Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Goes Political: Announcing politics.slashdot.org
With the US Presidential Election coming up, we've had a lot of story submissions that we would like to post, but they don't fit very well on the Slashdot main page. To address this, we'll be running special political coverage between now and the election in our new Politics subsection of Slashdot. Please submit stories directly to the section for consideration.
As with all sections on Slashdot,
there will be stories available within that section that don't get posted to the main page, so please visit the section if you are interested in more coverage.
We'll do our best to be fair with story selection. We think we can do a good job since the Slashdot editors represent a diverse spectrum of political ideologies. The discussions are up to you guys. Here's hoping the experiment works!
Rob's platform:
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
I'm guessing from the logo of the section that this will be a 'No', but will there be coverage of Non-US elections as well?
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
What's funny to me is that people think we DON'T have a diverse specturm of political ideologies. :-)
I suspect lots of people wont want to see the politics stuff. But the category selection stuff doesn't seem to work at the moment (there's bugreps in the slashdot bug tracker).
Pleasey weasey?
How the heck are we going to mod this section? It sounds like EVERY comment is going to be flamebait. Then we'll have the usual problem with Non-US people griping about how unfair it is that it only covers US politics (I'm assuming here) as well as put in their two bits ON US politics. It's going to be messy!
Never confuse volume with power.
Lets just skip the moderation function in this area. Mods here already let their political view influence their moderation of "tech" subjects, let alone an overtly political thread.
/. puts up a political forum I just won't go there as the population here is already too narrow politically to be a fair discussion.
I don't care if
B O R I N G
You are somehow labeled as "right" or "left" depending on the whim of the moderators or random members of the community.
;-)
Really old, but I happened to be thinking of it earlier today - the Political Compass. Apparently I'm way off to the left, and down a bit.
Maybe all posters in this new section should take said test so that posters with conflicting views may safely ignore viewpoints that they disagree with. After all, there's a place for partisan publishing (scroll down a bit...)
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
My Karma was trashed because of politics. A few years ago I said something to draw someone's ire and I was karma bombed. My karma was reduced to the point where I couldn't post anymore.
Since then, I've been unable to get mod points.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I do have to say that in the last few weeks while meta-moderating I've been annoyed at the number of posts that were obviously moderated "off-topic" or "flamebait" just because the moderator didn't agree with the political slant.
I'll also second the post that suggested that this forum should look at politics everywhere, not just the US. There is a lot to be learned by looking at the ways that other jurisdictions handle things like Digital rights, wiretapping, and freedom of speech.
That said, I expect that I'll choose not to subscribe to the politics forum, and I doubt very much that political baiting will disappear from other parts of our beloved slashdot.
Three Squirrels
For real
Clicking on each and every section to watch for missing stories is a bit lame, no?
Feel ready to own one or many Tux Stickers?
So I'm confused.
Do articles in the politics section still need to somehow involve the words "hacker", "Diebold", or "DMCA"? Or can we now submit stories about the next time Cheney goes berserk randomly?
In Soviet Russia, all our base are belong to you!
seeing as how the politics.slash logo is an American flag, then yes, I suppose this section may be described as U.S. centric :)
at least the color scheme isn't as bad as it.slashdot.org
"Teachers leave us kids alone
I used to feel the same way until Bush. If you recall he ran as a "uniter, not a divider" and talked up "bipartisanship" when he first came into office. So the Democrats went along with him and promptly got fucked in the ass until they were bloody and raw. So now I say bring on the partisanship until the GOP has been beat back and has learned a lesson. You can't fake out the other party with talk of working together and then fuck them, and then go on a rampage fucking America up and expect to get away with it.
Maybe 4 years from now I'll go back to opposing partisanship if the GOP gets smacked around enoughin the meantime.
uhhm dood, pudge is a conservative man. You should go read his journals. He's a very intelligent Bush supporter. It's funny that you make that comment to pudge of all people.
Slashdot just broke one of the 2 rules of peacekeeping conversation, don't talk about religion or politics. They might as well start up religion.slashdot.org and flame on.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Right after a 11 point swing since the RNC.
Let's look at the news stories so far...
Hackers Take Aim at Republicans
Bikes Against Bush Creator Busted
I think it's a good idea to have this channel, but I would really like to see both parties represented. With the occasional third and fourth party representation, cause the hippies and the anarchists should have a voice too.
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Look at Slashdot's "Hall of Fame"
4183 Strike on Iraq by CmdrTaco
3314 Saddam Hussein Arrested by CmdrTaco
3265 Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion by CmdrTaco
3212 What's Keeping You On Windows? by Cliff
3042 An Unbiased Analysis of Gun Crime vs. Gun Control? by Cliff
2764 Windows 2000 & Windows NT 4 Source Code Leaks by CmdrTaco
2722 Pledge of Allegiance Ruled Unconstitutional by michael
2574 Major Strike on Iraq Underway by CmdrTaco
2549 US Starts Attacking Afghanistan by CmdrTaco
2465 U.S. Attack -- More Updates by Hemos
2 of those aren't 'political'
I'm not exactly big on politics, but it looks like a large amount of readers are.
