Domain: cagreens.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to cagreens.org.
Comments · 6
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Re:expect nothing less from the Nasty Party
Not quite. The Green parties started out back in the 1970s with an initial focus of environmentalism, but rapidly expanded to include other issues. As Wikipedia explains,
"Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy.
...In addition to democracy and ecological issues, green politics is concerned with civil liberties, social justice, nonviolence and tends to support social progressivism. ...as the 'Green' ideology expanded, there also came into separate existence green movements on the political right in the form of green conservatism and eco-capitalism."The US branch in California does a much better job than the UK Green site does of showing the key values that the parties share by phrasing the goals like questions. A few from the site:
How can we
... encourage people to commit themselves to lifestyles that promote their own health? ... ensure that representatives will be fully accountable to the people who elected them? ... have a decentralized, democratic society with our political, economic and social institutions locating power on the smallest scale (closest to home) that is efficient and practical? ... restrict the size and concentrated power of corporations without discouraging superior efficiency or technological innovation? ... induce our government and other institutions to practice fiscal responsibility? ... reclaim our country's finest shared ideals: the dignity of the individual, democratic participation, and liberty and justice for all? ... induce people and institutions to think in terms of the long range future, and not just in terms of their short range selfish interest?I don't know which issues the UK Greens are prioritizing, but aside from regional issues, the different groups do tend to be very alike, and I know that the ideals here were pretty similar to the above when I first voted in 1995, so they've been beyond environmentalism for a long time.
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Re:Drunk wisdom
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True Cost of Property RightsExtending the principle of true cost pricing to maintaining the social construct of property rights, one can see that the taxation of anything but property rights themselves is an inappropriate basis for government as the only fundmental job of government, outside of defending life and limb, is protection of property rights. While one can make an argument for taxing right to life and limb as well it is more difficult due to the determination that slavery, and hence ownership of human capital, is not consistent with the social construct of property rights.
It's ironic that the only asset the Feds charge a protection fee for is patent maintanence. If there were one asset that should be exempt from such protection fees it is inventor-owned/assigned patents since by putting capital in the hands of the inventors themselves you are far more likely to create the sort of society that can sustain other sorts of ownership rights.
What we do instead is subsidize the protection of property rights of acquisitors -- with the dire consequences now observable in the technology creation field.
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Re:Where are Nader, Cobb, Peroutka and Badnarik?
Yeah, it's a shame . . . but if you're interested there's a nice video of the Badnarik-Cobb debate in New York here (top link.) Imagine if Kerry and Bush were held to that level of discourse . . .
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Re:Yeah, set him straight!
The only "voter intent" issue that I find absolutely compelling is where somebody filled in a bubble and also wrote in the same candidate. I have not seen any source that has asserted that there were enough of those specifically to throw it to Gore.
Washington Post, 2001 as cited in the green party page I linked to earlier. Look for the illustration on the left with clear voter intent for Gore, and read the text to the right, including "Gore would have had a net gain of 662 votes, enough to win"
Thus we don't have to figure out how to recount the butterfly ballot, or give the thousands of illegally denied voters another chance at the ballot box, or disqualify the illegally accepted absentee ballots. Just count the clear, obvious votes and Gore wins.
Sure, democracy isn't perfect. Nonetheless, I don't see why the Bush camp resists it so strongly.
No, I wasn't implying that the buttefly ballot was deliberately rigged. I was merely answering your "you deserve your vote to be randomized" comment by pointing out the lopsidedness of the randomizer.
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Yeah, set him straight!
ended up having a president appointed by a panel of judges
Yeah, set him straight! I'm sick and tired of people blaming the whole panel. It was actually just five of the nine judges who appointed our current president when they overstepped their jurisdiction by making a decision about state law. They contradicted the Florida supreme court decision that called for a recount. Facts show that such a recount would have put Gore in office. But please, don't blame the whole panel.
This is a bald-faced "Urban Myth" go back and review the facts