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Europeans To Monitor American Voters
shonagon53 writes "The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy. But since the Florida 2000 fiasco, things have changed.
Europe's famous Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) will now be monitoring the U.S. elections. The institution normally monitors elections in third world countries in transition, and in crisis areas or regions where civil wars have destabilized the political process. In november, the OSCE will be monitoring local and state elections in Kazakhstan, Skopje, Eastern Congo, Ouagadougou and... the United States.
As
the BBC reports, for some Americans this comes as a humiliation; others see it as a necessity, since they have lost trust in the American election process."
It's always good to learn from your mistakes, but it's even better to learn from someone elses.
Obligatory Nelson quote: "Ha ha!"
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
It is very humiliating... but after the 2000 fiasco, I don't want a repeat of that.
Things have changed so much in the last few years. Or actually, they haven't changed, just that SO much shit is happening in the goverment now, it's spilling into the public light more and more.
God bless the USA.
Josh
Really gives me pride in the US.
And to those who say Dem's would do the same thing.. they haven't yet.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
What's the point... the turn out for voting is always at an all time low... the system is flawed... we need a better system to elect people to power.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Hey! We are perfectly capable of voting on our own thank you! The Diebold company assures me of that.
I laughed for about 2 minutes and people in the apartment are looking at me funny. This is just too funny. I wonder if and how Fox will report it "Kerry calls upon his french contributors to undermine the US of A" oh god, this news makes my day...
Somehow, I feel the OSCE may help, but I doubt that the help will really be enough.
Ah, you found me!
"The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy."
A nitpick, I know, but this is not strictly true. You've had a civil war, after all, which does not make it stable. There's quite a few other countries with as good, or better, record in this respect.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
...if the US wants to ask third-world countries to allow their elections to be monitored, it can now say that it's happy for its own processes to be monitored.
Why the hell would we Europeans care? Americans are old and capable enough to take care of themselves and their elections. They are also old and capable enough to fuck themselves up the ass with a toiletbrush if they want to. Point is, they can take care of their business and by now. Let them hold their elections, use the money for more important crap, which definitely excludes baby-sitting the US.
Hate me!
Will it hurt that a 3rd party watches over votes? No, after Florida in 2000 it is a good idea. The problem is that before in Florida chads could be counted, now all they can see is certain votes being directed to /dev/null. Actually, that would be lucky, but alas, the voting machines run Windows. Now only if they could get rid of the Diebold voting machines.
The FBI has confirmed links between OSCE, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and the Axis of Evil. We must protect the Fatherland by deporting these infidels immediately!
1. Observers see no problems, report they see no problems, and we get to stop hearing made-up nonsense about widespread election problems.
2. Observers claim they see problems. They might be telling the truth. They might be lying. Everyone gets upset. We never find out conclusively one way or the other.
I hope they bring their video cameras.
Those that lost faith in the process are those who never fully understood it in the first place, ie the electoral college and the possibility of a winner who didn't get the popular vote.
No one came over to monitor the 1880 election after the 1876 election so why are they "monitoring" the Presidental Election this time?
e le ction%2C_1876
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_
http://www.michaellorenzen.com/1876.html
"In 1876 the election for the President of the United States ended in a dispute. Democrat Samuel J. Tilden received 184 electoral votes, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes received 165, and 20 electoral votes were uncertain, two different sets of returns being certified. The Electoral Commission was formed to settle the result. The disputed results involved 19 electors from Florida, Louisana, and South Carolina as well as one from Oregon. In those states, the official returns favored the Democrats, but the elections were marked by fraud and threats of violence against Republican voters and the Republican dominated electoral commissions were able to throw out enough votes to allow the Republicans to win those states. The result was two sets of returns, one certified by the governor favoring the Republicans and one certified by the state legislatures favoring the Democrats.
In the case of Oregon, the votes were clearly in favor of the Republicans. However, one of the Republican electors was a postmaster. The Democratic governor claimed that the elector was constitutionally disqualified on the grounds of holding a Federal office and therefore substituted a Democratic elector in his place."
maybe they can help us soldiers in iraq who are unable to vote. we were unable to get ahold of absentee ballots, and if we did it'd be too late anyways, the deadline was last month.
I seem to recall an Onion article in the wake of the 2000 election with the headline, "Syria to deploy peacekeeping troops to U. S. to restore order after chaotic election".
Finally, it's coming true.
Love the Third Amendment?
I'm not an American but I can imagine that this process would be humiliating. However I feel that if at the end the monitors come out and say that the process was entirely fail then all the better. The USA always goes on that it is a leading light of democracy. Now is the time to put that mantra to the test.
Add to that, the US is a sovereign nation. Europe can monitor the elections all they want, they still can't do shit about it.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Why aren't they checking on the dead voting in Chicago or the illegals voiting in Southern California?
"the OSCE will be monitoring local and state elections in Kazakhstan, Skopje, Eastern Congo, Ouagadougou and... the United States."
... yeaaahh, I don't think so.
Ok, I really don't see what power a foriegn entity has over America's political machine...
Really, what are they going to do if they find something they don't like: "We Europeans order you to STOP your elections immediately!"
Slashdot = ((Technology + Politics) / Trolls) % Grammar Nazis
As a sovereign nation, our elections are our own business.
As an American, I welcome oversight from a foreign country. Oh, any by all means, let it be a 3rd world nation where they take the vote seriously.
As in the Columbia Spectator...
... to observe the course of their national election proceedings."
The OSCE was actually invited by the State Department (unlike the attempted invitation of the United Nations by Democrats in the House) and has observed elections in the US before, such as during the 2002 mid-terms and the California gubernatorial race. Indeed, the former Bush, in 1990, signed the Copenhagen Document which stated that signers (such as the US) may "invite observers from any other [OSCE] participating States
Face it. We have a fanatical regime in power that has no repect for the constitution or the rights of individuals and will do anything to stay in power. Hopefully, we are not heading down a path which will ultimately require the European powers to return a 60 year old favor and invade us to rescue us from our own goverment.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Yes, part of me says "Good. There's always room for review by an outside opinion." But then I have to ask whether this organization is really going to be all that impartial. Knowing little about them I can't vouch for the idea.