I am a Goldwater Conservative, not a neoconservative. I definitely side more with paleoconservatives than neoconservatives on domestic policy, but neoconservatives on modern foreign policy (my isolationist views changed, as with many people, following 9/11). We have an editor I'd term a libertarian, and he seems to identify more with them than the other parties. He's a bona fide disciple of Adam Smith.
Since the elections are structured (primaries, ballot lines, matching funds, etc) as selection from parties, partisan elections are necessary. Ignoring partisan organization is a good way to lose elections badly. I'm talking about the "with us or against us" politics, best exemplified by Republicans, except when showing their spokesmodels on Convention TV. Politics is a way to organize people to work together, rather than against one another. So the original poster's sarcastic complaint that diversity of ideologies would prevent doing a good job is sad. It's politics as an end in itself, controlling access to power for only a small group of "winners" at the expense of everyone else who supports it.
Of course it would be best to get rid of the party gridlock by getting rid of these parties, and the party system it supports. Any private club can endorse anyone in public, but I shouldn't subsidize their hazing, funny hats and propaganda telethons. So long as we do, politics will belong to the clubs, and people will just be a prop in their show.
--
make install -not war
I'm Belgian you insensitive clod.
My understanding is that mod points are based on a number of factors. The one factor you don't mention is metamoderation of your moderations. If you have too many metamods of "unfair" on your mods, I think it lowers your mod points frequency. One easy way to end up this way is to mod on politics - for instance, to mod up something utterly batty because the poster agrees with your politics, or to mod down something sensible because the poster disagrees with your politics. The way to avoid this is to avoid moderating something that expresses a purely political opinion.
Yeah, but slant in which direction? I've seen people stating, as if it were a self-evident fact, that the majority of the /. readership is heavily left leaning, while other people are equally convinced that it's right/libertarian leaning.
You obviously think the perceived slant is so pronounced that you don't even have to specify which way it leans (or falls over, as the case may be).
In my eyes, I have to say the slant appears to be to the right, with a heavy influence of libertarian thinking. Offhand, I can't remember having read a truly leftist view on /., ever.
YWVMV (Your World View May Vary), this one was brought to you from Norway.
And remember kids: Never trust a computer you can actually lift.
no joke, but threads like that have been propagating through every other story lately. If politics.slashdot.org can trap them and thus clean up some of the other topics then more power to it.
oh, and i hate the it.slashdot.org color scheme.
#!/usr/bin/english
It's called 'bitchslapping', and the term came from 'bitchslap.pl' (which you can find in the slashcode CVS attic).
It:
1) Pushes you down to -10 karma
2) Removes your 'eligible for moderation' bit
3) Sets your default post score at -1.
Editors can execute the script on people they consider 'abusers', though it's been used in the past to keep the readers quiet about massive editor abuse (see: the post of death, where anyone who responded was moderated to -1, and anyone who moderated them back up was bitchslapped).
By the way: 12 minutes of your time should change your mind.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Why is the section background the US flag? Maybe you meant uspolitcs.slashdot.org instead however last time I checked (okay I never checked, but is my guess wrong?) a huge amount of slashdot readers are from non-US countries? I'm well aware about the fact that some US citiziens think the "the world = USA" but I thought higher of slashdot editors than that. Certainly the US elections are very important but in general I would say the most interesting questions are those about society from a global perspective. Especially in the light of the communications revolution which started during the last decade.
Well for all you complainers about American Politics being the focus you need to remind yourself that in many countries (apprently not yours) that those countries in fact do have political parties and plently of drama that the rest of the world might be interested in. Yeah the US is huge and the rest of the world does tend to watch our politics with more interest than their own but you never know maybe some of us would like to know what's going on politically with the EU and copyright law, the UN's insaine attempts to tax international flights and space accesss, and will Tony Blair sleep with Shania Twain after a change encounter on the deck of the ISS station! Politics is sooo good to follow but like a soap opera you have to hang around for a while till things make sense. Case in point, what's gonna happen in Cuba when Castro dies? What are the political ramafications with the botched Russia indicdent? How close are we to the return of the USSR?
Can't wait for the new category to start rolling out news!
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
While they may claim to be Green and Libertarian, they are in fact quasi-green pseudo libertarians.
In fact, if you go on Google and search for libertarian green party, you fulfill Godwin's Law.
If Slashdot wants to develop some political enlightenment and sophistication they need to realize politics isn't like a turn signal, left and right. Its more like a wheel with spokes in every direction.
