Slashdot Mirror
Politics With A Slice Of Lemon
With the weekend comes many stories about the upcoming election.
First,
Herger sent us an article by Liberatarian Neal Boortz which is fairly humorous, and makes several good points, along with talking about Harry Browne.
cmpgn sent in transcripts from a panel discussion on how GWB would govern.
James Hills sent us Rolling Stone's Interview with Gore.
Yohahn sent us filmmaker Michael Moore's article after being on the road with Nader.
Finally, a few links of a more general nature:
Duncan W. McQueen sent us a page that tries to match up your beliefs to a candidate, and
LizJ sent us a site trying to be impartial and track the candidates' stance on the issues.
Still getting lopsided story submissions. We're trying to give links to several different candidates each time, but Gore and Nader are the only candidates that we're getting good submissions for. I'm voting for Quimby anyway ;)
Here's an article about how Gore's camp is pissed that the Nader vote may swing key states towards Bush.
I will vote for Nader, but I would love to read the headline "Bush Wins, Nader Blamed". I would like nothing more than to see Al's run spoiled. Why?
This election is about more than just the next four years. This will affect elections in 2004, 2008, etc. Currently, Al Gore completely ignores the important issues that Nader proposes solutions for (corporate welfare, putting congressional voting records online, etc.). Al might have gotten my vote if he had taken up Nader's issues, but apparently Al believes that he will fare better by pandering to potential Bush supporters.
Even if you believe that the duopoly will remain in power forever, we must send a message to the parties that Ralph's issues cannot be ignored. I would be happy to give the Democrats a "tough love" lesson by electing Bush if they would actually pay attention to Ralph's issues during 2004. Of course, I look forward to the day when 3rd party candidates like Ralph actually have a chance of winning based on their issues. Voting for Ralph can only help.
How can the man call himself a libertarian when he's profoundly anti-choice about abortion?
The same way he can support legalizing drug use without using cocaine or heroin.
For libertarians it's about personal freedom. Harry personally finds abortion objectionable for whatever reason but he realizes (correctly, IMO) that it's not the place of the government to regulate people's personal behavior.
note: I'm not looking to get into a flamefest over the abortion issue so don't bother.
Ahh, welfare has been cut in half. The current administration did that. Also, my taxes are now helping me pay back my college tuition, by allowing me to deduct the interest. Yes, the current administration did that, too. You see, the democrats use taxes to actually help other people. This also make for more of an incentive to contribute to society, by allowing more people to enter college, instead of sitting at home with the few extra dollars you would get back under a Bush plan. Actually, the more I think about it, the states would end up getting that money back, since these people would now have more money to buy scratch tickets!
And most amazing is, the seizure can happen without due process or conviction. There are cases of people losing their home due to small amounts of drugs, even though it never went to trial. I'm amazed there isn't more outrage at this. (This is a U.S.-centric post; I don't claim to know what is the norm elsewhere)
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
I think the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are pretty core to the Constitution.
Constitutionally Correct
Actually, Harry Browne doesn't want the Federal Government involved in the decision at all. Here is his position on abortion from his website.
And beyond the simple searches and banning of use and possession, are the proposed (and some enacted?) laws forbidding the knowledge of the creation of such substances and the linking to such information. Note that many respected journals, reference books, and texts include that information and would need to be redacted or destroyed under those laws. Sort of like the rumored Texas law prohibiting the publishing of information on home beer making, which makes the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and banned publication.
I think you have a skewed view of libertarianism. A true libertarian is one who supports personal freedom at all levels (both left and right or social and economic if you prefer). In a nutshell, the libertarian philosophy is "do whatever you want so long as you don't interfere with the rights of others."
Sure, anybody can call themself a libertarian but that doesn't mean they are a libertarian. The same could be said of any party though.
After having listened to Boortz periodically over the last 5 years (I catch him in the car when I can) I can say he doesn't buy into conspiracy theories. He does support the notion that the general media has a left (i.e. democratic party) slant and to me that seems self evident.
On the other hand, there seems to be only two economic plans: get rid of as many government services as posible and the taxes that pay for them and give the people all the choices, or provide services to everyone with a big security net. On the one hand you have the Democrats and Reform, and the other, Republican, Constitution, Green, etc.
What about something in-between that redistributes the wealth with taxes and still meets the _basic_ needs of everyone, like healthcare and food and shelter? Don't make it great, but good enough to help people _survive_ while they work toward something better!
science is a religion
Gore thinks he invented it.
Nader's rabid anti-business policies would likely destroy it.
And Browne would wrap it all up, put it on a platter, and hand it over to microsoft.
All things considered, of all four of them, Gore is the "least bad" choice, IMO. He may be delusional, but at least he won't be actively destructive.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
Fer cryin' out loud. Can you split hairs any finer? "It's not written in the law of the country, only in the document that established the country in the first place, so I don't think it applies." Puh-leeze.
Constitutionally Correct
Thank you for mentioning the Reagan 'assassination by brain-death', so I don't have to. The 'zero-factor' still rules!
Anything NOT worth doing is NOT worth doing well...
The title says it; I'm uncomfortable with gov't involvement in anything, but in this case I think it has become a necessary evil to be endured until sanity is restored.
What we have now really isn't a market, it's control by one monolithic corporate entity.
A "market" brings up images of a bazaar, with vendors hawking their wares, all trying to out do each other for your business.
Personal computing has become a road in the middle of nowhere. You're out of gas, and you pull into a station where a toothless Bill Gates says "Fill'er up?"
You ask "How much?" and he stretches his lips and whispers quietly "How much you got?" and laughs...well, maybe it's not there yet, but they are obviously trying.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Oh, and I'm sure it also means getting rid of those government-created "corporation" thingies.
You can't have it both ways. If you're going to get the government involved in terms of "intellectual property" (or indeed, pretty much any sort of property) and corporations, then they're also going have have to intervene when these creations of the state go awry and no longer operate in the public interest.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
VoteMatch is pretty accurate.
;)
I got Nader as first, followed by Bill Bradley, which was actually my preference in the Democratic primary (before I became a Green, because he lost the primary).
And at the very opposite end of my ranking is George Bush, Pat Buchanan, and Dick Cheney. Sort of scary that Buchanan's between the two
Harry Browne actually scores higher with me than all others as far as the Personal category (but not the other two). I was actually very impressed by him when he was interviewed on CSPAN.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Couldn't have said it better myself. Gore is using the rhetoric of class warfare to mask the fact that his "cut" is merely a complication of the tax code - a series of if/then statements crammed into a chunk of code that's already unmaintainable.
Bush, whatever else folks may about him, at least provides a tax cut plan that's intelligible and gives broad-based tax relief. He changes a few constants (the brackets and ther tax rates), and leaves the rest of the code alone.
> [Bush vs. Gore on giving younger workers the option to invest part of their SS taxes in the markets, as opposed to the governmen IOU "fund"]
1998: 6.2% on your first $68400 ($4240).
1999: 6.2% on your first $72600 ($4501), up 6.14% from '98
2000: 6.2% on your first $76200 ($4724), up 4.95% from '99
2001: 6.2% on your first $80400 ($4984), up 5.50% from 2000
In the past four years alone, the SS tax has gone up by $744.
If you run your own business, double the 6.2% to 12.4%. That's goddamn near $1500 taken straight outa your wallet.
The Social Security pyramid scheme is imploding NOW. Is it any wonder that the limits on earnings subject to SS tax have been increasing at more than double the rate of inflation?
It's the stealthiest tax around (I dare you to find the numbers on your 1040!), and it's going up faster than any tax out there.
Given the rates at which the SS tax is increasing, and given the time required for the phase-in of Bush's income tax cuts, most techies will be very hard-pressed to keep their overall tax payments at a constant level.
Under Gore, I shudder to think how far it'll go. No income tax cut, continuing explosive increase in SS tax. And the government funnels all my SS taxes into the pyramid scheme.
Under Bush, I get an income tax cut that might keep pace with the SS tax increases, and I get to keep at least some of those SS dollars out of the black hole.
If you're a techie and you're voting on taxes, the choice is clear.
Naturally, if you're not voting on the issue of taxes, well, disregard this whole post.
But whatever you're basing it on, get out there and vote. Unlike the past two or three elections around here, the outcome has not yet been determined, and there are substantial economic policy differences even between the two mainstream candidates.
And if you live in a swing state, one look at the electoral college map makes it damn obvious that your vote counts a hell of a lot more than it has in the past 10-15 years.
I submitted a link to a story from the Wall Street Journal that related to Gore's tax plans and the Internet. That seems "on topic" if you ask me. However, the article is critical of Gore, so I guess that makes it "off topic" for Slashdot these days.
Rocktmn1
Oh, by the way... here is the article
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- October 20, 2000
Commentary
Internet in the Balance
By George Gilder. Mr. Gilder, author of "Telecosm: How Infinite Bandwidth Will Revolutionize Your World" (Free Press, 2000), is an investor in Internet and wireless stocks.
A few weeks back, Al Gore, mocking his own penchant for hyperbole, bantered with David Letterman's "Late Show" audience: "I gave you the Internet -- and I can take it away." This is no joke. While Republicans waste time with captious critiques of the straight-arrow Gore's credibility and character, the real threat posed by the Democratic candidate is utterly ignored. Mr. Gore's policies would impose an energy, tax and regulatory garrote on the Internet.
The Kyoto Treaty alone would be devastating to the Net. At a time when global temperatures are significantly lower than they were 1,000 or 3,000 years ago, Mr. Gore would impose an energy clamp on the U.S. economy over the next decade. Yet billions of new Web servers and Web devices are scheduled to come onto the Net during this period, while billions of now-poor Asians will also be drastically increasing their energy usage.
With each Web device draining as much as a megawatt-hour a year, a billion always-on Internet computers -- together with the factories that build them and scores of billions of watt-hungry embedded processors -- will account for an estimated total of four thousand trillion watt-hours, or close to half of the world's current electricity use. With the restrictions negotiated in Kyoto, a global broadband Internet cannot happen.
Tax Gouges
On the tax front most attention focuses on direct sales taxation, but the key taxes imposed on Internet expansion are income taxes. Mr. Gore's most passionate commitment is to bar all tax reforms that reverse the Clinton era income-tax gouges. Mitigated by the one-time effect of the collapse of inflation and thus of real capital-gains tax rates, the Clinton tax hikes have so far had a mild impact.
But inflation cannot collapse twice. Mr. Gore's adamant hostility to tax-rate reductions is already inhibiting Internet growth by halting stock market expansion. With new sieges of taxation and spending, Mr. Gore would create not a delusory "lock-box" for Social Security, but a "lock-out" of the entrepreneurial economy on which the Internet subsists.
Perhaps most menacing is the threat of Gore regulatory policies and attitudes on the advance of wireless technology. Wireless access will fuel the next phase of Internet growth.
But the environmental and regulatory passions central to Mr. Gore's entire career are now driving wireless innovation overseas.
As Eli Noam of Columbia has said, "If we can agree to oppose government industrial policies to subsidize telecom, cannot we also agree to oppose the levying of huge special taxes on the industry?" Yet the proudest achievement of Mr. Gore's favorite agency, the Federal Communications Commission, is a vast new tax on the wireless Internet.
That tax is the spectrum auction process, and it is already driving wireless development out of the U.S. and to countries, such as Japan, Korea and Finland, that lack the tax. Spectrum auctions are scheduled to collect a cumulative total of some $50 billion (more than twice the industry's total annual wireless investment) and to compound the existing controls on the industry's spectrum use with ever more encompassing financial regulation.
In replacing the previous political assignment of spectrum, Congress was attempting to limit the power of FCC bureaucrats and introduce market discipline. But under Mr. Gore and his friends, any regulatory opportunity becomes an arena of endless meddling and industrial policy. The auctions manage a "market" in which most spectrum is free, governed by capricious rules, and devoid of effective aftermarkets. When some small proportion is auctioned off at exorbitant prices because the government has made scarce what is naturally abundant, the result has nothing in common with free enterprise. Predictably the auctions have become a briar patch in which only bureaucrats and telopolies can thrive.
Recognizing that start-ups are the font of much technological innovation, however, Congress specifically told the FCC to reserve some spectrum for new entrants, chiefly to what came to be known as "C-block" companies. Embroiled in endless politics, the C-block auction became a disaster. Between the end of the bidding and the agency's actual award of licenses the revenue-proud and pettifogging FCC flooded the market with spectrum and constantly changed the rules. Prices predictably plummeted, making it impossible for the C-block companies to attract financing and consummate their bids.
By now, though, some of the original "winners" are ready to emerge from bankruptcy, pay their obligations in full, and move forward toward deployment. The FCC has flatly refused to accept payment. Instead -- to the cheers of incumbent carriers fearful of new competitors (and finagling for the spectrum for themselves) -- the agency said it would confiscate the new entrants' spectrum and give it to the incumbent carriers. Undeterred by adverse rulings -- including a U.S. Bankruptcy Court decision that caustically termed the FCC's actions "repossession by ambush" -- the agency is litigating this issue in U.S. courts of appeal in the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 10th and District of Columbia circuits.
As with all forays into industrial policy, the predictable result is to subsidize the past in the name of progress, enlisting government firmly on the side of the largest and most moribund companies and thwarting innovation and entrepreneurial energy. The danger of Mr. Gore is not the quasi-populist hostility to big business he pretends. It is his technical conceit and his all too real lust to control -- and take credit for -- what he did not create.
Cock-a-doodle-doo
In the new economy as in the old, property rights are indispensable for the investment-intensive development of any technology. But when the government's guiding ethic is "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable," companies cannot summon the massive investment required to bring new technology to life. Regarding property rights as everywhere subservient to regulatory caprice, Mr. Gore and his associates live and breathe in the regulatory state. Thus, like the cock crowing at the sunrise, Mr. Gore imagines that his legislative incantations about "information superhighways" were crucial to the creation of the Net in the first place. A cock-a-doodle-doo policy cannot bring innovation, but capricious regulation can bring Internet growth to a halt.
Yet another area where the Gore mentality is menacing to Internet growth is the issue of the health impact of cellphones. There is no evidence that users of cellphones suffer any damage from them. But cellphones inexorably use microwave radiation and antenna towers opposed by Mr. Gore's followers and implicitly condemned by Mr. Gore's book, "Earth in the Balance." Microwave chip factories are dense with poisonous chemicals, and nearly all Internet devices are manufactured with materials deemed unacceptably toxic by some. A Gore administration will be filled to the brim by people who regard an occasional Erin Brockovich anecdote as more persuasive than global statistics of longevity and epidemiology improving everywhere that the new economy spreads.
With Silicon Valley already suffering power brown-outs as a result of the energy fears and chemo-phobias promoted by Mr. Gore, a Gore presidency will be predictably deadly for the American electronics, energy and chemical industries that enable the Net. While foreign countries move rapidly forward with nuclear power and breeder reactors, the U.S. will remain mired in Luddite loathing of radiation and industrial technology. Mr. Gore's policies put the Internet in the balance.
If "open computing" is the most important issue for you in this election, please don't vote.
Too bad those words are not actually contained in the Constitution, only the Declaration of Independence.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
GE and the other multinationals, for them to regulate as they see fit.
You have already done that..
Eh? Have you seen the Green Party platform? If Nader agrees with it, he's perfectly happy with "gigantism" in the market...with the government being the giant. The Green Party's platform is one of the more frightening documents around.
You've made an argument that someone could be both pro-choice and anti-abortion. "Anti-choice" pretty well precludes the idea of supporting other peoples' rights to abort.
The 'twenty year cycle' you refer to is also known as the Zero-year presidency cycle. Every president elected in a year ending with a zero has died in office...except the latest, Reagan (elected 1980). Not all these presidents were assassinated -- a few died of natural causes.
Therefore, if you believe in numerology or superstition, and if Reagan didn't break the curse forever, signs point to the death of the next president, no matter who he is.
