the brilliance of Colbert; the corruption of Congress

Posted on April 15, 2009 by Lessig

A brilliant piece about the absurdity of payday-loan-gate. More good soul corruption destroying the way Congress works. Yet another reason to JUST SAY NO to any candidate for Congress who doesn’t commit to citizen funded elections: Join our strike.

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21 Responses to the brilliance of Colbert; the corruption of Congress

  1. Dalila says:
    April 15, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Is there an alternative to Hulu.com? It only streams video for connections with an American IP address, so the rest of us elsewhere cannot watch this.

  2. Sean says:
    April 15, 2009 at 9:36 am

    I second the gripe about Hulu. I’d boycott them, if they weren’t already doing the hard work on that for me.

  3. michaelk42 says:
    April 15, 2009 at 9:41 am

    Also: clicking on that video, at any time, in Google reader preview for some reason launches a new link to your site. It’s exceptionally annoying.

  5. Elias K Gardner says:
    April 15, 2009 at 10:26 am

    I agree I’d love to watch this but hulu does not stream to Canada. At least post the name of the episode or something so I can search for it.

    @ thad colbert nation tells me your link is not the one im looking for (is that supposed to make me think droids?)

  6. Thad says:
    April 15, 2009 at 10:42 am

    Maybe their site is US only also.

  7. Sean says:
    April 15, 2009 at 10:53 am

    @thad, @elias Worked for me in Bratislava, Slovakia. Thanks, by the way.

  8. Elias K Gardner says:
    April 15, 2009 at 10:56 am

    OK so for Canada: http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/shows/showdetails.aspx?sid=3351
    The Colbert Report (04/14/09) Clip 1 of 4 the word start around 6:30 minutes in.

  9. Eric Martindale says:
    April 15, 2009 at 10:58 am

    You surrounded the Hulu video with an anchor tag, so every time anything on it is clicked, it annoyingly launches a new window…

  10. Joe says:
    April 16, 2009 at 6:48 am

    You just can’t trust politicians these days. Even if they start out wanting to make their communities better, they always seem to go astray somewhere.

  11. Jardinero1 says:
    April 16, 2009 at 9:39 am

    I would stop commenting on the topic if the Professor would call it “state funding” which is what it is , instead of “citizen funding” which it most certainly is not.

  12. bigyaz says:
    April 16, 2009 at 10:22 am

    Waaaah! I can’t see this *FREE* service! Waaaah! This *FREE* service opens a new window! Waaaah! I’m going to boycott this *FREE* service! Waaaah! Waaaah! Waaaah!

  13. Stephen Downes says:
    April 16, 2009 at 12:49 pm

    Please do not use Hulu. This service simply shows a big black error box to readers who are outside the United States.

  14. Steve Baba says:
    April 16, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    “call it “state funding” which is what it is , instead of “citizen funding” which it most certainly is not.”

    I think the most accurate description is “public funding, but

    Lessig has obviously been picking up on the Republican tactic of renaming things to confuse voters like estate tax to death tax and so on.

    And it’s too bad Ralph Nader went nuts and was not around to complain about these business practices instead of forming some utopian third party that only got Bush elected by splitting the vote – similar to what Lessig is doing now. I think it’s a disease of Ivy League law grads.

  15. Rick says:
    April 16, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    @Jardinero et Baba:

    If you guys have anything to offer other than “NOT”, I’m all ears.

  16. Jardinero1 says:
    April 17, 2009 at 6:45 am

    To make the case that something has to be changed, you have to state and prove two cases. One, that there is a problem, and two, that your solution will fix the problem.

    The Change Congress people, thus far, have not made the case that anything is wrong with Congress, in toto, that is a consequence of election funding. Second, how would their proposed solution, state funding of candidates, change anything about Congress? Thirty-five years of state funding of federal elections has changed nothing. Why would more of the same present a different outcome. To be fair, one should also present the possible bad effects of a change in policy; so that one can weigh the two against one another. Something which I have yet to hear.

    If one can make the case that Congress is corrupt, you have to ask, is it Congress or is it the nature of politics? The founders believed that was the nature of politics. Their solution was to limit the powers of Congress and the other branches of government. They also left it to the various states to determine how to select their senators and representatives. I like that idea and that’s what I am for.

    I think that if you don’t like the Senators and Representatives your state is sending to D.C. then you should lobby to repeal the 17th amendment and lobby your legislature to change the rules for electing representatives in your state. Don’t change the rules to elect the representative in my state.

    There are other voting schemes. I prefer cumulative voting. I had hoped that when Prof. Lessig started this campaign he might latch on to something like cumulative voting. I don’t know how such a smart man could be mesmerized by such a crappy idea as state funding of elections.

    For more on cumulative voting and its effects try Lani Guinier’s Tyranny of th Majority. Here’s a review:

    http://bostonreview.net/BR19.3/tushnet.html

    And an explanation of cumulative voting:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulative_voting

  17. Steve Baba says:
    April 17, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    “state funding of federal elections “

    I did not know the fifty states funded federal elections. OK I know what you mean but others don’t, and this is why it’s generally called “public funding of federal (presidential) elections. And you can’t prove the counterfactual that it would have been worse without public funding (except for Obama), although it ‘s true it has been far from perfect.

    It sounds as bad as Lessig saying, “Obama did not go to a citizen funded high school, and Obama does not send his children to citizen funded high schools.” Likewise Obama did not go to a citizen funded college. The term state school is for fifty state funded colleges.

