U.S. Politics: Register to vote, the election is nigh

[TerraPrime]

That is one fundamental area that I just don't understand why some people are okay with - when we equate political speech with disposable income, we are necessarily accepting that some people will have a larger voice than others based solely on their economic success. It seems entirely undemocratic to me.

[Larry of the Lawn]

That is one fundamental area that I just don't understand why some people are okay with - when we equate political speech with disposable income, we are necessarily accepting that some people will have a larger voice than others based solely on their economic success. It seems entirely undemocratic to me.

Well it's kind of the same mentality that can't understand how a flat tax is more burdensome to those with low incomes.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

And making campaign finance laws more complecated and difficult to deal with will favor who when they are enacted?

[Fez]

That is one fundamental area that I just don't understand why some people are okay with - when we equate political speech with disposable income, we are necessarily accepting that some people will have a larger voice than others based solely on their economic success. It seems entirely undemocratic to me.

Some people will always have larger voices than others. Those who have more free time will be able to get involved in GOTV campaigns, those with digital platforms with lots of followers will be able to reach larger groups of people with whatever message they have, those who are really charismatic will have greater success during rallies, caucuses, etc.

There are lots of different advantages people have that can give them a larger voice in a democracy than others, money is just one of many.

[Shryke]

TP,

And making campaign finance laws more complecated and difficult to deal with will favor who when they are enacted?

Depends how they are written.

Having no campaign finance laws just benefits the wealthy.

[TerraPrime]

And making campaign finance laws more complecated and difficult to deal with will favor who when they are enacted?

Does camapign finance reform neccessitate the drafting of laws that are "more complicated?"

I also think that complexity of campaign finance law is not as high a barrier as some seem to think. There can be, and probably will be, outfits that are services similar to law centers to help grassroot organizations to get going.

[TrackerNeil]

There are lots of different advantages people have that can give them a larger voice in a democracy than others, money is just one of many.

Right, but just because we can't remove all impediments to democracy doesn't mean we shouldn't remove one.

[Fez]

Right, but just because we can't remove all impediments to democracy doesn't mean we shouldn't remove one.

Not letting people present their views to the best of their ability is democracy?

[TerraPrime]

Not letting people present their views to the best of their ability is democracy?

That's a loaded question, isn't it?

When someone's exercise of miximizing their ability to express themselves eat into the ability of others to express theirs, then what? The amount of air time on TV ads is a finite resource and if we allow free market solutions to take over, then the voices of the big lobbies will definitely drown out and cover up the dissenting voices. The Internet has been a bit of an equalizer in that respect but at this time, it doesn't offset all the benefits of TV and radio ads. Maybe in 50 years when the current generation of people who are more reliant on internet sources for information than they do on TV become more prominent voters, we will see a shift in the power of big monies.

Another aspect of the issue is scale. Take, for instance, the recent Koch brother's work to send out wrong voter registration deadline information to the likely voters. Due to the scale that they could do this false information campaign at, there is little to not recourse. Even if we could fine them, the damage is already done. The difference between reaching 40K likely voters and, say, 400, is what the deep pockets are about.

But fundamentally, I haven't really heard any good defense on the implication of equating money with speech, which is that we are tacitly agreeing that people's voice in the political process is indeed proportionate to their economic wealth. The consideration for free time is not on the same scale as the influence of money. We still each have only 24 hrs a day, after all, and at the most, a person can dedicate 16 hrs of their day to political work compared to someone else who can only spend 1 hr. In contrast, the size of disposable income is more than 16 times between, say, the pharmaceutical of defense contractor lobby and any number of citizen activism group, and the disposable income between the top 1% is even greater than that, compared to the bottom 25%.

[James Arryn]

OMG, OMG, OMG.

This is probably old news...few days behind on my Daily Shows...but did anyone see these Republican ads aimed at gaining young women demographic?

One of the most amazingly awesome things to ever happen. It took me 3 pause, rewind moments to get that they were actually real ads.

I...wow. Just wow.

[TerraPrime]

Which one? The Wedding Dress one? Or the Bachelorette one?

[James Arryn]

Which one? The Wedding Dress one? Or the Bachelorette one?

I was sure the Bachelorette one was a joke, and was half-way through the on-line dating one before I realized this was real, and the wedding dress one made me back off and question it again. I had to pause th show and google it to be convinced. I was sitting there with my mouth wide open, speechless, and that's pretty much a first for me.

