Author Topic: Publicly financed elections?  (Read 6487 times)

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sirs

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Re: Publicly financed elections?
« Reply #30 on: February 10, 2007, 04:26:47 PM »
I think someone's handle who starts with a Br, has "thrown their hands up and called it a day", on this topic        ;)
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Plane

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Re: Publicly financed elections?
« Reply #31 on: February 10, 2007, 05:12:15 PM »
A civil servant (like me) could be given the job of determining what an even division of media assets amounted to.

OK, let's run with that.  Let's say Plane has been given the position of Chief CMW; Campaign Media Watchdog.  What would be your responsibilities?  How would you determine when a news outlet or mainstream media source was overtly skewing their campaign coverage in 1 direction, and more importantly, how would you enforce "balance and fairness"?  Would their be some sort of incentive provided to facilitate balance?  Quota system, perhaps?


As a good civil servant my first cocnern would be to CYA.
Secondly to please my higher ups , advancing my career.

I think someone's handle who starts with a Br, has "thrown their hands up and called it a day", on this topic        ;)


Yes ,but I mean it,
a good civil servant follows the rules , as nearly as he can he must know the letter of the law and apply it with little variance.

An administrator who uses his discretion to the point at which he is making up his own rules within his fief is a bad civil servant .

Unfortunately this is not rare and great power to make law is invested in people most of us hardly know.

New rules, new agencys , ought to be created with caution for this reason , the very next administration may be opposite to your idea of progress and can appoint a little Napoleon.

sirs

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Re: Publicly financed elections?
« Reply #32 on: February 10, 2007, 05:30:30 PM »
I think someone's handle who starts with a Br, has "thrown their hands up and called it a day", on this topic        ;)

Yes ,but I mean it, a good civil servant follows the rules , as nearly as he can he must know the letter of the law and apply it with little variance.  An administrator who uses his discretion to the point at which he is making up his own rules within his fief is a bad civil servant .  Unfortunately this is not rare and great power to make law is invested in people most of us hardly know.

New rules, new agencys , ought to be created with caution for this reason , the very next administration may be opposite to your idea of progress and can appoint a little Napoleon.


Oh aboslutely.  Honestly, I don't think anything could be done to address the core problem as I see it, leading to the only other viable alternative, complete 100% disclosure of who gets how much and from whom.  Press can continue with their 1st amendment bias, but at least the people, via the internet & other media outlets, can track if there's any obvious quid-pro-quo going on, and vote them sorry arses right out
« Last Edit: February 10, 2007, 05:48:19 PM by sirs »
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Plane

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Re: Publicly financed elections?
« Reply #33 on: February 10, 2007, 05:34:39 PM »
I think someone's handle who starts with a Br, has "thrown their hands up and called it a day", on this topic        ;)


On the other hand , I do not want to quash other discussion just becuse I think that the government would do a bad job of regulateing its own feeding , it might still be worthwhile to figure out what the ideal situation would be before figureing out how to acheve it , or prevent its misuse.

Plane

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Re: Publicly financed elections?
« Reply #34 on: February 10, 2007, 05:36:44 PM »
I think someone's handle who starts with a Br, has "thrown their hands up and called it a day", on this topic        ;)

Yes ,but I mean it, a good civil servant follows the rules , as nearly as he can he must know the letter of the law and apply it with little variance.  An administrator who uses his discretion to the point at which he is making up his own rules within his fief is a bad civil servant .  Unfortunately this is not rare and great power to make law is invested in people most of us hardly know.

New rules, new agencys , ought to be created with caution for this reason , the very next administration may be opposite to your idea of progress and can appoint a little Napoleon.


Oh aboslutely.  Honestly, I don't think anything could be done to address the core problem as I see it, leading to the only other viable alternative, complete 100% disclosure of who gets how much and from whom.  Press can continue with their 1st amendment bias, but at least the people, via the internet & other media outlets, can track if their's any obvious quid-pro-quo going on, and vote them sorry arses right out
[/quote]


The internet is increaseingly pervaseive, is it dependable enough to produce the openess that we all seem to want?