>And last summer a map compiling all the Sanders campaign happenings across the country, built by volunteer Rapi Castillo, a Philippine immigrant living in Queens who isn’t an American citizen and can’t vote this November, became the official “eventslink on Sanders’ website.
So a foreigner is effectively giving an in-kind campaign contribution to a candidate? How come people (and the law) lash back at monetary contributions but not this kind?
If the data is openly available I'm not sure how anybody could stop a foreigner from building whatever they wanted on top of it. You could question the decision to link to it in an official manner, but by that point it just becomes a freedom of speech issue, doesn't it?
Yeah, but then (per sibling subthread) we're right back to Citizen's United: "So I can spend all the time I want promoting a candidate, but if I use that time to generate money to pay others to promote the candidate, that's prohibited?"
Prohibiting "contributions" to candidates, has to infringe on a kind of free speech.
I disagree with the Citizen's United comparison, since donating time towards a campaign can't be pocketed the same way money is. You can't commoditize already-spent labor in that way.
Regardless, I think the real solution would be campaign laws similar to the UK's. It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field.
>I disagree with the Citizen's United comparison, since donating time towards a campaign can't be pocketed the same way money is. You can't commoditize already-spent labor in that way.
But if it displaces another expense, it causes them to pocket the monetary savings from that expense.
>Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field.
Even the independent expenditures? Like, if someone goes around buying ads because they just like Candidate X so much, does that count against X's budget? Probably not, hence why that approach doesn't quite resolve the Citizen's United issues -- the problem was the advocacy of people unrelated to a campaign.
Since the labor is an independent expenditure built on public data and the only thing Sanders did was link to it, the expense displacement is effectively nil.
So then the UK system doesn't address this problem, because there is still potentially unlimited money from interested parties who can independently propagandize for a candidate or issue.
>It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling.
And how do you deal with third parties who advocate for issues? If Candidate A and Candidate B have a different position on something, it's pretty clear who you're helping if you blanket the airwaves supporting Candidate A's side of the issue even if you're not explicitly addressing either candidate. Does that come out of his budget? Do we restrict unaffiliated groups?
Those sorts of restrictions have been tried in the US, and each time they get circumvented by (officially) unaffiliated groups.
Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai agree on the issue of backdooring. Does that mean that either of them wants to give their job to the other?
If you're campaigning issues, then you'll get candidates on board that support those issues. It shouldn't be the other way around.
I don't fully understand how the UK does it, and maybe it's not any better than what we've got, but when you have people flagrantly buying bills and politicians in Washington then we know at the very least that what we have now does not work. If we can't find some way to make it work, then a drastic change is in order.
I disagree. One of the reasons we're in this position is we keep making drastic changes without thinking them through first. I'd like to see some evidence proposed changes are actually workable before they're enacted.
In my life I've seen this cycle maybe five or six times, and each time we fiddle with campaign finance laws they get more complicated, leaving more gray area. When the power brokers act nobody can even tell if they've broken the law.
And this is why ultimately I agree with the decision in Citizens United.
If my bill rate is $200 an hour, then it's possible to put a financial amount on any activity I do in support of a candidate. If they did that, then we would just get the usual brinksmanship (assuming a cap), and I might be "too wealthy" to contribute time to the candidate I support.
Contrarily, if I'm just as passionate about a candidate, and have more money than programming skills, I'm happy to contribute that instead.
It was a long road for me before I accepted the argument that money equals speech, but if actions are, then it isn't a big jump for me to suggest that the payment for my actions ought to be as well, and if I made a short film in support of a candidate, I can't see any way possible of doing that for free.
I disagree 1) that they are, and 2) that they oughtn't be allowed to be for what you're intending.
On 1) They aren't persons, but do have a limited degree of personhood. Among other things, that personhood is what allows us to sue them and such.
On 2) I don't have a problem with it. If companies have to abide the law, then I can't imagine how it would be that they shouldn't have input into its making.
I agree that corporate influence is a real problem, but would personally suggest that limiting the scope of influence available to lawmakers is a better alternative to fixing the problem than limiting people (who form corporations) of their first amendment rights.
That said, this debate is getting into the 'purely political' territory, and is probably not a great fit for an HN discussion.
a corporation isn't a democratic institution, so the wealth that's generated by all the people in that corporation is only available for use by the owners of that corporation. the money everyone generates only amplifies the voice of those people that own the corporation. if a corporation is a democratic institution, with equal influence and participation of all members of it, then i agree there's no problem. that isn't the case for most corporations.
