US elections vs democracy

Great Debates
21

It’s perfectly possible, since it’s roughly what is done over here.
Some rules about french elections :
-The amount of donation to political parties or candidates by a given company or individual is limited to a low amount. It means in particular that a particular corporation’s contribution can be really significant.

-The expenses during a political campaign (there are official dates for the beginning of the campaign) are topped. If an elected candidate has spent more that the allowed amount, his election is cancelled. Courts handle dubious case (for instance, an election has been cancelled because the leaflets had been printed for free, and the real cost of the printing would have resulted in the expenses being above the allowed limit). Books have to be kept and are controlled by magistrates.

-The expenses of a candidate or party are reimbursed if he/it get at least 5% of the votes, up to a given amount (which is lower than the maximum expense allowed)

-Political ads are forbidden at all times (whether there’s an incoming election or not) on all broadcasted medias (TVs and radios).
-During a campaign, broadcasted medias, public or private, must offer an equal time to all candidates. For instance, if a famous politician running for a local elected position is some remote place is interviewed, then the other totally unknown candidates for the same position have to be granted an equal time. Sometimes, it results in a lot of interviw of fringe candidates towards the end of the campaign in order to “fill the quotas”, since it’s very strictly controlled. I’m simplifying here, since it’s more complicated than that, it depends on the election, members of the executive can have a specific quota for political expression, etc…
-There’s an “official” campaign on public TVs and radios. During the presidential elections, each candidate is granted exactly the same time of broadcast, that he can use as he see fits (make a speech, broadcast a political clip, etc…). During other elections, it’s parties, instead of candidates which are given an '“expression time”. Parties represented in the parliament benefits from a much longer time than parties which aren’t. They also have to present a minimum number of candidates (for instance, you can’t found you own party, run for mayor in a remote village and claim an expression time on public medias).

All these laws are (obviously) intended to level the ground between candidates and to insure that their financial ressources will have only a limited influence re. their capacity to be elected.

(also, publishing the result of pools during the week preceding an election is forbidden, but the intend of this regulation is different and it became for the most part a moot point with the advent of internet).

22

I obvious ly meant ** can’t ** be really significant.

23

[QUOTE=clairobscur]
It’s perfectly possible, since it’s roughly what is done over here…

-The expenses during a political campaign (there are official dates for the beginning of the campaign) are topped. If an elected candidate has spent more that the allowed amount, his election is cancelled. QUOTE]

this is where the rubber meets the road

in america, two years after the election we make the thief give back ten percent of the pluinder in the form of a “fine”

other than this small transfer of the fruits of the crime to the “franchiser”, the election violation goes unpunished.

24

The problem with all that is that it restricts 1st amendment rights.

You can’t have both liberty and equality. Once you get to the point where you are banning people from running ads or taking polls, you’ve gone to far and I question the point of democracy.

25

Ah, now I see your misunderstanding. It costs money to run a campaign - there are travel expenses for the candidate, TV ads cost money, signs to put up in neighborhoods cost money. Campaign contributions don’t go into the pocket of a candidate, they go into the bucket of money that pays for all these expenses to run a campaign. If a candidate takes money out of that bucket for personal expenses, he goes to jail.

You look at them as bribes, but I don’t think that happens very often. Look at it the other way - I don’t give someone money because I want to influence his vote. I give him money because he’s the candidate who agrees with me, and I want to help get him elected.

26

I don’t think you get the point of democracy in the first place. The ideal is, “One person, one vote,” i.e., everyone gets an equal chance to influence who’s elected. The reality is, “One dollar, one vote.” And the folks who have most of the dollars are the owners, shareholders and managers of large corporations. Frequently, their interests are directly opposed to ordinary Americans, and guess who loses? (Hint: not the corporations.)

This is a system, all right, but I wouldn’t call it a democracy. More like a corporate oligarchy.

27

??? Do you mean that such a situation is not really democratic, or that you question the value of democratic government as such?

