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MayDay PAC

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Re: MayDay PAC

#41

Post by AngrySkillzz »

edavis wrote: post #38

Save your money, people. I'm sorry, but this just seems like another in the long line of Lessig projects with laudable goals but will ultimately amount to very little. Remember Rootstrikers? From MayDay.us: > The funders of campaigns are holding our democracy hostage. We want to pay the ransom and get it back. This analogy only works if the campaign funders also see themselves as holding democracy hostage. But guess…

If you think The People are apathetic enough not to care about campaign finance reform, then what chance do we stand at actually committing to a violent revolution? Particularly any time in the near future?

Re: MayDay PAC

#42

Post by edavis »

AngrySkillzz wrote: post #41
edavis wrote: post #38

Save your money, people. I'm sorry, but this just seems like another in the long line of Lessig projects with laudable goals but will ultimately amount to very little. Remember Rootstrikers? From MayDay.us: > The funders of campaigns are holding our democracy hostage. We want to pay the ransom and get it back. This analogy only works if the campaign funders also see themselves as holding democracy hostage. But guess…

If you think The People are apathetic enough not to care about campaign finance reform, then what chance do we stand at actually committing to a violent revolution? Particularly any time in the near future?

But can you blame their apathy? It's hard to get fired up about making tweaks at the margins that ultimately might produce a few better outcomes down the road.

I say give people something bigger to aspire to and maybe they'll be meet the challenge.

Re: MayDay PAC

#43

Post by nickff »

dbenamy wrote: post #32
nickff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is not equivalent to speech, but money is necessary to enable speech. Similarly, none of the following are speech, yet all are essential to it: telephones, computers, servers, printers, megaphones, and pens. If the government bans spending by certain groups, it is preventing them from acquiring the means to advocate for their ideas, which is the essential (and primary) purpose of political speech. The "money is…

I'm not sure I understand what you mean nickff, and I'd like to. Is this a slippery slope argument, where if we start restricting spending, we might empower the government to restrict other things (like stamps) which can influence elections? Or is it that you think that restricting spending by any person or corporation in any way would result in a more distorted process than what we have now? Or something else? If it…

My basic point was that if the FEC is allowed to restrict third party campaign spending, this power will be very wide-sweeping, and necessarily allow the FEC to selectively silence any group or type of speech they dislike. I agree with the result of the Citizen's United case (in allowing unlimited third party campaign spending) because, in the words of Chief Justice Roberts "We don't put our First Amendment Rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats".

In other words, had the FEC been given the power to regulate all campaign spending, they may or may not restrict one or another sort of spending, but I am not willing to take the chance that they might silence important voices.

With respect to these "matching" systems, I do not believe that anyone should be forced to support (through taxes,) campaigns they do not support. For one thing, this disenfranchises the people who expressly refuse to support any candidate, and necessarily helps people who have positions which give them access to the subsidies (such as members of the Republican and Democratic parties).

Re: MayDay PAC

#44

Post by nickff »

pron wrote: post #39
nickff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the strongest arguments against FEC limits on speech is that many (very long-term) incumbent politicians support it. If these people support limits, it is most likely that they believe unlimited spending by outside groups will influence the populace in ways that are politically inconvenient (for the elected officials). Almost every American voter is (rightfully) skeptical of the honesty and integrity of their…

> It seems plain that unlimited campaign spending by outside groups will allow for new ideas, and real change. Absolutely not! Money is one of the most obvious forms of power in society, and therefore any group that has a lot of money to spend, is, by definition, already a significant part of the power structure. "Outside groups" with money are never true outside groups.

If unlimited campaign spending is so advantageous to the political insiders, and entrenched interests, then why are they (McCain, Feingold, and other long-term career politicians) so opposed to it? How often do you see a politician advocate for something that puts them at a significant disadvantage, and helps their critics?

Re: MayDay PAC

#45

Post by baddox »

rdl wrote: post #15

I'll probably donate to this in a few hours, but to understand it more fully, what is the argument against getting PACs/money out of politics? (Clearly there's a simple argument against MayDay PAC itself, that it might be unsuccessful in its mission, but that's a much weaker argument.) As far as I understand it, there are four main arguments for money in politics: 1) Money is speech; protecting free speech is importa…

I think one argument is that it's the wrong approach to solve the problems with government. Of course, that idea depends on an opinion of what the problems are with government. A "limited government" approach I've seen is that money in politics isn't so bad if the government's ability to use physical force to pick winners and losers in the economy is very limited. Why would the tech industry spend millions lobbying if the government had no comprehensive ability to regulate the Internet? Why would mining and oil companies lobby so much if the government had fewer environmental regulations and/or fewer subsidies in the energy and natural resources sectors? Why would defense contractors lobby so much if the government wasn't spending trillions on war around the globe? And so on.

