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Following Tech's Money Trail In Washington
snydeq writes "Having outlayed $111 million to gain political influence in 2009, the tech industry is clearly learning how to play the lobbying game, writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder. And while longtime lobbying stalwart General Motors nearly outspent the tech industry on its own, the rise of lobbying among tech giants, especially those under antitrust scrutiny, is staggering. Google, which has been drawing interest from the feds over its online advertising business, has increased its efforts twelve-fold in the past four years. And while Google frames its sudden increased interest in Washington as a matter of growth inspiring greater civic responsibility, the company may find itself sucked further into Washington, now that it is party to an international spat involving both the US and Chinese governments. Among those that top the list of tech lobbyists, Oracle, Intel, and Microsoft all have come under scrutiny in the past year, with Intel accused of monopolistic practices and Oracle requiring sign off on its merger with Sun."
The U.S. government consistently spends money it doesn't have, and is has more debt per citizen than any country in the history of the world.
Wrong.
The U.S. government has 6 times the percentage of its citizens in prison of any other country in the history of the world.
Well, Most other oppressive governments just kill their opposition.
I don't know if you have ever read the US Constitution. The powers of each branch are explicitly demarcated. The meaning of the Constitution should never change. If the people think something is important enough to change we have a way to amend the constitution. If enough people think the government should have a power it doesn't currently have we can easily give them or take away those powers. People actually used to respect it. For instance we had an amendment to prohibit alcohol. We then passed another amendment to repeal that one. But now we let the government prohibit all sorts of things without an expressed authority.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I think we need to work for a constitutional amendment, to basically say a corporation is NOT a person with 'speech rights'.
Good luck with that.
I think we need a number of other constitutional amendments, too, including one specifically guaranteeing a right to individual privacy - but I'm not holding my breath, because, according to Article 5, there are two and only two mechanisms in the U.S. constitution for amending same:
1. Congress (both houses) must pass a proposed amendment by a 2/3 majority, and that amendment must then be ratified by 3/4 of the individual state legislatures or state constitutional conventions, or
2. On petition by 2/3 of the states' legislatures, a national constitutional convention can be convened for the purpose of proposing amendments, which then must be ratified as above.
Note that Congress - which is the body the amendment you're proposing to regulate thereby - is unlikely in extremis to pass such an amendment even by majority vote, much less by a supermajority, and that a constitutional convention isn't going to happen, either.
Thomas Jefferson opined, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants." I'd say that nowadays the blood of lobbyists and machine politicians would make a good substitute "natural manure."
Trust me, your mileage won't vary.
Check out my novel.