Slashdot Mirror

• Trusts the Internet a lot more than the mainstream media. (May 2007)
• Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet). (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on increasing fines for indecent broadcasting. (Feb 2005)
• Voted YES on promoting commercial human space flight industry. (Nov 2004)
• Voted NO on banning Internet gambling by credit card. (Jun 2003)
• Voted NO on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access. (Feb 2002)

Do you know why Thompson has support? There's one, single reason:

Because he has absolutely no positions on anything whatsoever.

Yes he is, actually. OnTheIssues.org has some of his stances on Technology, including voting against net neutrality. Between that and his desire to abolish the Fed, I only have a handful of things I disagree with him on.

Lazy much? Google "cheney iraq 911":

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.c gi/4/5151 : "The vice president has asserted long-standing links between the former Iraqi president and Osama Bin Laden's Islamist militant network."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0616-01.ht m : "The Bush administration has long claimed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and cited them as one reason for last year's invasion of Iraq.
On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi dictator ``had long established ties with al-Qaida.''"

Check out a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiNtpIpD6k About 20 seconds before the end Cheney is quoted on Meet the Press talking about an alleged meeting between Iraqi intelligence and Al-Qaida 5 months before 9/11.

And finally: http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_War_+_ Peace.htm : "FACT CHECK: The Washington Post reported Oct. 6 that Cheney often "skated close to the line in ways that may have certainly left that impression on viewers," especially by repeatedly citing the possibility that hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi official, a theory disputed by the 9/11 Commission."

• He opposes the separation of Church and State, and wants a Christian USA as he panders to the religious right.
• He claimed to oppose Roe v Wade because regulating abortion isn't an enumerated federal power. Yet, he has no problem seizing that power to ban D&X abortions. No matter how you feel about D&X, either regulating abortion is a federal power or it isn't. He doesn't care, he just wants to fight abortion however he can.

McCain won't win the Republican primary. He's too soft on the vital topics of torture and deporting Mexicans to rally the ever-important base, so I'm sorry to say that I don't think we'll ever have the joy of seeing Ballmer throwing a chair at Wan Gang.

Unless, of course, somebody gets busy in GIMP.

Wow, really? I thought he was a big supporter of the poor.

If he's out there killing poor people, I better not vote for the guy after all.

• (1) He opposes the separation of church and state and wants a Christian America, he says as he panders to the religious right.
• (2) While he claims that abortion is not a federal matter and thus should be left to the states, he had absolutely no problem seizing the power to Federally outlaw D&X abortions. No matter how you feel about D&X, this is not intellectually honest - either this is a Federal realm or it isn't.

In 1996, gay marriage was nowhere near as widely accepted as it is today. DOMA passed by 85-14 in the senate[1] and 342-67 in the house[2]. President Clinton -- a Democrat -- signed the bill into law.

As Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson has been a strong supporter of gay rights. He expanded New Mexico's civil rights laws to include sexual orientation, he extended health care benefits to same-sex partners of state employees, and he's on the record for supporting civil unions and gays in the military. In fact, he stopped DOMA-like legislation in NM by threatening to veto it.[3]

As for flag burning, Google turned up nothing about his position on this. Would you care to cite a source? I agree that a ban on flag burning would be ridiculous, but I also think it's pretty irrelevant to the big picture. Richardson's positions on Iraq, energy, foreign policy, trade, education, etc. are all dead-on and his record proves he can get things done. His ability and willingness to engage in diplomacy even with our enemies -- and his experience in doing just that -- is exactly what we need right now. Besides, flag burning has been affirmed as a constitutional right, and an amendment would obviously never be passed, much less ratified.

Meanwhile, other politicians won't even tell us their policies. Compare the "issues" section of Richardson's site with Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's. Notice how Richardson's site is full of specific action items whereas Obama's and Hillary's are full of wishy-washy "This is bad, but I can fix it. Really I can." statements.

Ron Paul:
Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet). (Jun 2006)

From http://www.ontheissues.org/TX/Ron_Paul.htm?

Voted YES on vouchers for private & parochial schools.

Vote to pass a bill to allow states to use certain federal funds designated for elementary and secondary education to provide scholarships, or vouchers, to low-income families to send their children to private schools, including religious schools.