The problem with having foreign nations monitor a political system for fairness is the the country will someday have to deal with the nations reviewing it on a foreign-relations basis. Ulterior motives and vested intersts will abound.
"The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy"
Huh? By whom? By Americans. Just like the German system is 'known' as being the most stable etc etc by Germans, the Finnish system is 'known' as being the most stable etc etc by Finns, etc.
Sorry, but I stop reading at that point. Anyone who says something like that needs to do a bit of research. Objectively, how do you mention stability? By lives lost in wars? Civil wars waged? People in prison as a percentage of the population? The relationship between percentage of votes cast and actual representation? Freedom ensconced in the constitution? Hanging or pregnant Chads? And by those citeria, are you still the most stable? And then following on, are you "known" to be the most stable? By whom? By the Chinese? By young Arabs? By the French?
I could go on but I am getting tired trying to bridge a gap of this magnitude...
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
I'd like to see where this little factoid was referenced from, please.
If OSCE officials were thrown out of the country, it would be an international incident of World War-starting proportions. The problem is that they may not be given access to the information they need, not that they'll be called terrorists. As corrupt as politics have become, the players aren't the fools people like to think they are. Dirty games call for dirty tricks, but you still need brains to play. (Oh, and don't call Bush an idiot just because he plays one on TV.)
G
The voting system isn't perfect - never has been. People hate Bush, look at the legal battle and recounting (which Gore wanted) and the fact that he didn't have the majority vote nationwide, and think he somehow cheated.
The only major flaw I see is the one that has all attention focused on the 2 inferior candidates. Oh, that and Diebold voting machines. But then, I could be blind.
The fact that the country did not break into civil war is because we ARE a model democracy.
This applies whether you agree with the outcome of the election or not.
The idea that a close vote means that we're unstable is ridiculous. There are rules and regulations for these scenarios and they were followed. Unfortunately, a few were added as well (ah hem, hanging chads), but all hell did NOT break loose and the results were LAWFULLY established.
This sounds like a great thing, but really- who cares? the popular vote is worthless, as 2000 proved. this election will probably be decided in the electoral college, which will probably (again) tell the country that the individual's vote doesn't matter. again. and besides, even if this organization discovered some huge corruption scandal, americans probably wouldnt care. the bush propaganda machine would spin it off at some pussy frenchmen sticking their noses into our affairs.
It was a coin toss where the coin landed on the third side, the edge. We really don't know who actually won Florida, it depends on how you count 'em. The rules in place made Bush the winner. Some people just can't deal with it.
..is that it doesn't address the most common type of vote fraud in the U.S., which might be termed voter registration fraud. As long as people showing up at the polls get in and get their votes counted, an outside observer is likely to conclude that all is well. Will an outside observer even notice that there are more voters registered in St. Louis or Philadelphia than the census says there are adults in those cities?
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I seriously doubt this organization is doing this out of the kindness of their heart. Someone, or some group is doing it to make a statement. What on earth is the US of A becoming?
My name is a variety of floral rose, and no, it's not blue
This is just plain stupid. What happends if the OSCE says there is some problems, but all the local authorities disagree? For argument's sake, what if in this theoretical situation the OSCE is wrong? They have NO AUTHORITY, but sure could muck up a lot of stuff with doubt. I would be much happier with a domestic organization appointed by the congress or somebody.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Sorry, but I'm supposed to trust some toothless european agency with ulterior motives any more?
Sure, the election has been rigged... and it was done two years ago. I can't help but feel derision for anyone who either A) doesn't point that out or B) treat it as so obvious that it doesn't require mentioning.
When they steal our choice from us, please note that it's not in some dangling chads on ballots that should be awarded to Kerry, it was when they only allowed us the choice between Kerry and Bush. Neither are acceptable.
Even the biggest, most ethical companies are audited every year*. In fact, the willingnes to submit oneself to external scrutiny sends a much more comforting signal that there is nothing to hide or be ashamed of.
Why shouldn't the same be true for elections?
* Yes, audits of public (and certain private) companies are mandatory not voluntary, but it's the principle of the matter that applies.
a world in progress...
I don't see why/how this should be humiliating. History has shown (many times) that not even the best of us (in whatever area of life) are to be trusted 100% all the time. People fail, systems fail, democracies fail. For one, I don't mind having election monitoring in my country, since that reassures me there was no trouble and no tricks were pulled. Americans should feel the same. Americans are humans too, and humans all make mistakes (internally or otherwise). Or, would they feel safer if FoxNews or some US govt funded organization was 'monitoring'?
Just hang out in the Florida Supreme Court building. Keep an eye on them, and everything should be just fine.
that a european organization can fix by monitoring everything? They can't do anything. All they're going to end up doing is saying that something wasn't done correctly and wheover loses the election will use that to turn the nation to civil war again. No one cheated in the last election, it was just a close call.
If your Constitution really says that Bush won, which it doesn't, then you really need a new Constitution.
No? Then what good are they? :)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I think this is necessary, although I'm kind of surprised that the American authorities allow this kind of surveilance. I would have thought that they were too proud (for their own good). But I'm really really really glad this is happening, and hope this election will turn out better than the last one (in terms of counting votes). And of course, I hope every /. reader will go out and vote.
For the record: I am not an American, so my opinion are not completely unbiased.
Well then you'll agree that the only reason not to have international monitors is the cost, but that's trivial compared to what's at stake.
Unless you have another reason? Saving face, for instance? Sorry, but when it comes to games of pride and nationalism, it isn't worth it. There simply isn't a valid excuse to not have it. Always err on the side of caution, especially with something so ridiculously important as this.
This story explains why it is the OSCE that has been invited to do the job and not the UN, which is more common. Of course it has to do with the US congress where mentioning the two letters U.N. is worse than mentioning the four letters f.u.c.k.