If someone trashes the Republicans believe it or not it doesn't necessarily mean they are a Democrat/liberal and vice versa. There are plenty of true conservatives that despise what the Republican party has turned in to and Liberals who despise the Democrats. I imagine you can chalk this up, in the U.S. at least, to a two party system which has tried to con everyone in to thinking there are only two parties and two ways to look at things and if you don't agree with one of those two, in all their current corruption, you are basically adrift in an empty ocean.
Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager was on Charlie Rose on PBS recently. One thing he said I like. In 2008 there is at least a chance people are going to unite on the Internet and back an independent candidate with $300-400 million dollars coming in hundred dollar checks from millions of people and bitch slap the two major parties, a slapping they've come to gloriously deserve, especially after the pathetic candidates they've fielded in the last two presidential elections. The hope is there will be an independent candidate who will actually talk about issues, from a fresh perspective, not regurgatating the entrenched party platforms, and put an end to the campaign of the "six second sound bites of mutual assured destruction".
The first challenge is to find a candidate with the right mix of charisma, judgement and brains. One who can form a common sense platform, on issues that matter, that will appeal to enough people to get elected and not pander to the inflammatory issues that dominate the debate between the two parties.
The second challenge is to get this candidate on the ballot in the face of the two parties unconstitutional onslaught on third party candidates like Nader.
The third challenge is to get this candidate enough credibility in the polls that he/she can't be dismissed as an also run and pushed in to obscurity as the media and the two parties are want to do.
I would vote for John McCain were it not for his recent grovelling at the feet of the Bush administration, people who savaged him in 2000, and his irrational level of support for the invasion of Iraq. I would vote for Dean were it not for his grovelling at the feet of Gore and Kerry along with his penchant for saying dumb things. I'd vote for Nader if he has a chance of getting elected just to see him shake up Washington and big business and see how long it would be before someone in the establishment assassinated him. Wouldn't vote for Perot.
@de_machina
Translation: Get your rich friends to fund an ad compaign to spread vicious lies about your opponent. What really worries me about this is the fact that George Junior has done this before, even against fellow Republicans (John McCain), yet not only are thousands buying into the bullshit, no one questions Georgie's character for repeatedly using indirect personal slander as a political weapon.
They aren't ideal choices, but then again, we've already got an incompetent ego-maniac in the White House, so at this point anybody would be an improvement, IMO.
PS: You've been modded "Interesting", so I don't really buy the idea that
Meanwhile, Slashdot readers from north of the 49th parallel (those crazy Canadians!) bemusedly note the profusion of right wing ideologies in the States and then go back to our socialized medicine and minority government with four major parties and political slants (left, middle, right, and separatist). To us, the Republicans and Democrats (loosely speaking) represent roughly the far right end and somewhat right-of-center on the political spectrum.
~Idarubicin
I used to feel the same way until Bush. If you recall he ran as a "uniter, not a divider" and talked up "bipartisanship" when he first came into office.
He also runs as a Republican, when he is not. Ironic that Kerry speaks about free trade for pharmaceuticals and Bush does not and that Bush wants to increase government intervention with a marriage amendment and Kerry does not. It baffles the mind.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
So, I propose a dual moderation system (maybe quad moderation for libertarians?) where moderators first state how much they typically agree with a left/right point-of-view before scoring postings. Meta-moderation should keep the system from being gamed too often. Readers should then be able to filter out moderators with a given degree of opposite bias to their own (or not if they want to see the strongest balancing arguments). This will prevent infinite back-and-forth scoring from making moderation as useless as a chaotic oscillator (useless except for generating pseudo-random numbers that is).
Keep in mind I am a liberal pro Kerry supporter who hates Bush so I am of course politically biased.
SWVFT was started by oil executives who never served in Vietnam and who had close ties to Karl Rove (Bush's chief political advisor). Infact they were close friends. Karl Rove is a ruthless competitor in the political spectrum and in my opinion one of the best strategists today. Kerry may just lose because of him and he helped beat Ann Richards when Bush ran for governor (a very hard thing to do)
Rove was very carefull to make sure none of the negative attacks came from Bush because he was aware Americans do not like politics. (He has even stated this) Kerry is a flip flopper
Kerry supported the war before opposing it, before supporting it again, to not funding it. DId Bush say that as well?
Rove orchestrates his whole re-election and of course had his hands tied on all of this. If something related to Bush's campaign ever comes up it means Rove planned it.
Kerry was angry because of the fact that Bush lets other people do his dirty work while he looks innocent and contrary of being a negative campaigner. Its very clever actually.
This is why I think Bush's speech of admiring his heroic service in Vietnam is no coincidence. Bush's true opinions lie with swift boat lobbying group. He only made that speech to make him look like the good guy.
