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More Candidate Answers - Bush and Hagelin
1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran
The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?
Bush:
If elected president I pledge a renewed commitment to fight the war on drugs. I have a plan that includes $2.767 billion in new initiatives to help parents, teachers, and faith-based leaders influence children to steer clear of the evils of the drug culture.
For the past seven years, the Clinton-Gore Administration has sent the wrong message on drug abuse. Two of the Administration's first actions were to cut the Drug Czar's office by over 80% and to appoint a Surgeon General who spoke openly about drug legalization. And, the Clinton-Gore Administration slashed international efforts to stop drugs beyond our borders and all but abandoned the bully pulpit against illegal drugs.
Tragically, without presidential leadership on the issue, teen drug-use rose dramatically during the first five years of the Clinton-Gore Administration, and it remains at unacceptably high levels today. Drug use by children between the ages of 12 and 17 more than doubled between 1992 and 1997. Recent data suggest that teen drug use may have leveled off, but is still at near record levels for the decade.
From 1979 to 1992, in response to a concerted and relentless national strategy and commitment, teenage drug abuse consistently declined year after year. Starting in 1992, however, that trend reversed dramatically, and from 1992 to 1997 teenage drug abuse increased nationally every single year.
The number of high school seniors who have tried drugs is at its highest level in over a decade, with over half - 54.7 percent - having tried drugs. This rate had declined for 11 years in a row, reaching a low of 40.7 percent in 1992, before growing by a third under the current Administration.
For 10th graders, lifetime cocaine use has more than doubled since 1992, reaching 7.7 percent, the highest level in a decade, and lifetime use of crack by 10th graders has likewise more than doubled, reaching 4.0 percent.
For 8th graders, heroin use has nearly doubled, reaching 2.3% in 1999.
Compared to 1992, daily use of marijuana within the previous thirty days by eighth and tenth graders increased by 700 percent and 300 percent, respectively.
In contrast to the past seven years, I will send a clear and unwavering message: drug use is wrong, and we will have zero tolerance for those who target our children with the plague of drugs.
I will help parents and re-energize the parents' movement, by creating a national Parents Drug Corps, through providing $25 million to non-profit organizations to educate and train parents in effective drug prevention. To achieve drug-free schools, I will increase funding for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program by $100 million over five years, and insist that states and districts measure drug use and demonstrate results. And, I will energize community coalitions through $350 million in grants to double and enhance the effectiveness of community coalitions that reduce teenage drug abuse.
I will devote an additional $1 billion to increased funding for the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, and $1 billion more to help close the treatment gap for those needing drug treatment and not receiving it. My focus on treatment will promote teen treatment programs in particular.
In addition, I will insist upon drug-free prisons, require regular drug testing and monitoring for parolees and probationers, and expand the successful Boston Gun Project from 27 cities to 100. And I will launch a federal Methamphetamine initiative, to tackle directly a growing crisis in rural communities.
We want a drug-free society for one, great moral reason: over time, drugs rob men and women and children of their dignity and character. Illegal drugs are the enemies of innocence, and ambition, and hope. I will exert presidential leadership to send the clear and consistent message that drug abuse is dangerous and wrong. And I will help marshal resources at every level - starting with parents, schools and communities closest to the needs of young Americans - to turn back the tide of drug abuse.
Hagelin:
The War on Drugs has failed. I will cut our burgeoning prison population in half by decriminalizing nonviolent drug offenses, directing such offenders to drug education, prevention, and rehabilitation programs. Approximately a million people are in jail for such nonviolent drug offenses. That's a waste of a generation.
We must also focus on the demand side of the drug economy by reducing the desire to take drugs. The most effective defense against drugs is proper education -- education that directly unfolds intelligence and creativity, builds self-confidence, eliminates stress, and raises life to be in harmony with natural law, thereby eliminating the tendency towards drug dependence.
To be effective, education must be deeply satisfying and directly relevant to a person's own life. Such education will eliminate functional and technological illiteracy and also prevent dropouts, who become the principal targets for drugs and drug-related crime.
2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst
What will you do to protect the rights of athiests and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
Bush:
I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion.
Hagelin:
I will take action where necessary to ensure the constitutional rights of all Americans. However, more than that, I will support effective education that expands comprehension and overcomes intolerance, prejudice, and bigotry born of narrow-mindedness.
Because the aim of every religion is the spiritual elevation of human life, I support the right of all Americans to worship according to the religion of their choice. At the same time, I support the crucial separation between church and state by holding that the Federal Government should remain neutral toward all religions, neither suppressing nor supporting any particular religion or religious sect. This attitude of neutrality, which aims at protecting the religious rights of all Americans, reflects the original intention of the nation's founding fathers.
3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman
With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year). A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do.
A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing. Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?
Hagelin:
Many candidates have promised lower taxes, but have been unable to fulfill these promises due to the depth and complexity of problems faced by government. Tax cuts--without the revenues to support them--would be irresponsible, and politicians who promise such cuts without a realistic plan to generate revenues are simply courting votes. However, my cost-effective solutions will save the nation hundreds of billions of dollars annually, thereby providing a realistic strategy for significant tax reduction that protects the integrity of our important social programs. The most powerful fiscal action our government can take to stimulate the economy is to lower taxes. I will cut taxes responsibly -- while protecting Social Security and Medicare and paying down the national debt -- through reduction of government waste and fraud, and through cost-effective solutions to costly social problems, such as spiraling health costs, crime, and our energy dependence on foreign oil.
One simple and viable way to implement across-the-board tax cuts is through a low flat tax. We will halt the endless manipulation of the tax code by Congress for their favorite corporate sponsors ("corporate welfare") by implementing such a tax. Our plan includes a generous floor of $34,000 (for a family of four) below which American would pay no income tax. Above the $34,000 floor, the tax rate begins at 18% in 2001 and drops to 14% by 2006 as our cost-effective solutions begin to bear fruit. Our low flat tax would stimulate and sustain strong economic growth. This strong economic growth, with its associated increase in government revenues, combined with the savings from our cost-effective solutions, would ensure a balanced budget and gradual repayment of the national debt without borrowing from the Social Security trust fund. This proposal would also reduce the size and scope of the IRS, eliminate loopholes for the wealthy, and put an end to corporate welfare.
Bush:
I believe that once our nation's priorities have been met, the remaining money should be returned to the taxpayers. Chairman Greenspan has gone on record saying that he would rather see the surplus returned to taxpayers than spent on new government programs like Al Gore proposes.
It is estimated that over the next ten years we will have a surplus of about $4.6 trillion. That surplus takes into account the projected increases for each government program and entitlement. In other words, after all of the government's bills are paid, including the regular increases for each department there will still be a surplus of nearly $5 trillion. Of that surplus, I want to take over half of it to help save Social Security. I will put that money into a "Lockbox" so that government can't spend it, except on Social Security benefits.
Then I will take about half of the remaining $2.2 trillion to fund important efforts such as improving public education, strengthening our national defense, and providing prescription drugs to senior citizens. The remaining quarter of the surplus, a little over $1 trillion would then be returned to the taxpayers. Under my plan, everyone who pays taxes will get a tax cut, with the biggest percentage cut going to the poorest citizens. In fact, I will take 6 million low-income families off the tax rolls completely.
4) electoral reform
by carleton
Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the Electoral College system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?
Bush:
The Electoral College was established by Article II and the Twelfth Amendment of the United States Constitution. I support our Constitutional system of representative democracy. I am disappointed at the diminishing number of voters coming out for national elections and statewide elections. I would encourage all Americans to turn out and vote in this presidential election.
I believe that a principal cause of voter apathy is the constant bitter partisan divisions and growing cynicism in Washington. I am running to try to change that atmosphere, to lead by uniting rather than dividing, to shoot straight, and to set aside partisan differences and set an agenda that makes sense for working Americans.
Hagelin:
I support crucial democratic reforms to end special interest control of government and restore government accountability to the people, including elimination of PACs and soft money, public sponsorship of election campaigns, and prohibiting lobbying by former public servants. I support election reform that returns American democracy to the high ideals envisioned by our nation's founders -- a republic that fairly represents the views of all its citizens and candidates. In this light, I support abolishment of the Electoral College, because under the current system, a presidential candidate can receive a majority of the votes and still lose the election. The President should be elected by the people through direct popular vote. I would also reconsider proportional representation, which has been effective in countries around the world and more fairly represents the true will of the people than our current "winner-take-all" process.
To create meaningful election reform, I also support the following initiatives:
1. Ensure ballot access fairness. Every political party and candidate should have the same requirements in every election for getting on the ballot. Incumbents should no longer have privileges over challengers with new ideas.
2. Promote campaign fairness. It is the right of the American people to hear the views of every candidate on the ballot. All candidates who meet ballot access requirements should have the same access to their constituencies, including equal media access through a series of publicly sponsored televised forums, debates, and infomercials, as well as publicly sponsored mailings of voter education materials. To qualify for these privileges, candidates would be required to comply with voluntary spending limits. This structure would favor voter education over privately funded media advertising and would thereby help eliminate special interest influence on the election process.
3. Encourage all Americans to vote. Election day should be made a mandatory national holiday, as in most other nations, so that everyone has time to vote. Voter registration should be facilitated by creating uniform laws that allow same-day registration or even automatic registration.
4. Shorten the campaign season. The campaign season should be reduced to four months -- two months for parties to choose their candidates and two months for the general election.
5. Allow national initiatives. The "public initiative" process, already enacted and in operation in 23 states, should be expanded to the national level. This process allows the collective will of our citizens to initiate legislative reform and thereby shape governmental policy more directly.
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory
In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.
Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?
Hagelin:
Whenever new technologies emerge, such as the tape recorder or the videocassette recorder, the owners of existing intellectual properties demand draconian protection, insisting that without it their industries will collapse.
Each of these technological advances, however, has in fact resulted in new ways for the movie, television, and music industries to make money. Similarly, the Internet and digital distribution of music have stimulated interest in the purchase of new CDs. (In fact, CD sales have continued to rise even with Napster, and it is probable that free sampling of music leads to increased CD sales.)
However, it is also true that intellectual property is a key motivator in the creation of new material and therefore must be given protection.
That is why I believe that the entertainment industry should make an all-out effort to find new ways to utilize Napster and similar services on a "pay per view" basis. This approach will serve all concerned and turn what appears now--at least to many in the entertainment industry--to be a disaster into a boon for both the industry and the consumer.
Bush:
In the next five years, we anticipate that two-thirds of software will be distributed over the Internet, making it more important than ever to ensure strong copyright protection for computer software. In the United States, much of the legal framework already exists, but we need to redouble our efforts on enforcement. In particular, the next President must make sure that the US Department of Justice and US law enforcement agencies have the resources to enforce our intellectual property laws. In the international community, the challenge is even tougher since we must both help establish a legal framework for intellectual property protection and ensure it is enforced.
6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy
Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private.
Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?
Hagelin:
To attempt to restrict the export of encryption is ludicrous and unworkable, since individuals and businesses will always demand the strongest encryption possible and governments will always try to find a way to break it. The right of Americans to encrypt will not be abridged under my administration.
Bush:
I share many people's concerns that, with the advent of the Internet, personal privacy is increasingly at risk, and I am committed to protecting personal privacy for everyone. Though industry now appears to be making some efforts to meet consumer demands for privacy protection, as President I will ensure:
- Notice and Consent. Everyone has the right to know what information is collected and how it will be used, and to accept or decline the collection or dissemination of this information - particularly financial and medical information.
- Access. Individuals have the right to correct any inaccurate personal information.
- Security. Institutions must provide sufficient security to prevent unauthorized access to personal information.
If elected president, I will issue an Executive Order designating a federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the Office of Management and Budget. The federal CIO will be responsible for providing the leadership and coordination needed to realize the vision of a truly digital and citizen-centric government. The CIO will head agency cross-functional councils on information technology, facilitate collaboration with state CIOs, and lead development of standards, protocols, and privacy protections, among other things.
I believe that strong encryption products enhance consumer privacy. In October 1999, I proposed fundamental reform of the U.S. high technology export system - including encryption export laws - to allows companies to export products when those products are already readily available in foreign or mass markets, while building high walls around technologies of the highest sensitivity. The current system needlessly penalizes U.S. businesses while failing to strengthen our national security.
7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno
In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?
Bush:
The failure of the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization to launch a new round of global trade negotiations is a setback for America and the world.
Trade drives economic growth and high wage jobs. As we introduce American goods and services around the world, we will also introduce American values. To fuel continued economic growth, we need to tear down barriers abroad - and keep markets open at home. As President, I will work to pry open foreign markets and tear down barriers everywhere, entirely, so that the whole world trades in freedom.
The failure of the Seattle meeting represents a failure of leadership - internationally and domestically - by the Clinton-Gore Administration. Since the last trade round ended in 1995, the Administration has failed to build an international consensus in favor of further market-opening efforts.
The violent protests in the streets of Seattle also reflect the Administration's failure to build a domestic consensus in favor of free trade. In fact, this is the first administration in 25 years to fail to secure presidential trade negotiating authority from Congress.
With our trade deficit reaching a record high, we must recognize that our prosperity at home will suffer without new leadership to advance America's global economic interests.
We cannot turn our back on change. Rather, we have to help Americans prepare for change by embracing free trade, ensuring that every child is educated, cutting taxes on working families to increase their access to the middle class, and ensuring that no one is left behind.
Hagelin:
Globalization and corporate multinational control of government is a major concern of my campaign. America's crucial trade treaties, such as NAFTA, must be revisited and vigorously renegotiated--with adequate representation by labor, environmental, and human rights proponents to ensure that America's interests are truly upheld. In particular, the World Trade Organization (WTO), with its sweeping authority to adjudicate international trade disputes, has become a tool of multinational corporations, which have inside access to WTO negotiations that typically occur in secret. We would give the WTO twelve months to adopt more open, democratic procedures--with adequate labor, environmental and human rights input--or we would withdraw the U.S. from the WTO and negotiate individual, tailored trade relationships with America's various trade partners. These agreements would
- promote the economic welfare of all Americans;
- provide markets for our domestic small businesses;
- safeguard American employment and labor standards;
- protect human rights; and
- ensure that imported goods meet environmental and product safety standards.
8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed
Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?
Hagelin:
Scarce military resources are squandered on pork-barrel weapons like the $2 billion B2 bomber and the $60 billion flawed missile defense shield. As a scientist, I do not support the missile defense shield because it does not work. Similarly, I do not feel that military funds should be spent on asteroid defense.
(Gov. Bush did not answer this question.)
9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223
I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.
I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)
Bush:
Throughout this campaign I have said that our great prosperity must have a great purpose. The purpose of our prosperity should be to ensure that the American Dream touches every willing heart. We cannot afford to have an America segregated by class, by race or by aspiration. America must close the gap of hope between communities of prosperity and communities of poverty.
My priorities are to bring local control, high standards and character education to our public schools. To restore morale and shape a modern American military. To continue our prosperity and make our tax code fairer by cutting rates for every taxpayer, from the entrepreneur who creates jobs to the single mom working for a better life for her children. And my priorities are to save and strengthen Social Security and Medicare - to keep our commitment to the greatest generation, and enact reforms so that commitment is secure for generations next. Overall, I want to make sure that our prosperity has a purpose.
What I have learned from these months on the campaign trail is how much Americans have in common. Our faces and our landscapes are diverse and different - but the spirit of hope and renewal I saw at work in a drug rehabilitation program called Teen Challenge in Colfax, Iowa, is also at work in food pantries and after school programs and crisis pregnancy centers all across America.
These past eighteen months have reconfirmed my belief that the strength of America is found not in the halls of government, but in the hearts and souls of our people, and they deserve a government that respects and reflects their values.
The Americans who began choosing our next President tonight took a stand for a leader who unites, and an agenda that inspires. A messenger committed to bringing people together, and a message meant for every American.
If you are tired of the bitterness that poisons our politics, come join us. If you think that government should be less partisan and more practical, come join us. If you are weary of polls and posturing, of scandals and alibis, come join us.
I promise an administration that will bring out our best.
Hagelin:
Our national mission may seem obscure because government today is torn by conflicting national interests and faced with seemingly intractable challenges. This is because governmental theory and policy are rooted in obsolete 19th century principles. As a quantum physicist, I offer a profound and fresh new foundation for governmental administration -- one based upon the most modern and comprehensive scientific understanding of how Nature functions -- that will clarify and redefine our national mission. Unified quantum field theories have revealed the ultimate unity underlying all of life, and provide deep and practical insights into how to skillfully administer and harmonize society's diverse tendencies -- with the same organizing intelligence displayed throughout Nature. America's problems are human problems -- crime, drug dependency, domestic violence, even pollution result from a narrowness of vision that fails to comprehend life's essential unity. The only way we can overcome these problems is through the expansion of consciousness -- education that actualizes the full potential of the brain. I have spent the last quarter century conducting cutting edge research in unified quantum field theories, and have led an international scientific investigation into the nature and origin of human consciousness. The conclusion of these 25 years of research is that human consciousness, at its deepest level, and the unified field which underlies the whole of Nature, are one and the same. This means that human awareness, fully expanded, naturally comprehends the ultimate unity underlying all of humanity, earth's complex ecosystems, and indeed, the entire universe. It also means that the most profound appreciation of life's essential unity, described by the greatest physicists and philosophers of all traditions, is available to everyone through proper education. With this direct experience of life's essential unity, and with maximally expanded comprehension, individuals naturally behave in their own best long-term interests while promoting the interests of society as a whole -- action fully aligned with natural law. Thus today, 225 years after the birth of our nation, with our far more complete and profound scientific understanding of natural law, we can practically fulfill our Founders' dream of a self-governing nation, where all citizens naturally respect and promote each others' rights to life, liberty and happiness.
After reading through the questions and answers, am I the only one who gets the odd feeling that the candidates -- but the Shrub especially -- has no sense (at least from their answers) that they're writing for Slashdot's audience? (Or, worse yet, that they even know what Slashdot is? Or that, yeah, Slashdot is, um, actually on this "thing" called the "web"?)
The Shrub's answers sound like well-crafted speech points. Obviously, he didn't write these-- his aides did. Yeah, I realize that.
But you might as well just tape record the Shrub's answers, get one of those chit-chattering teeth things, wind it up, play the tape recorder, and watch how the teeth jump and skitter and pop with the answers on the tape recorder until they chatter right off the table and onto the floor...
I must thank /. for this feature. It has exposed me to issues on non-mainstream candidates that I care about, like encryption and IP.
Jason
www.cyborgworkshop.com
...and the geek shall inherit the earth...
www.linux-skunkworks.com
What will you do to protect the rights of athiests and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
Bush:
I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion.
Let's have a show of hands. Is your religion Government Approved?
"If elected president I pledge a renewed commitment to fight the war on drugs. I have a plan that includes $2.767 billion in new initiatives to help parents, teachers, and faith-based leaders influence children to steer clear of the evils of the drug culture."
I can just see the anti-drug commercials now.. "Cocaine is bad, mmmkay." -George W. Bush
Well, looks like we know what Gore really thinks of us Netizens. I'm voting for Bush.
I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion.
I am committed to the First Amendment, whether the person believe in a Judeo-Christian God, a Judeo-Christian God, a Judeo-Christian God, or a Judeo-Christian God.
-----
Am I the only who finds it rather typical that Dubya completely neglects to answer the first part of the second question? Sure, freedom of religion is fine with him, but how about freedom from religion?
