Saturday, March 14th at 11:30 AM
Presenter: Lawrence Lessig – Stanford Law School
(Lessig is a great speaker, but hard to keep up with when taking notes. You can view his presentation and slides here: http://blip.tv/file/1889038)
Trust
lonely planet – reliable guide – don’t accept money/discounts for coverage. Money doesn’t make what they say false, just breeds mistrust.
Wikipedia does NOT accept ads. They leave much money on the table. They care how they look and have trust – money doesn’t make what they say false, just breeds mistrust
Mistrust
Ulterior motives – child vaccines – parents don’t trust health professionals. Drug paid to have negative reviews removed. This produces doubts by conceived conflicts. Many times doctors can get $$ from drug companies fueling mistrust. which hurts children.
“Classic Tobacco Science” – corrupted science. this weakens trust we have in science.
“Maxed Out” movie – credit card dept. Credit card dept cannot go away from bankruptcy. Hilary Clinton got it to go away at first – then flipped in 2001 when a senator (after getting money/donations from drug companies) $140,000. Will people trust her after they hear about the money? Even if she didn’t do anything.
Money is NOT evil. Money poisons trust because we begin to believe that decisions are potentially made for some other reason.
Politicians and Doctors say it’s crazy to think that these things change their thinking on an issue (or drug).
Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act – +20 years on copyright. Does this advance public good?
Easy public policy questions are answered wrong by our government.
Why?
Are they guided by something other than reason?
Dependencies erode trust. Founding fathers wanted INdependence. Congress has always had corruption issues. Bribery was ok until 1853.
It isn’t the same today. Now is “good souls corruption.”
Money buys results in Congress – nobody is stealing or cheating or bribing, but our faith is still destroyed in this institution. Money secures tenure – reelection. What they do isn’t guided by what it does to their constituents but rather how it hurts/helps the money they raise for reelection.
Congress is a farm league for K street. Business model of DC is work for 4-5 years then spin out to K street as a lobbyist.
The problem is not big government or deregulation – the problem is loss of trust. Last year only 9% thought congress has done or is doing a good job. Now only 18% think this. We can’t/won’t trust this institution.
How do we change this dependency? Restore trust and remove the improper dependencies. Make sure decisions are being made for the right reasons.
ONLY way to do this is to citizens funding of the nations elections. Congress can only get money from citizens directly (capped at 1-200/person). Or only from a central location.
Strike 4 Change (strike4change.org). Demonstrate how much candidates are losing from donations not coming in now. We have to change how congress is funded.
This is just the first problem, the dependency is the first problem. It may not be the most important problem, but his needs to be solved first. Something needs to be done to solve this problem – WE need to do something. We can afford to do something about this.
Panel Podcast (mp3)