> better alternative to fixing the problem than limiting people (who form corporations) of their first amendment rights.
That's the crux of the problem though. People who form corporations are granted free speech abilities that are beyond the means of everyone else. Those that own a corporation have no legal limit on the amount of cash they can lend to a political cause while those who do not have their allowed contribution amount capped.
> People who form corporations are granted free speech abilities that are beyond the means of everyone else.
Corporations such as -- to pick an example completely at random -- the New York Times?
One of the many, many problems with advocating limiting corporate speech is that virtually everything larger than complaining on a blog or tacking a sign to an electrical pole is done by a corporate organization. If the New York Times can say what it pleases using its vast financial resources and nationwide distribution networks, it's very hard to argue coherently that, say, General Electric can't.
Children have to abide by the law but don't have input into its making. Thus I think your rationale on 2 is not sufficient. I'm against corporations from making campaign contributions because the money GE, for instance, has far outweighs what millions of actual people have and the decision to spend GE's money is in the hands of very few people. Those people who do have the power to spend GE's money on campaigns are themselves very wealthy people and already have a disproportionate amounts of influence on campaigns.
I have first-hand experience dealing with Michael Chertoff. You may not know the name, but he's been a SCOTUS clerk, federal prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney General, NSA Director, and Secretary of Homeland Security.
He was also chairman of BAE systems, The Chertoff Group, and other defense-oriented businesses. BAE is D.C.'s 8th largest contractor.
Chertoff was instrumental in mandating the FAA's adoption of body scanners for security in his capacity as a public official.
As a private citizen, The Chertoff Group represents lobbying efforts for security product companies and manufacturers.
Airports may or may not need body scanners. I think that the general HN audience is more familiar with Schneier's work enough to know of the 'security theater' that they represent, but even allowing for the possibility that they actually do some good, it seems absolutely absurd to me that the director of the NSA or the Secretary of Homeland Security has the power to mandate their purchase and installation with one hand, while selling them to the government with the other.
Assuredly this is neither the most or least egregious example of federal corruption, but I think it's the most illustrative. To me, the federal government has only the powers enumerated in the constitution. Mandating security devices isn't one of those powers, but the federal government has claimed it in its purview.
I don't necessarily have a problem with the federal government trying to keep us safe, if that's what they're doing, and I certainly don't mean to besmirch Chertoff as the archetype of corruption -- he may very well have the best possible intent... but at the same time, it would be silly of me, as president, to insist that only the software company I owned could possibly manufacture secure-enough solutions for the government and mandate their usage as vendor.
If you don't allow the government to make mandates, then there's very little purpose in lobbying them. People tend to believe that regulations are imposed to keep big businesses in check, but many if not most business regulations are lobbied for by the big businesses to impose hurdles to would-be competitors.
This isn't to suggest that all regulations are bad, mind you, but cui bono; wherever there exists a regulation, someone benefits from it. Sometimes it is legitimately the people who are customers / consumers of that business, but often it exists as the result of a mandated competitive advantage... and anecdotally speaking, the more expensive compliance is, the more likely that is to be the case.
Your solution to regulatory capture is to abolish government appropriations? Consumers, erm citizens, would then get essential services from corporations directly, mooting the need for governments?
I think I've seen that movie.
PS- Sorry about your Chertoff. Talking about it is an important part of the recovery process.
Is bankruptcy just dealing with the already dead body?
I bet there is at least some corner case where an action of the state government made a company give up operating (like pulling a liquor license or whatever).
Bankruptcy is an accountant assisted suicide attempt.
Executing a corporation would be more akin to seizing all the assets, throwing the board and execs in jail, shredding any and all contracts, some high profile perp walks.
Now that I'm describing it... It'd look like a RICO case.
This ruling didn't make corporations people, it gave groups of people the right to exercise the free speech rights they already had, even when they choose to pool their money to buy the media on which they wish to express themselves.
Corporations aren't people. They're groups of people.
Why is it I lose my right to speak if I'm in a group? In that respect, what makes corporations different from unions or advocacy groups like Greenpeace?
You shouldn't lose your right to anything when you're in a group, but you shouldn't have more rights solely because you're in a group. The group should have rights, You should have rights, and everyone else should have rights. There's a distinction there.
