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[+] 187 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (16 children)
  • [–] 77 points 2 years ago (14 children)

    Even local political funding should be banned. Elections should be funded by the state with each candidate getting the same amount of exposure.

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  • [+] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I used to be interested in the things Andrew Yang had to say back in 2020, especially with regard to UBI, but I'm really put off by him now. His whole schtick is a libertarian technocratic utopian fantasy. The expansion of welfare while simultaneously sucking up to oligarchs is just a way to preserve the capitalist status quo. He wants to breathe new life into the machine that's exploiting us and destroying the planet.

    His vision for the future is basically just the UN as depicted in The Expanse.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    That sounds like a system that would be rife for abuse.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Yeah, good thing no one can abuse the current system by having a lot of money.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Depends on which current system you mean. I'm Canadian, and while it's not perfect, it's a pretty good system.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Fair point, I assumed we were talking about US even though that wasn't strictly specified. I'm not Canadian so you probably know more than I would, but I'm pretty sure Canada has it's own systemic problems.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    I assumed we were talking about US

    Well, the article's about Greenland, but I guess Ameri-centrism is par for the course.

    I’m pretty sure Canada has it’s own systemic problems.

    Sure, but I don't think our donation rules are big systematic problems. Our rules don't allow donations from foreign sources or companies, and include pretty reasonable limits for individuals (plus 75% of political donations are refunded next tax year). We have definitely had donation scandals, but they've almost exclusively been because people are breaking the rules.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    How? You get a certain amount of funds to be spent on specific regulated activities if you pass a threshold of signatures.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    A non-serious campaign could use those funds to enrich themselves/others even with approved activities. They could pay for staff, buy signs, etc. and all those people & businesses would make money doing legitimate work for a campaign whose only purpose was to employ those people/businesses.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I agree in principle, but in practice it’s tricky. You must have courts that are strong enough to throw out election results if foreign interference can be proven. This has recently happened in Romania, but there are also many examples in which these laws were meaningless. The US is the obvious case where the 2016 election result should have been thrown out, but nothing happened. For the Brexit vote I think some pretty meaningless fines were handed out.

    Another question is what should happen with foreign interference that is not financial in nature. For instance, Musk speaking at AFD, or the Meta algorithms pushing political content.

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