From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 10:34:03 +0800
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: Political Cleanup program
In-Reply-To: <m0tROOn-0008yHC@pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <199512172204.OAA22202@netcom23.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



JB:
>Politics is traditionally corrupt, it appears, because donors to politicians
>and political campaigns expect a quid pro quo for their donations.  Various
>unsatisfactory solutions include campaign spending limits, etc.

I have an unusual view that I've never seen elsewhere: the problem with
our government is not that money or PACs are involved, but that the system
does not handle or resolve the conflicts between them very well. in other
words, in contrary to the current view that all PACs are evil, I think the
problem is not that we have PACs, but that our current system does not
balance their demands in some sensible manner.  the system is
susceptible to corruption. it is conceivable however that there would be
a system that involves money and politics but still avoids corruption.

there seem to be a lot of people who suggest that merely because politics
involves money, it is therefore corrupt. this is an awfully vague and
nebulous line of thinking in my view. are we to suppose that any industry
that involves money (all of them, of course) inevitably moves in 
the direction of corruption? perhaps some more "cynicalpunks" may have 
this view, but I don't share it.

>It occurs to me that it would be a major advance if a system could be set up
>that would "blind" campaign donations as to their source:  The donor could
>be satisfied that his donation gets to the candidate or cause, but the
>candidate couldn't know  who actually paid the money (and the donor would be
>unable to prove that he made a donation, for example).  Admittedly there are
>a lot of details that need to be worked out, but if this could be
>accomplished it would change politics as we know it.

what you describe would allow anonymous bribes. the giver could always identify
his cash donation "out of band" to the receiver. moreover, other observers
would not be aware of the relationship. why do you think this would
be an improvement? to the contrary our current system works hard to require
the disclosure of who donated what to a candidate, so the candidate's potential
hidden agendas and ulterior motives can be revealed. seems reasonable to 
me.

you are probably barking up the wrong tree here on cypherpunks, however,
because most of the key "insiders" here are convinced that democracy is
a proven failure, and that in fact government is invariably corrupt and
oppressive, no matter what the implementation. the "solutions" advocated
here are chiefly withdrawal and subterfuge.

needless to say I disagree with this. I wonder if some day someone will
invent a "killer app" that doubles as a political governing system.
it seems to me politics is one of the last most intractable areas of
human interaction when many others have been harmonized and systematized
by the information revolution. I suspect it will eventually succumb to
technological ingenuity as well. the end result would be a government
that is not perfect, but is at least as good as the population that
drives it, and no worse. (in contrast today we seem to have a government
that is no better than the least common denominator).


JB, I have to wonder however how your ideas about campaign reform tie into 
your prior advocation of political assinations as a legitimate form of
citizen power.  have you given up on the idea of murdering politicians as
a means of political reform? or are you now just coupling that idea with
campaign reform to put some new bells and whistles on 
your overall ideological package?