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25th July 2022, 06:28 PM | #41 |
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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25th July 2022, 09:34 PM | #42 |
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26th July 2022, 12:08 AM | #43 |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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26th July 2022, 04:16 AM | #44 |
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26th July 2022, 04:48 AM | #45 |
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26th July 2022, 04:53 AM | #46 |
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26th July 2022, 04:55 AM | #47 |
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I disagree. We cannot eliminate undue influence of the wealthy, does not mean we cannot reduce it.
Why do I have to have the perfect solution in order to acknowledge a problem? I would consider proposals besides ones that I think of myself, and so I do not marry myself to any one solution. Isn't that better than deciding there's only one way to do something? |
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26th July 2022, 05:15 AM | #48 |
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This reminds me of criticisms of regulation. It's often the big players in a particular industry whose money allows them to write the rules that then serve to keep out competition. It's going to be the same people who we are complaining are unduly influenced by money and outside interests who will be writing, and enforcing these rules the rules to keep out money and outside interests..... My gut is that somehow it would end up disproportionately impacting outsider candidates.
Hypothetically, if you were able to reduce the amount of money explicitly spent on campaigning, you would be increasing the importance of implicit kinds of support like friendly mainstream and social media platforms. If there was any question that these weren't neutral, you might be making the overall problem worse. Not saying don't do it, but it's a mountain to be climbed. |
26th July 2022, 07:46 AM | #49 |
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You don't have to come up with a solution by yourself but you need to have more than "there should be something to limit the power of wealth on politics".
It's like saying "there should be less pollution" or "there should be greater equality" etc. Few people would disagree with such principles but without a workable hypothesis on how to achieve it, you are simply complaining about the universal gravitational constant. |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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27th July 2022, 04:50 PM | #50 |
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27th July 2022, 05:29 PM | #51 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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27th July 2022, 07:44 PM | #52 |
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27th July 2022, 08:24 PM | #53 |
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Pretty simple: By constitutional amendment, make voting mandatory, with a trivial penalty for non-compliance.
So why do that if it appears to offer no change from the current situation? First, it supports the position that anyone preventing a valid US citizen from voting, or corrupting the voting process to effectively achieve the same outcome, is breaking the law. How is this different? Citizens can demand with constitutional authority that voter registration and polling stations and mail-in voting, etc. be made readily available to them, not made difficult or scarce or non-existent in an effort to prevent certain people voting. Failure to do so is violating their constitutional rights. And we wouldn't want that! A secondary effect is that politicians would no longer have to waste effort door-knocking or pleading to "get out and vote". Or in trying to prevent people voting. The act of voting would already be guaranteed to happen. So what they would need to do instead was to actually argue for their views and policies on their merits (or lack thereof, or fifths of whisky, etc.) Have at it. |
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27th July 2022, 10:12 PM | #54 |
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I like that first point. I also seem to recall that there have been some studies made in other areas that suggest an opt-out works better than an opt-in. I wouldn't be surprised if voter turnout improved even without fines. If you had to get permission not to vote (fine only on failure to do that) it might still work.
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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28th July 2022, 01:08 PM | #55 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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28th July 2022, 01:10 PM | #56 |
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I see the whole issue of individual liberty is considered to be a minor point with many here.
I tyhink mandatory voting strikes at the very heart of individual freedom. if I don't want to vote, I should not have to. |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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28th July 2022, 01:32 PM | #57 |
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We could do quadratic voting: if you don't vote, you can safe up votes for an issue you really care about.
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28th July 2022, 01:56 PM | #58 |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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28th July 2022, 03:45 PM | #59 |
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One of the consequences of mandatory voting is that you create a huge voting block of people who are not engaged enough to vote unless you force them. Every time you create a new voting block you reduce the power of old ones. When you allow criminals to vote, you create a criminal interest group for politicians to serve and reduce the power of the non-criminal interest group.
What is going to be the effect of swinging politics towards people who have no interest in politics? Will it reduce the limited extent that politicians are held to account if such a huge percentage of the electorate aren't even paying attention to the limited extent that the people who can actually be bothered to vote are? If you look at turnout by educational level, it's the "less than 9th grade education level" that you are really increasing bigly. Maybe these people will be energised by voting and suddenly become interested in politics, but I doubt it. Even more than today, elections would be decided by people who don't consume news, and don't know who the candidates are. |
28th July 2022, 05:01 PM | #60 |
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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29th July 2022, 01:23 AM | #61 |
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I'm just saying what the obvious consequence is. If you think a democracy focused on people who don't know what they are voting for and just voting tribally would be a good thing, then terrific, go for it. I'm sure it would suit politicians. There is of course some significant element of that in democracy now, this would just push it further that way. There is quite a bit of economics literature on the race to the bottom that this kind of expanding of the franchise sets up. But again, if maximizing the number of people who vote in some search for the Rousseauian "will of the people" is some absolute good, then go for it. It's certainly not a healthy democracy in the since American's in the 1830s would have understood it.