I think it's a load of hooey, myself. But I am worried that psychos often feel the need to fufill their own prophecies...and thus it is conceivable that there will be an assassination attempt on the next president, by some insane moron who thinks it's his destiny.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Maybe it is because teenagers and poor people are getting pregnant at a higher rate than the people who can afford to take care of their children.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
By getting out there and doing so! Any political party is just dying for volunteers: people to knock on doors, maintain mailing lists, call supporters, hand out literature at events, build signs, collect signatures for ballot access, attend local conventions, even to run for office. Do you have any idea how many offices even the major parties fail to put up a candidate in? Even if they do get a candidate, they're often scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Ever wonder why the Christian Coalition, NRA, labor, pro-choice, pro-life, etc. groups have influence beyond their money? Because these groups are well-organized and chock full of dedicated volunteers -- they're vital to running an effective campaign.
I do agree that money-soaked, TV-focused campaigns let the major parties turn their back on those who've done all that volunteering (like me), but any would-be third party can't ignore such work, because it's all that they have.
I just wish that the AFL-CIO had endorsed Nader, as they were considering. Then maybe the Democratic party would start missing all that volunteer power, and stop ignoring labor.
Ah, well. I'll pay them back when my vote for Nader helps cost them Minnesota...
When did I start ranting?
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
As this election approached, I once again looked at the candidates and looked for a third party. For a while, I thought Harry Browne was it. I've changed my mind.
I lean considerably to the Libertarian point of view. I think the war on drugs wastes resources that could be better spent on treatment programs and prevention. I want a smaller, more constitutional government. I don't believe that the government should be in the business of redistributing wealth from the class that creates it to a class that consumes it. I think that welfare enslaves the people it was designed to help by removing their dignity and encouraging those behaviors that we as a society should discourage.
Harry unfortunately takes it so far that he loses credibility. He takes the all or nothing approach. No income tax. No gun laws. No social security. Hence, no chance of ever becoming law in the world in which we live. Get real Harry.
For heaven's sake can't someone stand up and take the middle ground by embracing Harry's ideals without losing all touch with reality. I'm still waiting for a candidate. I don't like any of them.
--
The shareholder is always right.
FUD fromthe democrats jsut like Microsoft FUD towards Linux. Why be manipulated, vote for who you believe will represent you not what someone else tells you will happen if you vote a certain way.
A vote for Nader or Browne is a vote for more freedom and options.
Fine. But that leaves one big question:
How do you propose to create these "political institutions in which you can truly participate"?
Government organizations which are now part of social security no longer have the option of recinding their contract with the federal government. This was done when (while?) the State of California (specifically NOT the geographical region described by "California") was considering pulling out.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Here's an article about Nader that got rejected by Slashdot, about how Gore's camp is pissed that the Nader vote may swing key states towards Bush.
Link
BilldaCat
It is an interesing coincidence, and I do think (note to my fans in domestic surveillance: I am not, at this time, planning on killing anyone, nor am I inciting or advising, nor am I aware of any plot, I am merely speculating) that there are a significant number of people in the country who would see killing a "President Dubbya" as a great public service, and one might take the "zero factor" as a hint.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Does it really matter which dictator you elect? Both candidates are identical in pretty much every respect, and we can be sure that whoever wins, the US will still continue to be as arrogant and insular as it always is.
The fact that /. is bothering to provide "coverage" of such a non-event is quite sad really, all it does is provide a forum for the slashbot hordes to propound their particular dogma to people who'd rather use Windows than admit that someone else's politcal views might have validity.
God, I wish it'd hurry up and be over and done with.
Sorry mate, the Australian system is no better than yours. Meaningless voting intricacies aside, in Australia we work on a two party system as well. Of course there are third parties, but they are as insignificant as the third parties in America as well.
Moral policy is fundamentally identical between the two major parties, They both seem to be under the impression they've got the rights to dictate peoples lifestyles to them. Economic policy is very close between the two parties as well, for Labour it's slightly left of center, for Liberal it's slightly right of center.
I don't think I could adequately draw parallels between American and Australian political parties though. Australia doesn't have an equivalent to the Republican party really. Liberals line up pretty well with the Democratic party. The Australian Democrats line up pretty well with Ralph Nader's views. Unfortunately there is no Libertarian party in Australia, there is a wowserish far out right wing party called One Nation who is roughly analogous to Pat Buchanan and his knights templar (ahem) :). Then there are special interest parties such as the greens and farmers party (actually these parties could be the same party, I haven't researched them much past the point of deciding that they don't agree with me on anything at all so fuck 'em)
Furthermore, voting is compulsory over here, Everytime I haven't voted I've had to pay a fifty dollar fine. I've never voted though and I've got no intention of doing so until there's a political party in Australia which matches 100% of my opinion on the issues. In my view a vote for a party you consider the lesser of x amount of evils is first and foremost an approval for that party and secondly an approval for the process.
What is it that they say? Where everyone gets what the majority deserves?
Weren't a bunch of techno-libertarian anarchists going to create a state from steel and concrete off the coast of florida and implement a true modern free state? Whatever the hell happened to that? I'm sick to death of Australia.
>
> Eh? That's like saying income taxes are stealthy because they're not on your hunting license. SS Taxes aren't handled by the IRS, so it's unlikely they would be on an IRS form.
Yeah - but just try not withholding 'em. IRS will find out real quick and tell you exactly how much you owe :-)
I've seen the Canadian tax forms - the Canada Ponz^H^H^H^Hension Plan is their equivalent of the SS pyramid. And their tax forms show exactly what you're paying. The point being, how come the 1.45% Medicare tax shows up on your 1040 but your SS tax doesn't? I'm not saying that SSA == IRS, (or even that it should== IRS) but it seems pretty obvious to me that neither political party has any interest in having light shone on this tax grab.
Now I'm getting curious... Let's take a single filer, and assume he/she is in the 31% federal tax bracket for funds between ~$60-$120K. Suppose we (being The Gummint) decide we wanna gouge this guy for $744 over four years in income taxes, while keeping the SS taxes the same. How much of a hike would we have to put in his/her income taxes?
That means we take an extra $744 out of the money made between $61400 (where the 31% bracket begins) and $80400 (where the SS tax now ends) using income tax only. If we create a new "tax bracket" for $61400-80400, what rate would it have to be?
- Presently, Joe Taxpayer pays 31% on (80400-61400) = 31% of $19000 = 5890.
- We want to gouge him for $5890+744 = 6634.
- He must therefore pay 6634/19000 = 34.9%.
Damn, that's within epsilon of the 36% the "rich" pay on income between $128K and $278K. Probably in excess if we assume another year or two of SS tax hikes or Bush actually following through on his income tax cuts.
To paint this in the worst possible light (hey, it is an election year, politically-loaded comparisons are the "in thing"!), if you made ~$80K for the past four years, the SS tax hike they've imposed on you is comparable to being in the same tax bracket as those earning $250,000.
People on the right should argue for SS reform because SS is a pyramid scheme. People on the left should argue for SS reform because it's the most regressive tax in the system. (The nature of the desired reforms will be a function of which side you choose, but both sides probably agree that the system as it stands is terminally fuX0red.)
Every non vote makes them concerned? I think not. Don't expect somebody running for office to give you much thought if you aren't going to help them get into office. No politician or party is going to give the tiniest of cares to your thoughts or wants if you aren't helping them get into office.
Don't vote. Seems like a good idea in theory anyway. Too bad only about a quarter of the country votes anyway, and the current political process goes on.
Although between 0 and 1 a log increases quite dramatically ...
At least it's clear (geometrically, explosively) what he meant in this case. It seems like he was groping for just the right word and happened upon just the wrong one.
No. There are many ways to bring about change.
Doing it by electing executive and legislative officials onto whom you discharge your power to make political decisions, and will be pressured by very powerful economic entities into doing things *their* way, is just one way, and IMHO, a very poor one.
I don't know about the rest of my generation, but I would vote against her. I'm very much against people expecting to be bailed out of everything because they screwed up.
Why all the fudge? Because it's not me making that descision. Personally, I like Harry Browne's stance on SS, but that's not the most important issue to me, and I agree with Bush more overall...
As for what you said before, I did read it... Let me quote: "Workers don't have a surplus to invest because their money is not an investment. The money workers pay is handed out to the retired of today." Afterwards you explain that there is a surplus if workers pay in more than is drawn and a deficit if the opposite occurs, but you don't say which is current.
Addlepated - punk & metal
I don't think Gore did well in college either... but if you were to ask him.. he made all A's while he invented the Scantron... College is important... I have 1 BA and 1 BS.. in Computer Science and in Criminal Justice.... My parents paid for my CJ degree from UGA... and I paid for my second degree from Augusta State University (in GA).... I am 26 now and making darn good money thanks to alot of hard work... but the taxes are killing me.. I also own part of a small company which I work another 20 hours or so a week for at nights writing code... (pixelforst.com ... some of our work is at twotoads.com and y2ktested.com)... well all of this extra work is great and all.. I love the extra cash it brings in.. but it sickens me that I am paying even MORE taxes on this money ... I work my ASS off and I have to pay for lazy people who can not seem to get or want one job.. and I have basicly two.... Screw this social security crap.. it is TOTAL shit..... 2% return on my money.. I would rather wipe my ass with my money than give it to the gov for that type of return.. I can easily average 10% a year in the stock market with mutual funds or the like...
sure like GOre said.. the market might drop some... even for a few years.. (but he also says the economy is great so why would it drop .. nice double talk Gore). but what about the times when it goes up like 20% or so...... just give me my freaking money and let me take care of myself.. Don't punish me for the mestakes joe bloe made when he was 17 and decided to smoke crack rather than goto college. its not my fault...
I have a criminal justice degree.. no I do not know it all. but I do have a grasp on some of the criminal jank.. Do you want to know what good gun control laws do???? DO you?
They do NOTHING.. NOTHING at all... the people that abuse guns are criminals.... do you think a crimnal gives a shit about a new cooling off period.. do you think that Peter GUns on the corner of Peach and Broad will make you wait to get your 40 cal with no serial numbers while he does a background check on you??
The only thing gun control laws do is stop good citizens from getting guns....
I could go on.. but I am starting to rant... it sickens me when people take my money and give it to those who do not deserve it!!!!! I DESERVE IT DAMNIT.. ITS MINE!!!!!!
BD
Taxes and Lazy People are best friends.
I can say that "eliminate the separation of church and state" doesn't coincide with what I've heard and read of the libertarian position--indeed, one of the major flash points of that matter, public schools, would be made irrelevant if the government got out of the education business (where it has no right to be, anyway). Anyone caring to see the actual libertarian platform should head for the Libertarian Party web site.
That is cool, I'm supprised your post wasn't moderated up a bit more!
Most voucher plans put a ceiling on the amount of money you can make and still qualify. That said, there are other problems with vouchers:
1) Private schools are not required, as are publics, to admit everyone. Therefore, those with the biggest educational needs are locked out.
2) The parents most likely to take advantage of them are already involved with their children's education, which any teacher, administrator, psychologist, or other expert will tell you is the most important factor in quality education. Once again, those most in need are locked out.
3) Vouchers generally cover only about 50-60% the cost of tuition. Those who can't afford that other 40-50% are once again locked out.
4) Those who are left in the "bad" schools are likely to be those most in need, and they have fewer and fewer resources.
I know there are other reasons that I just can't think of right now. Education is not business. The losers are not just the teachers at bad schools. They are the kids who don't already have an advantage. They are the communities with lower property values. Most of all, they are us in society as a whole.
The number one thing we can do is abolish the property tax and fund schools on a per-pupil basis at the state level through some other more equitable means.
Of course, this is a separate question from whether or not life begins at birth or conception....
It just occurred to me that, humorously enough, that's almost what we're discussing, except the life in question is that of the nation.
Im already voting Libertarian. Its just as a matter of practicality, its either going to be Gore or Bush elected this year. I'd rather see Gore in than Bush, but if Bush did get in I like his stance on S.S. better than Gore's. I like Gore's stance on most other things much better than Bush's though, and I like Browne's and the Libertarians best of all. They're getting my vote.
But my dreams they aren't as empty, as my conscience seems to be...
Very well said. Check out Harry Browne's website for more thoughts on whether a vote for a third-party candidate is a waste or not (e.g. on the main page, scroll down to the heading How You Can Win).
Fine, they can't be "recalled" whatever purpose that would serve (new elections every 6 months or what?). The point is that they can't just change their policies and have everyone go "oh, well, I guess we're just screwed" -- they'll have no ability to enforce them...
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Is your French better than his English, Mr AC?
- Freedom of speech: That's right, baby. The right to open my mouth, as long as I am not shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Complaints fall under it. You might not like it, but, hey, too bad.
- Breaking out of the box: Who says I have to vote? Who says that my not voting isn't an action in and of itself? Vote for A, who will keep the system as it is, or vote for B, who will do the same thing is what you are putting forth, and I'm having none of it. Sure, short-term, we might get jerks into office
... but we have had way too much short-term thinking. Long-term, non-voting will cause concern and reform.
- Money: We've all written complaint letters to one corporation or another. We didn't elect their boardmembers in most of those cases. Why do we have the right to complain if we aren't voting shareholders? Answer
... we paid money. Well, about 30% of my income goes to the USA. I'm a paying customer of the USA, and I have the right to complain on that basis alone.
Don't use the tiresome "you don't have the right to complain" refrain as a way to suck people into a non-working system. Every non-vote makes politicians concerned. Every vote makes the politicos say, "Gee, someone voted for me! They like me! I must be doing something right."These people are not Jesus. Get over this "you are either with me or you are against me" attitude. Inaction is an action in itself, a way out of the box, and it is starting to be an effective one.
Don't vote early, don't vote often.
He's not splitting hairs -- he's making a legitimate distinction. The declaration of Independence is a purely historical document, it has no legal impact on us. It also says that people have the right to raise arms against the government whenever they want, which is (needless to say) illegal.
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
NO vote is 'throwing your vote away'. In ALL cases, your vote is registered, your opinion noted, your feelings charted.
Voting is not betting on a horse-race. The point is not to vote for 'the winner'. The point is to vote your heart and mind, to vote for the candidate that best represents your viewpoints and ideals. This is what *representative democracy* is all about.
If you don't like the two big guys on the ticket, there are (depending on your state) up to three, four, or even five other guys to vote for. Do a little reasearch, figure out who best represents your positions, and vote for that person.
Personally, I think our voting system stinks. I think we should vote like the Austrailians do (multiple party candidates, not just two, and each person RANKS the candidates, rather than just being forced to pick exactly ONE).
The problem with our voting system is really easy to show. Say there are three candidates: A, B, and C. Now say that 30% of the voting population likes A the best, then B, and considers C to be dead last. Another 30% of the population likes B the best, then A, and considers C to be dead last. The remaining 40% of the people like C first, A next, and B last. Now, a SENSIBLE method of voting would note that the general consensus is that candidate A is the best (30% first place, 70 percent second place), while B is second (30% first place, 30% second place, 40% third), and C is the worst candidate (40% first, 60% last). OUR system of voting elects guy the least people want to see win. How much sense does THAT make?
The Austrailian method of voting gives better results, and works better in multi-party situations. The more parties there are, the better any given candidate will match someone's beliefs, and the better the voter turn-out is.
Our political system sucks. It is becuase of it that we have two duds to choose from (and McCain is nowhere in sight). We need to start reforming it from the ground up, starting with the system of voting, going on through smashing the two party monopoly, and figuring out a real campaign finance reform strategy.
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
The point is, Rob's politics are going to influence his idea of what a 'good' story submission is.
And the bigger point is that (IMO) Slashdot isn't the place to discuss presidential politics.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
Dude, go back and look at the beginning of the posts...I clearly stated "...for those concerned with open computing..." -- thus stating the focus of the post.
I also made statements about the Supreme Court, transition concerns, and general technology.
Not a fair shot, Dude!
