Philosophical Vegan Forum

Awhile back, I posted about how I was thinking about joining the Young Democrats club. I wasn't going to at first, but around halfway through the year, I ended up joining. I go all the time now, because they're helping me try to get our local state Assemblymember to support this bill to (simplified) get money out of politics.
I asked the Young Repubs officers what they thought about money in politics at the club fair last year, and they said, "I believe in free speech."

This year, there are different people running the club, so they might help too. I really doubt it, though.
Some people told me the Young Republicans no longer existed, but my friend showed me the fliers they'd been hanging up around the school (with Reagan and Trump on them together, even though Reagan did amnesty ).
I decided to go today.

I'm really glad I went, it was really fun... It was basically me against the entire club.

We went around in circle talking about who we'd vote for. Everyone said someone besides Hillary, and almost everyone said Trump. Then we got to me.

I started off by making a general statement that I'm a liberal and that I was here to learn from other perspectives. I mentioned that I think the young dems & repubs should merge due to the bubbles they create by the nature of the partisanship of the clubs. None of them agreed we should merge (the young dems were in favor of becoming a 'Current Events' club before the name ended up being finalized, but they still want to not only advertise to democrats). They basically said that conservatives were a minority (which I agreed was definitely true among young people), and the club adviser (who talked a lot, as opposed to the dems adviser who never really talks) said the club was a safe space for conservatives in the school.

A safe space . I thought conservatives hated safe spaces.
However, to be fair, the club adviser also said he thought it was a good idea for the club's to occasionally meet and have a discussion.
I mentioned that, while conservatives are a minority among young people, the young democrats club was a lot smaller (apparently the Young Republicans weren't usually that large though).
Still, I said it'd be good, because discussion and debate helps you learn (they said they didn't want this to turn into a debate club, as if debating is a bad thing ).

"The question was about who you'd vote for."

Right.
"...I'd definitely vote for Hillary Clinton"

*every head in the room explodes*
Seriously, like everyone freaked out.

One person, kind of snarkily- "She's entitled to her opinion, we just want to know why."

I said that it was largely about her experience, pointing out that she was Secretary of State and had been in politics for a very long time, and that Trump had never been elected to anything. I also mentioned that I think judgement is important, and that Trump's talking point that he has better judgement because he was against the War in Iraq was factually inaccurate due to that we have him on record stating his support of the war (the adviser said there's a difference because Trump was a private citizen, and I agreed that what Hillary did was worse, but the statement that he was against the war in just flat out false). So basically, I said Hillary has more experience and better judgement.

My friend who apparently supports Donald Trump now, amidst all the chaos (who I actually convinced to go)- "(my name), this is why it's so annoying to debate with you."

Also amidst the chaos, someone was trying to ask me genuine questions, but we just ended up doing it afterwards because of what was going on. He was definitely conservative, and also Christian (cross necklace), but he was really nice and thoughtful. We talked for awhile afterwards- he hates Donald Trump and is liberal on climate change! However, he's a 'big fan' of Ted Cruz.
I mentioned that Ted Cruz denies climate change and said we should only take in Christian Syrian refugees (he believes in a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and that Syrian refugees are basically like any other immigrants, and we should take them in after carefully vetting them), and he disagrees with that stuff, but said he thought Ted Cruz has a brilliant tax plan.

"You probably wouldn't like it."
It's apparently a 10% flat tax.

"Wouldn't that bankrupt the country?"
"Why"
"We're already really in debt."

He also said that the way the club that was today was disrespectful and not how they usually are. Apparently they had a lot more people than usual that day. He also thinks the club officers have no idea what they're talking about.
We talked awhile longer until he had to go.

There was some more stuff (one person said to me about Hillary's experience that she was terrible as Sec of State and 'did nothing', "Hillary's evil", we talked about 'liberal media bias' etc.), but this post is already extremely long.
I'll probably go again next week.

