>The problem is greedy lawmakers who accept brides, full stop.
Perhaps the problem is the system that makes such "bribes" legal.
Perhaps the problem is the system that makes such "bribes" legal.
Unless we want to make political donations illegal, how do you prove a donation to a politician as a bride instead of support for the politician whose politics you agree with?
One could make a claim that stuff like student loan forgiveness is unethical if it benefits those who voted for the party. Is it not illegal to use tax payer money to pay for votes? I think if any politician said, "anybody who votes for me will get a bonus in your tax refund this year" we would have no issue seeing how that is unethical.
>Unless we want to make political donations illegal
I think this is displaying dichotomous thinking. There's a lot of room between a political donation free-for-all and making political donations illegal. In between there are many proposals for a more mitigated approach. One being Lessig's idea of "Democracy Vouchers"[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic%2C_Lost#Democracy_vou...
These reforms are going to end up just changing to rules to help one side or the other. Whether or not the ideas were formulated originally with that intent, by the time they get implemented they will be bent for that intent.
Sure, and other systems would be needed to provide the necessary guardrails. At no point did I allude to the idea that one simple approach would be a panacea.