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29th July 2022, 02:33 AM | #62 |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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29th July 2022, 02:47 AM | #63 |
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29th July 2022, 07:16 AM | #64 |
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29th July 2022, 07:42 AM | #65 |
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He isn't wrong, he is merely adopting the perspective of the current corrupt system, and defending it as it is always defended by those who prefer the corruption they know and enjoy to a system which threatens the privilege and power of those benefitting from it currently.
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29th July 2022, 08:49 AM | #66 |
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So long as neither the candidate, nor any group of supporters, are paid with private money, no big deal. Each candidate can divvy up their share of the equal public money each candidate will receive to run their campaign on, they are free to choose whatever method(s) they think will give them the best shot to win their individual elections.
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29th July 2022, 08:55 AM | #67 |
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29th July 2022, 08:57 AM | #68 |
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Trakar "By doubting we come to inquiry, and through inquiry we perceive truth." — Peter Abelard "My civilization can do anything!" - David Brin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i275AvgVvow) |
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29th July 2022, 08:59 AM | #69 |
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29th July 2022, 09:00 AM | #70 |
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Trakar "By doubting we come to inquiry, and through inquiry we perceive truth." — Peter Abelard "My civilization can do anything!" - David Brin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i275AvgVvow) |
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29th July 2022, 09:00 AM | #71 |
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29th July 2022, 09:04 AM | #72 |
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Why, every one is free to express their own political views, as well as to join or form free association political groups, they just aren't allowed to collect or use private money to amplify their voice, unless it is a portion of the public money their candidate chooses to donate to the group.
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Trakar "By doubting we come to inquiry, and through inquiry we perceive truth." — Peter Abelard "My civilization can do anything!" - David Brin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i275AvgVvow) |
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29th July 2022, 09:05 AM | #73 |
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29th July 2022, 09:07 AM | #74 |
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29th July 2022, 09:10 AM | #75 |
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I don't see how that changes anything, at least not in a system where private money is not allowed to be used, in connection with any political activity, only part or all of the equal shares of Public money given to each candidate.
This would probably need to have some regulatory oversight to keep the system from being gamed. BTW- sorry for all the single posts, I've been on jury duty for the last couple of weeks, so I didn't stop in as frequently as I should have, it's long and hard work supporting plaintiffs in their pursuit of justice against corporate Defense law teams! I'll start combining responses as I finish catching up! |
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Trakar "By doubting we come to inquiry, and through inquiry we perceive truth." — Peter Abelard "My civilization can do anything!" - David Brin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i275AvgVvow) |
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29th July 2022, 09:20 AM | #76 |
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29th July 2022, 09:37 AM | #77 |
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Hey you can go down to every polling place and vote as often as you want, but just as that is likely to result in criminal consequences. There are a lot of ways to game the current system, but we have oversight systems in place to address these crimes. A similar oversight system would undoubtedly be put into place to handle those who just cannot help but try to game a system such as I am proposing.
If you want to use a personal webpage to express your political views to whomever cares to visit your page, I can see ways that this could be an acceptable grey area, so long as it conformed to guidelines established by the oversight authority for such personal political expression websites. Rules and Laws have always existed, unsurprisingly, violations and the criminals who commit them, have always existed as well. Are you advocating we throw up our hands and go with anarchy? |
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Trakar "By doubting we come to inquiry, and through inquiry we perceive truth." — Peter Abelard "My civilization can do anything!" - David Brin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i275AvgVvow) |
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29th July 2022, 09:41 AM | #78 |
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29th July 2022, 09:51 AM | #79 |
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I'm saying that we should work within the realm of the possible rather to try to invent systems of voting to achieve things that can't be achieved. Part of reason you have the statement from Adams about "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." is because for any of the things you are talking about to work, you need the people they are constraining to be moral. If you look at DC and do not see a a moral group of people, no election system is going to save you.
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29th July 2022, 10:27 AM | #80 |
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...how about some non-trivial, but relatively minor, reward and responsibility for those who choose to vote, which would be unavailable to those who choose not to vote?
Well, the general idea is to not only get people to vote, but to get the population to achieve better understanding and actual participation in the national, state and local governances. That's why I lean more toward rewarding those who participate, rather than punishing those who abstain. I can understand and agree with your position as stated. (apologies for taking a cookie cutter to your post) I can certainly see a major push by some quarters to push for much better elementary and middle school civics and current affairs coursework! My flippancy aside, I agree with your sentiment, thus the idea of adding a minor reward, and responsibility, for those who want to vote, and allowing those who choose not to vote to lead their lives as they choose sans the reward and the responsibility of participating in local, state, and federal politics. Who gets to make the tests and teach the classes to prepare for the test? There are very good reasons for outlawing poll testing as a filter for keeping "undesirable" people from voting |
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