- Also Sprach Doktor Merkwurdigliebe
I remember hearing representatives from Canada's Natural Law party speak a few years ago and thinking what nuts they were. (Entertaining, but definately crazy.)
It says something about the state of politics in the U.S. that the Natural Law candidate actually comes accross as an intelligent, rational human being next to the Republican candidate. It would be funny, except for the fact that Bush might actually win.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
seems like Bush's answers were cut and pasted from some giant file called "opinions" while the natural law party candidate actually sat down and wrote out and answer for us. just MHO
--
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
this isn't why we should vote for bush, but why we shouldn't vote for gore. makes me not want to vote for any of them. Go Harry Browne!
I post links to stuff here
Where's the "inventor" of the Internet? It seems that he should be most comfortable in this forum.
I am anxiously awaiting his answers.
www.niceFire.com
www.niceFire.com
Funnier than a speeding bullet
How did it get in the list anyway? Might as well ask the presidential candidates: Boxers or briefs?
- Debt reduction
- Tax cut
- Increased spending
While Bush's staff minion is literally correct (yes Greenspan prefers tax cuts to more spending), the minion omits the crucial point that Greenspan would prefer debt reduction over tax cuts.Why does bush never seem to answer questions with a straight answer. Almost every time ive seen him answer a questionj on TV he seems to go off on a tangent talking about the issues that the "american public" wants to know, for example, in the encryption question he(or his aids) went off talking about consumers right to privacy on e-commerce sites but the question was about encryption export controls. Another thiong that really bugs me is his constant use of bad grammer when he has a "masters degree" in business from HARVARD, dont you have to know basic grammer to even get into HARVARD. I just wish the elections were after Febuary so that I could vote. Damn it know I forgot what I was talking about, Puck
"I believe that strong encryption products enhance consumer privacy." To him we are consumers the only reason we would want encryption is as consumers to help business. BS we are people we want encryption to keep secrets from people whom we think would cause our freedom to decrease. It is about the right to say and think what you want without intervention from the government. It is *not* about 'consumer privacy'. It is about making sure that unpopular thoughts and ideas do not go away and that people can have and share them. To Bush it is about being able to buy stuff. This is sad that this man might win. Also on the religion question it was funny you can be whatever flavor of Judeo/Christian/Islam you want. Oh yea I forgot the rest of the world outside of the mideast and Europe does not matter. :(
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Translation: Clinton and Gore were bad for not shoving large corporations down people's throats hard enough. Gawd, did he even catch the tone of the question?
Personally I'm glad he, or his aides, whoever wrote that, lets call it the "Bush Campaign" ... doesn't take on the mindset that Gore's people do, and say anything that a given group of people wanna hear to try to scrounge up a vote ... In that respect Bush basically makes gore look pathetic.
1) War on Drugs
Bush's answer:
My first act as President will be to imprison myself.
I have possessed cocaine on several occasions, too many times to count.
Additionally, I have been guilty of drunk driving on several occasions, again too many times to count.
I have heretofore concealed these facts from the American people. That information was "need to know" and the American people just didn't need to know...
Kudos to Slashdot for getting so many of the presidential hopefuls to reply to the user-submitted questions. It's possible that the only reason Gore hasn't responded is that he's afraid of making another gaffe along the lines of "inventing the internet".
I only found out today that I may be eligible for an absentee ballot, but I'll say this from an outsider's perspective: please don't vote Bush in! I don't know if many Americans realise how out of touch with the rest of the world this man and his policies are. His presidency could usher in a new age of isolationism for the US, just when it most needs to engage with the rest of the world.
My opponent, Al Gore, eats babies, and if he is elected to office, will use his corrupt influence to eat even more babies than he has before. A vote for Gore is a vote for a baby eating demon, and you should vote Republimican. Thank you.
Bush criticizes the Clinton-Gore administration:
Two of the Administration's first actions were to cut the Drug Czar's office by over 80% and to appoint a Surgeon General who spoke openly about drug legalization.
An act which should be lauded. There are some good arguments for legalization of drugs and other consensual crimes. See Peter McWilliam's book (the text of which is online) Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country".
BH
Fools! They laughed at me at the Sorbonne...!
From his response to the challenge to the electoral college:
Now - how many times does this man attack Clinton (and Gore) on this page? How many times does he give credit? He's just as divisive as the rest of 'em. At least the rest of 'em are honest about it.
I realize most slashdotters are smart enuff to figure that out for themselves. I just bite when my intelligence is insulted!
Stop the brainwash
Got news for you sport: It was 40 years of a Democrat Congress that's been dipping into Social Security. NO money is spent without Congress. The Lockbox was originally a Republican idea and the only reason it has a chance is because of the Republican Congress. Haven't you noticed that it's only been since the Republican Congress was elected that we have a balanced budget and surpluses??? For the 40 years before that, Congress was controlled by the Democrats. THEY controlled the purse strings.
Bush hasn't lied about it under oath.
That's the real difference.
Would you shut up already?
i wish i had moderator points...
:)
it is good, i think, that the campaigns are willing to respond truthfully. for bush to say anything other than what he's been saying the entire campaign would be dishonest...
let's give them credit for answering, regardless of how much crap slashdot will put them through on the discussions.
on an unrelated note, there's a very good defense of the electoral college system available on the washingtonpost.com site. you can find it here.
jon
-- http://www.cerastes.org
It seems to me that George W. Bush has purposefully not-answered the question with a careful, purposefully deceptive response. Here is another analysis of Bush's views on minority religions from the context of the decision of the US Military to accept Wicca as a bona fide religion.
have a day,
-l
Not that the answers weren't up to par, but more that the response out of all the candidates was poor. These were obviously written by an aide and only reflect more campaign rehdoric.
Realistically though, most of the questions that candidates are asked are pointless since the president has little or no influence over the issues. Maybe a little on strategic defence and the policy direction. In the end Congress makes the laws and spends the money.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
...but he's a politician. Should we expect any more? The current system puts up a lot of shields. I hope that this election does a lot to knock those shields down--killing the Electoral College, removing campaign finance limits on contributions, killing PAC's, requiring complete donor lists--and I think it will.
The biggest sea change you're going to see in politics is that it will start to become more real to the average Joe Six-Pack out there. Why? In this age of better information and faster access to that information, our politicians will be as naked as frogs for dissection in biology. That's a good thing--we'll be able to see what makes them tick and vote accordingly.
Yet I'm voting for Bush.
--
-- Geof F. Morris
I don't know if I'm the only one feeling that way. But after reading these answers a first time I really feel like Bush carefully wrote his answers to make sure no slashdot reader would vote for him. Am I the only one feeling that way?
"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
Chairman Greenspan has gone on record saying that he would rather see the surplus returned to taxpayers than spent on new government programs like Al Gore proposes.
Greenspan has requested the complete OPPOSITE of tax cuts using this surplus. What he suggested was that the Govt. hold this money to be used on programs when the economy is not as strong as it is now. Bush is blatently wrong with the statement that Greenspan thinks he need tax cuts. Whether this is a misunderstanding, or an attempt to misquote, I don't know. Either way, he is VERY wrong.
I wish Bush and all the other politicians would once and for all realize that the people targeting children with drugs are children
I have been there, done that, and I know how this works: The 13 year old 7th grader got dope from the 15 year old in 9th grade who bought an eigth from the 17 year old in 11th grade who bought a half from the 19 year old in college or working who got a qp from a 25 year old who bought 2 lbs from the 30 year old grower. I guarantee that the 30 year old grower would be appalled if he knew that his crop was in the hands of a 7th grader.
So go ahead Bush, lock the 15 year old away for ten years. Kids make mistakes, they shouldn't have their lives ruined for them. Suspension and counselling for drugs, not this zero tolerance crap. Kicking a kid out of school is not going to help him. Besides, these evil drug dealers are usually kids with divorced parents and/or fathers who beat them, and are socially rejected because their parents haven't taught them basic social skills, and turn to drug dealing to make friends, get respect, and also money.
So much for compassionate conservatism. You would think a recovering alcoholic who snorted blow would have more understanding of youthful mistakes.
{ sarcasm }
when Bush gets elected, I'm gonna go to Santa Fe, Texas and read the Qur'an of al-Islam over the PA system after football games! Al'hamd o-lillah
prayer in school = pro-freedom OF religion.
school prayer = anti-freedom FROM religion.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
(Sorry if this post shows up twice, Mozilla acted a little funny there).
Man, Bush is going to take a beating for some of his stated opinions above. More money for the War on Drugs? Lock up more people for nonviolent drug offenses? He might as well advocate making the internet illegal and suggest that anyone reading slashdot is a dingleberry. In fact, in almost every comment posted, I could hear thousands of Slashdot readers shouting in unison "Wrong Cretin!". At least Haglin isn't likely to draw a lot of flak (his answers seemed downright sane in comparison.)
All I can say is: On election day, may the better man win. Even if I don't belive this is going to happen.
I read the internet for the articles.
As a scientist, I do not support the missile defense shield because it does not work.
Imagine:
As a scientist, Thomas Edison abandoned the light bulb because initial attempts to make one did not work.
I find Hagelin's comment here really lacking. He doesn't support a missle defense shield because we do not have a working one? He abandons searching for success because he thus far has encountered only failure?
If these are his only reasons for being against a missle defense, they are lame. He should provide a better, more candid answer here.
And I am not arguing here for or against a missle defense system. I am arguing for better reasoning than he provided in this answer.
BTW, have we seen the Internet-savvy Gore's answers here yet?
Vote Harry Browne!
As we introduce American goods and services around the world, we will also introduce American values.
Whether we want them or not. There are lots of different value systems, why should they be subsumed by the American corporate collective merely to allow McDonalds to sell more burgers or Nike to sell more trainers.
Maybe Gore's not replied yet because he invented /. and considers that Taco will help him out.
--
-- Geof F. Morris
"Tragically, without presidential leadership on the issue, teen drug-use rose dramatically during the first five years of the Clinton-Gore Administration, and it remains at unacceptably high levels today"
The man said he didn't inhale, what else do you want him to do?
Many people have been saying (both in response to this and the last interview responses) comments to the extent of "Don't these people know what slashdot is?!?!?" and complaining that the candidates are answering the questions the way they believe is right, rather than echoing the slashdot party line.
:)
Well, duh.
First, I'd be wary of saying all slashdotters think ____... some of us, in fact (or maybe it's just me, but at least one!) think that music piracy such as the kind that goes on via napster and gnutella (and IRC, and web sites) is BAD. Not all of us are libertarians... please don't force your views on me, and I won't force mine on you.
But about our topic... isn't the main complaint people have with today's candidates the fact that they are fickle, saying whatever a given audience wants to hear? So what happens? Here, candidates answer the questions in a way that will probably make them unpopular, and we fault them for that! I don't care if you hate Bush... wouldn't you rather know what he thinks, and then disagree, rather than have him pretend to agree with you? I think Harry Browne, for example, would be an awful president, but I truly enjoyed seeing his responses.
Of course, the major candidates do tend to view questions as springboards for rants, but that's a different story... of course, so do we
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
I was just curious to see if anyone here after seeing this was more likely to vote for John Hagelin. He clearly comes off as more intelligent and qualified to lead than GWB here.
How have these postings on slashdot influenced your vote?
I think it is great that more candidates are getting exposure through this forum.
Remember, vote for the candidate that most matches your views, not for the "lesser of two evils." The only wasted votes are those not cast and those for candidates that you really don't want in office.
Looking for a reason to vote?
Mr. Hagelin showed *very* poor judgement when he involved himself in the fight for the Reform Party nomination. Essentially, Mr. Hagelin wanted (and probably needed) the matching funds allocated to the Reform Party; be that as it may, he was a fool for going in against Pat Buchanan's jack-booted thugs.
A wise man know which fights need to be fought... that is a "natural law" Mr. Hagelin broke.
All about me
Is it just me or did Bush just fail the Turing test?
Have you read my journal today?
Doesn't he know we don't fight wars anymore? We play Space Invaders now thank you.
"...I have a plan that includes $2.767 billion in new initiatives to help parents, teachers, and faith-based leaders influence children to steer clear of the evils of the drug culture.
George, you're not fooling any of us. You haven't the foggiest clue what culture or community is all about with your segregationist meanderings and your public cowtowing. What you're thinking of is a conglomeration of folks who live on the same street, send their kids to the same schools, but don't even say hello when they bring their traszh to the stoop. That's the American way. Why don't you put that money into tracking down deadbeat dads, giving our nation's high school teacher's some oratorial lessons and doing whatever you GOD-well can to keep faith out of the domain of authority.
I'd go on, but why bother? George's nose, er face, is red already.
O P E N___S O U R C E___H U M O R
great comedy company.
If elected president, I will issue an Executive Order designating a federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the Office of Management and Budget. The federal CIO will be responsible for providing the leadership and coordination needed to realize the vision of a truly digital and citizen-centric government. The CIO will head agency cross-functional councils on information technology, facilitate collaboration with state CIOs, and lead development of standards, protocols, and privacy protections, among other things.
This is probably the most interesting idea I've heard from the Bush campaign. Maybe the President should have a secretary of technology in their cabinet as well?
Seriously. Isn't this crowd against government expansion? I mean, don't we want less government control over our lives? And less government beuracracy? I'm voting for Bush mainly because I don't want Gore's inflated government. If the economy tanks, you can always just not give out a tax cut. How often has the government just killed the 40,000 new jobs they created because the economy "dipped" for a bit? Never... they end up increasing debt to cover the new jobs.
Just my bit. This isn't a flame/troll/whatever. I just want to know why everyone is for big government. They're both bad, but I'd rather Bush than Gore.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Bush has said publicly that "there should be limits to freedom" in response to criticism he faced from a satirical website. It seems he belives the freedom afforded by a separation of Church and State should be eliminated as well.
On FuckedCompany, a few weeks ago, somebody posted a link to a 1988 interview with Bush when he was running for governor. It is well-known that Bush supports prayer in public schools and, while being asked about atheists who object to this practice, he blurted out: everything American Atheists are is bullshit (sic). This offended a lot of people, who wrote his campaign asking him to retract the statement. Instead, they received a letter which explained how Bush is a man of faith who strongly believes in God and the merits of religion. Bush is an asshole.
Does anybody still have the link?
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
I agree with a lot of what he says, and then he rambles off on some natural law tangent. At least he hasn't gone quite as far as those who want to reduce crime by yogic flying.
As for Bush, his intransigence on the doomed war on drugs is really starting to get to me.
You last used cocaine 28 years ago. Are you:
a) still in jail; or
b) running for president.
Discuss the effect that your race and your father's net worth had on your answer.
--
--
E_NOSIG
"I believe that once our nation's priorities have been met, the remaining money should be returned to the taxpayers. Chairman Greenspan has gone on record saying that he would rather see the surplus returned to taxpayers than spent on new government programs like Al Gore proposes." So, his position his clear. Pay the bills, return the rest. No new spending. Then he goes on to say half the surplus to social security, half of the rest to spending more on education, defense, and a new drug plan for seniors. Hmmm. To me this sound more like new spending rather than returning money to the taxpayers. Of course, he forgot all about 'pay the last 20 years bills' completely ignoring the huge debt. Why not use a chunk of that nearly $5 billion to reduce the debt burden we give to future generations.
The idea I got about the Natural Law Party (truly international) is that they (he?) really are a religion based around Transcendental Meditation trying to get some publicity.
Do you know otherwise?
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Maybe I don't want my tax dollars pissed away on a completely ineffective war on drugs. Maybe I don't want to piss away yet more money on perpetrators of victimless crime.
Maybe I don't feel the need to prop up several million people I don't know or like, just because they're old. Maybe I think they should have had the common sense to save their own god damned money. Social security is a flop.
It's not too late to live in a free country.
Vote for Harry Browne.
Bush:
Trust me kids... you don't wanna do drugs. For a good twenty years I was firmly entrenched (Dick, are you sure that's a word?... OK.. whatever you say) in the 'evil drug lifestyle,' and look at all the trouble it gave me?
* Millions of dollars
* Ownership of a major league baseball team
* Gov'ner of the Great State of Texas
* More sex with hot babes than a frenchman who lives next to a cat-house
Now, just imagine (did I spell that right Dick?... hand me the dicshun... dictch.... big book with words in it) what would have become of my life if my daddy wasn't an important and influe... infla... (I'm trying to sound it out Dick) influential and important person who could pull strings. I'd be in a whole lot of trouble, that's where I'd be.
So let that be a lesson to all of you young folk. I made a mistake in my past, and now I want you guys to pay for it. Don't do drugs!
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
How patriotic our candidates are, not one of them got there domain name registered to .us
- I'm making a page dedicated to procrastinators! I'll let you know when I get started.
This is duckspeak -- the slightest thought makes it clear that any attempt to prevent campaigning "out of season" would violate the First Amendment.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Do people really not see through this? Or are there really people looking forward to the day when their 3rd grader comes home from school and practices 'levitation'?
"Throughout this campaign I have said that our great prosperity must have a great purpose." Sounds very similar to the comic book words of wisdom "with great power comes great responsibility"
What will you do to protect the rights of athiests and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
.plan.
Bush:
Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion.
Not really surprising that he kinda dodged the question and didn't even mention atheists. Afterall, his father has been quoted as saying 'I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.'* Like father, like son.
* source: Boulder Daily Camera Feb 27, 1989 and Free Enquiry, Fall 1988, Volume 8, Number 4, page 16
Some day I hope to have a
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Note: I'm not trying to flame anyone, just stating my view of the American Way as a Finnish citizen. (Note2: I have never even set a foot on American ground so all this is hearsay.)
So, you wan't a tax cut even though you pay only minimal taxes already. I think there would be great many ways to spend that money even that many to make the lives of the poorer Americans a little bit better. I'm comparing to the Scandinavian and Finnish system where we often pay approximately 50% taxes from salaries and 22% from most stuff and services (I as a poor student pay up to 17% income tax). But with that money we have full social security, almost free healthcare and fully free schools.
I would certainly not wan't to be in America and lose a job.
Another thing I'm amazed by is the electoral system where only the local majority has anything to say. And THAT is called democracy. Compare this to the Finnish way, where everyone votes both a list and a person on it. When a person doesn't get elected, the votes he got go in favor of someone else on the list who got more votes. Each party has generally a list of it's own. In this system a vote almost always has an effect.
Bush: In the international community, the challenge is even tougher since we must both help establish a legal framework for intellectual property protection and ensure it is enforced.
Oh dear.
Do you think he'll read our responses?
Hey democracy lovers, add Quorum as a c
For 10th graders, lifetime cocaine use has more than doubled since 1992, reaching 7.7 percent, the highest level in a decade, and lifetime use of crack by 10th graders has likewise more than doubled, reaching 4.0 percent. is this the number of tenth graders that have used cocaine since birth? what does lifetime cocaine use mean? 12xu out
Bush just doesn't get it -- his answers are obviously the result of countless focus groups. He doesn't understand technology except from a big business standpoint, ie. technology's main purpose is to make money. His comments on the Drug War are especially hypocritical. He says he's going to make peole "take responsibility for their actions". Considering the amount of cocaine that's gone up that nose, he should turn himself in, pay his dues, THEN run for pres. Of course, he'd be a felon then, and would be ineligible if I remember correctly. His idea of leadership is, despite all his talk, simply not there. Where's his vision? It just sounds like a bunch of pandering crap to me. Hagelin came off as being very intelligent and principled -- until his quantum physics-mind expansion blather. That's not what the presidency is for. So close, yet so far.