Vote for your choice, and I'll vote for mine. I wish there was a smarter, more qualified, more idependent *viable* candidate to vote for, but I'm reduced to these two.
I think this could be a critical election on a number of fronts, and having "survived" the previous Bush presidency, when the economy went to hell while he's on TV wondering over the miracle of supermarket scanners, and the whole Industrial park I was working in became a ghost town, all I can say is "No More Bush!"
But I don't begrudge anyone there vote or their opinion.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
If you want to back a winner you will try and determine which (Bore/Gush) big party candidate is most likely to get the most votes.
I think you're mistaken if you believe that's why people vote for a major party candidate. There are some, like myself, who actually like one of the big two better than any of the 3rd'ers (Gore in my case - I am big on free trade, Liberal on social policies, and believe that we as a society have an obligation to those less fortunate while being moderate on taxation. Gore is the closest to that.)
And there are those who are in battleground states, may or may not be keen on one of the big two, but can't stand the thought of the other winning. In my mind, this is a perfectly acceptable. Let's take a hypothetical situation: Jimmy Carter and Joseph Stalin are the two big party candidates, and Lyndon LaRouche is also running. You prefer Larouche, who is not particularly popular to Carter. However, Stalin is right out as you are opposed to his you-killing policy. In your state, The polls show 48% for Stalin, 47% for Carter, and 5% for your guy. Do you make a stand, or do you go for the best likely outcome?
I realize this is an absurd exageration, but there are many people who feel that strongly about not wanting Gore, and many who feel that way about Bush. If you intend to use you vote to get the best likely outcome, it makes perfect sense to not vote for your favorite.
I'm glad you're another one of those "open minded" democrats who allows for free speech as long as I say something you agree with. BTW: I'm not rich, but I am Repbublican, and there are reasons for that, but you wouldn't care to hear them.
Forget it, it's not even worth it. You can't even have a logical, civil debate, without calling the other side names.
But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and birth is the most reasonable place.
The most truthful place is conception. That's when it has been endowed with a separate set of genetics. At that point, it is just as unique an individual as anyone else. Any other point is totally arbitrary.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The point is, regardless of Harry Browne's personal stance on abortion, the federal government has no authority to legislate this matter one way or the other. Letting the states decide how to handle abortion is not an official stance one way or the other.
The Constitution is very clear on what crimes the fed has jurisdiction over - high crimes such as treason, counterfeit, and piracy. The common crimes are to be left up to the states.
What if the woman got pregnant from being raped? Just curious what your stance on this is...
You will probably benefit much more without government debt.
Interest rates are the price that people without much money (most of us) pay to get money from those who have it. Examples of this -- your mortgage, your car loan, your student loans, your credit card, outweigh what non-wealthy Americans get from bond interest in both amount and frequency. The interest you collect on a bond is far outweighed by the harm of the government competing with you for the money supply.
Oh, and stocks go up when the price of money goes down, which happens when the government borrows less.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
You, on the other hand, seem to very generous with other people's stuff, unless you're preparing to sell all your extra stuff to help feed starving people around the world. Compared to them, you're a rich greedhead (heck, I bet you have more than one pair of shoes and change of clothing, and you are eating something other than vat-grown algae--horribly inefficient and wasteful), so you don't deserve to keep what you earn.
Libertarianism has come to mean whatever you want it to. It's inclusive of everything from the far right to the far left and if there is anything there you don't agree with just claim those other people are misguided. Honestly, is it simply entertainment or a real, thought out postion when Boortz says things like "maybe it's a mistake that women can vote". Or that 2 income households should be outlawed. Are we supposed to take seriously this altdotblackhelicopters thinking? When right wing self professed Libertarians claim on a show like Boortz or Limbaugh that those liberals in the "major media' secretly control what you see and hear, and it's evil I have to laugh.
Now maybe they don't represent what the rest of you consider mainstream Libertarianism but that's my point. Anyone from Ghengis Khan to Leon Trotsky can claim to be Libertarian. After all the "S" in Nazi was for "Socialism" - you can twist words to mean whatever you want. All I can tell you is that I live in a state where at one time Jesse Helms was considered the more liberal of two Senators and I've heard the self defined Libertarian rhetoric: anti gov't, pro-gun, eliminate the sep. of church and state, no immigrants, no taxation, eliminate all but the vestiges of a federal system, power to the states, responsibility to the individual, yah ya yah. It's Ruby Ridge with a soccer mom face. I read the book I saw the movie. It was by Leni Reifenstahl. Be afraid.
What if the woman got pregnant from being raped?
There is no easy answer to this. The way I answer it for myself is to ask the question, "does the child from the product of a rape deserve to die?" I think when you put it that way, the answer has to be "No". A rape is a horrible thing. Does the killing of the baby make it better? For some women it probably does. To have to carry a child to term when it was created from a rape is a terrible thing to a lot of women. Still, it seems like when you look at things objectively that the baby, a sovereign individual, exists no matter how it was created. It seems to me that accepting that something good can come out of a very bad situation, rather than creating two victims instead of one, is a better way to go.
Or to put it another way, if the baby had a choice, would it choose to be born even though the father was a rapist?
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Get real, Troll :-)
There are no viable third candidates in this election.
Voting third party makes a small statement, but given they weren't even in the debates, there is no way any one of them will get in the seat, short of divine intervention.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
There comes a point wherein citizens must stop voting purely in the best interests of the company they work for.
I hardly think a government run by Nader (or anybody else for that matter) could result in MS or another big tech company being laid to ruin. Maybe make it a tad more difficult... Maybe make them adjust...
Considering this, perhaps it's time we stopped voting in the private interest and started voting in the PUBLIC interest. Regardless of our employer.
-- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
Assuming you still live in the US, well, I'm sorry to say that you're already endorsing the system.
No, that's wrong. It simply means you believe you have a right to your land, and that you believe your land is your land, not the government's, and you don't feel any duty to lease it from them! To run away would be a real endorsement. The fact that I want to live peacefully in my home, without any state compassion, is not an endorsement in any way.
If you proclaimed yourself King of my land, I would not run away. I would hoist the black flag and cut throats (guess whose?). Why is the state any different?
You use the services provided by the government you choose to (not) elect (water, sewage, electricity, perhaps you drive, maybe use an interstate every once in awhile, maybe you receive mail, fly somewhere, or make a phone call, go to a grocery store, buy food, not have appliances and random objects blow up, or spew radiation at you, or poison your water supply).
You are the king of FUD. What's the difference between the government and a corporation? I'll tell you: the government can kidnap and kill you if you don't pay! What does this mean?
You recieve a threat in the mail. It reads, "You will pay us a fourth of your income, or we will kidnap you, and take even more of your property. Besides, it's for your own good. Trust us." You care about your family, so you do as they ask and pay up.
A year passes. You drank water, flushed away your sewage, used electricity, drove your car (even on the interstate), recieved mail, flew to Florida and back, made many phone calls, bought lots of groceries, and neither appliances nor random objects blew up, nor was any radiation spewed, nor was your water supply poisoned.
Now the criminals write again. "Look how great your life was! Look how many things you were able to do!" the letter reads. You pause for a moment and wonder -- What does all that have to do with them? You read more. "You see, if you hadn't paid us last year, none of that would have happened. Your life would be hell! The universe would cease to function. Anarchy and chaos would prevail. Radiation would spew from random objects! Your TV would blow up! So you see, we're really not criminals. We're on your side! Oh, by the way, we need a little more of your cash this year than last year. You know how inflation is."
Maniacs! You scream. How stupid do they think I am?
(Really, the government keeps random objects from spewing radiation at me? Go on, sacrifice your kids to the sun god. After all, it would really be a shame if the sun stopped rising!)
Actually, he said "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos". And then Kodos whipped him. :)
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/4F02.html
That was an excellent sketch, and it's been constantly reminding me of this election.
I found a well-written article on the Zero Year curse affecting US presidents. It apparently stretches back to a Shawnee Indian chief named Tecumseh, who cursed president Harrison in 1840. Interesting stuff. And a reminder that we should keep in the back of our minds the possibility of President Cheney or President Lieberman.
Death Cycle of Presidents elected in Zero Years
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
slavery against abortion (obviously both being about human rights)
They're both about human rights, but not in the sense you have in mind. The fetus isn't a human possessing rights. It's not yet born -- it's a potential human but not an actual human. The valid human-rights are the ones of the woman. And the analogy is much closer than you give it credit. The woman who is pregnant but not permitted to terminate her pregnancy is experiencing a sort of slavery.
Where in the constitution does it state that a person has the right to kill their own children. Please point me to the reference.
It's not born, therefore it isn't a child, and your premise is invalid. (You can't kill something that isn't yet alive). With that said, look at the penumbras and emanations of Ammendments III, IV, V, IX, X, XIII, XIV, and XIX. For directions as to how you should read those ammendments, consult Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird.
-- Anne Marie
While I basically agree with most of what you're saying, I think the very low level of participation to the last referendum is not at all representative about what is really going on. Participation is usually between 50% and 70%. People just didn't feel the need to vote on this issue because:
1- The results were known in advance anyway, since almost everyone, both among the politicians and the people, was in favor of the reduction. The only opponents were archaic self proclaimed "hardcore republicans and/or Gaullist", whose positions were purely rhetoric and basically irrelevant.
2- It seems that the French are strongly opposed to the use of the referendum when this is not about a really huge, life-changing issue (such as the Maastricht treaty to join the monetary union). It was a very bad idea to organize a referendum on an issue on which almost everybody agrees, and which, after all, is not so important (even if it changes the constitution). If the reduction had been accompanied by other signifiant changes in the constitution (on issues like cumulation of positions, role -suppression?- of the Senat, etc...), things would have been different.
All these being said, you are right about marketing and disinterest. The socialists surprisingly came back to power because Jospin's attitude seemed to be slightly less "communication-driven" than the competitors'. And, all in all, the level of participation is -albeit quite slowly- decreasing.
Yet, I'm currently living in America, and it's pretty obvious that the level of indifference towards politics in America is much stronger and really has nothing to do than what can be observed in Western Europe (France of elsewhere).
Why should government choose which descisions in life someone should make? I chose not to go go colledge (or, more accurately I went a semester then dropped out when I found out I was getting more and a better education by doing than by studying). Why exactly does the federal government declare your college tuition more important than my oreilly books (by giving you a tax break and not me)?
For ever $1000 you pay less in taxes because of college somebody else pays $1000 more to subsidize you because they didn't go.
Instead of the government dictating how I spend my money (i.e. spend it on college or we will take more of it from you) I rather make the choices in life that folloy my best interests rather than what some politician 3000 miles away thinks I should do.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
...not to mention illegal search (which you mentioned) and seisure (which you didn't). If you own a car or a boat, and a single joint is found on it, the government can seize it. Take it from you. Even if the joint is not yours, and you have no idea how it got there. Even if a friend admits he brought it on board without your knowledge. Boom. Vehicle is now government propery, sold at auction.
I won't even begin to discuss random traffic checkpoints, who basically stop everyone under suspicion of guilt, to weed out the guilty from the innocent. This isn't a police state (well, it's not supposed to be).
The war on drugs is not only an utter failure in every respect, but is also shredding our constitutional rights more and more, day by day.
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
I suspect the reasons are twofold:
Nader and Buchannan have better name recognition than, say, Harry Browne. Media pick up on name recognition and use it to their advantage. I guarantee that a headline like "Nader sues debate commission" will attract more attention than "Browne says Micro$oft shouldn't be persecuted".
Money: The Green and Reform parties have more cash than the Libertarian, Natural Law, and other third parties. They consequently have better PR machines. The media is fundamentally lazy and unethical; they tend to simply regurgitate whatever the PR meisters feed them. I imagine that the Nader and Buchannan campaigns have way better PR machines than other 3rd party candidates.
I'm not saying this is right. Just my $0.02...
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
The party is more important than the man. All freedom begins with economic freedom. Vote Republican.
Your tag line makes me shudder - are you kidding? That should read:
The party is !more important than the person. Economic freedom does not exist -you have to accept the economy as a trait of humanity to justify that ideal- which it clearly is not. Vote for anyone but a Repubicrat.
Been saying that for years. My parents generation, the Tom Brokaw 'greatest' or the one just a few years younger was the recipient of more federal aid, social breaks, tax waivers, subsidized education then any other on the face of this earth. Ever. And to compound it saw their financial health by and large increase more and faster than any growth of the middle class in the history of civilization. The net increase in property values alone says that. These were the people who grew up hungry in the Depression and retired on the golf course on AOL stock- in large part thanks to an interventionist Federal government that bled money from 1945 to 1994. And in large part put in place by Eisenhower - a Republican. Now these same people, who as a group receive NOW, 10x more Federal money percapita than the children they purport to be so concerned with are chomping at the bit to exhaust and bankrupt the system in THEIR lifetime.
No, he isn't anti-choice. He's made up his own PERSONAL choice. He still supports others' right to choose.
We need more people who can separate personal and political adjendas, as Browne can.
It's the stealthiest tax around (I dare you to find the numbers on your 1040!)
Eh? That's like saying income taxes are stealthy because they're not on your hunting license. SS Taxes aren't handled by the IRS, so it's unlikely they would be on an IRS form.
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The fetus isn't a human possessing rights.
Hmmm. Didn't someone once say that "A Negro is not a human possessing rights". You're right -- slavery is very relevant to the question.
The woman who is pregnant but not permitted to terminate her pregnancy is experiencing a sort of slavery.
Sorry, but a human life is more valuable than your personal convenience.
If a women has voluntary sex, she has made an implied consent to give birth to the product of the union. If she doesn't want the "slavery", then she shouldn't have sex. [involuntary sex is another issue that a dealt with in another part of the thread].
For directions as to how you should read those ammendments, consult Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird.
I find it hard to take seriously someone who gives legal references, but can't spell "amendment". Be that as it may, I'm sure some lawyer from the 1850s could point me to legal references about the "fact" that black people are not human. Guess what? Legal opinions are just opinions, and particularly in this area, their opinion means far less than my opinion to me.
A fetus has unique genetics, therefore, it is a unique individual.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
"This is a classic sign of liberal desperation. "
:-)
That's a classic line of conservative desperation
Let's take Bush's AWOL experience. Bush cannot account for nearly a YEAR, when he was supposed to be in Alabama. There is no record.
Gore's internet claim was, as I originaly read it, quite accurate. He NEVER claimed to have invented the internet, period. This is not revisionist history.
I either remember the original statements clearly, or I did do the research. Bush lied his ass off in the debate about THREE guys going to death for the Byrd dragging death, when it was only two. And as for the 'Quaylesque' gaffs, this comforts you? The fact that the man cannot pronounce simple words, string together simple sentences, or speak coherently in his own mother tongue? That he seems to have memorized plattitudes and sound-bites, but shows no real depth of understanding to back them up?
Reagan WAS not all that bright, and relied on his advisors a lot, and barely seemed to know what country he was in, and thought trees caused pollution. Quayle *was* a pretty big idiot. Bush Sr. was slightly more intelligent, but was still so incoherent when it came to speaking it was almost scary (never mind throwing up all over the Japanese Prime Minister). And Dubbya Shrub is probably the dumbest one of all. It's not insulting his intelligence to state and obvious fact that ANYONE listening to the debates could fiture out. He was parotting without a depth of understanding, his answers in subsequent debates were very close to duplicates (word for word) with anwers in earlier debates. He couldn't defend himself on the facts, and always resorted to 'character' or changing the subject.
You think Gore will say anything to get elected? Have you listened to Bush at all? He's every bit as bad. In this area, neither one can claim superiority at all, period.
People I know who are for a lot of the positions Bush talks about are scared as shit that he'll actually become president... because he's such an obvious doofus. With scary religious-right influences (most of my friends value their religious freedoms, and not all of them are Christian, let alone the 'right kind' of Christian).