28

**I don’t think you get the point of democracy in the first place. The ideal is, “One person, one vote,” i.e., everyone gets an equal chance to influence who’s elected. The reality is, “One dollar, one vote.” And the folks who have most of the dollars are the owners, shareholders and managers of large corporations. Frequently, their interests are directly opposed to ordinary Americans, and guess who loses? (Hint: not the corporations.)
**

IT’s still one person, one vote. In the end, the candidate with the most votes gets elected. And although much is made of money in elections and how the candidate with the most money usually wins, there definitely seems to be some dispute about whether the chicken or the egg comes first. The examples of Steve Forbes and Ross Perot are enlightening in showing the limits of money. Howard Dean is a more recent example. In the end, the voters still decide. And notice how Kerry is more than holding his own in the polls despite a HUGE money disadvantage. And watch how as his numbers improve, more and more money flows into his campaign.

??? Do you mean that such a situation is not really democratic, or that you question the value of democratic government as such?

I see democracy as a means to an end. I think the Founders did as well. The end is liberty. The means is democracy, with certain checks and balances to prevent individual rights from the tyranny of the majority. If there are severe limits to free speech and association, I question what good democracy is if it’s supposed to protect our liberties.

29

But, as clairobscur described above, in France there are just such “limits” on “free speech” when it comes to election campaign funding. And nothing bad has come of that. However much some Americans might feel distaste for France at this point in history, I have never heard the fiercest Francophobe deny that France is a genuinely democratic republic with a very high level of respect for individual rights.

Furthermore, in theory, the purpose of democracy is not to protect individual liberties, it is to force the state to carry out the collective will of the people. Somebody, I forget who, pointed out that democracy is not based on the assumption that the people know what is good for them; it is based on the assumption that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and bad.

30

Correct as usual. However, what then is the purpose of the state? Is it not to protect the populace’s liberties?

“*We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. *”

Nothing about doing whatever the people want whenever. While the purpose of a democracy is to ensure the the government derives its power from the people, this does not imply that the people’s whims whatever they are should be followed in all cases.

31

That’s, of course, if you accept the legitimacy of lavish election campaigns. If, as outlined in the French example above, candidates were given equal, limited resources, much of that money could be put to better use.

32

France has laws that limit free speech that are much stricter than ours. Whether anything bad happens as a result of these laws isn’t particularly relevant to me. They are bad in and of themselves. YOu can go to jail for insulting the President, the flag, or the national anthem, for example. Freedom House has rated France a 1,2 for most of the existance of that organization, whereas the US and most other Western countries gets a 1,1, the best possible score for freedom.

As to the purpose of democracy, in the US at least, the Founders clearly set things up to guarantee individual liberties, not democracy per se, except inasmuch as democracy protected individual liberties. For example, we can’t outlaw abortion, we can’t repeal laws against unlawful search and seizure, we can’t establish a state religion, you know the deal, we can’t do a lot of things. And that’s GOOD.

In a true democracy, there is theoretically no limit on the power of the government or the majority that runs it. Theoretically, that would lead to just about everything 51% of the people disapprove of being outlawed. Which is why almost every democratic nation has at least some limits on government power. And the ones that don’t tend to go backwards every so often as an elected government with no real checks on its power takes actions that violate minority rights.

So I think it’s pretty much beyond dispute that democracy is a means to an end, the end being protecting individual liberties.

33

AFAIK, it’s not specifically a french thing. I believe the issue is handled in a very similar way in Germany, for instance.
The input of other european posters would be needed…

34

Adaher, freedom of speech seems to be the main reason you give for not limiting US election campaigns but the French model - whereby each candidate is given equal time, platforms etc - seems to me to protect that freedom more so than in the US, as everyone gets the same opportunity to be heard.
The US system gives the richer candidates the freedom to shout down those with less of a warchest.
Freedom to speak is, in an electioneering situation, useless without the freedom to be heard.

35

Once again we run into liberty vs. equality. And one of the funny things about liberty vs. equality is that when you limit liberty in the pursuit of equality you end up with neither.
I’ve never understood the concept of taking away people’s rights in order to level the playing field.