How come a flamebait gets changed to insightful in just moments? moderators have contrasting criteria for posts???
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Yeah, he's a little new-agey, but John Hagelin is awesome. He's got my vote.
It is perhaps debatable what a president should be, since he can't be everything to all people. However, I like the fact that Hagelin is a scientist. If you guys look at his background, he's got more in common with this crowd than all the other candidates combined.
He's undeniably very intelligent, and is (imho) in this for the right reasons. Of course he doesn't realistically expect to win, but the natural law party is in it for the long haul. They are building from the lower levels on up - where I live, there are more natural law people running for office than any other third party. It is my hope that a number of those people will be elected, and their party will eventually be a force to be reckoned with.
Anyways, I realize that there is no way Bush wrote those answers (or evasions, in some cases), but I think they speak for themselves.
-------
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Do I imagine a load of slashdotters not wanting to vote for Bush after this????
I think I was offended by half of Bush's answers.
actually, i was only referring to the use of the word "lockbox" to describe holding onto money, a phrase gore has annoyingly used many, many times. that's why i mentioned it was probably his speech writers "ripping off gore". but thanks anyway.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
I am now convinced that George W. would ruin the country.
;-)
:-(
His answer to the IP question proves it. I wonder how much the MPAA and RIAA paid him to say that? However, I have a conflict of interest her in that I support Robert Fripp. RObert Fripp supports keeping copyright but giving the rights back to the people they should belong to: the artist. We agree on one thing, though: the RIAA sucks.
If I were good enough to release something, I would probably make the condition that you can do whatever, as long as you keep my name and copyright date.
So does his answer to the drug question claiming "Drug use is wrong." How does he know, besides what Christianity might say on the matter? And who is he to force those beliefs on those who think otherwise?
Give me a reasoned philosophical argument on why drug use is wrong, and you might convince me. I wouldn't use drugs myself, but I don't think it's my place to tell others they shouldn't use drugs, unless it's really affecting me personally. And it's certainly wrong to use force to stop them. I would think the consequences of the harder drugs would be reason enough for people not to use them. Addicts need help, not condemnation.
In addition, The War on Drugs(R) sure hasn't helped the quality of rock music
Finally, I love the answer to the religion question. If you're not Mormon, Jewish, Methodist, or a Muslim, you're not guaranteed the right to practice it is what he appears to be saying. This implies that only mainstream religions with ties to Jerusalem are guaranteed thr right to practice their religion. Needless to say, that's not what the Constitution says.
I'm still voting Browne. I'd love to leave the country, but it seems every other country has even more government control in some way or another
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
That quote was interesting, because the next line was "I don't think witchcraft is a religion". that somehow got left out
Regardless of what you think about free trade, think about this:
Bush thinks that the government should create a domestic consensus on the side of the issue rather than respond to the views of the people. i.e., the Clinton administration failed in swaying public opinion towards the wishes of Washington.
The uniformity of opinion astounds me; the words all sound canned and scripted.
No, not Bush's words, most of the posters'!
Bush will bring ruin to this country if elected!
One thing that disturbs me in teh answers of all of the canidates is their lack of concern to one of the major issues with Electoral College reform. This issue consist of two factors. 1)Once the specified number of Electoral votes has been reached, a canidate wins 2)Since the voting starts at the same time in every state, people on the west coast end of voting hours after the people on the east coast This lead to the problem with the most recent presidential election. Clinton won the number of votes necessary to become president before the people on Pacific time even Started to vote. I believe that this is another key reason why people do not go out to vote anymore. The election is already decided before they even get a chance to contribute. That's the dumbest thing about our system of voting.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
Bush and Gore both want to spend your money to destroy your rights.
Vote third party. I don't care if it's Browne, Buchanan, Hagelin, Nader, or someone else.
Don't vote for Bush or Gore.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
Why are all of bushes ansewers 3 pages long!? Hagelin has nice, short, concise answers. I hate people who write long essays to answer simple questions. BUSH: you don't need to write a book when you are asked what you will do about drugs! A simple, "I will fight them, and kill people less than 20 year old" is good enough. I justh ad to to research on hagelin(for school), and, well, his website made me, as an "HTML programmer" cry with tear of joy. Then, I went to bushes. It is unimpressive. Hagelin has good ideas, and probably would make a good leader; Bush is just a 50 year old crackhead hippocrit("I will fight the war on drugs!"...but he used drugs in college...and if his laws had benn in place then...) So, the point to this evil rant is: evil-republican-16-year-old: "Guys cause Girl problems, and girls cause guy problems" me: "And republicans cause all of our problems!" That was actually said in my computer science class. The one good joke I ever made. And I was happy.
-------------
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
A while back, I got into an "Gore wants to kludge the tax code with a zillion if/then statements, Bush wants to tweak a few constants" argument.
I confess at the time I wasn't fully aware of Gore's proposals - only that they were of an if/then nature - and so I'm pleased to say that I found this pro-Gore Salon article (but I repeat myself ;-) that outlines my beef with Gore's tax proposals.
(sprog age < 1) {
$500 tax credit
}
(Earnings < $60K) && (sprog enrolled in daycare) {
expanded day-care tax credit
}
(sprog_age >= 12 && sprog_age <= 16) && (enrolled in afterschooplrogram) {
tax credit of 20% on cost of program
}
(sprog_in_college) {
$10K tax credit
}
I'd like to thank Salon for making my point about the kludginess of the Gore plan so succinctly.
Let's summarize:
1) No sprog? Gore says "Fuck you". No tax breaks. Period. Gore hates nonbreeders with a passion. Doesn't matter if the reason for your nonbreeding is being straight-and-childfree, straight-but-infertile, or gay. If you don't pop out a fucktrophy like a good little lemming, you get FUCK ALL under Gore.
2) Got sprog? Great! Now that you've done the first thing Gore likes, you'd better make sure you keep doing the things Gore likes! Don't stay at home to take care of 'em, even if you can afford it, ship 'em to day-care and provide employment for other low-tech "soft skills" people. Don't be at home in school either, ship 'em to "after-school programs" (which are, of course, probably federally-funded... more work for the otherwise-unemployable out of your paycheck...)
3) And even if you are the ideal Gore breeder-famblee, you still gotta make sure your kids are the right ages to qualify! That is, either less than age 1, or young enough for day care (and you've got the money to enroll 'em), or between the ages of 12 and 16 (and in an after-school program), or thouse magical four years of college.
So - a tweak of some constants where everyone gets a break, or a huge series of if/then statements, where a large proportion of famuhlees (nonbreeders are, of course, subhuman and don't count) can apply for one, but only one, of Gore's "targeted" tax cuts at any given time.
Unless, of course, you had the foresight to have kids precisely 18 years ago, 12 years ago, and plan to concieve your next crotchfruit shortly after Gore's inauguration.
What I'd really like to see - and I don't know the answer in advance - is for someone to sum up the tax credits for Gore and a family with either one or two sproggen over 18 years. And then compare their Gore-subsidies against what the same family would get with Bush's tax credits on, say, a $60K income over the same 18 years.
Oh. And is it just me, or are people who have money to enroll their sprog in after-school programs really in need of a tax credit?
(Wait a minute, sponsored daycare, sponsored age 12-16 afterschool programs. Guess even if you do breed, but decide you'd like to stay with the kid because you're lucky enough to be able to live on one income, you're still fucked under Gore.)
I have a plan that includes $2.767 billion in new initiatives to help parents, teachers, and faith-based leaders influence children to steer clear of the evils of the drug culture.
/. questions, but notice there was no response from Bush Jr until /. gave up on him and Gore and asked the readers to answer the questions on their own. Nice spines, guys. Can't wait for one of you bozos to take over the country.
Faith-based leaders? Government funds slated for the churches? Anyone see a conflict here?
Kudos to the candidates for actually answering the
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
John Hagelin writes:
However, it is also true that intellectual property is a key motivator in the creation of new material and therefore must be given protection.
That is why I believe that the entertainment industry should make an all-out effort to find new ways to utilize Napster and similar services on a "pay per view" basis. This approach will serve all concerned and turn what appears now--at least to many in the entertainment industry--to be a disaster into a boon for both the industry and the consumer.
Hagelin doesn't get it. Pay per view is the problem, not the solution.
The problem with pay per view is that it doesn't establish a public domain. I don't mean "public domain" in the sense of expired copyrights, but "public domain" in the sense of "things that the public have access to." Things you can make fair use of. Things you can quote from. Things you can preserve.
For instance, if I wanted to review all of the books published on a certain topic from, say, 1900-1920, there is a very strong likelihood that I would be able to find most of them. They were published, sold to libraries and individuals, and still exist in the hands of libraries, used book dealers, collectors, and second-hand stores.
However, if I wanted to review all of the films on a certain topic from 1900-1920, I would be out of luck. The problem is that motion pictures at that time were pay-per-view only. The only way to see a movie was at the theatre. The films were never sold to the public, and in fact, over 90% of them no longer exist in any form -- all the negatives, and every last copy were all destroyed by the studios when they were deemed worthless by their owners.
Now back to the present. The copyright industries want pay-per-view. They don't like the idea of first sale -- the entire purpose of the DMCA is to allow copyright holders to control the use -- or lack of use -- of works even after they have been sold to the public. Under the DMCA, a publisher has the "right" to "recall" an electronic book after publication, and anyone who reads that book -- even if they are the rightful owner of the copy -- is committing a felony. This is so directly against the purpose of copyright that it is hard to know where to begin. The purpose of copyright is to incite publication. To create copies that are then owned by the public. Pay per view is not publication. It does not promote progress.
That's the problem with the DMCA, and the current direction of copyright law.
A better point of his is that it will discourage candidates from visiting states with fewer voters. Valid, but his own statistics bother me - Wyoming gave out 1 electoral vote per 70K votes in 1996, and California gave 1 per 185K votes. This is obviously not a "one person, one vote" scenario, which is the central tenet of democracy.
Another bad argument: the Electoral College would "not survive the abandonment of [the] winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes." I didn't know that our main goal was insuring the survival of the Electoral College...
Further, he claims that this would allow minor candidates to take away electoral votes from the two main parties. Again, so what? Americans should not be forced to choose between only two parties, especially as they move closer together every election. Very few governments run on a two-party democracy.
With the internet and ubiquitous media, candidates should be free to campaign where the people are, and can be confident that their message is being transmitted to places with less population.
This would also make pandering more difficult - instead of sucking up to a few key states, a candidate would have pander to NYC, Washington, LA, Chicago, etc - a more difficult task, and although they have a high population density, they do not hold the majority of the population. Viola - now you need issues that affect everyone, not just midwestern soccer moms.
To have him continue:
"Of course, if I'm specifically asked if I've had, oh, say a bust for DUI, I'd say "I don't have a perfect record as a youth" and let you folks just guess what I may have done in my rich-boy past."
"So what I did as a youth is different from what our Nation's youth should do as a youth."
"Hey! I'm different! I'm rich! I get to do stuff you don't!"
"And then when the truth came out, that I'd been busted for DUI when I was 30(as a youth?)I'd say that I'd was trying to hide this so as not to embarrass my daughters, even though probably the best lesson I could give them would be to step forward like a man and admit this, and stop my self-righteous, hypocritcal attacks against Al Gore as being a man without integrity."
"But, Hey! I'm a Republicrat politician! So you expected forthright honesty? Dream on! And vote for me!"
"Thank you!"
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Secondly, Bush is doing a good thing by being Opt-In, but it is not Confirmed (or double) opt-in. Alot of Internet users got e-mails they didn't opt-in for. Here's the discussion on it, as done on news.admin.net-abuse.email and reported on n.a.n-a.sightings. To be honest, the Democrats did the same thing, but their list manager (CheetahMail) admitted to it and is changing everything to be confirmed opt-in.
Will we get an intelegent president, or one that will get the White House kicked off the 'net for violating it's upstream's AUP?
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I'm really disappointed in the way Bush didn't answer the question about tax cuts countering the efforts of Alan Greenspan to keep inflation in check. However, I'm made even more cynical by his non-response that claimed Greenspan actually supported his move and demonized the Gore campaign by saying that he won't spend the money on new programs like Gore. Hello? Didn't he also say:
I have a plan that includes $2.767 billion in new initiatives to help parents, teachers, and faith-based leaders influence children to steer clear of the evils of the drug culture.
Then, didn't he immediately follow it up with promises to spend the majority of the $5 trillon surplus on new programs and not on debt reduction before giving $1 trillion back in a tax cut?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It's funny that the fruitloop who claims to be able to 'trancendentally levitate' comes across as significantly more rational, thoughtful, and genuininely in touch with the realities of the situation than the Shrub.
My favorite is the frothing-at-the-mouth "DRUGS ARE BAD!" rant by Shrub's staffers. It's like these blind men trying to drive a runaway tractor trailer - they know the motions, and are trying to play it calm, while all the shit is cascading down around them. They are even trying to convince themselves (and us?) that they are correct. The Drug War is going to do the same to the US that the Cold War did to the USSR, snap it's collective spine, and Bush is only going to accelerate the process. Dare to keep politicians from drugs and violence, kids, it only feeds their ambition.
Where's my freedom FROM religion?
VOTE LIBERTARIAN
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
That was W. Bush's father, not him. Check the node on www.everything2.com for "George Bush".
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
Sure, it's most likely script written, but I'm glad that so many people answered the questions. Sure, if I were American, I still would never vote for Bush, but I'm glad he has the guts to have his views answered like that. Of course, as usual, he completely ignored topics that I wish he would get into... For example, for religions, he gave the exact same answers (and wording) to Web White and Blue's question about religion, except he didn't put in the Wicca part... (that's a bad thing, considering it was half the question). Anyway, thanks Slashdot for letting me read them!
Oh, and I'm ticked off about Bush' answer to the Seattle protests. **rightwinggrumblegrumble**
I'm surprised that Gov. Bush forgot to respond to the asteroid question. Well, what he meant to say was "I favor a strong missile defense system- the best offense is a good defense". Yup. Together, we'll nuke the asteroid belt!
so...
Bush = bad
Gore = bad
Nader=unlikely (but I'm voting for him)
But please, don't vote Bush.
I intend on voting for Harry Browne this year, but after reading these response I feel compelled to make the following statement: I would much rather vote for Hagelin than Bush or Gore!
The thought of a group of yogins levitating their way about Washington DC and making decisions based upon the I Ching doesn't bother me half as much as the thought that we are expected to decide between two insincere, pandering, patrician, business-as-usual, hereditary politician/lawyers!
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
Good point...
This election has no longer become "who do you like the best" but now "who is the lesser of the evils." It's so sad that our country has come to this.
I cannot vote for Gore because he has come across as arrogant and aloof one too many times for me. The president is the top man, so he must be humble enough to listen to people's opinions. If our leader thinks his opinion is more important than the people's, we are lost. Sure, you may like what Gore has to say about a lot of things right now, but what if he suddenly changes his mind about something (it happens all too often)? Will he listen to what other people say about it?
I cannot vote for a 3rd party member because there really is no point. C'mon guys, really.
Thus, I have to vote for Bush. Not because I like him... only because he has surrounded himself with *other people* who seem to know what they are doing, and Bush seems like the kind of person who can listen to other people.
I'm not telling you who you should vote for, but please think about it. This is an extremely important election!
http://www.sethd.com/
Does this worry anyone here besides me? I hear about getting US law enforcement involved in copyright protection, and I start thinking about stepped-up abuses of procedure similar to those carried out by the FBI, the BATF, and the DEA in recent years. It's bad enough that the MPAA and Judge Kaplan have basically declared that source code is not free speech; are we going to see stormtroopers with machineguns tearing up the homes of WINE developers?
fearbush.com
Finding God in a Dog
Ummm...because you don't agree Bush's answers, you say that he is stupid? That sounds pretty intolerant and stubborn to me. I don't agree with Bush and a lot of what he stands for (I don't agree with Gore either, I'm voting for Browne) but I do think he is allowed to have whatever opinions he has.
Unfortunately, like a large portion of the population, you will vote for whoever lies to you the most because they at least recognize you are part of a group with some sort of (voting) power. Personally, I see voters as a woman that is being beaten by her husband. If he beats her enough, then turns around and apologizes, she is going to stay with him. I don't understand why it happens like this, because the best choice would be to leave him. Voters are the same. People keep voting for Republicans and Democrats because they are both corrupt, and people stick with their political parties because "they could never find someone new again" or one of those excuses that victims often use to explain why they stay with attackers. My opinion, is that voting Republican or Democrat is simply staying with a government that will continue to rape and beat our country.
In any case, what we need are honest politicians. On here, Bush's statements (whether someone else wrote them or not) are true of what his goals are. They are probably not what the slashdot crowd wants to hear, but at least we know where he is going. I've seen a lot of the same for Gore, even if he won't reply to slashdot, I imagine he would piss off people by being against other things that are popular here. If you don't like what they stand for, don't vote for them. I think that true Democrats would be better off voting for Nader, Republicans should vote for Buchanan, and that the people that just want to end the political games would be better off voting for Browne. I don't think we will ever be able to have a purely innocent government that is not corrupted somehow, but if we can send a message to politicians to tell us the truth we the people could end up winning.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
I guess they're out-they gave money to Gore.
science is a religion
Before we go subjecting Bush to the electronic equivalent of an @ss whooping, let's at least give him the benefit of the doubt on the religion question. Maybe he (or his staffers?) just didn't take the time to type out EVERY SINGLE religion and school of thought that exists today..... you gotta admit, there's a lot of them out there. It looked to me like he picked a couple varying examples and left it at that.
--Insert catchy
Why are all drugs lumped together?
Reefer is no worse than alcohol and tobacco. You don't see any reefer addicts selling their babies or bodies to support their habit.
Anybody agree with me?
- Is the war on drugs a failure?
- Will you protect religious rights?
- Why a tax cut?
- Aren't these vote-diluting things bad?
- Is our system of IP a good one?
- Encryption good?
He also took a solid stab at Question 9, but... I really wish our candidates were more interactive, and could have their noses rubbed in tough questions until they answered them.I will do much more to fight the war on drugs!
I will protect all the non-threatening mainstream religions!
The question is about Santaria and Wiccagoddamn it!
It's not as bad as what Gore's doing! We have a budget surplus!
Budget surplus != lack of debt, goddamnit
It's in the constitution, and hey, don't be discouraged because your vote is nigh-worthless. Vote!
I will enforce it.
AUGH! The Question!
Encryption good, Privacy good.
Holy cow! Question answered!
From dictionary.com:
religion:
n. Abbr. rel., relig.
4.A cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
Is athiesm not a principle?
From dictionary.com:
principle:
1.A basic truth, law, or assumption
Given that these are correct, and you believe that there is no God or god(s), is that not at least assumption, if not a basic truth in the eyes of the beholder so to speak?
Therefore I find Atheism is a religion in that it begins with an assumption (no deity), that is also a principle that can be pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
Just because there is no deity involved doesn't make it not a religion, in the truest sense of the word.
I believe that athiests should probably get together, form a church, and apply for status as a recognized religion. This shackles them with the regulations that are placed religions, but the great protections as well.
"Yeah man. I mean, you're supposed to wait until you're in college to try drugs. Doing it in high school is totally not cool."
I would understand if this got moderated down...
