|
Lightning Knight posted:There's been a material change, but anti-trade has always been a significant part of populist right-wing conservatism among the middle and lower-middle class people who went Democrat-Republican back in the '70s and '80s. Think back to stuff like the whole "Wal-Mart policy" email forward, where they legitimately believe America can go it alone and "Americans don't need anything not made in America." I never said it was rooted in economics; I was using it as an example of how people don't really have "genuine" opinions on most topics and can easily change their views in response to the messaging they receive from the media/politicians/etc. While there's always been a certain contingent of the right that was protectionist in the way you describe, Republican attitudes towards free trade and trade deals have changed quite dramatically recently (in terms of the percent who view free trade positively). Pembroke Fuse posted:Ok, let's say we ban corporate lobbying/dark money. Who should be responsible for writing laws at that point? This is a legitimate problem, and I'm not sure if there's any ideal answer to it. Generally speaking, people with expertise in an area are also going to have some sort of bias in favor of the industry that could put that expertise to use. That being said, I'm not entirely convinced that people with industry experience are actually the only ones with expertise in the field in question. Taking finance as an example, there are people in academia who have similar expertise. Even then you still have some perverse incentives in the fact that anyone with expertise also has the potential for working in that field in the future, and thus has a reason to not act against the interests of the relevant corporations. One answer might be to require people who work in government (or as regulators, etc) never work or receive money from the industry in question for the rest of their lives. This would at least remove the "potential to gain in the future if they act to benefit the industry" incentive. All of this being said, I feel like in many cases industry experts exaggerate the complexity of their fields in order to deflect criticism. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Sep 30, 2017 |
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 06:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 18:50 |
|
|
Kilroy posted:I mean you can turn this around as well: why the gently caress should lawyers be writing up trade agreements and deciding the finer points of copyright law, not to mention trying to figure out how to implement a health care system that isn't a complete trash fire? Why should they be the ones wielding our military? They know gently caress-all about any of those things. Excuse me. I have to go let my brain leak out my ears
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:13
|
|
|
Banning lobbying would have worse results for corruption than the status quo.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:15
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Banning lobbying would have worse results for corruption than the status quo. Explain. I mean I'm sure it's true but I can't think of how at the moment.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:25
|
|
|
Why should laws become too complex to be interpreted by the governed gently caress lawyers
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:26
|
|
|
Moatman posted:Why should lawyers be deciding the finer points of copyright law? Why should lawyers be deciding the finer points of law??? Mustached Demon posted:Ideally, a lawyer writes the law with the guidance of experts in the field the law applies to. Ask some hospital admins for help with healthcare. Ask scientists (not pastor fuckwads) for help with setting education in science standards.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:36
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:This is a legitimate problem, and I'm not sure if there's any ideal answer to it. Generally speaking, people with expertise in an area are also going to have some sort of bias in favor of the industry that could put that expertise to use. That being said, I'm not entirely convinced that people with industry experience are actually the only ones with expertise in the field in question. Taking finance as an example, there are people in academia who have similar expertise. Even then you still have some perverse incentives in the fact that anyone with expertise also has the potential for working in that field in the future, and thus has a reason to not act against the interests of the relevant corporations. I know this is getting awfully close to "blame the voter" and I guess it sort of is, but this goes beyond which party you vote for, or don't vote for. It's the entire approach to democracy most people take where they think voting every four years after having one of the debates in the background while they cook dinner, means they've done their part. It's thinking that 30 years of listening to talk radio makes you an expert on the human condition. E: The highest law in the land says "the President appoints the god-damned Justices to the Supreme Court" yet here we are. The answer is to crush people like McConnell into jelly when they get too much power, not try to hamstring them with a bunch of "one weird trick" rules they'll just ignore anyway (and which the people you don't want being hamstrung, will not ignore). Kilroy fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Sep 30, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:42
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:Explain. I mean I'm sure it's true but I can't think of how at the moment. Just banning all lobbying includes banning lobbying by (good) non-profits, but if you let non-profits lobby then obviously people will just register (bad) non-profits to lobby. If you ban lobbying completely you're effectively saying "the only people who get to influence the laws are those with pre-existing access to politicians." It is better that both UAW and NAM can send lobbyists because, lets be real, the NAM fuckers would still be connected regardless.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:42
|
|
|
You guys know legislators do more than just literally write out the loving laws, right? They determine what policy directions will have priority before they ever put pen to paper. Moreover, that is the more important part of their job, and there is no reason to think a lawyer is any better suited for that than anyone else.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 07:45
|
|
|
There's no reason lawyers couldn't be called in as experts when needed. Lots of legislators are lawyers for the same reason that so many are businesspeople: they're the ones with the resources needed to become politicians.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 08:01
|
|
|
Unoriginal Name posted:Why should laws become too complex to be interpreted by the governed I agree, make trade policy and standards compliance simple enough to be understood by the average layman. Randomly select three members of the community to review bridge safety.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 08:41
|
|
|
Jizz Festival posted:There's no reason lawyers couldn't be called in as experts when needed. Lots of legislators are lawyers for the same reason that so many are businesspeople: they're the ones with the resources needed to become politicians. You know when they might be needed? Writing laws. (I'm not exactly a big fan of lobbying as it exists but there's a certain level of weird anti-intellectualism in this thread and I'm pretty sure some of it is unironic)
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 08:43
|
|
|
Grapplejack posted:After Trump I never want to see another entertainment figure in a race. Give me boring politicians from now on please and thank you. Problem is boring politicians don't win elections. We've seen that enough times by now.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:02
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:You know when they might be needed? Writing laws. So you hire some to help write the laws. They're not specially suited to make decisions, unless you think they have magic lawyer-vision that lets them understand the world better outside of their narrow specialty.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:10
|
|
|
Jizz Festival posted:So you hire some to help write the laws. They're not specially suited to make decisions, unless you think they have magic lawyer-vision that lets them understand the world better outside of their narrow specialty. then they parlay that experience writing laws and working with policy into getting themselves elected to office and we're right back where we started Why do you think so many lawyers go into politics anyways?