You do not have any rights as part of a corporation that you do not already have as an individual. That is the distinction. The corporation has rights, of which you can enact on behalf of the corporation, that you cannot enact on your own. Limits on campaign contributions is one such right.
Because you carry in your wallet a card that declares you a member of a corporation, you are not granted any rights, personally.
I think you're radically mistaken on how corporate contributions work.
Near as I can find, corporations don't have carte blanche to give unlimited money to an individual campaign. In fact, corporations cannot give any money to an individual candidate's campaign.
Corporations can give money to Political Action Committees, but are limited by amount to the same as real people.
Corporations can give money to SuperPACs, but so can real people.
> Why is it I lose my right to speak if I'm in a group?
No one has suggested that you should. People have suggested that the corporation acting as such, including through its paid agents should not have the same rights as natural persons, acting alone or collectively, but that various classes of corporations should have constraints appropriate to their class.
One of the many reasons offered for this is that corporations are creations of government granted the use of the special form and legal fiction of personhood adn subsidized with various benefits with the purpose of achieving public benefit.
> In that respect, what makes corporations different from unions or advocacy groups like Greenpeace?
Unions and advocacy groups quite often are corporations. "Unions" and "advocacy groups" are descriptions of functions, "corporation" is a description of legal structure.
> but that various classes of corporations should have constraints appropriate to their class.
Who will decide what class a corporation falls into?
I get the uneasy feeling that, practically speaking, corporations expressing certain approved political opinions or supporting approved political candidates will have the least constraints.
The problem with this viewpoint is that historically, and especially today, free speech and press is conducted primarily through corporations.
Campaigning is done on corporate television. The print press is for profit corporations.
Can you imagine a free election without the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
Why can't Koch brothers buy advertisements trashing Hillary Clinton when Jeff Bezos can buy the Washington Post and then run a hit piece on Marco Rubio?
Getting private corporations out of the speech business is probably impossible because of the internet. You could probably devise a system to attempt it, but it would be radical.
>Why can't Koch brothers buy advertisements trashing Hillary Clinton when Jeff Bezos can buy the Washington Post and then run a hit piece on Marco Rubio?
This. I've heard people joking refer to campaign finance laws as "enforcement of mainstream media relevance".
The big issue I see with your argument is that volunteer work isn't nearly as scalable as large amounts of money in terms of contributions from an individual. There's a difference between writing an app in your spare time, and running $100M of advertisements.
Can you point to an app that swung an election more than $100M worth of advertisements? Like, I know this is hacker news, home of "there's no limit to what you can achieve with hard work and VC money!", but if we're being honest with ourselves could even a single unicorn class app company swing a presidential election if it put it's mind to it?
I've worked on similar. An app that helps organize volunteers, sort and categorize mailing list responses, build street-maps for volunteers to walk to get the most value out of their canvasing time is worth FAR more than even a really good TV ad.
Nader Trader, almost. It nearly swung the election to Gore in 2000 by giving him votes in swing states. (And some would claim he should have been counted as the winner because of Florida.)
First off, depends on how you use the word "regulate".
But the government has done a poor job of regulating money, and well, to be honest, money is really the result of our efforts / labors, and thus yeah, the government should not be regulating it, generally.
Money is speech when it suits them. You can yell from the rooftops that you support Daesh, but try sending them some money... suddenly money isn't speech.
Every citizen has one vote and 24 hours in a day to allocate to supporting a candidate (bounded by the obvious). Speech has much more in common with time than it does money.
Hi! I'm the immigrant in the story. For what it's worth I'm permanent resident, not allowed to vote. Furthermore, it's seen as an in-kind contribution, just like when you help building a stage for the campaign, only in online-terms. It's explained more in http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders...
I'm not anyone's attorney, but yes, you can legally volunteer.
> The Commission has concluded herein that because uncompensated volunteer services are not
considered to be a contribution under the Act, any individual, including a foreign national, may
volunteer his or her uncompensated services to a candidate without making a contribution to that
candidate.
I understand that it's a non-monetary contribution; my confusion is just on why we should treat them differently from monetary and why people think of them differently, even when they accomplish the same thing (deliver $X worth of value to a campaign), especially given that, for a foreigner to contribute money is a serious crime.
(Less of an issue in your case since you're not some random Chinese government official but an actual US resident with legal status who can stay.)
