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Howard Dean to Guest Blog for Lawrence Lessig
Ethanol writes "Starting Monday, Professor Lawrence Lessig (whom we all remember from Eldred v. Ashcroft) is going on vacation, and his weblog will be guest-hosted by Democratic presidential candidate Governor Howard Dean. Could this be a sign that a serious contender for President (tied for first for the nomination in the latest polls) has his head screwed on right about copyright law?"
I actually kinda like Dean, but saying that someone is a serious contender for the 2004 election because he's tied for the nomination at this point is kinda like saying your kid has a serious NBA future ahead of him because he's tied for tallest in grade 3.
I celebrated July 4 by getting off my ass and carrying placards in parades and handing out literature for Howard Dean in two small towns in Iowa. I had never done anything like that before. I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning to do it, and it was worth it.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't exactly caught Dean Fever yet, although we see eye-to-eye on many issues and I'm really impressed with the level of grassroots support that he has. It would be nice to have a president that isn't already owned before getting into office.
But, then, I'd settle for a president that can use the word "imminent" correctly. I think Dean rises to that challenge.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Basically you want a system that allows the voter to express more than just a single choice. There are several systems that would suffice; I myself like instant runoff voting because the process is easy to understand, and it lets me express my preferences in an intuitive "first choice / second choice / third choice" format.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
No, he isn't. He's just progressive and speaks his mind and heart. He's offering a real difference to the boring business-as-usual old-boy networks in both parties. I for one favor someone who's going to go as strong and as long in the right direction as possible, given that Congress and The System will drag him down to making a merely moderate effect. Starting out with a moderate is saying "No, I don't really want things to change".
http://www.kucinich.us/
Start Running Better Polls
I believe that every Democratic candidate except Dean voted in favor of the Patriot Act. Dean didn't get a vote, but he was outspoken against it from the very beginning. Every other candidate was willing to vote for that egregious act because it was politically expedient at the time. That is not the kind of decision-making I want from the next President of the United States. Love him or hate him, Dean is the Democratic candidate best qualified to LEAD this country and not FOLLOW the whims of popularity. I will NEVER cast a vote for anyone who voted for that Act. Ever.
You know, the guy who whines about States rights when sodomy laws are ruled unconstitutional, but then ignores those same states rights when a state votes to legalize medicinal marijuana.
In other words, someone who will make up the laws as he goes along, exercise his power to enforce them, and then 'disappear' anyone who he personally considers to be a threat to his personal sense of order.
FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!
> guy is as slippery as an Arkansas governor
At least the main things involving slipping with Clinton were women's panties. With our Chimp In Chief they involve things like wool and eyes. It's amazing how "outraged" some people managed to get over Bill's sex life, yet here the reasons for the Iraq war are being systematically deconstructed, and no-one seems to give a damn. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
Because if you actually care about the issues as you claim, you should really do your best to support those issues. The 3% or whatever of the vote the Green party got in 2000 has done far more to hurt the enviroment than it has to help it.
If you care about the enviroment, and Nader is 100% good for the enviroment, Gore is 50% good for the enviroment, and Bush is 0% good for the enviroment, you should only vote for Nader if you think he has a greater than 50% chance of winning in order to maximize the benefit to the issue you care about. Well, to be technical, you should only vote for Nader if the probability of his winning is twice the probability of Gore winning or more.
I hate Bush for many reasons, and the things he's done and is trying to do for the enviroment is one of them. However there is a small evil and vindictive side to me that can't help thinking "take _that_ Green party!" every time he pulls some new enviroment destroying stunt.
If the Green party wants to transform the state of presidential elections in the US to a greater than two party system, they need to accept that unless a splinter party splits off the Republican side that is equal in size to their own, there is a fair chance that they will be condeming the US to the enviromental policies of the Republicans for however many election cycles it takes until the mainstream realizes that their party is viable. It's apparent that that number is greater than one, and for all we know it may not be less than infinity. Is it worth getting a Green president if there is no enviroment left to protect by the time it happens?
