
Dear Internet: It's no Longer OK Not to Know How Congress Works - cjoh
http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/dear-internet-its-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-congress-works-
======
JonnieCache
American geeks: if you want to fix your congress using your preexisting l33t
hacker skillz rather than getting directly involved in politics (and who could
blame you,) then here is my best advice:

Force your legislature to start using version control.

* No more sneaking revisions through in the middle of the night without anyone noticing.

* Being able to do `git blame` style operations to resolve individual clauses down to individual lawmakers, then back to lobbyists.

* Simple diffing would prevent deliberate obfuscation tactics like burying provisions deep inside piles of irrelevant stuff.

* You could build a sweet github-style outward facing interface allowing the public to track the progress of bills in real time, increasing democratic awareness and participation.

* Legally mandated commit messages accompanying each change justifying and explaining it; force them to write these in simple english. This alone would spin 'em around so hard they wouldn't know what day it is.

* Use your imagination. I'm sure you can think of 100 reasons why this would be awesome.

Build it, open source it, then start your own lobbying/PR machine to _demand_
that they use it. Constantly ask for justifications as to why they are not
willing to use it, given the massive, obvious benefits it would bring. Ask
what they have to fear from the extra scrutiny and accountability it would
bring. Surely the "social media generation" can out-lobby the lobbyists? That
sounds like it should be the kind of thing we're good at.

Or just forget about that entirely and try to think of some way to decimate
the lobbying industry in the same way that hackers are destroying the content
distribution industries and all that other stuff.

~~~
klbarry
Counterpoint: There are some strong arguments that a senate operating behind
closed doors would be more effective at ignoring special interests and working
together than otherwise. The writers of the constitution did just this (they
swore secrecy of anything they talked about in the convention to avoid voter
backlash) [1]

This is why they initially wanted health care debates behind closed doors -
the lobbyists can make much more use of transparency than the uninterested
voter can. Fareed Zakaria wrote a lot about this in The Future of Freedom:
Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.

{1} [A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution by Carol
Berkin]

~~~
alex_c
The problem with that argument is that it requires voters to trust their
representatives' competence and motivations to represent their best interests
behind closed doors. That trust is in really short supply right now.

~~~
snowwrestler
I could make an argument that it is transparency itself that is helping to
erode that distrust, as each side seizes on (and/or misrepresents) details to
portray the other side as corrupt. When in fact most legislative fights are
simply translations of differences of opinion into the legislative realm.

Accusations of corruption are a common framing argument; if I can get you to
believe that my opponent is corrupting the system, I can make you believe
almost anything about the issue or their point of view. This is much harder to
do if both sides negotiate privately and then jointly present a compromise.

------
jaysonelliot
I sat and stared at that screenshot of Internet Quorum for about five minutes
with a mixture of shock and despair.

I'm a user experience designer. I started my career in the mid '90s, trying to
turn green-screen DOS applications into GUIs without letting things like
Internet Quorum be the result. I've been fighting the good fight for fifteen
years.

With that one screenshot, I felt like the whole thing had been for naught. I
literally got a chill up my spine as I sat there, thinking about the stifling,
bureaucratic, inflexible DMV mindset that led to an abomination like that, and
realizing that even at the highest levels of government, that's what it's
like.

Our entire government, from municipal planning offices up to the top levels of
the Pentagon, Congress, or even the White House, lives in this world of We've
Always Done It This Way and You'll Need The Proper Authorization For That.

I mean, I knew this all along, but somehow seeing that screenshot -
[http://www.intranetquorum.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/featu...](http://www.intranetquorum.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/feature_sheets/iq-
correspondence_0.pdf) \- it hit me in a visceral way I hadn't thought about in
a long time.

All these years in corporate and startup America put me in a world where the
need to move faster and compete has led me to believe that things had changed
since the beginning of my career. In the world I live in, they have. But I had
forgotten that in many places, things haven't changed much at all.

Of course I'm upset and fuming at the massive bloated waste that is our
government, and I wish we could just put on our Guy Fawkes masks and wipe it
clean in one easy swoop.

Clay Johnson is right, though. We need to learn how Congress works, make
better tools, get our own lobbyists to educate the dinosaurs that are there
now, and get new people into office who know more about the world we live in.

It's a daunting proposition.

