• Dave@lemmy.nzM
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    4 days ago

    He makes a lot of good points. I seem to recall having discussions here on Lemmy about some of these, but the details are lost in my memory.

    For the proposal to require registration of lobbying and limit individual donations - why do we allow companies to lobby at all?

    • stellargmite@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Indeed. Might be worth mentioning Lobbying is not limited to corporations of course, but special interest groups, advocacy etc. No fear for those groups having their work on public record along with the corpos and who they met with, assuming nothing nefarious is going on. The more out in the open the better.

      I’m a fan of more civics education as well.

      • Dave@lemmy.nzM
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        4 days ago

        Yeah, I think the most well known group is probably the Taxpayers Union, which allows people to donate to right wing parties without their name on the record. Over the years my opinion has been growing in the direction of banning all political donations and bumping up the public money given to political parties. The devil is in the detail but it seems better than allowing companies to donate millions.

        I’m a fan of more civics education as well.

        Yes, I like this idea as well. The proposal was clear this is about how the government system works, rather than about individual political parties, which I think is a good thing. I’ve got to be honest, I’ve read about our three branches of government time and time again and yet I still have to look it up each time it’s mentioned - and it’s not even complicated 😆

        These items are a nice proposal, but unfortunately it’s not anyone with the power to change things. Hopefully the various items will get picked up by future governments.