If Nader were smart, he would have tryed to hack a Parlimentary System approach to the problem by making a deal with Gore a few weeks before the election, that if Gore would agree to support certain Green positions (in writing of course) then Nader would tell all his party members to vote for Gore in the election, but to tell the exit pollers that they voted for Nader.
Thus they would have insured that the elected president had at least some intrest in the enviroment, a well publisized promise that he would support some of their issues, and still be able to point to the exit polls as a sign of their strength as a voting block.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Many European countries have unsustainable systems (even more unsustainable than the US's Social Security system). They've realized this, and so are cutting back and reforming them, particularly the pension systems. This has led, if you've been following the news, to widespread general strikes in several countries, notably Greece and France.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Dennis Kucinich seems to be one of the more clueful candidates.. From his www site:
As President, I will repeal the Patriot Act to regain for all Americans the sacred right of privacy in our homes, our libraries, our schools.
He got a "66%" rating from the ACLU.
I couldn't find any ratings from the EFF on the various candidates, so I'm not sure where he stands on Tech Liberties.
The last few times I've checked Lesig's blog he has his head compleatly up Deans behind.
Is there a track record of how he might vote on something like the DMCA?
If you saw Dean's appearance on Meet the Press you can't possibly be too comfortable with him as President. If he aspires to the job he has a LOT of homework to do.
My guess is that Lesig is among the hard core liberals (surprise!) and all members of that group would gladly vote for Adolph Hitler next time around if it mean revenge for 2000.
Blind rage over what they feel was a stolen election will drive them to do totally irrational things until 2004.
I think it is irresponsible to turn over your blog to anyone else, particularly someone who has tremendous internet resources of their own. This is pure partisanship and has nothing that I can see to do with Open Source, DMCA, RIAA or any other issues for which Lesig is notable.
>>So he screwed us economicaly how?
/. and can't think of a dozen examples off the top of your head?
Well, I'm of the opinion that there's not *much* you can do as a pres. to affect the economy too much, but there are plenty of things he hasn't done. Wtih all the focus on the crackdown on Martha Stewart and such we forget that most of the people involved in, say, Enron, are still away scott free. Furthermore, Bush supported SEC chairman Pitt until Pitt resigned from country-wide pressure. Bush should have taken a much firmer stance on all of this.
>>So he screwed us in scientific research how?
Stem cells.
>>So he screwed us in basic civil rights how?
You read
The people pushing this war were the same people selling Saddam those weapons.
We didn't care about him killing his people when we were the ones selling him weapons. But now you think that it matters?
And where do you get off claiming that Bush is demonized more than Saddam? No one is saying Saddam is better than Bush (well, no one outside of Iraq).
The problem is that the CIA had already CHECKED the "information" MONTHS before Bush used it. The CIA even told the British that the info wasn't good. But Bush needed something scary to push this war so he used information that was known to be bogus.
As for this being another "Vietname" or "quagmire", check the body count since Bush claimed the war was "over".
No, we did not have any "moral, legal and political justification for removing Saddam Hussein".
We couldn't even get the UN to vote to support our invasion.
As for those Iraqis being "free" now, wait until the first "elections" are held. Wait until they elect a radical Islamic priest.
You'll never forget the image of those Iraqis and Saddam's statue. That's because our government doesn't want you to forget it. It was shot with a narrow lens so you couldn't see the US tanks and troops surrounding that "crowd" of Iraqis. It was all a publicity stunt.
And you fell for it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/statue.html
And you're the one talking about closed eyes?
That's called creating a straw man. It's a fallacy of logic, to summarize it is taking someones words, then giving them new meaning. Usually followed by an attack on the new meaning.
rant rant rant rant
That's just my summary of you beating the hell out of the strawman.