That's a great thing to think about. IMHO, it's about worth and intent - as with any. And as with any software development, it's all relative. For me - personally - coding the map was a way for me to practice leaflet, which I've always been interested in learning, and at the same time D3. I never really thought about or even expected the campaign reaching out to me. The original map which is in bernie2016events.org used to take events from meetup.com and facebook.com, which I have scraped and manually curated. The campaign's open API for the events happened later.
So for me, the map was a practice exercise, which is essentially like a more convoluted Hello World. The value was perceived by others, and the campaign. The value for me was, "Ok, there's cluttered events all around the wild, I'd like to make sense of it and help out while I practice D3 and Leaflet."
The value as perceived by others was beyond me, and I was really just happy that it had bigger value that I originally intended.
This is different with foreign governments contributing online assets or money to the campaign, because the intent is different, and the worth is different. The intent is influence/leverage, and worth is tools/dollars. And as you have predicated below as well, corporate money is very different if you look deeper, compared to an individual who's just practicing.
Yes, I understand. But I thought I'd put my 2cents on the difference between what I did if I didn't have a green card. And how it differs with a corporation/big donors/super PACs or a foreign gov't giving assistance to a campaign.
Except for actually voting and running for elected office themselves, the laws for permanent residents in the political process are the same as for citizens. So in this case, it's not a question of non-monetary versus monetary contributions—Rapi can also legally write a check to the Sanders campaign because he is legally an American national. Getting the green card is the point when someone is no longer considered a foreign national.
I personally participated in the 2008 Democratic caucus as a permanent resident. I could take part in the political discussions, but I just couldn't vote (which is a party rule, not a law). I also lobbied state legislators on behalf of the school I was attending.
Before we start admiring things, let's see what happens on Super Tuesday (12 days away).
Nothing of what Sanders is doing is going to survive past a left primary. Absolutely nothing he is promising can be done without Congress.
------------
reply to below since I can only answer two replies on HN anymore before being blocked:
Wrong comparison.
That's like wanting to be manager when you have only worked at a company for a couple years.
Come on now.
If Sanders ideas can work so well, why don't all these eager people first implement them at a local level where they have more immediate power? Nope, they want to go directly to the executive because it is a figurehead.
Sanders comes from a 96% WHITE state - they are ridiculously homogeneous and are nothing like the rest of the United States. Only Maine is whiter. Why is his state like that in the 21st century? Why does everyone else feel unwelcome to live there?
Sanders will never attract the 3-4% of undecided voters and we will end up with Trump picking the next few supreme court judges.
Why are you okay with losing the presidency for the next eight years based on theoretical ideas that are not proven to work anywhere and won't get voted for by the masses?
Ideas are powerful. What Sanders' rise (and to some extent, Trump's) symbolize political system whose representatives that are woefully out of touch with its constituents. I think congress and the Senate is next, we are going to see a huge shake up in each party from the top down. Don't be surprised if we start seeing more Sanders-like-citizens running for Congress. We live in interesting times.
We can't have articles about his campaign because he might not win? Regardless of who wins, these tech volunteers campaigned for him in innovative ways and that is worthy of reporting
Except Vermont is no Maine. It literally borders NY and Mass. - there is no excuse why it has near-zero diversity other than it simply doesn't make people welcome who do not fit existing mindsets.
That's a horrible model for the USA and would never work.
Like I keep saying, if Sander's ideas are so good, prove them on a local, regional and state level.
Even Obama's healthcare plan was simply a nationwide attempt at what Romney already created, but then it got too many cooks (aka Congress) tampering with it.
"There are no jobs" and "have you seen what kind of weather they have" apply just as much to Vermont as they do to Maine. (fewer killer clowns or vampires tho).
The "next to NY/MA" is a bit disingenuous; there's hardly anything on the NY side of the border, and even less on the MA side.
The SJW managed to alienate a lot of people the last couple of years. And now they support Hilary. And with that are doing her a great disservice.
Right now they are busy insulting their own party and their own electorate.
And even you managed to imply that a majority white state is somehow strange, undesirable and barbed fortress. That is a great way to win hearts and minds for Hilary's campaign.
> If Sanders ideas can work so well, why don't all these eager people first implement them at a local level where they have more immediate power? Nope, they want to go directly to the executive because it is a figurehead.
Lots of people don't pay attention to or vote in local elections so those aren't even on their radar.
You raise a good point though. There's discussion in the Sanders subreddits about doing exactly this, both as a way to channel the energy of his supporters if he doesn't get elected, and as a way to support him if he does.
