this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
858 points (98.8% liked)

politics

19120 readers
2582 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Just one thing. You can't ban lobbying. You can and should highly regulate it. But you'd have to put your representatives in an isolation chamber if lobbying was banned. What we need to do is define anything more than a handshake passing between lobbyist and politician as a bribe. But Congress pulled the FBIs fangs decades ago now.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 5 points 6 months ago

We could ban lobbying for consideration. (We already have a well-developed body of contract law which spells out the scope of consideration.) A lot of the effectiveness of lobbying comes not from donations, gifts, or other bribe-like transactions, but rather from the scope of their presence. For example, petrochemical lobbyists can show up in person every day of the week, exert direct pressure, and even soft influence like providing consultations or "expert opinion" about bills that come before Congress. The people affected by fracking, on the other hand, have lives to live, and the best that they're capable of is calling and writing letters occasionally.

Ban consideration in exchange for lobbying, instead. If an individual wants to go to D.C. and lobby on behalf of the petrochemical industry for no personal benefit whatsoever (not even covertly), great, that's democracy in action. They'd be on a level playing field with the rest of us.

[–] mojo_raisin@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But you’d have to put your representatives in an isolation chamber

Interesting... lol

But in all seriousness, I'd say the number of reps we have it wouldn't be impractical for a yearly complete IRS audit for each of them that has real consequences like losing your position, repaying victims fully, and/or going to prison.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Oh absolutely.