*There was only one non-white person there (aside from the person I convinced to go), and I was the only one who wasn't a guy (except for another person I brought, but she left in like two minutes). The Young Democrats had a tiny fraction of the amount of people there, but we still have a lot more diversity. I wonder why that is...

Sounds like you had fun.

EquALLity wrote:I go all the time now, because they're helping me try to get our local state Assemblymember to support this bill to (simplified) get money out of politics.

How does the bill attempt to do this?
It probably does it by restricting free speech.

EquALLity wrote:I asked the Young Repubs officers what they thought about money in politics at the club fair last year, and they said, "I believe in free speech."

The problem is that they're right. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The vast majority of political expense is advertising, and that's a form of speech. Restricting that inhibits free speech, and it's extremely dangerous to put limits on political speech in particular. It ends up biasing the nation's politics in favor of the status quo, and in theory can result in unassailable political monopolies that become tyrannical. There are concerns, and recognizing them is the only way to advance a dialogue on the topic.

Transparency is probably a better option right now. Try bringing up transparency next time, you may get more support. People want to know who is financing their politicians. That only effectively curtails anonymous free speech, putting the motivations on the table for all to see so we can decide if the politician has a motivation to lie, or the money is supporting somebody for reasons other than them being right.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Sounds like you had fun.

EquALLity wrote:I go all the time now, because they're helping me try to get our local state Assemblymember to support this bill to (simplified) get money out of politics.

How does the bill attempt to do this?
It probably does it by restricting free speech.

EquALLity wrote:I asked the Young Repubs officers what they thought about money in politics at the club fair last year, and they said, "I believe in free speech."

The problem is that they're right. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
The vast majority of political expense is advertising, and that's a form of speech. Restricting that inhibits free speech, and it's extremely dangerous to put limits on political speech in particular. It ends up biasing the nation's politics in favor of the status quo, and in theory can result in unassailable political monopolies that become tyrannical. There are concerns, and recognizing them is the only way to advance a dialogue on the topic.

Transparency is probably a better option right now. Try bringing up transparency next time, you may get more support. People want to know who is financing their politicians. That only effectively curtails anonymous free speech, putting the motivations on the table for all to see so we can decide if the politician has a motivation to lie, or the money is supporting somebody for reasons other than them being right.

Here is a link to the bill: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2015/a7176

Money is not speech.
Does bribery just not even exist anymore? If I give $1,000 to you to do something illegal, are we just talking?
What about prostitution? It's not 'buying' sex, we're just talking!
I have nothing against prostitution... But can you see how that sounds ridiculous?

Why should money be speech? Speech is the exchange of ideas. Giving someone a billion dollars to help your business isn't that it; it's just flat out bribery. The indirect consequence of less advertising as a result of getting money out of politics doesn't make money speech. Just because one thing might lead to another that leads to another doesn't mean it's relevant.

It's extremely dangerous to put limits on corporations giving billions of dollars to politicians? >.<
I think climate change is dangerous, and oil companies bribing politicians into saying it's not real is dangerous.
The status quo is horrible BECAUSE of corporate influence on politics. We get no real positive and progressive change because the politicians are all bought by companies that would lose profit if we got that change.

I don't just want to fix the transparency problem- corporate bribery is extremely important. In fact, the overwhelming majority of people, including republicans, agree with this. This isn't even a partisan issue.

Even if I agreed money was speech (which I definitely don't), there are reasonable restrictions on speech. You can't yell fire in a movie theater, and you shouldn't be able to bribe a politician with huge amounts of money.

EquALLity wrote: Money is not speech.

Nobody is saying money is speech. But you have to use money to get your speech to the ears of the people you want to hear it.
If you personally support Hillary, even if you have no relationship with her, you can make and buy a radio advertisement to put your argument out there where millions of people will hear it. If it's a compelling argument, you'll win her a lot of votes that way.

