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MayDay PAC

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Re: MayDay PAC

#71

Post by pyre »

edavis wrote: post #54
pyre wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have to utterly smash the bastions of privilege and power if we want any hope of a fair and democratic society in our lifetime. ... then we end up with violent revolutionaries in control. What could possibly go wrong?

Compared to the philosopher kings we have now? Congress has an 80% disapproval rating. The President rains death from above via flying robots and secret kill lists. The Supreme Court routinely stacks the deck in favor of the powerful. Inequality keeps rising and more and more people keep falling behind. > ... then we end up with violent revolutionaries in control. You mean like how the United States itself was founde…

> You mean like how the United States itself was founded?

Or maybe the Khmer Rouge? When was the last time that a violent upheaval turned into a peaceful democracy?

[edit: Let's also be honest with ourselves here. The American Revolution did not overthrow a government. They didn't overthrow the British government. They drove them out from occupying a far-away land. I think that the American Revolutionaries would have had a much harder battle if they were attempting to overthrow the entire British government, even with the support of France.]

> Not sure. Maybe we'll have a lot of parades in 240 years.

The only downside to a violent revolution is 'parades in 240 years?' If you want to think that a violent revolution of the United States government will turn out all ponies and rainbows, that's your prerogative, but at least be honest with yourself about the risks of ending up with a less than desirable result.

Some less than desirable results:

* Skinheads or some radical fundamentalist Christian group use the chaos to seize power.

* Revolutionaries take a "either you're with us or against us approach." Conscientious objectors like the Quakers or the Mennonites are slaughtered wholesale for refusing to take part / take sides.

* Witch-hunts abound as 'revolutionaries' search out "1%-ers" to hold public executions. Anyone drawing parallels to McCarthy-ism, Nazism, or the Salem Witch Trials is branded a sympathizer and executed as well.

* The US is divided into several smaller nation-states each controlled by groups with competing interests. Years of war, bloodshed, cease-fires, broken cease-fires, border-skirmishes, etc ensue.

* Disruption of the government leads to disruption of the supply-chain feeding modern society with food. Mass starvation ensues.

* The revolution is successful, but the disruption of the US government leads to global economic depression. Foreign-relations suffer severely as the new government, spear-headed by the leaders of the revolution, is viewed as the cause of the depression, and scapegoat for all their suffering. Perhaps said global depression triggers a new, global wave of nationalism & isolationism, global relations nose-dive as a result.

Re: MayDay PAC

#72

Post by mdaniel »

linksbro wrote: post #12
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…

Here is "the plan" from their website. https://mayday.us/the-plan/ If you are interested, Republic Lost by Lessig is a great read on the reality of campaign finance.

And if you don't feel like shelling out the money, Lessig has posted a PDF of the book online (presumably under a Creative Commons license, but I didn't check into it that far as I already own the book)

http://lesterland.lessig.org/pdf/republic-lost.pdf

Re: MayDay PAC

#73

Post by snowwrestler »

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 argument you missed is that there is really not much of a problem to solve; money in politics is not significantly distorting the will of the people.

There is very little evidence that there are consistent correlations between money in politics and success in politics. For example the Sunlight Foundation found that all the extra outside spending in 2012 (post-Citizens-United) had no measurable correlation with who won election.

Arguments that it is a problem typically center around this or that "bad" law; but there is no guarantee that a representative democracy will make every citizen happy.

Focusing on money also ignores the many other potential influences in politics, like regional culture, religion, ideology, gender, sexism, racism, etc.

Re: MayDay PAC

#74

Post by harryh »

moultano wrote: post #69
rayiner wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Money is speech; protecting free speech is important, and protecting political speech (and thus financial donations to campaigns) is probably the most important form of protected speech. The argument when it comes to PAC's is not that "money is speech." It's "speech is speech." Donations to PAC's are spent independently on fundamental, protected political speech: advertisements, etc. Functionally, they are no diffe…

Lessig has in the past advocated for a variety of solutions that don't involve restricting speech, or organization. One option is to give each voter a $50 voucher that they can give to whatever political organization they wish. This retains all the of the functions of politics that we see today, but restores the dependence of politicians on the people, rather than the few who give most of the political money today.

I dunno how much it cost exactly but I'm sure that making and distributing "Hillary: The Movie" cost a lot more than 50 bucks. Limiting individuals to that total is a restriction on their speech.

Now, maybe that's a restriction that we want to impose but it's disingenuous to say it's not a restriction.

