetrate the wall between government and people via "your vote, we write response, maybe" - type of approach.

That's not a bad idea. In fact many states have implemented this already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiatives_and_referendums_in...

Majority rules is just another tyranny.

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#75

Post by [deleted] »

kaybe wrote: post #62
nateabele wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I hate to be that guy, but the 'petition to end all petitions' comes to mind. Particularly the bits about 'politically safe non-answers' and 'channeling public activism into a cul-de-sac'. :-/

I can recommend this article: http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/31/we-the-people/ It argues that the reason for petitions to exist is the possibility to open a dialog to the people who are concerned about certain topics (because the petition website gets your email adress), and that in the time of fractioning news consumption it is a useful way to keep communicating, whatever that means. edit: Ok, why the heck do the…

[deleted]

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#76

Post by chimeracoder »

pessimizer wrote: post #27
pyre wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is the President a 'lawmaker?' If you want to get law-makers (i.e. legislators) to take notice just write your representative a letter.

As the guy who signs bills into law, and as the head of his party (meaning that he dictates how they are going to be whipped) he is lawmaker number 1.

> he is lawmaker number 1.

The president is a member of the executive branch, not the legislative branch. He signs bills into law in his authority as an executive who will be responsible for carrying out the laws that the legislators write, not as a legislator responsible for creating those laws.

You absolutely cannot say that he is "lawmaker number 1", because he's not even a lawmaker. The fact that most presidents happen to have served as legislators (senators) previously is irrelevant; that was their job then, and this is their job now.

He is not the head of his party. Nor is he the one who dictates how they will (or should) be whipped - the President isn't even supposed to have any say in the process of whipping votes - that falls on Reid, Pelosi, etc. (who actually have the resources to whip legislators, since they can make promises of campaign money, etc.)

We live in an era where the power of the executive has been illegally expanded well beyond what it was originally intended to be - we can thank Bush and Obama for the bulk of that (at least most recently). But that does not actually change the role that the president has (or should have) in legislative matters.

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#77

Post by riggins »

jfb wrote: post #71
riggins wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all 100k people chipped in a $100 I've actually thought for some time this is an area the tech community could make a positive impact addressing the inefficiency of a small focused interest prevailing against a much larger, but unfocused public interest. Thinking more like if 100M people contributed $1 to fund politicians that protect the public interest.

How are you going to find 100M people who agree on what is in the public interest?

How are you going to find 100M people who agree on what is in the public interest?

well how about phone unlocking? I struggle to see the case for having locked phones.

My first cut would be an appeal like 'the phone companies are trying to steal money out of your pocket. It's un-American. You should be free to do what you want with you phone.'

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#78

Post by mtgx »

tocomment wrote: post #68
adrr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all 100k people chipped in a $100, it would have more effect than this petition. We live in a time where it takes money to get elected.

Is there something like a kickstarter but for political issues? That would be perfect.

I'm surprised that hasn't showed up a yet - a platform for politicians to ask for donations for their campaigns.

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#79

Post by maxerickson »

gesman wrote: post #42

Would be great to have this: collect 1,000,000 votes for petition and it goes to Senate for mandatory voting. Otherwise it's impossible to penetrate the wall between government and people via "your vote, we write response, maybe" - type of approach.

How long would it be before some hooligans ran a DOS campaign against the Senate?

Re: Petition to make unlocking phones legal again passes 100,000 signatures

#80

Post by Alex3917 »

mtgx wrote: post #18
adrr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all 100k people chipped in a $100, it would have more effect than this petition. We live in a time where it takes money to get elected.

That's why I think financing campaigns should only be done by individuals and with a cap of $100 each to "equalize" the money vote, just like you equalize the regular vote, by giving a person the same vote everyone gets. But the way the system works now, the "money vote" seems to be much more powerful than the real vote, and because certain individuals or corporations can put as much money as they want on that vote,…

The real problem is there aren't enough congress people. If we multiplied the number of house and senate seats by 10, in order to bring the ratio of citizens to representatives back to the original levels, then it would solve 95% of the problems even without comprehensive finance reform.
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