posted
Voting influences laws not how other people vote. I don't see how you're failing to get this distinction. Do you really think that the way I vote in my polling place mystically affects how you end up voting in your polling place? Is it through telepathy? Gravitational force?
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
If we had to choose between making all political action public including voting, and allowing all political action - including campaign contributions, political ads, lobbying, and so forth - to be anonymous, I think that I would chose the former. I am generally for more transparency in politics rather than less.
Fortunately, we don't have to make that choice. As private citizens, we can have a private vote. Our politics only become public when we hold a position strongly enough to try to change the votes of other people. This seems a good balance.
posted
Voting is completely democratic - every individual has the exact same influence in the exercise of their right to vote.
Political advocacy in the form of donations is a completely different beast. It's an attempt to influence the behavior of other people by leveraging resources which are not available to all. The inequity of this is offset, somewhat, by the caveat that resources used in this manner must be publicly disclosed so that people can try to evaluate the motives of those who are attempting to influence elections on a scale beyond their own individual vote.
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quote:However, we all know that making voting public is a crappy thing to do.
Is it your position, then, that all political speech -- including donations -- should also be private?
quote:And really, I can't believe that opponents to Proposition 8 are defending their stance with "this is how it has been done historically."
Um.... First off, I haven't spoken about the merits of the Proposition; nothing I've said here is about Prop 8 at all.
Secondly, I'm not seeking to defend the existence of the map by saying "it's what has always been done," but am rather pointing out that YOUR assertion -- that there is no difference between voting and political speech -- is one that has not historically been considered valid.
You can argue that this should not be the case, and that we should not make a distinction between political speech and voting, but it's silly to argue that this is the status quo.
Do you understand now?
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posted
katharina, you *seem* to be arguing that political donations ought not to be public. I think it could be really problematic, though, if they weren't. "Following the money" is one of the most important ways to guard against corruption and fraud.
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I do think that this kind of map is a hostile act that while I don't wish it to be illegal, it should be recognized as the hostile, sketchy, tacky act that it was.
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posted
oh OK. Well, I expect the Internet will never fail to enable people to do things that are legal, but tacky, hostile, and sketchy.
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quote:Originally posted by Jhai: Prop 8 takes center stage in the lives of the ones it affects - i.e. homosexuals in California, some of whom are wondering if their perfectly legal marriages will be invalidated because of the supporters of Prop 8. Frankly, I disagree with your stance on this matter - actually, I don't have any sympathy with it at all. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And I'm not judging if people care "enough" - I'm just saying that if you're going to express your opinion in the community, you should not be surprised if others disagree with you, potentially in ways that make your life tougher. Suck it up and take personal responsibility for your actions.
The law says that this is publicly available information. Information that is open to the public can, of course, be used by the public. I don't see how your supposed "loophole" is a loophole - you donate to Families First, you'll be known as a donor to them, and others can draw conclusions as they like regarding that donation. If you don't want them to draw certain conclusions, consider your decisions carefully. And I don't agree that the end result from something like this will be some weird shadowy "donation world" where donations are hidden away. You have to present some evidence to believe this, or else this is just a slippery slope.
...I'm really beginning to think you may be a bit too emotionally invested in this particular issue to see things objectively. I understand, it's an emotional issue. But if you take some of what you're saying outside the realm of contributors to Proposition 8, there are real, negative consequences that shouldn't be blithely dismissed because you think supporters of Proposition 8 deserve whatever they have coming.
That's what's coming across to me, anyway; I'm not a mind reader, and I acknowledge that, so please try not to blow a gasket.
I don't have an immediate study to cite, because I don't have a research foundation at my beck and call, and honestly, I'm somewhat baffled as to what search terms I could use that would even begin to offer acceptable results without a huge field of static.
But I don't really think my, ahem, hypothetical future of organization obfuscation is really all that far out there. Consider the birth of 527 organizations in the wake of campaign finance reform. If there are unwelcome negative consequences to contributing to a particular cause, people will find a way around them- and I shouldn't have to cite a study to make such an inference. Frankly, it seems less of a stretch than the envisioned violent people who are as willing to commit to serious detective work as they are to an internet search. Likewise, the information-to-static ratio becomes much higher if to examine people who supported a particular proposition you instead have to offer all the "maybes"- the proposition-8-and-pro-life group, the proposition-8-and-publically-funded-religious-education group, the proposition-8-and-anti-divorce group, and so on.