    Also , no system of voting is perfect as proven by Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, which he got the Nobel prize for.

    But you miss that funding of elections is to provide voters with information that is needed regardless of whatever voting system is used. The vast majority of voting models assume this problem away, assuming the voters have full information.

    It’s an empirical question if one gets better results with taxpayers paying for information on candidates (with free speech problems if one restricts private donations) or if one gets better results letting donors pay for the information.

    Take a good political science rational choice course or economics public choice course if you are in a “citizen funded” or other school.

  18. Qiao Pei says:
    April 18, 2009 at 7:11 am

    We all have finished the job in China, we wanna be back USA, our home! Help us talk to the USA government and the China government and get us back the USA!
    Hi my friend,
    I wanna you can read all this mail, after that I hope you can help us then I will tell you the reason, and if your family has the TV set or the radio in the 1970s, you will know me better: there is a little boy who is from the USA and become the president of China in the 1970s.
    I wanna all the people and you help us back the USA.
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    1. I was the first chairman of Coca-Cola when I was not the age of 2 years old.
    2. After one year my father and my mother used all their money to build the city of Shen Zhen, we are the first investor of the city, I used the first year of Coca-Cola money to build the city of Shen Zhen too.
    I am also the Comte of USA. And the senate members of the USA.
    3. I am also the Yale University permanent independent director when this began I was not the age of 3 years old.
    And others school of professor. And I am the Yan An Ren Min University law of professor and the Yan An Ren Min University Executive Vice-Chancellor.
    4. In the 1970s, I was invited to served as the Chairman of People’s Republic of China Military Commission, at the same of I was not the age of 3 years old, I left my sister and my mother is in the USA then I went to China.
    Sino-Vietnamese war of self-defense to counter the whole conductor.
    I am also the first mayor of Shen Zhen city.
    I am also the first governor of Hai Nan province and the first Secretary, Provincial Committee of the CPC of Hai Nan province.
    I was the first Secretary, Municipal Committee of the CPC of Chong Qing city.
    5. My father was the youngest the United States Pacific Commander in the history.
    6. My father sold all his property for the Chinese to buy a seat on the United Nations.
    7. Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station in Shen Zhen City, China revised twice, the second time I had invited some experts to guide the repair and build the Daya Bay Nuclear Power station, I don’t know whether these people now return back the United States or not, or to be protected or not, or were killed.
    8. My father was the famouse embassy of Iraq of US.
    9. My father was the famouse embassy of UN in China.
    10. My mother was the World Red Cross members.
    11. I was forced to come to China again in the year of 1982, and injected forgotten pharmacy. And my body was painted yellow and my hair was turn to black.
    12. We lost all our documents in China.
    13. My father had done the surgery the President of the United States Obama, after that my father was injected forgotten pharmacy which is China and the United States signed the contract, after the operation, now the US president Obama’s parents must be divorced.
    We all have finished the job in China, we wanna be back USA, our home! Help us talk to the USA government and the China government and get us back the USA!

    14. In the 1980s, because the atomic bomb explosion in a city in the US, I come back the US and emergency appointment of a president of the United States.
    15. Many people take my things to the US and got money and even us my ID card to get the money.
    16. In the year of 2001, I was the first high school student recommended to Beijing University, but not enrolled.
    17. When I was in another school I was forced back home and no teacher like me.
    18.Before there is a magazine who taken the name of Readers Digest(US) in China, someone found my father, my father then went on talking with the Readers Digest, then the magazine now can use the name of DuZhe, but when my father went to back with them, someone push my father down the rapid car.
    19. When the government need us, they gave us antidote, when they needn’t us they injected forgotten pharmacy and force us out of work and wanna us die of hungry.
    20. I need your help.
    21. So I need you can help us back the USA.
    Thanks!
    Your sincerely,
    Qiao Pei(乔培)
    From Jiu Jiang City, China
    P.S.1.And also take my uncle, the former president of Jiang Ze Min in China, back the USA, he has finished his job in China, I mean, he has help the China economy turn to higher and steady. I am here instead of US law take the former president , my uncle, Jiang Ze Min back the USA. And his family, Help us back USA.
    P.S.2.And my aunt’s family, I mean my father’s sister and Jiang Ze Min’s sister, her husband is Mao Ze Dong, still alive. He is thin and little. Help us back USA.

    We all have finished the job in China, we wanna be back USA, our home! Help us talk to the USA government and the China government and get us back the USA!
    I have been in China for more than 27 years, I wanna be back USA. I have 27 years didn’t see my mother, she is the granddaughter of late president of Ronald Reagan.

  19. Steve Baba says:
    April 20, 2009 at 6:35 am

    Paying the press, the AP, instead of stealing from the press and suing the press on behave of pirates, would fund investigaitve reporting and reduce corruption.

  20. ByCeLL says:
    April 20, 2009 at 1:06 pm

    If one can make the case that Congress is corrupt, you have to ask, is it Congress or is it the nature of politics? The founders believed that was the nature of politics. Their solution was to limit the powers of Congress and the other branches of government. They also left it to the various states to determine how to select their senators and representatives. I like that idea and that’s what I am for.

    Ana Sayfa

  21. Martin Hool says:
    April 28, 2009 at 7:51 am

    I would stop commenting on the topic if the Professor would call it “state funding” which is what it is , instead of “citizen funding” which it most certainly is not.:)

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