~~~
untog
Am I really alone in thinking that the Internet Quorum UI isn't really _that_
bad?

Before my startup days I spent years working for the local government, and
before that for a large (formerly public) gas pipelining company. I've seen so
many horrendous Access/VBA-based frontends, or worse, Excel spreadsheets with
macros that this system doesn't seem so bad.

In a way I'm actually surprised that Congress even has system to collate all
the emails, letters, phone calls and visits into one single database. That
sounds really useful, and I'd love to hear from someone that has actually used
it.

"this world of We've Always Done It This Way and You'll Need The Proper
Authorization For That."

I don't think this is the product of "We've Always Done It This Way", it's the
result of "We Have A Strict Budget For This And User Interface Is Difficult To
Quantify". As for "You'll Need The Proper Authorization For That.", well,
that's the stuff of government. I agree that it's overly restrictive, but I
wouldn't want to see the government tip too far in the opposite direction.

I'd be all for donning a Guy Fawkes mask and changing the world if there was
even the slightest assurance that the system replacing it would be better. I
don't think there is.

~~~
JonnieCache
_> I'd be all for donning a Guy Fawkes mask and changing the world if there
was even the slightest assurance that the system replacing it would be better.
I don't think there is._

The only argument against this is a statistical one, akin to how entropy
works: One should engage in revolution only when the set of likely worse
systems is larger than the set of likely better systems. (I could probably
state this better if I knew more mathematical terminology; I suspect matrices
are involved.)

Obviously in the US you haven't reached that point. Yet.

~~~
chimeracoder
You don't really need matrix terminology - just a bit of economic theory and
an understanding of basic statistics.

Essentially, you want to measure the 'quality' of each outcome (utility), and
the likelihood of each outcome. Then, you calculate the expected utility
(which is _different_ from the utility of the expected value - you apply the
function _before_ taking the dot product, not afterwards).

I'm blanking on the TeX at the moment, but you basically take the sum of
p(i)*U(I), where p(i) is the probability of the i-th outcome occuring, and
U(I) is the utility ('benefit') associated with the i-th outcome. Utility is
unique to a monotonically increasing function, so that means the individual
values are arbitrary, as long as the relative order is preserved.

Then, see if that expected utility is better than the status quo. (Of course,
this assumes that you already have a well-defined utility function, which is
easy in theory but hard in practice).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_utility_hypothesis>

~~~
JonnieCache
Thank you for that. I cannot upvote enough. This subthread, with its heady
blend of mathematics, philosophy and violent uprising is why I keep coming
back to hacker news.

------
rasur
With respect, "The Internet" also exists beyond the borders of the United
States of America, so while we outside of the US can look on at this spectacle
with a mixture of amusement and dread, it's just a little galling to be told
to understand something we have little control over.

I'm not meaning to sound disrespectful, I'm just trying to explain this slow-
moving car-crash of a situation has effects outside of your own continent..

~~~
waqf
Funnily enough, individual Americans also have little control over Congress. I
think we're all in the same boat here (and I don't even think the article
implied otherwise).

~~~
darklajid
I think the GP refers mostly to the title.

No, the 'internet' doesn't need to learn about Congress, since the internet is
a world-wide thing. I won't learn about politics in the USA anytime soon (no
disrespect here, it's just of no interest to me and that's how I like it), but
the article addresses me too.

