Slashdot Mirror
Electoral System That Lessig Hopes To Reform Is Keeping Him Out of the Debate (usatoday.com)
schwit1 writes: Lessig has raised a million dollars, which is nothing to sneeze at, but he's being given the cold shoulder by the Democrats when it comes to participating in the debates. I think he's got a good argument for being included — he's certainly as serious a candidate as some of the others, and I'm hearing a lot about his campaign.
Why are they keeping Lessig out? According to Lessig, it's for the same reason he wants in: "My view is that if we can get this message [of reform] into the debate it would change the dynamics of this Democratic primary entirely. This issue framed in this way totally blows up the Democratic primary."
Hillary and Bernie, he says, are promising the moon to voters, but can't deliver. Lessig told me, "If I can get on that stage and say the rocket can't get off the ground, and we have to change this dynamic first," the narrative shifts in a way that the leading candidates can't address.
Why are they keeping Lessig out? According to Lessig, it's for the same reason he wants in: "My view is that if we can get this message [of reform] into the debate it would change the dynamics of this Democratic primary entirely. This issue framed in this way totally blows up the Democratic primary."
Hillary and Bernie, he says, are promising the moon to voters, but can't deliver. Lessig told me, "If I can get on that stage and say the rocket can't get off the ground, and we have to change this dynamic first," the narrative shifts in a way that the leading candidates can't address.
Why can't the Democrats do the same?
Because building up a huge all-encompassing governmental establishment is what the statist Democrats are all about. Good luck getting the parasites to bite the hand that feeds.
That's not courage, that's insanity. The fringe Republican base have given up on the idea of governance. The old guard had already done that to some respects which is why they were pandering to the fringe to begin with. Now they have a perfect storm of idiocy where no one is interested in being a statesman anymore and anyone that tries gets shouted down by the fringe.
This problem of the fringe driving the selection of candidates is a problem with both parties.
This is also a problem with the 2 party system where your wing nut "coalition" members get embedded into your party instead of being some outside group (like in Israel).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If your goal is to get money out of politics, you have to get politics out of money, which is ... good luck with that. My point is that the entire notion that you can remove money from politics, when the fact is that politics is all about stealing some people's money by using power that is provided to the governments by the mob, who want that theft to happen, shows that people who want to see money out of politics without addressing the larger issue of government oppression of the individual is dishonest.
Politics are used to create the divide between those, who make more money and those who make less. Politics are used to create the notion of so called 'just society' based on disproportionate taxation of those, who are in a complete minority of-course by their very definition. To tax in a disproportionate manner while expecting the votes to have equal power is disingenuous.
Taxes are created by the governments to steal money from those, who have money, tax loopholes are then provided to those, who are willing to subsidise specific politicians. Get rid of income and wealth related taxes and then you may have your equal voting, but you will not have equal individual voting power with disproportionate taxation of individuals.
You can't handle the truth.
So, government would have no say in the business realm?
- correct. Nor in money.
Picking winners and losers, I would agree, but to say government has no authority is anarchy.
- no, it's freedom, you can say freedom is anarchy and I have no problem with that, why do you?
And politics is not automatically about stealing people's money.
- it is. It is automatically about stealing some people's money tu pay for something that those people would not give money to on their own in the same way.
Politics are increasingly being used to create a divide, but not for the reasons you state.
- politics is always about creating a divide. Try and find politics that are not creating divide, that type of politics does not exist. Politics is about taking from some and promising others something for it, it's always about creating a divide.
The wealthy are the divide creators, and that in service of maintaining and advancing their wealth.
- actually AFAIC the wealthy in a free market capitalist economy reduce the divide by building businesses that make your money go further and reducing the divide. The divide is created by the politics of greed and promise of free stuff and promise of theft from those who have more to provide the loot to those who don't have as much regardless of how the wealth is generated.
A, money should not equal speech.
- it is speech. It is political speech first of all, money is the speech of the politicians who offer to steal and offer something for nothing to those, who would give them the political power. Once that it is the case, those with money will try to protect themselves from those, who want to steal from them, and those with money will use money to buy more votes, to buy more speech. De facto money is speech, always was, always will be, not because of any court rulings, because of what the world is.
B, those who make more money are the ones benefiting from our legal system. They have more to protect, use more services, etc.
Paying more seems fair to me.
- you mean those with more means should expect to pay more disproportionately so that those with fewer means will not mob together to steal from them?
You think this is also 'fair'? Well, it's realistic that those with more to protect will spend more to protect it. What you are doing though, you are equating disproportionate (so called 'progressive') taxation with 'justice'. The interesting thing is that you seem to have convinced yourself on this subject enough not to see the immorality of that stance.
C, taking the government budget, dividing by the number of citizens and expecting each to pay that amount? really?
- first of all that is Constitutional (capitation tax), secondly that is not even the subject I am bringing up. I am talking about the immoral nature of marginal income and wealth taxes, not absence of truly Constitutional taxation principles.
Could that work? Why would you expect that? This fails on practicability as well as on fairness.
- 'fairness' can never be achieved in the eyes of those, who want to steal more from those who have more. As long as somebody has much more than you do, you will always say it is unfair to tax you and not them, even though objectively are completely outpaying you in the size of taxes they are paying in every way, in absolute amounts, percentage wise, in everything.
Pure and simple. Might as well go back to Warlords and Kings
- Strawman argument. how about going back to Constitutional taxation, capitation and excise taxes? Seems impossible to you? That's how US of A was built before 1913 in the first place
You can't handle the truth.