I also can't help but note that the kind of information which is now widely available about political contributors is not unlike the kind of information that used to be available only to intelligence agencies with regard to so-called "dissident groups"- civil rights groups, peace activists, and the like. And the history of said agencies' interactions with said groups is anything but pretty.
So, there's a map that has people who have made contributions to the propositon-8 campaign. How many people do you suppose compiled the data to make that map? What if there was a map of those people? Can you equally presume there is no ill intent if a web site showcases only five people?
What if it's only one?
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quote:But mostly I don't think we should care (as a society) about harms other than physical violence or extreme emotional harm.
So, does that mean we shouldn't care about the harm caused by preventing a gay couple from being legally declared married?
quote:1. The analogy is pretty horrible, for the many reasons Tom & I wrote above. 2. You have a history of making bad analogies here on Hatrack.
Well, I'd argue it would be more accurate to say I have a history of making good analogies here on Hatrack that people often claim are bad because they don't want to agree with the conclusion. This happens to pretty much anyone who makes analogies on Hatrack.
Or, to put it differently, it is like a mouse telling a cat that its unethical to harass smaller animals, and using the example of dogs chasing cats as an example. Then a fish jumps into the conversation and says how that is an apt analogy, but the cat responds that dogs chasing cats are nothing like cats chasing mice, pointing out that cats are smart and big while mice are little, fury, and tasty - making them totally different. But the mouse, while agreeing the two species are different in most ways, argues that the act of chasing each is similar in a few significant respects. The cat disagrees again and declares the mouse plainly wrong, but then a moose comes in and tells all the animals to stop fighting. Or... eh... something like that.
....
Edit: I should add that I did not make an analogy regarding the Jewish stars. My example regarding the Nazi behavior was not that it was analogous to anything. I brought it up because it illustrates a point: that you can't expect people to want to admit their beliefs to the public if the public is going to mistreat them unfairly based on those beliefs.
I'm actually not particularly "emotive" about this issue. I disagree with your assumptions on the unknown/unseen effects, you disagree with mine, and unless you can come up with some evidence, that's where we're going to stand. You're suggesting a change from the status quo, so I think that the burden of proof is on your end.
The intelligence agencies analogy is an invalid one, because in one case we have private entities without much organization (I'm talking about private entities that would plan & commit violence with these maps), and in the other case we have a government organization with plenty of firepower. They aren't analogous in a fundamental way, so you can't reason by analogy here.
Depending on how the data on donations is made available, it could just be one person with some good programming skills. I'm not sure if I'd call what the programmer doing "political activity" anymore than I would say that the writers and editors of wikipedia articles on political events and people are engaging in "political activity". Defining it so widely seems to make the term lose some of its value as a differentiator ("everything you do is political action" stuff). And right now, all I'm arguing about is political activity (or whatever kat wants to call it) - I'd have to think a fair bit more before starting a discussion of how much of our general lives belong in the public sphere.
Tres,
I never said that our society should only consider harm (in its simplest sense) in considerations of what our law should be like. In fact, I'd probably call such a system incredibly unjust.
On the second point, we'll just have to agree to disagree, I guess. And in your analogy the cat is obviously wrong. Duh.
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quote:that you can't expect people to want to admit their beliefs to the public if the public is going to mistreat them unfairly based on those beliefs
I'll go even broader than that: you can't expect people to want to admit their beliefs or deeds to the public if the public is going to mistreat them based on those beliefs or deeds.
People, in general, will go to some lengths to avoid being mistreated.
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quote:Originally posted by Jhai: I'll see that, Tom, and raise it to:
"You can't expect people to do stuff that will cause them to be mistreated."
The irony of this statement appearing in a thread about same sex marriage is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
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posted
I haven't followed all of this thread and so I may be mistaken when I say that I seem to be the only one who both opposed proposition 8 and finds this website to be ethically suspect.
I ask myself thiis question, what if the sides were reversed? What if this vote had taken place in the deep south or Utah and lost? What if a website had posted the names of all the people who had donated to the opposition campaign? What if the people who donated to the opposition campaign had become the target for hatred, vandalism and other forms of violence? What if people were claiming everyone who donated to the opposition was homosexual? What if there was evidence that people were using the data on the website to target and attack opponents of proposition 8?