Now you are attacking the person, and not their argument. Another fallacy of logic. Ontop of it, after your strawman, and a part of your personal attack, you complain about anyone with opposing views being illogical.
rant rant rant rant
Summary of the rest of your words.
Can someone mod the troll down?
Beware blue cats moving at
The fact that American voters are forced to engage in this kind of strategic thinking (instead of being able to just vote for the candidate they think would do the best job) shows how badly broken our plurality electoral system is. A truly representative system would allow voters to speak their mind honestly, and respond by electing the most appropriate candidate. It wouldn't force them to play silly games.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
All we are saying is if liberating the Iraqis is the main justification for removing Hussein (and it appears to be the current party line of the administration), why couldnt Bush just come out and say so from the beginning?
I am not sure about you, but I don't like it when the reason we do something keeps changing depending on political winds. I didnt like it when Clinton changed stories, why should I like it when Bush does?
This is not about Bush vs. Hussein! What sane person said Hussein is a great leader? There are plenty of petty tyrants and mass murderers out there, but we see fit to ignore or even aid them, depending on national security.
We just dont like liars, or at the very least, people who change their stories. I would be 110% behind this if Bush said from the beginning "While there is no link between Hussein and 9/11 we need to do this, because people are dying and we have the moral obligation to protect people from mass executions". Did Bush say that? no, he said "Hussein poses an IMMINENT threat to the US" he was the one who brought the sense of urgency of attacking, saying the UN inspectors were either too slow or not doing their jobs. Is it any wonder some people criticize the administration for not finding the WMD when they disparaged the UN inspectors so much for not doing so themselves? I find it funny that NOW the administration is saying "finding evidence for WMD programs WILL TAKE TIME". Isnt that what Hans Blix was saying all the time? But we had to push him aside and attack anyway?
How can you say for sure the world is a safer place for Americans? There was no link between Hussein and: 1) Al Qaida 2) Nuclear materials
3) (for now) WMD. So how is the US safer?
Pardon my cynicism, but I find it hard to believe that republicans (or rabid pro-Bush supporters), who think nothing of dismantling social welfare programs (I'm not saying this is good or bad) are all of a sudden so concerned about the welfare of another country's people. Heck most conservatives would support legislation to BLOCK these same Iraqis from immigrating to the US, so I find it laughable that they show so much concern for their well-being.
> cover up all of those mass graves, put all those children back in prison
Blather, blather. I didn't hear "your ilk" complain about that before the glimmer of war sparked in Dubbya's eye, the opportunity to showcase our fine military machinery, the greatest army on earth, yada, yada. I saw no holy indignation when 800,000 Rwandans killed each other, no urge to send in 200,000 troops to stop the savage butchery. Nor did I hear you complain about the goings on in the Congo, or in Liberia. Sure, let's set up some committes and feasibility studies about whether we SHOULD send some troops in. Where are Rummies snap "three minute decision[s]--and the first two just to get coffee" now? And how much did the indignation lead to military intervention when my country was exterminating Jews by the millions? Remember what it took for the US to mobilize its military? Yeah, having its interests threatened directly.
If you want to do good--and Lord knows Saddam was one draconian bastard worthy getting rid of--do so blindely, impartially, and consistently. When the very people you're trying to help ask you to please stop helping quite so much, maybe it's time to re-evaluate your strategy.
> You and your ilk have offered nothing but criticism. No solutions.
Au contraire, my ilk and I have proffered our view of the Right Way for a long time, and it involved treating the root of the problem, not its symptoms. There are very simple and tractable causes for why the Arab world hates the West, but in particular the US. Remove those, and you're well on your way to mend things. But that would involve putting the Big Stick down and talking, something people with Big Sticks are loath to do. We're asking Isreal to refrain from retaliaton after suicide attacks in order to facilitate dialog and not endanger the peace process, yet how willing were we to do the same after the towers came down? Maybe a moment of introspection, of oh-my-God-how-come-they're-hating-us-so-much, instead of reaching for the guns and assuming with a mere shrug that they were simply jealous of "our way of life."