~~~
brycecolquitt
I personally think that the "internet" does need to learn about Congress, or
at least be aware of what is going on. ICANN controls the root DNS servers for
TLDs, and before ICANN, the US government did.

~~~
darklajid
(addressing both you and waqf, bringing up the same point: The US is in
control of some nice part of the internet infrastructure):

You are right, of course. That means that I care about a world-wide disruption
caused by (local) laws in the US. I read about those and follow the
development of these laws to a point.

The article addresses the internet first (me included) and then talks about
educating the US congress and throwing money at US lobbyists, while fixing the
US system so that it doesn't _need_ this kind of involvement anymore.

I'm sorry, but that leaves me out.

\- I cannot take part in the education of statesman overseas/abroad and doubt
that they'd listen to me

\- I certainly won't (especially on an individual level, but even corporate
that would be waaaay weird and wrong) throw money at lobbyists in another
country

\- I'm not allowed to take part in the political system in the US, so I cannot
realistically help with any systematic change

I think while you are, as I already admitted, entirely correct about the fact
that Congress might affect the whole world, the article is still wrong in
calling out to 'The Internet' to fix it. The issues have to be resolved
locally. My way of influencing it _might_ be voting for a party that wants to
wrangle for informational freedom in the EU and more independence from the US,
but that's about it.

------
TheCapn
I wrote a post about this last week saying why this sort of thought is wrong.
In summary it is basically this:

As people of power in a position to make important decisions it is their
PROFESSIONAL. ETHICAL. DUTY. to know all the facts that pertain to the
situation. At no point is it our fault to not understand their system in its
entirety but it IS their fault to be making conscious decisions that effect
people and systems they do not entirely understand.

As an engineer it boggles my mind to see someone weighing in on an issue they
haven't rightfully studied before attempting to tackle. If there is a project
I'm asked to assist on and I'm not confident I can work with my current level
of knowledge> I tell my employer and I either get reassigned or scheduled for
training. There is no faking it in my industry, why should they be allowed to
fuck everything up because they were willfully ignorant.

It goes past that though. They HAVE experts talking to them, or at least
trying. The engineers, architects and experts that practically founded the
internet have weighed in on how this is a bad idea and yet THEY'RE IGNORED!
Don't pretend like this level of ignorance and pure negligence is acceptable
for one minute because it just shows how complacent people have become with
their representatives.

/rant

~~~
scott_s
In principle, I agree with you. But that gets us nowhere. Would you prefer to
be "right" and not get what you want, or concede that this is just how things
work and get what you want?

I agree with the author of the article: we need to figure out a better way of
educating Congress. I don't know how, but their ignorance makes this obvious.
Blaming Congress for being ignorant does not get us what we want.

I'm going to assume that we (where I define "we" as those people who have
technical backgrounds and could explain the problem to someone in Congress
given the chance) have done a poor job of educating Congress on how the
internet works. With that as a given, and further assuming that we know
organizations likes the RIAA are actively lobbying Congress, the current
situation is inevitable. People in Congress are like passive journalists: they
need to have a basic understanding of a wide range of topics, but sources come
to them, instead of them going to sources. If only one side of an issue talks
to them, then they're only going to understand that side.

~~~
TheCapn
Excellent points. I never bothered to expand my thoughts beyond "why" it is
broken mostly because I'm not American and don't necessarily have a say in the
matter.

------
tomelders
Who wants to sign up as the first ever crowd funded, open source lobbyist? I'd
do it myself, but I'm not American.

I will pay you £5 though. Get another 100,000 like me and you're making a cool
£500,000 gross. Just be sure to properly document what you're doing and what
you intend to do.

I'll also give you £5 worth of slush money to grease palms and what not.

And if you meet certain objectives and milestones, I may even give you a £5
bonus at the end of the year.

Hell, I'll even give you £1 to give to every member of congress you secure,
and £2 for every president you get!! (serving presidents only).

All these numbers are in Pounds Sterling. Do the math.

~~~
mseebach
You'd also land your lobbyist in jail pretty quick. I'm fairly certain it's
more than a little illegal (on the order of treason) to accept foreign money
to influence congress.

~~~
robryan
Could you get around that though, what if foreigners could say buy an
overpriced piece of software from the group?

