this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
198 points (96.7% liked)

politics

19224 readers
2998 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 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

Of course they do.

That's the central reason that bribes need to be kept out of politics (and don't feed me any of that shit about lobbying as speech - they're bribes obviously). It's not simply that it's dishonorable or dishonest to base government policy on bribes paid - much more importantly it's that allowing bribes rewards and thus selects for people who are vile, self-serving scumbags.

It's not an accident that the billionaires and the politicians are almost entirely foul pieces of shit - it's because our corrupt political system actually rewards foul pieces of shit and penalizes anyone with actual morals or integrity. It's not just that politicians can take bribes, but that they essentially have to, just to keep up with the other candidates who do. And similarly it's not that the wealthy and the corporations can pay bribes, but that they essentially have to, just to compete against the other wealthy people and corporations who do.

Allowing bribes just creates a political system that's effectively gatekept - "You have to be this corrupt to take part in this system." And the people who aren't that corrupt are locked out.

Trump is certainly the most foul, loathsome, corrupt piece of shit in this election (not that Biden isn't one too - just that Trump has achieved depths virtually unheard of, even in the cesspool of US politics). So Trump is naturally the one who's going to get the lion's share of bribes from the foul, loathsome pieces of shit who pay the most and biggest ones.

[–] Sanctus 10 points 6 months ago

And it is extremely effective. How many generations in are we on "money is free speech" before we are literally combating fascism aided by the entire machine itself? If democracy survived this election, and our country thereafter it's pillaged, we need to move with the speed of gods to fix our system.

[–] Scotty_Trees 4 points 6 months ago

Remember this simple fact: in the US we call it lobbying, but every other country calls is corruption.