36

Assuming that you’re right (I would have to think about it more than I’m willing to in order to decide whether you are or not IMO), you necessarily must implement your means to achieve your end. So, you can’t really keep them apart as if they were separate issues.

I often expose the french stance on various issues here, though I don’t necessarily agree with it. But I definitely agree with this one. I absolutely wouldn’t want the american system so be implemented here, because it appears to me have a ploutocratic bias.

IMO, for democracy to work propely, the citizens have to be able to make an informed choice. And if the information they receive is massively geared in favor of one or a couple candidates, they won’t be able to make such an informed choice. If, at the other end of the scale, information about some candidates is difficult to access to, they won’t vote for the person which would have represented them the best. It’s possibly more important in the french multi-party system than in the american bipartisan system, though.
Principles (in this case, the freedom of speech) are fine and dandy. But they’re never absolutes. Their practical consequences in the real world must be taken into account. And if such a consequence is flawing the democratic process, I’ve no imuch issue with limiting this freedom. The freedom to broadcast political ads on TV doesn’t seem to me to be an important enough issue to be worth the cost of a poorly informed electorate which won’t vote for the candidate which would have represented them the best. The freedom to give plenty of money to a party isn’t worth the risk of electing a candidate who will have a vested interest in implementing policies favoring some individuals or corporations. Whatever could be the principles behind allowing a major TV channel to broadcast a non-stop propaganda favoring

Under the reign of Napoleon III, elections were held. One of the features of these was the existence of an “official” candidate, benefitting from various advantages. For instances large posters calling to vote for this candidate would be affixed in every village. It’s not difficult to perceive why it flawed the electoral process. Whatever could be the principles behind allowing a major TV channel to broadcast non-stop propaganda favoring a candidate and denigrating another, the real consequences are similar. And actually probably worse, given the influence of these medias in modern times. In practice, in the real world, this result in a massive advantage for candidates representing the best the interests of the TV station stockholders, which are a very limited, and definitely not representative segment of the population. Even if the TV station is relatively neutral, it will have an incentive (audience) to favor the well known candidates and ignore the others.

You can choose to ignore the influence the broadcasted medias have on the result of the elections on the base of general principles, but it amount IMO to ignore the reality. A candidate backed by a major TV channel is much more advantaged than an “official candidate” under Napoleon III. There’s a tremendous advantage in being supported by media owners rather than by homeless people. It gives to these people (media owners) an enormous power to influence the result of the election, a reality which IMO can’t be ignored. So, leveling the ground by limiting the ability some people have to influence the election’s result isn’t an issue for me.

Similarily, I’ve no issue with the government funding electoral expenses, be it by sending a mail including leaflets presenting the platform of the candidates before the election (a feature I forgot to mention in my previous post), reimbursing part of their expenses or giving them airtime on the public medias. T allows not well-known candidates to expose their ideas and it allows the voters to be informed about the choices which are presented to them.
To sum up, my opinion is that general principles are good , but reality is better. Being theorically able to run for presidency when you’re a bump rather than a billionaire is good, but actually having a shot at it when you’re the bump is better.
The most persistant candidate in the french presidential elections during the last 30 years (she ran in each of them) is a low-paid postal worker representing a tiny leftist party. And she gets a non-insignificant part of the votes, which means that voters do agree with her stance and believe she’s the most able to represent them. As much as I dislike her, I can only approve a system which allows her (or her party during other elections) to run for presidency in practice and not merely in theory and the electors to be aware, in practice and not merely in theory, of her platform.

37

Though this idea (or at least variants of it) is very obviously widespread in the US, it’s merely rethorics. The reverse : when you limit equality in the pursuit of liberty you end up with neither is as much true.

38

Though this idea (or at least variants of it) is very obviously widespread in the US, it’s merely rethorics. The reverse : when you limit equality in the pursuit of liberty you end up with neither is exactly

Because if you don’t level to some extent the playing field, the people on the higher ground will eventually take away other people’s rights, simply because they have the means to do so. That’s human nature and reality.

A balance has to be achieved. Absolutes are pleasant in the realm of ideas, but never work in the real world.