Sooo, Cory, how much attention is Boingboing giving to Sanders, then?
Counting December alone, I see 23 search results for Trump, and only 5 for Sanders. And none of them, apart from this latest one, mentions Sanders in the title - they just involve him responding to the latest thing Trump said.
So, maybe be the change you want to see? If even BB is ignoring Sanders and providing clickbaity blanket Trump coverage, it certainly isn’t ‘corporations’ at fault here.
Thread consolidation means that the main Bernie thread doesn’t expire. Thanks for concern driving trollies with bad stats, though.
I went to the main page and did a news article search for Sanders vs Trump. I don’t mean the BBS, it’s the front page I am talking about that has been averaging more than one Trump article per day, and approximately zero Sanders articles.
http://boingboing.net/?s=Trump
http://boingboing.net/?s=Sanders
OK, so, what do you think of that?
Maaaybe BB can actually take note and put in some articles headlining their preferred candidate and his positions on stuff? Maybe we can consolidate Trump’s around the clock coverage into a general say weekly ‘Trump is still a shithead’ post?
Are you assuming that BB exists for some other reason than to make money?
Yes, subject to restrictions (they can’t buy a personal car, for example), but they can funnel it into PACs or other candidates of their own choosing, things like that. So money used to fund one candidate can be applied toward a different candidate without the original donor’s say-so.
Roads are also not political opinion; the reason we shouldn’t publicly fund elections is the same reason we don’t have an American version of the BBC.
Thomas Jefferson put it best, as he so often did: “To compel a man to furnish contribution of money to the propagation of opinions to which he does not agree is sinful and tyrannical.”
You can’t fix one situation that seems unfair — undue influence by big spenders — with a different form of injustice — forcing people to support candidates they don’t agree with.
You want more than your say: you want my money to fund your say.
I’d just let it go. It’s pretty clear that @goodpasture has made up their mind and reasonableness doesn’t factor in here.
You’ve made the same very accurate point several times, and it’s not your fault they’re only interested in one outcome to this particular conversation.
Government is force. It’s a local monopoly on violence, to steal Max Weber’s phrase.
I could say the same 
but I don’t think “reasonableness” is a factor (who decides what’s reasonable?), but rather a stark difference in point of view.
No, you really can’t. Reason isn’t some issue that has equal sides, it’s about the application of logic and reason in the context of a situation.
But hey, you know what? I’ll give you a chance here just for giggles.
What would you propose as a solution to this problem? How would you ‘fix’ the electoral component of the political process so that money is not a factor and those with wealth don’t have a disproportionate amount of power and influence?
But who decides what’s “reasonable”? Who decides who’s a “legitimate” candidate?
Beyond that, your system completely discounts a huge group of people — those who want no part of politics at all, and either through disgust or apathy choose not to contribute to political campaigns, but, under a system of forced public finance, would be made to fund them anyway.
Where we can probably meet in the middle is the issue of the artificial two-party system, which was created through a network of laws, restrictions, and subsidies, and can be rolled back without instituting some kind of publicly-financed campaign system.
The “fix” I would be in favor of is dismantling of the network of laws and restrictions that keep the two-party system in place.
What would that look like? For a start, repealing all ballot access laws, repealing “sore loser laws” which keep candidates in the primaries of other parties from running as independents in the general election, and anti-fusion laws which prevent candidates for public office run with more than one party. Perhaps an instant-runoff system as well.
I’m not convinced, however, that disproportionate wealth is as big a problem as you think it is.
Agreed actually, but I honestly wasn’t thinking of this conversations in the more distant future, I was applying it more to the impacts of our direct election process as it exists today.
Still, totally agreed. That would be a massive improvement.
I’ll add in a bit of democracy when it comes to the voting systems themselves. Voting is about outcomes and there are a number of other options other than the ‘one election, one vote, one candidate’ one we have right now. I’d even say it’d be nice if we could move to systems like what Netflix uses rather than just taking on some of the more advanced western systems.
Oh, it totally is, just not on in that one specific way.
No, money can’t just buy an election and candidates have overcome significant wealth gaps.
However, after the election is finished, that money translates into retroactive favors, and that is a MASSIVE problem and I don’t think it can be discounted. I lived through it here in Wisconsin with the Walker election when we had all kinds of political appointees with the Gov’s ear but negative value to what we were doing crop up…trust me, the impacts of campaign donations do NOT end after the election is over.
That’s when they begin.
This sort of libertarian argument that @goodpasture keeps rehearsing with @anon50609448, @anon61221983 and @wysinwyg is a recursive one trick pony that pastures at Fountainhead Farm.
William Buckley’s ideas may have sounded thoughtful in the 1960s to some newly middle class working voters. That was before President Reagan helped reinvent supply side policies, the Gilded Age and institutionalized racism.
Even William Buckley was repulsed by what the GOP changed into, and its warmed over policy versions of very old and unsuccessful “conservative” ideas.
Those who haven’t seemed to read much except Ayn Rand and the National Review sometimes think they’re onto something new instead of just turning the clock back to the McKinley adminstration.
Farther — all the way back to Madison and Jefferson.
(Never actually read Ayn Rand, although you seem thoroughly versed — anything you’d recommend?)
“If you like good food, good fun, and a whole lot of crazy crap on the walls… Come on down to Uncle Rick’s Family Feedbag!”
I read both of her doorstoppers back in high school, then Anthem, but haven’t read any since, except her movie reviews. Those she reviews here seem like a good starting place for you:
This was Royer’s in Round Top. Kind of a local phenomenon in the Austin area. SUPER FUCKIN GOOD FOOD AND PIE. I mean that. 4 star. Total dump with crazy crap on the walls, but that’s the schtick and they do it on purpose. But right behind the warming lights behind the counter is a top notch kitchen.
