Comments on: Federal Election Laws Become Even More Absurd

By: Wulf

Wulf — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 18:23:23 +0000

What I do know is that your statement could only be made by somebody who doesn’t understand the realities of organizational life.

Um, not exactly. But I will content myself with the comment you made at 12:01. No need to keep yourself awake at night anymore over the inequities between my taking cheap shots at FEC lawyers and not always having somebody to cheap shot me back. You and I can call it even and I’ll just be cozy with their situation in life now that I’ve been put in my place.

By: Chepe Noyon

Chepe Noyon — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 05:01:08 +0000

You’re right, Jeff. I should indeed have just stuck to the facts. After Mr. Wulf had taken such a nasty shot at the FEC lawyers, I thought he deserved to be responded to in kind. In the process, I lowered myself to his level. Mea culpa.

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 04:38:49 +0000

Nah Chepe, you had it coming.

Your point about load leveling was perfectly valid, but you went further than that and made personal assumptions about Wulf.

Ya shoulda just stuck to the facts.

By: Chepe Noyon

Chepe Noyon — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 03:47:51 +0000

could you pull my entire work history and resume out of thin air, or are you just talking out of your back door with regard to my experience?

No, I have no idea what your background is. What I do know is that your statement could only be made by somebody who doesn’t understand the realities of organizational life. It may well be that you have tons of experience with organizational life, but never learned anything from that experience. In any event, your comment was a cheap shot.

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:31:18 +0000

It depends on your goal, Chepe. If you’re content to simply slow the bleeding, I’m sure your approach is realistic. If you think you can reverse our descent, I think your expectations are fantastical.

To neutralize the fiscal power of corporations through regulation, you’d need one of two things to happen:
1) An enforcement system of unprecedented effectiveness OR
2) All businessmen become altruistic

I need one thing to happen; I need America to rediscover its heritage. That’s not terribly likely, of course, but there is a precedent for it, so it could happen. If it does, the campaign contributions problem will disappear as a matter of course.

By: Wulf

Wulf — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:31:13 +0000

Wulf, your disdain reflects inexperience with the realities of organizational life.

That’s a neat and possibly insightful trick you’ve got there. If I tell you my opinion of the slackasses at the DMV, could you pull my entire work history and resume out of thin air, or are you just talking out of your back door with regard to my experience?

By: Chepe Noyon

Chepe Noyon — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:58:49 +0000

Jeff, you’re suggesting that addressing corporate contributions directly is unrealistic, and you propose as a more realistic approach the election of Ron Paul?!?!?!? There’s a lot to like about Mr. Paul, but scenarios involving his election to the Presidency are not realistic.

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:01:34 +0000

It’s pretty obvious to me that we’re never going to shrink government down so small that the cost-effectiveness of campaign contributions by corporations will go negative.

You don’t have to. You just have to get their cost-effectiveness back in the same stratosphere as the cost-effectiveness for the average citizen.

If you think that corporations don’t influence elections enough to be a cause for concern

I definitely agree, but I don’t think you’ll make a noticeable dent treating the symptoms. I think our only hope is to elect a series of men along the lines of Ron Paul. That doesn’t mean that you have to implement all of his policies or anything, but we have to start moving in that direction or else the question of our demise will be “when”, not “if”.

By: Chepe Noyon

Chepe Noyon — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:18:50 +0000

It’s pretty obvious to me that we’re never going to shrink government down so small that the cost-effectiveness of campaign contributions by corporations will go negative. So we have to deal with the situation as it is. What can we do to reduce the ability of corporations to influence elections? If you think that corporations don’t influence elections enough to be a cause for concern, then there’s no value in this discussion. But if you are concerned about the matter, then the question revolves around the trade-off between liberty and a sound democracy.

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:19:03 +0000

I was just teasing when I called it “bad policy”. I don’t actually care because I think the net effect would be minimal. Come see me when we’re ready to attack the source.

By: Chepe Noyon

Chepe Noyon — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:48:48 +0000

I agree that the overweening power-hunger of the federal government provides the incentive for the massive amounts of money that campaigns attract. It’s rather like the difficulty we have in stopping illegal drug shipments into this country: so long as the demand exists, the supply will be forthcoming.

So the question is, how can we reduce the amount of money pouring in from such groups? Your position is based on an extension of First Amendment rights to corporations. It refers to “freedom of speech”, but does not indicate that this freedom is applicable to corporations. Of course, at that time, corporations were strictly business operations with no political role whatsoever, hence the issue never arose during the Constitutional Convention.

Now, I can agree that there is another justification in the First Amendment: “the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government” could be applied to corporations. Again, the historical context in which this was written is entirely different from the modern corporation, so I think that your application of the First Amendment to for-profit businesses is a bit of a stretch.

We already have a small body of law dealing with political associations: the various laws regarding PACs. This body of law satisfies the intentions of the First Amendment, but we have never added the constraint the for-profit corporations may not contribute to PACs. Note that we HAVE established that non-profit corporations that participate in political activities lose their tax-exempt status.

Let me be explicit about what I’m proposing here: I think that we should have a law specifying that every dollar spent on political activity must be traceable to a franchised US citizen as its original source, and published by the government.

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:04:34 +0000

If political offices have been stripped of most of the insane power they have these days, sure. As it stands right now, of course not.

But don’t kid yourself into thinking China isn’t already tossing money around. The regulations only make it a little less brazen.

By: Chepe Noyon

Chepe Noyon — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:50:15 +0000

OK, so you approve of contributions from foreign powers, so long (I suppose) as they are publicly declared. However, since you also approve of contributions from corporations, I deduce that you have no objection to, say, the government of China contributing a huge amount of money to the campaign of its favored candidate through a dense network of corporations, with only the last corporations in the networks showing up in the public records. This means that, in effect, the true source of the contributions would not be discernible to the public.

You have no objections to such an arrangement?

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:36:18 +0000

err, that probably would have made sense without the double-negative. Anyways, my point is that we should treat the disease, not the symptoms.

By: Jeff Molby

Jeff Molby — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:31:52 +0000

See my first comment, Chepe. You can regulate all you want, but power will always attract money. You don’t think the Israeli lobby isn’t already contributing through back channels?