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'The Laws Are Written By Lobbyists,' Says Google's Schmidt
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Atlantic:
"'The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists' to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. 'It's shocking how the system actually works.' In a wide-ranging interview that spanned human nature, the future of machines, and how Google could have helped the stimulus, Schmidt said technology could 'completely change the way government works.' 'Washington is an incumbent protection machine,' Schmidt said. 'Technology is fundamentally disruptive.' Mobile phones and personal technology, for example, could be used to record the bills that members of Congress actually read and then determine what stimulus funds were successfully spent."
We discussed a specific example of this from the cable industry back in August.
In other news, Sherlock Holmes claims he is not shitting anyone.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We should hire lobbyist to represent us to our represemtatives... but that would be redundant ,right?
Tomorrow is another day...
This isn't news. Anybody who hasn't been asleep the past 20 or more years already knows that organizations have stolen the government.
Real news would be if somebody actually found a way to counteract their deeds.
Oh, I WTFV, but still, like there have been other oracles before him, it matters not. Technology has change government, it has given it more methods to keep people in line, to feed them what they want, to play one class off another, to better mince boundary lines to keep officials in power, to better redistribute wealth to do what boundaries cannot, and a host of other abuses. We have all the fun of McCain/Feingold followed by an Administration that seems to have free speech if it is of a differing opinion. One that takes the worst of the previous abuser and exaggerates them.
China operates like the Orwellian nightmare of a business, uprooting people and destroying history and nature in its relentless march forward, hoping to get where its going before something irrevocably breaks. China has to look over its shoulder as well, up and coming countries arise all the time, each more hungry than the last. Let alone their real problem, how to keep North Korea from causing an all out war next door.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Despite comments to the effect that this is not news, these comments are quite interesting. Google has a capitalization comparable to the lobbyists of the kind of ATT and others, but here as well, they play differently, and more transparently. Mr. Schmidt's comments here reflect this difference.
This is why this company still has the sympathy of slashdotters. Google's effort to advance Net neutrality and other issues pertaining to civil liberties and the Internet are to be appreciated, not derided cynically like I am reading here.
And this ("laws written by lobbyists") is why I don't think corporations should have free speech rights. They can have revocable *privileges* to run ads but should never have the right to hire, for example, a Microsoft lobbyists or RIAA lobbyists to block-out the voice of the people in the halls of Congress. Or to run ads to support their favorite puppet for Congress. The corporations have no more rights than a building.
If Bill Gates or the RIAA CEO wants to lobby, let them hire the lobbyist from his personal salary, rather than using the corporation's billon-dollar treasury.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I suspect it's simply impossible to create a non-corrupt government that manages a country that big and is so far removed from its citizens. Going back to the roots and organizing ourselves into something akin to city-states might allow us to keep closer control over the people we designate.
Diversity of laws can be a problem, but at least nowadays with online communications it'd be easier for such city-states to cooperate on treaties.
A question that arises is whether it wouldn't actually empower corporations more, with smaller states having smaller budgets than industry leaders.
From the first line he refers to "average Americans" who do not realize the process.
This applies to most societies, and is a euphemism for uneducated people(without a tertiary qualification).
Or to quote a line from Blazing Saddles "...the common man. You know....Morons."
"You know....Morons" will find the clip on You Tube I believe.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Who do you want writing laws that govern complicated industries (high-tech, medical, etc.): a bunch of politicians, or people who actually work in those respective industries? Does the average congressman with a law degree understand the nuances of intertube technology (too soon? nah.), for example? I have no problem with industries proposing or even drafting legislation, provided that our elected representatives and their staffs actually read and digest the bills to ensure that the law is fair, enforceable, and beneficial.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
Google is doing very well these days - they can afford to be the white hat guy.
Wait till their fortunes start to decline. Then we'll shall see what they're truly made of .
Anybody can weather adversity. There's no strength in that, no quality of character to be discerned.
If you truly want to see a man's character, give him power. Give him free reign. Don't try to confine or constrain him, but let him act at his every whim. That's when you learn what someone's made of.
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
Despite what some whiners online may say, America really is a free country both in that you can say what you want, and that the people have the power to change the government. What that means is that if you want to organize around candidates to change the current system, the government can't stop you, and that if you vote those candidates in to power, that is that.
The only obstacle is people who are whiny and say nothing can be changed. Bullshit, it can so. Doesn't mean it is easy, doesn't mean it won't take time and effort, but it can be done. One of the first steps is just getting the message out. Let people know what is going on, and so on.