As a European living in the US, I remember that back in 2000 I mentioned to my friends using UN elections monitors for the next election, after which I was verbally lynched for about an hour.
Apparently not a popular idea :)
An EU decision would have no meaning or validity in the US.
US elections are for the US people to decide, or in extreme cases the US Supreme Court.
Besides, I would rather have a US dictator than a foreign appointed dictator.
Don't worry dear Americans, they are only there to make sure you'll be governed by the president you elect i.e. the presidential candidate that gets the majority of votes in the majority of states.
;)
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
It's going to be a lively contest even without a bunch of holier-than-thou Euros running around.
All those 'belittling, holier-than-thou' Euros have been invited you slaptard.
A very interesting article regarding the 1876 presidential elections.
This is sure to get the Republicans riled up, especially in Florida.
I doubt the OSCE will be able to do much real monitoring here, but I would certainly welcome additional scrutiny on the paperless-voting side of things. (Obligatory link to blackbox in case anyone hasn't been there.)
I just read a Vanity Fair article on the situation in Florida and it was scary. There's an Acrobatification of it floating around... looks like the PDFs can be found here: part one, part two and... hmmm, I can't find the end bit.
My own informal poll shows a strong European anti-Bush sentiment, which we could safely assume will combine with this initiative to generate a certain kind of PR... mainly negative I expect.
This Like That - fun with words!
While before 2000 I would have agreed with you, in that if a country screws up, it's not really anyone else's concern, just leave them to it, but I think the rest of the world is now starting to care about the state of US elections a lot more, mainly for the reason that we are talking about a country, and, more particularly, A SINGLE PRESIDENT (because in America's defense, I don't think that the majority of citizens are a good reflection of the current president), who, on his own whim, will invade countries outide his own. If Gore had won the election (and, let's be frank, maybe he did), then MANY lives outside America would still be in tact. America may be old enough to 'fuck itself' as you put it, but when it's government starts running countries outside it's own, then it does become the rest of the world's business.
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
You have read Bush v Gore haven't you?.
I guess you represent the prevailing mindset of the left, that some of us are more equal than others.
Our government spends way more than it takes in. A huge percentage of our finished goods are made in other countries, even high tech goods. We start wars on skimpy evidence just to keep the population in line behind a shakey leader. The government constantly puts out an interpretation of its situation wildly at odds with what is reported in the world press. Our health care system is available to shrinking portion of our population. And now we hear that somebody else has to check and see if our election process is rigged. All that is left is for our credit rating to catch up with our deficit spending and the last of our green card engineers to go back to home countries where their wages will soon be buying them a better life than than they do here.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I believe it would be wise if every democracy invited 3rd-party observers in to monitor their election process.
If there is nothing to hide then there is everything to gain by proving that any given democracy is a true democracy.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Then if the US is important and the elections should be monitored, why waste time monitoring elections where it's not important?
Anyway, the United States did have a pre-emptive doctrine in the 19th century, look at the annexation of Hawaii to keep it from being annexed by the British, Germans or Japanese, or perhaps ask the Plains and Southwestern Indian tribes about a pre-emptive doctrines.
> The United States is known as being the world's
> most stable democracy.
Not to cast aspersions, but by which criteria do you make this statement?
If we allow that the US actually is a democracy:
- many other democracies have been around longer
- many other democracies have not been subjected to a civil war
- many other democracies have not had in-office Presidents assassinated
- many other democracies have not fought as many wars
- many other democracies have lower crime rates
I'd go on, but hopefully the point is now made - the US is a lot of things (good and bad), but calling it the "most stable democracy" is really pushing it.
Wow, what peaceful, inclusive language!
"Let's just say this: he spelled 'Yale' with a '6'."
He did not win a majority of the popular vote. Al Gore won a plurality of the popular vote.
Al Gore had 48.879% of the vote
George W Bush had 48.358% of the vote
Ralph Nader had 2.763% of the vote
A majority is greater than 50%; no one had that.
What?
This is just the rest of the world saying that they don't like our President and we don't know what we are doing. We need to be saying that we don't need some Europeans coming over here to monitor anything. Which we don't. It was a rare occurrance but the electoral college elected a different president than the popular vote. But this has always been the way it works, the individual vote never has counted, it has always been the electoral college. Tell the Euros to stay out of our business.
How is this the republicans fault? It was the democrats being creative with votes that had hanging and "pregnant" chads that caused a real lack of confidence here. Stop being a bitter troll.
Monitors only go to 3rd world contries when asked by the host countries. It's a way of demonstrating to the world their legitamacy.
The US has no need to do this. 2000 was an anomoly where the results were so close that the differential was within the margin of error.
Given even just the issues with Diebold that have come to light so far, I think it is clear that some sort of external auditing would be good. The Diebold systems are sufficiently weak that all manner of things could happen. All it would take is some over zealous Democrat (just look at the forged memos to see they exist) and you could end up with John Kerry as your president. On the other side, you've got an over zealous Republican hacker, or the CEO of Diebold (who is merely a fairly zealous Republican). No matter who you support, you have plenty of reasons to be worried, and be supportive of this auditing.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
This is purely political. It sounds like someone who didn't like the outcome of the 2000 election wants to make a statement. I wonder if the representatives of this group are elected or directly appointed. If they are appointed by the governments that don't currently support US policies (Germany, France, etc.), the reasoning becomes much clearer.
What purpose other than embarassment can there possibly be? I know, for example, Germany would be (rightfully) embarrassed if the British sent election officials to ensure the Germans' process was clean.
The OCSE has been watching over US elections for some time now; most recently, they oversaw California's gubernatorial recall election as well as the latest round of Congressional elections. What's special about this is that this is the first time they'll be monitoring a presidential election. The US has been part of the OCSE for several years, and other European nations with traditions of stable democracy have been monitored as well.
Although the liberal Kerry-votin' Democrat in me really wants to shove this in the faces of my Republican acquaintances ("See? Even Europe knows Florida 2000 was rigged!"), I know that it's one of those things that is not nearly as important as it's being made out to be.