Not for anyone who values reproductive liberty.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Barack_Obama.htm

You're right, he has voted rather leftishly but I think that may have something to do with the current administrations "rightish" persuasion and general tendency to do things The Wrong Way(tm GWB).

And how comfortable would you feel having someone else, with whom you are not affiliated in any way, run a MySpace page that presumes to be you? If that happened to me you had best understand that I would consider it nothing less than identity theft and a gross invasion of privacy. And I have no doubts that my good friend Tom would help me resolve the situation.

Is the Obama MySpace incident a reason to not vote for him? Absolutely not. Is it something that could have been done better? Yes, without question. It is nowhere near the order of magnitude of say, GW's business track record, which IS relevant voting information IMHO. Speaking of relevant information for voting, this is it:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008_Speculation.htm

"It is important, especially now that Congress is evaluating the impact of the Patriot Act, that we send the message that New Mexico opposes the infringement of civil rights and liberties," said Governor Bill Richardson. "The United States can fight the war against terrorism without eroding America's precious freedoms."

But beware: while Ron Paul sometimes runs on the Libertrian ticket, he is anti-choice, scoring a 0% on NARAL's "pro-choice" scale.

Not inconsistent in the abstract with (big "L", the party) Libertarian thought, but definitely not in line with many (small "l") libertarians' thoughts.

OnTheIssues says the following about Obama's gun control position which is a lot more then just keeping firearms from criminals:

Ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.
Increase state restrictions on the purchase and possession of firearms.
Require manufacturers to provide child-safety locks with firearms.

http://www.ontheissues.org/Domestic/Barack_Obama_G un_Control.htm

• Metal detectors at school are not much of an intrusion. (Jun 1999)
• License and register all handgun sales. (Jun 2000)
• Voted YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping. (Oct 2001)
• Voted NO on require photo ID (not just signature) for voter registration. (Feb 2002)
• Voted NO on extending the PATRIOT Act's wiretap provision. (Dec 2005)
• Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. (Mar 2006)
• And of course... Pushing for privacy bill of rights. (Jun 2006)

So she supports privacy when it suits her agenda, just like everyone else in DC.

One of the top 5 issues that slashdotters are probably concerned about are globalization/free trade/offshoring. Unfortunately, her views on globalization are not too slashdot friendly http://www.ontheissues.org/International/Hillary_C linton_Free_Trade.htm. This is of course assuming that pro-free trade promotes offshoring/offsourcing while protectionism would not. Her views on globalization have been flip-flopping recently, so it will be interesting to see what side she takes when election time comes.

My personal problem with globalization are an escalating trade deficit combined with opening up free-trade to countries with questionable human rights issues-- something Hillary has supported in the past. A good video to check out would be Mardi Gras: Made in China (Caution: There are two trailer options, one is work safe, one is not, choose wisely).

OnTheIssues.org
A good read if you want to know about a candidate's standpoint.

Heh, Kerry did that and was chastized for it, Hell even Dick Cheney supported taxes on IMPORTED oil emphasis mine. But SUV drivers tend not to think all that far ahead or else they wouldn't have bought an SUV, so good luck getting a tax passed....

Yes, I do remember her health care plan, because I actually had to read the "short" 30-odd page summary when I was working at an accounting textbook company at the time.

It was not socialized medicine.

It wasn't even socialized insurance (which is what Canada has, more or less, not socialized medicine--doctors in Canada are still private practitioners.) This is a meme that was pushed by insurance companies who didn't like the fact that the proposed health care plan might have made them less money.

Essentially, it set up the idea of state (not federal) "health care alliances" that could function as co-ops to provide privately-purchased insurance to everyone, and -- here's what insurance companies really didn't like -- it would have made it illegal to deny insurance based on pre-existing conditions. But there was no national insurance company; the idea was to use the market to achieve universal health care. Its stated goal was actually to increase competition in the health care marketplace, not to replace it with a government insurance company.

It really wasn't a very good plan, as proposed. It's debatable whether it actually would have increased competition, but it'd have certainly increased both taxes and government bureaucracy, neither of which are particularly popular; even though government-run programs like Social Security and Medicare are surprisingly efficient when you compare them to their private counterparts, the particular plan envisioned managed the hat trick of being both terribly convoluted and vague about details.

