Submit and Moderate Questions for Bush and Kerry

We're teaming up with the New Voters Project Presidential Youth Debate to ask the two major party candidates "the 12 previously unasked questions that most concern young Americans." This is different from the usual Slashdot interview because we're asking you to submit questions through the New Voters Project site instead of as comments attached to this post. Next week you'll have a chance to help select questions for the candidates from among the top 50 asked by everyone -- not just Slashdot readers -- by first winnowing those down to 20 through the Slashdot moderation system, then by voting on the "final 12" displayed on the New Voters Project site. On October 12 we'll post the answers, and on October 19 we'll post candidate-supplied rebuttals. Note that the idea here is to solicit questions specifically from voters 18 - 35, because this age group tends to vote less than older Americans, plus questions from people 13 - 17 who will be voters before long. But the question selection process is not age-restricted, and it's where your comments and moderation become most important, because one great hope here is to avoid asking questions the candidates have heard (and answered) over and over.

The other question-selecting moderators are groups like Youth Vote Coalition, Earth Day Network, Rock The Vote, Declare Yourself, and 18to35.org, plus lead moderator Farai Chideya.

Anthony Tedesco, founder of the Presidential Youth Debates, has been doing this since 1996. 2004 is the first time an entire online community has participated in the moderation process. It's a logical evolution of the group-questions idea, and Slashdot is the obvious community to choose not only because of the wide range of political views held by Slashdot readers but also because the primary Presidential Youth Debates tech guy, Dan Collis Puro (AKA Hero Zzyzzx), is a Slashdot member himself (and would be happy if you volunteer to help work on their all-FOSS Web site).

Anyway, this is an interesting experiment. Ask your questions, prepare to moderate and comment next week, and to read the candidates' answers and rebuttals when we post them next month.

Comments

Patriot Act

[Penguinoflight]

When do you think is the appropriate time for the patriot act to expire? What action would be required to remove this "temporary" anti-terrorist legislation?

My Question:

[Hatta]

The USA incarcerates a greater proportion of its population than any other nation, due to an out of control War on Drug Users. What will you do to keep me, successful student, productive citizen, and pot smoker, out of jail?

From a conservative

[jaymzter]

Mr. Bush, I supported your decision to replace Saddam Hussein, and I'm not embarrassed to say that I don't care whether WMDs were found or not.
That being said, why does it seem that no one had a clue about what to do with Iraq once the war was over? With our proven experience in successfully occupying other countries (Germany, Japan), why did we stumble so badly in Iraq?

Follow up: Is it too late to get rid of John Ashcroft? He makes me ashamed to be "conservative"

Taxes and Spending

[ackthpt]

The ultimate tax cut will be when there is no further servicing, paying interest on, the national debt. US tax payers would need only pay about 50% of what they currently do for approximately the same level of service from the federal government. Further, the extra money left to taxpayers would amount to considerable investment and consumer spending. The federal government has cut tax revenue and returned to deficit spending rather than hold spending below revenue and retire the debt. How would you address balancing the federal budget and paying down the debt, so americans will pay far less in taxes?

The deficit

[PIPBoy3000]

Do you feel it is important to reduce the deficit? If so, what are your plans to do so? If not, why?

For Both Parties

[geomon]

Why are you so much alike, yet you campaign in a way that makes the American public think that there is a significant difference. I can think of several important areas where you are virtually indistiguishable:

1) Use of Military Power: Both approve of foreign intervention, but one party prefers to get the tacit approval of the international community before invading.

2) Tax Policy: Moving the marginal rates around only makes a difference of a few bucks to the average tax payer. The user fees are almost exclusively a middle-class burden, and neither party looks to decrease any of them.

3) Intellectual Property: Both parties are rushing to become the poster child for media conglomerates. They constantly chastize the 'media', but can't wait to lick their boots when it comes time to pass legislation regarding extending copyright protection (as one sleazy congressperson said: "Forever minus one year").

4) Drug policy: Neither party can put a stop to the madness that the drug war has brought us. Nothing useful has been accomplished in 30 years of police-state enforcement of drug laws. That is, unless you consider the fact that the US leads in per-capita encarceration as a 'positive' social gain.

These are just a few. Why shouldn't we view the Demopublican or Republicratic Parties as two sides of the same bad penny?

My Question

[hrieke]

Let's look ten years out. Since we have a wave of baby boomers planning on retirement, what effect will their retirement have on me, my family, and the nation as a whole.
How will we pay for the trillions that Social Security, Medicaid, and all of the other entitlement programs be handled?
How does having countries like Japan, China, and India who are buying our debt (thus allowing us to spend more money than we have), change the equation? How does the fact that Japan is heading for their baby boom retirement in 4 years change our equation?

Please answer in a fashion which is not compatiable to a 10 sound bite.

Thanks

To both candidates...

[gosand]

Have you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? What did you think of it?

Re:Question for Mr. Bush

[Kenja]

"Mr. President, why do you think the Democrats think you're such a bad leader? I think you've done an admirable job, and I can't for the life of me understand why so many people hate you."

For me it was when he said that non Christians shouldn't be considered citizens, much less patriots. So if in his eyes I'm not a citizen, I guess there's no way for me to vote for him.

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists?
Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.
Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?
Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?
Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.

Double std in drug enforcemt for african americans

[kenjib]

African americans are convicted for drug related crimes in great disproportion to the frequency with which they commit these crimes relative to other ethnic groups. Further, they are sentenced more harshly relative to other ethnic groups. What do you think is the cause of this severe imbalance in law enforcement and the judicial process, and what can be done to correct the problem?