This is precisely the same as the "third party" bullshit. "Oh voting for a third party candidate is throwing your vote away." No, that is only the case if idiots continue to believe that and not vote third party. If you look around, you find that at a state level third party candidates have won and held office. There is no evil force that keeps them out, only the force of apathy/whinyness from people who say "It can't be done."
Americans DO have the power to change their government, however to do so they have to understand this fact, and exercise it. Bitching does no good.
Something to think about:
Companies depend on selling their products to the masses. Therefore, you may not realise it, but we actually hold the key to destroying them if we wanted to. The problem is that people are undirected, they do not wish to take a stand. It is only the chosen few who actually become 'leaders' , and usually they start doing what suits THEM instead of what suits the masses.
When the masses stop being controlled by the media, and are able to THINK - and decide that they do want change, and realise that THEY hold the power - then the world will change dramatically.
But that's never going to happen, so I guess we're stuck in this hellhole.
I don't know how many people know that most laws are written by lobbyists, but I wonder how many people know that the recently released Republican Pledge to America was written by a lobbyist for AIG, Pfizer, Comcast and others.
To quote "Pissed on Politics":
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Bad-assed blogger Sam Stein expands:
You are welcome on my lawn.
Remember the old cliche, "the victors write the history books"?
It's incomplete. The victors - both military AND economic - also draft the laws.
Most of our legislative burden, that portion not derived directly from common law, is all about serving primarily the interests of our "captains of industry" and "pillars of society", preserving and increasing the control and material resources acquired at the expense of everyone else. Any beneficial fallout for the rest of We The People is purely accidental and not really intended.
1 get rid of a lot the states powers,
2 the parties need to get party discipline and throw out the "nutters".
3 have strict uk style election campaign limits
4 replace the vast expenditure on tv campaigning with uk model of party political broadcasts.
5 have more equal constituency sizes (which will stop small agricultural states leaching of the bigger ones)
6 force all organizations (Unions and Company) to run a political fund for any lobbying and have it confirmed by vote every 7 years with opt out allowed)
(1) would require an amendment to the US constitution. The powers of the Federal Government are spelled out and those not explicitly spelled out are supposed to be reserved to the states. A general way to think about the US is 50 different countries, each with their own president government and constitution, with a common limited government superior to them to make sure they get along. To take more power away from the states and give it to the Federal Government, you'd have to amend the constitution.
(2) Easily done, but seems to misinterpret US elections. The parties could get rid of the 'nutters' (although who are the nuts depends on who you are) but that doesn't prevent the nutters from getting elected. The US doesn't vote for parties, it explicitly votes for individuals. One party or another can back an individual, but it's not required and on election day you're voting for a person, not a party.
(3) Probably some issues with our 1st amendment and prevention of individuals from running campaign adds. The US has a very broad definition of Freedom of Speech that is basically unheard of anywhere else in the world.
(4) See (2), basically the same reason of voting for an individual instead of a party.
(5) We would have to change how elector's districts are divided up and this would require an amendment of Article 1 Section 2. The electors are apportioned among the states, but no state can receive less than one. In order to have 'more equal' distribution, you would have to have one person representing people in multiple states. Also, I'm not necessarily sure of the point behind it. The parent pokes at "small agricultural states" receiving a disproportionate share of Federal Dollars. Well, see here. The agricultural states are (usually) the ones getting less back in dollars than they pay in taxes. The smallest one is Wyoming and it gets 84 cents back out of every dollar it pays in taxes. It looks like we do not have this as a problem.
(6) May actually be possible, but I'd like to know why "every 7 years" was chosen instead of something more often or less often.
I'm still genuinely curious. Is your constitution based on voting for individuals, not political principles? Don't regard this as an attack, but I'd appreciate a short explanation :)
I answered this above without realizing you had asked this at the end of your post. I don't take it as an attack. The answer is yes and I realize the US is very much in the minority when it comes to this. Although, I wonder if you mean "political parties" instead of "political principles". The only time I know of when we don't vote for an individual, we are voting for a pair of individuals (President and Vice President). The President and Vice President are elected as a pair, one running for President and the other for Vice President. On no ballot I know of will you find Party X or Party Y except as a subheading under an individual who we are voting for. We also vote for a lot of things all the way down to Dog Catcher in some areas (no joke).