However, a lot of the vitriol directed toward the plan probably wouldn't have been present if it hadn't had Hillary Clinton's name on it. It wasn't even "her" plan; she was just chair of the bipartisan committee that put it together. But both Clintons were, from very early on, the focus of a lot of hatred of political opponents, and demonizing "Hillary Care" became a key element of the 1994 Republican revolution. (I've often seen Bush supporters lament the ferocity of the attacks on him and ask, "Has there ever been a president who endured the kind of personal mudslinging and viciousness that George W. has gone through?" to which the only answer is, "Dude, were you effing comatose through the Clinton administration?")

Whether Ms. Clinton is a moderate is a subjective question; VoteMatch's political spectrum defines her as a "liberal populist"; on economic issues she's pretty left, but on social issues she's slightly tilted toward the authoritarian side. She's always been far more amenable to censorship and speech restrictions than anyone I'd identify as a liberal or a libertarian would be. And on national security, she's pretty consistently been in the "liberal hawk" camp. And yes, she gets criticized from the left on a lot of issues pretty constantly.

While you're certainly right that she moved from Arkansas to New York because it's an easier place for her to win, that doesn't make her a flaming left-wing liberal -- it makes her a calculating opportunist who recognized that New York was a much more important state politically than Arkansas is. Really, I doubt she was "too liberal" for Arkansas; she's only slightly to the left of senator Mark Pryor -- who's in turn really only slightly to the left of governor Mike Huckabee.

(In full disclosure, VoteMatch categorizes me as a "libertarian-leaning liberal," and it seems every time Ms. Clinton takes a public stand on something, I like her less.)

I dunno, I was skimming over that link and read this:

"I supported the war in Iraq and the world is much safer. (Oct 2004)"

Missing something here?

That's bizarre - it's even miscategorized as Homeland Security instead of War and Peace.

As far as I can tell (based on web searching), it's based on a mistaken identity of a quotation from the Feingold-Michels debate of 2004:

FEINGOLD: We are better off Saddam Hussein is gone, but we are not safer.

MICHELS: I supported the war in Iraq, progress is being made and putting a democracy in place will make the Middle East and the world much safer. Osama bin Laden has his troops deployed in Iraq right now.

To eliminate any remaining confusion over this error, here is another account of the debate in question.

The web site has been made aware of this error. Begin the right-wing hacker conspiracy theories!

If you're not in a swing state, vote for whoever you like.

Here's a tool to help you if you can't decide:

Presidency Match 2004 Quiz

It asks you several questions, then gives you a sorted list of candidates according to how close their likely answers match yours.

the first person I've seen who opposes abortion yet holds a consistent opinion on it.

Then check out Alan Keyes. His highly self-consistent view is why hardcore Republicans think so highly of him, and also why he can't win general elections.

Any poll or questionnaire such as this is biased. If a question is "Is it OK for the US to take unilateral action against an enemy" and 'Y' goes for Bush while 'N' goes to Kerry, then it's a biased question since neither its premises nor conclusions are accurate. This kind of stuff serves to further the Republican image of Kerry. There are, I'm sure, other questionnaires in which the situation is reversed.

Of course one could argue that it's up to the intelligence of the reader to select the 'right' option -as in, decode the media speak to recognize the position they assume matches yours the closest.

I've advocated the quiz from OnTheIssues.org previously and will do so here again. They are doing an excellent job explaining what each answer option really means.

Bah, campaign contrib info is useless, they're all crooks :)

A good, fast way to get one's bearings with the candidates is at OnTheIssues (go to Quizzes->Presidential 2004).

It's a fairly comprehensive general quiz on your preferences on common political issues, and it matches you with (and allows you to compare) the answers of the candidates (yep, even Peroutka).

The biggest bonus are the excellent explanations and background information for each question -just click on the link and there's a rundown on the issue. In some cases it's imperative to read the description to be able to pick the right choice. The only drawback is that some of the info is a bit outdated (particularly the Iraq situation), but it's still an excellent resource for the political novice.

That should give you a place to start from; once you get your bearings it'll be easier to get information. Wikipedia is a good extra resource on those issues, if one is needed.

Do you know where you stand?

Political Compass (2 Axises)

Howard Dean is a moderate dressed up like a Democrat, the NRA gave him an "A".

On the Issues - Howard Dean (scroll down to see the chart).