-- The reason it's called the right wing? Irony.
Skopje and Ouagadougou are the capitals of Macedonia and Burkina Faso, respectively. Kazakhstan is a country. There are two Congos: the Republic of the Congo (formerly French Middle Congo), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which lies just to the east. Eastern DROC borders Rwanda, where there was a massive genocide 10 years ago.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
about myself. Thanks.
Look: the system here worked. We had an election that was very, very close. It was so close that the votes had to be recounted and the outcome was within the statistical margin of error. But the system worked. The issue went to the Supreme Court, was decided, and the transfer of power happened peacefully. There was no rioting in the streets... no looting... no coup attempt... not even a power grab (like is happening in Russia). This is exactly how you expect a stable republic to settle such an issue.
So why is Europe coming over to monitor our elections? Because they really think that it will make a difference? Or to tarnish the US' reputation with the unfounded and unproven implication that our elections aren't fair? One might think that they've been listening to Michael Moore too much...
I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
What ulterior motives? Really... and the USA is a member of the OSCE, by the way.
"Al, this is David Boies. I apologize for calling so late, but this won't wait."
"Look, I know you've already conceded, but I've been talking to some folks in Florida and they think they can find enough extra votes down there to give you the state in a recount."
"Just a recount in Volusia, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties, though."
"If it goes statewide our people will be spread too thin to keep things under control."
"Do you want to give it a try? At this point you've got nothing to lose."
"That's great, Al. I'll give 'em a call and we'll get this show on the road."
"Call Bush right away to let him know you've changed your mind."
"On second thought, call a press conference first."
"Talk to you later, Mr. President."
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
outsourcing. Four years later it will be possible to outsource entire elections.
Tell that to the people on Harris' Scrub list who were NOT felons and were not allowed to vote. I doubt you'd be saying things like "Sore/Loserman" if you went to your polling place and was turned away because the county is so corrupt it put together an especially messy list to discriminate against black voters.
Article w/ screenshots of the DB here.
Electorial fraud has a colorful history in the US and its not limited to just Florida. How about Illinois during JFK/Nixon? Blacks in the south in the 60's? How about the recent scandels around Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Milwaukee ? Funny how all those cities are in swing-states, generally.
The US needs observers more than ever, especially with electronic voting. I do believe there is a federal law which disallows this. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Shortly after the mess that was the 2000 election, Fidel Castro offered to send Cuban election observers to Florida. I guess he does have a sense of humor.
I am officially gone from
A new constitution? No, I don't think so. I still think that document is pretty much a work of genius. What we need are new laws. Keep the original amendments and then flush everything else down the toilet and start over. No secret laws. No stupid old-fashioned ones. Basically, we need a fresh reinstall of our democracy.
Oh, and I suspect we'd first have to do a complete flush of all the people currently in power, too. Otherwise it'd be like leaving some spyware on the system while reinstalling all the apps--that doesn't do you any good!
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Without it, every county in the US would have had a recount. This would be an improvement how?
You mean the felons? Cry me a river.
I always wanted to make this bumper sticker for Florida Democrats:
Get your Unix fortune now!
I, for one, welcome our new election monitoring overloads.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
and I show you what humiliation is. HUMILIATION
No offense to the European /. crowd, but you can observe all you want. In the end, you'll have to deal with whom we elect. Start popping pills, rationalizing the impending new reality, etc. in preparation for the trauma that most likely will hit you if and when Bush gets re-elected.
I hate to sound like a conservative here ('cause Bush irritates me on many levels but not to the degree that Kerry frightens me), but if European observers come in and completely end up IGNORING the fact that there are thousands (millions?) of illegal aliens voting in this country, then the credibility they hope to provide to the US electoral process is a farce.
If European observers come in and discover how the dead have been resurrected and given voting rights in favor of...I won't say whom...then their attempt to RECTIFY the situation from the 2000 election will have been in vain, and their own credibility will be called into question.
If European observers miss the fact that GI absentee votes go missing or end up uncounted, then they will have ended up doing nothing to "help" our electoral process. In fact, they will demonstrate that they, perhaps, are willing to "overlook" such discrepancies if it helps get such and such candidate into office.
Yes -- observe all the hell you want, Europe, but don't expect much recognition if you manage to miss my dead grandfather's social security number being used by an illegal alien to enter the polls in lieu of a real GI getting his vote in from an overseas military base.
You're welcome to get involved, but if you f--- up, then be prepared to become embroiled in perhaps the silliest era of partisan politics this nation has ever seen.
IronChefMorimoto
It's only embarassing if the monitors find corruption.
You try counting to 20 million twice and see if you can do it without error. Good luck
I am grateful to to anyone trying to make sure our votes get counted properly and honored. It's a good start.
This election, we're faced with two candidates who are two sides of the same military-industrial globalist elitist coin. I'll be there with my vote, and it may well be Badnarik.
Sometimes we are lucky and a person who can run the country runs for President. The chances that one of the two main (only?) political parties will do so is slim.
Intelligent debate and loud, informed voices are probably more important than elections. If we think we can walk into a voting booth and our job is done, we deserve what we get, don't we? If it isn't too late in our American dictatorship, I think I am going to get more involved in the political process. I live in Austin, TX, home of the great Alex Jones http://www.infowars.com/, who is an inspiring example of someone who is inserting himself in the process every way he knows how. I am not saying we should all be Alex, but if we have something important to say, like "Please stop ignoring the Bill of Rights," for example, we should find a way to say it and be heard.
US of A will fall under its weight just like any other empire in human history, its just a question of time, these are only the first signs USians - half of the world already hates your asses and soon the other half will hate you too. better start thinking what you are going to do about that. let me give you a small tip : stop messing up with other countries just because you can (never mind about the oil now...)
I agree, how does one go about setting up a new constitutional convention?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
This is far from being a humiliation. The OSCE was asked by Secretary of State Colin Powell to monitor the upcoming election.
Furthermore, this isn't the first time they have monitored an election in the U.S. They monitored both the 2002 midterm elections and the California gubernatorial recall election.
