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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.
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.
Simple. We legalize drugs but control the distribution. We then poison the supply. All you drug users die. No need for prisons.
Would you have sex with an intern in the oval office ?
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
I'll bite -- I never have, and I agree with BiAthlon.
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
Should I, with the government that is supposed to represent me acting as proxy, be forced to recognize the so-called marriage of same sex couples?
Yours isn't the only POV.
We've seen treaties come internationally like the Nuclear Weapons Proliferation treaty, and the Kyoto accord. Both have been very progressive, and both are a very good thing for this world, as was shown by the amount of countries that have opted into these treaties. Yet America has shown the world they prefer to not participate.
The disrespect for international treaties was further shown with Bush's invasion of Iraq, which was defiant of the UN.
It has affected me in Canada as well. America has signed into GATT, and NAFTA, yet continues to place levies on Canadian softwood exports to America, defiant of the rulings of these international bodies, which are governed by the international treaties America has signed.
These four defiant issues show the world that America whishes not to be part of the international community, and choses to go it alone.
I'd like to know if Sen. Kerry is going to be interested in revisiting these treaties and showing the rest of the world that America is again part of the international community, or if he continues to follow in Bush's legacy, and tear up international treaties and continue to go their own direction.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If we make you president will you show up to work?
Most folks with that sort of absenteeism would be in the unemployment line instead of seeking a promotion.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Does Sudan have oil?
if yes:
Claim Sudan has WMDs/links to Al Queda, invade and 'liberate'.
if no:
Open Sudanese branches of McDonalds/WalMart/Chevrolet/Home Depot/Dairy Queen and wait...
Am I relying on them? No. I have many informatino sources.
However, you obviously never read NewsMax. They have some of the best stuff. They have the best critique of Bush's National Guard records that I've seen. Does it differ from what the mainstream media is putting out? Yes. Why? Because the mainstream media is pushing out a load of crap.
I've heard a lot of people trash NewsMax, but it's usually just because it has reports that doesn't support their presuppositions, not because they have factual arguments as to why NewsMax is wrong.
Engineering and the Ultimate
"That's because they carefully sift for only the facts that support their viewpoint."
Obviously you haven't watched CBS or read the New York Times lately...
Honestly there is no more sifting than any other organization -- in fact I think there's less, and you'll find quite a lot of facts that other news organizations fail to report. I think they give a pretty good reflection of what's going on.
Engineering and the Ultimate
You miss how such things weaken families. It's the same way that divorce has weakened families. It's no longer viewed as something special in society that a man and a woman comes together for life to have children and raise a family. In case you didn't notice, homosexual couples are completely unable to have children of their own, even theoretically. It is my contention that we are made to have a father and mother raise us. While some people do not have a father and mother due to tragedy, it is appalling to me that people would choose to not have a father and mother for their child.
However, if homosexuality is given the "marital" status, that means that all government institutions will have to treat homosexual marriage as equivalent with heterosexual marriage, and you will have adoptions go to homosexual parents instead of giving the child both a mother and a father (in fact, this is already happening). Children spend most of their day at school, and the values taught at school are the ones they keep, just because of the schoool/home time differential. The schools will invariably start promoting the homosexual lifestyle, which, by its very nature, has less of an emphasis on families procreating children. The cause of procreation is one of the chief reasons for the institution of marriage, or at least for the valuing of the institution of marriage.
I hope that answers your questions.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Sure, Bill Clinton lied about his sex life. But Bush lies about National Policy and reasons we should go to war with people his neocon cronies wanted to go to war with when he got elected.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"I suggest that if divorce weakens families, we should make divorce illegal."
I agree that we should make it VERY difficult. Like you have to show bruises or infidelity or something. And then the offending spouse gets NOTHING.
"You haven't supported your idea that schools will start promoting homos"
a) they already have in many schools
b) once the homosexual relationship is elevated to the status of able to be married, you don't think the homosexual lobby will be writing and getting books about homosexual families in the schools? You must have missed what already happened on TV. I live in the city that has the largest per-capita homosexual population in the country (Tulsa, OK), and there's nowhere near as many homosexual people as portrayed on TV.
"Do you think homos are fags by choice?"
Interesting errr... choice of words.
I think that engaging in the act is a matter of choice. People are predisposed to do all sorts of things that are bad for them and others. Being predisposed does not make it good.
"Hell, I would be happy if there was less emphasis on families procreating children. There are too many divorced single mothers already."
The way I see it is that previously divorce was popularized and the rest of us stood silent because, well, it wasn't "our" marriage that was suffering. But we have a whole generation of suffering people who have arisen from a culture of divorce. I think if we downgrade marriage even further with homosexual "marriage" we will wind up with a new generation of people who are even more hurting than this one.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Exhibit B - handbills relegated to unseen areas
Exhibit C - cavity searches for journalists on World Press Freedom Day
Exhibit D - arguments in favor of squelching 527s
Following the World Trade Center bombing you stated that these terrorists did this "because they hate our rights and freedoms", yet in the three past years all orders, decrees, and laws which limit, or abridge, these same rights and freedoms, have your signature on them, not Osama bin Laden's. Would you care to comment?
Recent polls internationally, show that the US is considered, overwhelmingly,to be the most serious threat to not only Democracy, but to the well-being of the Earth and its inhabitants.Yet,since 1945, US-backed right-wing paramilitary groups abroad, US-supported right-wing dictatorships, and illegal bombings of civilian targets contravening both US and International law, have resulted in nearly 12 million fatal civilian casualties around the World. Since these American activities are neither Constitutional, nor Christian, what moral authority is it, exactly, that gives you the right to decide who is, and who isn't, a terrorist threat?
--too old to ask, but not too old to vote