Speaking of italians, did anyone see the Simpsons Halloween special a couple nights ago? In one sketch, the dolphins were taking over the world and they forced the TV news to change the lead story from intelligent dolphins taking over the world to intelligent italians. Homer was watching TV and said to himself, "intelligent italians? (shudders) something is wrong here!"
Later on, in the town hall, Homer starts beating up the dolphins and calls them a bunch of "tuna munchers." Now, I know he was addressing the dolphins and I've been known to have a dirty mind, but I found his choice of words very interesting.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Obviously the criticisms are going to be garnering all the moderation points in a political forum like this. But i hope atleast a few level headed ppl are thankful to both Bush and Hagelin for atleast taking the time to craft these responses. Aides wrote these, duh, their platforms are well known, there's no reason for any canidate to be saying or writing anything unless they're in front of 100million viewers (exposure).
All these criticisms have been voiced one hundred times previous, since the days when pres. canidates first jumped on that magic box called tee-vee, so read the responses, be thankful, and decide with which canidate's agendas you most agree.
A president's success is merely a product of the people he surrounds himself with.
cheers,
ecc
While it is true that Bush has said some very dumb things (let's face it: it'll take eight years just to educate him to the point where he's fit for office), your "translation" is out of line. Never once has Bush proposed a crackdown on religious minorities, despite the flagrant ignorance of such religions that he displays. That's more than can be said for some of the candidates.
More likely, the choice of religions which he listed was a botched attempt at alliteration, to make the reply sound better. Never underestimate the power of a good speech-writer. And let's hope Bush gets a few of them when and if he's elected.
If religious freedom is what you're worried about, there are far greater threats to it in this campaign than Bush. Lieberman, for example, openly seeks the erosion of church and state, as evidenced by his own admission in countless speeches. And given Gore's known wishy-washiness (is that even a word) he could easily be manipulated into giving Lieberman his wish. And there are people in this presidential race that are even worse than him, if you know where to look (hint: check the "Constitution" party out).
The point: Don't be so paranoid. Sometimes, people don't bear any malice; they really are just plain dumb.
----------
Of course it's just a silently accepted fiction that W himself sat down to answer these questions; we all know it was a staff-bot. We judge how seriously (or not) he takes us as an audience not so much by what he says, as by the quality of the Bot he assigned to answer the questions.
what, and give a printable copy of his answers and policies to a group of people that actually have the resources and abilty to check his 'facts' (and I use this term loosly). The man is so full of Hot Air he probably floats between campaign stops. I'm not saying that Bush is completly honest either, he is after all a politician and by that very nature a liar, but at least Bush keeps his half-truths a little more low key. Gore doesn't seem to even care if you know he is lying while he is talking to you.
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
I believe that George Will's defense of the Electoral College is predicated on his belief that there should only be 2 parties: the Republicans and everyone else. Thus Will's observation that "The two party system will not survive the abandonment of [the] winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes." He's worried about preserving the status quo, instead of allowing equal representation to all voters.
Will also believes in the one-buck, one-vote system ... excuse me ... he believes in no limits on campaign contributions or campaign spending, since any limits would be limits on the candidate's (or contributer's) First Amendment rights. I don't think he's right, but he has some good points: most of the campaign finance rules either eliminate anonymous speech, or can be interpreted as censoring speech (ie: after you've spent your limit, you're not allowed to say anything else). I don't have any good answers to these issues ... anyone else got any bright ideas?
Are you moderating this down because you disagree with it,
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
What else do you expect from an economist? And anyway, as we all know, it's not up to him, so this whole discussion is somewhat moot.
I guess my final dig at Bush is that newspaper pieces across the country have pointed out that if you take Bush's numbers at face value, the monies he promises to various groups adds up to way over the monies he started with. That makes it very hard for me (a mathematician) to take Bush's numbers at face value.
When you get a security clearance, you go through a huge investigation, I know, I had a security clearance at my last job. They get detailed about your police record, your drug use, your involvement with rebellious organizations, and even your character as they ask your friends and friends friends and friends friends friends about you. Many of Bush's past misdemeanors (DUI, cocaine use/sale, etc) would most likely disqualify him for such a security clearance. That is, the government would deem him not trustworthy enough to handle sensitive US information. In fact, it's on a need-to-know basis, so if he did hold a government job with secret clearance, he'd only know what he needed to do his job.
Yet the ironic thing is that he can now run for president, where he'll be in CHARGE of making decisions involving nearly ALL of the sensitive information available that he wouldn't normally be privy to, in a normal job.
Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?
make world, not war
After the questions gives three examples of religions, it's curious that Bush responded to the question, citing four totally different ones. I'm no religious scholar, but isn't the message here "I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity, for all people who worship exactly one God."
All of Bush's examples are monotheistic, yes? That certainly isn't the case for some of the "minority religions." The implication is that he will be tolerant to those who are already tolerated.
Boy, I'm sure glad I'm not in a country where this guy might be the President in a few days.
Hi. I just voted today, and I would like to extend my personal thanks to John McCain for providing me with the opportunity to vote against George Bush twice in a single year.
Thank you very, very much. I don't expect my man to win, but you've made it possible for me to thoroughly enjoy the process anyway!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A question should be puncuated with a question mark, not a period. And a proper name such as Bush or America[n] should be capitalized.
Almost every time ive seen him answer a questionj on TV he seems to go off on a tangent talking about the issues that the "american public" wants to know, for example, in the encryption question he(or his aids) went off talking about consumers right to privacy on e-commerce sites but the question was about encryption export controls.
The pronoun "I" should be capitalized, even in contractions such as "I've". Oh. A "contraction" is a compression of one or more words by eliminating some letters. Like "I have" or "do not". Wherever those letters are removed, we put an apostrophe in to represent the "hidden" letters. A person who assists is called an "aide" (so two or more would be "aides"); an inanimate object or abstract form of assistance is an "aid". Here's (Hey! That's a contraction! So's "that's"...) an example of a visual aid: [Preview]. I suggest that you let it aid you in composing any future posts critical of others' grammar. If you do that, you might also notice that the quoted sentence is a horrible run-on, which should be separated into two, by converting the comma after "know" into a period, and making the next letter a capital: "For..."
Another thiong that really bugs me is his constant use of bad grammer when he has a "masters degree" in business from HARVARD, dont you have to know basic grammer to even get into HARVARD. I just wish the elections were after Febuary so that I could vote...
Unless you learn a lot between now and February, you'll have proven that you don't have to know basic grammar (as opposed to knowing [Kelsey?] Grammer, which perhaps a state Governor might), or spelling for that matter, to vote.
Or were you just trolling?
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
In the international community, the challenge is even tougher since we must both help establish a legal framework for intellectual property protection and ensure it is enforced.
Read as:
We will do everything in our power to coerce and pressure the rest of the world, by acting on a political level, to build a system where American Corporations can extort profit from consumers."
Listen up Dubya: Keep your corporate imperialism away from Canada. Do what you will in your own country - but dont try and force this crap on the rest of us. Im still hoping the citizens of your country will wake up from their mass-market haze and throw you bastards (and the democrats) in jail for crimes against humanity...
Attention Americans: NOW IS THE TIME! TELL YOUR FRIENDS/NEIGHBOURS/RELATIVES/COWORKERS TO:
seems, when it comes to the president, i guess most people don't care about such things. hmph.
---
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
The guy who I really hope answers the slashdot questions is one Howard Phillips, though I'd bet money he won't. That would be some real comic relief. This guy is more of a bigot than Pat Buchannan - he left the republican party because they are - get this - supposedly too liberal in matters of religion and morality...
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Vidi, Vici, Veni
Bush has a good record as being able to get partisan groups to work together. To me, that outweighs all this other crap my fellow /.ers are spouting. And it is crap. Bush is only almost a politician--he doesn't have the spit-n-polish of a Gore or a Clinton. He's real, he's relatable, and he's open about his beliefs. To castigate a person for being open about his/her beliefs, especially on /., goes beyond being hypocritical.
Bush is not a perfect person, by any stretch. He has never insinuated that he's a perfect person. He admits his mistakes, and moves on. Wow, just like a normal person! Also, I've never heard Bush once claim to have invented the Internet! =P
Yes, Bush has had experience with alcohol, and possibly drugs. Generally, when you see an alcoholic or drug addict who has overcome that affliction, we say "Wow, what a strong person to have beat that beast!". With Bush, you people take and throw it in his face. His experience in that arena has more surely shaped his views and beliefs that any "Just say no" or M.A.D.D. campaign could ever do.
Bush is a person, just like the rest of us. Bush is a Christian, but that in no way implies that he denies the right of other religions to their own way of practice and belief, even if he doesn't enumerate all those religions in a speech. Bush opposes drug use, especially by children, because he's a father and wants a certain level of quality of life for his children--not because he's a politician.
I like Bush. Bush has done a good job for Texas--ask anyone who's not part of the Democratic machine. We've avoided an state income tax, and for what, 2? 3? years in a row, Bush was able to suspend the state sales tax for a few days on back-to-school items such as clothing and supplies. On top of the sales happening that weekend, not having to pay sales tax was a big savings--especially for lower-income people. We have a concealed-handgun license because of Bush, requiring a good training course (oops, shouldn't have mentioned that--the idiots at HCI might be reading!).
Overall, Bush has been good for Texas. He's a person, a father, and a good governor. I personally believe he will make an excellent president. You may believe differently--so vote on it.
This is probably wasted here, at the capital of flame wars, but read what Bush says in ligth of how he believes. Try taking what he says at face value, and not twisting it around. Give the guy the benefit of the doubt--God knows, he's nowhere near Slick Willie as a slippery politician! He's not nearly as accomplished at obfuscating and pulling the wool over your eyes as other politicians--and IMHO, he rarely if ever tries. Try not castigating him for his beliefs; but rather, identify where you disagree, and vote accordingly. This would be a sad, sad world if we all felt the same way on every issue.
Just my extended $.02
Matthew Vanecek For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me. I'm always getting i
Umm,
Someone needs to explain what surplus and debt to the Republicrats.
We are 5 trillion dollars in the hole with our national debt.
The debt is increasing every year. Since the debt is increasing, this means:
- The budget is not balanced.
- THERE IS NO SURPLUS.
Also the "surplus" money that they refer to is Social Security fluctuation.
If they want to use that money to pay the debt, I'm fine with that, is that insures a better life more than a pyramid retirement system. But, any other use of that money is not appropriate.
"hey dad, if we owe more on the house than last year, why are you saying that there is extra money for a raise in our allowances?"
I can't tell my elephant from my ass.
You do have the right to be an atheist. Heck, you even have the right to believe the world is flat, or that the moon is made of green cheese. You can even share your beliefs with others (for example, you can post them to /.). You don't have the right, however, to make everyone be silent about their own beliefs.
Do you see the difference?
You have the right to believe however you want, but everyone else still has the right to "look down" on you for your beliefs (just like you probably look down on them for being so gullible as to believe in a supernatural entity).
The only way that you could be free from religion as you propose is if everyone shared the same beliefs. Since there is little chance that everyone is going to ever believe the same things, that means that we must learn to be tolerant. In your case that means ignoring people who think you are evil because you don't believe in God. In my case that means ignoring people that believe I am evil because I believe in the wrong god.
I find the Bush answer particularly interesting, considering that he's got one DUI and his VP candidate Dick Cheney has two DUIs. That we know of.
Does hypocrisy know no bounds?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
> there's a very good defense of the electoral college system available on the washingtonpost.com site. you can find it here.
Your statement intrigued me, because I have yet to find a decent defense of the system.
...this was not a decent defense. The only point that made any sense at all was that the electoral college encourages candidates to campaign in *all* states. Given it's all or nothing nature, the college pushes the candidates to focus on issues directed at a particular state, which might go neglected otherwise. I'm not sure this is a very good argument, but atleast it *is* one.
The rest of the article bashed opponents of the college by dismissing them as "majoritists". Not much of an argument there...they are majoritists by definition. That does nothing to detract from the argument itself.
Then he seems to propose that, while the electoral college *does* dilute representation in larger states, it is a similar institution to the Senate, and hence legitimate. This, of course, assumes that the Senate is legitimate. This is ridiculous: the simple fact that it exists does not make it right. Presumably, to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Senate, George Will would compare it again to the electoral college.
No, *both* of these entities were created to appease state's rights advocates at the time the constitution was drafted. The smaller states feared giving up too much control to the larger states, and thus this compromise was needed to forge the union. That is the historical motivation behind *both* institutions.
In today's America, I hardly see the need to continue this anachronism. It's not as if Delaware will secede out of fears that the US government would have too much control over them. Today, citizens, in general, consider themselves Americans before they consider themselves a citizen of their particular state. In light of the changed face of America, what purpose can the college hold?
One answer George Will gives is the perpetuation of the two party system. As mentioned, Perot pulled in 19% of the popular vote, but 0% of the electoral vote. The "legitimate" candidates were nicely shielded from that upstart. But who says the two party system is worth perpetuating? Certainly, many here on Slashdot are critical of it. In general, why should we enforce the limiting of our choices?
Anyway...I think you see my problems with the article. I remain unconvinced that the electoral college exists as anything but an anachronism. Arguing that it hasn't caused much harm does not lessen it's obsolescence.
--Lenny
That may overstate the number of people that vote for GWB a mite, but is a pretty important point nonetheless.
If the People want to have, as president, a candidate with the merits and demerits of GWB, then that is something they evidently can vote for.
There are points of view under which his demerits are disastrously bad; even the most pessimistic views must be tempered by the factor that the President is merely one person, head of one branch of the US government.
The same is true for those that consider him the Second Coming of the New Zenith of Republican Ascendancy; even if he's better than his campaign literature would have you believe, he can't have all that much positive impact.
Check out reruns of the BBC comedy "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" for wonderfully examples of the "filtering" of information between bureaucracy and politicians. It may be fictional, but after growing up in a political town (Ottawa), it appears the main difference between TV and reality is that the scripts they read on TV are wittier...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Bush "believes" the federal government should be smaller. At least he's stated that many times in the past, e.g. "more local control." He proposes to increase spending by billions of dollars, on defense, education, the so-called drug war, etc. He guarantees, along with billions in spending, billions in tax deductions. I'd like to know how that's economically possible. He states we should "give back" much of the money taken. Yet he states that the poorest in the country would be relieved of a tax burden at all. Well if you're already taxed, then years later you choose to return it, what good are you doing for the poor now? Permanently remove the poorest people's taxes and you're helping them.
With respect to the debt, I think he doesn't realize (or the people who really speak for him don't realize) that the interest on debt costs too much money. If we are the richest country in the world, with the best economy in history, why can't we pay off the debt. It's like saying that Bill Gates should keep maxing out his credit cards and never pay them off. Ah, it's only a few billion a year, so what's the difference. I imagine his 18 year old child has huge credit card bills that daddy won't pay off, if he runs his household like he wants to run the country.Developers: We can use your help.
As a Bolivian-American, I have many things to consider before voting. One of those things is the candidates' views on the drug war. I am writing from Bolivia right now, where I am on vacation and where I grew up. And where I am stuck in my hometown of Santa Cruz because the coca growers and drug force are chopping limbs off and killing each other on the Santa Cruz-Cochabamba highway. (This is the area where the drug war goes on.) All because the United States cannot and will not concentrate on its drug problems FROM home and AT home. Its easier for us to kill each other and human rights violations to not come out in the open, than for the US to allow anything that comes close to this to happen in their homeland. My other homeland.
And here comes in Bush, whose VP Cheney is renowned for his work in this area. So to me, Bush is out of the question and I feel he should be for anyone with Latino relatives in countries infested by the DEA (whose reputation of corruption overseas is not unknown). But of course it is an individual decision.
And our current president has definitely asked for US help, of course if we deny the DEA our help, ALL our USAid would be cut off. And Pres. Banzer is an ex-US puppet dictator from the 70s, just like Pinochet and others.
So my country is in chaos and Bush uses his drug war plan (Cheney's?) to bait voters. And I still havent been able to visit my relatives in Cochabamba. And the coca growers are penniless as acres and acres of plantations are erradicated and they are forced to switch to less viable crops such as bananas. Which we couldnt export if we wanted to since the US fixed that with the Banana Republic (Guatemala).
Wow. There is nothing that this nation's elite could want more than a flat tax. Think about it --- with a flat tax, who saves lots of money? The rich. Who gets little, if no benefit? The poor. And for that matter, the working class.
Its a shame that Hagelin's platform is so tied to protecting the rights of the elite. If only he found the poor and working class America so worthy of his compassion.
You're absolutely right that Gore is not really much better than Bush when it comes to debt reduction. But let's not kid ourselves: Greenspan supports debt reduction (i.e. doing nothing), and Bush made it sound as if Greenspan supports tax cuts instead.
As for privatization of pension funds (a totally separate point), I'm all for it except that Bush has promised to continue paying out current obligations without giving any indication where that money will come from. You can't divert incoming payments to private accounts and at the same time use them to do what you were doing before (paying existing obligations).
It has to do with the total number of moderations, and which moderations happened last. That post currently has moderations of:
Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Insightful=4, Funny=1, Overrated=1, Total=9.
(viewable here)
(I think that's every moderation but "informative")
Apparently it's impossible to respond to/start a discussion about religion (even in direct correlation with the slashdot story) without it being both flamebait and troll material. That seems unnecessarily restrictive.
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The government decides who gets to have security clearance, but the people decide who gets to run the government. It would be very foolish to let even the best-intentioned government have a hand in this last decision. Better that you get the occasional crack addict Mayor than that well-intentioned rulers decide who is and is not good enough to join their club.
You analogy is correct except your forgetting one part. The N+1 vote could be cast when the central part of the US is votting. That would mean the election would be over before the people in California got a chacne to vote. I don't know about you but knowing that the election has already been decided would certainly discourage me from voting.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
As for Bush, his intransigence on the doomed war on drugs is really starting to get to me.
You last used cocaine 28 years ago. Are you:
a) still in jail; or
b) running for president.
Discuss the effect that your race and your father's net worth had on your answer.
Well, at least Bush was never convicted for snorting coke, even if he was charged with DUI and paid a fine, while his VP has two DUIs.
Moral: Drinking and Driving is Good. Drugs are ok, so long as you don't get caught and are wealthy and/or powerful. Everyone else goes to jail.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Cut-n-paste, distasteful, or whatever you think about George W's answers, I'd say he (and any other candidate) deserves some credit for being willing to answer.
Anyone who feels really strongly about public domain has their candidate right there- it's really obvious how central the underlying concepts are to Nader, and how meaningless they are to every other candidate except probably the Socialist (and Nader's getting a hugely stronger turnout than him)
Personally, I think that all these whiners complaining about the electoral college have no idea why it was implemented.
Our founding fathers (whoa, hows about an all male hegemony!) created the electoral college for the same reason we have three branches of government with checks and balances. So our government will move SLOWLY. That's right, SLOWLY.
Believe it or not, most people don't want sweeping change in our government based on whether or not some fickle minority changes its collective mind. Believe it or not, the statement, "majority rule, minority rights" SHOULD apply to the United States.
I like the fact that we haven't had five or six constitutions in the last 100 years like the French.
Brad
Shrub:
"... The violent protests in the streets of Seattle also reflect the Administration's failure to build a domestic consensus in favor of free trade. In fact, this is the first administration in 25 years to fail to secure presidential trade negotiating authority from Congress."
wtf?!?!? I'm sorry, maybe I'm a little stupid here, but does any of this answer the question? Essentially, is he saying that Clinton failed because he couldn't brainwash everyone into thinking "Free Trade"?