I'd love to see your proof of the pot/heroin/LSD allegations against Gore. I hadn't heard anything about heroin or LSD before, and am guessing you're making that up out of desperation and irrational Gore-phobia. Not sure what you're so scared of, seeing how far ahead the idiot Bush is. The American people will aparently get just what they deserve (and I'm from Texas, living in Austin, so I know what a fraud Bush is first-hand).
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
That's not splitting hairs. The constitution is the law of the land, and the declaration of independence is not. This is not some nitpick, this is a very real difference. By the way, the declaration of independence did not establish this country, the constitution did. All the DoI did was decare to King George that the colonies would not be beholden to British laws, and were each sovereign states:
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
The words "united States of America" do appear, but it is clear from the fact that the "u" is lower case that TJ refers to the states as being united in this cause, and not as a nation. He specifically refers to "Free and Independent States", not a free and independent nation.
I, and many others, would argue that the United States of America was established by the constitution. Keep in mind that the constitution was ratified separately by each state at a time when each state had separate currency and separate trade laws and treaties. The Constitution is what bound us together as a cohesive nation.
Of course, this is a separate question from whether or not life begins at birth or conception....
There should be some common denominator in our society, and that needs to be dictated by someone, or we would have anarchy!
What's a common denominator in that context? You modulo me equals zero? Huh?
Yeah, the choices others make do affect me. What's the alternative? We can have a cadre of rulers make all our choices for us! They can steal everything, and give back the scraps in an equal manner! You can trust everyone a little, or you can trust the state completely. The latter has proven to be a stupid course of action.
The choice here is how much that someone is willing to dictate.
No. The choice here is how much we are willing to be dictated to!
You decide who would like to have more control over your life.
I would like to have control over my life! I would like my children to have control over theirs. The common denominator isn't worth it, whatever it is.
My ancestors (and, most likely, yours as well) DIED so we can vote. Nothing makes me angrier than people pissing on that!
Correction: your ancestors died so you could be free from the tyranny of the English king. Voting was merely the means of perpetuating that freedom.
Almost a half million people are in prison as we speak because of the Drug War. Where are their votes?
Your ancestors petitioned the King. They begged him to let them be free. They cast their votes. Yet his tyranny still reigned.
Trade your vote for a rifle and take your freedom back.
We need to understand that "libertarian" originally was a leftist (i.e., pro-labor, as opposed to pro-capital) term. (For more information, hit Google with "libertarian socialist" and "anarchist"; also try "zenarchy".) Leftists aren't necessarily in favor of big government; some of us want a small government, like the libertarian capitalists of the Libertarian Party, but one that moves in a different direction. We reject the notion that capitalism is somehow a natural state that arises from a smaller government; indeed, capitalism requires a strong state, to define and defend property.
Think of government as a vector quantity; the Libertarians have (at least in theory) a magnitude I like, but the Greens have the direction I prefer.
Nader's the only one talking about how corporate power and concentrated wealth is threatening individual freedom.You'll also find that on many practical issues there is agreement: on free speech, ending corporate welfare, ending the "prison industrial complex", decriminalization of victimless crimes, Fourth Amendment rights, and religious freedom, the Libertarians and the Greens are pretty much in alignment.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Take a look at the numbers. This is not necessarily the case. Teen pregnancy seems to mirror the adult out of wedlock pregnancy rate. I don't have the stats handy, but its worth wandering over someplace like Statitiscal Universe--paid suscription--and check it out. Regardless of the numbers, here's a question: Do you want to deal with the consequences when this impoverished and disadvantaged generation comes of age? You think we have youth crime problem now? It's really a matter of philosophy I guess. Another thing to look at when discussing the teen pregnancy issue is how the teens get pregnant. The majority of the time its some older guy in his late twenties or early thirties porking a minor and stiffing her--no pun intended--with the check--the kid. Least according to the studies I've seen. I know nothing of the methodolgy for gathering the data, so regard such things as the least bit suspect.
Or revolt. Study your history, we are better at staging a revolt than emmigrating :)
Finkployd
The scary part about this post is that the author actually believes that what he posted is correct. *sigh*
Even /. is not immune from the type of news creation that is called spin.
There is a problem which is rarely considered or addressed during election-time, and that is how accurate is the data or information each voter is basing their decision upon?
Quick example is the network-televised debates in which the other candidates were excluded. When Perot was included in the 1992 debates, his standing in polls increased, but when he was excluded from the 96 debates, his numbers decreased dramatically. Clearly, excluding a candidate from the three TV debates, will greatly affect the election. The fact is that tens of millions of people get their news from pretty much the same set of sources.
I think "Spin" by Brian Springer does an excellent job of using technology to provide a glimpse into how the news is created and how the media and politicians affect how we think and behave at the voting booth. It used satellite backhauls from the events of 1992, which are raw news footage feeds unseen by viewers before the networks package and broadcast them. "Spin" is quite educational AND entertaining (who doesn't enjoy seeing Larry King demonstrate his ego, or Al Gore get made up by a spin doctor?)
There are RealPlayer versions, Media Player, and even a DivX ;-) version! "Spin" by Brian Springer originally came out in 1995
and made it's way around college campuses then. It is interesting to consider that the
people in high school then, are in college now and voting age. :)
Final remark to CMDRTACO and anyone else considering voting for either Bush or Gore: there are many states where the election has already been determined. Bush will take Texas, Gore will take Mass., Gore will take California, and so on. If you live in one of these states, please do not waste your vote on either of those candidates, but instead vote your conscience guilt-free. Your vote for Gore or Bush will NOT make a difference in changing the outcome of those states; so instead, PLEASE consider voting for a third party candidate, such as Harry Browne. That is the ONLY vote that will count in those states. Just think about how clean and pure you will feel when you leave the voting booth! :)
Be aware that a lot of Gore's alleged lies are really media misinterpretations and taking things out of context. And once you've acknowledged that, you'll note that Gore and Bush both seem to mis-state facts at about an equal rate (Bush actually just a bit more often). Funny thing is, nobody really falls over themselves trying to report Bush's lies and screwups. Why? Because most people are just so proud that he managed to say a complete sentence. Or at least an intelligable one. Or at least pronounced a few words properly. Or managed not to show up with white powder all over his nose... (never mind his year AWOL from the... oh, forget it. Nobody cares, cause he's just so NICE, right?)
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Of course, this is a separate question from whether or not life begins at birth or conception....
I feel that frequent heterosexual intercourse should be mandatory.
"Your duty to the Party!"
(Honestly, people too stupid to use contraceptives should be encouraged to seek abortions, IMHO.)
Well, even /. is not immune from the type of news creation that is called spin.
There is a problem which is rarely considered or addressed during election-time, and that is how accurate is the data or information each voter is basing their decision upon?
Quick example is the network-televised debates in which the other candidates were excluded. When Perot was included in the 1992 debates, his standing in polls increased, but when he was excluded from the 96 debates, his numbers decreased dramatically. Clearly, excluding a candidate from the three TV debates, will greatly affect the election. The fact is that tens of millions of people get their news from pretty much the same set of sources.
I think "Spin" by Brian Springer does an excellent job of using technology to provide a glimpse into how the news is created and how the media and politicians affect how we think and behave at the voting booth. It used satellite backhauls from the events of 1992, which are raw news footage feeds unseen by viewers before the networks package and broadcast them. "Spin" is quite educational AND entertaining (who doesn't enjoy seeing Larry King demonstrate his ego, or Al Gore get made up by a spin doctor?)
There are RealPlayer versions, Media Player, and even a DivX ;-) version! "Spin" by Brian Springer originally came out in 1995
and made it's way around college campuses then. It is interesting to consider that the
people in high school then, are in college now and voting age. :)
Final remark to CMDRTACO and anyone else considering voting for either Bush or Gore: there are many states where the election has already been determined. Bush will take Texas, Gore will take Mass., Gore will take California, and so on. If you live in one of these states, please do not waste your vote on either of those candidates, but instead vote your conscience guilt-free. Your vote for Gore or Bush will NOT make a difference in changing the outcome of those states; so instead, PLEASE consider voting for a third party candidate, such as Harry Browne. That is the ONLY vote that will count in those states. Just think about how clean and pure you will feel when you leave the voting booth! :)
Right ... leave it to MTV to represent and report on the positions of my (and our) generation. The article on boortz.com quotes rather unfavorable polls from the research department of MTV, proving little more than where the lowest common denominator really does lie .... and it's in front of the hypnotic glow of their precious MTV.
So, I would like to offer up my opinion into the debate. I agree that fewer young people are going to be voting this year, but I don't think that it's because of ignorance or even disinterest as was suggested by Boortz. I think that the media frenzy of an election that is going on right now has been the first opprotunity for an entire generation of intelligent young people to see exactly how rediculous american politics really are. I think that somewhere between digging for scandals of the past and making false promises to the future, someone forgot what the point was.
Even /. is not immune from the type of news creation that is called spin.
There is a problem which is rarely considered or addressed during election-time, and that is how accurate is the data or information each voter is basing their decision upon?
Quick example is the network-televised debates in which the other candidates were excluded. When Perot was included in the 1992 debates, his standing in polls increased, but when he was excluded from the 96 debates, his numbers decreased dramatically. Clearly, excluding a candidate from the three TV debates, will greatly affect the election. The fact is that tens of millions of people get their news from pretty much the same set of sources.
I think "Spin" by Brian Springer does an excellent job of using technology to provide a glimpse into how the news is created and how the media and politicians affect how we think and behave at the voting booth. It used satellite backhauls from the events of 1992, which are raw news footage feeds unseen by viewers before the networks package and broadcast them. "Spin" is quite educational AND entertaining (who doesn't enjoy seeing Larry King demonstrate his ego, or Al Gore get made up by a spin doctor?)
There are RealPlayer versions, Media Player, and even a DivX ;-) version! "Spin" by Brian Springer originally came out in 1995 and made it's way around college campuses then. It is interesting to consider that the people in high school then, are in college now and voting age. :)
Final remark to CMDRTACO and anyone else considering voting for either Bush or Gore: there are many states where the election has already been determined. Bush will take Texas, Gore will take Mass., Gore will take California, and so on. If you live in one of these states, please do not waste your vote on either of those candidates, but instead vote your conscience guilt-free. Your vote for Gore or Bush will NOT make a difference in changing the outcome of those states; so instead, PLEASE consider voting for a third party candidate, such as Harry Browne. That is the ONLY vote that will count in those states. Just think about how clean and pure you will feel when you leave the voting booth! :)
I'm not sure I totally agree, but I thought this was a pretty good Nader quote:
"The only difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock."
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. It's the Supreme Court, stupid. article: Nader is poised to play spoiler
Abstract: Oct. 23 -- Although he was excluded from the national debates, has no money for television advertising and rarely rises above 4 percent in national opinion polls, Ralph Nader enters the last two weeks of Campaign 2000 poised to make an important impact: According to polls and campaign officials, he could tip as many as six states from Vice President Gore to George W. Bush, making a potentially crucial difference in the Electoral College.
read the article for more details
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Mandarory refers to the sense that you will have to save that money in the same way you do now. That is all. Maybe I missed Bush point but I assume he doesn't want to allow people to use priveously SS money to buy a trip to Disney.
Now, you suggest that some people will be able to invest but won't have to. Let me see: I will have to chose between giving the money to SS to pay for current retirement benefits ( not mine) or invest it for my own benefit.
Besides, if the investing is done well, the return on investment will outpace the loss of surplus.
So you agree that this is a plan to get rid of Social Security? Why not say, social security is a bad idea, let me suggest that each person put his own money in the stock market and take care of his own retirement. Why all this fudge?
and BTW, what if you invested poorly, and in forty years a candidate came and promised to bail you out, and pad your dwindled pension with tax money, will you and all your generation refuse to vote for her in the name of personal accountability?
-- look, cheese ahoy!
How can the man call himself a libertarian when he's profoundly anti-choice about abortion?
How can you call yourself a human being when you obviously have the IQ of a wet teabag?
The man is in favor of FREEDOM, therefore he is a libertarian. That means IT DOESN'T MATTER what his beliefs are because he won't impose them on YOU.
Sheesh. Get a clue.
What if the woman got pregnant from being raped?
Does the child of a murderer deserve to die for the sins of his father?
No?
Then why should the child of a rapist?
Now, if you believe the Biblical prescription that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the sons unto the seventh generation, then you've got a clear justification (assuming you believe the death penalty is justified for rape, of course) but short of that there doesn't seem to be a sound philosophical reason for treating pregnancy by rape different than any other pregnancy. Feel free to present one if there is but it's just escaped me....
Um ... what difference? He says that abortion is none of the federal government's business, so it shouldn't prohibit it, and it shouldn't fund it either.
How on earth is this unlibertarian? I don't think money should be extorted from me at the point of a gun to pay for your abortion EITHER -- are you going to claim that makes me not a libertarian?
Hint: If you do you'll REALLY look like a COMPLETE idiot.
No. Govenrnment has no more of a right to this body of land than you and I. Stop spewing FUD.
- Inaction does mean something: This is not "Yoda doublespeak." Remember the phrase, "Wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire?" Responding to each and every stimulus applied to you just makes you a robot!
- Not-voting doesn't carry much weight: I'm just going to disagree on this one. First off, my regular vote doesn't count -- it goes to the electoral college (another good reason not to vote!)
- Every non vote DOES make them concerned: Politicians have begun to talk about this. Every time the elections roll around, everyone gets interested in the fact that the turnout gets lower and lower. Why do you think we suddenly have this great big interest (real or forced) in campaign finance reform? A lot of poeple not voting is starting to freak these guys out.
- Rights: Sure, they are intangibles, etc., but if you are going to talk about someone's "duty" to vote, that's about as tangible as their "rights." Rights don't exist, only laws of physics, but, hey, this is the game we play. If I really didn't like them, I'd become a sociopath.
Let me bring up some more points:- If voting in this particular country/political system was so all-durned great, why does everything SUCK so much?
- Does anyone really think that participating in the big sideshow, the Presidential election, where we've only got two choices, is going to bring us a change? If you don't think it is going to bring a change, why lend your faith to it?
- Every vote you cast for a system you don't believe in is not only participation in a system you think is (evil, ineffective, corrupt: pick one or more), but a pat on the back of all of those politicians you hate. They think you approve of them!
- The electoral college. 'nuff said.
This is something of a rant, I'll admit. I just frequently believe that the Presidential election is nothing more than a distraction from the real moving and shaking in the government. I think that everyone's just happy with us wasting time bickering about a President (whose powers are certainly overshadowed by that of Congress) instead of looking at where the action is. There's this great science fiction story I keep thinking about. A group of aliens lands on Earth, claims that there's another group that's Evil. We throw in with them and help. Then the new group comes in, wins for a bit, says, "No, no. They deceived you. We're the good guys." We throw in with them. We go back and forth between one camp or another while the planet is ripped to shreds.That's what the two-party system reminds me of, a situation where we would have been better off NOT getting involved. I think the Republicans and Democrats (as politicians) simply feed off our attention and energy. Why not starve them for a change? Do you really think that, if we elect any of them, they'll work hard to change the system that got them there?
Okay, I'm putting on my asbestos undies now.
Well, if you can so easily kill your own child the day before it's born, then it's apparent why you have no sympathy for this issue. "Hey, don't worry about it honey, it's not like it was human or anything."
start understanding that all of your argument is moot the moment you think you can control someone else's body?
Duh -- we exercise control over people's bodies every day. For example, it is illegal for you to use your body to hit someone (it's called "assault").
A woman gives up control of her body as soon as a sovereign individual is growing within it. She has given consent for that individual to grow by having sex. If she has sex, then she is taking on the risk and responsibility (Oh no! Not that word!) of creating a child.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
His tag line reminds me of Soviet party loyalty. The same party loyalty that Stalin thrived on.
Unfortunately, your translation also reminds me of things Soviet. An economy is the concomitant of society and differentiation of labor. We depend on each other, and we share our goods and services. That's an economy.