If those things were true, I'd think that the website was ethically suspect and complicit in the crimes committed. I'd be asking the owners of the website to take it down since the information was being used to fuel hatred and violence.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: (1) I ask myself this question, what if the sides were reversed? (2) What if this vote had taken place in the deep south or Utah and lost? (3) What if a website had posted the names of all the people who had donated to the opposition campaign? (4) What if the people who donated to the opposition campaign had become the target for hatred, vandalism and other forms of violence? (5) What if people were claiming everyone who donated to the opposition was homosexual? (6) What if there was evidence that people were using the data on the website to target and attack opponents of proposition 8?
If those things were true, I'd think that the website was ethically suspect and complicit in the crimes committed. I'd be asking the owners of the website to take it down since the information was being used to fuel hatred and violence.
Note: numbering added by me.
The first three what-if's seem to be just setting the stage, so I'll just act as if they're setting the stage for what I'd do if I were in this hypothetical situation.
4. I'd ignore the haters, and contact the police about violence to me or my property. I would also likely take steps to help keep me & my things safe, such as keeping my dog in the downstairs portion of my house (she's a very good watchdog), putting up sensor lights, carrying my cell phone & a deterrent spray with me when I left the house, etc. If I had children, I'd do a repeat lesson on self-protection, but I doubt the situation you're describing is such that it would escalate to targeting children.
5. I'd, uh, laugh at them or ignore them. Idiots who don't know me aren't worth my mental or emotional attention.
6. I think it would be near impossible to find this sort of evidence (and there certainly isn't any evidence to suggest this in the actual case in California). If I came across evidence, I'd report it to the police and the website administrators & let them and the law figure it out.
My response would likely differ if this was taking place in another era or another nation, but it's not. Hate-crimes where there's actual violence against people (not property) on the basis of political action are now so relatively rare in the US that there's not much point in worrying about it beyond taking reasonable precautions. It makes far more sense to worry about your driving & road conditions than things like this, frankly.
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posted
Jhai, it looks like you're all about plausiable deniability. It's okay if the map provokes and aids criminal activity as long as it can't be proven.
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posted
No, I've never said that. I was just pointing out that the evidence would be very difficult to find, and so far I've not seen anyone put forth any sort of evidence to the contrary - statistical evidence, or at least analogous historical examples, not just-so stories. If you have evidence other than "well, I think it could", I'd be very interested in hearing it.
That being said, I'm really not that torn up if it "aids" criminal activity. Once you've decided that you're going to do violence, you'll get the information needed one way or another. The information is already relatively easily accessible. As I said earlier, it's like blaming google maps for making it really easy to plot a series of thefts at local jewelry stores - if google maps wasn't there the criminals would just need to go to the yellow pages and then look at a local paper map. I don't blame google maps for that - or GPS systems - or what have you - I blame the person doing the violence.
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quote:Once you've decided that you're going to do violence, you'll get the information needed one way or another.
I find this assertion highly suspect and an indication of a very poor understanding of violence and human nature. Most violent acts, particularly hate crimes, are not coldly premeditated and planned in a calculated fashion. The far more likely situation reads something like this.
A group of friends get together after work for "happy hour", but they aren't happy they are disappointed and angry about X. so they start talking about it. The more they talk the angrier they get. The angrier they get, the more they will be looking for a convenient scapegoat to hate. Eventually some one says, we should do something about it, and by "do something about it" they don't mean circulate a petition or organize a general strike -- they mean attack the scapegoat. And at that particular moment when every one is riled up (and probably drunk as well) if they can easily locate their scapegoat, violence is very likely.
But if its a matter of waiting until tomorrow morning and going to some government office or library and spending an hour searching through the records to locate the appropriate scapegoat, chances are good that calmer heads will prevail.
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posted
Right. And can you find me any cases of these sorts of hate crimes being committed in the past couple of decades on the basis of the political action of the victim and nothing else?
Obviously there's a context here - my stance would change significantly if we were talking about other sorts of information. The type of situation you describe is one that we might see with religion or, more often, race. If I was living in your hypothetical situation I would still be far more worried about my husband & I being attacked for being out together as a mixed race couple than I would be for my political stances.
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quote:Originally posted by Jhai: You're suggesting a change from the status quo, so I think that the burden of proof is on your end.