So, uh, quit your bitchin'.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Perhaps it's time to consider an amicable dissolution. Split the country right down the Mississippi River and give everyone ten years to pick a side and move. Or let people vote on what side they want to live and make the division based on a percentage of the population. Authorize some kind of land swap deal so families on one side or the other can trade for property of near equal value. Provide tax credits and subsidies for moving.
If you choose to travel to or stay on...whichever side...you agree to live by the laws and standards on that side of the country.
The right wing side would get all the religious freaks and could ban drugs, porn, abortion, make being gay a crime, reinstate the draft and set up whatever kind of religious symbols they want on government buildings and really enjoy getting the Ashcroft/Cheney/Renquist/Scalia treatment. Paradoxically the same type society our country's founders moved over here to get away from.
The progressive side of the country could live life their own way.
My suggestion is we give the right the side that has the most prisons already built. That way they don't go broke the first couple years.
Hey, just because we started out united it doesn't mean we have to stay that way.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Will there be massive vote fraud in Wisconsin?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
But this year's Presidential election will be one of the easiest ever to monitor. Because no matter how people vote, an idiot will be the winner.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Read Bush v Gore. The vote counting was time constrained by safe harbor provisions. If it would have been further delayed the entire states results would have been subject to invalidation.
"The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy."
We are not a democracy. We are a very democratic republic. This is a very important point that many people misunderstand.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
They want their propaganda back.
Informative my ass. Many people were turned away from the polls. Many people were removed from voter lists because they were likely to vote democratic.
What I find funny is that even after these tactics, it was a close election with Bush nearly not winning. Bush stole the white house.
The state of US Elections is pretty bad. It stands to get worse with electronic voting.
Europe should mind their own business and take care of their own back yard first. When they can go more than 10 years without having someone engage in large scale genocide then maybe we'll being to take them seriously. For the last couple hundred years Europe doesn't exactly have a stellar track record on preserving human rights.
We have not-so-punched punch cards, Diebold computers that can't get tic-tac-toe right, and all of these other high-tech "can't make a mistake or fix a vote" machinery that can't get it right. Other countries have just a paper ballot and really now, how hard is it to mark an "X"? Here we use paper ballots that you have to mark a line to complete an arrow using a black marker to register your vote. Just about as easy as the "X". I can't blame them for wanting to come over here and really watch and learn from the mistakes we regularly make here. Maybe they have approved a generic drug that they want to try that is supposed to cure "Electile Dysfunction"?
I'm venting, but please try not to totally take offense at me. I really want to know -- do Europeans just want America to fail at something? Is this whole election observer thing just a chance to watch us screw up? To see America in action completely and utter fail?
As an American, and one that feels that neutrality in some world arenas would perhaps lessen our profile on the world's hate meter a little, I just feel sometimes that the world, and in this case Europe, wants us to fail.
What the fuck is the problem with the US succeeding in world economics (relatively speaking of course), technology, etc.? Sure -- we fuck up a lot. It's the American way -- sometimes we learn from our mistakes (New Coke), and sometimes we don't (Vietnam and, perhaps, Iraq).
But, Christ, I've never felt so embattled as an American as I do now hearing how much the world just wants us to fuck up. And now, with Europe looming over our elections, it makes me wonder whatever happened to just being simply greatful for the things that we try and do right.
Like liberate Europe from Hitler. Intervene in the Balkan conflict to prevent more atrocities. Things like that. Do you not want our help? Would you rather just NOT have us assist in world affairs at all?
Hell -- we have the wherewithall to do so many things, and on the one hand, we're despised for having that ability and, on the other hand, we're hated for failing to use that ability. And when we do intervene or assist in some way, we then get berated for doing whatever we do.
I'm sorry. I've never been so miserable being an American, but I love my country, and I hate to think that the world sees one man or the deposing of one dictator as the source of all evil on this planet. It's just how we work, people. We reacted to 9/11. We couldn't just get kicked in the nuts and go, "Well fuck -- time to close the borders for good." We would've gotten fussed at for that too.
I only ask that people make up their minds about America. We try to be many things to many people, and yet we're haunted by the old adage, "You can't please everyone all the time."
Sigh...please pardon the vent.
IronChefMorimoto
In Germany you have an impotent man in power who will lose because too many people are feeding from the trough, and too few people are paying for it. No one there wants to pay for, or give up, on the welfare state. Democracy in action!
Meanwhile, the extreme right and left made unprecedented strides in the most recent elections.
Across Europe, a largely non-representative, supra-national government is taking power, while in each of the member nations, the EU is becoming more and more unpopular.
The only reason Florida in 2000 was worse than the dead voting in Illinois in 1960, was because you had one side, Gore's side, marching in with lawyers who planned to "recount until the right candidate wins". In 1960, Nixon didn't make that choice because he thought it would be better for the nation.
Europe has a thing or two to learn about democracy, and so does America.
I give not a shit about what technocratic observers think about our elections. Do you give a shit about what technocrats in the UN think about Darfur, i.e. the reason no action is being taken? I care only enough to repudiate their ideas of multilateral non-action in the face of genocide.
What more people need to recognize is the problem of mob-rule, welfare-state democracy, and the threat of tyranny in an unlimited government, even if the majority vote for it.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
"You are stupid sack of dog shit. It's not even worth countering your claim because it's beyond idiocy. Please kill yourself, you child raping pile of baboon jism. If all you ideological Party-loving hacks would just die, this country might have hope."
"Another Party-Loving Dumbass (Score:1, Insightful)"...????
"Derp de derp."
The world's oldest (and possibly most stable) democracy is New Zealand. This is primarily due to the fact they were the first nation to allow women to vote.
You can't call yourself a democracy if 50% of the adult populatiuon is barred from voting.
These people were invited on behalf of Dems.
Right... specifically that notorious Democrat... Colin Powell.