From what I've heard, Nader's party thinks the economy is some instrument of repression, or a way for government and corporations to enslave everyone. Repeal civilization - vote for Nader!
They have no legitimate power to enact slavery, and they have no legitimate power to enact prohibitions against abortion.
Where in the constitution does it state that a person has the right to kill their own children. Please point me to the reference.
-----
To be honest, playing slavery against abortion (obviously both being about human rights) make me think you are a troll. In fact, your style reminds me of the "streetlawyer" character. Do me a favor -- send me an e-mail if I got it right. I won't blow your cover.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
For that matter, so can Nader, or anybody-- this is a problem with the US political system, there is no way for the people to recall a candidate that has violated his mandate.
Sure there is -- it's called checks and balances. If the president changes his stance on everything he got voted for, there's no reason for Congress to let him get away with any of it (it'll make them look good to stand up for the little guy).
Think of the Republican revolution in the 90s -- a huge electoral mandate to fix taxes and campaign financing. So they got into office and started pushing morality legislation and abortion laws and everyone else promptly started ignoring them because they had no more influence to get things done. They changed their priorities from middle-class economics to right-wing social.
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
That is true. However, what the Republicrat FUDers don't want you to think about is the fact that which of the current justices resign depends on who wins the election.
None of the justices are so infirm that they'll have to resign within the next four years. If Gore is elected, no conservative justice will resign and allow himself to be replaced with a liberal justice. Vice versa with Bush and liberal justices. Although the next president will have the opportunity to appoint a few justices, this will not change the ideological makeup of the court.
Voting for Pat won't get him elected. It won't stop Gore from getting elected. Voting for Bush, who is my second choice, can help prevent Gore from getting elected. He's not perfect, but he'll do.
Ah, that explains it! How much you buy into the "don't waste your vote" rhetoric depends on how much worse one of the two major candidates is, in your opinion, than the other. You, as do most Buchanan supporters, believe that Gore would be much worse than Bush. Thus, you buy into the FUD, and Buchanan will receive very few votes. Libertarians such as myself believe that Gore is only very slightly worse than Bush (and there's quite a few of us who believe that Bush is slightly worse than Gore, too), so we don't listen to the FUD.
By all means, cast your vote for Bush. I'll be reminding you for the next four years how Browne got three times as many votes as Buchanan.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
The question for me is: do I want smaller government?
If the answer is yes, then it's stupid to support anyone who doesn't also want smaller government. Harry Browne and Howard Phillips are the only Presidential candidates who have proposed reductions in government programs. Voting for anyone else isn't just a vote for the lesser of two evils. It's a vote that will continue to take us in the wrong direction.
Harry Browne won't win this year. So you don't have to worry about him implementing his more radical proposals. But voting for him is the only way you can send the clear message that you want smaller government.
As for the extremeness of his proposals, let me point out that incrementalism doesn't work when it comes to getting smaller government. If a candidate ran on a platform of cutting various government programs by 10% and eliminating a few of them, he would attract the ire of the special interests that depend on those programs without offering any substantial tax relief to the taxpayers. Only a single, decisive stroke in the opening months of a presidential term has any chance of bringing about major reductions in government.
Not only that, but any government programs you leave reduced but still in place will quickly grow back to their former size the next time a D or R takes office. A partial cut of the SS tax can easily be re-instated in the next election. It is much harder to do so if people are used to keeping every dollar they earn.
If smaller government is what you want, you need to vote for a candidate who supports it. Even if you think Harry Browne does go to far, it's still better to go in the right direction than to continue supporting those who are making the government bigger. And given that he's not going to win, his getting a lot of votes will primarily cause his ideas to get put on the table more often, something that can only do good regardless of whether you ultimately support his positions.
"Internal Revenue Service Notice: Political candidates may use fuzzy math -- but not taxpayers!" -page A19 of today's Boston Globe.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I read the Harry Browne piece:
The problem not addressed regarding 'blue hairs' and Social Security is those 'blue hairs' paid into this catastrophe of a system for far many years. They believed Roosevelt, and put their money into that system and my denying them what they paid forward is tantamount to theft. Rather, we should require that all monies paid into Social Security and Medicare, be locked away from general revenues. If you examine the Office of Management and Budget, you will see that most of the "surplus" lauded about, and planned for future spending by both major party candidates is actually Social Security revenues which are the direct result of higher employment and better paying jobs. Lock those monies away from Congress and the President and SS will be solvent for about, a million years. Why? Because the money, if left alone, will be there for current recipients. See the OMB website and see that the outlays are far smaller than the receipts. Also, as the recipients get older, they die (they also rarely see all of the money they paid into the system BTW). Therefore, the outlays will continue to drop rather than exceed the amount in the pot even with the much vaunted Baby Boomers asking for their payout.
Getting either major party candidate to honestly say where the alledged budget surplus is coming from (Social Security) is a whole other matter; one that would probably upset the 2000 Election apple cart.
Further, pitting older Americans and younger Americans against each other, black vs. white, rich vs. poor and so forth by any candidate is plain wrong. We have enough tribal separation in this country, we don't need more.
HOWEVER, and a big however, by the way, younger workers should be allowed to determine what they want to do with their SS contributions incrementally as time goes forward in order to dismantle the SS system in the future. The money will be there for the older population that are over 50, for instance. Those younger, and supposedly with more time between them and retirement should be allowed to begin moving their contributions to alternative savings plans. In addition, there should be an easier process for completely withdrawing from SS with one major caveat: You withdraw, you don't come back in 10, 20 or 30 years asking for a handout because you spent your retirement money on a BMW, failed stock or your brother-in-law's beeper business that went belly up.
Finally, my profile said I would vote for Browne, if that is any use to any of you. I will not because there are too many government programs I want continued rather than disbanded, shrunk or privatized. Namely, the National Parks department, NASA, the military, the National Transportation Agency, the FAA, the FCC, and a few others come to my mind.
Whatever. I am voting on November 7th rather than spewing euphenisms and defeatist slogans. Like it or not, I have to raise my children in this country and be damned I am going to tell them I did not care enough about their future to ignore my duty to them.
still others (like me) think that it should be allowed before the fetus develops to a be its own entity.
I got news for you ... a newborn baby has not become "its own entity". The brain has not developed any personality, and operates on total instinct. So are you in favor of post-birth abortions?
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Actually, the parent company for that project is based out of Florida, but the artificial island is to be located in the vicinity of Panama (Something about there having been no recorded Hurricanes in that area...). The project is called Oceania.
The drafted Constitution they've written is fantastic. With renewed funding, and luck, one day we'll be neighbors. ;)
For those that would die defending it, Freedom
has a sweet taste that the protected will never know.
I was just reading a Q&A about SS in the Sunday paper, and they mentioned that they are raising the cap to 80k next year - I believe they said about a 6.6% increase to someone making 80k or more.
Enjoy the loss of income to a program you'll never see a penny from! I know I will!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, but you can pay it down from the outrageously high level it is at right now, so that you don't need to set aside so much of the budget (OUR TAXES) to pay the interest on that debt.
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
By control over your life, I am referring to how Bush's philosophies conflict with mine. I am pro-choice. I would also disagree with prayer in public schools. I would like control in my life too, which is why I will vote for Gore.
I've always found intriguing the idea that voting for a third-party candidate amounted to "throwing away" your vote.
Perhaps I'm a little naive in this, but let's see which action is a real waste of a vote: voting for someone because you want to "back a winner", or voting for a third-party candidate who best represents your ideology.
If you want to back a winner you will try and determine which (Bore/Gush) big party candidate is most likely to get the most votes. Therefore the real power of your vote will truly become insignificant -- it will be only 1 out of several million, and even then it will only only solidify the current political status quo. Aside of course from the fact that the two big parties hold pretty much interchangeable positions on any given subject (let's face it, it's a choice between a white southern middle-aged man of privilege who went to an Ivy League school, and, well, another white southern middle-aged man of privilege who went to another Ivy League school).
On the other hand, by casting your vote for the third-party who best represents you (because frankly the two big parties don't truly represent anyone), you accomplish much more:
1- you are taking a stand in favor of that candidate.
2- you increase his/her party's visibility. With enough votes maybe, just maybe the name of the party will be mentioned in passing by Jennings/Rather/Brokaw during the election night coverage
3- the more votes are case for anyone but the two major party candidates, the stronger the message will be sent to Washington that if the politicos don't start taking democracy a little more seriously, then they might find themselves out of a job at the next elections.
To those who say, "but my vote is only one vote", I reply that it's just one vote one way or the other. If you think that voting for a third-party candidate is a waste of a vote, consider the real implications of voting for establishment candidates. At least the candidates from the smaller parties will probably be receptive to your discussions and ideas. They're not likely to cower from the public behind their Secret Service escorts.
Think about that, America.
My sig is too lon
There was a radio article on NPR last week that described how much money the various police departments in Florida get from the war on drugs. Apparently it is a self-fulfilling cycle - drug money = more money for law enforcement = more drug users and dealers busted = more drug money. The problem is, there is very little due process when seizing and auctioning assets so the Sheriff/local constabulary get to sell the asset without any sort of trial.
People have lost businesses by having their Accounts Payable seized without cause, and being unable to make payroll.
The self-fulfilling prophecy has a downside: the police get most of their funding from drugs, so if there is a downturn in drug/cash seizures then effectively their funding is cut. So the politicians are constantly applying pressure to keep up the raids.
Wow, what a police state South Florida has turned into.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
The worst part is Browne is just planning on passing the buck to the states, where his libertarians will be as anti-choice as he is. Voters tend to agree with the ideology of those they vote with and its a big suspension of disbelief to assume that *those* Browne Libertarians will be pro-choice.
You'd think with so many smart Libertarians around they'd pick someone who wasn't a Republican in disguise. Even posterboy Libertarian Bill Maher is voting Nader.
Go Green!
I agree. Don't Vote.
http://www.economic.net/
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
I think I'll take this opportunity to mention Canada will hold an election on Nov. 27. Prime Minister Jean Chretien dissolved Parliament on Sunday at 11 am; he admitted Canada's worst-kept secret to opposition leader Stockwell Day over coffee on Friday.
It will be interesting to compare how the elections are conducted. Our campaign starts now; legally, the campaign can only run 36 days, from dissolution of Parliament to the election. We have at least four well-known parties throughout the country people regularly vote for - five in Quebec due to the strong separtist party in that province. For a while, the separtists were the official Opposition in our Parliament!
We also don't choose a separate president and majority party; the majority becomes the government, with the leader becoming prime minister. In the event of a plurality, the government can rule as a minority or form a coalition; the current leader of our Progressive Conservatives, Joe Clark, led a minority gov't for a few months back in 1980.
Our elections can get just as nasty, though I think in this election (IMHO, of course) Canada will focus more on the parties' overall platform and performance, whereas the US election seems to be centered on who will make a better president; the contest over the House and Senate seems much more fluid. I suppose that happens when the man currently in charge has a legacy of misadventures involving his johnson, and his potential successors are seen as the men who will have to restore prestige to the post.
Main reason I like our elections; they only last just over a month, instead of seeming to last forever:)
Let the best candidates and parties win, in both of our countries.
-------------
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Bit of a historical rewrite there...actually, Bush kept claiming there was "no recession", while tech companies were closing througout the USA. At least Carter acknowledged the problem, but I don't want to get into the Carter thing.
I'm not saying that the gov't or president controls the economy, but just like in the armed forces (or many companies, for that matter) if the sh*t hits the fan on your watch, regardless of fault, you are probably going to have to take responsibility for it.
Taking responsibility means acknowedging the problem, and dealing with it...something the former Pres. Bush did not do.
Actually, I didn't want to vote for Clinton. I thought he was a slimeball. In many ways, he is...but he is also quite intelligent and has surrounded himself with a quality staff. I absolutely voted my pocketbook...the jobs just disappeared from the papers under Bush's watch...and I held him responsible.
I wouldn't hesitate to vote against another President given the same circumstances...they have an obligation to strengthen and monitor the US economy, whether they choose to accept it or not.
"Mild recession" is fairly subjective...a lot of companies in Southern California were absolutely devasted by Bush policies and (in)action. Members of my family lost almost everything...so it was not mild to us, compared to the carter years.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
while gore and bush are the exact same, and may be destroying this country. By not voting, you are voting for the standard, and the standard sucks. It needs to change. Don't vote for someone because you "have" to... vote for who you feel is the best candidate, regardless of party affilitation... nader may be the best guy for the job in a long time.
i mean, have you ever heard him speak? this guy knows what he's talking about, and doesnt talk down to you, and doesnt BS or pander. Its really great to have a guy that has clear virties and principles and plans.
this guy is exactly what america needs
let me step down off my soapbox...
tagline
... hi bingo
When S.S started, people began taking money from it right away without ever paying in at all. Great for them, bad for the system. Now with the wonders of modern medicine, the life expectancy of the average person has gone up. Great for people, bad for S.S, because people start taking more and more from it. Answers could be increasing the tax to fund it, increasing the age at which people are eligible to get it so that its closer to the life expectancy. I think its stupid that I hear everyone talking about it as though they were supposed to rely on S.S. for retirement. It was never meant to be relied on, it was meant to help out. What was wrong with keeping your own damn money, planning for your own retirement, and if you didnt, well then you were SOL and screw you for not thinking ahead?
"The seniors, the seniors, won't somebody PLEASE think of the seniors!"
Real clever of the generation that created it to say, oh yeah this will work, we didnt save ourselves, so lets have our kids pay for us. I dont want my kids to have to pay for me. Same as I shouldnt have to pay for my parents, and they shouldnt have had to pay for their parents, and so on. Leave me out the system and my kids wouldnt have to pay for me. In fact, Id be able to probably pay everything for them, because I know I can handle my money better than some beauracrat. Great for the government so they can take your money and shift it around to whatever they want, talking about surpluses they get with it. The fact is though, the S.S doesnt have a surplus, because there is no way to save it from year to year. Its actually in debt, because money from the supposed 'surplus' was redirected to other areas. Well where is that money now going to come back from?
Its just such a half assed system, but of course Seniors have such a strong voting block and no one bothers to look at the actual numbers involved. S.S is of course great for them since their milking it for all its worth right now. S.S is the real 'fuzzy math' in politics. Thats the one silver lining I've seen in the otherwise dark cloud of possibilities should Bush get into the office. I'd love to be able to invest my own money. If it gets screwed, well I'm not figuring Ill get much out the system by the time Im ready to retire anyway, so its not like Ill feel I lost much.
We should have never set up a system where people feel entitled to things in the first place. It breeds laziness, same as welfare, same as communism did. Welfare sounds great if people only use it to get back on their feet in a pinch, it shouldnt become a way of life. Sure we need a safety net to help the unfortunate, shit does happen sometimes, but no one should feel entitled to it. Communism sounds great on paper, in practice it failed to take into account human laziness when they wont benefit from working harder.
As always, feel free to disagree...
But my dreams they aren't as empty, as my conscience seems to be...
Who is the ASP Error fellow? His philosphy intrigues me, and I would like to receive more literature.
Wow, an unconvincing slashdot poster making terrible analogies and picking on the typos of others. I've never seen that before. Keep up the good work!
Even though the Greens and Libertarians are opposite in core values, they end up with similar conclusions on many issues like free speech and the drug war. Since the Greens are the only 3rd party this time with a chance at getting 5% and threatening the system next time, many Libertarians (Bill Maher is a famous example) are voting Green this time to further their long term goals. All 3rd party voters should do this because a large (>5%) 3rd party is the only thing the existing parties won't just ignore.
Do you honestly believe what you typed? The only reason to vote for a third-party is to grow their party or there is no difference between the main two?
What about the fact that you agree with their ideology? Should that get thrown out the window in modern American politics?
I might be "wasting my vote" on a third-party candidate, but at least I can say that a) I have strong convictions and b) I stick to them. What can you say about your vote?
