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I would love a party...

I've always been a bit attracted to the Natural Law Party, which I used to sum as being so entirely clever that they were little chance that they could get elected.

It might be the closest thing to what you're looking for.

Otherwise, I consider myself a Progressive Libertarian (essentially, a person who is fundamentally Libertarian, but, at the same time, admitting the idea that contracts are not always made in perfect circumstances, and therefore can't be always considered legitimate. That might go some way to assuage your neo-feudalism concerns (which I partially agree and partially disagree with.)

What a great idea! .. but uhm, on my ballot here in Texas, we only had 4 presidential candidates listed. Not all the candidates make it onto all of the ballots in every district. This is a fairly common struggle for third/fourth/etc parties. Getting on a ballot is a different process in several states, and many don't even qualify for the write-in status. Personally, I think it'd be great to have all the national candidates listed, and to have some similarity (or possibly something more high tech than punch cards -{mine was so small that I had doubts i did the right one, and i have better than 20/20 and it was just one column!}) across the nation.

OK, I like in Massachusetts. There's not a chance in hell my vote will tip the balance from Gore to Bush, in fact Gore is certain to win by a landslide. We might as well hand those electoral votes over right now... which is essentially what the pundits do when they count electoral votes at this point in the race.

If you're a conservative who happens to think that Bush is a complete dolt (I know many who feel this way), AND you happen to live in a state which is solidly Bush turf, what the hell do you have to lose by voting Libertarian, The Constitution Party, or The Natural Law Party? It's not like you're going to hurt Bush by not voting for him, in your state he's going to win! This gives you some freedom to vote your conscience without potentially tipping the race toward the Democrats (who are the party I would vote for if my state were up for grabs).

My point is that only a few states are still undecided... if you live in one of then maybe it makes sense to vote "strategically". But for the most of us it's pretty safe to vote our conscience... me I'll be voting Nader because that's who I like. And I don't feel the slightest concern for the outcome.

BTW: the Reform Party main page is down right now, so I didn't exclude it out of any malice (though I do think Buchanan is a fascist); I assume that's because of the Buchanan rift in the party. Speaking of that, Buchanan taking over the Reform Party has only benefited the Republicans as it's basically killed a major contender party. Wonder if Buchanan was really a poison pill for the party... I guess we'll know if Buchanan re-joins the Republicans after gutting the party and leaving the entrails asunder...

As originally chartered, the College was totally unworkable. A single vote, with the runner-up getting the VP job. That's fine when there's an obvious person everyone can get behind (old GW for the first two elections), but once the Federalist-Democrat, North-South, Industry-Agriculture, and other catfights started up, it became conspicuously absurd. The last straw was the nasty race between Jefferson and Burr -- who were supposed to be running on the same ticket. Naturally that led to some tweaking.

Hey, how many people realize that the College was a direct cause of the Civil War? In 1860, the Republicans were a brand new party, and didn't have the resources to put Electors on the ballot in every state. So they concentrated on their strong states, all of which were north of the Mason-Dixon line. But that was enough to elect Abraham Lincoln without a single southerner getting a chance to vote against him. Small wonder they decided that there was no place for them in the Union.

And here's the final absurdity. When your state chooses Bush or Gore (or Nader or Buchanan or that guy who teachs levitation), there's no guarantee that the state Electors will actually honor that choice. Oh there are legal sanctions (usually a small fine for not voting the ticket) and of course the parties try to pick the most loyal people they can. But you still see the odd wildcard voting his or her conscience instead of the ticket. This suggests some interesting possibilities, which I will not share with the more irresponsible Slashdotters!

The obvious thing is to do what most strong-executive democracies do: direct election, with a runoff if necessary. (The Vice President should be abolished, or at least elected separately. A job that exists for such blatently political purposes is as dangerous as hell.) The idea that states are sovereign entities, and thus deserve a direct role in electing the President is totally out of date. Of course, such a change would upset to many applecarts to happen anytime soon.

__________

The Reform Party convention isn't till next week, so we don't know if their candidate will be notorious thug Pat Buchanan or Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin, who's trying to get both nominations.

> 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.

> 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.

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