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09/05/2003 Entry: "The difference between judges and politicians" An argument I've heard in favor of Campaign Finance Reform goes something like this: You can't give money to a judge. You can't give money to a cop. So why should you be able to give money to a politician? Their implied answer is that you shouldn't. They think it ought to be against the law to give private money to political candidate's election funds and that campaigns ought to be financed with public money instead. But there is a better answer to this question. Judges and cops work for the state � they're not supposed to be partisan and they're not supposed to have their own agenda. They are supposed to impartially enforce the law. On the other hand, politicians are supposed to be partisan and follow their own agendas. They are supposed to have positions and values that get them elected, and they aren't supposed to stay in office unless they have a mandate from the people to enact their agenda. They are not the employees of the state; or even of the people as a whole. They work for the people who elect them and provide their mandate. This makes them fundamentally different from judges.
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Replies: 12 comments
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I think Campaign Finance Reform is misconceived, but just to play devil's advocate: yes, politicians have a mandate to enact partisan measures. But the mandate is to adhere to the values they advocated in order to get elected. What if their funding depends on staying in favour with people who have slightly different values from those? Posted by David Deutsch @ 09/05/2003 08:33 PM EST David: Politicians should act on their own values, and the people should select politicians who share their values. It's good to have election proccesses that make the ability of politicians to stay in office dependant on having values the values that make people want to vote for them. Private campaign funding is one of the ways our system does this -- it selects policians who have values that people want to pay for and vote for. This is a *good* thing. Posted by Woty @ 09/05/2003 08:50 PM EST I don't think it makes sense to say that politicians "work for the people who elect them and provide them their mandate". Each of the people in question has their own view of what should happen, so it's not like politicians can just enact "the will of the voters" or somesuch. And it'd also be wrong to entirely disregard people who voted against the election victor. We could try to approximate an "average" view by looking for the most centrist positions to call that the will of the people. But 90% or some such large proportion would find this "will of the people" leaned away from their preferences. And beyond that, only enacting centrist, mixed views amounts to not taking anyone's view of what should happen seriously. I mean, there is probably not a single person who thinks this new centrist plan is correct. That's not where progress lies. When we elect someone, what we're doing is conjecturing that *his* plan is worth trying out, based on what he tells us about his values and theories. Posted by curi @ 09/06/2003 04:20 PM EST WRT donations, the logic of the situation is that if the Destroy_The_Rainforest group donates lots of money to Slick Willy, and Slick sees this money as a key factor in winning his election, and Slick wants to get re-elected using another large donation from the same group, then Slick will want to enact a policy that keeps the Destroy_The_Rainforest people happy. imagine translating their money into votes, cause money does indirectly buy votes. keeping them happy is worth a lot of votes, not just for the number of people in the organisation, but also for the donations. so, it seems to me that the Destroy_The_Rainforst people *are* really and truly paying to be listened to more. they show they care with their money, like good capitalists. but is this bad? no libertarian has a problem with deciding whether some park remains a park or becomes a factory based on who wants to pay the most for it (values it the highest). why the hell not let people compete analogously with dollars in the political sphere? if you say "what if a crook, who is not trying to get laws he thinks are right enacted, but rather ones he thinks will help him, buys bad laws at everyone's expense?" well, what if the crook tries to buy land and defoul it? this is bad for everyone, too. the answers are that whether we think he's a crook or not, it isn't our call. with property, it's the seller's call. and with laws, the politician's. and this happens. politicians refuse money from certain organisations they don't want to be associated with (gosh imagine what would happen if someone took Hamas money. he'd get zero votes) and BTW there is a diminishing returns effect on donations, so in the limit of loads of donations, the politicians don't find themselves totally controlled. FWIW i think there's also a diminishing returns effect on higher bids on land, because people only have use for so much money. and so that case is saved from money=total-control too. Posted by curi @ 09/06/2003 04:34 PM EST oh, btw, there are legitimate, reasons to give money to judges or cops. and sewage workers too. it's possible to make being a corrupt cop (ie disobeying instructions from commanding officer person and breaking actual laws) illegal without blocking the legit stuff people might like to do.
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