Maybe if everyone who is planning on voting third-party voted their mind instead of "Nader because he has the best chance of getting 5%", the *Libertarians* (or the Natural Law, or someone else) would be getting that 5%.
But, no, we would rather pick a random third-party and get behind him instead of doing our patriotic duty.
As far as camapaign finance, your complaint/explanation does not answer my example.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
In my state, we have a initiative on the ballot to give all the money from these seizures to public schools. Right now the money goes to the police department--for more seizure programs. This just perpetuates the illegal seizures, since the police have something to gain. While I don't agree with the laws (I believe they are blatantly unconstitutional) I will be voting for this initiative, since I would way rather see the schools get the money that the corrupt police.
Enigma
Enigma
The analogies are perfect, actually (if you want to make a case why they aren't, go ahead). As for the "typo", 1) she misspelled it twice, and 2) the word "amendment" is pretty basic to law. If she is going to arrogantly imply that she knows something about law, then it takes away from her argument when she can't spell something fundamental to law.
To put it another way (another terrible analogy, I know), if someone is going to arrogantly make statements about POSIX standards, it takes away something from their argument if they spell it "UNUX" multiple times.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Yeah, not so good, but maybe a better one will be created later.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Nader needs to convert Republicans and Democrats, who barely even watch the Bush/Gore debates, and disinterested nonvoters who won't watch ANY debate. At least those guys might see some superrally coverage on TV and become interested... there's no coverage of the 3rd party debates on TV or other mainsteam media. Nader would certainly debate Browne if he thought anybody would watch! Libertarians who think he's scared are fooling themselves.
I guarantee that anybody who watches the 3rd party debates is already smart enough to look on the web and research all their choices. Smart libertarians will end up voting for Nader just so he gets 5% and the GP can further weaken the Republicans and Democrats in the next election.
Yes, I too have worked hard to get where I am. However, I was less fortunante than you. I financed my way through college, as my parents did not have the money to send me off too college. I decided to go into the service after high school, because of this. After that, I was able to go to college, and get fiancial aid to help pay my way. The Clinton administration has also allowed more money for pell grants, and raised the federal borrowing limit. Without that, I'm not sure where I would have got the money. I guess I could have sold guns or drugs.
So, if by that, you mean giving money to people that do not deserve it, well, than maybe you are just a special person.
We are talking about incentive here. By allowing people the chance to attend college, you further their potential, therefore making society better. But some people will never realize this, and thats why they are on the streets selling guns and drugs, or you have people like yourself who only think about themselves.
One other thing to think about, is what if for some terrible reason you became disabled, and were unable to work. Without money in the system to help you out, it looks like you will have some serious problems trying to eat. But then again, if the stock market was good at the time that you were disabled, then you would have nothing to worry about.
You say Gore would not be activley destructive. But of all the people in your list, who was the one who heavily promoted the Clipper chip which would have effectivley disallowed strong encryption to anyone?
Why, that was Gore. It seems to me that looking over the previous record I can find only one candidate who has done something that would activley harm the internet, and that person is Gore. As someone else said here, vote for anyone else but please do not vote for someone who would seek to control the internet.
Do not confuse the ability to understand the internet with the desire to protect it!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Support the person, who supports Open Source!
Not surprising really. I thought the same thing when he was still running.
The thing that got me though... I matched better to Pat Buchanan than I did Nader.
Pardon me while I go shoot myself now.
Despite all the issues discussed about presidents, they are not all that powerful. It's the congress that matters the most about issues like abortion, spending, and gun control and such.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Scientific research shows that the coming election is going to adversly affect your health, whichever way you vote. Pregnant women are at particularly high risk and should leave the US and stay eight years in Scandinavia.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
(holds up steel tablet with DeCSS engraved on it) "...from my COLD, DEAD HANDS!!!"
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I assume you support whatever political positions you support because you think they're best for the benefit of all Americans, or all people, not just because they would benefit you.
If you really thought Bush would be better for people than Gore, or vice versa, it would be irresponsible of you to not help the better one win. It may be great to say you have convictions and stick to them, but is this self-satisfaction really worth hurting other people (through inaction)?
You might vote for a 3rd party with the hopes that they will eventually get large enough to win a national election. But in this case, you're making a calculated decision that the possible benefits your party may eventually bring outweigh the harm you could do in the meantime by not choosing the lesser evil.
Both the Greens and Libertarians need to be realistic about the chances of becoming a major party. How many other parties in the US have succeeded? The GP is new; this is our first serious campaign in a national election. If we make 5%, we have a chance to survive. The LP has done reasonably well in local elections, but try to imagine a realistic scenario in which they compete in the next couple of election cycles.
Anyway, the election is not just some abstract problem in American Politics 101. Depending on where you live, you have a chance to really affect people's lives. Liberals have to make a hard choice between Gore and Nader; Libertarians have to make an even harder choice between Bush and Nader. I think it's harder because neither is voting your conscience, but they represent a choice of strategy between furthering your short or long term goals. Voting when you know you will make no difference is the easy way out!
The only way you're going to make a difference to Bush or Gore is if you live in a state where things are close. Nader's trying to get 5% of the popular vote, which means your vote counts no matter where you live... since he won't win, it comes down to a choice of whether to strengthen the Republicans and Democrats or weaken them by strengthening the Greens.
I am very active in the Libertarian Party and know a lot of Libertarians that have come from both the liberal side and the conservative side. You would have a tough sell trying to convince any Libertarian to outlaw abortion, when, as Harry Browne points out when he is asked about abortion, that a war on abortion would be as big a failure as the war on drugs.
Why do you want to twist and pervert what the Libertarian Party stands for? Do you really think that by doing so you are going to convince people to vote for Ralph Nader instead of Harry Browne? Anyone who can read is perfectly capable of going to both the Libertarian Party and Green Party websites and deciding for themselves which party they wish to support.
BTW - are you old enough to vote?
None of the justices are so infirm that they'll have to resign within the next four years.
I'm not willing to bet the future of my country that the next president will only serve one term. 8 years is a LONG time.
By all means, cast your vote for Bush. I'll be reminding you for the next four years how Browne got three times as many votes as Buchanan.
I wouldn't care if Browne got 50 times as many votes as Bush, neither of them will win this election. Neither will Nader. This election is too important to me to waste my vote to "make a statement" voting on someone who can't win.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
As a man, would you give up control of your body to anyone for any reason? If you say you would, then you are a liar.
If I had a new human life growing within me, of course I would.
If you say you would, then you are a liar.
Not all of us are as selfish and cruel as you are (in fact, most aren't). You seem to think that people are just robots, with no ties to the human life cycle of living, dying -- and yes -- reproducing. I've got news for you. Part of being human is reproduction. You can't just remove that part and blindly pretend that bodies are just vessels for the brain.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I'd like to recommend a book, check out Solomon's Knife by Victor Koman. It's a real eye-opener for people on both sides of the debate. It challenges the views of both the pro-life and pro-choice movements and shows how technology could resolve the abortion issue for all but the most extreme on both sides. It's available by low-cost download in PDF or HTML and also in paperback.
Sorry, nope. The critical point is the development of that trait which separates humans from the beasts, namely the cerebral cortex.
Sorry, but the brain does not fully develop until after birth. So by your standard, we should be able to do post-birth abortions.
Evidently, you do take that position -- rats, pigs, and boys are identical in that each "has been endowed with a separate set of genetics", that being the standard you've chosen.
A new rat life begins at conception, just like a new human life. That has nothing to do with whether the lives are equally valuable or not.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The young, indpenedent party, voting block (read "techie") in California could be influence in denying that state to Gore.
Note the Green Party is rather anti-corporation and some the biggest corporations are techs like MS, CSICO and GE.
cspan has many of Harry Browne's speeches and debates in realvideo.
I was actually only refering to the voting SYSTEM (system of counting votes), not the greater political system. Sorry if that was unclear.
The problem is adequately described and discussed in the current issue of Discover Magazine. But basicaly, the problem is that the current US Voting method allows 'paradoxes', and allows the guy that most people DON'T want to get into office to win.
Imagine three candidates: A, B, and C. Now imagine that 30% of the voting public likes A best, B second, but hates C. Now imagine another 30% like B best, A, second, but hates C. The remaining 40% like C best, then A, then B.
The US voting system gives the election to C, even though 60% of the population like him the LEAST of all three candidates.
A *SANE* system would give the election to A, who has the most first and second place votes, and no last place votes.
Essentially it's a better system for matching the best candidate to the will of the people, and lets the people give a more complete representation of their views and desires. Giving just ONE vote for ONE candidate doesn't adequately allow a voter to express themselves when there are more than two candidates.
- Spryguy
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Crap! So my identical twin and I are the same individual?
Just trying to open someone's head! I mean "mind!" Open someone's mind, um, to the possibilities! With explosives!
Does it really matter which dictator you elect? Both candidates are identical in pretty much every respect, and we can be sure that whoever wins, the US will still continue to be as arrogant and insular as it always is.
Please enlighten me how you can correlate presidnetial candiates with dictators that's for Russia.
The fact that
admit that someone else's politcal views might have validity.
The election is not a non event. Wheather you care about government dosn't matter it still has far reaching consequences for anything you do almost in any way. Foreign policy will effect the people out of the US as well so it does matter vitally.
Respond to s
almost nothing Harry Browne says makes any sense, I think Libertarianism is close to anarchy, but did you read that article where he was talking about social security? I'm thinking of printing it out and passing it around on campus. At the very least it makes you think, which is more than Gore or Bush have done... They make you not want to think, they put you to sleep. And while I'll still vote for Nader, it's always good to hear something that's "diametrically opposite" to what you prefer, if only to refresh my understanding of what the situation is.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Slipping in irrelevant weasel words is not a substitute for debate. The brain continues to "develop" in some way or other throughout life. My standard (cortical development as the threshold between early and late term abortion) stands.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Are you sure that's what he's saying? I thought his big thing was that the whole federal government, including Congress, should stay out of these things. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the president should be all powerful, outside of Cthulu and Vader. If I'm wrong, some Libertarian may feel free to set me straight.
Just trying to open someone's head! I mean "mind!" Open someone's mind, um, to the possibilities! With explosives!
> Those of you who are still saying the two candidates are the same obviously are listening to their campaign rhetoric...
Yeah, if it weren't so sad||serious, I'd be laughing my ass off.
Two months ago Bush was campaigning on the issues of "tax break" and "strong military", and Gore was campaigning on "save social security" and "prescription medication benefits".
Now both are campaigning on "tax break", "strong military", "save social security", and "prescription medication benefits".
Where is the talk about the issues that really divide the two parties, such as abortion, gun control, affirmative action, gay rights, the environment, etc.? No, no, no! Can't talk about that during election year - there might be some voter out there who disagrees with me! Give 'em what they want to hear! Give them everything!
Oh, well. Their mamas didn't name them "Bore" and "Gush" for nothing. The middle of the road should be reserved for dead possums.
Also, last time I checked they both wanted to pay for their voters' perks by dipping into a surplus that isn't here yet - and never will be unless the economy runs like it has the last eight years for another ten. Not likely.
BTW, I applaud the spirit of your post -- especially the part about looking at what the candidates actually did before the great battle for the middle of the road began. But I would like to add that the next president will probably make some appointments to the Supremes, and that those appointments will matter more in the long run than the President himself does.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's clear you're only about 15-16 years old, but that's OK. Eventually you'll learn the world is not as simple as you think.
THIS DOESN"T HAVE TO DO WITH BABIES !!!!! IT"S ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOU CAN"T CONTROL PEOPLE !!
We attempt to control people every day. You can't kill others. You can't drive on the wrong side of the road. Of course, you can always choose to break these laws, but society imposes many, many ways of controlling people (including jail).
It's maddening that people don't always make the decisions that would most please you or I.
Indeed. It must be similar to how people felt back in the 1700s when thinking about the immorality of the slave trade. It was much the same arguments "Hey, you live your life the way you want, and I'll live my the way I want". "Don't force your morality on me". "Don't try and control my life". "Don't own slaves if you don't like it". Or any number of other rationalizations.
But civilized society evolves.
you can't make someone carry a baby to term?
Even after all this time, we haven't eliminated the slave trade, either (or murder, for that matter). That doesn't mean we shouldn't continue trying.
I am twenty times more cruel and selfish then you will ever know Mr. Reality Master
You flatter yourself. Got news for you... you're not that unique, even in a negative way. Maybe when you grow up you'll be a little more interesting, but spouting cliches is not rational dialogue.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Sure there is -- it's called checks and balances. If the president changes his stance on everything he got voted for, there's no reason for Congress to let him get away with any of it (it'll make them look good to stand up for the little guy).
I was under the assumption that Congress != the people. Anyway, the [eople can't recall their "representatives" either.
The heart of the problem is that people discharge their political will onto functionaries.
What is a dash of lime for voters, can be as bitter as the bitter gourd for the candidates themselves. The media brings to light their darkest secrets, of which they themselves may not be aware.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
Nowhere. The Constitution limits what the Federal Government can do. Not on what the "Several States" or the People can do. So, no the constitution does NOT say anywhere in it that people have the right to kill their own children. However it also does NOT say that people do not have that right. It is simply silent on the subject. Criminal legislation is better done at the State or local level.
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
W's kicking butt in the polls and in the electoral college. You know gore is loosing when he can barely hang onto his home state. The people there know Gore and they don't like what they see. W for prez!
Uhh the election hasn't started yet so electors can't even begin to cast their designated votes.
Respond to s
> I tried VoteMatch and it told me I was chaotic neutral, and had special skills in repairing small engines and archery.
/. karma, then share it with the needy.
I discovered, much to my surprise, that I'm a Hindu Socialist.
Maybe it's right. I've always wanted to whore up lots of
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In September a major point in the French Constitution has been destituted: the president from 2002 onwards shall be president for 5 years instead of 7.
20% of people voted...
There seems to be a growing disinterest in politics everywhere. In France, it is partly due to all the "affaires" (corruption and so on...).
I believe that it is all deeper than that. Not too far ago, politics represented an institution. People in grey talking about things noone understands and who everybody respect. But now, in the times of improved communication, of less censorship, of more accessible information, people start to think for themselves, have better opinions and start to realize that politics has become a big marketing fight with its buzzwords, buzztopics, trends, ruled and leveraged by polls. This has been pushed to such a point that they define voters as 'targets'. So they have to act younger, speak younger to seduce tomorrow's voters. Just like bankers, priests, singers or recruiters. Signs of times, the French socialist candidate for the city hall in Paris recently admitted he was gay. 2 weeks later, his competitor gave an interview in a gay magazine (looks like a fight over a market sector doesn't it ?).
I don't believe they will get anywhere better if they don't clearly show some genuine interest for the community, or at least for their own vision, and moreover, stick to it.
Also, I tend to believe that people do not understand a 100th of what is going on. Rather, they support their candidate as they would support their football team, with a strong feeling of belonging to a community rather than that of supporting the most suitable person. Am I wrong there ?
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
Slipping in irrelevant weasel words is not a substitute for debate.
I wasn't trying to be cute with language. I mean the newborn brain literally isn't capable of cognition or personality. A newborn is driven by total instinct, and is actually capable of less sophisticated behavior than a lot of animals at birth.
Read some literature on brain development. The first three months is when the brain starts to develop any cognitive capability. It undergoes tremendous physical changes during that time. In fact, the brain still has a smooth appearance at birth, and the "folds" don't develop until later.
Do you have any children? If you do, then you know all they do for the first few months is eat, sleep, cry, pee and poop. They barely even move during that time.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Why is Nader trying to get 5% of the vote? To get federal matching funds.
t ml for one instance.
Interestingly enough, the Libertarians REFUSE matching funds. http://www.lp.org/lpn/9601-Browne-matching-qual.h
While your arguments makes LOGICAL sense, it would leave me voting for Nader, who goes completely against my Libertarian beliefs. It would advance the cause of a political party that I nearly completely disagree with. Given the choice of (Gore or Bush) and (Nader), Gore/Bush wins every time.
