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Jon Katz wrote:
Perhaps November will be more meaningful if large numbers of Americans deliberately choose not to participate in this election, and make their reasons known, rather than shrugging and ignoring it. Perhaps then, the Beltway might really buckle a bit.

If large numbers of Americans deliberately choose not to vote, than large numbers of Americans will be completely ignored by the system. Nobody who matters reads not voting as a sign of dissent, they read it as a sign of apathy.

What they count as a vote of dissent is a vote for something other than the main candidates. The people in charge listen to large third party turnout. The third parties don't get any closer to real participation, but the major parties lean closer to the third party positions to try to coopt a vote they consider "swing". Nonvoters aren't swing voters, they are ignored.

This year, there are four third-party candidates with significant campaigns, check them out, see if you like any of them more than Al Bush and George Gore:
Ralph Nader, Green Party
Harry Browne, Libertarian Party
Pat Buchanan,, Reform Party (a good chunk of it, anyway)
John Hagelin, Natural Law Party (and the rest of the Reform Party)
The Socialist Party is also running a candidate, but I couldn't find a good link.

If you don't like the two big-party candidates, vote for one of these, any of these, I don't care who (personally, I like Nader, but I'd prefer seeing votes for Buchanan than people staying home). If you don't like these, just decide to pick whoever ends up in the last column of your ballot (the Democrats and Republicans usually vie for the first two columns in most states); or write in a vote. Just don't stay home, and don't leave the ballot blank (some states throw blank ballots out uncounted). This is the most effective way to say you are unhappy with how things are, in a language that the media and the candidates actually understand.

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A lot of people tell you not to vote for a third party because it would "waste" your vote. But, really, the waste of your vote is to vote for a more "mainstream" candidate that you don't really believe in.

Bush and Gore both seem the same to me and they both sicken me. Did you see the debates? They were even wearing the same suit!

So, please, take a look at third parties and independents out there. These people aren't so politically entrenched as the major parties, and have some very insightful ideas about what to do with our country.

Don't waste your vote.

Ralph Nader, Green Party (also endorsed by the Reform Party)
Harry Browne, Libertarian
Pat Buchanan, Reform Party (sort of)
John Hagelin, Natural Law Party (sort of)
Howard Phillips, Constitution Party

Find out which of the two-sided liars will do the least damage to our freedoms and vote for that person.

/.ers sick of the two party duopoly should vote for Hagelin. Hagelin.org for scoop. He's a Harvard educated physicist and his running mate is an internet entrepreneur.

What more can you ask for!

While I appreciate the sentiment behind the story it would be way better to vote for a qualified candidate than whine about how Gore/Bush isn't a choice.

> However it is important to explain to people that an activity used in religious ceremonies doesn't make it a religious activity when used out of context. I don't readily see how you could defend relaxation techniques as being particularly 'religious', but it would be a fun debate.

That's true, and I admit that certain forms of meditation may be benficial as relaxation techniques, or even simply for the spiritual benefits, but it's not TM the technique I take exception to so much as TM the institution, and their excesses - in this case, crackpot science.

> As for part II, what's that all about?

This part is a lot of fun. At one point I was also very excited about Hagelin and NLP because they had gathered a few neat ideas - and hey, when was the last time we had a president with a PhD? If he's the developer of the most successful Grand Unified Field Theory, even better, although I have more on this below. Also among his credentials is his position at MUM, the Maharishi University of Management - Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy.

The first connection that I made between Hagelin and TM was in the NLP platform on crime, where they claim that TM is scientifically proven to reduce stress, and claim that stress is the leading cause of crime, which are both possible. However, I'm the kind of guy that likes to hear from the opposition as well.

trancenet.org is the opposition. There is plenty to read here, but the only article immediately relevant to what I'm discussing is from Dr. Dennis Roark, who used to work for the Maharishi at MUM back when MUM was MIU. The following quote from Roark is especially interesting:

While Chairman of Physics at M.I.U., I was asked to develop a quantum theory, a unified field theory, which would incorporate consciousness in such a way as to explain the "flying" technique as non-ordinary and which would give to the subjective experience of meditation a fundamental role in physics.

Sound familiar? Is Hagelin still employed because he was a good scientist, or because he was a good lackey?

It's speculation until I actually see Hagelin's work, I admit, but the past insanities of TM are too much for me to do anything but distrust the Maharishi and his cohorts. I wouldn't advocate voting for John Travolta, a known Scientologist, either. At least not without evaluating the nature of his involvement with them - that's some code I'm going to want to look at before I run it on my country!

The Skeptic's Dictionary is another good source for this kind of thing.

> I never heard of that and would like to better understand it so I can rebuff it. (if it is rebuffable, that is...)

It certainly is rebuffable, iff you know enough about Hagelin's theory and my speculations aren't accurate.

So, they might be a little too anti-corporate for some of the more wealthy around here.

Xactly. Nader would be my choice if he wasn't so anti-wealthy. I share some Libertarian and Green ideals, but unfortunately I'm their target because I make more than 100k/yr. Funny how I'm villified by some of their supporters just for being a reasonably decent hacker...

I think that was offtopic...

But, I'll say it again:

Vote Hagelin 2000

I think he has a much better understanding and foresight necessary to handle the these heavy genetic and environmental issues better than Nader or Gore... unfortunately he lacks Gore's soft-money supporters, and Nader's teamsters unions.


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(Ha ha. Love the goth sig.)

While I agree that there should be a moratorium on genetic foods (a la bovine hormones), I don't think the best way to understand DNA is to be limited by ethical constraints. If someone wants to tinker with human zygotes in a lab, by all means do it. How else would we learn what the human genome does? The fact is, we are going to at some point HAVE to make gruesome mistakes.

Anyone: How many times you sat down and wrote a lengthy piece of code, and it compiled and run succesfully with zaero boogs? Not!!! All the planning in the world won't free us from the first pass of genetic fuckups.

We just need to stomach it and get over our naive nature to overinflate the value of life. It's just a machine, folks, a very complicated machine.

Oh yeah, although he'd probably wretch at my last comment, vote Hagelin.


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Yes! They're the ones I'm thinking of. They exist in the US too. They think their presidential candidate actually is going to win the election. Now, I'm a registered Green and like third-party candidates as much as anybody, but a president elected on a meditation platform? Hm. Interestingly, though, they seem to be playing down the meditation thing -- it's hard to find it mentioned on their site. Perhaps they realized what a bizarre idea it is.

Yes! They're the ones I'm thinking of. They exist in the US too. They think their presidential candidate actually is going to win the election. Now, I'm a registered Green and like third-party candidates as much as anybody, but a president elected on a meditation platform? Hm. Interestingly, though, they seem to be playing down the meditation thing -- it's hard to find it mentioned on their site. Perhaps they realized what a bizarre idea it is.