Re: Political Cleanup program

[Brian Davis <bdavis@thepoint.net>]

On Sun, 17 Dec 1995, James A. Donald wrote:

> At 11:04 AM 12/17/95 -0800, jim bell wrote:
> > 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
>
See my earlier post.
 
> To make this work, the government would need to prohibit individuals
> from campaigning for politicians, taking out ads with political 
> consequences, and so on and so forth.   A short step from 
> totalitarianism

Not to mention the death of the First Amendment.  Which, under your 
scenario, would probably mean the death (or curtailment) of Cypherpunks. 

> A better solution is to move assets and money into forms where
> politicians cannot get at them, thus reducing the power of politicians,
> and thus the incentive to buy favors from them.

I'm not sure what you mean here:  are politicians to be prohibited from 
campaigning (which cost money)?  And if politicians, who generally take 
the form of human beings, can't get at $$$, how can you or I?

> of animals that we are. True law	|   James A. Donald
> arbitrary power of the state.		|   jamesd@echeque.com
> 
> 

EBD