Slashdot Mirror
Lawrence Lessig Wants To Run For President So He Can Resign
An anonymous reader writes: Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig has announced his intention to explore a bid for the U.S. presidency. By Labor Day, he will decide whether he has the support necessary to enter the Democratic primary. His goals are rather unusual — he says, "I want to run to be a different kind of president. 'Different' not in the traditional political puffery sense of that term. 'Different,' quite literally. I want to run to build a mandate for the fundamental change that our democracy desperately needs. Once that is passed, I would resign, and the elected Vice President would become President."
His top picks for a running mate include Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Lessig calls it a "Presidency as referendum," a hack for the U.S. Constitution to give more power back to the citizens. "In no plausible sense do we have a representative democracy in America today." In an interview with the Washington Post, Lessig added, "Until we find a way to fix the rigged system, none of the other things that people talk about doing are going to be possible."
His top picks for a running mate include Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Lessig calls it a "Presidency as referendum," a hack for the U.S. Constitution to give more power back to the citizens. "In no plausible sense do we have a representative democracy in America today." In an interview with the Washington Post, Lessig added, "Until we find a way to fix the rigged system, none of the other things that people talk about doing are going to be possible."
So, he's announcing a priori that he'll be a lame duck. Chances of Congress cooperating with him: 0.01%
Both sound good to me. Let's see if Bernie can continue to gain support around the country.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
>> shift election day to a national holiday
I'd love to. How about April 15 when the feeling of just having paid our taxes is fresh?
"fundamental change that our democracy desperately needs"
Hold onto your wallets and run for the hills.
I want to run to build a mandate for the fundamental change that our democracy desperately needs.
so you want to propose a mission statement? because as it stands 100 senators and 435 house representatives are and have been for more than 2 generations the "hack" used by oligarchs and plutocrats to ensure you dont get to just randomly pull the rug out from under them. They control the media, they control the message, and they ultimately decide what policies and procedures are adopted and enforced.
presidents dont make laws or set meaningful policy. they kiss babies, tour disaster areas, deliver platitudes, and offer a meaningful physical representation of a broad set of policies economic, social, and international that campaign donors can patronize and the average voter can gloss over until they have to juggle 2 jobs and a trip to the library to cast their vote for party A or party B before they pick up the kids and pay rent.
Good people go to bed earlier.
You are talking about communism, not democratic socialism like in parts of Europe. In fact, you can't have free market capitalism without restrictions on money in politics, and still have any kind of democracy.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Yeah, sure: he only wants radical leftists as 'running mates'.
Fuck you Larry for marginalizing what's otherwise a reasonably non partisan position on the 'brokenness' of government.
Of course, the last time someone tried attacking the machine, the Left Wing, the Media, and the "bosses" of the Right decided that none of them wanted such a message to succeed, so they cheerfully and successfully painted the Tea Party as right wing, racist, radicals.
-Styopa
A lot of candidates are said to have no chance of winning the election. Here we have an actual case of no chance.
In Lessig's case it's less than no chance, it is negative chance. Every time he runs one of these stunts his cause is hurt more than it is helped.
Tell me how well Lessig's Mayday PAC is doing these days. How many super pacs has he ended with it?
Yeah, Sweden is such a dictatorship...
"In our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic interest."
Please don't get hung up on arguing over definitions. It isn't productive. The point Lessig is making is that there's very little say that the general population has in what actually is happening. That statement, whether true or false, is independent of choice of labeling.
One doesn't exclude the other.
A republic simply means that there is no monarch reigning over the country. Adding "constitutional" before it simply means that the basic law is defined in a document, instead of being arbitrarily defined by the feelings of a human being on that day.
You can have absolute monarchies, constitutional monarchies, constitutional republics and I guess even absolute republics (North Korea comes to my mind, as the leader is above the constitution, but is technically not a monarch either, at least on paper).
A democracy simply means that the people have (at least some of the) power. Adding "representative" before it simply means that the people elect representatives, which then votes laws, instead of letting the people vote laws directly.
Pretty much all democracies at the state level are representative, even tough some offer some elements of direct democracy (Switzerland).
There are constitutional monarchies which are also representative democracies, like the UK.
I think he is far more suitable as President than those he has suggested as VPs. So his resigning would be a mistake in my opinion.
the greatness of America will be reflected in its government too. It once was. When we are finally equal citizens, it will again
Bovine excreta. Lessig doesn't actually believe that. America's government used to be elected by white male landowners. And all the freedoms and founding principles that were important to the Founding Fathers --- er... "Parents" -- is stuff Lessig and Sanders totally hate and want to demolish. The whole continuum from European socialism to forms of communism is simply not compatible with the founding freedoms of America as articulated in our fundamental documents.
My basic problem with Sanders was very well expressed by Margaret Thatcher: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." So let's radically change our government so we can start confiscating and spending other people's money even faster, because that will make everything better!
Please don't get hung up on arguing over definitions.
WRONG - That is the kind of post modernist thinking that has gotten us into all this trouble in the first place. That is how you end up with "kinetic military actions."
Definitions and ensuring we have a common understanding are VERY IMPORTANT. If fact its the cornerstone you need for the very idea of "codified law". This is why Trump is polling so well. People want someone that says what he means. They are truly tiring of weasel word soup. If Trump actually had ideas, that were not vapid, offensive, irrational or some combination of those, he'd have the GOP primary locked already. As it is I know people who don't agree with a single thing he has said since he announce his candidacy yet they still pick him over the SIXTEEN other GOP candidates. That really says something!
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Europeans have social democracies, not democratic socialism. From Wikipedia:
Yes, the difference matters a great deal. I know of no European country that is governed as a democratic socialist country. Many countries nominally have "democratic socialist parties", but they largely do not actually pursue democratic socialism anymore.