If something is orchestrated agaisnt Kerry you can beat Rove and Bush had a hand in it.
http://saveie6.com/
It doesn't seem like the Democrats pay much heed to our founding fathers or our Constitution, either. The difference is that the Republicans are less subtle about their attempts to piss all over the most sacred document in the land than their counterparts are.
I despise both parties, and everyone who unthinkingly supports their candidates. The loyalty of any citizen should be to the Constitution first and foremost, and to the shyster fucks who represent their parties a distant second. So far as I'm concerned, reversing these two things makes you a traitor, utterly unworthy to call yourself 'American'.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Ugh, if there is one thing I can't stand its generalizations. I'm not really even a Republican but how about some clarrifications.
/. isn't going to help.
The GOP mainstays are piss-poor areas of the US where the chances of being a nerd with various gaming machines and enough free time to post on a webboard is pretty low.
Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Birmingham, and a few other major cities with decent economies and young technical people all disagree with you. In fact most of the poor people in this area vote democratic. Also doesn't your assertion refute the claim that the Republicans are all rich white guys?
Modern day Republicans are closely related to theocrats and the exteme right,
No, just the vocal ones. Take a peak at John Mccain especially. At the federal level he's the only one ballsey enough to speak out against the neo-cons but I'm sure there are others that agree with him.
Most of the genx/y types who frequent this site really don't see the logic in the GOP's current platform of driving the US back to the 30's both economically and socially.
Yes yes yes, and the Dems are going to force on us socialized medicine and let Paris run our country, later we'll go bankrupt from helping everyone. Please, this isn't even original.
What is "Republican" today? Good question. What's a Democrat?
It gets redefined everytime Bush opens his mouth. I doubt people redefine themselves based on one speech. Most people seem to like Bush or hate him no matter what party they're in. (I know plenty of Republicans that don't like Bush).
The party of small government and fiscal responsbility is no more
That's true, happened a long time ago, however by the same token its been a long time since the Democrats really cared about the working man either other than a few nice words around election time.
Libertarianism gets a lot of play here, but its whatever you want to define it as. Very few bother with the US Libertarian party.
So vote Libertarian and encourage others to do the same. Complaining on
A lot of people would welcome well written conservative views, but like I wrote earlier they don't exist in the Republican world
By your next statements it sounds more like you think they're not well written because you disagree with them. I read several good conservative arguments on social issues like abortion just in this thread alone.
Lastly, the genx/y generation is skeptial, doessnt share dad's bigotry, doesn't share dad's religious views, etc
So now people who disagree with you are bigots? As a gen-x person, the older I get the more I realize that my dad usually knew what he was talking about after-all. I think everyone comes to that realization eventually.
thus you're going to get a lot of "crazy leftists" with "crazy" views like those held by the founders of the US, which the Republican seem to despise. Just read their 2004 convention platform: fuck gays, fuck the economy, fuck your complaints about the war, more PATRIOT ACT legislation, and blame Democrats for everything.
Well believe it or not I have my doubts that the founding fathers would have been for gay marriage, abortion, affermative action or generally higher taxes either. By the same token they also would have been against government sponsership of corporations, the war and the PATRIOT ACT. They weren't dems or republicans. They were Libertarians (well other than gay marriage).
Perhaps, these views aren't popular for a reason? No conspiracy needed.
Last poll I saw says that 56% of the country agrees with them.
The Anti-Blog
I'm not exactly big on politics, but it looks like a large amount of readers are.
/.ers. The reason these threads get so many comments is the political minority tend to be vocal. No suprise there.
/. It should reduce the number of "offtopic" mods so those points can be used better. But, me and my mod points won't go into the politics section and if nobody gets modded up/down over there, they will, unfortunately, come back to where everybody else is.
I think the term apolitical is the best description of most
I hope this section will take that minority out of the rest of
Perhaps we could have a bot do random modding over there, just to keep them thinking somebody is listening. Hmmm.....What is that saying about "keeping an idiot busy?"
If you open your mind too wide, people will throw trash in it.
You must be joking.
/. recognizes that it no longer serves an US only audience. If we are going to talk about politics I am pretty sure we are going to do it about politics all around the place, because politics is not a parochial affair but a global matter.
/. should reflect this (perhaps two people arguing? or the logo of an assembly? or several heads with comic blurbs representing people thinking?).
The bloddy computers may be in the US, but I have seen here many histories from places all around the world, from Malaysia, Mexico to Namibia and Vietnam. Heck, even the UK features for goodness sake.
It is good time that
As such, the logo slected by
Oh, and it is good time the FAQ got rid of the ridiculous comment that this site is US slanted by design. It is not anymore, so such a FAQ is completely out of step with the spirit and the content of the site.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
For starters, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Later, his Senate committee investigating Iran/Contra, then the breakup of BCCI. His vote against the $87B Iran blank check. There are many others in his 30 year public career.
--
make install -not war