By not answering the question, I assume he doesn't care what protestors think. Grrr.
.02
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Tragically, without presidential leadership on the issue, teen drug-use rose dramatically during the first five years of the Clinton-Gore Administration, and it remains at unacceptably high levels today. Drug use by children between the ages of 12 and 17 more than doubled between 1992 and 1997. Recent data suggest that teen drug use may have leveled off, but is still at near record levels for the decade.
It's actually a little higher in Texas. Whatta rube.
Every time I've seen Hagelin on TV or heard him on radio, I've come away with the impression that he is a genuinely good person. I caught the last segment of "Hannity & Colmes" on Fox where they interviewed him; one of them asked him something to the effect of, "What is someone as nice as you doing in politics?"
I like Hagelin's stand on the issues, and having someone who might actually be a caring person, as opposed to a "compassionate conservative," would be icing on the cake.
Yeah but the Republicans "martyr" Nixon did things 100 times worse than lying about a fucking blow job!
If you wanna stop government fraud, maybe the first thing to cut would be the aforementioned pyramid schemes.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I just got done reading/skimming ~150 replies, and counted only 1 that was vaguely pro-bush, and only three that were independantly defending him over the pandering to slashdot issue, and two which commented that his CIO idea was "interesting".
/. crowd. Surely there is some other /.er who likes Bush besides me.
/. poll, 18% of Slashdotters are planning to vote for Bush, 6764 of you. Where only 1% more plan to vote for Gore. (The largest percentage of you don't live in the US.) Why don't we see that represented in the posts? Why are the numbers of pro-Bush posts so contrary to the numbers of Slashdotters who plan to vote for Bush?
I'm used to feeling different, but I didn't expect it so much from the
In fact, accroding to the
I see the same thing in the media. The voices that are the loudest seem to always be attacking the Republicans. Take this DUI issue that came up today. Is Bush attacking Gore's *very* shady past? There are plenty of terrible things Gore has done too, but Bush is trying his hardest to play fair, talk about the issues, talk more about why he'd make a good prez than about why his opponant is terrible because of his past.
As for the CIO idea, I think it's more than just "interesting" -- it's FANTASTIC. I've said all along that the problem with the government in passing all these stupid technology laws *isn't* because they're trying to destroy life as we know it, but instead because they don't *understand* the technology issues. Because they're career politicians, and the only voices they hear are the voices on the other side. When they *do* hear our voice, it just sounds like a bunch of technobabble, and they don't get it.
The best thing *anyone* could do would be to appoint a CIO. That's the first step. You get someone close to you who can interpert this stuff, someone who can give you a clearer picture, and help you lead with knowledge. This is the best idea concerning technology I've heard come out of *any* politician's mouth EVER.
And I think that's Bush's strength. He's not the smartest man in the world. He knows he doesn't know everything. No one knows everything. And rather than being in denial that he's ignorant about some things, he comes to realize it, and then appoints the appropriate people around him who can successfully fill the positions. (Remember, the job of the President is in the Executive Branch, not the Legislative, and yet people seem to look to the President to solve all their problems -- that's not what the Preisident is for. Skill at appointing competent people to Executive positions is *very* important.) He admitted once that his running mate was smarter than him, and said, "That's why I picked him".
Isn't this a breath of fresh air to all the arrogance we've seen for the past 8 years? All the self-glorifying bullcrap we've heard out of Gore this past year?
To me it is a breath of fresh air. To me, that's as close to Integrity as you can get (while still being a politician). And I still think Integrity is important. Call me old-fashioned, but you can see what the lack of it has done to the office of the President.
Incidentally, I think I'm a Liberetarian... But I haven't decided yet, there's a couple of Liberetarian platforms I'm unsure about. But I still think Bush is the best all-around Presidential candidate to come along in a *long* time. I didn't like voting for Dole. I'm going to actually enjoy casting my vote for George W. Bush.
Even if I'm the only Slashdotter brave enough to admit it.
If Bush was trying to get a security clearance, the government would inquire meticulously about his past. However, he's not making available to the American public this similar information that the government would seek. You may argue that he shouldn't have to make his past public, but then on a similar boat, one Joe Schmoe shouldn't have to make his past available either to get a secret clearance. But that ain't how it works.
But while Joe Schmoe is hired based on his accomplishments alone, he then has to undergo the background check to get access sensitive information. Yet for president, one only has to solely use their current accomplishments? One thing that was related to me at my old job was that if you have a non-trivial police record, chances are you won't get a clearance. Because most of the sensitive-information leaks have been from people with said police records.
Basically what's happenening is Bush saying that his past shouldn't matter to get him elected, yet it turns out that joe schmoe's past should matter to get a secret clearance. And president is a far more powerful (and potentially destructive) position than joe schmoe would have.
make world, not war
Err...
I have never heard of Santa Fe, Texas...
There is a Santa Fe, New Mexico...
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
I really don't like the electoral college, and I wish we could just elect the candidates we like, by <gasp> voting. But our system of government is a republic, meaning that we choose representatives to govern us. The electoral college is comprised, more-or-less, of the representatives that we vote for with the state-wide popular election process.
So, I'm all for changing the system... but keep in mind, that it is working just like it was designed to work...
--brian
Bush says:
Bitter partisan division causing voter apathy? I don't think so. I think it's the lack of partisan division among those in Washington, that causes so much voter apathy.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
My answers are on the website in my .sig
These loosers need to be loveingly smashed with a lead pipe, except ofr Gore since all it would do is rub the blood off onto his wooden skull.
http://www.armory.com/~crisper/Scorch/
This is really disturbing. Bush says he wants a smaller government (which I like), but he's going to need a lot of feds to lock up them drug users with his outdated zero-tolerance policy. Gore waffled on 2nd Amendment rights, and let's be serious...guns aren't protected by the Constitution so that people can hunt. They got carefully included to prepare for the event of another revolution. A guarantee that we could ALWAYS remain free...even if they might be used for evil as well.
I fear that Bush would be an environmental disaster. I fear that Gore would be a social disaster. I hate taxes, but I certainly don't want to live out my last years on a barren, desolate rock with no drugs! (:
I can't condone either of these guys.
Therefore, for each, the job of the President is to cause people to be more in favor of, less resistant to, the wishes of those _really_ running the country. It's a tacit admission that for either, the President is a figurehead in charge of controlling and synthesising public opinion.
If the Firestone deaths by corporate negligence had happened a few years later we'd be seeing the President interceding for Firestone in a PR initiative designed to put across the idea that highway deaths are exciting and add life and thrills to driving :P that would be a good domestic consensus too!
yeesh, can you tell I'm one of the nader guys? ;P :)
NOBODY sent me any questions. Now feel the wrath of the lead pipe.
http://www.armory.com/~crisper/Scorch/
I think the most amusing thing about Bush's stance on drugs is that he has admited to using cocaine yet supports a no tolerance drug policy. Since he wants to charge people with a felony for drug use doesn't that mean that he should accept that he has commited a felony and thus inelligible to run for president. Or does he belive that since he didn't get caught he didn't commit a crime?
The thread of replies to the extensive and articulate answers the Governor has been so kind as to bestow upon us borders on mindless and apathetic in too many cases. As a daily /.'er, I must scowl at the band of monkeys whose only critique of Mr. Bush's clear well written response, is that it _IS_ a clear well written response in which he (or his advisors ... who are just as important in this political system, in terms of sphere of influence on public policy) coherently states his position on important policy issues. It is obvious that few of the one line mud throwers have any ambition to rationally participate in the political system, forgoing a threaded discussion on public policy in favor of 5th grade taunts, and disconcerting that a community of technical minds who will play a large role in the shaping of a public infrastructure (the web/communications network that provides us with this open public forum for discussion) have such low regard for the process of democracy. Simply reiterating the Bush joke you heard the day before on a late night talk show does nothing to advance your/our position in the political process.
For the first time, a possible future president has come into this unparalleled open online forum, and clearly expressed his position on issues our community deems important. When given an opportunity of this magnitude, we must not resort to childish babble, but instead take the chance to agree or disagree with the positions presented, and argue, as coherently as the answers were stated, the risks and benefits of the policies presented by the candidates. Only through active participation and intelligent rational debate can we have any hope of advancing our positions and beliefs on policy issues at a national level. If we sit back, complacently watching the images of politics flash on the TV screen, lose faith in the political ideology that this nation was built on, and choose not to actively exercise our right to political participation at every opportunity, all of us stand to suffer the tragic consequences of a network based public infrastructure, built by knowledgeable technical experts of this domain (*/.'ers*), but regulated by a detached group of offline politicians and lawmakers who have little allegiance to the ideals manifested in this new medium.
Let us all join together in this magnificent medium to encourage superior scholarship and action-oriented policy that promote the ideals of liberal democracy, free market economics, and peace.
Peace,
Poli-Sci-Major turned Techie-BSD-Guy
"Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect."
I thought it was especially cute that Bush claims his administration will be free of "scandals and alibis" ... like the story that came out today about his latest (unreported, lied-about) youthful indiscretion (at the ripe old age of 30) - an arrest for drunk driving in 1976. What an ass. What a bastard. I can't believe people are falling for this guy's lines.
Anyone else got any bright ideas?
Yes, election campaigns should be publically funded. Every potential candidate who actually has a chance to win recieving the same public funding, same access to the media, debates and everything else. If the candidate fails to achieve 10% of the popular vote, the candidate has to pay back all the money after the election.
This should be extended to senators and congressman when they run for elections.
Theoretially the winner should pander to the people who payed to get him elected, the American people. ;)
Of course, American politics would probably be a lot less interesting after such a reform...
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Santa Fe Texas is where the high school is that tried to make school prayer legit before football games. It went to the Supreme Court. The very justices (Scalia, etc) who dissented against separation of church in state in the decision are the ones Bush has publicly praised. There's a Cairo, Texas also, by the way.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Social Security has since its inception relied entirely on incoming funds to support outgoing payments. The historical surplus accumulated by Social Security has already been spent away. Replacing any loss of incoming funds is going to take real money. It's not just some painless utilization of existing surplus funds that we already have.
The statement to the Dallas Morning News report in the National Review is the most damning. Remember, it wasn't the sex that Clinton was impeached for, it was the lying. This is just too close to the election for the first shoe the drop, you don't want the second shoe to drop AFTER he's the ruler of the free world do you?
Work for Change & GET PAID!
I'm glad that somebody answered the religious freedom question. That said, notice that Bush only mentions religions that worship the Judeo-Christo-Islamic god. Notice that he was also quoted as saying that the military should rethink its decision to allow pagans to worship on military bases. What he doesn't say is as important as what he does say.
--
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If it caught 9 mod points and generated this damn many responses then it was among the greatest trolls of all time.
he wouldn't get any respect from most of us even if he had answers that we liked, and we believed he meant them.
/.-ers are often very unforgiving.
He's made some serious blunders and we
Failure is not an option.
Failure is not an option.
It comes bundled with Windows.
I'd be very happy to see all Social Security obligations eliminated, not just reduced. Bush's goal is sound, but his numbers are not.
More statistics on Finland can be found here:
http://www.tilastok esk us.fi/tk/tp/tasku/suomilukuina_en.html
please don't force your views on me, and I won't force mine on you.
/. and participate in these discussions? I have a reason. I like it here because this is a place where my views are questioned and I can question other people's views and have intelligent (sometimes) discussions and debates about issues that I (and the rest of us, I suppose) feel are important or interesting. Does that mean we're imposing our views on eachother? I think it means we're discussing and questioning our views, and expressing them to eachother, which, IMHO, is rather worth doing.
Why are you here? Is there a reason you read
Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
This seems like a cut-paste response from Bush--and definately not tailored for /.
Bushie, be sure of what crowd you're talking to. Sure, Gore lies like an old French hoar earning her wage, but he can at least sculpt his lies for his audience.
It pains me, I'm going to vote for you. Not because you're particularly smart, or charismatic, or have any clue--but because you were at least in tune enought to say "I don't trust the government."
Compare that to paraphrased Gore: "It's my job and duty to make sure you all live OK, and have a job (maybe even state supplied), live in equal class (classes are bad...), and realize the economy-pumping power of this commune model I believe in."
Just focus on being, even somewhat, a Classical Liberal and jab at Gore for being a Statist and someone who's found the constitution to be good toilet paper. And please, please, please... don't open your mouth again without thinking.
I found this one rather amusing... Ahhh, Photoshop.
Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
Both you & George Will brought up some good points. Do you think it would be better to try a system like this: Elect Electorates from each congressional district (Most congressional districts are roughly the same size, though not exactly) , and then give the remaining two votes to the highest vote count in the state. I think that this would force the canidates to care about all states, while making it extremely unlikely that the popular & electoral votes are different. Also, it would break up the votes inside states, so that it wouldn't mean as much to win California (heh, since I live in CA, it would be great to see the politicians here less! :-)
Doh!
There is not much difference between ignorance and hate.
If I witness a murder and have the ability to save the person but make the choice not to (thereby ignoring the whole thing) would that be bad?
To stand idly by while someone else commits an act of hate, can I claim ignorance as a defense?
I guess if ignorance was really a good (or even neutral) thing, there would be nothing backing the phrase, "Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law."
"Give the man a two-hour lecture on what Wicca is and let's see if he can stay awake."
Incorrect. A lot of people are, quite reasonably, complaining that the candidates (well, honestly, Bush) does not seem to be aware that we -- and people like us: computer professionals, students, single young adults, etc. -- exist and have our own positions.
It would be one thing if Bush had writen, for instance "I do think the War on Drugs has had some successes, but has been crippled by lack of funding, etc." that would have been completely different than what he did write, which ignored the question ("Do you think the War on Drugs has been a success?") and went into rah-rah-isms. Even though they express the same position.
I would disagree with him, all the same, but at least I would feel there was a modicum of attention and respect, and I could respect him back for it.
I see nothing in your comment which acknowledges the fact that our elected officials are supposed to represent people -- all of the people. If Bush doesn't even know what our point of view is, how can he possibly represent us?
He makes utterly clear that not only doesn't he know what we think or care about, he doesn't care. He can't be bothered to find out, or even leave the possibility open that people might disagree with him. He was, in short, completely disrespectful.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
There was an interesting short story in one of the major SF magazines (Analog, Asimov's, or F&SF) about an 'interactive' virtual candidate emulator.
Basically, program a turing machine with all of the candidate's speeches, statements, campaign promises and speech patterns, and have it interact with all of the voters, one-on-one.
Interesting concept. For an AlGore-ithm, just take some "Eliza" source code and add in a a strong "Green" position in place of the psychobabble, and you're done. A weekend project for any undergrad.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
... unless you can afford to check into the Betty Ford Clinic.
If you're rich, drugs can apparently be just another interesting experience; if they get you into trouble (and you or your friends get you wrung out) they can be used later in life as an example of character building in the face of adversity.
If you're poor, you don't have as far to fall, and once you've hit bottom you don't have as many resources to climb back out.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Q: What do you think of the Electoral College vs. 1 man, 1 vote?
A: Well, the Electoral College comes from the Constitution, and I support the Constitution. By the way, I wish everybody would get out and vote - but they don't, because the current Administration blah, blah, blah...
That said, these answers form a fairly cohesive statement about his positions - which leads me all the more to believe that the whole thing was handled by an aide, and W didn't have anything to do with it. I'm not saying that to be mean towards him, but the guy's pretty busy these days!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Gore isn't running primarily on a personal integrity platform. Bush knows that more Americans agree with Gore on the issues and think that Gore is more intelligent and more competent for the job. Therefore Bush has based much of his campaigning and message on his personal integrity and honesty, which, since it seems to be so bad, deserves special attention in proportion to the amount he himself touts it.
by Ethelred Unraed
Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?
Gov. Bush did not answer this question.
This confirms exactly what I have suspected all along, that George Bush is actually an alien from a nearby hostile planet who was sent here to infiltrate us humans and prevent any sort of missle defense from saving us when they decide to attack.
People don't understand that "compassionate conservatism" is an actual ideology, not just a catchphrase, and its content is the insertion of religion into American social policy. The article linked above is by Joan Didion and from the New York Review of Books - perhaps the best general interest periodical in America, IMO.
First of all, the reason people are tearing Dubya apart is that Dubya posted to
Duh.
Secondly, Bush's responses were actually embarassingly bad. This has nothing to do with "pandering" and everything to do with basic courtesy. Note how during the debates the candidates thanked the moderators and hosting institutions for having them. Bush didn't even do that much here. Further, his actual answers didn't even acknowlege the questions. That's just rude. He comes off not as compassionate but as contempt filled.
In fact, his answers were bad enough as to be embarrassing. Who would want to defend someone who has just done the rhetorical equivalent of pissing himself in public?
What you evidently see as "integrity" I see a "smarminess" and "forked-tonguedness". I am a big fan of "integrity", but I don't see any reason to suspect it of Bush.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Pardon me, but what media outlets are you watching that give you this impression? You continually hear reports railing on Gore for his "lies" which are generally misstatements that don't conflict with the meaning of his message. Bush makes similar mistakes but nobody calls him on it. Why? Because it would be too complex to explain many of them. Where do you see this bias?
Furthermore, what makes you think Gore has a *very* shady past. Gore admitted to having experimented with Pot in college, but what else is there? Bush on the other hand wouldn't admit to any of his past dalliances, except to say that he's different now. Personally I think that's an acceptable explanation except for the fact that both candidates are hypocritically going after drug users like they both were. But I digress.
Can you give me one fact about Gore's past that portrays him as more shady than Bush? I'm not going to sit here and tell you that either of them is a saint, but I'm getting sick of watching people dellude themselves into thinking that somehow Bush has the better moral character. Their both slimy politicians.
The media hasn't slanted against Bush, they've slanted in favor of what's interesting to report. Controversy, idiocy, lies, deceit. These are the things that make news interesting, and they don't care who it is that's making the mistake. Gore has gotten shredded by the media just as much as Bush has (I tend to think more, but I admit that of the two I much prefer Gore even though I have no intention of voting for either of them).
One thing that is never considered in his article is the number of people who don't turn out or who vote for a third party due to the fact that their vote doesn't really count anyway. I live in Texas, and I heard someone say the other day, "A vote not for Gore is a vote for Bush," though the person who said it said that they were going to vote for Nader. If it were a simple majority election, people would have more of a reason to do something like vote for Gore, even while living in Texas. My friend is going to vote for Nader not because he necessarily wants to, but because it really doesn't matter who he votes for. And that's just wrong.
Another thing that I find almost disturbing about this article is the fact that he resorts to name-calling in the article. He calls people who don't believe in the electoral college "simple-minded majoritarians." This while he doesn't even consider the whole issue involved with the electoral college. Rather than fleshing out some of the issues (one of which I mentioned above), he regurgitates statistics and hurls pejoratives at people who don't agree with him.
However, it doesn't surprise me that he overlooks the human issues. The guy's more lifeless than Gumby if you watch him on the Sam & Cokie show.
They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me.
SEP was one of the first sites I visited on the web, and the first one I bookmarked. When the Reform party implodes after the election - hijack it. And conquer.
Screw Bush, Gore, Nader, and Browne. I'm voting Scorched Earth!
a few quick but obvious points to get out of the way before the meaty stuff.