Maybe I live in an overly idealistic world (where Americans should vote for who they actually think is best), but "neither is voting your conscience" is simply unacceptable to me.
Voting Nader might, as you say, help the Green Party "become a major party." As a serious Libertarian, this is a scary thought indeed. I do not believe that this would be good for the American people. I am afriad that too many people are simply voting for the Green Party as a "None of the above" without reading their platform. This might lead to strong dominate third-party that has popularity not because people agree with it (indeed, they do not even know what they are agreeing with a lot of times - I have asked many Pro-Nader people what the Green Party Platform is and several have not known), but because it was not one of the major two.
*That* is a scary America.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
> first let workers invest the SS surplus in the market instead of federal bonds, with the possibility of bigger payouts
Nifty deal. If you're a big-time stockholder.
Inflate the market with SoSec money, and what happens to the shares the well-heeled already own? Up, up, up! Nifty indeed.
Of course, that leaves stocks inflated, and due for the ever-popular "correction". The big boys cash out, and share prices drop. Oh, boy! Where's all that SoSec richness now?
Which party supports this deal? Which party's minions are likely to be most vested in stocks right now?
Coincidence?
This is nothing but a scam to transfer SoSec funds into Fat Cats' pockets.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This seems rather counter-intuitive to me. Vote your mind by voting third party, but vote for the third party candidate that will get the most attention?
That is complete crap. As I said in my original message, you should vote for a third party cadidate because you agree with their platform, not as a simple "None of the Above" vote.
If you think that, you might as well vote for the "Lesser of two evils" that are Bush and Gore and go along with the entire "don't waste your vote" argument.
I do not want the Green party to be serious contenders (and no real Libertarian would) because their platform is so opposite from a true Libertarian view. As far as free speech goes, anybody so in favor of complete campaign reform cannot be truly a believer in free speech.
Suppose your nextdoor neighbor was running for mayor. Suppose you knew that he was very poor for the job. You decide to spend *your* money to tell *your* opinion (by taking out an ad on TV, for example).
Buet they tell you that you cannot since that would go against the Green Party campagn finance rules. *You* cannot tell your opinion. Sounds like it would go against free speech to me.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
I follow now, hence the argument a few people who would otherwise vote for Ralph Nader have for not doing so, that they could in fact be helping Bush.
You're right, that system is pretty fucked up right there.
Thanks for the update, I will be keeping my eye on this and if it does as it seems to be shaping up to do, I will be there in a snap.
Get this through your shit filled skull: My mother's /sister's /wife's womb is off fucking limits ! the end !
So the day before your wife is to give birth, it's her right to terminate the pregnancy, right? After all, we can't tell your wife what to do with her womb. Even over your objections, your wife should be able to make that decision to kill your child, is that what you're saying?
I'm sure there were plenty of people like you frothing at the mouth when those "bastards in the north" took away their slaves. But then, they weren't human, either, were they?
The world looks at abortion like people looked at slavery in 1750. Only a relatively small number of people thought slavery was wrong then. It's probably going to take another hundred years before society fixes this as well.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
> I don't know if Taco is actually a socialist, but he is definitely a leftist. I assume his idea of 'good story submission' is one that supports Gore or Nader.
Could you remind us again why a leftist would support Gore?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I myself have submitted over 5000 articles that contain excellent info on Slashdot Cruiser. We will not be held down by the man!
Show us some examples of these "insightful" articles.
Don't be too suprised that write in candiates don't get much press when you invent them.
Respond to s
No backup for any of that. I assume you are not of voting age yet. What's the whole process?
To vote for somebody you *know* is a corporate drone who will support measures you don't only gives them more power. The right answer to this is *not* to vote for a "relatively benign" corporate drone, but to *organize politically* from a grassroots level and create an alternative. The most important thing one can do for this to happen is to work outside electionary politics at a grassroots level; voting for Nader, or any other candidate, is a very small part of this whole process.
Aren't you a republican? Your vote will be "wasted" as you said on someone who can't win, so you're voting for Gore?
exactly, workers don't have a surplus because it isn't an interest bearing account. The fund has, and the government can either invest it or give it back, but it cannot do both.
If the money is given back, it becomes a personal investment in a personal account, but then it is no longer social security. Social security is a system in which you take care of old people today, and you get a promise that you will be given a roughly similar treatment when you're old. it is not an investment mechanism.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
This is very true. I don't know if Taco is actually a socialist, but he is definitely a leftist. I assume his idea of 'good story submission' is one that supports Gore or Nader.
He has already shown a bias towards Gore in his story intros; why wouldn't he show a bias in story selection?
I personally think the presidential election has no place being covered on Slashdot. If you want to talk politics, go to a politics forum.
Rob is only covering the election so he can try his hand at influencing the little people, just like all other major media outlets. What used to seperate Slashdot from other news sources was a lack of bullshit (of the political variety, anyhow). But now, we can't go two days without being exposed to Rob's political views. When is this going to stop?
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
What good does it do to create a political party, if you're not going to vote for its candidates? NONE! The whole thing is our political system depends on votes. By not voicing yourself, you are implicitly agreeing to the status quo. If you don't like the main candidates, vote for a third party candidate you do like. Myself, I like Gore (I know I'm one of five people, but I actually think he is the best available candidate). If you don't like anyone who's running, vote for who is closest to your view, or start your own party. But never, ever give up your vote. My ancestors (and, most likely, yours as well) DIED so we can vote. Nothing makes me angrier than people pissing on that!
CmdrTaco whines about there being no submissions... well I submitted this and he didn't post it in his political links. Whatever, here it is for your consumption: http://ww w.s alon.com/business/green/2000/10/19/harry_browne/in dex.html.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
I'll clarify. W is kicking butt in the polls of the electoral college.
happy?
It's that simple don't vote have other people change things and then you have no right to complain. Not voting is *not* an intelligent choice.
Respond to s
Either I decide what to do with my money or it is used to pay for other obligations. If I invest it, and I earn 1M because I'm a brilliant investor, than I expect to be payed that 1M extra when I retire, and hence you cannot use this 1M to pay for other obligations. this is not high Math. Or has the new economy changed that too?
isn't such a clear separation since some of the invested portion will end up paying for retirees in future decades.
Prey explain how my investment will pay for other peoples retirement without stopping to be mine.
The plan calls for restrictions on the investments to prevent people from gambling with their money in high risk or agressive growth investments.
Now let me understand, Bush is turning the social security system into an investment banking seminary. You get your money, and you get managers that evaluate what is risky and what is not, and they decide say, you can invest in these 10 stocks, and you can have X volatlity and Y concentration, and then I pick my favorites. And I innocently thought Bush was the party of reducing the government. Is he in favor of privatization or of creating a national MBA?
The Bush plan is carefully designed This sentence captures everything that pissed me off to start with. You must have spent too much time on Mars lately.
Bush had not spent a single thought on the Social Security System throughout his life until the day after the Democratic Convention. Then, realizing that his plan to run on Monica Lewinski wasn't working, his advisers sat down and pieced together in a night's work a 'program' to 'save' social security that saves nothing and would get a D+ if it were offered as a term paper at a two year college. But they sprinkled it with the right buzzwords, 'private', 'return on investment', etc, knowing that this 'resonates' with a certain part of the electorate. And lo and behold, you respond precisely as expected.
I don't support Gore's plan, because he has none really. I am just amazed by how easily you put the label of 'good', 'preferable' and ,'carefully designed' to a last moment stunt, in a issue that is so complex and so far reaching. And then you want politicians to respect you.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
Voting is part of the process. Plain and simple. I didn't say that voting was the only way to be vocal.
I said "If you aren't vocal, if you don't let government know what you think and want and if you don't vote, then you turn into a society of the governed."
Get out, protest, be heard, but in the end you have to vote.
You have to vote for your state officials and then vote for the higher offices. Hopefully you were able to elect state reps who actually listen to how you vote in the federal elections.
I'm not saying that by simply voting we can fix the way government currently runs. But it IS one of the things you have to do if you want change.
Not to mention that you can't expect polliticians to pay any attention to you if they know that you aren't going to vote. If you don't vote, then you are of no use to them. They need to get elected to do what they want to do. If you aren't for them, then you are against them. Pretty simple.
Much of our debt is also owned by foreign countries. Hundreds of other governments use our debt securities to shore up their own financial status.
- Sig this!
"A fetus has unique genetics, therefore, it is a unique individual."
Crap! So my identical twin and I are the same individual?
that is not a counter argument. given two different DNA samples, if they are the same you can't prove that they didn't come from identical twins or clones (you're argument). if they are different, you can be 100% certain that they came from different individuals (the previous poster's argument). genetically, scientifically, the unborn child and it's mother are two different individuals.
"onward!" cried the copper man, little knowing brass corrupts...
I prefer Gore to Bush. But I prefer "Gore in four years, after realizing he could've won had he been more like Nader" to "Gore now".
--
An abstained vote is a vote for Bush and Gore.
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
How can any libertarian vote Nader? The man is a socialist. This is clear from his (admittedly vague) platform, his statements, and every public action he has ever taken.
Not that I necessarily disagree with socialism... But it is less like libertarianism than the democrats or republicans.
Methinks Maher is just an inconstant rebel.
The candidates do have distinctive programs, despite the eternal whining that modern presidental campaigns pander to the older voters.
Unfortunately, these issues don't seem to line up for one candidate or another.
With regards to tax cuts for tech types- Bush is a clear leader. Most technical workers will exceed Gore's "middle class" limits, while Bush will give them a 10% tax cut (i.e. raise).
On the other hand Gore and Nader oppose giganticism in the tech industry. They'll keep the anti-trust pressure on the MicroSofts, Intels, and Ciscos that threaten the smaller startups. Also limit immigration of cheap tech workers.
A third issue is retirement savings. Bush suggests privatizing in too ways: first let workers invest the SS surplus in the market instead of federal bonds, with the possibility of bigger payouts. Second Bush?replications would give larger tax breaks to 410K & IRAs.
So there are clear distinctions. But they don't all fall into clear party boundaries.
> Are you saying Boortz (the author) would fault someone for voting for Browne? If so, that would be incorrect since Boortz is himself voting for Browne.
No. I'm saying that the author only seek young votes for its candidate, perfectly knowing that youg people will not save for their retirement, so they'll get fucked at the end.
1/ He says 'Young people don't care about retirement'
2/ Well, you should, because you are paying for the retirement of 'blue hairs'
3/ Pay less and start to choose yourself how much you want to save for retirement (which, based on 1/, means about nothing)
4/ You are responsible of what is going to happen.
Hence, vote for my candidate, fuck yourself by not saving enough for retirnement, and, as I warned you, you'll deserve what will happend.
(Presonal opinion: He thinks "In the meantime, my candidate will get more power, and the privatisation of social security will give corporations billions")
Cheers,
--fred
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I read through the Haryy Brown article, but not the others. Nothing I din't already know, but it was good none the less.
We do have more than just two choices this election. We only have two choices in which we have a real chance of being on the winning team, but why would the slashdot crowd care about that? We don't use windows just because that is the "market leader." Saying we only have two choices is like saying we have a 50/50 chance of being on the winning team? Who cares if the the person you vote for actually wins!? If everyone voted for the person they thought would win, this country would be more of a mess than it already is!
I was initially planning to vote, if I did vote, for Bush, due to strong dislike of Gore's policies, and history of lying about stupid little things. If he lies about the small stuff all the time, what about the big stuff? Moving on...I am getting off track....
Based on a couple things I have hear Gore talk about recently, I figure I don't really care which one of them wins. I plan to vote for a third party canidate. Who? I don't know yet. Nader is a little too, I guess freak is the word, for me to vote for. I have watched some interviews of some of the other third party canidates, and am thinking Harry Brown has his head on the straightest of them all. But my mind is not made up yet.
The point is, pick he national canidate you like the most, and vote for him.
And God help us, if you live in New York, vote against Hillary Clinton for Senator! I can't stand the though of the woman from wherever she is from pretending to care about my state! She has her own agenda and "career" to advance. I wish we had someone from NY running on the Democratic ticket, I'd probably vote for them.
Anyway, enough rambling. But get out and vote for some third party person. Who you choose is up to you...but vote for them, send a message with your vote, you voice will be louder than voting for one of the top two.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Ah, Mr Roberts you betray yourself as being anti-socialist. Thats an easy position to take considering the last 75 years of American propaganda on the topic. Communism/Socialism is not evil and scary. It is a viable point of view and social system, but America/Corporations (no real difference for last 100 years) do not want you to realize that. As long as Americans are convinced that capatalism == freedom && communism == evil the corporatists will be happy.
As they will be hearing your irrational post
That aside, Nader feels (IMHO) that corporate interets in America have subverted the government. Which is blindly true - care to argue that?
Corporatist controlled capatalism does not grant one 'civilization': grow up. Turn on your TV, goto a garbage dump, thats American capatalism.
That's why the two party system will endure for the foreseeable future. As long as we're conditioned for instant gratification, we won't vote third party en masse, and things won't change.
For the record, my one priority is paying down the debt before cutting taxes, and no, I'm not willing to take the chance that someone diametrically opposed to that position will win by one vote in my state, so I'm going with the one major candidate whose position is most like my own. I'm voting Gore.
OK, I lied. I have two issues I vote for. I'm also very strongly pro-choice.
Local news reports that it was, in fact, intentional, as the ad now sports the website and phone number of a company looking for proofreaders. In other words, a gimmick ad.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
I think that abortion is murder, but I recognise that many disagree.
*sigh* No, neither sperm nor an egg have unique genetics. It's only when they combine do you create a new, unique individual.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The Capitol Steps. They do a radio show on NPR on New Year's Eve, April Fool's day, Indepence Day and Halloween. The site also has some of their parody songs on MP3 and AU (for you Solaris buffs). Their Halloween show is coming up soon, and since it's an election year, the show is bound to be hilarious. Check the station and time for your area, and hear parodies of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George W., and more.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Sorry, nope. The critical point is the development of that trait which separates humans from the beasts, namely the cerebral cortex.
(I suppose that a PETA-fringe type who believes that a rat is a pig is a boy would dispute this. Evidently, you do take that position -- rats, pigs, and boys are identical in that each "has been endowed with a separate set of genetics", that being the standard you've chosen. Good luck persuading anybody else....)
Thus, it is not in the least "arbitrary" to draw a line between early and late term abortions, taking a pro-choice position for the former and an anti-choice positon for the latter.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
It's interesting how privacy policy, disclosure, copy left|right|middle etc is not being talked about or looked at in this election at all. Nor is looking at how anti-trust should be applied to companies in the 'miracle-gro' computer industry. I don't understand why not, since this si something that will be around for a long time, I don't believe that now is the time to get lax, because a lot of companies will get away with some low down dirty shit if this isn't examined properly.
Try this and see what you get.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
The Boorz article mentions that the citizens of Galviston County, TX voted themselves out of the Social Security System. I gotta get me some of that. I'd take my instant 15% "raise" and put it straight into certificates of deposit.
Anyone have any details on how to get out?
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Unfortunately, Kuro5hin isn't setup very well for looking at the parents of his comments - it shows you all the other comments at the same "level" in the heirarchy. And for the top level, that takes a long time to load for this story.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
As far as campaign finance reform goes, you must be very rich or very naive. When my neighbor ran for mayor of SF last year, he was outspent by about 50-1 by the winning candidate, who was funded by every company from Pac Bell to the Gap. As thanks, these companies are now allowed to loot many times their investment from our city's tax funds. Regular people simply don't have the money to compete with that, unless their internet company recently completed an IPO. This organized bribery is what keeps the Republicans and Democrats in a position to exclude all 3rd parties, including your LP.
Not surprising since it is a rehearsal of partyline soundbites. Let us take an example.
do I support continue Foreign Aid to Russia, Israel, Others
I think present levels of US aid ( 0.3% of GDP) is ridiculously and shamefully low. countries half as rich contribute three times more. This shows the US to be a country of mean spirited misers.
but I also think that aid to Israel is excessively high for no good reason and that the 'aid package' to Russia was a catastrophe Gore should be held personaly resposible for.