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:12
|
|
|
Tarezax posted:then they parlay that experience writing laws and working with policy into getting themselves elected to office Wow because people love lawyers so much and love voting for them even more. And I already said why I think so many get into politics: they have the resources to do so (money and connections).
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:14
|
|
|
this was a few pages back but reminder that making fun of people for their posts is what the thunderdome is for, and only for those who choose to enter thunderdome please keep the discussion to politic. thank.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:17
|
|
|
Jizz Festival posted:So you hire some to help write the laws. They're not specially suited to make decisions, unless you think they have magic lawyer-vision that lets them understand the world better outside of their narrow specialty. I think there might be at least two different discussions going on here. I am pondering the Lobbyist Problem because a few people I read were but it sounds like another topic is whether lawyers are unusually suited to being legislators, to which I would say they're probably not unusually UNsuited. Obviously the correct answer is to have 100% economists. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:30
|
|
|
What matters is that they aren't assholes, not that they are lawyers. Voting is supposed to keep real assholes out but we done broke democracy somethin fierce this time.
|
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:38
|
|
|
LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:What matters is that they aren't assholes, not that they are lawyers. Voting is supposed to keep real assholes out but we done broke democracy somethin fierce this time. Yeah it's totally cool that you have to be rich and well-connected to become a politician. The real problem is rude people.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:41
|
|
|
Jizz Festival posted:Yeah it's totally cool that you have to be rich and well-connected to become a politician. The real problem is rude people. Literally the Democrat position.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 09:54
|
|
|
Y'all might consider doing what most other western nations do and have a professional civil service that helps your elected representatives draft laws. Besides that there's no logical reason that having lots of lawyers in Congress helps with getting good laws on the books because a) Congress is a political body and there's no reason to believe that any juridically ideal (or even good) law could actually pass without being amended to poo poo in the majority of cases and b) lawyers are perfectly capable of being dumbshits and/or fanatical ideologues, e.g. any GOP congressperson who happens to be a lawyer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 10:04
|
|
|
why are people trying to argue lawyers are particularly suited to the job of legislation? a programmer who works in a bioinformatics lab may be well suited to creating software, but unless they studied biology they're not likely to be able to create software scientifically relevant to the lab on their own. they have to work with biologists for that. in the same vein, there's no reason for legislators to be lawyers specifically. when legislators need help crafting policy, they usually turn to experts. likewise, a legislator who's not a lawyer could turn to a lawyer for actually drafting laws, but determine the thrust of the law on their own. that's all assuming that legislators are actually drafting their own legislation, when in fact a ton just take legislation from corporate lobbyists and put that up for a vote.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 10:47
|
|
|
Zaphod Beeblebrox for president imo
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 11:43
|
|
|
Again, reminder that the vast majority of senators and reps are not personally writing their own bills. They have teams of what are essentially legislative ghostwriters who write, read, interpret, and summarize bills for them. That's how they can jetset around america while promoting one thousand page bill while decrying another thousand page bill. The question isn't "why should lawyers write laws?" It's "why should lawyers be the go-to for a position that already has teams of junior lawyers covering legislative gruntwork?"