Re: MayDay PAC

#46

Post by baddox »

pron wrote: post #39
nickff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the strongest arguments against FEC limits on speech is that many (very long-term) incumbent politicians support it. If these people support limits, it is most likely that they believe unlimited spending by outside groups will influence the populace in ways that are politically inconvenient (for the elected officials). Almost every American voter is (rightfully) skeptical of the honesty and integrity of their…

> It seems plain that unlimited campaign spending by outside groups will allow for new ideas, and real change. Absolutely not! Money is one of the most obvious forms of power in society, and therefore any group that has a lot of money to spend, is, by definition, already a significant part of the power structure. "Outside groups" with money are never true outside groups.

Maybe that's true on a sufficiently large scale, but for local/state politics I don't think it applies. For example, I would imagine that several policies in San Francisco and the Bay Area would be very different if political influence was perfectly correlated with wealth/capital.

Re: MayDay PAC

#47

Post by dantheman »

osdiab wrote: post #31
dantheman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue is about limiting the ability to speak. Anyone that is against Super PACs and "getting money out of politics" is arguing that speech needs to be reduced. It's treating the symptom, not the cause. The reason so much money is being spent, is that the amount of money the government controls and the amount of regulations it creates the potential for groups to get significant advantages. The correct solution is…

His platform is not that speech needs to be reduced. It's that as many parties as possible need to be able to have a voice, and because certain entities can spend dramatically more money than the rest of society, they can drown out the voices of others. Lessig gives specific examples of possible policies to illustrate that it's actually an increase in speech rather than a decrease in it, here: https://mayday.us/the-p…

It does reduce the ability for people to speak. You said it yourself, it makes it so they can't drown out the voices of others.

People are not equal and we need to recognize that; some are famous - their speech is hear by more people than mine, some are rich, some are well connected, some are beautiful, some own a newspaper, etc. Not everyone has the same voice, and that's ok.

Re: MayDay PAC

#48

Post by jellicle »

dantheman wrote: post #27
ehc wrote: post #14

The key thing that I don't think enough people understand is that this campaign finance reform that Lessig is working on is an issue for anyone who has ANY cause. Whether your cause is is climate change, net neutrality, or anything else, meaningful change with that issue is largely blocked by THIS issue (money in politics). Lessig's personal path of giving up his work copyright reform as his "issue" to focus on corru…

This issue is about limiting the ability to speak. Anyone that is against Super PACs and "getting money out of politics" is arguing that speech needs to be reduced. It's treating the symptom, not the cause. The reason so much money is being spent, is that the amount of money the government controls and the amount of regulations it creates the potential for groups to get significant advantages. The correct solution is…

> The correct solution is to decentralize power; it easier to win one election instead of 50. And to reduce the amount of activity the government does, less pork spending and less market distortions.

The only way to implement any solution - whatever solution you think is needed - is to implement Lessig's solution first.

Re: MayDay PAC

#49

Post by georgemcbay »

nickff wrote: post #24
rdl wrote: post #15

I'll probably donate to this in a few hours, but to understand it more fully, what is the argument against getting PACs/money out of politics? (Clearly there's a simple argument against MayDay PAC itself, that it might be unsuccessful in its mission, but that's a much weaker argument.) As far as I understand it, there are four main arguments for money in politics: 1) Money is speech; protecting free speech is importa…

One of the strongest arguments against FEC limits on speech is that many (very long-term) incumbent politicians support it. If these people support limits, it is most likely that they believe unlimited spending by outside groups will influence the populace in ways that are politically inconvenient (for the elected officials). Almost every American voter is (rightfully) skeptical of the honesty and integrity of their…

"It seems plain that unlimited campaign spending by outside groups will allow for new ideas, and real change."

New ideas, and real change... like the death of net neutrality. Great!

I really don't see how anyone could consider what you just said there logical considering that the people with (virtually) unlimited money (to donate to campaigns) historically always represent a very close overlap of the people who want to maintain the status quo that continues to earn them unlimited money.

Re: MayDay PAC

#50

Post by diztrakted »

snide wrote: post #10

Can someone more knowledgable give some specific details about their plan? I've read what I could on their website, but I can't really get a hold of what the specific platform is, if any parties are involed...etc. For example, they want to win 5 races. Who would these candidates be? Is pure election reform their only task? It's very easy for me to understand the anger. But my pessimism makes me skeptical of yet anoth…

I'm with you on this. They don't have a specific plan and I am well on the side of pessimism so far. Especially because they make no attempt at transparancy on the site. If they really wanted me to feel their sincerity, they'd have a section of the site introducing the people (other than Lessig) behind this PAC.

As is, I donated anyway, because I believe in Lessig's commitment, but I want to see some specifics soon.

I know that part of why they can't name specific races they're entering for example is because they don't know how specific midterm races are shaping up. They also need to be very careful at this stage to avoid alienating donors from either party by outright stating they're targeting an incumbent from their party (or worse, district). I just want them to start doing their research on these imminent races and start releasing this info to the public. Otherwise they will be forgetting that the only thing the growing populist sentiment in America hates more than moneyed interests, it's secrecy.

I wish them the best. And as is, they're likely to get it: they raised over a million dollars in the past four hours.

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