~~~
maeon3
You could, but don't be too successful or its off with your head when
political winds shift. Isreal has subconscious influence over this country.
You might have heard the words "holy" and Isreal in a song played in the US in
December... 50 million times and delivered as sermons in churches on every
street corner in the US.

------
ggwicz
_"I don't complain about politicians because everyone does. This politician
sucks, that politician is a fucking idiot. Yeah, we'll guess what asshole? YOU
KEEP VOTING FOR THESE MORONS! You keep arguing about democrat vs. republican,
you keep asking for things from the government, you keep on voting for the
people you complain about. You legitimize the bullshit. This is what you get
for wanting to be led like little children."_

\- George Carlin

I have this from an .mp3 I got from some weird torrent, but I haven't been
able to find it on YouTube or on iTunes. I'll try to get it up on the web if I
can...

~~~
sp332
Give <https://soundcloud.com/> a try?

~~~
ggwicz
Thanks, I'm trying to find the original clip on my computer. Lotta Carlin
audio in my iTunes...

------
illamint
You'd think that tech companies involved would have a stronger lobbying arm.
Every one of those extremely wealthy individuals that signed onto that "open
letter" to congress should be funding lobbyists in combination with Google,
ISPs, etc. and every provider out there who stands to lose from the passage of
SOPA.

Seriously, look at it. The IP lobby is spending _millions_ to buy out Congress
and we've got the billionaires and corporations that are _significantly
larger, richer and more powerful_ than the IP lobby writing fucking _letters_?

~~~
brown9-2
I think it's naïveté in a certain way, and also a belief that the power of
ideas should win out above everything else.

------
mdemare
Hear hear! Finally an article placing the blame where it belongs - on _our_
shoulders. It is naive to expect Congress to figure out what laws are best for
the nation. Instead we should be forcing the laws we want down their throats.

All that the MPAA/RIAA can offer to congress is money, but we have something
they want much more: votes. When the NRA or the AARP cough, congressmen sit up
and listen. The reason? They have millions of members.

Now what about the organization representing our interests? Pro startup, pro
contractors, pro net neutrality, anti censorship, anti patent? Why isn't there
such an organization with a million members?

We hackers are smart, we're prosperous, there's no excuse for being so damn
unorganized.

<https://www.eff.org/>

~~~
jimmyjazz14
I was about to pipe up and say the EFF until I saw the link at the end of your
comment. Seriously though everyone who works with or cares about tech should
donate (or better yet join) the EFF.

------
rickmb
Been there, done that, and guess what: they really don't want to hear from
their constituents. Period. (And this was on a local level in the Netherlands,
which I'm pretty confident is considerable more accessible and less corrupt
than US Congress.)

This is about power, holding on to it and increasing it. Nothing else.
Absolutely nothing else matters these people, no matter how nice, intelligent
and understanding they sometimes seem appear to be. Being a politician has
become a career path with no goal that has anything to do with representing
the will of the people. "Ill will or spite" doesn't come into it: it's just
business.

And the people have nothing to offer them in that respect except votes and
obedience. As long as they get both despite everything, no strategy will give
us any more access because there is simply no _need_ for them to give it to
us.

The only way this will change is if it no longer _pays_ to ignore the people.

------
gasull
This is an invitation to play the lobby game. To me it reads like "we should
bribe Congress too".

But can we do that? Large corporations will have disproportionally much more
economic power to bribe Congress. They can throw money at the problem
repeatedly until they have exactly the law they want.

If Congress cannot work, then Congress should write the laws but not vote
them. Citizens should vote the laws, like in California or Switzerland.

~~~
jaysonelliot
Have you looked at how that's worked out for California?

Thanks to ballot measures, the people of California voted to never raise their
own property taxes, and then later voted to require massive spending
initiatives in education and other places, which of course went unfunded,
because they'd voted not to pay for anything.

Now California has regular budget crises that are essentially unsolvable,
thanks to citizens voting on laws.