What is it that you miss so much from the Bush years? the trillion dollar war searching for nonexistent WMDs? the insanely mismanaged response to Katrina? the disastrous economy with bank bailouts and huge unemployment? the political outing of undercover CIA agents? the debunked evidence of yellow-cake uranium presented as fact to the UN? Abu Ghraib prisoner torture? How about his complete failure to find Osama Bin Laden? Or do you just genuinely miss having the rest of the world hate us?
No thanks. I'll take the current economy with its strong dollar & 5% unemployment, 15+ million people newly with healthcare, no more wars, a nuclear agreement with Iran, regularization of relations with Cuba, legalized same sex marriage, strengthened bank regulations (without hurting the economy), a dead Osama Bin Laden, DADT repeal, etc. BTW: it's also nice to have a president who can speak in complete sentences.
Good luck with Jeb!
Sweden is nominally a constitutional monarchy. In practice, it is a social democracy, modeled on the German welfare state. In no way is Sweden a "socialist" country. In fact, on the Heritage index of economic freedoms, it ranks quite highly. http://www.heritage.org/index/...
With 300 million people, is it really possible for them to have a "say" in what's happening? The present system is far from ideal, and there's a lot I would do to change it, but even if you implemented every procedural change I had in mind your individual vote still isn't going to add up to much.
Real issues aren't binary. I can't think of any way for 300 million people to meaningfully collaborate on writing a bill. It's hard enough getting a few hundred Congressmen to do it. The binary part comes at the very end, when there's a vote, after the difficult compromises are hammered out, and it's really the least important part of the process.
I'm not crazy about the fact that our checks and balances mean that even very popular bills are impossible to move, but they're in there for a reason. If I could I would tweak the balance, but minority protections are a good thing, even if they're also ripe for abuse. And I just can't envision any scenario where those protections don't make people feel like their vote is insignificant.
The national politics is ultimately a process by which those 300 million people (or at least, the quarter or so who turn out to vote) make group decisions. Given how hard it is to get six people to decide on pizza toppings I really don't see how we're going to get to a place where the populace feels it has a lot more say than it already has. We can certainly do better than we do, but even in the best of all possible worlds I can't imagine a case that people all feel like their voices have a significant effect.
Sweden is fairly monolithic in nature, a singular people and culture, so socialism's failures haven't reached it yet, but there are cracks even there. Whenever another "culture" invades, it will succumb to the inevitable failure when the minority culture realizes that it can vote itself goodies from the public trough.
Here is a good article on this topic: http://www.newsmax.com/Herbert...
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That usually doesn't work, a common analogy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
The founding fathers were very adamant that there must be certain inalienable rights, and a balance of power between the have's and the have not's.
And thus, a republic was born.
"absolute republics"
“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.”
So, "blood coming out of her eyes" must have something to do with a period, because she is a woman?
My point is that CNN has been coming out with these hit pieces on him since he declared his intention to run. Just do a search on CNNs home page for the word Trump, there are 8 mentions of him on their page, 4 mentions of Clinton, 0 about Cruz. Search for whatever name you like.
Look at the pieces, them freaking out because he allegedly said something about blood coming out of her eyes. Or the article about him asking a woman not to breast pump in front of him. Do you honestly think that this isn't an attack on the man because CNN simply hates him? There was also the story about the immigrants and crime rates when he first declared, but did you see much about the fact that he was quoting a Hispanic news site owned by Univision?
If you go to Fox News, you have 6 mentions of Trump, the very first one from the person he supposedly said these things to, saying we should move on. I can't get the video to play, but I would expect that she is in some way saying that it was a misunderstanding, but I don't know.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
America can't even remember what socialism means any more.
Hint: It doesn't mean giving subsidies to private insurance companies to cover high-risk patients.
You are right. With 300 million people there are just too many opinions. We've simplified the process. The USA is run as an oligarchy where rich people and corporations tell congress and the president what to do. There only a few thousand people who really "matter" (Oligarch lives matter!) in the system so it's much easier. You can just ignore the rest (and send in the goons if they get too rowdy).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Congress can override a veto.
One of the dangers in creating such a scenario is that if the executive branch no longer has its confimed long-term appointees, the highest-ranking lifetime bureaucrats that are not appointed and serve through multiple administrations become the de-facto leaders of their departments. You end up with Deputy Directors with more power than cabinet secretaries, and if those Deputy Directors do not go along with the plans of the President they can make the President little more than a figurehead.
One should study the Presidency of Andrew Johnson, who was impeached but whose conviction fell short by a single vote if memory serves. He basically just filled a chair the rest of his Presidency.
I gather I would agree with a good chunk of what Mr. Lessig wants to achieve, but I don't think that his proposal for how to go about changing it is workable. Politics is local. Local people run for local offices, and then run for regional offices, then statewide office, then Federal office. If one doesn't pay attention to those people at the local level one can't complain too much for what crap floats to the top.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I assume Bernie Sanders knows enough about socialism to understand what that means.
What you are saying is that what he is really doing is performing the same kind of "bait and switch" that "national socialists" performed in 1920's Germany; if you look at their 1920 party program, perhaps you're right. That makes him even less acceptable as a candidate.
People willing to pool their resources for the common good is what a free market accomplishes.
What Bernie Sanders and socialism advocate is some people "willing" to pool other people's resources for what is ostensibly the common good. No matter whether you think (like Sanders) that such coercion is justified and useful, don't try to pretend that it is voluntary; such coercion takes authoritarian government.
(Whether government is ever "authoritative" is debatable.)