Politicians For Sale... On Amazon 425
aldheorte writes "In either a brilliant move or a sick commentary on politics (or both), Amazon is now selling U.S. Presidential candidates, or at least contributions to such."
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Politicians For Sale... On Amazon
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FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed -- it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer. -- A.J. Perlis
Numbers (Score:2, Interesting)
Contibutions (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I suppose if you were completely cynical this is how one might view this, but to me, this is a great way to make political contributions, because this is about making contributions to your politician of choice.
However, I would prefer to see an Internet based voting system that gets rid of the electoral college system....
Here's Who's Ahead (Score:2, Interesting)
Here are the standings between the top 4 Democratic contenders:
Dean $385 from 33 contributions for an average of $11.67 per contribution
Clark $545 from 34 contributions for an average of $16.02 per contribution
Kerry $964 from 27 contributions for an average of $35.70 per contribution
Edwards $475 from 18 contributions for an average of $26.39 per contribution
Gee, Bush doesn't have any contributions. Surprise, Surprise!
That's right, *you* can be a lobiest... (Score:3, Interesting)
These guys are smart, you have to admit. They've convienced you, the nice citizen, to pony up some dough and help fund a senator. You know the next thing they're going to do is go to the senator and say "See how much money we raised for you? See how nice we've been to you? Now... Let's talk about patents for a moment..."
Re:Might want to check their privacy policy. (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's not forget their tendency to substantially change [internetnews.com] their own rules [com.com] in midstream (and not honor individuals' requests to be removed from their databases)...
<grrr>
Libertarian (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Here's Who's Ahead (Score:4, Interesting)
Nolan [amazon.com]
Donations from outside United-States? (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be an interesting phenomenon if it ever happens.
Re:If They're Going to Sell Them on Amazon, (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, they can certainly sell it in aggregate (e.g., Democrats buy Wusthof knives, Republicans buy Henkels) without violating their privacy policies, since no individual data is released about you.
I personally am not thrilled about this kind of data collection.
Gave $5 to Clark. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Decisions, decisions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't it interesting that if you commit a felony (which I assume that this is, as a 15 year sentence is nothing to sneeze at), you can still run for president, but in several states (PDF, sorry [sentencingproject.org]) can't vote for president, even after parolled. Kind of like how 21 year olds can buy beer, but 18 year olds can sell it.
Re:Just to clear something up. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Its even *more* commonly known as capitalism. Beyond that, the United States preaches capitalism, but does not practice it. If it did, we would not have so many protectionist laws fouling up our legal books. A Republican president, someone who in theory believes in allowing the free market to do its work, recently passed (and later had to retract) a tarrif on steel! That goes against the recommendations of a majority of economists. They continue to favor subsidizing farmers, because although subsidies are uncapitalistic, they secure crucial votes in the Midwest.
Such is the nature of a capitolist economy that the government, in order to function effectively, must operate as a business.
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Actually, capitalist economic theory says nothing about government functioning as a business.
They offer services - courts, police, etc. - and we pay for those services with our taxes.
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The situation is nothing like that. Transactions between (competitive) businesses and the people are efficient. Transactions between the government and the people are closer to transactions between people and a monopoly --- they are inefficient in that they create a deadweight loss. FYI: "Efficient" has a very specific definition in economic theory, so do not look at the word in the traditional "government is inefficient" sense but in terms of the precise economic definition.
They are known by a variety of names and methods - Communists, Socialists, some Democrats (Not all, just the worst, like this Dean guy)
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I propose a corollary to Godwin's rule. The first person to compare liberalism with communism in general automatically loses. Substantiate your arguments, don't use peoples' irrational reaction to communism as a crutch for fuzzy thinking. Plus, capitalism, as an economic theory, is somewhat orthogonal to socialism, as a social theory. Modern capitalism specifies how markets should be organized. It acknowledges the existence of a government that must tax its citizens, because a limited number of goods, such as defense and a clean environment, are produced in inefficient numbers in a purely free-market system. Capitalism says nothing about how government should spend the money that the free market creates. Indeed, most economists agree that the distribution of income in the United States today is far too inequitable, which suggest a policy favoring greater redistribution.
and in general, idiots.
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Like people who cannot spell "capitalism" and don't even understand the economic system they espouse?
we will all end up where...France, and Australia will be before long.
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You mean in a country that makes a reasonable compromise between absolute economic performance and reasonable social services? Your arguments against socialism would be more compelling if the healthcare system in the United States, and social services in general, was not so horridly unsatisfactory.
Now, I believe in equality, but in [a]ctual equality, which is that everyone has the same chance to succeed
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In the United States, everyone does not have the same chance to succeed. One's odds of succeeding go up exponentially with the amount of money one's parents have. Let's use some actual capitalistic theory here. Production is a function of the amount of capital you have. The function is exponential, which means that the more capital you start with, the faster you can grow your capital. This suggests that if two people start with unequal amounts of capital (ie: rich parents vs poor parents), and are given an equal chance to succeed, then not only will this gap remain, but grow exponentially larger. This precisely describes what is happening in the world today --- both the rich and the poor are getting richer, but the gap between them is growing. You make the mistake of assuming that people start out at the same level. They do not. If you have two equally good runners, and give one of them
Re:Contibutions (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Decisions, decisions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Rove belted Gephart silly in the mid sessionals. And as for Lieberman his sanctimonious attitude is as sickening as Bush.
You don't have to agree with Nader to realise that the quality of the candidate matters as much as the platform. The problem with Lieberman is that he has assiduously engaged in every practice voters dislike on the hill. He was still fighting stricter accounting rules when the justice department were turning up at Enron HQ with a search warrant.
Nader is going to be humilliated if he is stupid enough to run this time. He would be lucky to get a quarter of his 2000 vote, if the greens let him run the conclusion will be that the voters have turned of green politics. The number 1, 2 and 3 priorities for the green movement are to get rid of Bush, Cheney and Halliburton from the US government.
The only exception is if Lieberman gets the nomination. In that case more Deanies will bolt the party than Lieberman will bring in from the middle.
Rove's strategy is confuse the middle and deliver for the base. Delivering for the Democrat base is easy - anyone but Bush. The problem with Lieberman is that he does not deliver that for the anti-war faction.
Re:Duh! (Score:1, Interesting)