1) Candidates put their views on the line here
2) Some thought Slashdot to weak an audience to consider answering to.
3) Slashdot is, regrettable well informed, but not very experienced.
Everyone likes taking pot shots at the big guys. Admit it, we all feel almost equal to them when we do. It inflates our ego, which is _really_ what slashdot is for right?
Examples, two candidates responded here. One is main stream, the other isn't. One got more flaque.
Also, think about this from running for candidacy yourself. What would you do? Would you shamelessly put out your beliefs hoping to rally people who felt the same way, or would you try to shape and word your beliefs to appeal to the broadest segment of the population. Wait, I mean really, answer that.... okay...
Chances are you would do both, they aren't mutualy exclusive. Yet you can pick on people so easily for doing either or both. Its also easy to pick on a number of other views, in a damned if I do, damned if I don't kind of way.
Oh well. Slashdot can continue its ego-trip. As for myself I think I've learned enough from these candidates to make up my mind.
I don't know about you, but the thought of a World Religion terrifies me. I am thankful for the diversity of religious institutions in the world. I pray that everyone in the world does NOT convert to one religion, despite my belief in Christianity. The fact is that many people who proclaim religion do just that - proclaim it. They have twisted it on more than one occasion toward their own selfish ends. Man's greatest ambition is the reason that religion gets such a bad wrap these days.
In my Bible, at least, I have never read a passage that said to go out and kill everyone with a different viewpoint, though many men have done just that in the name of {{PUT RELIGION HERE}}. Not to advance God's (or Higher Power, or whatever you want to call it's) Kingdom, but their own. Yes, even the the Catholic religion (which I am converting to) has perpetrated some of these atrocities.
It is man's relentless persuit of excessive indulgence that has twisted his real instincts out of all proportion to their natural purpose. It is man's selfishness, greed, and undeserved intellectual pride, that has caused the decline of Society today, not the various Judeo/Christian ethics that our nation was founded on. So let's not condemn someone for their religions beliefs if they are real, but rather base our decisions on what is best for our country. Where is our sense of Nationalism today!
I don't want the government meddling in my life any more than they already do. I want to make my own decisions about where my money, my time, my effort, will do the most good. I don't need a government that thinks it knows what's best for humanity (the Democrats and many liberals). I am capable of deciding for myself. If more of my money is in my pocket, I can decide what charity, religion, causes, etc. to support. With money in the government's hands, they get to choose.
For this reason, and for my own religious leanings, I will vote for Bush, even though I am a registered Independent.
I believe in a moment of silence in schools - not teacher led prayer. I believe in teaching right and wrong in schools, and since many of our ideas have come from the Ten Commandments, I don't mind having them posted in classrooms (even if they are modified to remove any reference to a specific God). I believe in developing character in our youth - It is the surest way to deter drug use and abuse. I believe drugs should remain illegal, but that the higher level dealers should receive the greatest punishment (after all, many of the street dealers are addicts determined to support their disease).
What is wrong with these things? What is wrong with being moral? Seek the truth, and you might actually stumble onto it one day.
What will be the value of your life in the end, the glorious end.
It also means that the most profound appreciation of life's essential unity
Did anyone else hear General Ripper (Sterling Haden) say "I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids." when they read that?
Im not saying anything negative about Mr. Hagelin, I just had a strange recall...
VICE PRESIDENT GORE:
I fight for the chickens and I am fighting for the chickens right now.
I will not give up on the chickens crossing the road! I will fight for
the chickens and I will not disappoint them.
GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH:
I don't believe we need to get the chickens across the road. I say give
the road to the chickens and let them decide. The government needs to
let go of strangling the chickens so they can get across the road.
SENATOR LIEBERMAN;
I believe that every chicken has the right to worship his or her God in
his or her own way. Crossing the road is a spiritual journey and no
chicken should be denied the right to cross the road in his or her own way.
SECRETARY CHENEY:
Chickens are big-time because they have wings. They could fly if they
wanted to. Chickens don't want to cross the road. They don't need help
crossing the road. In fact, I'm not interested in crossing the roadmyself.
RALPH NADER:Chickens are misled into believing there is a road by the evil tire
makers. Chickens aren't ignorant, but our society pays tire makers to
create the need for these roads and then lures chickens into believing
there is an advantage to crossing them. Down with the roads, up withchickens.
PAT BUCHANAN:To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American.JERRY
FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people seethe
plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other
side." That's what "they" call it-the "other side." Yes, my friends,
that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay
too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side." That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It's as plain and simple as that.
DR. SEUSS:
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes! The
chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I've not been told!
RONALD REAGAN:What chicken?
CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK:To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.
FOX MULDER:
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens
have to cross before you believe it?
BILL CLINTON:I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by
"chicken"?Could you define "chicken" please?
GEORGE BUSH:
I don't think I should have to answer that question.
LOUIS FARRAKHAN:
The road, you will see, represents the black man. The chicken crossed
the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
He said that he had been on committees that had appropriated funds for the Internet, etc. The funny thing is, when you look at the evidence, he really has. He really did appropriate more funds and encourage government adoption of the Internet back when pushing that kind of stuff actually made a difference (when it was still small enough to be squashed).
I like making fun of Gore as much as the next man, but some things just aren't true.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Wasn't gay marriage the one thing that Gore and Bush agreed on during the debates?
What are you kidding?
Here's my favorite example. From the 2nd debate, I believe.
When asked about the death penalty, Bush replied that he favors executions, because he thinks that killing murderers prevents them from killing more people.
Gore, on the other hand, had an entirely different view. He favors executions because killing murderers serves as a deterrent.
So there. You decide which candidate best fits your beliefs. I mean, what other choices could there possibly be?
Heck, it's up to 12 mod points now. This may be some sort of record.
Hi folks,
I know I'm too late to submit questions, but I wasn't around when submissions were taken. I do have some comments though, and some food for thought that some readers may find interesting.
I'm glad that questions about corruption related to big corporations came up. I believe that many of our country's problems result from the greedy rich who care only of themselves and actually ruin the country's future to help their own personal success. Many large corporations, for example, cause all kinds of laws to be passed for their own convenience.
In that light, I'm very surprised that some of the following questions were not brought up by fellow Slashdot readers (and if they were, that they never reached the candidates):
The Patent System
Issues surrounding the current state of our patent office, which makes it easy for big corporations to patent practically everything they do, calling it "technology." I know there was a question about intellectual property laws but I think that more emphasis should have been placed on this issue.
The spirit of our patent system, as intended by the Founding Fathers, was to encourage the scientific and technological advancement of our country by encouraging inventors to make publically available the secrets of their inventions. In exchange, the patent system gives them the opportunity, for a limited time, to charge royalties on use of their invention while it makes its initial penetration into the market.
The spirit of the patent system is to award inventors this patent protection for inventions (not discoveries) that are not prior art and are not obvious to an expert in the field. It is also possible to patent the invention of a process that produces some result.
I believe that today, the patent office is awarding patent protection for so-called "technologies" that are obvious to school kids, let alone experts in the field. Furthermore, I believe that the prior art search for many of these patents is almost nonexistant. This has become the subject of many heated debates, especially in the field of computer software. I would like to know what our presidential candidates think about the current state of the patent office.
The Food and Drug Administration
This post centers around issues caused by the influence of big corporations on government. Some readers may be surprised to learn that this also affects what many of us eat and drink.
There is a substance called Aspartame (commonly misspelled Aspertame). This substance is used in many artificial sweetners (such as the popular Equal) and many foods and drinks that bear the words "Diet" or "Sugar Free." Artificial sweetners containing Aspartame are said by large corporations to be safer than those containing Saccarin.
However, at 86 degrees Farenheit, Aspartame breaks down into two chemicals that, when taken over time, are proven to cause physical and mental damage. Since the human body operates at more than 98 degrees Farenheit, this breakdown occurs when humans eat anything containing Aspartame.
Many myths and facts circulate around the net about the safety (or lack thereof) of this substance. On one end, companies like Nutrasweet (of the popular artificial sweetner Equal, which contains Aspartame) say that Aspartame is perfectly safe. On the other hand, doctors have scientific data that proves otherwise.
Do a search for Aspartame on Yahoo! and you'll quickly find sites debating either side of the argument. Ask yourself these two questions when you read those sites: "what do doctors have to gain and/or lose by proving how dangerous this substance is?" and "what do huge companies like Nutrasweet have to gain and/or lose by defending it?"
I have personally spoken with two such doctors whom I know well and trust, and they showed me proof that Aspartame is not to be taken at all. Furthermore, I know several people who have been seriously affected by it.
Rapid-onset symptoms of Aspartame include everything from migraines to seizures. Most users of Aspartame, however, experience symptoms from long-term use, such as arthritis, Alzheimer's and other memory-loss problems, Diabetes, even birth defects, and many more.
All of this has been proven scientifically, and yet this substance remains in use in many of our foods. I'd like to know what the presidential candidates think of this, and what they intend to do about it.
Mom and Pop Stores
The competition between big corporations is cutthroat. I believe that big corporations are ruining America by killing (or having killed) the little Mom and Pop stores and businesses. For example, Home Depot killed a lot of small hardware stores; Wal Mart killed a lot general stores; the banks keep buying each other and putting family-owned banks out of business... the list goes on and on. I wonder what our presidential candidates think of this, and whether or not they intend to do anything to help the little players who need all the help they can get. I'm not saying that corporations should be punished for being "too successful." Instead, I'm saying that America is supposed to be by the people for the people. Instead, big corporations practically rule this country, and the people have to put up with it.
I welcome any further comments and suggestions on these or other issues.
Kind regards,
Nathaniel G H
there's a very good defense of the electoral college system available on the washingtonpost.com site
Is anybody really worried about the whole way that the electoral college system ratchets down the voting power of more popular states? That really seems to be the complaint that Mr. Will is addressing.
My concern is that the current voting system discourages people from voting for like-ideology alternatives to the "big party" candidate. Vote for Nader and you take away your vote from Gore whom you'd probably want to win if Nader doesn't.
If anything, you'd think that the major party candidates would want to change the system. Nader may end up costing Gore the election. Perot cost Bush the election in '92. The major parties are losing elections because of these challengers. Doesn't that concern them?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
"As a quantum physicist, I offer a profound and fresh new foundation for governmental administration -- one based upon the most modern and comprehensive scientific understanding of how Nature functions -- that will clarify and redefine our national mission. Unified quantum field theories have revealed the ultimate unity underlying all of life, and provide deep and practical insights into how to skillfully administer and harmonize society's diverse tendencies -- with the same organizing intelligence displayed throughout Nature..."
First of all, a real physicist wouldn't call himself a "quantum physicist." All physicists use quantum mechanics. It's like saying "I'm a space astronomer" or "I'm a life biologist." The fact that he's using a popular term like quantum physicist proves he's trying to court votes by saying "I'm really smart. If I can do quantum physics, I certainly can do this politics stuff."
Secondly, modern physics provides absolutely no insight into how to run a society. A physics degree doesn't qualify someone to fix my car. It doesn't even qualify him to be a chemist because he understands the physics on which chemistry is based. And it certainly doesn't qualify him to be a politician because he understands the physics on which chemistry on which biology on which psychology on which sociology on which politics might somehow be based. If he believes in some sort of deep interconnectedness, he should refer to it as the new age mysticism it is rather than science. And in either case, he shouldn't bother bringing it up.
Notice that the article cited in the previous message has been modified so that the cited words are no longer there.
This was the cover story. Does anybody have a printed copy of the magazine to verify the attribution?
Bush wants to
Give a tax cut
Increase defense spending
Have a prescription drug plan
Increase spending on the drug war
Is anyone keeping track of all this? Does he plan on selling everything in the Lincoln bedroom on ebay to pay for all this?
amar
but the Shrub especially
/. again.
Yeah, yeah, we all know that the great evil Bush has screwed up in the eyes of
Damnit, why can't politicians craft their every word to tell their audience exactly what they want to hear? Oh shit, I forgot that I hate it when politicians don't just give a straight answer.
Most of the answers were perfectly in line with what I've heard him say before. I really liked what he had to say about privacy.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Get the facts - from gallup OTHER SPECIFIC - 1% NONE - 8% (athiest or agnostic I presume) UNDESIGNATED - 2% I'd say a good 10% of Americans are non-judeo-christian, a bit higher than some other figures bantered about here. -=ping GOD: Unknown Host God =-
closed minded is as closed minded does
If he ends up deserving the title, sure. You sound as though Clinton wasn't deserving of his moniker.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Excellent points. What's up with all of these Dubya lovin' morons? You're not voting for freshman class president for fucks sake!
Frankly, I got the impression that all of Bush's responses were cut'n'paste from white papers somewhere. Most of them didn't answer the question, although they sounded nice.
Let's see ...
Out of eight answerable questions, we have three answers, four evasions, and one not answered.
Somewhat more worrying is that, of the three questions he did answer, the answers could be interpereted as "bring out the jackboots".
The questions that he evaded show us an interesting use of what I call "political bait and switch". If you can't, or don't want, to answer a question, you answer a similar- sounding question. For example, the answer to question number two, about minority religions, does not tell us whether he's changed his views on Wicca. The answer to question three, on tax cuts, did not say *why* a tax cut was more desirable than reducing the deficit; it just said it was better than new spending programs. (This is also an example of another political favorite: Proof by Assertion.)
He'll probably be our next President. Be prepared for, um, rigorous enforcement of IP and drug laws ....
--
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
For some reason I believe these people are not interested in realpolitik, tho, and would rather wallow in their principles than make a constructive effort to win.
Believe it or not, many people out here think Kissinger is a scumbag, and the people who follow his "teachings" morally bankrupt.
I'll take people who "wallow in their principles" over your ugly cynical worldview any day. Which begs the question: if you don't wallow in principles, what value do you have to offer to this discussion?
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
http://www.bullatomsci.org/clock.html
Ok, I know you were shitting yourselves, but in 84 I think RayGun was president. OK?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/document.cgi?file=/k ron/archive/2000/11/02/dubyaco nfe ss.DTL
sulli
RTFJ.
the form to get clearance only asks about the past 7 years. he has been clean for 14, at least. this is not an endorsement, just the facts
Y'know, I don't agree with the results of your analysis... and frankly could barely muster the interest level required to read about tax credits for kids, much less actually think about it, as I have no sprog and plan no sprog... but I gotta say, bless you for passing on "fucktrophy" and "crotchfruit" into my vocabulary, where they will, from now on, be an indispensable part of my verbal catalog. Seriously, it just about brings a tear of joy to my eye.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/document.cgi?file=/k ron/archive/2000/11/02/dubyaconfess.DTL
sulli
RTFJ.
I posted a message
Hrmm...-1 troll?
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
Time is fun when you're having flies.
-Kermit the Frog
Not too surprising, though they're awfully scarce here in the SF Bay Area. There are plenty of libertarian Republicans and tolerant conservatives, even though they're currently a minority in the Republican Party. A gay person who likes the idea of keeping more if his income, or a strong national defense, or less bureaucratic regulation of life in general, would be a natural conservative, especially since gay men tend to have higher total and disposable incomes than straight men. It's only the Christian moralizing that keeps them away from the Republican party.
If elected president I pledge a renewed commitment to fight the war on drugs.
All right, Bush is fighting the war on drugs! Down with the war on drugs! He's against it, on our side!
If you don't get it, don't moderate.
Pisses me off.
sulli
RTFJ.
Here in Canada we have a tax applied uniformly to all purchases which are deemed as being 'Goods' or 'Services'. It's called the GST and since almost everything you buy is a good or service you automatically have to pay 7% in tax, on every purchase, to the federal government. This tax was initiated to fight our national debt.
Needless to say, I was quite infuriated the other day when one of my friends brought it to my attention that one of the stipulations to this tax is that organizations of faith do not have to pay it!!! Now if that isn't one of the most assinine policies in a modern democracy I don't know what is.
Anyways, I had the same brief flash of insight that many of you have had in this thread: Atheists should band together to make their own organization based on the consensus of 'no faith'. They way I see it is that if we live in a flawed system that openly promotes faith based organizations then we should also allow this to be extended to any collective assembly of like-minded thinkers. - then again if this sounds kind of rediculous to you then maybe the best solution would be to remove special interest organizations right to 'exemptions' all together.
Anyways, just thought I would add that as it seemed relevent to this thread.
UBU
There are several problems inherent to having the system blow up a warhead when it's on its way back into the atmosphere. One prominent example, in the case of a biological weapon the toxic payload would then be spread over a much larger area, causing more overall death/destruction.
Wombat.
Dubya's right on this one. A more effective campaign on behald of free trade would have made a huge difference. Instead the radicals won, and we all lose as a result.
sulli
RTFJ.
http://george-w-dance.homepage.com/ ;
sulli
RTFJ.
Could someone who is in the know offer any insight as to what the chances are that Bush even knew about this interview, let alone wrote any of the responses? I'd be interested to know.
--
How many of our past Presidents WOULD have made it through even the most basic clearance test?
Even to be a Federal Judge, you get people calling old roommates from college days and they scrutinize everything.
I can pretty much guarentee you that if our presidents were held to that kind of light, and that was the basis for them getting into office, our country would be very, very different.
It's not their past that is important, it's what they did about it, and what they've learned.
I'd much rather have a President who fucked up in the past and has since learned and grown from it.
Someone with a crystal clear record shows me that they were a middle of the road, non-risk taking kind of person, and in this world, you MUST take a few risks to succeed.
Neither could I. I'm glad Salon researched Gore's cuts for me, because as a childfree, I also couldn't be bothered to look it up once I figured that Gore offered nothing to me. (I'm also glad Salon did it, 'cuz they're about as pro-Gore as anyone, and I could be sure I wasn't relying on any pro-Bush "spin" on my data for the Gore plan)
> but I gotta say, bless you for passing on "fucktrophy" and "crotchfruit" into my vocabulary,
If I see so far, it is only because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants". (I first heard the terms on TMB's site, and had the same reaction as you did. Credit for the terms goes to her, or to those from whom she first heard 'em.)
I was scared at night as a teenager about nuclear war
Reagan and the tough mutual destruction guys were completely vindicated! The communist philosophy was one of world domination - proven again and again in Poland, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. Look at poor Taiwan and what they have to put up with even today. You want to talk about being "scared at night"? People in Taiwan have a neighbor (that lacks the conscience of democracy coupled with freedom of speech) just itching to take them over. Compare and contrast that with a country within our direct influence, like Puerto Rico that has received tens of millions of our tax dollars with no real strings attached.
If it wouldn't have been for leaders with strength like Reagan, communist Russia would still be a threat today, and you'd be going to bed a scared 33-year-old.
Nader=unlikely (but I'm voting for him)
Yes, every American's income should be limited to $100,000. I worked my ass off my whole life to achieve financial success so some idiot like Nader can take away everything. When my friends chided me for working so hard, bragging about how they took three-hour lunches to play basketball, I guess they were right. I should have gone the easy route. Tough shit to all of the people I employed. Maybe we all could have had good government jobs?
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
These answers show a strange contrast. Hagelin appears to have actually read the questions and is answering them as written. Certainly he has his own spin on the issues, but he is willing to engage in a dialogue with us. Bush's answers appear to be excerpts from speeches and press releases. I wonder if he is even aware that his campaign staff sent this reply to us. His answer to the question concerning protection of minority religions and atheists is clearly intended to express tolerance, but in answer to that question as it was worded it expresses profound intolerance.