Without money, you can't speak. That's a problem. You even need money to pay your phone bill and make random calls, pay for internet access and a computer, to buy bus tickets to go talk places, to take off work (for an adult) so you can go door to door. Time = Money too.
Without money, you have few rare chances to convey your opinions to anybody. Talking politics to coworkers, bosses, or employees is often a no-go. There are people who are functionally silenced for lack of money.
But when you put money to a voice, it can be magnified to a degree that it can be meaningful and worthwhile to speak.

No money, no speech. Money in itself isn't always speech, but without it you're functionally mute. The only reliable means of communicating requires money. And when you have to communicate to hundreds of thousands of people, in the least, over a short period of time, it takes a lot of it.

EquALLity wrote: Does bribery just not even exist anymore? If I give $1,000 to you to do something illegal, are we just talking?

Bribery is illegal. This is not that, and calling it bribery is rhetoric. You have to recognize both sides of the issue.

EquALLity wrote: I have nothing against prostitution... But can you see how that sounds ridiculous?

No, it sounds like rhetoric. And you won't reach Republicans or anybody who doesn't already agree with you like that. If you want real change, you need to understand both sides, and even be willing to pursue smaller steps in that direction.

Are you against transparency?
Because that's an issue that can get serious support from both sides, and can probably be passed.
If you find any value in it at all, explore it; you may find that's the path of least resistance.

EquALLity wrote: Why should money be speech?

When lots of people are trying to talk, only the person with the megaphone gets heard. Too many voices drown each other out.
The only situations where that's different are very small organizations where everybody knows each other, so they can communicate one on one, and there money has little to no edge on communication.

EquALLity wrote: Speech is the exchange of ideas. Giving someone a billion dollars to help your business isn't that it; it's just flat out bribery.

Rhetoric. This kind of communication is harmful, and it doesn't help anybody. That goes for Republican rhetoric as well.

You're spending a billion dollars to communicate your belief that X politician is the best for Y reason.
This can be legitimate speech, OR it can be a lie. Giving the government the power to decide who is lying and effectively banned from speaking (put on mute because they can't spend a dime amplifying their opinions) is a problem, though.

Without transparency, Y reason may be "pro-life", and the real reason you're supporting the politician may be Z "He agrees with us on oil".
With adequate transparency, we may be able to force advertisements to give the REAL reasons the person with the money is supporting the politicians by revealing conflicts of interest.
This will take time.

Right now it's "Senator Hairdo for president because he's pro-life. Paid for by citizens for life."
In a few years, it could be "Senator Hairdo for president because he's pro-life. Paid for by the oil lobby."
And eventually, it could be "Senator Hairdo for president because he's pro-oil. Paid for by the oil lobby."

It will take time to find legitimate and fair ways to untangle the web of anonymity in political money, and maybe eventually to outright ban messages that the funding source won't swear are their legitimate reasons under penalty of perjury -- putting their own necks on the line if they lie about their reasons.

The bottom line is that transparency is a step in that direction that we can actually take.
The idea of "getting money out of politics" in itself is in violation of the bill of rights and has serious repercussions.

EquALLity wrote: The status quo is horrible BECAUSE of corporate influence on politics. We get no real positive and progressive change because the politicians are all bought by companies that would lose profit if we got that change.

There's no evidence for this, and no reason to believe that is true.

EquALLity wrote: I don't just want to fix the transparency problem- corporate bribery is extremely important. In fact, the overwhelming majority of people, including republicans, agree with this. This isn't even a partisan issue.

Then find a way to identify actual, literal, corporate bribery and distinguish it from legitimate speech. And find a way to do that completely without the possibility of bias or mistake.

Republicans will support it as soon as you can do that.

Otherwise, it's the long way around. The only way I can think of is to develop legitimate lie detectors to subject politicians to so that they can't lie anymore, and force them to answer questions. At this point, that's science fiction, and in all likelihood would just breed a new kind of politician to game the system. It's very hard to stop this. Functionally banning all political speech is not the answer.