I think the on-line dating one is the best because my brain still can't accept the other ones are genuine, and I could only tell the dating one was because the production value was too high for a Daily Show spoof.

[TerraPrime]

Yup. That's the GOP's grand strategy to attract female voters. Because, we all know that women like dresses and dating and romance, and they approach politics with the same paradigm as they do in choosing a date or a wedding dress, amiright?

ETA

When the ads made the round on the FB laugh circuit, I commented that I wondered if the GOP is being pranked. Like, a Democratic group put up a false front ad agency offering cut-rate production for ads that will attract women!!

[TrueMetis]

Yup. That's the GOP's grand strategy to attract female voters. Because, we all know that women like dresses and dating and romance, and they approach politics with the same paradigm as they do in choosing a date or a wedding dress, amiright?

ETA

When the ads made the round on the FB laugh circuit, I commented that I wondered if the GOP is being pranked. Like, a Democratic group put up a false front ad agency offering cut-rate production for ads that will attract women!!

I only wish people put as much effort into voting as many women do in finding the right wedding dress.

[James Arryn]

Yup. That's the GOP's grand strategy to attract female voters. Because, we all know that women like dresses and dating and romance, and they approach politics with the same paradigm as they do in choosing a date or a wedding dress, amiright?

It's honestly astonishing. I'm as impressed as I have been in a long long time about anything political. If the Daily Show HAD made these I'd have thought they were being over the top. That this is honestly their view of how to appeal to...you know what, though? I'm actually having a rethink as I type this. I'm just remembering how I felt when Americans supported 2nd term Bush because 'he's a guy you'd have a beer with'.That would have seemed like setting the bar insultingly low, too, if I hadn't seen it happen...and I barely believed it WAS happening at the time.

So maybe there are women out there who will buy this shit. I mean, the Republicans get poor people to vote for a 'fuck the poor' party by waving a red white and blue Bible, so clearly they know something i fucking don't.

Edit for edit, re:pranked. I half expected the first response to my post to be 'you know that was a joke, right?' Even now I'm kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop, although I've gone from purely entertained that people think this way to pissed off that thinking this way doesn't come with a greater political cost.

How the fuck are these people a legitimate political party?

[Commodore]

They are not as effective as they'd like, but they are plenty effectie. Look at, for instance, the gutting of public servants union in Wisconsin, and the economic fiasco of Kansas.

you're giving the voters a pass

[Commodore]

How the fuck are these people a legitimate political party?

Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, the Koch brothers, religious zealotry.

You've got all the right ideas, but the game is rigged, the deck is stacked against you.

[Fez]

That's a loaded question, isn't it?

When someone's exercise of miximizing their ability to express themselves eat into the ability of others to express theirs, then what? The amount of air time on TV ads is a finite resource and if we allow free market solutions to take over, then the voices of the big lobbies will definitely drown out and cover up the dissenting voices. The Internet has been a bit of an equalizer in that respect but at this time, it doesn't offset all the benefits of TV and radio ads. Maybe in 50 years when the current generation of people who are more reliant on internet sources for information than they do on TV become more prominent voters, we will see a shift in the power of big monies.

Another aspect of the issue is scale. Take, for instance, the recent Koch brother's work to send out wrong voter registration deadline information to the likely voters. Due to the scale that they could do this false information campaign at, there is little to not recourse. Even if we could fine them, the damage is already done. The difference between reaching 40K likely voters and, say, 400, is what the deep pockets are about.

But fundamentally, I haven't really heard any good defense on the implication of equating money with speech, which is that we are tacitly agreeing that people's voice in the political process is indeed proportionate to their economic wealth. The consideration for free time is not on the same scale as the influence of money. We still each have only 24 hrs a day, after all, and at the most, a person can dedicate 16 hrs of their day to political work compared to someone else who can only spend 1 hr. In contrast, the size of disposable income is more than 16 times between, say, the pharmaceutical of defense contractor lobby and any number of citizen activism group, and the disposable income between the top 1% is even greater than that, compared to the bottom 25%.

And that's why I'm fine with putting certain restrictions on money in politics, which I've expressed in the past. But there's a world of difference between stuff like full donor disclosure requirements and individual contribution limits compared to banning all political donations, which seems to be the preferred solution to some in this thread.