> United States had moral, legal, and political justification
Morality is a funny thing--it only means something when the majority agrees on its definiton. Otherwise I could define it as me coming over to your house and taking your car. The US forfeited its moral authority through inaction in many other similar cases.
> I'll never forget the images of those Iraqis beating that Saddam
> statue with the shoes off of their feet
Hmm, they seem to have forgotten them, because they're quite keen for us to go back home. Which brings up another interesting thing--the indignation amongst those American Righteous in favor of "the war" at the Iraqi's thanklessness for their own liberation. That begs the question, what exactly was the motivation behind this "liberation"--to earn thanks and admiration, or to merely help in an altruistic fashion?
Yeah. Wouldn't it have been so cool if the administration had actually - oh, I don't know - used them to justify going to war? But no. We didn't go in because Iraq had violated the UN resolution. We didn't go in to "liberate" the Iraqi people. We went in because Saddam had a dangerous stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and had recently purchased nuclear material to build a nuclear capability.
Whoops. No weapons of mass destruction. Oh, and it turns out he didn't purchase nuclear material. Our bad.
But, you claim, we helped the Iraqi people! Yeah, but when are we going to help people in Cuba, North Korea, China, Africa, Palistine...
There's plenty of evil in this world, and we can't be the policemen to the world. Did we help improve the situation in Iraq? Probably. (There's still plenty of time for us to mess things up. I hope we've learned past lessons and will remain there long enough to allow Iraq to become a stable representative government.)
Unfortunately, in reality, the ends do not justify the means. Likewise, a poor means does not injustify a good outcome. It is possible to believe that Iraq is better off without Saddam while also believing that the actions taken to remove him were poorly chosen. One does not contradict the other.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
So I guess we should cover up all of those mass graves, put all those children back in prison, get Chemical Ali back into the lab, get those torture racks greased, throw all of those 'Big Brother Saddam' pictures back up in Baghdad, and leave a fruit basket with a letter of apology. You're right...we are indeed in the Twilight Zone.
:-)
You would have a point if the Iraq war had been justified in terms of "We need to remove Saddam because he's mean to his people." It wasn't. The entire war was predicated on the supposed threat that Iraq posed to the United States, and its status as a "terrorist state" with massive stockpiles of "ultimate weapons" (President Bush's words.) Tony Blair even told the British parliament that Iraq had the capability to launch an attack on the UK in as little as 45 minutes. It's been months now since the fall of Baghdad, and the only thing we have to show for this war is a piece of a nuclear centrifuge that some guy buried in his backyard before the first Gulf War. That may justify the war in your eyes, but the families of the hundreds of American servicemen (and women) killed in this conflict might have some different thoughts.
I'm glad that Hussein is gone. Dead or alive, let's hope he rots in peace. But all of this "Well, Iraq wasn't much of a threat to us, but look at the mass graves! Look at the torture devices!" is Monday morning quarterbacking. It's great that the Pentagon has media-savvy people that are able to invent scary-sounding nicknames (i.e., "Mrs. Anthrax") for the people that it kills or captures, but at the end of the day I would have had a lot more respect for the administration if they had just been honest about things. Hussein was a brutal dictator, but the world is full of brutal dictators, and the last time I checked, the United States wasn't drawing up plans to invade Burma or Zimbabwe.
You sound partisan, bitter, and illogical.
Whereas you are obviously objective, clear-headed, and perfectly logical.
Everybody is sensible, so long as they say things that you agree with.
You have built your platform on the hopes that the United States will fail in its endeavours. That is disgusting.
I can't speak for the original poster, but do you want to know what's really disgusting? I have six friends who are in harm's way in Iraq right now. What's disgusting is people like you who implicitly suggest that I want to see harm come to them to prove a political point. I have no desire to see the United States will "fail" in any of its endeavours. That doesn't change the fact that there are endeavours that I would have preferred us to avoid in the first place. See, if it were up to me, these guys would be sitting in my living room and drinking beer with me instead of being stationed in a country populated by people that hate them even more than they hated the dictator that they just got rid of.