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 11:57
|
|
|
Pembroke Fuse posted:Ok, let's say we ban corporate lobbying/dark money. Who should be responsible for writing laws at that point? Arent most of China's legistlatures actually engineers? Additionally while its true that lawyers are common in legistlatures I remember seeing a comparison of legislature's profession by country and the US having a lot more laywers than anyone else.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 12:47
|
|
|
Take a look at the US tax code and tell me having lawyers write the laws is a good idea.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 12:49
|
|
|
Communist Zombie posted:Arent most of China's legistlatures actually engineers? Additionally while its true that lawyers are common in legistlatures I remember seeing a comparison of legislature's profession by country and the US having a lot more laywers than anyone else. Part of it probably in some way due to the fact that the barriers for being a practicing attorney are significantly higher than the rest of the world, and also far more expensive. Basically, the US produces a lot of people with JDs (some who pass the bar in their state, many do not) with a knowledge of law and massive student loans who need a place to be. (Honestly, I think a lot of people would be better off traveling the world/anything else than getting in 100k of debt+ because they don't know what else to do. Every level of the American educational system is broken.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 13:36
|
|
|
How many public defenders end up in Congress?
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 14:21
|
|
|
MizPiz posted:Take a look at the US tax code and tell me having lawyers write the laws is a good idea. I would say that the tax code is more a result of lobbyists, dark money, 1%-er greed and corporate interests over country interests than lawyers. Getting mad at lawyers in this case is getting mad at the knife of the guy stabbing you.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 14:24
|
|
|
Kilroy posted:You guys know legislators do more than just literally write out the loving laws, right? They determine what policy directions will have priority before they ever put pen to paper. Moreover, that is the more important part of their job, and there is no reason to think a lawyer is any better suited for that than anyone else. This is a good point, but technically that job currently get filled by think tanks and policy wonks. You can probably make a sound argument that politicians should primarily be policy wonks who use a lawyer pool to draft or review the actual laws. That said, I'm pretty sure even policy wonks have (or should have) some legal experience just to be able to read and understand the implications of the laws they're drafting/laws currently on the books. Neurolimal posted:Again, reminder that the vast majority of senators and reps are not personally writing their own bills. They have teams of what are essentially legislative ghostwriters who write, read, interpret, and summarize bills for them. That's how they can jetset around america while promoting one thousand page bill while decrying another thousand page bill. Good point. Hadn't considered this. Pembroke Fuse fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Sep 30, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 14:35
|
|
|
I don't really have a problem with Oprah besides the sinking feeling I have that we'll never again have a president who isn't a billionaire. As long as she'll appoint actual smart and non-evil people to cabinet positions to run everything, and keeps Drs. Oz and Phil away from power, we'll be good.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 14:37
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Banning lobbying would have worse results for corruption than the status quo. I think what you do need to ban (for a start) is the revolving door of politicians finishing their terms and becoming lobbyists themselves. Many start lobbying on behalf of their future employers while still in office, etc.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 14:43
|
|
|
Berke Negri posted:https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/914087234869047296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw in news not involving inexperienced billionaires being elected to the presidency for no good reason what so ever, Puerto Rico is still being largely ignored by the White House except when the mayor of San Juan (who has been wading through streets to help find people) makes trump look bad
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 14:47
|
|
|
Pull yourselves up by your submerged bootstraps- potus
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 15:00
|
|
|
Pembroke Fuse posted:I think what you do need to ban (for a start) is the revolving door of politicians finishing their terms and becoming lobbyists themselves. Many start lobbying on behalf of their future employers while still in office, etc. It would definitely help if there was some sort of ban on taking lobbyist/advisor positions after holding office, at least until they get new invented positions to continue the gravy train.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 15:02
|
|
|
Going to have to see some policies before I even have an opinion on Oprah running. Until then, it ain't poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 15:04
|
|
|
Unoriginal Name posted:Why should laws become too complex to be interpreted by the governed Is this our first un-ironic Herman Cain voter?
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 15:07
|
|
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Is this our first un-ironic Herman Cain voter? I mean, he does have a point that the more obtuse a law is, the harder it is for the public to read and have an opinion of it. This is becoming less of an issue as the internet becomes more and more prevalent and unemployed young lawyers take to twitter/blogs/facebook/etc. to interpret them, but it's still a pretty significant hurdle to getting the common person involved in politics. Obviously you cant boil laws down to a single sentence all the time, especially since there's plenty of legal ground to cover (and even sincere laws manage to have loopholes discovered by teams of corporate lawyers), but it's kind of silly how hostile some people get towards the suggestion that uninvested people should be able to interpret things. It's not even a question of intelligence, people are just really good at specializing themselves, like lawyers and legalese + persuasion, or engineers and engineering + thinking they know how to do everything. It would probably help if bills were better formatted instead of taking for granted that a team of lawyers will be reading it to do just that.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 15:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 18:50 |
|
|
"Hm yes gently caress lawyers. Lawmakers should know less about the law and the senate should be in a worse position to evaluate judicial nominees. Also full tort reform now." -A hot take by Republicans and now goons
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2017 16:20
|
|
