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Politics : Libertarian Discussion Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tonto who wrote (5846)	1/13/2005 11:02:10 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13060

Not necessarily. Often people and organizations on opposite sides of the issue give to the same politician or esp. party. Mostly they buy access and consideration not policy. And when contributions are specific to a politicians with particular ideas or ideologies, it is more often a matter of the contributor finding someone they agree with, who also has a decent shot and trying to help them win office then it is a case of the contributor finding someone they can buy. Also excessive regulation tends to drive contributions toward loopholes. If you close the loopholes they will probably find others, if you close just about everything it will drive it underground where there is less transparency and the contribution amounting to a bribe is more likely. Also to really close everything that could be considered a loophole you are probably bordering on totalitarian restrictions. Even if the situation was as you describe it I wouldn't support most campaign finance laws or ideas for laws. In addition to being statist, and sometimes unconstitutional they are often ineffective at meeting their stated aims, in some cases even counterproductive. If you somehow do prevent people from contributing to candidates they contribute to independent political groups who support or oppose one or more of the candidates. If you outlaw groups like Moveon or the Swiftvets then you are pretty much stomping all over the 1st amendment and political freedom. I'd think I might rather have politicians be openly bribed. Tim