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MayDay PAC

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Re: MayDay PAC

#91

Post by icebraining »

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…

Well, depending on how you define violent - we had tanks pointing at the building where the government was, but they surrendered pretty quickly, without any real confrontations - I believe our revolution 40 years ago would classify: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution

Re: MayDay PAC

#92

Post by robalfonso »

programminggeek wrote: post #84

Ron Paul Revolution. I'm not sure if anyone remembers it, but they were great at raising money online. They had a lot of good ideas and frankly they were right on a lot of issues that helped win Obama the election when the rest of the Republican party was still gunning for more war in the Middle East the public no longer supported. Oh, and the economy. Here's what happened... Even with millions raised, the Republican…

I think the issue with this PAC (and others with similar slate of goals) is the naiveté that if we are able to reform election policy and cutoff unlimited funding from lobbyists and other 3rd parties that the interests behind that money just disappear.

These groups still have money and still have an agenda, and they will work to the very limit of the law (and possibly more) to exercise that agenda. I can see this pac achieving their goals only to find out the top spenders dramatically increase their employee bonuses with a wink and a nod as to how it should be spent. I'm sure they can be more creative than that.

I wish that this reform would work but it won't. I'd rather go after term limits or combine the two. Its much harder to influence a politician who won't be around next term.

Re: MayDay PAC

#93

Post by sandstrom »

snowwrestler wrote: post #73
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 wh…

I think some would disagree with the statement "money in politics is not significantly distorting the will of the people".

This study tries to approach the question more numerically: https://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20mater...

Re: MayDay PAC

#94

Post by warfangle »

dantheman wrote: post #86
warfangle wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Free speech means the government cannot stop you from speaking, not that it needs to provide you with a printing press.

Yet by denying the capital to speak, it inherently stops you from speaking.

This reducto ad absurdium is meant to illustrate that money, while necessary for a bullhorn, is not speech in and of itself.

Re: MayDay PAC

#95

Post by baddox »

nardi wrote: post #88
baddox wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Regardless, at least it's attacking the problem at its roots.

The argument I presented is saying that campaign finance is not the root of the problem.

Re: MayDay PAC

#96

Post by aptwebapps »

baddox wrote: post #95
nardi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless, at least it's attacking the problem at its roots.

The argument I presented is saying that campaign finance is not the root of the problem.

That's true, but how do you get there from here? How will you reduce the size of the government when so much money can be spent so effectively to keep it big?

The question is: What is the most effective thing we can actually do to allow us to get to the point where we can choose the kind of government we want? I don't mean to say that I want the same kind of government that you do, or that either one of us will necessarily be in the majority if things ever reach that happy state, but how do we get there in the first place?

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