Actually, I think I've been rather clear that I don't know how I would change the status quo, having acknowledged that there are real and valuable reasons for information about political contributions to be made available. I just find that presenting the information in this form is morally questionable and potentially harmful in a variety of ways.
quote:The intelligence agencies analogy is an invalid one, because in one case we have private entities without much organization (I'm talking about private entities that would plan & commit violence with these maps), and in the other case we have a government organization with plenty of firepower. They aren't analogous in a fundamental way, so you can't reason by analogy here.
Or rather, you'd prefer not to accept reason by analogy. But there are certainly parallels. A large part of what made the actions like those of COINTELPRO possible was the array of information available to them; the ability to gather and organize said information was part of what required a large organization "with plenty of firepower" in the first place. Here and now, that information is much more readily available without the need of an extended organization to massage data.
Now what smaller, more loosely organized groups and individuals are not likely to do that larger government groups have done is infiltrate the groups they oppose in order to discredit them. But there remain plenty of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal activities that groups and individuals can do with some simple information- in relative safety and anonymity- that could make the legal act of a political contribution seem to be more harshly punished than many actual illegal actions.
Anecdotally, I say this as someone who has colleagues who have been shot at, friends who have been stalked, and intercepted a call intended for his father from an irate student trying to imply his mother had had an affair.
But more to the point, the actions of intelligence agencies more obviously point to the fact the power to harrass or harm those viewed as "enemies"- even by groups and individuals who are not inherently set to that task- is likely, sooner or later, to be used.
Or to put it another way, sometimes-often!- malicious action doesn't require an indomitable will to do harm, a clever mind, and a brilliant plan; it just requires the object of one's ire, a clear line of sight, and a rock- and as little time to think about the consequences of one's actions as possible. This seems so obvious to me that I'm truly bemused any aspect of it seems to still be on the table. Arguably, this map provides the line of sight and reduces the thinking time.
quote:Depending on how the data on donations is made available, it could just be one person with some good programming skills. I'm not sure if I'd call what the programmer doing "political activity" anymore than I would say that the writers and editors of wikipedia articles on political events and people are engaging in "political activity". Defining it so widely seems to make the term lose some of its value as a differentiator ("everything you do is political action" stuff). And right now, all I'm arguing about is political activity (or whatever kat wants to call it) - I'd have to think a fair bit more before starting a discussion of how much of our general lives belong in the public sphere.
If the person(s) responsible are employed in Information Technology, one could (and I'm sure some will) make the claim that the time they invested in this project amounted to a monetarally quantifiable contribution to a political cause.
Once the tiger is out of the cage, one doesn't get as much control of whom it bites.
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posted
If the person you're arguing with doesn't accept that the set of core features of the items being compared are similar enough for an argument dealing with that set of core features to succeed, then reasoning by analogy doesn't get you very far in a discussion. That's why it's not a very fruitful method, by and large.
I think there are enough differences between private citizens and government organizations with a mission to maintain the peace (or whatever justification they used for the actions you describe) that it's pretty silly to argue that they'll do the same sort of thing when presented with information in the same manner (and this second claim is rather dubious, given that the information each group is getting is almost certainly different in both delivery and content).
.... What political cause - specifically - would you account this person's work to? I'm confused why you think someone will make this claim, anyway...
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quote:That being said, I'm really not that torn up if it "aids" criminal activity.
That's the key, isn't it? You think the people on the map deserve what is coming to them, so you don't care if people who wish them to do violence are pointed in their direction.
That's despicable. You're the same Lisa.
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posted
Believe what you will, kat. Your inability to understand a point that is explained to you by six different posters makes me rather weary at the thought of arguing with you. It'd be like arguing with my office plant - pointless, and others would probably think less of me for engaging.
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posted
Jhai, you're taking kind of an outrageous line here.
I hate Prop 8, and think little of the people who backed it. I'm glad information about political donations is publicly available. But putting together a hit list like this is mean-spirited and asking for trouble.
There is something to the idea that people deserve what they get in this regard. I wouldn't cry many tears for white supremacists who had their houses egged because their addresses were public knowledge, and the same goes for gay-bashers. There are worse things that happen in the world than a few people being harrassed for holding contemptible ideals. But that doesn't make it OK.
And it's possible something worse than harrassment might happen. I certainly wouldn't want that on my head.
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posted
Destineer, you've clearly read nothing I've written here, if you think I'm condoning violence towards people or property. I simply don't think that saying "this thing makes it easier to commit violence" is a reason to ban a thing, or even condemn it as a "bad" thing. Cars make it easier to commit violence by running people over. Google maps make it easier to rob stores by plotting routes and giving store details like hours of operation. I don't think that this map of donators is a "hit list" of donators any more than google maps is a "hit list" of stores to rob.