1) It's not speech when you give billions of dollars to people who make our laws.
2) Even if it was speech, we have reasonable limits to certain kinds of speech that are harmful.
3) Again, even if it was speech, corporations aren't people and don't have rights. Corporations don't have political opinions; they are just designed to make profit (which is why it's bribery when corporations give money to politicians- they wouldn't give money unless they expect to be benefited financially).

brimstoneSalad wrote:Nobody is saying money is speech. But you have to use money to get your speech to the ears of the people you want to hear it.
If you personally support Hillary, even if you have no relationship with her, you can make and buy a radio advertisement to put your argument out there where millions of people will hear it. If it's a compelling argument, you'll win her a lot of votes that way.

Without money, you can't speak. That's a problem. You even need money to pay your phone bill and make random calls, pay for internet access and a computer, to buy bus tickets to go talk places, to take off work (for an adult) so you can go door to door. Time = Money too.
Without money, you have few rare chances to convey your opinions to anybody. Talking politics to coworkers, bosses, or employees is often a no-go. There are people who are functionally silenced for lack of money.
But when you put money to a voice, it can be magnified to a degree that it can be meaningful and worthwhile to speak.

No money, no speech. Money in itself isn't always speech, but without it you're functionally mute. The only reliable means of communicating requires money. And when you have to communicate to hundreds of thousands of people, in the least, over a short period of time, it takes a lot of it.

What you're saying is like saying that homework is unconstitutional, because homework takes my time away from talking to people and forces me to do work instead, and that's restricting my right to free speech.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Bribery is illegal. This is not that, and calling it bribery is rhetoric. You have to recognize both sides of the issue.

Of course it's bribery.

How can you possibly maintain that a corporation or wealthy individual giving millions of dollars to a political campaign (indirectly, but still) won't influence the politicians?
Why do you think they're giving the money in the first place?

brimstoneSalad wrote:No, it sounds like rhetoric. And you won't reach Republicans or anybody who doesn't already agree with you like that. If you want real change, you need to understand both sides, and even be willing to pursue smaller steps in that direction.

It's an argument, and you didn't really address it.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Are you against transparency?
Because that's an issue that can get serious support from both sides, and can probably be passed.
If you find any value in it at all, explore it; you may find that's the path of least resistance.

No way, of course I'm not against transparency, but transparency doesn't completely solve the problem.

By the way, like I said, even most republicans want to get money out of politics. The country isn't divided on that at all; it's only not well supported in Congress (for obvious reasons).
Many local politicians will be on our side as well. In fact, bills like this one have already passed in five states (after we get around 2/3 states, we can propose an Amendment to the Constitution). It's more controversial federally, which is why we need to do this through state Assemblies and Senates as opposed to the federal government.

The bill in Rhode Island passed unanimously in the state Senate. That's how bi-partisan this is outside of elite circles.

brimstoneSalad wrote:When lots of people are trying to talk, only the person with the megaphone gets heard. Too many voices drown each other out.
The only situations where that's different are very small organizations where everybody knows each other, so they can communicate one on one, and there money has little to no edge on communication.

Why should corporations get all of that influence because they have a lot of money?

They're not a legitimate representation of our country. Corporate influence is unfairly shifting the direction of the country due to their political power.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Rhetoric. This kind of communication is harmful, and it doesn't help anybody. That goes for Republican rhetoric as well.

You're spending a billion dollars to communicate your belief that X politician is the best for Y reason.
This can be legitimate speech, OR it can be a lie. Giving the government the power to decide who is lying and effectively banned from speaking (put on mute because they can't spend a dime amplifying their opinions) is a problem, though.

Without transparency, Y reason may be "pro-life", and the real reason you're supporting the politician may be Z "He agrees with us on oil".
With adequate transparency, we may be able to force advertisements to give the REAL reasons the person with the money is supporting the politicians by revealing conflicts of interest.
This will take time.