George W. Bush has publicly expressed a more tolerant attitude towards minority religions. Take a look at this page for quotes on that and many other issues. His campaign staff should be ashamed of this screw up.
Consider throwing your vote away on a candidate who really stands for something. Time Magazine recommends it.
Character education in school? Faith-based leadership programs? AAAUUGHH!!! If the US officially hates Iran so much, then why are we allowing a leader to turn us _into_ Iran?
D*mn, and I thought the Natural Law party was full of anti-abortion old-testamenters, sheesh...
Listen, I'm not on the straight and narrow like our favorite coke-snorting uncle here, but I know a threat to freedom when I see it...I'm starting a Dark Hearts button campaign, just to tell that SOB where he can stick his character education!
anyway, if you want some little buttons with black hearts printed on them (and possibly a little more rational screed on my whole position), please send your snailmail address here and I'll send five buttons anywhere you want. Gah! Ohako
From the paperwork on the incident, it looks like there was an arrest, which makes sense. You don't just give a drunk guy a ticket and let him keep going.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
for the love of everything holy (but not wicca), research that quote! It is NOT represented in it's entirety, it is really something along the lines of "a foolish consistency is the hob...blah blah". At any rate, when you get home, look it up.
Did anyone here actually read the very last paragraph of this interview? Can anyone actually read it, and not realize that what this man is talking about is Universal Religion disguised as politics? He is pushing national religion if not world religion. Every reader here ought to be outraged by this proposal to force cosmic awareness "... through proper education" upon us. Agnostic, Atheist, Pagan, Christian, Muslim, {{insert religion here}}, all of us, should be able to agree on this one thing: Universal Religion is bad !!!
Thank God I'm a Christian - only the serious should apply.
What will be the value of your life in the end, the glorious end.
by Tim Doran
The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?
Capt. Beyond:
This stupid war on drugs is an utter failure. I would stop it, and take the money that is now spent on this, and spend it on drug addiction treatment. I would legalize marijuana for recreational uses.
3) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst
What will you do to protect the rights of athiests and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
Capt. Beyond:
I would protect their rights as if they were my own, and fight to the death, anybody that tries to interfere.
4) electoral reform
by carleton
Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the Electoral College system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?
Capt. Beyond:
I would, 1) reestablish the constitution, and rescind the Act of March 9, 1933. 2)I would abolish the electoral college. Whatta bunch of hoooie that is!!
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory
In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.
Do you feel that out current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?
Capt. Beyond:
I would reform the Patient Office, and abolish patients on algorithms, and software.
6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy
Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private.
Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?
Capt. Beyond:
I would require strong encryption. I would end any government monitoring of any communications over the internet.
7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno
In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?
Capt. Beyond:
I would set up an internet chat room, once a week, to really find out what people are thinking.
8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed
Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?
Capt. Beyond:
Sure. Give NASA and other space agencies more funding. Although, I believe that about all we could do about any large asteroid, is to monitor. Deflection might be impossible.
9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223
I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.
I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)
Capt. Beyond:
I think our mission would be to explore space, and would concentrate the country on that.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
I sincerely hope everyone who reads about the lies finds them very disturbing. I'm actually getting scared that Bush might get elected. I'm not even vote for who I want in office: I may vote for Gore just to make sure Bush isn't elected. I'm seriously scared of that happening.
Howard Stern was speaking about this in his morning show today. He said the problem isn't the drunk driving, it's any lying he's done since then. But Howard didn't know about these incidents. I'm going to try to send this to him. Hopefully word of the lies can spread quickly (and loud) by Tuesday.Developers: We can use your help.
I checked, and the cited words appear to be there.
/11 2999/cottle112999.html
...
First off, here is the correct url:
http://www.tnr.com/magazines
Here is the URL for the Google cache entry for the article. I don't know when the google cache was made:
The only difference I saw between the two was a minor spelling correction:
ughes's aura helps her control a media beast
-->
Hughes's aura helps her control a media beast
But you are right. This file was modified shortly after the citation on slashdot. Anyone notice any other differences between the two?
Both copies read:
Other times Hughes simply shuts down the conversation. Just after the governor's reelection in 1998, Slater pressed Bush about whether he had ever been arrested. "He said, `After 1968? No.' I said, `What about before 1968?'
Did you save a copy of the allegedly modified page?
Slashdot citation: 1:10PM CST
Timestamp on the TNR file: 2:01PM CST
Your posting: 2:37 CST
Very irregular
"Remember, it wasn't the sex that Clinton was impeached for, it was the lying." Bullshit, it wasn't comparable to lying on a talk-show, it was because he lied under oath while giving testimony to a court of law (and during a trial that revolved around the very thing he was lying about). Whether or not we see a difference, ethically, and say "lying is lying", there is a difference in the eyes of the law (or at least the courts).
Absolutely false. See for example this poll, which shows Bush's policies are preferred to Gore's on most of the top issues.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I don't like Bush, but I also don't have any desire to limit access to the presidency to only those that could qualify for a security clearance. That would, for instance prohibit a communist party candidate since he is a communist pary member. Hardly constitutional
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
Asinine
Actually he had to put up a $500 bond (ie he was released on bail) then he returned in Mid-October '76 to enter his plea to the Class D misdemeanor. Though referring to the incident his staff has avoided the word "arrest" using euphemisms like picked-up, or pulled-over instead, if you had to put up bail, then you were arrested. If you confessed to a Class D misdeanor, then you are a criminal. The constitution states that upon conviction of "high crimes and misdemeanors" the president is to be removed from office. So if Bush had done this in office, and then confessed to the Senate instead of a judge, he could be removed from office.
.10 to .08 BAC. Considering the delay in administering the test, Bush could easily have had a BAC of twice the new legal limit. To reach a BAC of over .10, he would had to drink 5 drinks in an hour.
His car was seen swerving off the road, and travelling at too slow a speed, so he was pulled over. After failing a roadside sobriety test, he was brought in and given a blood test that registered 0.10% Blood Alcohol Content (BAC), the new national standard was just changed from
25,000 Americans die each year due to drunk driving, so this is not a "mistake" that you can just write off. He endangered lives including the life of his own sister. I don't want those kind of family values in the White House.
He claims he learned from his mistake, but he continued to drink for 10 more years after his arrest. Also, he obviously has not completed AA, since he seems quick blame the messenger regarding news of the arrest. If he had made it through AA then he would be accepting that this was HIS arrest, resulting HIS behavior.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Maybe you are too young to remember the 1980's, but supply-side does NOT work. IT DOES NOT WORK.
That is, if your goal is a fair society in which everyone's life is improved. If you prefer that the rich become richer and the poorer then, yes, supply-side works.
David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director, actually admitted that helping the rich was the goal all along:
He admitted this in 1981 when discussing the Reagan tax cut: "[It] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top [tax] rate It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' So the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."
The source is:
William Greider, "The Education of David Stockman," The Atlantic Monthly, December 1981, pp. 46-47
Consumer means us -- you and me. Our privacy is important to us. We need strong encryption to protect our privacy -- to protect our ideas. Your right to share your ideas is protected by the first amendment. If you want to share something you publish it. You dont encrypt it. Encryption is about the right to keep your ideas private.
Or does (most) everyone totally ignore Hagelin? I just looked over all the top rated posts and only about 3 people mentioned Hagelin at all. Sure, he's not going to win, but he certainly makes some good points. And yet, rather than comment on him, people seem quite happy to re-hash the same old George W. stuff (religion, drugs, whatever, it's all repeated multiple times). I'm just surprised that so few people had nothing constructive/destructvie/funny to say about Hagelin.
;)
Ah well, he's just a 3rd party candidate, he's not important.
~LlamaDragon
------------------
Was I talking about Nixon? I don't think so. I
never liked the man, and I had nothing to do with
his election.
I was simply stating that Clinton's unrepentant
lying and moral depravity is nothing like Bush's
error, for which he paid his debt to society, and
has now abstained from alcohol for 14 years.
Why don't you pull your head out of your ass
before talking again. You might swallow a lot
less shit.
Would you shut up already?
Thats $7500, $450 and $450,000 respectively. Sounds fair to me! Sure make the tax forms a lot simpler! Sure would put alot of IRS folks, tax attorneys, lobbyists and other bureacrats out of a job too. So until someone tells me they want to cut the tax laws not taxes, I will keep on ignoring their patronizing rhetoric.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
From the article(Bush's response to WTO question):
"To fuel continued economic growth, we need to tear down barriers abroad - and keep markets open at home"
In 1907, Woodrow Wilson said:
"Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers
of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process.... the doors of the nations which are closed must be battered down."
If you think back on your American History, Wilson
just so happened to be the president who sent hundreds of thousands of American's to the trenches of WWI to defend these foreign markets. Will bush do the same?
What I'm saying is that Repubicans are all the same.... Bush is hiding more...
Need I bring up the illegal abortion he paid for in 1970??? Integrity my ass!!!
Bush MURDERED a baby! There's no integrity in that!
Kid: (yours)But mommy, president Bush drank and drove, why can't I drink and drive? Why mommy?
Mommy: Because, sweetheart, President Bush was arrested for doing so, and that was back in 1976 when drinking and driving wasn't viewed with the vehement disdain that it is now. He made a mistake like many people do, but at least he had the courage to change his life to prevent future similar errors in judgement.
Kid: (mine) But mommy, president Clinton lied under oath after sexually harrassing his employee. After lying under oath, he was never really punished like you and I would be. Does that mean that I need to gain power and make friends with the news media in order to be above the law?
Mommy: Yes, dear. That will work as long as people continue to mostly be stupid.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Mormon
Methodist
Jewish
Muslim
(no other answers allowed)
Ok, here's the answer: Congaleeza Rice. Bush's advisor on energy policy. Gee, I wonder what her favorite fuel is?
I saw in it Harper's index. BTW what kind of name is 'Congaleeza'? That's just plain weird.- ---------------
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I bent my wookie
-------------------------------------------------
I bent my wookie
Here is the reply from the New Republic:
Mr. Schulien,
Thanks for your note. The explanation is a simple one. Yes, the page was
updated today. As you may have noticed, we redesigned our site a few weeks
ago. The new look allows us to link to more stories and is easier to read.
When I heard this morning that Michelle Cottle's article was in the news, I
decided to drop the text of her article into one of our new page templates.
The actual content of the article was not changed. You could check the
online version against the printed version if you care to verify this
further.
Best,
Jeremy McCarter
Editor, TNR Online
Case closed?
These people are, in my estimation, traitors, and they should be uncovered, exposed, and tried for sedition and treason. They should be hunted down like the miserable dogs they are, and given no quarter. They are anti-Republic, anti-Democratic, and want to replace our justice system with a set of kangaroo courts.- ---------
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I bent my wookie
-------------------------------------------------
I bent my wookie
Although he usually doesn't mention it in his stump speaches, Hagelin is a hard core follower of Transcendental Meditation. He doesn't really oppose SDI because he doesn't think it won't work, but because he thinks ten thousand people practicing yogic "flying" in unison will achieve "quantum coherence" and prevent missiles from ever being launched in the first place.
Notice that you ignored definitions 1-3:
1. a.Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b.A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2.The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3.A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
This is one of those semantic games that you can play with lots of words that have very general sub-meanings. The Internet Infidels have a thorough well thought out response to the: Isn't atheism a religion? question.
Basically, they argue quite well, that given your definition of "religion", many things are religions, like: science, politics, and watching TV.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
you mean baby eating "Daemon."
Yeah. I don't quite get what the point was, but it should get moddded up to like 15, everyone needs to know those words. 'Fucktrophy'! that's classic.- -----------------
---------------------------------------
I bent my wookie
-------------------------------------------------
I bent my wookie
Can I assume either that you are a member of a religion that is mainstream enough to have no fear of oppression, or that you like Bush enough for other reasons that you're willing to deny that it was a pretty ignorant thing for him to say? I'm pretty certain that alarm bells were ringing in the heads of most atheists, wiccans et al. I am surprised that he mentioned Mormonism and not, for instance, Catholicism, but in any case it did nothing to address the fears of people whose religions really are weak enough so that few would dispute their persecution. In my opinion the fact that he listed a few religions rather than making a blanket statement about all belief systems signals that something is wrong about his beliefs on this subject.
The constitution (damn, sp?) was written to be interpretted. It was an open ended document, where by the current situation was to compared against it and a course of action interpreted out of it.
It's not suppose to be hard to do, but there's not way you can cover all possibilities in one document. Thus, you have to interpret. How is the advent of the internet suppose to be covered? What laws should apply? What rights should people have on the net. The constitution says nothing about these things specifically, thus we have to interpret an answer out of it.
Same with abortion (damn, sp again?)... does the "life" in 'life, libery, etc..." apply to the unborn? It doesn't say, you have to have some one decide... and there's where to courts come in.
Read some supreme court documents... I find them amazing. They constantly refer to the constitution in their briefs and decision.
Ok, sorry for the rant, but I"ve been on a big constitution kick lately.
Appointment of supreme court justices could be a big-deal outcome from this election... it would only take a vote or two to over turn Roe-vs-Wade.
So... I agree, the courts don't change the law, but with the vagueness of laws, they go a lot ways towards 'creating' the law in the way that the laws are interpreted.
Agree? Disagree? Hate me?
Come on, people make mistakes. They shouldn't have to die just because they fell off a goddamn cliff.
Excuse me: despite all the new hippie-ass candidates for president declaring that smoking up mellows you out and puts you in harmony with nature, it's a fact that weed contains carcinogens, is mildly hallucinogenic, and reduces inhibitions.
So says scientific studies.
Umm, Jumping off a cliff is a far cry from smoking weed, considering there has never been a recorded case of a marijuana overdose. The carcinogens can be considered negligable (all smoked plant matter contains carcinogens) as researchers at John Hopkins University have been unable to link smoked marijuana to any form of cancer, see this study. Furthermore, it has been shown that long term marijuana smokers show no more (in fact less, although not significant) cognitive decline than non smokers over a 15 year period. (Constantine G. Lyketsos, et al., "Cannabis Use and Cognitive Decline in Persons Under 65 Years of Age," American Journal of Epidemiology, May 1999, vol. 149, p. 794-800
Canadian judges have ruled (in official findings of fact) that marijuana (if not used in the conjunction with operating heavy equipment) poses nearly no significant harm to either the individual or society, see this here.
You should look at the mortality rate due to cocaine, written here at this report. The rate is 4 per 100,000 users! Compare to alcohol at 150, and marijuana is certainly safer than cocaine.
Moreover, it's not like kids don't _know_ drugs are bad for them. Most of the ones I know are like "yeah, fuck that ... who gives a shit about cancer ... I'm gonna fucking smoke my joint 'cause I wanna fucking smoke my joint."
See above. I smoked dope in High School, and graduated with several academic awards. (and 46 hours of college credit going in) I am just glad I wasn't dumb enough to drink like so many of my peers, hell, I am 37 times more likely to die from that than cocaine.
They're not stupid, they _willingly_ commit said error. After constantly being told that they should not. I mean, name one kid who has not seen hundreds of "drugs are bad" posters and commercials in their life. Who hasn't seen the crack addicts in the airports.
Again, see above.
Kids know better, and if some of them are still stupid enough to smoke up, they need punishment, not help.
I think people who enforce this unscientific crap need punishment. Come back with some references and we will talk.
The wasted vote is the one for a candidate you don't actually want. Nader addresses this issue on his site.
Think about it. How can a system ever improve if you only choose the lesser of two evils? Each election the two evils get more similar and more evil. All you do is slow the rate of the evil.
"...but he's a politician. Should we expect any more? "
YES, YOU SHOULD EXPECT A &$@#LOAD MORE. Ralph Nader does not evade questions and spout insultingly obvious attacks on opponents in order to deflect attention from himself. "Yet I'm voting for Bush."
The man is so clearly unfit for office it is scary. This is the man who will control the American nuclear arsenal. This is the man who would control negotiations with China should the Taiwan situation flare. This is the man who irresponsibly applies the death penalty while threatening Roe v Wade. This is the man whose rhetoric consistently appeals to shortsighted wealthy WASPs, with his emphasis on his tax cut, and his Christian posturing. This is the man who has little experience, has no noteworthy accomplishments, and has had a free ride through life in the old boy's club.
This candidate is clearly out of touch with the reality of drugs, trade, and the very things you mention regarding electoral/campaign reform. He is his father's shadow, and he is another corporate whore. How can you profess to want electoral reform and then support Bush? He completely dodged the related question here on /. He is a proven hypocrite. His speeches consist of prememorized responses that he utters regardless of whether it really addresses the question. He is a cardboard man, a straw dummy with a "republican agenda" recording on repeat behind that oh-so-sincere-and-heartful face. His posturing in speeches of "well I don't know much about that but I've got a good heart" makes me sick.
Gore would be a competent choice for the continuation of moderate policy that caters to the largest common denominator on most respects. But for a candidate you can believe in, Nader truly is the only one with any balls. His website has so much more clearly stated, non-obfuscated, non-pandering platform information compared to the big two. And his pro-choice, anti-death-penalty stance is so *right* for anyone who objectively reasons out the pros and cons of both situations.
Harry Browne's libertarian goals are well-intentioned and appealing but fundamentally flawed. Libertarianism conveniently and unacceptably dodges important issues regarding restraint of corporate power, the environment, and social welfare. Charity is not an acceptable substitute for those who honestly can't support themselves. Libertarians love to point to the "golden ages" before the goverment "messed everything up" but willfully ignore all the serious problems that lead to things like the FDA, USDA, etc.
Question: With religious diversity increasing, what are your thoughts on the protection of religious freedom and the separation of church and state? Should religions like Wicca be banned from recognition by the military, as some legislators suggest? Submitted from Amber of San Diego, California through Yahoo! (10/15/00)
Answer: Religious Freedom And Tolerance Is A Protected Right I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion. I do not think witchcraft is a religion, and I do not think it is in any way appropriate for the U.S. military to promote it.
pronoblem
Maybe you could clarify some of your points for me.
- I agree, people shouldn't have to die just becaue they fell off a cliff - but we can't really do anything about that. We can, however, make it so kids don't have to be fucked over by laws against consensual crimes. Shouldn't we do so since we can?
- Which of carcinogenic, mildly hallucinogenic, and inhibiton-lowering is grounds for making something illegal?
- You've established that when most kids smoke weed it's an informed decision. Should we then decriminalize the sale of drugs since one of the main premises was that pushers sell to kids who don't know better?
- What kinds of punishment will better the situations of kids who choose to smoke weed?
- Is "new-aged non-violent let's-talk" supposed to be bad? New-aged is a derogatory term that doesn't mean much of anything as far as I know; non-violent is a good thing, again as far as I know; and talking about our feelings may or may not be the most productive things to do but isn't really bad... Would you like to elaborate?
Thanks in advance.
scares the living fuck out of me.
Note to AC: Learn what a trolls is!
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" -Confucius
Maybe Clinton and Monica inhaled, but at least they weren't arrested while driving a automobile!!
Will the last company to abandon Linux please turn off the lights??!
He wasn't even in Texas when he was stopped.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Islam is considered an "extension" of Christianity. It recognizes the Old and New Testaments as scripture, but it doesn't consider Christ divine. In fact, they generally believe that Christians are going to hell.