What you are thinking of is an incident several months go where some Democratic congresspersons invited UN observers in to the elections. The UN rejected this at that time because the legislators didn't have authority to invite them. The UN DID decide to send the observers some time later on the request of the State department, which decided to do so as part of a small clause of a treaty we signed with some European countries some time ago. This is why the UN inspectors coming now are coming-- at the request of the State Department, run by Colin Powell.
--Super Ugly Ultraman
In the 19th century, the United States pursued a doctrine known as Manifest Destiny, which was originally a term coined by a New York journalist in 1845. It was a belief that it was the United States' "destiny" to "spread democracy" and that it was the only acceptable form of government in the West, and it was also used to expand the U.S. into the native controled lands of the current western United States.
So yeah, we've seen it all before. Its still not a reason to have 3rd world countries come in and monitor the biggest and most efficient representative republics in the world. That's just insulting to everybody who helped form this country and those who fought for it.
Just a thought... And I have been wrong before...
How about more the Federalist style of government and not the "Republic" government. It's always seems to be this way since then anonymous PUBLIUS authored the Federalist papers.
Now, I'm wondering why we are currently enspousing a "democracy" in budding 3rd world nations?
Why don't we hear more about advocating "Republic" government instead?
Or is this more of the media's misguided use of terminology and its application whenever they report "Democracy". Does it really mean "Republic"?
I don't hate you because you think Kerry is a douche bag, I hate you because you don't think GW is one.
evil is as evil does
>The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy
Known by whom, exactly?
More stable than where, exactly? The UK ? Switzerland? Canada?
That sentence makes no sense, it's utter gibberish.
My rewrite:
'To Americans, the United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy'
Now, it makes sense.
http://milkshake.dexy.org
Industralization.
espo
They're here to audit and report.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"If a dead man can understand a Chicago ballot well enough to vote, it's not too complex to include 3rd party candidates..." - Mike Lorrey
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
Your votes counts... believe it or not...One must shed the popular and sorely misperceived perception that popular vote is a result of your vote. Instead, your vote goes to pick the delegates representing your state (and for some state, your delegate's district).
It works likes this in one state and one district. Your vote is tabulated within a district (it may or may not be a congressional district, but usually is). A pair (or couple of) party-specific and party-nominated delegate represents your vote. (Few states allow renegade delegates to defy your district's choice).
Then each state's assembly (or unicameral) house then convene and tabulated the delegates' vote. Most states use all-for-one tabulation, Some states require split representation of delegate, instead of all for one.
Then the state government (various method used here) then sends a certified delegate(s) to carry the state's choice of presidential candidate(s) to Washington, DC.
So, get out and vote. Your vote impacts your one delegate, so its your community, your vote.
Make your vote felt!
In Ratfuckistan the 'results' are usually 99.49% for the Maximum Leader. In the US in 2000 and this year as well, the margin of victory, for either candidate will be by a whisker. So it's questionable whether these observers know what they're looking at or what to look for.
continued the focus on terrorism that Clinton acquired towards the end of his term. A Gore administration would have continued to foster the law enforcement environment that would have connected the dots that could've prevented 9/11.
There were a wide variety of anti-terrorism and anti-Al Quaeda initiatives started under Clinton that Bush put on the back burner.
I guess we'll never know.
Really though, it's difficult to *seriously* envision any scenario where Gore screws up more than Bush has.
This is the most misleading Slashdot article I have ever read.
If you actually look at their site they are also monitoring elections in France, Canada, Greece, Spain, and Australia. Hardly "third world countries", and I don't remember any recent civil wars in them either.
To people, land is as important as food and water, especially in a capitalist Nation. This land needs representation, otherwise certain states could become powerless, and a mass exodus of what few people who live there to more populated areas with more say, would take place. Having a desolate central city is not good to the city as a whole, nor would it be good to have a neighboring state be a desolate, lawless dumping ground. Power needs to be distributed. Maybe not equally, but look at the House of Representatives, distributed by population, the Senate, 2 per state. Since the Sun Belt is becoming more and more populated, would it be right for the people of Arizona to pipe water from Lake Michigan to irrigate their golf courses? Land is a fixed resource; they are not making any more of it! It is arguably THE most valuable resource.
So yeah, we've seen it all before. Its still not a reason to have 3rd world countries come in and monitor the biggest and most efficient representative republics in the world.
Oh, and here I thought they where coming from EUROPE. You know, that area west of asia that's been industrialised longer than the US?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -Plato
Heh.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It is a good thing that regardless of HOW the state choose their own electoral delegates, the fact remains that the electoral college is composed of 51 states and district.
This seperation of 51 states/district is a good thing.
We wouldn't want one region of the country to impose value on the other region. North vs. South (Civil War) came to mind.
Nowaday, it could be easily East vs. West or NW vs. SE or Midwest vs. the rest....
No... E.C. is the best thing since slice bread.
The only thing that that puzzles us more is why some states have different rules.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
people who talk like that are scary!
The poster provides no evidence to support his claim of widespread embarrassment in the U.S. about the OSCE monitors, relying on a single BBC report for credibility. That report, in turn, does not mention embarrassment, and, in fact, sites a single anonymous source for the alleged widespread cynicism about voting. (How can enbarrassment be widespread about an activiry hardly anyone knows about?)
All that is typical from Slashdot and BBC. One organization practices advocacy yellow journalism while claiming over and over that it doesn't engage in journalism, while the other has sullied a decades-long record of professional journalism with bias and incompetence.
Of course, neither the poster, not Slashdot or the BBC, mention that the monitors are here because we invited them. They are both quite ready to omit facts that don't suit their agenda.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
>>had Nader not been there, Gore likely would have won.
The "spoiler" phenomenon isn't ironclad logic to me.
Living in a heavily republican state (guaranteed for Bush), I voted for Ralph Nader, hoping to get the guy the 5% of the popular vote or whatever it is that a party needs to get the matching federal funds, etc, next time around. Otherwise, I would have voted for Bush too.
I know 3 other people who did the exact same thing, and we didn't discuss it beforehand. (One I'd never even met yet.) We can't be the only ones. I'm willing to bet it is a statistically significant subtraction from the "lost votes" of the mainstream candidate.