Right now it's "Senator Hairdo for president because he's pro-life. Paid for by citizens for life."
In a few years, it could be "Senator Hairdo for president because he's pro-life. Paid for by the oil lobby."
And eventually, it could be "Senator Hairdo for president because he's pro-oil. Paid for by the oil lobby."

It will take time to find legitimate and fair ways to untangle the web of anonymity in political money, and maybe eventually to outright ban messages that the funding source won't swear are their legitimate reasons under penalty of perjury -- putting their own necks on the line if they lie about their reasons.

The bottom line is that transparency is a step in that direction that we can actually take.
The idea of "getting money out of politics" in itself is in violation of the bill of rights and has serious repercussions.

Transparency would be great too, but it doesn't fix the problem completely.

brimstoneSalad wrote:There's no evidence for this, and no reason to believe that is true.

No offense, and I have a lot of respect for you... but that idea is kind of ridiculous.
Really, NO reason to believe it's true? Not a single reason?

...Seriously?

You don't think that there's even a single reason to be suspect when a corporation gives a politician a billion dollars? Come on.
If you won't even concede there's a reason to be suspect, then I honestly don't know what else to say.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Then find a way to identify actual, literal, corporate bribery and distinguish it from legitimate speech. And find a way to do that completely without the possibility of bias or mistake.

Republicans will support it as soon as you can do that.

On the federal level? I really doubt it.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Otherwise, it's the long way around. The only way I can think of is to develop legitimate lie detectors to subject politicians to so that they can't lie anymore, and force them to answer questions. At this point, that's science fiction, and in all likelihood would just breed a new kind of politician to game the system. It's very hard to stop this.

Yeah, it's definitely going to take awhile. But I think it's worth it.

I think climate change is the most important issue (aside from getting money out of politics, because that impacts almost everything). Because politicians are heavily funded by the oil and coal industries, they deny the reality of climate change.
Climate change is already a massive crisis, and one party is still denying it exists. They are intelligent people, many of them went to Ivy League Colleges- they know climate change is real. They're just indebted to their donors, who they need support from to win elections.

The only way to stop that kind of blatant corruption is to get money out of politics.

brimstoneSalad wrote: Functionally banning all political speech is not the answer.

Nobody is banning any political speech.

I do political speech, activism. They should play by the same rules as everybody else.
Why should the wills of corporations be amplified because they have a lot of money?

Bernie Sanders got a lot more donations then Hillary Clinton (in fact, a literal record-breaking amount of campaign donations). However, despite the huge gap in amount of people giving, Hillary Clinton often raised more money because she got a few huge donations. Why should those few donors have more political say then millions of people?

EquALLity wrote:1) It's not speech when you give billions of dollars to people who make our laws.

You don't have to give it to the politicians. Many don't. Did you read my example?

YOU, on your own make a radio commercial giving your argument for Hillary. Hillary never knows about it, or supports you. You did that by yourself, because you believed in it.
Whenever you see these attack ads or promotional ads and they say "paid for by citizens for whatever", that's an independent group. The politician never saw or touched that money.

You can stop direct political contributions if you want, it will do nothing to address the problem. All you did was make another law, and add another layer of pointless bureaucracy.

You can BAN political speech entirely, not let ANYBODY run commercials or advertisement on it, or talk about it in a public venue. Then all we'd have are the debates, and we'd never have a third party, and we'd never have anything beyond the current establishment.

EquALLity wrote:2) Even if it was speech, we have reasonable limits to certain kinds of speech that are harmful.

Yes, which is why we should ban all religions promoting themselves or talking about their beliefs. That's harmful.
And we should also ban Republicans from speaking. And the anti-science Democrats.
Any anybody who supports eating meat, definitely.