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quote:I don't think that this map of donators is a "hit list" of donators any more than google maps is a "hit list" of stores to rob.
I think it's slightly more of a hitlist than that. Google maps is a general purpose tool that includes everyone and everything. This map includes only individuals and businesses that have taken a specific political action. I think it's also fair to assume that most of these people were unaware that this information would be public and would probably prefer that it not be while most businesses *want* their location to be public.
Not that I see it as much of a hitlist. I think most people will use it the way I did - to make a note of whether there was anyone that I knew or that lived close to me that supported the measure, purely out of curiosity. I already know most of my neighbors are opposed to gay marriage.
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posted
Well, seriously. How else are pro-gay marriage missionaries going to find the right doors to knock on?
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That you can't understand that your sniggering approval of the publication of a hit list is contemptible is your problem.
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posted
Now first off, I don't think that this should have happened. (That's merely my opinion.)
But, I should think that this information could influence local consumers who do, or do not wish, to support those businesses listed. A loss or gain in business could result, without any violent consequences.
By the way, I am not surprised by some of the individuals listed.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: ... I think it's also fair to assume that most of these people were unaware that this information would be public ...
Surely the decision that donation records were to be public was made quite a while before the actual campaign, no?
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posted
Personally, I would use the list to avoid doing business with those who had donated, except that there aren't any people who have donated in my area. I hardly think that's a "hit-list" use of the map. In fact, I can see no difference between using it this way and using a website that lists all the companies that have donated to X cause to avoid doing business with them.
edit: Mucus, this is a standing law for all donations, at least in California.
quote:Surely the decision that donation records were to be public was made quite a while before the actual campaign, no?
Sure, but I'm not discussing legality or what people *should* know. I was responding to the comparison with a listing of businesses on the regular Google maps application.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: I am not arguing that, scibum.
I do think that this kind of map is a hostile act that while I don't wish it to be illegal, it should be recognized as the hostile, sketchy, tacky act that it was.
I think that donating hundreds or thousands of dollars to make sure gay people can't get married is hostile, sketchy, and tacky act and I think the people who did so should have to own up to doing so.
Shame has historically been a strong, non-violent way for society to attempt to correct undesirable behavior.
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: So, what is a legitimate use for this kind of detailed map?
What is a legitimate use of the ward map of non-members that is handed out to missionaries?
Do they have such maps? I mean obviously in Taiwan such a map would be impracticable, but does anyone know of any mission where maps of that kind are distributed?
Mightycow:
quote:Shame has historically been a strong, non-violent way for society to attempt to correct undesirable behavior.
Sorta like religious households who shame their homosexual children into running away, committing suicide, or generally hating themselves?
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posted
I've seen such a map before in our ward. I don't think I've been in a ward where a ward map wasn't readily available and it seems like the obvious way to point out to the missionaries who they might want to talk to.
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posted
That's nice rhetoric, Mighty Cow, but it doesn't mean anything and since you chose to express it with my words, it looks juvenile. It's the equivelent of "I'm rubber, you're glue."
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Sorta like religious households who shame their homosexual children into running away, committing suicide, or generally hating themselves?
There have always been people who abuse means of coercion, that doesn't mean it's impossible to use it in a positive way.
People verbally abuse their children, but that doesn't make it abuse when a parent yells at her child not to run into traffic.
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posted
Also, there's a bit of a difference in how we treat children versus how we treat adults. Poor analogy overall.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: That's nice rhetoric, Mighty Cow, but it doesn't mean anything and since you chose to express it with my words, it looks juvenile. It's the equivelent of "I'm rubber, you're glue."
Actually, the reason I used your words is because I'm directly arguing against what you're saying, and making the point that your logic applies equally well to your opposition.
If it doesn't mean anything, it follows that your original statement doesn't mean anything either.
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MightyCow: You are right there are certainly positive ways to coerce. I've found shame to be one of last resort and only useful in influencing those who know better but chose to ignore what they know to be true.
Jhai: I'd ask you how an opponent of homosexuality could positively shame a stranger into changing, (assuming same-sex marriages are in fact incorrect) but it seems to me that you have already sanctioned courses of action that I think are not correct.
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