~~~
turtle4
Couldn't this be addressed by requiring all spending bills to have their
funding built in? ie, the bill must include what they are proposing to spend,
and where the funding will come from (tax hike). This would also help people
understand the costs of what they are voting for.

~~~
wwweston
I think it's a particularly interesting idea for citizen initiatives to have
to be in the black, but a lot of times when it comes to policy/program issues,
there's disagreement over whether or not budget figures are realistic.

Think about how hard it often is for developers to estimate the time and
effort involved in a project. Programs that involve putting together networks
of people, hard assets, and information systems are going to be just as hard
to estimate properly if not harder.

~~~
turtle4
Yeah, I see how that could be an issue. How is it handled now, though? If
government approves a project to improve [community service here] for $X, and
the project goes over, what happens? Does the contractor have to eat it? Does
government have to approve an additional extension? The project can't just run
on and on, right? Sorry, I just am not that familiar with how it all works,
which is kind of sad, I suppose.

------
jameskilton
No, we are all very aware of how Congress works. Whoever has the most money to
pay them (why it's not called a bribe, I'll never know) is the person who gets
their ideas put into law. Congress hasn't been about the needs of the people
they represent for some time now.

~~~
Sayter
If that's the case, then how does that explain SOPA? Take the two primary
backers, the MPAA and RIAA: 2010 revenue for the movie industry in the United
States was about $10B, while the 2010 revenue for the music industry was
approximately less than or equal to that figure (RIAA's FAQ suggests $7.7B in
2009). Compare that to tech companies: Apple alone had $28.57B in the _Q3_ of
this year (to say nothing of yearly revenue). Certainly revenue does not equal
profits or market share, but the point should still be made: one technology
company is arguably larger than both the movie and music industries in the
United States. If the matter were as simple as money equaling laws, then SOPA
should never have seen the light of day.

~~~
stonemetal
It is only tangentially profit related. It is directly related to money spent
on law making. RIAA understands this and spends quite a bit. Tech companies
either don't or don't care enough to play the game, so they don't spend.

~~~
Sayter
That is what I was insinuating.

~~~
zbuc
Why bother insinuating? The data tells the story well enough:

[http://maplight.org/us-
congress/bill/112-hr-3261/1019110/tot...](http://maplight.org/us-
congress/bill/112-hr-3261/1019110/total-contributions)

------
OoTheNigerian
And then the USG insists 'democracy' is the only right way for people to be
governed. The reality is, it is money, not the 'right thing' that determines
what laws are passed and how it is enfored. And who is elected to make thise
laws.

It is sad. Really.

------
beefman
No no no, a thousand times no. It is the _job_ of the Congress to understand
the things it regulates! They employ thousands of "expert" staffers and are
supposed to be drawn from among the best and brightest of the citizenry. It
may be hard to believe, but details actually matter when you're screwing
around with a $15T/yr socioeconomic machine.

------
x3c
Logical recourse requires constant vigilance and discipline. Logic requires an
environment where being illogical is detrimental to one's goals.

Take the community of Hacker News for example. Any constructive and rational
chain of thought is positively reinforced by the community and any name-
calling or irrational rant fades away into oblivion. Such environment keeps
every participant in the honest.

The environment in politics is toxic. Not just in US but in almost all
democracies. A representative, once elected, gets immersed in the political
environment. He quickly adapts to the environment because its so much easier.
When the time comes to be re-elected, they dont have to prove that they are
competent but that they're not as bad as their competitor (or that their party
is not as bad as the one they're competing against).

To effect any change, the environment needs to change. And it will not change
as long as seasoned and career politicians, cynical and jaded by the political
climate, keep getting re-elected. Obama is a good example of this phenomenon.
I'm not a from US but I closely followed the 2008 US elections. And I bought
the idea of hope. But once Obama was elected, he was submersed in the
political climate and he adapted.