So how should I answear ?
The problem with issues, is that they are just a nice name for soundbites. The Media is happy that the election is about discussing serious issues, but nobody bothers about the shallow level of the discussion.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
If you vote for the lesser of two evils now, there won't be a real alternative next time. Suppose no one voted for any second (oh, excuse me, "third" if you believe there are really two separate major parties in the US) party candidate this time around. Do you really think any "third" party candidate would bother to run in 2004? If Ralph Nader didn't get a single vote this year, why should the Green Party even bother fielding a candidate in 2004?
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Apologies to the Nader camp, but for geeks into free/open computing based on standards, there is only one choice -- and that's Gore. I don't like this election. Neither of the viable candidates has a impressive track record. Both are from "Political Families" -- once again, the ugly head of nepotism raises its ugly head. But, one of these two candidates has spoken strongly in favor of the government leaving Microsoft alone -- that candidate is Bush. Clinton has been an adequate president and is intelligent. He will be there to help Gore in the coming years. He also has a quality cabinet that will help Gore. Bush? He can go ask his Dad how to ruin the economy, or at least how not to do anything while the economy tanks. Or maybe he can go ask Reagan for advice on filling his staff with thieving scam artists who will fleece the public with schemes involving the S&L or insurance industry. There are at least two seats coming up for vacancy in the Supreme Court. It's pretty evenly divided right now, maybe leaning a bit to the right. Who will Bush put in? Gore is behind in the polls. He's stiff as a board on TV, and Bush does much better working the crowds. I don't like either candidate, but if you care at all about technology, or open computing, Gore is the only choice. Voting third party or failing to vote really works for Bush.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Even if you are worried about electing Bush, the tired old "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" slogan is simply untrue. A vote for Nader is half a vote for Bush. It takes two people switching from Gore to Nader to do the same damage to the Gore campaign as one person switching from Gore to Bush does.
Suppose you have a state where 1005 people plan on voting for Gore, and 1000 plan on voting for Bush. Now, it would take six Gore supporters to switch their vote to Nader to give the state to Bush (1000-999-6), but it would only take three Gore supporters switching their vote to Bush (1003-1002).
A vote for Nader is half a vote for Bush.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
I'm a libertarian, and I intend to vote for Browne. Yet, I can answer that question, becuase if the only three candidates were Bush, Gore, and Nader, I would vote for Nader. It is more important to me to destroy the one-party system we have (which masquerades as a two-party system) than to vote based on political ideology.
(Disclaimer: I do not believe Bush and Gore are exactly alike. I acknowledge that they have ideological differences on a few issues, just as any two politicians from the same party will not be in agreement on 100% of the issues.)
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
I you are part of the government...you are allowed to bend some of the rules. If you work in the private sector, there is no way to "opt out." Congress has their own retirement plan to, btw. -Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Sites like this should be the ones that get more publicity during election time - maybe if more of the 'drone' voters took a try at these types of information sites then they might be more influenced to vote outside their 'traditional party affiliation' and we could start to have a real democracy instead of a sheep herding contest.
I was surprised to see that they didn't include anything about censorship and whatnot though...
UBU
A copy of the article can also be found here. (Maybe.)
But the minute he's won, he doesn't have to play at being Nader, or anything else. Hell, the minute he's won, he can in practice reverse his stand on anything.
For that matter, so can Nader, or anybody-- this is a problem with the US political system, there is no way for the people to recall a candidate that has violated his mandate.
Let's get real. Electioneering, making a vote every couple of years, won't solve any problems by itself. The illusion that you can cause things to get better by just voting every 4 years for a guy who will wield enormous power in an office in Washington, or that such a person will actually "represent" you, or live up to their mandate with no mechanism present to enforce it, is just that, an illusion. In reality, the political system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, putting grassroots participation at its center, and cutting off the corrupting influence of corporate power.
But if you are in fact a citizen of the United States, then it's people just like you that have helped to get us into the predicament we are in today. If you aren't vocal, if you don't let government know what you think and want and if you don't vote, then you turn into a society of the governed.
Our leadership turns into "dictators" like you say. Because they know that to be elected they only have to appeal to the very small minority that votes.
That's why Joe Blow American is always feeling screwed. "Why don't the candidates speak to me? Aren't my needs important?" They aren't important to a candidate if he knows you'll be sitting at home with your thumb up your butt come election day.
This is what is known as a "self-fulfilling prophecy." As long as enough people believe it, it will be true.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Because destroying the one-party system we have (masquerading as a two-party system) is more important than political ideology.
Also, if you're concerned about corporate power, both of these candidates may seem likeable. Nader would use a strong government to restrain corporations. Browne would not restrain corporations at all, but at the same time he would not allow CEO's to use the FBI as their personal police force, the way they do under the Republicrats. Under Browne, corporations would not be able to corrupt government power the way they do today, becuase they would be hardly any "government power" to speak of. (How Nader proposes to prevent corporations from corrupting the increased goverment power, I'm not sure.)
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
After all of the fiasco of the debates, the lopsided press and the uber-focused ads it *is* good to see sites that are at least trying to stay impartial and give voters information that is useful, and not strictly propoganda.
yes he is
http://www.foxnews.com/elections/inde x.s ml
click on the link that opens the electoral map. once the page is loaded.
Bush is far safer than gore is.
Its decent piece of rhetoric. I don't agree with the ultimate conclusio, but hey its free society aint't it? Well, it used to be. Anyway, the point about how the old people who vote in numbers are robbing the youth of this country is one worth noting. I'm reading a very good book right now called The Scapegoat Generation. One of the points in that book is that the over 40 crowd who have benefitted the most from social spending is consistently voting to deny younger people such benefits largely gain an opulent subsidized lifestyle. Now, I know I just touched a major hot button there, but hear me out a sec. The child as in under 18 poverty rate is twelve times the senior poverty rate. Where does social spending go? Not to the young. Anyway, I strongly encourage Slashdot readers to check this book out at your library. The points about the organized political war on youth are well worth noting, especially since it was published two years before the whole Columbine mess.
There seems to be a growing disinterest in politics everywhere.
As more people have better lives/fewer problems, fewer need help and fewer are looking to the gov as a solution. That is why the ones that still consider themselves to be opressed in some way(AKA special interests) are always the most strident in political campaigns. It is just that these noise makers are now very much in the minority. When more are starving, freezing, suffering, you will see more interest.
Other than that, only those that have a real, deep conviction about some principle or other(AKA special interests) will be interested or in some way motivated to make the effort to participate.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
I am referring to the 'fairly humorous, that makes several good points' story.
... by the time you get that old you won't need it anyway"
At the beginning
"You're a long way away from getting any Social Security, and besides
Hence the: 'You are young so you don't care"
And, at the end:
"If you invest wisely in your retirement you'll be able to retire early with a lot of money and you're going to have a great time living on the beach and traveling the world. If you ignore retirement investing you're going to end up being supported by your relatives in some double-wide somewhere in Mississippi"
Guess what the sucker that wrote that think youngsters would do.
So, he can conclude
"Now --- if you're not even a little interested in who's running for president, you deserve exactly what you get"
Yeah. And that very sucker, will tell you: "You voted for Harry ? You deserved it"
Cheers,
--fred
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My French grammar and style are no doubt much better... :)
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
I should have made it clear that this was not meant as a statement about voting in general, but about the US electionary process (or that of many other "democracies"). Of course, given a suitable political framework, voting *does* give you a voice. But without political institutions in which you can truly participate, it is just held against you. "Oh, the people voted for me, I have their trust, so they essentially agree on me on how to run the country, no matter if I make 'minor' revisions to what I promised in my campaign."
Join the GOA instead!
Please don't take this as a flame, it's not intended as such, but how can you find both of these candidates interesting? They're almost diametrically opposed to each other. I'm asking this out of curiosity because you aren't the only poster I've seen with a stance like this.
As a libertarian, I find Nader's positions more horid than even Gore & Bush. For me personally, it comes down to freedom or not. Nader clearly falls onto the side of 'not'.
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
(There's a cool picutre of algore as Buzz Lightyear....)
I like how they've set this up. You post questions as comments in the forum. Harry chooses to answer 5 of the question every day until Thursday. Because of the continuing nature of the interview, it will allow for follow-up questions.
Given the high volume of questions already, I think some people are going to be disappointed that their question won't be answered.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
"...It became apparent that the juice was in the information revolution. Computer-processing power was doubling every year and a half, but the transmission lines for information were still based on twisted copper. The number of bits per second was static, and it wasn't increasing; meanwhile, processing power was expanding geometrically, logarithmically, explosively..."
Unfortunately for Gore, it turns out that a logarithmic function is probably the slowest increasing function there is, and is definately not on the same par as geometric or exponential expansion. Its a nitpick sure, but I found it funny. Try it in your calculator. The log of 800,000? 5.9. That means graphically that as you go 800,000 units in the x direction (to the right on the graph), the function only increases 5.9 units in the y direction (up on the graph). If the increase in processing power truly was logarithmic, we'd still be stuck with the PDP-10.
This is not a Gore slam; not everyone is a mathematician. But, then again, when GWB makes these kinds of mistakes the media is all over it...
I matched up in the high 80% with Harry Browne. That's who I was going to vote for, anyway. Some odd little facts, though: I matched better with Pat Buchanan, who I'd rather see shot than elected president, then I did with George W., who I was going to vote for until I found out about Harry Browne. Guess it's not 100% accurate...
A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
The races that are harder to decide, and ultimately just as important, are the local and U.S. Congressional races. As usual, they've been badly ignored in the news media this year. It's up to you to seek out information on them (and hurry!) The composition of the House and Senate makes more difference in upcoming legislation than the next president. Don't like the DMCA? Wish we could export crypto binaries? Want better Federal education funding? Think Social Security monies should be invested in the stock market? and what about environ- mental reform? You'd better make an informed choice in these races. All the social programs that Gore and Bush are kicking around require legislation to address. Even the ones that could be addressed through Administration programs are going to need to get their funding somewhere.
The same goes for your state. In my experience, geeks tend to think about politics in abstract and focus on large-scale issues. That's as it should be, but please don't ignore what is going on around you! Public education is still funded mostly by property taxes, so it's largely a state and local issue (and maybe you take issue with the whole idea of rich neighborhoods getting better-funded schools; I certainly do). Your city council controls development; it alone will decide how to deal with issues of conservation, affordable housing, and urban sprawl. Your local school board may be gearing up to install censorware or ban sex education. Your city may not allow you to carry a gun. Many of you live in states where it's still against the law to be gay. These are major points of contention, and they're being played out at the state and local level.
The politics of coalition-building are quite a bit different at this level, where many factions and lobbies have to be represented, and as a result these elections are often more interesting than presidential ones: the candidates are more differentiated. Also, you might have a chance of electing a third-party candidate in your state, as opposed to voting for one as a protest gesture.
So there's my appeal. It may seem obvious, but it's easy to lose sight of your full voting power while watching the presidential races. You can't vote early, but you can vote often. Make sure your views are represented in your school board, your city council, your state house and senate, and the chambers of Congress. Then punch the line for president. If that last one is the hardest decision you make this year, you're not paying attention.
Vovida, OS VoIP
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
Yeah, I know all the arguments. But there is something to be said for voting for 3rd candidates who you just *know* won't win as to help crash the bipartite stronghold on power, and have similar stands to you, *while* building alternate, participatory political structures.
Simply, in the US, voting for a 3rd party is politically more visible. But it is still one thing to vote for a 3rd party, and another to believe that the party would solve the country's problems.
As for myself, I'm still undecided as to whether not to vote, or vote Nader. Both actions have their particular strong points, but it's simply a tough choice, the way I see it.
I tried VoteMatch and it told me I was chaotic neutral, and had special skills in repairing small engines and archery. I'm going to keep re-rolling until I get at least two 18's.
I looked more carefully through the site you link. Though I'm very familiar with the arguments against electioneering, I certainly can't take seriously a site which proclaims the "dollar vote" as "An Alternative Form of Voting". So those with more money have a right to decide for those with less? By that logic, we should just officially hand over the government to GE and the other multinationals, for them to regulate as they see fit.
How can the man call himself a libertarian when he's profoundly anti-choice about abortion?
-- Anne Marie
Voting does not give you a voice. It silences you for 4 years. You don't get any more input into the process of who runs the country for those 4 years.
There are many ways of being politically vocal. And most of them don't involve voting for corporate-sponsored candidates.
I just spent 15 minutes going through the page that matches your beliefs to a candidate, and when I got to the end... BLAM! ASP error. I of course refrained from registering so that everyone could see my political bent, therefore the answers to my questions weren't saved. Use this page at your own risk.
Folks, if you don't take the time to follow up on or gasp! even take proactive stance towards politics and politicians (especially the ones that represent YOU), then don't shake your heads when [insert whatever infuriates you...] gets passed in Congress or even in your local legislature.
Stated in another fashion, a democracy (even a representative democracy) is a system designed with the expectation that citizens are SUPPOSED TO be involved with political decisions (not just elections). In fact, some would say that it is YOUR DUTY to be involved in "the process". After all, aren't political decisions (the good and the bad) supposed to be made to the benefit of, for and by the cititzery?
I don't how we've (as a nation) have come to the point that we now expect our representatives to follow his/her's own agenda after they're elected. No wonder the tradition of the career politician keeps on. No wonder that the big two political parties are running this year's show. No wonder the electorate is, as a whole, apathetic. No wonder that we've got tweedle dee and tweedle dum running for the Presidency this year.
This is another view of the world.
However, it did mention something I didn't know, down toward the end. In 1979, The county of Galveston, Texas was allowed to opt out of social security and run its own system! Naturally they are getting higher returns than SS, even though they intentionally use only extremely conservative investments. (One can only imagine how filthy rich they would have been with a few index funds dating from 1981 in the portfolio!)
Why can't my county, or better yet my business follow that model, and opt out? Well, maybe mine is too small; there is strength in numbers and the diversified portfolio they can buy. But many companies are much, much bigger than Galveston. Therefore there is no reason why they could not run a retirement system just as successfully.
And neither is there a reason why a pool of small companies could not run a similar system.
The answer is: you can no longer opt out. In 1983, that "loophole" (allowing local and state governments to opt out) was closed by Congress when Social Security almost folded. Quick: what is the solution to a failing pyramid scheme? That's right! Require everyone to buy in!
Fuck the Communists (w/ full facial)
Death Metal for Geeks
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Please note that while both Nader and Browne are "interesting", they have two very opposing platforms.
I have been a Libertarian for many years (Browne got my votes in the past two elections) and I dread Nader, mainly because I disagree with almost everything he is for, as would most Libertarians, Browne included.
In the VoteMatch thing, I was identified as matching with Browne the most and Nader the least. That tells you something, I think.
In the end, though, I would almost rather see Nader elected than the Bush/Gore coin-toss, just to have a third-party in there.
My advice: Research third-party candidates well before jumping on the "None of the above" bandwagon. They are very unique candidates and your vote is a very precious thing.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Or a different way:
A Non-Democratic system is worse than Bush.
Maybe a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush (this year).
But in the long run, a vote for Bush or Gore is a vote for a two party corporate puppet government.
I would rather expose a broken electoral system than encourage it by voting for "lessor of two evils".
What is it about the Reform and Green parties that earns them better-than-typical-3rd-party status at sites like issues2000.org and webwhiteblue.org? More and more I am seeing these candidates presented as "real" candidates in web forums while other 3rd parties are left in the "other" column. (Of course, they're all ignored by mainstream media.) What's the deal? Why not equal treatment for all?
I'm not trying to troll, here. If someone could explain why Buchanan and Nader have such (media) appeal, I'd appreciate it. I'd really like to know. Maybe I've overlooked something.
Constitutionally Correct