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
Aside from all that, though, every politician knows that if you go down the road of answering every charge against you, you never get to tell people what your campaign is about. This way, reporters quit trying to catch him in an "I didn't inhale" moment and had to go do their own digging. I find it rather humorous that it took a tip off from a Democratic convention delegate and candidate for the Governorship of Maine to leak this, but so it goes.
If you're going to try to scare me out of voting for Bush about something that happened 24 years ago, at least try to make your arguments somewhat sensible.
Regardless, this doesn't affect my view of him for two reasons. First, because it isn't a pattern of behavior, as has been seen in certain public officials. And second, even if it was something he had done multiple times, he gave up drinking 14 years ago. It's a non-issue.
At least he hasn't tried to claim that the officer who stopped him that night didn't have "controlling legal authority", as Gore seems prone to do. And he hasn't asked the officer to apologize for arresting him, as Clinton just did to Congress for impeaching him.
Borogrove
The Electoral College was established by Article II and the Twelfth Amendment of the United States Constitution. I support our Constitutional system of representative democracy. I am disappointed at the diminishing number of voters coming out....[blah blah]
Ok W., I take it this means you won't go whining when you loose the election inspite of winning the popular vote. Viva the Electoral College.
The Founding Fathers did not define 'religion' the way that we do today. To them, religion was Christianity. Any other 'religion' was heathenism. Thus, the intent of the 1st Ammendment was not tolerance for all religious beliefs, but rather tolerance for those who acknowledge Jesus Christ to be the Son of God only. There was to be no Church of the United States as there was a Church of England.
You do realize that Puerto Rico is not a seperate country but part of the USA, right?
which he provides in the next question when asked about "consumer" (or "citizen") privacy.
Notice and Consent. Everyone has the right to know what information is collected and how it will be used, and to accept or decline the collection or dissemination of this information - particularly financial and medical information.
So you've got the first cast iron contradiction from this interview.
--
+&x
So just because you "don't want Gore's inflated government" you choose to ignore all the actual issues, all the actual credentials, all the actual abilities and character of the candidates who will helm the most powerful nation on the planet?
I'm sure that must make a lot of sense to you. Who cares about the fact that Bush and Gore BOTH will increase the size of the government? (Find some real facts. They exist. The difference between the two on this point is very small. Bush's stance on this is pure rhetoric, and Gore too provides the same rhetoric. And in fact, can claim to have eliminated thousands of government jobs).
Who cares that it is CONGRESS who would be the body that makes inflating decisions? Why deal with the real facts? Real facts are just Washington fuzzy math I guess, and Dubya's a good man to chug a beer with.
Fully 50% of this country must be retarded.
Sure, Hagelin bothers to answer the questions but he doesn't make it into the Slashdot poll.
On you music issue. I totally agree with you. Napster and Gnutella are good concepts, but the manner in which they are applied in is not. Free music is a good idea. But what must be understood is that it isn't 'your' music.
In this election I have noticed, particularly on this forum, that whenever I speak out in favor of Bush I get attacked. Sometimes personally. I get responses of the likes: "what are you thinking", "are you nuts", "you must be crazy." Why must you all criticize my decisions?
I get attacked on other things too. Like how I prefer windows to linux(desktop). Or how I prefer Novell to Linux(NOS). Or if I had the choice of setting a linux box for a print server or router, that I would rather buy hardware solutions instead. Or that I would rather choose proprietory software versus opensource. Ex. Oracle to MySQL.
Just me and my opinions.
Bush doesn't issue meaningless babble? At least Hagelin seems to have some idea of where he's coming from, and a rudimentary grasp of English, which is more than can be said for Bush when he departs from his canned tyrades. Take a look here for more.
"The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?' I will be, but until I'm the president, it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective."--In Wayne, Mich., as quoted by Katharine Q. Seelye in the New York Times, June 28, 2000
"This is a world that is much more uncertain than the past. In the past we were certain, we were certain it was us versus the Russians in the past. We were certain, and therefore we had huge nuclear arsenals aimed at each other to keep the peace. That's what we were certain of. ... You see, even though it's an uncertain world, we're certain of some things. We're certain that even though the 'evil empire' may have passed, evil still remains. We're certain there are people that can't stand what America stands for. ... We're certain there are madmen in this world, and there's terror, and there's missiles and I'm certain of this, too: I'm certain to maintain the peace, we better have a military of high morale, and I'm certain that under this administration, morale in the military is dangerously low."--Albuquerque, N.M., the Washington Post, May 31, 2000
"The fact that he relies on facts--says things that are not factual--are going to undermine his campaign."--New York Times, March 4, 2000
"We ought to make the pie higher."--South Carolina Republican Debate, Feb. 15, 2000
"I've changed my style somewhat, as you know. I'm less--I pontificate less, although it may be hard to tell it from this show. And I'm more interacting with people."--ibid
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?"--Concord, N.H., Jan. 29, 2000
"When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were," he said. "It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there."--Iowa Western Community College, Jan 21, 2000
You're so wrong on so much here. I don't have the energy to get into it right now, but CATO does a pretty good job clarifying your supposed facts. Though you might argue with CATO's conclusions given their conservative bias, you can't credibly argue with the actual verifiable data collected from the US census. Look it up yourself if you don't believe me.
Good night.
> Many of Bush's past misdemeanors (DUI, cocaine use/sale, etc) would most likely disqualify him for such a security clearance.
As someone pointed out in a newsgroup, the DUI conviction is a criminal record that would keep him from being hired to flip burgers at most fast-food chains.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If you are a under about 30 years of age, you should be very concerned about the fact that uncle Sam is fleecing you to the tune of 15% and putting it into a Ponze scheme known as Social Security. Bush has proposed a major step in the right direction toward privatization of SS, but Gore thinks you are too stupid to even know you are getting screwed. This alone is reason enough to vote for Bush.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
> He claims he learned from his mistake
But he's plenty happy to slam others in the pokey for 20 years, the better to learn from their mistakes.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What's wrong with a VOTE FOR RALPH NADER ? He doesn't support the Republicrats and his stated mission would be to remove the US from the WTO, NAFTA and all that other bullshit that is feeding the twisted IP laws to begin with! You might as well write-in "The Devil" on your ballot -- because voting Libertarian is just as useless as voting for Satan himself. But, hey it's a free country (until "Dubya" wins) vote for whoever you want.
> Therefore Bush has based much of his campaigning and message on his personal integrity and honesty
And the DUI story continues to grow. The following story hit the news in parts of Texas today, though the national press does not seem to have picked it up.
As recently as 1996, governer GWB got called up for jury duty, and made a big PR show of "just doing his civic duty like an ordinary guy". He showed up at the courthouse in a limo and surrounded by TV cameras (just like an ordinary guy, right).
Then he found out that it was a DWI case.
He left the "have you ever been accused or convicted" part of his juror's questionaire blank, and quietly had his lawyers get him off the case. No more regular guy; governers have more important affairs to tend to.
However, before he got away he did have to face a question from a reporter, who (jokingly?) asked why not just pardon the DWI guy and get the case over with. Bush's reply? "I'm more likely to hang him."
The above is not hearsay: everything except the actions of his lawyers was shown on television in various parts of Texas tonight. They even showed his juror's card.
Now if all else were equal I might be willing to let 24 year old bygones be bygones indeed. But as you say, the hypocrisy is a huge issue. When his campaign was sagging a couple of months back, he tried like hell to bolster himself by painting Al Gore as a liar and a hypocrite. I guess his daddy didn't teach him that what goes around comes around.
His crybaby "the timing is suspicious" isn't a very good defense either. He could have managed the timing himself by coming clean on the subject when he first threw his hat in the ring. So much for don't-ask-don't-tell. Now we can reasonably be asking, "What else is there that we don't know about him?"
But what alarms me the most is this. Even if GWB had great credentials for the job (he doesn't), couldn't the Republican Party find someone in a country of 350,000,000 citizens, who has decent credentials and a squeaky clean background? Especially since the party has primarily subsisted on scandal investigations for the past eight years? I can't decide whether to call nominating GWB "sheer arrogance" or "sheer insanity".
Just what the heck does GWB think is going to happen if he gets elected? D'ya suppose that the Democrats (and Larry Flynt) will forgive and forget, and not be tempted to investigate every rumor that comes out about him? And get it plastered all over every news outlet on the planet? Does he think the media are only interested in Democrat's scandals? Does he think Jay Leno will keep telling Clinton jokes for the next four years?
GWB's such a big crybaby (running to the elections board to complain about parody Web sites), that I honestly don't think he's tough enough to last four years in office. If not for the likely Supreme Court appointments, I'd be hoping he would get elected, just for the entertainment value of what happens next. Jay Leno certainly won't lack for monologue material.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm looking for a canidate who answers these questions anywhere close to mine....let me know if you hear of one.
1) War on DrugsWe're wasting tons of money locking up drug users, and for what(locking up serious dealers is all you need)? Keep a steady flow of money to help inform kids at a young age of the dangers in some degree. Remember though, sometimes the Government can't teach your kids all the values they should have no matter how much money we burn.(The Government does have finite abilities)
2) Minority Religions
As long as someone's Religious practices aren't infringing on someone else's personal rights everything is fine. There's no rule in life saying that you have to believe things other people believe.
3) Why give a tax cut?
Listen, lord knows I can't pass everything that I want to, I'd be a President not a king. However, I concentrate on helping to reform wasteful Government programs, promoting useful ones, reducing our debt and we'll see where that leaves us for a refund(or for more taxes).
4) electoral reform
Anyone who's read about how our voting process works knows it needs some serious revamping and fast. You shouldn't have to vote for someone because otherwise you'll hurt the guy that has a better chance of winning who you don't like as much. Some kind of system to the effect of listing your choices in order and if your 1st choice isn't going to win your vote moves to your 2nd choice and so on....something like that would do nicely.
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
Again, it's major overhaul time. Move patent lengths back down to 22 years for starters. Secondly, move as least a shred of power back into the hands of the consumer. Get rid of shrink wrap licenses, fire the current director of the patent office. That's just for starters.
6) Encryption....
No restrictions on encryption, period. No, you shouldn't have to put in back doors into your software either so that Government employees can have access into whatever they want.
7) Rising Political Protests
No big point here(not my area) but we shouldn't trade with countries who are responsibile for crimes against humanity.(child labor, meger pay...)
8) Asteroid Defenses
This isn't some cheesy blockbuster-space movie, everyone knows if an astroid is going to come to Earth in the next couple years we're SOL. Make sure you buy a good lawn chair in case the big day comes.
9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
The way I see it, humanity is in a period of rapid growth and we haven't figured out how to deal with it yet. We've gain so many new technologies that we don't know what to do next it seems. We need to continue to develop what we know to ensure a better quality of life for everyone, not just rich people. The way to do this is simple. Keep pumping money into education like there's no tomorrow. Require higher standards for both students and teachers. A renewed commitment to the hard sciences and literature. Education should always be a priority, not just something you talk about when you make that visit to a campus to get student votes.
Ruler of the free world.
Yeah.
The USA is the only free world....
Martin Widmark
Everybody knows that we are the evil boys, making noise with deadly toys.
Both sides fighted for world domination. Guess why its called Cold War?
Ever heard of the domino-theory?
"If one country falls to communism others will follow."
That's the reason, the US assumed they had to "free" Vietnam. The rest is history.
What about Latin-America? E.g. Alliende, an elected socialist got assassinated by the CIA (they funded it). He dared to disseise several large American companies of their mines in Chile. Pinochet installed afterwards a military-dictatorship, strongly funded by the US. You surely know about the cruelty of his regime. Ex-CIA employers are openly confirming their participation and even think today it was rightfull.
The US overthrew many democratic-socialist goverments in South-A by supporting facist guerilla groups (money, weapons, training), resulting in totalitarian regimes.
It wasn't neither Reagan nor Bush to abolish communism and cold war. (think of SDI)
It was the work of people in communist countries who peacefully demonstrated for their rights. If you want to name a person, name Gorbatchov, who kept the extrimistic parts of the goverment in check.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
First:
Could someone translate Hagelin's last comment into English? If I'm reading that correctly, it sounds like his whole purpose of being President would be to try to make the United States citizens smarter. I guess I'm all for that, having worked in -retail- all my life, and the whole fscking world is full of dumbasses!
Second:
I think Bush's responses are neither pandering to us, nor customized for us - they are the same crap that's going out on national TV every day. I'm so damn sick of election ads, and I don't even -OWN- a TV.
Oops, third:
Electoral system is fscking stupid. 100% of the population could vote for Browne or Hagelin or Nadder or Perot, or whomever the hell they wanted. But would the people who cast those elecoral votes? You bet your ass not. They get ->PAID
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I mean, Christ, I really want to vote, but I'm totally undecided.(well, not totally. Socialists before Republicans.) All the candidates seem totally worthless. All the 'Mudslinging' doesn't make anything easier, because you can't belive any of it. Mostly because it's a mis-quote or something taken completly out of context. Personally the current system makes me sick.
A Reason to Vote
John is talking about enlightenment. That's not a belief but a physiolgical state of consciousness. Now, John has beliefs ABOUT this state, and believes that meditation (specifically Transcendental Meditation) can bring about this state, but the point is that if you are in this physiological state, John believes that you automatically get these abilities.
http://www.kgoam810.com/viewentry.asp?ID=73474&PT= programsummaries
http://www.examiner.com/001030/1030sorensen.html
I'm curious to know if a man was a drunk and cocaine addict, got a 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant when he was a 24-year-old adult, forced her to have an abortion, and refused to tell the truth about any of this... would that person be a good choice for President of the United States? Would that person be someone we might expect to bring honor and dignity to the office? And would the lack of coverage of this have anything to with the fact that his father was the director of the CIA? Only curious...
Will also believes in the one-buck, one-vote system ... excuse me ... he believes in no limits on campaign contributions or campaign spending, since any limits would be limits on the candidate's (or contributer's) First Amendment rights. I don't think he's right, but he has some good points: most of the campaign finance rules either eliminate anonymous speech, or can be interpreted as censoring speech (ie: after you've spent your limit, you're not allowed to say anything else). I don't have any good answers to these issues ... anyone else got any bright ideas?
As far as money-as-speech goes, it isn't a completely protected right. You can't bribe a politician in office, even though you could argue that you were simply expressing speech and he was persuaded by your "argument".
Limiting contributions is not censoring speech, as the message is not suppressed, merely the repetitions (quantity) of a certain means restricted. If I want a man elected, and I've contributed my limit, I can still "speak" in an equally or even more public and persuasive way.
-La'Choppe
-- "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
Well, since NBC is owned by GE (a huge defense contractor) and I believe CBS is owned by Westinghouse (uh, the next largest defense contractor) what do you expect? Thank god for the web. But who can we trust here?
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Yeah, and if *I* got caught smoking a joint, I couldn't get a student loan EVER again.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I'm sure AlGore Trout is waiting til last and having his advisors read through ALL the comments on all the replies of ALL the other candidates so that he can formulate the optimum responses.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Your a fucken idiot & I beleive that all idiots should be jailed, so I don't have to deal with them. Same logic as yours really. Anyway the fact remains that your a fucking idiot.
Yes, I agree. You are right in saying that the US had their own unclean part in the whole thing.
I also agree that the communist people like Gorbatchev played some of the most important roles from within.
However, the original poster was blaming Reagan for his sleepless youthful nights. My only real point was that the threat of nuclear destruction and communism would have been there with or without Reagan. To blame Reagan for the fear he felt was misguided. To not acknowledge Reagan's role in speeding the end of the threat was naive.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
(I'm not American BTW)
I was intreagued by the answers to the "mission" question. Bush's answer just seems to be the "eliminate class divisions, fill the country with fine, upstanding, free people and be nice to the kids" bollocks every (successful, 1st world) politician in the world seems obliged to spout. Meanwhile Hagelin's views appear on first reading to be more likely to get him committed than elected.
On second reading, though, I rather like Hagelin's answer. I don't necessarily agree with it (and he utterly betrays his principles of underlying one-ness with his answer to the globalisation question), but at least he actually says something new and philosophical. Politics has been the subject of some of the most astonishingly original thought in history, but it seems awfully rare for an actual politician to step back from the immediate practical issues and say something interesting about the nature of government. We are living in a time where ideas which previously belonged only in academic circles, such as the nature of information or chaos and emergent behaviour, are becoming practically important (and mutating rapidly at the same time). It would be nice to have someone in charge who liked to ponder on the big questions every now and then
I think I have the record. One of my posts had thirty-one moderator points spent on it. I think the spread was 16 positive and 15 negative, but one of the negatives was when it was already at -1, and it was posted AC, so it wound up at 2. It wasn't anything spectacular or even original, just a compendium of some of my previous "naked and petrified" posts, but I got finally got it in as a first post on a high-traffic story. My "Open Letter to ESR" had about 17 points spent on it, which was my previous record.
i hope so
The created is always less than the Creator. Still, for you - I think you should stay just where you are. Anyone that would put their trust in deception deserves exactly what they get. Yep, just keep your faith in the father of lies, and remember that he is probably telling the truth when he says Hell's not hot, and every guy gets their own virgin.
You are right where you belong, buddy. I just felt like responding to this even though it's likely flamebait. Obviously anyone that posts Anonymously doesn't have the courage of their convictions, or maybe they just really lack convictions.
By the way, you haven't read any preaching yet.
What will be the value of your life in the end, the glorious end.
Ralph Nader has a new TV message. http://www.msnbc.com/news/483645.asp
an enigma wrapped around a paradox driven by a paradigm shift
don't know if you (or anyone) will read this since I'm posting this two days later, but I do know otherwise
(as I understand it)
the Natural Law Party was founded mostly by people involved with the international TM movement, or who had been as some time. however, as it is now, the NLP doesn't have any real ties to TM, except that they'll recommend that insurance should pay for TM instruction in health care and prisoner rehabilitation (the TM movement has gone to great lengths to conduct legitimate research into the benefits of TM, and I believe that TM probably would be effective in some situations, certainly as effective as things like prayer or stress-management classes)
Yes, they are trying to get publicity, but not for TM. They're really trying to get publicity for government support of preventative medicine (so you can be reimbursed $700 or so for a personal trainer instead of being reimbursed $50000 for massive heart surgery).
anyway, TM has never been a religion, and it doesn't really conflict with religion. people of any religion can do TM, even Atheists. In some ways, TM is a subset of so-called "Ayur-Veda" or the science of life, which is taken from various ancient writings from India, such as the Baghavad-Gita, among others. Some people who do TM study these texts to apply other things from them to their lives, and they come up with herbal medicines, and other such stuff. Just the same, you don't need to believe in, let alone be aware of anything having to do with India to practice TM and get it's benefits; instruction in TM is only instruction in how to practice the TM technique.
-------------------- the list is long. dirac angestung gesept
- the political and military actions of the US in the world (pax americana)
- the death penalty
(ok, I am still Europe-centric when I make an analogy with Rome)Some of Hagelin's responses were intelligently crafted, so I would like to take a moment to discourage anyone who might be thinking of voting for him.
He is a physicist, which means he is intelligent, but do not mistake geek cred for political awareness. Physics, philosophy, and politics are all different diciplines, and knowledge of one does not imply that a person will be good at the others.
Read the Natural Law party platform. The solution to just about every problem involves indoctrinating individuals into Hagelin's religion. Make no mistake -- Transcendental Meditation is not just a form of meditation, but a copyrighted form of dogma.
HJ
-- A New World, Unordered http://www.anwu.org/
And heaven is just two doors down.