So, while educating congress is a step in the right direction, as the blog
suggests; infusing new blood in politics is also crucial. Creating a healthy
environment in the Capital (not just of US, but every country) can go a long
way to affect the changes that are long way due in the political process.

------
atsaloli
<http://www.DownsizeDC.org/>

Mission: We believe the federal government has grown too centralized, too
intrusive, and too expensive. We believe in constitutional limits, smaller
government, civil liberties, federalism, and low taxes. We want to end laws
and programs that don't work, cause harm, and violate the Constitution. We
want to restore the full force of the 9th and 10th amendments, which reserve
most social functions to the people and the states.

Technology:

Our proprietary “Educate the Powerful System”SM (EPS) is not sending an email
on your behalf. Usually, our system fills out the web forms located at the
Congressperson's website. Our system gives your letter a more personalized
feel — even increases the odds that it will be read.

(I copied the above from their website.)

So - you fill out a simple web form, personalize with your comments if you
like, and DownsizeDC will deliver it to all your Senate and House
representatives using their own Congressional web sites and web forms. All you
have to provide is your address and DownsizeDC will figure out who your reps
are.

It makes it much easier for public to communicate with their representatives,
which allows for the communication to occur more frequently and in greater
volume.

This is a cool hack and I use it several times a week every week to express my
disapproval of the erosion of civil liberties in the USA attendant to the War
on Terror.

------
SoftwareMaven
I am reminded of the way the media handled the vaccination scare: they always
had both sides represented, even though one side was rational science and the
other was misguided if not openly fraudulant. I saw a lot of complaining on
the Internet about journalists giving equal footing to "crazy" viewpoints. Of
course we don't want that, either in journalists or legislators.

The question is how to determine what is the "rational" view and what is the
"crazy" view. If we can address that in some way, we may be closer to a
solution.

In government, it seems like following the money is a good start. The deeper
the pockets of the original source of the money, the more crazy the source
seems to be. If an idea is coming in being funded by a lot of individuals, it
is probably more rational (where rationality is defined as the true will of
the people).

I agree with TFA that you have to work inside the system to change it (short
of open revolt). It reminds me of a friend who wanted to get rid of highway
billboards. His idea was simple: Raise money to buy a handful. Sell ads and
use the profits to buy other billboards. Once they control all the billboards,
take them all down.

------
JamisonM
All the freaking out about SOPA reveals something very interesting about the
technology crowd in general I think. Whatever happened to all those people who
were always crowing about how legislation would never keep up to technology?
Are there experts going in front of the committee explaining how technology
will make circumventing these restrictions seamless for end users? Or are we
admitting that this legislation has caught up and that technology and
innovation has been defeated.

Is not the way to defeat SOPA and anything remotely resembling it just to let
it become law and then kick its ass in the real world. Congress would never
take it up again once it has failed and a system put in place to ensure it can
not be regulated in the future.

~~~
snowwrestler
Along these same lines, I remember the fight over the DMCA. It's kind of funny
to see the tech industry defending it so strongly today. There was a while
there when it was probably the most hated law on the web.

------
jlind
In regards to the infographic How Our Laws Are Made[1], where does SOPA and/or
PIPA stand currently?

[1] [http://www.mikewirthart.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/05/howla...](http://www.mikewirthart.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/05/howlawsmadeWIRTH2.jpg)

------
NiceOneBrah
This illustrates the folly of big government. The politicians in congress are
not lacking intelligence, but are simply trying to do too much. It would be
impossible for these 535 men and women to each have a thorough understanding
of all the industries they attempt to regulate. Although the tech community is
up in arms over SOPA right now, how many equally bad laws have been passed
that affect other industries? The government is the entity that enables
corporations to violate the rights of the people.

------
SnowShadow
This article made me think of the cool startup <https://www.popvox.com/> They
are working to provide a two way bridge between Congress and Constituents.
They won the Social Media Tech award in the SXSW Accelerator this year and Tim
O'Reilly is a founding advisor. I think they're the kind of company that would
love help from open sourcing l33t haxxors such as yourselves.

------
zackzackzack
Where is google/facebook in all of this? They are the dictators of the
internet. Why aren't they educating the crap out of our representatives?