And money is free speech because money is absolutely anything and everything that is tangible, that's the agreement we all made when society accepted currency as a thing; and political ads are absolutely a tangible thing. Even in an local election without media ads or outside spending, the person with more money will be able to be create a larger, flashier sign on their property; everything we do in national elections is just scaled up from that. Sure this means rich people have more of a say than poor people, but that's the side effect of giving everyone the right to be heard. I do support reasonable restrictions on spending, and poor people have the ability to pool their resources (and I am aggressively pro-union for that, among other, reasons) to counter the rich; but I don't support changing the basic meaning of currency or altering the definition of free speech to not include elections, if anything that is the most important aspect of all to free speech.

[daskool]

That's a loaded question, isn't it?

When someone's exercise of miximizing their ability to express themselves eat into the ability of others to express theirs, then what? The amount of air time on TV ads is a finite resource and if we allow free market solutions to take over, then the voices of the big lobbies will definitely drown out and cover up the dissenting voices. The Internet has been a bit of an equalizer in that respect but at this time, it doesn't offset all the benefits of TV and radio ads. Maybe in 50 years when the current generation of people who are more reliant on internet sources for information than they do on TV become more prominent voters, we will see a shift in the power of big monies.

Another aspect of the issue is scale. Take, for instance, the recent Koch brother's work to send out wrong voter registration deadline information to the likely voters. Due to the scale that they could do this false information campaign at, there is little to not recourse. Even if we could fine them, the damage is already done. The difference between reaching 40K likely voters and, say, 400, is what the deep pockets are about.

But fundamentally, I haven't really heard any good defense on the implication of equating money with speech, which is that we are tacitly agreeing that people's voice in the political process is indeed proportionate to their economic wealth. The consideration for free time is not on the same scale as the influence of money. We still each have only 24 hrs a day, after all, and at the most, a person can dedicate 16 hrs of their day to political work compared to someone else who can only spend 1 hr. In contrast, the size of disposable income is more than 16 times between, say, the pharmaceutical of defense contractor lobby and any number of citizen activism group, and the disposable income between the top 1% is even greater than that, compared to the bottom 25%.

That's all great, fortunately left wing nostrums of the illegitimacy of using money to propagate speech are unconstitutional, so outside the deliberate stacking of the supreme court and using the Bill of Rights as toilet paper to get your way the issue is dead.

[TerraPrime]

And that's why I'm fine with putting certain restrictions on money in politics, which I've expressed in the past. But there's a world of difference between stuff like full donor disclosure requirements and individual contribution limits compared to banning all political donations, which seems to be the preferred solution to some in this thread.

I am not supporting a ban on all donations. I am arguing for a severe limitations on the total amount that a single voter can contribute in a given election cycle.

And money is free speech because money is absolutely anything and everything that is tangible, that's the agreement we all made when society accepted currency as a thing; and political ads are absolutely a tangible thing.

This is absurd. As absurd as treating corporations as human beings. Campaigning requires money. Exercising free speech rights does not. Even in spirit, the concept of free speech never includes being able to reach the audience you want to reach. Your argument here will essentially legitimize the complaint that a commercial boycott against Limbaugh is limiting his free speech rights.

Even in an local election without media ads or outside spending, the person with more money will be able to be create a larger, flashier sign on their property; everything we do in national elections is just scaled up from that.

Yes, campaigns with a alrger war chest will do a better job of campaigning, in general. That's not the point of distress for those of us complaining about the influence of money in politics. The distress, at least for me, is the widening gap of political influence between the have's and the have-not's of this country.

Sure this means rich people have more of a say than poor people, but that's the side effect of giving everyone the right to be heard.

I am not okay with this, at all. I have to live with this, surely, but I would like to see the gap between the rich and the poor, when it comes to political influence, to be more narrow.

I do support reasonable restrictions on spending, and poor people have the ability to pool their resources (and I am aggressively pro-union for that, among other, reasons) to counter the rich;

When you have to pool the resources of a million people to counter the activity of 2 people, then wouldn't you agree it necessarily causes a distortion in the concept of democracy?

but I don't support changing the basic meaning of currency or altering the definition of free speech to not include elections, if anything that is the most important aspect of all to free speech.

We already accept that free speech is not entirely free, that there are reasons to limit, restrict, and monitor speech. It is not that far a leap to say that the distorting influence of large sums of money in politics is too dire a threat to the fundamentals of civics that we need to curb the influence and narrow the power differential across economic classes.