The world is a safer place for both Americans and Iraqis today than it was a few months ago, and it cost fewer lives than anyone estimated.
You've got to be kidding me. At my workplace, some co-workers and I were scheduled to attend a May conference in South America, and the trip was cancelled out of war-related concerns for our safety. It has never been more dangerous to be an American traveling abroad, and the Iraq war only made this worse. The primary contributing factor in the 9/11 attacks was fundamentalist Muslim hatred of the United States, and if you have evidence that the Iraq war helped to mitigate this, then I confess that I would be curious to see it. I want to be clear about this: I do not subscribe to the theory that the United States deserved the 9/11 attacks because of our foreign policy; it was a heinous and cowardly attack that no nation on this planet deserves. But our foreign policy in the past year or so has done much to fan the flames of the same hatred. And for who? For what? Saddam Hussein? This is a third-rate dictat
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
I don't know much about the social security system in place in the US (except that I've heard it is pretty limited), but in european countries social security also usually includes things such as health care (if you get sick most of the treatment costs are covered by the government) and a guaranteed minimal income from the government if you happen to lose your job.
We don't have many people living in the streets, those that do wouldn't be forced to if they didn't have other problems (drugs, alcohol). People shouldn't have problems with getting medical treatment because they mostly don't need to pay for it.
Without the social security system your society will resemble a dog eat dog jungle. Sure, those that are able to work, are healthy and are not unlucky will be getting larger paychecks, but there will be more poverty and suffering. I don't think anyone deserves to live in the street, endure an illness any more than anyone actually deserves to earn a billion dollars a second. Taking care of those that are weak and cannot manage by themselves instead of taking advantage of them is really one of the key defining things of being a human.
Are you so sure you won the war?
I think many liberals in the US are simply not convinced that the war has been won. A battle, yes. Saddam is indeed out of power. But the war?
Is America better-regarded on the Arab street for having toppled the regime? (I have a feeling many Americans would be surprised by the answer.)
Is Iraq better off today than when Saddam was in power? Today, mind you, without electricity, water, fuel or a police force that can guarantee the safety of daughters and sisters?
Is America's military better off today, being stuck in a very sticky situation as they seem to be, while every day the Arab media cries "occupier" in shrill tones across the middle east, further cementing the viewpoint that sees America and Israel as conjoined twins?
Assuming that Bush was right about everything so far -- that Iraq had so-called weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam and his sons are dead, that the WMDs have gone to Syria or Iran and that Al Qaeda was linked to the Iraqi government (and I have my doubts about all of this), is America's population safer today now that none have been found? (Bush-ian conclusions: Hmmm, no weapons found yet... obviously they are in Syria and Iran... but Saddam and his sons are dead... so who is holding these WMDs in Syria or Iran? Well, Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda...)
It's obvious that the US has a lot of military might and has beaten up the Iraqi government and infrastructure. But does this really translate into a justifiable claim of "we won the war" on the part of Americans?
Which war?
The much-touted war on terrorism? Certainly not.
The PR war against international hatred of America? Not bloody likely.
The war against Iraq? Oh that's right, America was there to "liberate" Iraq (well, once the WMDs disappeared), not to wage war on it.
I suppose America won the war against Saddam Hussein and a few of his spoiled sons. Congratulations.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
mr. bush, to a decent enough extent, has rose to the occasion.
for that i thank him, and regret nothing
I hope you know that Iraq had absolutley nothing to do with 9/11. So either you're just some dolt who wants to see someone else suffer because it makes you feel better or you're a racist. I hope you know that 7000 innocent Iraqi's died in the war. Now there is probably some equivalent Iraqi dolt over there just like you, hoping for more destruction and will in turn kill Americans. Now bacause of people like you, the violence will never end.
Time makes more converts than reason