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whitemary | 2 years ago

>I know exactly why we don’t have such an amendment.

Why?

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weaksauce|2 years ago

are you kidding? it's because the monied interests almost never have to deal with negative externalities and the cleanup of direct negatives because they are the ones that pay the people voted into power with that money to make the laws that could do such a thing. california is about as progressive as it comes in that regard but even then the machine of progress inches.

look at the pg&e dixie fire that had a cost of well over 1 billion dollars (1000 million dollars) and they got fined 55 million dollars so they could avoid criminal charges.

hedora|2 years ago

In fairness, the corruption that led to PG&E accidentally burning down a city every few years occurred back in the 70’s, so those people are retired / dead, and the statute of limitations applies.

We don’t know how many people their current blatant and widespread corruption will kill, so I guess we’ll need to wait and see, then prosecute the responsible parties in 50 years.

abakker|2 years ago

Because the people making money from not having it can afford lobbyists to prevent having it.

See: regulatory capture.

Also see: politics as career.

benreesman|2 years ago

Not adding much except maybe a tiny signal boost: capture.

Capture is the root of all evil in the way that various ancient/sacred texts said that “money is the root of all evil”.

President Truman was so poorly compensated by capture that they both increased the salary and created a pension because of how embarrassing it was that a President suffered personal financial hardship.

We don’t worry about that sort of thing these days.

brightball|2 years ago

Fwiw, the quote is actually “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

Essentially greed. If you really boil the root of evil down to its base, I think you’ll find pride is the true root. IMO pride is the root of greed itself too.

tedunangst|2 years ago

Because amendments are very difficult to pass. It took more than 200 years to ratify the most recent amendment.