~~~
JamisonM
I think technology companies are sort of notorious for not being very good at
the lobbying game. MS just started getting serious about it in the late '90s
(and I think they have no dog in this particular fight) so we should expect
Google to start figuring it out in a few years and Facebook later still.

(MS's PAC was funded to the tune of $16,000 in 1995, 100x that 5 years later.)

~~~
zackzackzack
Hope five years from now is not too late.

------
charlieok
To the extent that power over the internet is in the hands of a controlling
few, we engineers haven't done a good enough job of engineering.

Sure, educating congress is a good idea. But there is a lot of room for
improvement on the engineering too. The more decentralized our creations, the
less opportunity for congress to get their grubby hands on them.

------
boredguy8
Attempting to post this link to facebook breaks it.

    
    
      http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/dear-internet-its-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-congress-works-
    

deletes the trailing hyphen and becomes

    
    
      http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/dear-internet-its-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-congress-works

~~~
ComputerGuru
Post it with a trailing slash:

    
    
         http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/dear-internet-its-no-longer-ok-to-not-know-how-congress-works-/

------
curveship
"Let's lobby for a rules change that allows our members to use the software
they want to use."

What could possibly go wrong?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controve...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_White_House_email_controversy)

------
RyanMcGreal
The big problem with this, of course, is that word "educate" which the author
encloses in quotes. The people who influence Congress "educate"
representatives not with informative presentations but with _money_ , and lots
of it.

------
praptak
This is how congress works: <http://www.thenation.com/article/how-get-our-
democracy-back>

TLDR: They do not want to be educated, their goal is to obtain money.

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ck2
_lobbyist spent a long time [...] educating members of Congress_

This is exactly, EXACTLY why lobbyists must be banned.

It's not education, it's propaganda.

The country is run by people whose knowledge is solely based on propaganda?

~~~
whyenot
It's not education, it's not propaganda, it's a legal form of bribery.

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secretwhistle
I was going to upvote this but it was at 666 points.

So I just took a screenshot and forwarded it to the more religious of our
representatives as proof that SOPA is indeed evil.

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aquanext
giant technology union. that's the only way we're ever going to have the type
of cash necessary to lobby congress to do anything.

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jderick
rootstrikers.org is trying to get money out of politics. I think that would go
a long way.

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lucian303
Congress doesn't work. That's what the Internet doesn't know.

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jhuni
tl;dr I stopped at "our democracy."

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iterationx
Dear Internet, Its called The New World Order. They're not uneducated, its a
conspiracy.

Oh, look! our Congress is sooooo dumb, they decided to do away with the Bill
of Rights on the 222nd anniversary of its signing, and declare that disagrees
with them is a terrorist and that "terrorists" can be held indefinitely
without recourse.

From childhood we are told that we are smart and politicians are stupid. But
maybe, just maybe, the average netizen is so prideful he believes that he
cannot be manipulated by a powerful combine of men, pretending to act
stupidly, but in truth acting maliciously.

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remyroy
All you need to know, is that they take your money and force you to do things
you do not want to.

~~~
pingswept
That's not an accurate summary. A better summary comes in the last paragraph
of the article:

    
    
      It's no longer acceptable for us to not take responsibility for our Congress
      anymore. If we want it to be better then throwing bums out, and replacing them
      with new bums doesn't seem to be doing the trick. Let's work instead to
     educate whomever is in Congress, and the professional class around them.

~~~
_delirium
In particular, with law enforcement, it's not as much an issue of how much
money is spent on law enforcement (though that also matters), but whether the
right things are prohibited. There are some things that few people would argue
for decriminalizing (say, driving a truck bomb into a building), but a lot
more questions past that.

