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Thursday, October 16, 2008

Re: [ba-liberty] Re: Would Harland Prosecute Me For Paying Voters?

Harland Harrison wrote:

HH) You tell me "Learn to read"! Don't insult one of your voters, (HH

I'll say that to anyone, my voter or not, who shouts "what nonsense!" at
me while ignoring my clear assertions about what I actually advocate.

HH) You really want me to forgot that you advocated buying votes just
yesterday: "I'm not sure I agree with the assumption that vote-selling
-- the main theoretical problem with absentee ballots -- should be
illegal." (HH

Saying "I'm not sure I agree X should be illegal" is not the same thing
as "advocating" that X should be legal. I went on to clearly say that I
advocate legal vote-selling only where there is a secret ballot, and
specifically cited absentee ballots as not secret.

HH) you pointed out how you had already technically violated the law. (HH

False. I said I that what I did "turned out to possibly violate the
California election code", admitted only that I paid five voters for
their attention, and then asked if you would prosecute me under that law.

HH) you did not have to insult the voters and break good laws to make
your attention-getting offer. You could have announced, instead: "If
you read the Holtz platform and still don't want to donate to the
campaign, the Holtz campaign will donate $5 to you." (HH

1) My offer involved no insult to voters. 2) A law is not "good" if it
outlaws disintermediation of advertising to voters. 3) If I restricted
such an offer to voters in my district, as I did in my actual offer,
that still could possibly be prosecuted under the law. Imagine if a
billionaire made the offer, and the amount was more like $50.

HH) As a matter of legal theory, voters do represent more people than
themselves (HH

No, voters are agents of only themselves, and are under no obligations
to any third party. Even if your theory were true, then by your own
logic there would be no problem with vote-selling in a jurisdiction in
which every person happened to be a voter -- unless you're going to make
the bizarre claim that voters have obligations to each other.

HH) Your children don't vote now, and parents don't get a ballot for
each child, either. (I wrote this to you yesterday, too.) (HH

Yes, and I asked you why parents shouldn't get more voting power for
their children. I guess you don't want to talk about whether you
believe in one person, one vote.

HH) You also advocated hacking elections! (HH

Yet another false claim about what I advocate. I asked rhetorically
why hackable elections can't be seen as favoring rule by the savvy over
rule by the mob. What I actually "advocated" was "rules that give more
weight to the votes of the well-informed than to the votes of the ignorant".

HH) And you called your constituents "hordes of rent-seekers"! (HH

I talked generally about election "outcomes currently being driven by
the nanny state's hordes of rent-seekers". That statement made no
reference to "my constituents". Do you dare claim that rent-seeking
behavior by voters does not influence election outcomes in America? Or
will you just ignore this question and make up more stuff about what I
say or advocate?