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Comment by ehc | Hacker News Reader

The key thing that I don't think enough people understand is that this campaign finance reform that Lessig is working on is an issue for anyone who has ANY cause. Whether your cause is is climate change, net neutrality, or anything else, meaningful change with that issue is largely blocked by THIS issue (money in politics).

Lessig's personal path of giving up his work copyright reform as his "issue" to focus on corruption is exactly this understanding - that this needs to be treated as the core problem before any progress can be made with net neutrality, immigration or other issues.

For this reason I'm very surprised that the tech community, who is so loud about net neutrality, isn't speaking up more about this corruption. Sure, there are different approaches to fighting against it, but I think Lessig's experiment is a great one and definitely worth our money.

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This issue is about limiting the ability to speak. Anyone that is against Super PACs and "getting money out of politics" is arguing that speech needs to be reduced. It's treating the symptom, not the cause. The reason so much money is being spent, is that the amount of money the government controls and the amount of regulations it creates the potential for groups to get significant advantages.

The correct solution is to decentralize power; it easier to win one election instead of 50. And to reduce the amount of activity the government does, less pork spending and less market distortions.

His platform is not that speech needs to be reduced. It's that as many parties as possible need to be able to have a voice, and because certain entities can spend dramatically more money than the rest of society, they can drown out the voices of others.

Lessig gives specific examples of possible policies to illustrate that it's actually an increase in speech rather than a decrease in it, here: https://mayday.us/the-plan/#fundamental-reform-in-the-way-el...

It does reduce the ability for people to speak. You said it yourself, it makes it so they can't drown out the voices of others.

People are not equal and we need to recognize that; some are famous - their speech is hear by more people than mine, some are rich, some are well connected, some are beautiful, some own a newspaper, etc. Not everyone has the same voice, and that's ok.

How do you plan to enact this sort of reform? If your plans include a popular movement, you will greatly benefit by having your voice amplified vs that of the financial interests... which is exactly what this issue is about!

> The correct solution is to decentralize power; it easier to win one election instead of 50. And to reduce the amount of activity the government does, less pork spending and less market distortions.

The only way to implement any solution - whatever solution you think is needed - is to implement Lessig's solution first.

> Anyone that is against Super PACs and "getting money out of politics" is arguing that speech needs to be reduced.

No they're arguing Super PACs distort and limit healthy, democratic speech; that Super PACs are detrimental to speech.

The corollary to your assertion is that Super PACs increase speech. But this 'increased speech' can similarly be 'increased' by foreign political donations, which highlights the absurdity of these 'speech' claims to anyone interested in reclaiming a properly functioning democracy.

If money is speech, and speech is free, where's my free money?

If money is speech, especially with regard to politics, lack of money is the stifling of speech (and to an extent, indirect disenfranchisement). Ergo, through not giving those without money any funds with which to perform their speech, the government is violating the first amendment.

Free speech means the government cannot stop you from speaking, not that it needs to provide you with a printing press.

Yet by denying the capital to speak, it inherently stops you from speaking.

This reducto ad absurdium is meant to illustrate that money, while necessary for a bullhorn, is not speech in and of itself.

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