[45547] in Cypherpunks
Re: Political Cleanup program
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jim bell)
Sun Dec 17 23:17:12 1995
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 19:50:04 -0800
To: Mike Ingle <inglem@adnetsol.com>
From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
Well, I don't consider these two ideas mutually exclusive. As I pointed out
to Detweiler (under his alias "Nuri") I'm happy to see the politicians
tortured before they are killed.
At 02:48 PM 12/17/95 -0800, you wrote:
>Good ideas, but you're getting soft. I liked the death lotto much better.
>
> Mike
>
>> Politics is traditionally corrupt, it appears, because donors to politicians
>> and political campaigns expect a quid pro quo for their donations. Various
>> unsatisfactory solutions include campaign spending limits, etc.
>>
>> It occurs to me that it would be a major advance if a system could be set up
>> that would "blind" campaign donations as to their source: The donor could
>> be satisfied that his donation gets to the candidate or cause, but the
>> candidate couldn't know who actually paid the money (and the donor would be
>> unable to prove that he made a donation, for example). Admittedly there are
>> a lot of details that need to be worked out, but if this could be
>> accomplished it would change politics as we know it.
>
>