As a followup question, what effect does this have on the health of democracy in states where a criminal record can render one ineligible to vote?

Human Space Exploration

[kippy]

To Bush: As part of your Vision for Space Exploration that you laid out earlier this year, do you intend to direct NASA in the direction of human settlement of space, or just scientific research.

To Kerry: As president, would you direct NASA to continue with human space exploration of planetary bodies or would you contract it's focus to Earth and near-Earth subjects? (Please provide specifics as previous answers to this have been very vague.)

Question for both candidates

[bort27]

Dear President Bush and Senator Kerry,

For the first time in history, this presidential election will make use of electronic voting machines to track more than half of all votes cast nationwide. Diebold is the largest manufacturer of these machines.

The Diebold machines have been proven insecure by numerous security analysts, and contain numerous security flaws. For example, it has been shown that anyone can change the electronic vote tallies by simply writing and executing a five-line computer script.

William W. O'Dell, CEO of Diebold and one of the largest Republican campaign contributors in the state of Ohio, has stated publicly that he will do "everything he can" to get George W. Bush re-elected.

My question is this: While there are clearly several advantages to electronic voting, do you believe that these problems could compromise the integrity of the 2004 election?

Death Penalty and Religion

[at-b]

Mr Bush,

when interviewed during the last presidential campaign, you were asked by an interviewer if you had a role model. To this you replied that Jesus was the closest that you had to one.

During your tenure as Governor of Texas, more people were killed in Texas prisons, enacting the death penalty, than during the tenure of any previous Governor in modern times. You presided over an execution nearly every two weeks from the moment you took office.

Considering the commandment of 'Thou shalt not kill' directly from God, and considering Jesus' stance on killing, how do you explain this glaring discrepancy between 'do as I say, not as I do'?

Thank you for your answer.

Kyoto

[caseydk]

Senator Kerry, How do you reconcile the strict environmental guidelines established by the Kyoto Protocols - which you have spoken in favor of - with the creation and continuation of high tech - and therefore high energy consumption - industries?

The Draft ?

[Dave21212]

In addition to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we are engaged in a "War on Terror." It would seem that the wars are being extended, and in the case of the War on Terror, there is no end is sight. How do you plan to keep the military strong enough to wage these wars, and any future wars ? Will you bring back the draft ?

Answers

[daveschroeder]

I don't recall having run into one blinking person who's said that she thinks Bush and his cronies are secretly plotting to reinstate the draft. Heck, Rumsfeld went out of his way to dismiss the military significance of draftees in previous wars, in a move I remember particularly well because it so upset my Uncles down in Oklahoma who served. Your entire premise is a misstatement of the objections to Bush's policy.

There are TONS of websites, blogs, and emails circulating which either imply or directly state that "the administration" is trying to "quietly" bring back the draft. Some even reference the actual bills, but of course don't link to them. Most people just assume what's said is true on its face.

What is said is that Bush's policies have made the reinstatement of a draft more likely, and that the specific changes made to terms of military service -- not allowing scheduled retirements, dramatic changes to the terms of service of the national guard -- amount to a "back-door" draft right now.

That I will agree with. The Guard is being used for tasks for which it was never intended, quite inappropriately in my personal opinion. However, consider that the forces are there, and the current administration, frankly, doesn't want a draft. It was either that, or cripple active forces - or find more soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines elsewhere. I don't agree with it, but since I agree that the radical elements in the mideast as a whole MUST be dealt with, up to and including with force, I agree with the general strategy.

It's funny how your "who's who" of the left in congress didn't include Teddy Kennedy or Mark Dayton. Those were the first names on my lips.

It's not really "funny", and "who's who" was a little tongue-in-cheek, but some of those representatives are pretty darned liberal.

Also funny how the support for H.R. 487 is bipartisan with a slight slant to the Democratic side.

How is that funny? I even noted that. I'm glad that sensible people on both sides of the aisle might be able to collaborate on a bill. What's "funny" is that there's not a SINGLE Republican on the former set of bills.

There are also people in congress from both sides who support the broader "national service" idea this bill was about.

Sure, but I think that's a different discussion. Heck, I think if framed properly, a lot of people would support some kind of "service" (not necessarily military). But I don't think that's what people are talking about when they speak of the "draft".

You're looking at a complicated issue and stomping it flat to score political points.

On the contrary: I simply don't have time to write a novel on the subject on slashdot. I realize it is insanely more complex than what will be discussed here.

This whole issue is ridiculously more complex than what people want to make it out to be. Sometimes I wonder how the United States ever had the will to fight and win the great battles of this century. Oh, yeah... I think I know which candidate you support...

Oh? Please, do tell. Because I really don't particularly like Bush. Or Kerry.

Kerry's detailed policy speech today was fantastic, in my opinion. (I'm glad he's stopped talking about something that happened over three decades ago.) He talks about Al Qaeda being the real enemy. He talks about holding Saudi Arabia accountable and responsible. He talks about becoming independent of mideast oil. He talked about radical Panislamism wanting to use hatred of the West to topple governments in the mideast to develop a new unified empire in the region, to fight the US and the West. He made some really firm statements about the things we should be doing. It all is really, really great rhetoric - and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense.

But how do we do these things?

Al Qaeda *is* the real enemy. And "Al Qaeda" is rooted in the mideast. NOT in Iraq, but in the region. And much of the Arab/Muslim world s

Follow up to above question

[commodoresloat]

Can you please explain the difference between the war in Iraq and the war on terror?