There isn't any "should be" in politics. It IS a contact sport. Always has been.

I am, at this time, unsure if votes actually are more important than money. They are supposed to be, and in theory they are. The law says they are.

But, the reality of how things play out is very seriously questionable at best.

The secret vote assures every voter is free to vote their conscience, free of coercion, discrimination, etc...

Right now, we've got Gerrymandering, attacks on the Voting Rights Act, and lots of other efforts to basically cut down on the number of voters voting! It's a simple, "we don't like those other people" kind of dynamic doing us no real good.

Public votes, say against large corporations, would lead to people failing job searches quite often, would it not?

Public votes might result in things like, North Korea having an election that went 100 percent for the supreme leader. Who would dissent?

On a basic level, making the vote public would discourage voting and increase discrimination.

I can't see a reason to hold someone accountable for voting their best interests, can you?

I can totally see people wanting to punish and or reward people for votes they don't like, or do like.

But that isn't what voting is for! Voting is where the "free" comes from in "free" society. If we are controlled or very significantly pressured to vote in ways the power likes, does that not only serve the power?

Of course it does, which is why we don't do it.

Speech is different. It's the debate, and it's about settling lots of issues that law really does not cover well.

We can't, for example, make a reasonable, "don't be an asshole" type of law. But we can hold assholes accountable through speech in the hopes that they will reconsider being assholes, though they don't really have to do that.

That's also where the "free" in free society comes from.

So, then what about the freedom of those with lots of money?

The "money is speech" and "corporations are people" proponents are basically erecting shields and proxies through which they can do things that impact a lot of people without those people knowing who did it to them.

That's not OK.

Worse, we can't really vote out people with money. They tend to own things and when they own them, they tend to exert control over them, and that impacts us.

If we elect a bad leader, we can debate that, vote and try again.

The key here is we know who holds the power.

When it's anonymous money and proxies, we don't know anything really. Our elections, law, lives could be impacted by some hater from the other side of the world, who just happens to prefer nordic women to black women, for example. A silly one, but I don't want to offend anyone here.

With power comes some responsibility and accountability, otherwise, it's just raw power and greed.

That's not OK either.

Disclosure would at least bring some personal responsibility to everyone in politics, not just those who lack the means to hide it from everyone.

I would much prefer we fund elections with public money, require disclosure on political spending, and vote our best interests however we see them after processing all of that.

But, it may just be enough to require disclosure. If somebody spends a few hundred million large on gay or minority or woman hostile advocacy, all of those people impacted can and should respond in like kind. This is going to limit the kinds of things people spend on, and those limits are appropriate checks on what is otherwise a lot of raw power.

In the same vein, someone dropping a few hundred million large on STEM policy advocacy to make the nation compete better, all of those people impacted need to respond in like kind too. It may be a good response, or maybe the STEM advocacy is harmful somehow. Whatever the case.

The major difference is money being used to lead people, set policy, do advocacy, etc...

Proponents of Citizens United made a basic market of ideas and freedom argument. Great! That's what they got too, and we've seen it play out for a while now.

Many of us are not impressed with the outcome. How do we hold these anonymous forces acting through multiple corporate proxies to account for their negative influence on how we live, work, play, love?

Vote to require disclosure.

That's a great first step, and a step of that nature is precisely why we can't have a public vote.

Say we vote it, and it fails by just a little tiny bit. What would be the response of those who want to continue acting anonymously through proxies?

Target the shit out of those anti voters. Why not? They have the bucks, they have the shield, and they get to speak without ever being spoken to, just like kings, lords and nobility of the old world we left to form this nation!