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
There's lots of talk and theorizing, but little research on the effect and influence of lobbyists. Thankfully, there is a large ten year study of lobbying, Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why (available at your favorite bookstore). There's a pretty good review of it at Miller-McCune. An excerpt:
The real outcome of most lobbying -- in fact, its greatest success -- is the achievement of nothing, the maintenance of the status quo. "Sixty percent of the time, nothing happens," says Frank Baumgartner, one author of the book and a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "What we see is gridlock and successful stalemating of proposals, with occasional breakthroughs. We see a pattern of no change, no change and no change -- and then some huge reform."
But those large reforms -- such as health care for 32 million uninsured Americans under President Barack Obama, the scheduled phase-out of the estate tax under President George W. Bush, and the normalization of trade relations with China under President Bill Clinton -- are far more often linked to a change in who inhabits the White House than to campaign contributions or K Street hires.
The weak link between money and policy change is counterintuitive but understandable, the authors say. The balance of power in Washington already hugely favors the rich. The status quo reflects the considerable advantages the wealthy have managed to secure in the law, down through the generations.
I'm genuinely curious (I'm a foreigner), why would that be? I don't know enough about the US constitution to say anything about points 5-6, but 1-4 doesn't seem to be against it? Educate me :)
Sure.
On #1, the states, not the nation, are the basic political unit of the United States. The Federal Government's powers were all explicitly delegated to the Federal Government by the states; all powers not delegated to the Federal Government were retained by the states. And the list of powers given to the Federal Government were pretty few, even if over time they've been construed ever more broadly.
On #2, there are no parties able to exert discipline to throw out the "nutters". The Republican Party of Texas, the Republican National Committee, the Senate Republican Caucus, and the House Republican Caucus are all separate organizations in their legal existences and in their leadership. And it's the Republican Party of Texas that decides who is listed as a Republican on ballots in the state of Texas. If the Republicans in Texas decide they don't like the national Republican candidate for President, they can list someone else on the ballot. The national Republican candidate would then have to go through the usual procedure for independent candidates to get on the ballot in Texas, and would not be listed as a Republican on that ballot.
(By the way, calling back to #1, most election laws are written by the states, not the Federal Government.)
On #3, the Supreme Court has just thrown much milder restrictions out as unconstitutional. Imposing strict ones would require amending the Constitution. That, by the way, requires approval of a 2/3rds majority of each House of Congress and majority approval by both houses of the legislature in three quarters of the states, which is the same procedure you'd have to go through to accomplish #1. (There are some alternative procedures, but that's the basic one that's been used for 26 of the 27 amendments.)
On #4, well, see #2 and #3.
On #5, the Senate is strictly apportioned by the Constitution as 2 Senators per state (going back to the states as basic units, Senators were originally appointed by the states themselves, not elected). To make the Senate more equally apportioned by population, you'd have to convince 2/3rds the Senate and 3/4ths the states to approve amending the Constitution to do that. The House is first apportioned among states by population (minimum 1 per state), then divided into equal-population districts within each state.
On #6, see #3.
You're a retard, you know that? He just said he barely makes enough to support himself despite working hard every day. The top 20% of the country owns 87% of the wealth. The bottom 60% owns less than 1% of the wealth. What the heck is anyone supposed to do when half of those paupers vote for politicians who want to give MORE money to the rich?
See, you not only don't know how to read, but jump up on all the typical bullshit. For starters, I am trying. I have been trying, I go to college all day, work in my spare time, and I have been working on several inventions, and trying to sell them in what time I have left. I work my ass off every day of my life, and yet have no choice but to live in debt slavery, no matter how hard I try to fix shit. And I do all of that with Cluster Headaches, the most painful medical condition known to medicine. Most of the time I am working to improve my situation, but I wasn't born into money, so I will still be living in debt slavery working at some corporate giant giving away my expertise for a tiny ass paycheck watching my ideas and ingenuity going to make the world worse instead of better.
Also, I like what Fox says, I WISH it were true. But it is a load of bullshit that keeps hard working people like me inpoverished and overworked while getting nothing back. I am also an eagle scout and spead a good deal of time doing voluntary community service.
At least those people can Afford to go to a 3rd world country to fix it. I could live for a month of the cost of a plane ticket, and I frequently have to. Now is it ok to whine while at the same time doing everything to get into a better situation? Yes it is you ignorant jack ass. go back to living the easy life getting mad that the poor people who work 20 hours a day are so lazy. Fuck you.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,