Republic, Lost | Lawrence Lessig | Talks at Google

> This idea that the root cause of all bad legislation is political donations: it's wrong, and not supported by the data. The vast majority of political donations are made by people who are not lobbyists. You make a very bold statement without backing it with any line of reasoning or pointing to any supporting material. I am no expert in this matter so I can not know if you are wrong. But in an older thread someone posted this excellent talk by Lawrence Lessig: [VIDEO] . It's well worth watching and counters your statement. His arguments are very well presented and reasoned. He also shows some supporting data. Given that, I cannot attribute much weight to your statement.

I haven't read his previous book, "Republic, Lost", but I saw the 1 hour speech at Google from last year, that was based on it, and it was great. He explains how the Government ended up having a relationship with corporations instead of "the people", and what is needed to solve this (almost unsolvable) problem. [VIDEO]

If your really interested in doing something about it, I would suggest taking a look at [LINK] And without a second lost, watch this: [VIDEO] That video has changed my point of view on the entire subject and has allowed me to start striking at the root.

Actually, They are right. I really think you should take the time to watch this video, understand it, let it sink in and totally mold your brain around it. [VIDEO]

I think you'll enjoy Lawrence Lessig's talk about the exact issue you brought up. It's call Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It [Link] [VIDEO]

You might find Lawrence Lessig's talk at Google interesting: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It [VIDEO] However, the article suggests that if some terrible legislation passed it would ignite people into real action. That clearly failed to happen when the Patriot Act was passed. I'm sure there are many more examples. If the discourse surrounding legislation convinces enough people not to care (or fails to make it into wider public awareness), then there doesn't seem to be much standing in its way.

I'm going to crib from my own post from two days ago: Donations don't literally buy votes, but what they do literally buy is face time. That is, people in Congress will hold fundraisers, and lobbyists pay to attend those fundraisers. The understanding is that the lobbyists who attend those fundraisers will have time to talk to the politician about the issues their clients care about. This episode of Planet Money clearly demonstrates this: [LINK] Edit: I remove the SOPA specific stuff, and didn't realize that in doing so, I removed the punchline. The implication of the above is that politicians' agenda becomes set by those who have the money to pay lobbyists. When you spend a lot of time talking to a bunch of people with an agenda, you will start to think about that agenda a lot. It's a natural consequence of the circumstances and the incentives. I've harped on this point several times in the last few days. My reason is simple: we must understand the real problem before we can fix it. And the real problem is not "Vote for x and I'll give you money." That is illegal. What I described above is legal, and while it is not illegal corruption, it is a corruption of how we want the system to work. And I stole that last sentiment from Lawrence Lessig: [VIDEO] Someone else here linked to that a few days ago, and it's worth watching.

If I was ever elected president, I would direct congress to reduce the size of the tax code by 10% each year. If they fail to do so then 10% are automatically eliminated - eg all those whose last digit of the article number is 3. The real reason for why things are so screwed up is corrupt politicians who use their power as a fund raising mechanism. For example there were several taxes added temporarily to see if they worked well. They did, but congress doesn't make them permanent. Instead they wait to be paid each time to renew them temporarily again. (This started in the Reagan administration.) See this excellent talk by Lessig: [VIDEO] The whole tax provisions as fund raising is covered at 7m30s.