I agree, we should ban all speech that might be harmful.
No reason to draw the line at Imminent lawless action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
No reason to even draw the line at clear and present danger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger
Let's go all the way back to before British common law, and ban anything that in our assessment is harmful.

EquALLity wrote:3) Again, even if it was speech, corporations aren't people and don't have rights.

Is the law only banning corporate contributions to political speech, or is it limiting personal contributions too?
Republicans support stopping corporate contributions. If you limit it to that, you may find bipartisan support. Even Trump supports that.

EquALLity wrote: What you're saying is like saying that homework is unconstitutional, because homework takes my time away from talking to people and forces me to do work instead, and that's restricting my right to free speech.

It's not that, it's more like slavery. It is unconstitutional to give homework to adults.
Minors are not free citizens yet. Once you turn 18, if anybody tries to force you to go to school or do work for free (or forcefully do work for money you don't want to do), that person is violating the law.

Minors are kind of slaves to their parents and the state. You're a ward of your parents and of the state, not a free citizen.
The same happens if by due process of law you are deprived of your freedom for committing a criminal offense, or are ruled incompetent.

EquALLity wrote: How can you possibly maintain that a corporation or wealthy individual giving millions of dollars to a political campaign (indirectly, but still) won't influence the politicians?
Why do you think they're giving the money in the first place?

You speaking against Trump influences politics too. You're allowed to influence politics, by speaking and advertising. You aren't allowed to make an explicit back-room deal of "you pass this law and I'll give you a billion dollars", but you are allowed to say "I really want this law passed" and when they advocate for it "I want to support your campaign with a billion dollars."

I know you think that's a loophole, but it doesn't fit the letter of the law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery

Wikipedia wrote:Bribery is the act of giving money, goods or other forms of recompense to a recipient in exchange for an alteration of their behavior (to the benefit/interest of the giver) that the recipient would otherwise not alter.

You have to PROVE the person would otherwise not have done it. You need a smoking gun. Not all such exchanges are bribery, and you can't call them all bribery. That's like calling all sex rape or prostitution.

A man buys a woman dinner and later they have sex. Prostitution!
No, maybe she just liked him and wanted to have sex with him. She might have done it if they split the bill too. You don't know that, and you can't impose your assumptions as a broad accusation against everything that might be that.

People are innocent until PROVEN guilty. And that includes politicians. You're asking for draconian laws that assume guilt.
Politicians are human beings too, they are citizens, and they have rights. And so do their donors.

EquALLity wrote: It's an argument, and you didn't really address it.

It was a bald assertion which is alienating and divisive.

EquALLity wrote: No way, of course I'm not against transparency, but transparency doesn't completely solve the problem.

If you want a complete solution all of the time, you'll never get anywhere. That's like the people who hate vegetarians because they aren't vegan yet.
You need to push for any step in the right direction. The smaller the step and the more people can generally agree on it, the better the chances of success for less effort.

EquALLity wrote: By the way, like I said, even most republicans want to get money out of politics. The country isn't divided on that at all; it's only not well supported in Congress (for obvious reasons).

According to the popular conspiracy theory it's obvious. But you're wrong.

Ending political contributions entirely is like ending cigarette advertising -- the big cigarette companies supported it, because it locked in their market shares. Now they don't have competition from smaller brands anymore.

You have no idea how good this would be for politicians. They wouldn't have to spend so much time and effort trying to raise money anymore, they could pretty much just rely on being elected because people already know their names and nobody can effectively challenge them since nobody can advertise against them and gain any significant part of the vote.
Politicians would love that, it keeps them in power, and then they can be as lazy as they want.

The reason politicians oppose these efforts despite how much they'd benefit from them personally is because they don't make sense. They'd cause a bureaucratic nightmare, they don't fix the problem, and they're a major imposition upon freedom of speech. It would be the death of any democratic process in the republic, and politicians for all of their flaws do generally respect the system and value 'democracy' to some extent.

