• Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Foreign political funding should be banned everywhere by default. It makes no sense to let foreign interests muck about in your domestic policy.

    • realitista@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

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

      • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I’m okay with funding from constituents, with strict caps on amounts. That way people who have lots of public support get more funding, but a wealthy person can’t outspend someone else.

        No funding from corporations, and no anonymous funding.

        • LostWon@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          We already have too many narcissistic leaders everywhere because they can be superficially charming and build up loads of useful connections. It makes sense to have a cut-off for who gets funding at all, but they should all get the same amount of exposure.

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Andrew Yang has a great term for this:

        Democracy Dollars

        Also his term for UBI:

        Freedom Dividend

        Great naming lol. Like who could hate something called “Freedom Dividend” and “Democracy Dollars” 😅 (Magats would hate it, they hate democracy)

        Other Policies, if you’re interested: https://2020.yang2020.com/policies/?tab=all

        If ranked choice was a thing, I’d probably rank Yang #1, Bernie #2. (Since Yang would probabky never get elected, so I might as well give him the #1 ranking, his ideas are cool)

        • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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          2 days ago

          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.

          • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

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

            • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              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.

              • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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                18 hours 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.

        • realitista@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

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

          • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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            1 day ago

            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.

            • realitista@lemm.ee
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              1 day ago

              Not if staff and signs were only provided by the government. It no doubt comes with its own set of problems, but given what we’ve seen with open campaign finance, I think those wouldn’t hold a candle to what we have now.

              • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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                18 hours ago

                TBH, that sounds even worse, and I am saying this as a fan of big government.

    • Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world
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      1 day 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.