Re: MayDay PAC

#75

Post by aptwebapps »

baddox wrote: post #68
MaysonL wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, maybe you're right about limiting government (I think you're wrong, but I've been wrong before). So how do you think there's a snowball's chance in Hades to limit government when there's so much money behind the current setup? How are you going to cut the defense budget?

Likewise, how do you think there's a snowball's chance in Hades to reform campaign finance?

Incrementally, via Lessig's plan. The thing about campaign finance is that it can actually be reformed piecemeal and by external efforts simply be putting enough money in the right place and the right time. Well, not that simply, but close enough.

The current people in Congress were elected under the current system and thus must be at least slightly wary of a different system. Despite this, there is some support in Congress for these sorts of reform. Perhaps those who support it do so because they think it is the right thing to do, perhaps merely because they think they can do well under the new system.

But you don't have to change the campaign finance rules to start with. By concentrating money in a few places on a single issue, i.e. using the current system, you can elect or help elect members favorable to the new system. If that works, you kick it up a notch and try to get more elected. At some point it's either going to peter out or it's going to have some sort of permanent success.

This is not to imply that it's a walk in the park, but there is a road to success here. Trying to effect significant change on other issues which run counter to big money seems to me to be less realistic, but that's just my opinion.

Re: MayDay PAC

#76

Post by aptwebapps »

harryh wrote: post #74
moultano wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lessig has in the past advocated for a variety of solutions that don't involve restricting speech, or organization. One option is to give each voter a $50 voucher that they can give to whatever political organization they wish. This retains all the of the functions of politics that we see today, but restores the dependence of politicians on the people, rather than the few who give most of the political money today.

I dunno how much it cost exactly but I'm sure that making and distributing "Hillary: The Movie" cost a lot more than 50 bucks. Limiting individuals to that total is a restriction on their speech. Now, maybe that's a restriction that we want to impose but it's disingenuous to say it's not a restriction.

It's not a limit, it's supplemental. You can still put your own money into whatever you want. (I'm just talking about the voucher idea here).

Re: MayDay PAC

#77

Post by rdl »

aptwebapps wrote: post #76
harryh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno how much it cost exactly but I'm sure that making and distributing "Hillary: The Movie" cost a lot more than 50 bucks. Limiting individuals to that total is a restriction on their speech. Now, maybe that's a restriction that we want to impose but it's disingenuous to say it's not a restriction.

It's not a limit, it's supplemental. You can still put your own money into whatever you want. (I'm just talking about the voucher idea here).

I'm less concerned about campaign finance reform in general as communications tools get better; producing a great viral video is something a person with "no money" can do and contribute to a campaign, whereas running $10mm of TV ads requires...$10mm.

Re: MayDay PAC

#78

Post by edavis »

pyre wrote: post #71
edavis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the philosopher kings we have now? Congress has an 80% disapproval rating. The President rains death from above via flying robots and secret kill lists. The Supreme Court routinely stacks the deck in favor of the powerful. Inequality keeps rising and more and more people keep falling behind. > ... then we end up with violent revolutionaries in control. You mean like how the United States itself was founde…

> You mean like how the United States itself was founded? Or maybe the Khmer Rouge? When was the last time that a violent upheaval turned into a peaceful democracy? [edit: Let's also be honest with ourselves here. The American Revolution did not overthrow a government. They didn't overthrow the British government. They drove them out from occupying a far-away land. I think that the American Revolutionaries would have…

Good points on all. Thanks for taking the time to engage, at any rate.

You're right: I'm too sanguine on the possibilities of what "wholesale, violent revolution" could look like.

I felt after bashing Lessig, it would only be fair to offer my thoughts on the matter. But I probably should have sat it on overnight and given more thought to the last third. C'est la vie.

If I could re-calibrate my "suggestions," I would disavow the violence while still emphasizing that reformers put themselves at a disadvantage when they try to play this incremental, inside game on the elite's turf.

But, I guess we'll see. I'd love to be proven wrong on this.

Re: MayDay PAC

#79

Post by aptwebapps »

rdl wrote: post #77
aptwebapps wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a limit, it's supplemental. You can still put your own money into whatever you want. (I'm just talking about the voucher idea here).

I'm less concerned about campaign finance reform in general as communications tools get better; producing a great viral video is something a person with "no money" can do and contribute to a campaign, whereas running $10mm of TV ads requires...$10mm.

There's something in that but I think we're a long way off from money not being effective.

Re: MayDay PAC

#80

Post by warfangle »

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…

If money is speech, and speech is free, where's my free money?

If money is speech, especially with regard to politics, lack of money is the stifling of speech (and to an extent, indirect disenfranchisement). Ergo, through not giving those without money any funds with which to perform their speech, the government is violating the first amendment.

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