EquALLity wrote: Many local politicians will be on our side as well. In fact, bills like this one have already passed in five states (after we get around 2/3 states, we can propose an Amendment to the Constitution).

Which states?

EquALLity wrote: The bill in Rhode Island passed unanimously in the state Senate. That's how bi-partisan this is outside of elite circles.

Rhode Island is a tiny state, and it's very blue. Out of 38, there are only five Republicans and one independent. One of those republicans is actually 25 years old and in college right now. It's a safe bet that they're not so much red as purple.

Here's anther (random) republican there:
https://ballotpedia.org/Christopher_Ottiano

Look at their track records. These Republicans are extremely liberal. In a red state they'd be Democrats. Political alignment isn't some absolute metric; it's relative. That's something important to keep in mind when you try to extrapolate like that.

Both the small size, and how extremely blue the state is, makes that low hanging fruit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states#Table_by_year_since_1984

You can not extrapolate those results to more conservative states.

EquALLity wrote: Why should corporations get all of that influence because they have a lot of money?

You might manage to ban corporate contributions if you leave individual contributions alone.

EquALLity wrote: They're not a legitimate representation of our country. Corporate influence is unfairly shifting the direction of the country due to their political power.

They contribute to both sides, and I've discussed this before. There's no reason to believe what you're saying is true.

EquALLity wrote: Transparency would be great too, but it doesn't fix the problem completely.

If you aren't against it, then advocate for that first. It will get more traction, and that can pass in red states too.

EquALLity wrote: Really, NO reason to believe it's true? Not a single reason?

Only if you cherry pick the variables that support it and ignore the unknowns that confound it.
If you consider the whole system, no, there's no reason to think it's true.

If I give a dollar to Hillary, and a dollar to Trump, who did I help more? Think about it.

EquALLity wrote: You don't think that there's even a single reason to be suspect when a corporation gives a politician a billion dollars? Come on.

You can suspect if you want, but that's just speculation. Do not accuse and condemn.
When you're advocating for legislation, you haven't just said "maybe there's a problem, let's look into it", you've pointed the finger, rendered judgement, and passed a sentence.

EquALLity wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:Then find a way to identify actual, literal, corporate bribery and distinguish it from legitimate speech. And find a way to do that completely without the possibility of bias or mistake.

Republicans will support it as soon as you can do that.

On the federal level? I really doubt it.

They're not that different at any level, if you find a strong conservative (rather than a liberal purple hued Republican). Talk to them. Talk to the young Republicans at your school. Find a compromise with THEM, and then you can start extrapolating.

You'll really learn politics if the Young Democrats and Young Republicans at your school can all agree on a bill proposal. And that may make some real change.

EquALLity wrote: Yeah, it's definitely going to take awhile. But I think it's worth it.

In terms of the consequences and all of the harm in the mean time? No. That's ego being put ahead of doing actual good.
That's like the vegan-or-bust message. More animals will suffer if we don't compromise a little and put out more moderate messages people can accept.

EquALLity wrote: I think climate change is the most important issue (aside from getting money out of politics, because that impacts almost everything). Because politicians are heavily funded by the oil and coal industries, they deny the reality of climate change.

Why do Republicans support Nuclear, then? Your conspiracy theory makes no sense.
If the oil lobby bought them off, they'd be fear mongering about Nuclear too. Maybe they're just religious morons who believe God wouldn't let the Earth be destroyed again because of his magical rainbow promise after the flood. Which is exactly what they say if you ask them.
They're pro-power. Consistently. And they don't believe that man can affect God's creation. Consistently.

EquALLity wrote: Climate change is already a massive crisis, and one party is still denying it exists.

And the other party denies the solution. Are the Democrats bribed by big oil to fear monger over nuclear power? Or are they just honestly stupid too?
You're cherry picking to support this conspiracy theory.