As insane as they were, they at least grasped the idea that while the excutive president of the US was a nice figurehead to shoot for, the real power was on local, county and state level figures.
Then they turned around and made their dream come true in Kansas which is now a horrible place to live.
But they did it - the found their path to make it happen.
If Sanders people want that kind of accomplishment, they need to look at all the levels way before the executive which has no power today other than supreme court appointees.
He is not radical or left when seen from an EU view and with 20 years experience on Capitol Hill he knows exactly how the game is played. So he is able to get stuff done i have no doubt about that.
Two of his main agenda points are no-brainers:
- Medicare for all
- Tuition Free College
And he is right with his assessment that the rising inequality is not a good thing for our future.
The exact same folks who Bernie is going to raise taxes for, mind you. He won't really be able to do anything against the 1% (since they own the Congress, and will continue to own it), but upper middle class represents an attractive target for a cash grab to pay for all those nice free rides he's promising to the poor.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but first world social services (by which I suspect you mean universal healthcare) aren't going to happen either, Bernie or no Bernie. For that to happen one would have to dismantle the healthcare insurance industry (which Obama had to give hundreds of billions to, in order to pass ACA) and screw over the doctors who currently charge an arm and a leg because they can (ACA does little to nothing to control the costs, which is why they are still rising). That's a trillion dollar industry, the best you can hope for is very gradual evolution in the right direction. It's "hope, change" bullshit all over again, except Bernie is very likely to keel over in the next 9 years.
You're free to your opinion! Progress occurs one funeral at a time (the US is slowly turning progressive as the 65+ cohort ages). Maybe it takes a year. Maybe it takes ten. People like myself just continue pushing in the direction we'd like to go.
Its unfortunate you're jaded into the idea that no change can occur.
Cohorts beyond 35 or so (also known as people who might actually have something to lose) are more conservative and they have always been. So your hope that conservatives will die out is naive at best. People turn conservative real quick once they have a bit of money in their brokerage and/or savings account.
The free-market capitalism that you are espousing, requires a ‘cash grab’ —or distribution- to function or else it is completely incompatible with technological advancement.
Looping structures allow programs to increase output and efficiency on the supply side, enabling startups to undercut company's reliant on manual labor. Advancements in tech allow a single person to run an automated script that does the work of thousands of manual workers (while greatly reducing the risk of human error). However, increased efficiency on the supply side decreases the value of human labor, which consequently decreases purchasing power across the board in every industry where a manual process is replaced. The more industry's that are efficient, the fewer customers capitalists can offer their products and services too. Capitalism can’t work unless there is some degree of a 'free ride to the poor', because the wealthy cant generate revenue if there isn’t a middle class to sell their products to. Its in capitalists best interests to have the poor become the middle class—i.e., because no one can create marginal revenue if there is no one to sell things too (or the value of the good being sold deflates).
Without a strong consumer market there is no incentive for anyone to do anything in free market capitalism, because there is no incentive to do something that cannot create enough marginal value to meet ones material need, and because we are all finite beings reliant on external goods to persist, one cannot create value without meeting their material needs.
Would it not be a more preferable for a centralized structure to provide everyone with the basics, so everyone could study what interested them and add value to society as a whole. If the govt invested say 60k in each individual, a greater # of people be able to work on advancing the quality of life for our species, finding new worlds to inhabit, and generally speaking — adding marginal value to the way we spend our time. Instead of minds thinking about physics, and how to improve things, minds are thinking about how to survive. Is this state of affairs not a huge deadweight loss of humanity’s time? A Sanders administration would hopefully be a small, necessary, and peaceful step in the logical direction.
Would it not be a more preferable for a centralized
structure to provide everyone with the basics, so
everyone could study what interested them and add
value to society as a whole.
"From each according to their ability, to each according to his need." (c) Karl Marx. We all know how well that worked out in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
The dirty open secret is very few countries actually tax the capital owning class all that much. It's just too easy to pack up and move to a country that doesn't.
The upper middle class and income rich pay the brunt. But there isn't enough to fix all of societies problems.
98 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 246 ms ] thread>And last summer a map compiling all the Sanders campaign happenings across the country, built by volunteer Rapi Castillo, a Philippine immigrant living in Queens who isn’t an American citizen and can’t vote this November, became the official “eventslink on Sanders’ website.
