Originally posted by whodey
You are a peice of work.

More to the point, I think your political system has done a piece of work on you. Naysaying just about everything that is realistic while doing your janus thing when it comes to solutions is not an exercise in principle, whodey.

The only political ideal you seem to subscribe to, is one in which nothing is NOT as you want it to be. To the extent that on another thread you are seriously proposing that people who do not understand issue to your satisfaction should be denied the vote.

But to keep this up, you often seem to talk out of both sides of your mouth, which is frozen in a permanent kvetching rictus. It's all well and good to take umbridge at this being pointed out to you, but surely your dyed-in-the-wool killjoy thang is a calculated stance you take for your own amusement. Yes?

Originally posted by whodey
Are conservatives kill joys? We stand up and say such things as, you need to balance your budgets. You need to have a handle on immigration. You need to be energy independent and anything less is unacceptable. You need to focus on people getting back to work more than entitlements that those who have jobs left are paying for.

Its hard being politically ...[text shortened]... out there, I left out, "Don't forget to eat your vegetables or there will be no desert!!" 😠

Hmm. I've heard "those on the left" say all those things.

Originally posted by whodey
Just because I may disapprove of corporate donations does not mean I would support any legislation that may "reform" such donations. I am very skeptical regarding such reform in light of the power corporate America now has on both parties. In addition, I am that much more skeptical when such reform is controlled by only one party.

Okay, so if I get you correctly, there should be no legislation to limit or even ban corporate donations, because corporate America is running politics and they will turn that ban into their advantage?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Hmm. I've heard "those on the left" say all those things.

Where? Who?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Okay, so if I get you correctly, there should be no legislation to limit or even ban corporate donations, because corporate America is running politics and they will turn that ban into their advantage?

I did not say that did I? You have to realize that you can't just limit reform to donations from corporations. What about donations from other sources? Lets say you have one party relying mostly on corporate donations but another party has alternate sources. It would then give the one party an advantage to simply focus on corporate donations.

How about we just do away with political contributions completely? That would make whodey happy. 😀

Originally posted by whodey
Where? Who?

The Labour Party here has said all those things, or at least things along those lines.

Originally posted by whodey
I did not say that did I? You have to realize that you can't just limit reform to donations from corporations. What about donations from other sources? Lets say you have one party relying mostly on corporate donations but another party has alternate sources. It would then give the one party an advantage to simply focus on corporate donations.

How about we just do away with political contributions completely? That would make whodey happy. 😀

Sure, we are agreed then. Get rid of it altogether.

Originally posted by whodey
Conservatives were in power?

again, no true conservative fallacy.

you may not have agreed with every single policy of the conservatives who were in power, but that doesn't mean you should just pretend they weren't conservatives.

Originally posted by whodey
I did not say that did I? You have to realize that you can't just limit reform to donations from corporations. What about donations from other sources? Lets say you have one party relying mostly on corporate donations but another party has alternate sources. It would then give the one party an advantage to simply focus on corporate donations.

How about we just do away with political contributions completely? That would make whodey happy. 😀

How about we just do away with political contributions completely? That would make whodey happy.

Which would give a huge advantage to extremely wealthy people who'd be able to spend huge amounts of their own money to win an election against opponents who'd be banned from raising any money to counteract the campaign of King Moneybags.

How would you address this problem?

Originally posted by Melanerpes
How would you address this problem?

How about elections funded with relatively small amounts of taxpayers' money, with legislation passed to obligate terrestial TV channels (which use the general public's airwaves) to broadcast short party political broadcasts for 4 weeks leading up to the ballot? Politicians could run blogs and web sites, write OP-EDs, and travel around the country making speeches and getting interviewed on local radio and TV. Make it illegal to distort the political process with cash. Make elections about ideas.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The Labour Party here has said all those things, or at least things along those lines.

Sorry, I meant in the US. I'm sure that the left in other countries has more sense than those in the states.

Originally posted by generalissimo
again, no true conservative fallacy.

you may not have agreed with every single policy of the conservatives who were in power, but that doesn't mean you should just pretend they weren't conservatives.

I guess we all need terms to label each other even though its flaws are obvious.

Originally posted by FMF
How about elections funded with relatively small amounts of taxpayers' money, with legislation passed to obligate terrestial TV channels (which use the general public's airwaves) to broadcast short party political broadcasts for 4 weeks leading up to the ballot? Politicians could run blogs and web sites, write OP-EDs, and travel around the country making speeche ...[text shortened]... nd TV. Make it illegal to distort the political process with cash. Make elections about ideas.

Agreed, but why would they limit their power in such a way?

Originally posted by whodey
Agreed, but why would they limit their power in such a way?

I don't really know. It's clearly a completely hypothetical idea. How about making it illegal for someone standing for office to accept any donations or payments of any kind other than the tax funded travel and other expenses for those 4 weeks? Just as you are not allowed to give money to a police officer or customs inspector in order to modify their decisions.

Originally posted by FMF
I don't really know. It's clearly a completely hypothetical idea. How about making it illegal for someone standing for office to accept any donations or payments of any kind other than the tax funded travel and other expenses for those 4 weeks? Just as you are not allowed to give money to a police officer or customs inspector in order to modify their decisions.

Only for 4 weeks? It would seem to me that campaigning begins much sooner or would be begun much sooner if time limitations were placed on them.