EquALLity wrote: They are intelligent people, many of them went to Ivy League Colleges- they know climate change is real. They're just indebted to their donors, who they need support from to win elections.[...]
The only way to stop that kind of blatant corruption is to get money out of politics.

Conspiracy theory.

No evidence for any of this.

EquALLity wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote: Functionally banning all political speech is not the answer.

Nobody is banning any political speech.

That's the only way to really get money out of politics. Speech can always be bought. Even grass roots. Money can be converted into time which can be converted back into money at the individual level if necessary.

EquALLity wrote: I do political speech, activism. They should play by the same rules as everybody else.

They can play by those rules too. You can't stop their money from influencing politics without banning political speech. They'll find a way.

EquALLity wrote: Why should the wills of corporations be amplified because they have a lot of money?

It's not that they should, it's that they will be and you can't stop it. It's like the anarchism thing. The vision of a world without money in politics doesn't really make sense as long as we rely on an elected representative government structure.

EquALLity wrote: Bernie Sanders got a lot more donations then Hillary Clinton (in fact, a literal record-breaking amount of campaign donations). However, despite the huge gap in amount of people giving, Hillary Clinton often raised more money because she got a few huge donations. Why should those few donors have more political say then millions of people?

We talked about why I didn't support Sanders. Others felt the same way.

So I read through what you shared about your experience in the Young Republicans club, and I'd like to say that it's quite an impressive mentality you had. To welcome such a challenge, arguing on your own against a large group of opponents.

EquALLity wrote:I'm really glad I went, it was really fun... It was basically me against the entire club.

So basically, you were like Uchiha Madara fighting the allied Shinobi army. (Naruto Shippuden reference; don't know if you're familiar* with that anime.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60NOqwUJNWY

So from 0:06 to 0:23, that's you mentally preparing to share your views with the Young Republicans.
Next, 0:24 to 0:35 demonstrates their immediate reaction after you tell them that you've chosen to vote for Hillary Clinton; not Donald Trump.
Finally, 0:36 to 2:35 is pretty much the ensuing chaos; your battle against the Young Republicans. Did I get that about right?


*Sorry if the metaphor didn't make sense, or if it wasn't really what your experience was like. Perhaps you're familiar with The Matrix? You and the Young Republicans were like Neo vs. the Agent Smiths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoUE6w1-g0

From 0:36 to 3:06, you get the idea...

Lightningman_42 wrote:So I read through what you shared about your experience in the Young Republicans club, and I'd like to say that it's quite an impressive mentality you had. To welcome such a challenge, arguing on your own against a large group of opponents.

EquALLity wrote:I'm really glad I went, it was really fun... It was basically me against the entire club.

So basically, you were like Uchiha Madara fighting the allied Shinobi army. (Naruto Shippuden reference; don't know if you're familiar* with that anime.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60NOqwUJNWY

So from 0:06 to 0:23, that's you mentally preparing to share your views with the Young Republicans.
Next, 0:24 to 0:35 demonstrates their immediate reaction after you tell them that you've chosen to vote for Hillary Clinton; not Donald Trump.
Finally, 0:36 to 2:35 is pretty much the ensuing chaos; your battle against the Young Republicans. Did I get that about right?


*Sorry if the metaphor didn't make sense, or if it wasn't really what your experience was like. Perhaps you're familiar with The Matrix? You and the Young Republicans were like Neo vs. the Agent Smiths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoUE6w1-g0

From 0:36 to 3:06, you get the idea...

I'm not really familiar with either of those, but they were hilarious to watch.

*By the way, it's who would I vote for. I can't vote in this election.
I can still campaign against Donald Trump, though (AKA campaign for Hillary, but I'd rather think of it as campaigning against Donald Trump ).

Club fair today- So the Young Republicans want to hang me apparently.
I mean I shouldn't be surprised that Trump supporters would be so vulgar. But wow.

I didn't even go to the meeting today because I had to go to a meeting for something else. I'll be back next week though. Muahahaha

It just gets better and better...