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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

What is missing every time things like this are brought up: how much do others receive? Yes, the creator of SOPA has received over half a million dollars, but how does that compare to the average?

I'm sure that it is above average, but it still needs to be clarified.

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Why should they receive any money from lobbies? How's that good for our country and our democracy?

It is freedom of speech. If they could not donate to politicians and support their cause, neither could you. If we took away all donations, only the richest could afford to run. Also, the ability to donate has been classified as speech, thus the First Amendment precludes it from being outlawed.

> If we took away all donations, only the richest could afford to run.

If we banned lobbying, took away all donations, and mandated all candidates use public funds to campaign, this would not be a problem. (Except to the very most annoying of Libertarians.)

I've seen this suggestion made elsewhere and agree. One of the concerns raised was relative tv time being that things would be skewed towards the incumbent. To this I would propose exposure (tv, radio) inversely proportional to how the candidate does in polling, primaries etc. that is the weakest candidate get the most time... Presumably, the positions of the incumbent are already well known.

Why would we want this artificial evening of the race? If someone is polling at 2% why should he receive a huge portion of advertising time?

Doesn't make any sense.

"...took away all donations..."

I do think it is a great idea in theory, but again it violates the First Amendment to take away my ability to support a candidate.

Surely there are better ways to support a candidate than money. If you want to donate something to a candidate, donate hours of your time toward their campaign. If you have easily stated reasons for supporting a candidate, you will be more likely to get more supporters for said candidate with your word of mouth than with your money.

"Also, the ability to donate has been classified as speech, thus the First Amendment precludes it from being outlawed."

Because they bribed them to redefine their bribing as speech, which any independent thinking individual clearly knows is not the case.

_Nine_ percent approval rating.

With the current state of affairs, only the richest can afford to not sell their soul. The fact is, once you accept a "donation" you are in somebody's pocket.

The point is he should not have received anything, PERIOD.

Another point is exhausting pedantic analysis is not political --sometimes your gut instinct tells you more of what's going on. I mean, at some point we ought to be ENRAGED of such things, not discuss trivial details about them.

Look at the comment elsewhere about how even those who are opposing the bill have similar distributions of donations. It would seem to be more likely that (in general) the majority of the lobbying groups (pouring money into Washington) are in favor of SOPA.

That said, regulatory capture is the real demon (moreso than campaign contributions).

Another point is exhausting pedantic analysis is not political --sometimes your gut instinct tells you more of what's going on.

Sarah Palin, is that you?

Over-analyser that never gets anything done, is that you?

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