So a foreigner is effectively giving an in-kind campaign contribution to a candidate? How come people (and the law) lash back at monetary contributions but not this kind?
Prohibiting "contributions" to candidates, has to infringe on a kind of free speech.
Regardless, I think the real solution would be campaign laws similar to the UK's. It's my understanding that each candidate is given the same hard cap on campaign spending, which encompasses everything from advertising to the cost of sleeping on a friend's couch while traveling. Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field.
But if it displaces another expense, it causes them to pocket the monetary savings from that expense.
>Every candidate's expenditures are diligently recorded and easily audited if necessary, and it creates a level playing field.
Even the independent expenditures? Like, if someone goes around buying ads because they just like Candidate X so much, does that count against X's budget? Probably not, hence why that approach doesn't quite resolve the Citizen's United issues -- the problem was the advocacy of people unrelated to a campaign.
And how do you deal with third parties who advocate for issues? If Candidate A and Candidate B have a different position on something, it's pretty clear who you're helping if you blanket the airwaves supporting Candidate A's side of the issue even if you're not explicitly addressing either candidate. Does that come out of his budget? Do we restrict unaffiliated groups?
Those sorts of restrictions have been tried in the US, and each time they get circumvented by (officially) unaffiliated groups.
If you're campaigning issues, then you'll get candidates on board that support those issues. It shouldn't be the other way around.
I don't fully understand how the UK does it, and maybe it's not any better than what we've got, but when you have people flagrantly buying bills and politicians in Washington then we know at the very least that what we have now does not work. If we can't find some way to make it work, then a drastic change is in order.
In my life I've seen this cycle maybe five or six times, and each time we fiddle with campaign finance laws they get more complicated, leaving more gray area. When the power brokers act nobody can even tell if they've broken the law.
If my bill rate is $200 an hour, then it's possible to put a financial amount on any activity I do in support of a candidate. If they did that, then we would just get the usual brinksmanship (assuming a cap), and I might be "too wealthy" to contribute time to the candidate I support.
Contrarily, if I'm just as passionate about a candidate, and have more money than programming skills, I'm happy to contribute that instead.
It was a long road for me before I accepted the argument that money equals speech, but if actions are, then it isn't a big jump for me to suggest that the payment for my actions ought to be as well, and if I made a short film in support of a candidate, I can't see any way possible of doing that for free.
On 1) They aren't persons, but do have a limited degree of personhood. Among other things, that personhood is what allows us to sue them and such.
On 2) I don't have a problem with it. If companies have to abide the law, then I can't imagine how it would be that they shouldn't have input into its making.
I agree that corporate influence is a real problem, but would personally suggest that limiting the scope of influence available to lawmakers is a better alternative to fixing the problem than limiting people (who form corporations) of their first amendment rights.
That said, this debate is getting into the 'purely political' territory, and is probably not a great fit for an HN discussion.
That's the crux of the problem though. People who form corporations are granted free speech abilities that are beyond the means of everyone else. Those that own a corporation have no legal limit on the amount of cash they can lend to a political cause while those who do not have their allowed contribution amount capped.
Corporations such as -- to pick an example completely at random -- the New York Times?
One of the many, many problems with advocating limiting corporate speech is that virtually everything larger than complaining on a blog or tacking a sign to an electrical pole is done by a corporate organization. If the New York Times can say what it pleases using its vast financial resources and nationwide distribution networks, it's very hard to argue coherently that, say, General Electric can't.
What are you suggesting here? Increased direct democracy? Less lobbying, presumably thru regulation, thereby curtailing speech?
He was also chairman of BAE systems, The Chertoff Group, and other defense-oriented businesses. BAE is D.C.'s 8th largest contractor.
Chertoff was instrumental in mandating the FAA's adoption of body scanners for security in his capacity as a public official.
As a private citizen, The Chertoff Group represents lobbying efforts for security product companies and manufacturers.
Airports may or may not need body scanners. I think that the general HN audience is more familiar with Schneier's work enough to know of the 'security theater' that they represent, but even allowing for the possibility that they actually do some good, it seems absolutely absurd to me that the director of the NSA or the Secretary of Homeland Security has the power to mandate their purchase and installation with one hand, while selling them to the government with the other.
Assuredly this is neither the most or least egregious example of federal corruption, but I think it's the most illustrative. To me, the federal government has only the powers enumerated in the constitution. Mandating security devices isn't one of those powers, but the federal government has claimed it in its purview.