I personally think it'd be interesting to go back to the original system... Whoever wins is president, whoever comes in second is vice president. Tumultuous? I'm sure, initially. But if the polarization endemic currently subsided, they'd have to cooperate and compromise to get anything done. Ideally (and ostensibly, impractically) we'd be better for it.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Jeez, how hard is it to do some fact checking before posting things like that?
Haider was never PM of Austria, his party was a member of the ruling coalition though in 2000, and he is governor of the state of Carinthia. Read wikipedia entry to get some details.
Haider is an avowed anti-EU politician. In 2000 some EU member countries did impose limited diplomatic sanction on Austria. In this case this meant cancelling of visits, recall of ambassadors, etc, and had zero direct economic consequence. I.e this was a gesture of disapproval, and yes any country is entitled to do that, this is was diplomacy is all about. Israel did exactly the same BTW.
FYI Haider is a neo-Nazi revisionist. For once you'd like Europeans to do something when people like Haider get too close to actually governing a country. You remember the last time the European did nothing?
Nice double standards you've got there.
I'd say that a difference of 543,895 votes, or one half percent, is statistically significant.
Yes, it's significant, but you are overlooking the most important point, which is that nearly half of the country still voted for the idiot. There's your problem.
I mean, look at the current polls: one says Kerry is up, another says Bush is up. Basically, it's still going to be a close vote. That's insane! But don't forget, this is the same country that not only elected, but re-elected Ronald Reagan. It's filled with people more concerned about The Gays than their own civil liberties, their own pocketbooks, their own personal safety!
Oh? The US is no longer a stable democracy eh? Hmm, I haven't noticed any coup attemts, riotous rebellions, or wonton car bombings in the last few days. Perhaps I should look out the window more often...?
Hmm, the BBC seems to have left out one other likely far more prevalent opinion... "while most everyone else sees it as a laughable ploy by pompous anti-American Europeans who are groping around for some (empty) reason to try to feel superior"
wag more
bark less
"All those who were surprised about the way the 2000 election went never really understood our election process in the beginning."
Complete b.s. Most informed forners undertand how your system works perfectly - and not very well is one description that comes to mind. And you are not going to tell me you weren't 'surprised' when the US was without a president for a month as the parties brawled it out in the Floridan and Supreme Courts, while acrimonious recriminations reverbrated from coast to coast in the most politically divisive atmosphere since the 1960s.
The 2000 election was a shambolic, third world-style embarassment, and an insult to the shared traditions of democracy that we in the developed world like to call our heritage. It highlighted the many glaring flaws in the US system, including (but not limited to):
- hundreds of millions of dollars being required to win the election
- states controlling the voting process
- politically appointed election officials(! WTF? This would never happen in a million years where I come from, it's completely outrageous).
- politically appointed judges deciding about the fate of the person who potentially appoints their successors (!!!!)
- widespread allegations of vote rigging through intimidation and 'blacklisting' of eligible voters (would be enough to require a reelection in many countries)
I look forwards to Episode II: The End of Democracy.
Read Pynchon.
I remember reading about massive Democratic vote fraud in St. Louis last election. Maybe they should start there?
Maybe they should also educate the voters. A whole sh*tload of Democratic votes were thrown out in Florida because Democratic operatives told their just-registered voters "just make a mark on each page." Doh, invalidated ballots!
It might be worth it to force all the states to count all the ballots, too. In the last election states stopped counting once the margin was large enough that counting wouldn't affect the outcome. That might give lie to the "Bush lost the popular vote" crap. Just think that in Texas, they might have only counted 1 million votes because Gore only got 27 votes!
The US has a history of invading countries and staging coups when it doesn't like the election results. I think I prefer the European model.
meh
A contemporary French constitutionalist once said "The genius of the framers of the US constitution is how they at once, in a single document, gave the power to the people and took it away from them"
Quite frankly, given the choices now available I'm wondering if I shouldn't just throw my vote to parasite jr. After all, if he truly does have diminished capacity to lead in the world because he so fucked up the last four years, keeping him in office might help knock the US down a few more pegs. And, more than anything, given our "response to 911" and the direction we've headed since, this country needs some serious fucking humbling.
What about an US president that based his actions on reality, not on some quite strange (from a German point of view) religious and/or imperialistic imaginations of how the world is supposed to be.
"The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy."
Since when? 1965 with the Voting Rights Act so blacks could vote in the South? The US barely meets the internationally recognized minimum of two generations.
The US is the richest and most powerful democracy, and it is deeply respected for many absolutely valid and heroic reasons, but it is not the world's most stable democracy. Several countries have done better there.
Where the heck did you go to school? Fox news? That's just incredibly ignorant.
The 68 election was one of the best ones ever! At least it had some spuink to it, some hormones, some energy! Exciting! The country was teetering on the brink of a 4 or 5 way civil war, and don't let no one tell you no different. It extended a few more years like that, fairly tense times, but 67-69 were by far the most intense. The budget was outta control, guns AND butter was too expensive, it couldn't be done. We had 4 clearly defined and clearly different candidates, who all got total news coverage. *Nothing* like it is now, not even close. The incumbent president refused to run again. (gee, wonder why with the nation falling apart around him?) The most likely Dem candidate got wasted by what looks to this day as a brainwashed sleeper agent, some kinda zombie..an inside job perhaps.. A populist ethnic minority leader got wasted, that appears to have been with the collusion of certain federal agencies and personnel.... A third party populist candidate pulled 5 states ELECTORAL vote. We had high level intrigues, there were political assassinations, even of candidates, massive protests, riots going on, cities ablaze, a popular war for some, highly unpopular for others, a quagmire that had been going on for some years, a cultural revolution, old paradignms smashed, new ones created overnight just to be discarded the next day, everything from music to economics to politics to lifestyles to...everything was in constant flux, constant change. It wasn't all good, it wasn't all bad, but it certainly WAS, it really WAS.
..our side?