I don't necessarily have a problem with the federal government trying to keep us safe, if that's what they're doing, and I certainly don't mean to besmirch Chertoff as the archetype of corruption -- he may very well have the best possible intent... but at the same time, it would be silly of me, as president, to insist that only the software company I owned could possibly manufacture secure-enough solutions for the government and mandate their usage as vendor.
This isn't to suggest that all regulations are bad, mind you, but cui bono; wherever there exists a regulation, someone benefits from it. Sometimes it is legitimately the people who are customers / consumers of that business, but often it exists as the result of a mandated competitive advantage... and anecdotally speaking, the more expensive compliance is, the more likely that is to be the case.
Your solution to regulatory capture is to abolish government appropriations? Consumers, erm citizens, would then get essential services from corporations directly, mooting the need for governments?
I think I've seen that movie.
PS- Sorry about your Chertoff. Talking about it is an important part of the recovery process.
I bet there is at least some corner case where an action of the state government made a company give up operating (like pulling a liquor license or whatever).
Executing a corporation would be more akin to seizing all the assets, throwing the board and execs in jail, shredding any and all contracts, some high profile perp walks.
Now that I'm describing it... It'd look like a RICO case.
Juridical personhood is the defining characteristic of a corporation.
Why is it I lose my right to speak if I'm in a group? In that respect, what makes corporations different from unions or advocacy groups like Greenpeace?
Because you carry in your wallet a card that declares you a member of a corporation, you are not granted any rights, personally.
Near as I can find, corporations don't have carte blanche to give unlimited money to an individual campaign. In fact, corporations cannot give any money to an individual candidate's campaign.
Corporations can give money to Political Action Committees, but are limited by amount to the same as real people.
Corporations can give money to SuperPACs, but so can real people.
http://www.fec.gov/info/contriblimitschart1516.pdf
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/citizens.shtml
If I am wrong, I welcome corrections, but I think you're off on what corporations can and cannot do.
So no more collective bargaining?
No one has suggested that you should. People have suggested that the corporation acting as such, including through its paid agents should not have the same rights as natural persons, acting alone or collectively, but that various classes of corporations should have constraints appropriate to their class.
One of the many reasons offered for this is that corporations are creations of government granted the use of the special form and legal fiction of personhood adn subsidized with various benefits with the purpose of achieving public benefit.
> In that respect, what makes corporations different from unions or advocacy groups like Greenpeace?
Unions and advocacy groups quite often are corporations. "Unions" and "advocacy groups" are descriptions of functions, "corporation" is a description of legal structure.
Who will decide what class a corporation falls into?
I get the uneasy feeling that, practically speaking, corporations expressing certain approved political opinions or supporting approved political candidates will have the least constraints.
Campaigning is done on corporate television. The print press is for profit corporations.
Can you imagine a free election without the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
Why can't Koch brothers buy advertisements trashing Hillary Clinton when Jeff Bezos can buy the Washington Post and then run a hit piece on Marco Rubio?
Getting private corporations out of the speech business is probably impossible because of the internet. You could probably devise a system to attempt it, but it would be radical.
This. I've heard people joking refer to campaign finance laws as "enforcement of mainstream media relevance".
If I wrote an app that was as popular as GMail, it's very possibly much more impactful than a $100M worth of advertisements.
https://www.ngpvan.com/
I've worked on similar. An app that helps organize volunteers, sort and categorize mailing list responses, build street-maps for volunteers to walk to get the most value out of their canvasing time is worth FAR more than even a really good TV ad.
Given money == speech, you're okay with the government regulating speech?
Popular saying, but very bad example. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time...
But the government has done a poor job of regulating money, and well, to be honest, money is really the result of our efforts / labors, and thus yeah, the government should not be regulating it, generally.
Which is why the government still restricts campaign donations. It just can't restrict money when that money is being used for actual speech.
Also, I think candidates must show responsibility and least make everyone sign that they are US nationals.
I would, most definitely, not want to create any legal problems to the campaign.
> The Commission has concluded herein that because uncompensated volunteer services are not considered to be a contribution under the Act, any individual, including a foreign national, may volunteer his or her uncompensated services to a candidate without making a contribution to that candidate.
From the PDF linked from here: http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/foreign.shtml#Volunteer
Whether the Sanders campaign actually wants foreign volunteers is a different issue.
¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
I understand that it's a non-monetary contribution; my confusion is just on why we should treat them differently from monetary and why people think of them differently, even when they accomplish the same thing (deliver $X worth of value to a campaign), especially given that, for a foreigner to contribute money is a serious crime.
(Less of an issue in your case since you're not some random Chinese government official but an actual US resident with legal status who can stay.)
So for me, the map was a practice exercise, which is essentially like a more convoluted Hello World. The value was perceived by others, and the campaign. The value for me was, "Ok, there's cluttered events all around the wild, I'd like to make sense of it and help out while I practice D3 and Leaflet."
The value as perceived by others was beyond me, and I was really just happy that it had bigger value that I originally intended.
This is different with foreign governments contributing online assets or money to the campaign, because the intent is different, and the worth is different. The intent is influence/leverage, and worth is tools/dollars. And as you have predicated below as well, corporate money is very different if you look deeper, compared to an individual who's just practicing.
http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml#Can_nonUS_citiz...
I personally participated in the 2008 Democratic caucus as a permanent resident. I could take part in the political discussions, but I just couldn't vote (which is a party rule, not a law). I also lobbied state legislators on behalf of the school I was attending.
http://www.fec.gov/ans/answers_general.shtml#Can_nonUS_citiz...
Nothing of what Sanders is doing is going to survive past a left primary. Absolutely nothing he is promising can be done without Congress.
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reply to below since I can only answer two replies on HN anymore before being blocked:
Wrong comparison.
That's like wanting to be manager when you have only worked at a company for a couple years.
Come on now.
If Sanders ideas can work so well, why don't all these eager people first implement them at a local level where they have more immediate power? Nope, they want to go directly to the executive because it is a figurehead.
Sanders comes from a 96% WHITE state - they are ridiculously homogeneous and are nothing like the rest of the United States. Only Maine is whiter. Why is his state like that in the 21st century? Why does everyone else feel unwelcome to live there?
Sanders will never attract the 3-4% of undecided voters and we will end up with Trump picking the next few supreme court judges.
Why are you okay with losing the presidency for the next eight years based on theoretical ideas that are not proven to work anywhere and won't get voted for by the masses?
Sounds kind of ridiculous, right?
> https://newrepublic.com/article/129047/bernies-army-running-...
> https://www.reddit.com/r/grassrootsselect
As someone currently living in Maine, people don't move here for reasons like "there are no jobs" and "have you seen what kind of weather they have".
That's a horrible model for the USA and would never work.
Like I keep saying, if Sander's ideas are so good, prove them on a local, regional and state level.
Even Obama's healthcare plan was simply a nationwide attempt at what Romney already created, but then it got too many cooks (aka Congress) tampering with it.
Where's is Sanders version of Romney?
The "next to NY/MA" is a bit disingenuous; there's hardly anything on the NY side of the border, and even less on the MA side.
Right now they are busy insulting their own party and their own electorate.
And even you managed to imply that a majority white state is somehow strange, undesirable and barbed fortress. That is a great way to win hearts and minds for Hilary's campaign.
Lots of people don't pay attention to or vote in local elections so those aren't even on their radar.
You raise a good point though. There's discussion in the Sanders subreddits about doing exactly this, both as a way to channel the energy of his supporters if he doesn't get elected, and as a way to support him if he does.
As insane as they were, they at least grasped the idea that while the excutive president of the US was a nice figurehead to shoot for, the real power was on local, county and state level figures.
Then they turned around and made their dream come true in Kansas which is now a horrible place to live.
But they did it - the found their path to make it happen.
If Sanders people want that kind of accomplishment, they need to look at all the levels way before the executive which has no power today other than supreme court appointees.
Two of his main agenda points are no-brainers:
- Medicare for all
- Tuition Free College
And he is right with his assessment that the rising inequality is not a good thing for our future.
Two Youtube videos:
https://youtu.be/hv11kl6i-qU?t=3920 Talk with Bernie Sanders in 2014 where he goes on what it takes to change this system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI Ted Talk from a Nick Hanauer on inequality
They do. Look across the Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-t...
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4794720
Yet another thinly veiled political story that somehow make it to the front page because it has the word "coders" in the title.
TIL first world social services are "nice free rides promised to the poor."
Its unfortunate you're jaded into the idea that no change can occur.
The upper middle class and income rich pay the brunt. But there isn't enough to fix all of societies problems.