Nowadays, elections are almost boring. What do we have, let's peek:
skull and bones yale elitist, millionaire globalist
skull and bones yale elitist, millioniare globalist
a few other guys who never even get in the newspapers, except for very occasionaly, and all they get asked is why they are making people "waste" their vote, don't they know they will hurt the skull and bones millionaires chances, letting the skull and bones candidate win? How dare they even try!
a war that is popular in some quarters, very unpopular in others (finally,a match)
No comparison, 2004 fails it! The globalist goons got controlling the herds down to a science, even the protests lead to nothing! The news media don't even jump on juicy stuff anymore, they IGNORE it in favor of planned controlled distractions, such as minutiae like forged nat guard documents when the entire 9-11 commission report got enough holes for a dozen golf courses. And something as simple and basic as "we have a ballot box, you can verify the count with your eyes,anyone who can count, or "trust" some anonymous corporate structure and their dubious track record and alleged honest programming....." Hmm..lemme think....why ain't there riots over this abomination again?
The vote is a scam, the election is already over, it's predetermined, the NWO globalist profits at any cost including blood party wins again! Huu-rah for
BTW, you getting a -1 troll mod is wrong, you spoke the truth. It may be unpopular, but you are correct, there would have been very little difference in 2000. I twas a dog and pony show to keep the herds riled up and rooting for one of the two heads of the same demon..
Comment removed based on user account deletion
reveltions, it's clear that America needs this unfortunately.
Now if they could review the gerrymandering which has resulted in democrats needing 57% of the vote in order to control the house of representatives then we'll be one step closer to a democratic republic.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Just as with open source, outside scrutiny of something, will only make it better. I'd be really interested in knowing what someone from outside the US thinks of the methods used for voting here. As for validating election results, I wouldn't trust anyone in Florida after the 2k election either. Especially not with the clear conflict of interest present amongst G. Bush, J. Bush, and that fugly bitch. We need to make sure that the popular vote is clear this time, to make sure we get Devil Bush the hell out. In fact, G.W. should be hauled off to the Hague(sp?) and tried for war crimes.
Tax cuts for the wealthy, huh?
50% of the population pays at least 95% of the taxes. I realize this may make no sense to liberals, but when a tax cut comes, the people that actually PAY taxes will get something, while those that do NOT pay taxes will be left with the same situation. Also, if government is managed properly and wasteful spending is cut out (which neither party does well, which is completely and entirely awful), then no one should even notice with the exception of those who have some more money to spend.
Currently, I am middle class (programmer) and I received a nice return from the tax cuts and I honestly feel I can spend my money a heck of a lot more wisely than the government can for me. Let's go blow some more money on some random social program.
Who makes jobs?
- A) The wealthy?
- B) The businesses?
- C) The government?
If you answered C), as opposed to A) and B), then there is your problem. You are depending on the government for a hand out. Also, where do you think that hand out comes from? The loop starts by taking money from the tax payers, with the largest burden falling on the wealthy and larger businesses.Constantly scared? I am not scared. Maybe you pansy liberals are, but I am willing to fight for my country.
Stupid. Interesting, trying to give people a better education and then GUARANTEEING it is stupid. That other stuff you mentioned is a social issue and simply has to do with the interests of the week.
Please tell me that you are not a programmer or in a position that can influence software architecture.
Oh I know, we could turn around and take all of the money from the wealthy and give it to teachers!! After all, they work from 8:30 AM to 3:15 PM with a free class period [no students] (in my state at least), plus a 45 minute break ["flex" in my area], plus an hour lunch, for 180 days a year, minus canceled days (every other 5 canceled school days do not have to made up in my state). Who wants to do the Math on a teacher's hourly wages and then justify a raise for them.
Clinton didn't have a majority of the vote, but he did have a clear plurality (ie: he got more votes than anyone else). While a better vote-counting system (such as Approval or Condorcet) might be nice, a first-past-the-post system based on the popular vote would have unambiguously selected Clinton as the winner.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
International Election Monitors Arrive in the U.S.1 704a.h tm
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR09
Or is this more of the media's misguided use of terminology and its application whenever they report "Democracy". Does it really mean "Republic"?
As someone correctly clarified in a nested post, we are a democratic republic. However, in the end, we are basically a republic.
Of course, I imagine the media's handling of the word "Democracy," is tantamount to their handling of the word "Communism," of which there has never been a true implementation.
Democracy has a certain feel-good rhetoric... it is just easier to carry out the misunderstood application of the term than to bother to correct it for people.
I mean, when more people can't name the vice President than can, I don't think they bother about making sure to say "republic," which sounds so much more un-nice than "democracy" does.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms."
Frankly I am amazed by the hostility towards Europe while this is only about a European organization which was *invited* by the US to have a look. I have seen several remarks telling Europe to fsck off, references made to Hitler and all sorts of other rude stuff. Why? Does your US#1 propaganda show more cracks?
As a European let me say this: your election in Florida was the best Disney show I ever saw. I do not know of any other country in the Western world where the Governor helps his brother become President who then abuses his newly acquired power to start all sorts of wars, helps his rich buddies get richer and sends the economy spiraling down.
It will not take long before China & Europe stop financing your ridiculous deficit and demand cold cash. That's when the US will collapse and sadly be probably an even better reality show than Jeb & George do Florida. This threat should concern you much more than the OCSE coming over. Think about what is happening with the economy of your country, the serious danger the US deficit poses and how you can make a difference with your vote.
Worst of all, the person who posted this story doesn't even realize he is living in a republic. It may have a lot of democratic processes, especially at the state level, but it's first and foremost a republic.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
And on a small sidenote... the OCSE is not exactly the EU..
Yeah, I know we Europeans are confusing.. but really, the USA is a member of the OCSE and not of the EU for as far as I am aware of..
You're believing Michael Moore about this, aren't you? This is one of his many lies. Witnesses on the spot have a different story.
Spread your disinformation elsewhere. Here's a video that shows every instant from the moment Anderew Card whispered in Bush's ear until Bush got out of his chair.
First we have to build an awareness of the manipulation put over on people via "patriotism" and worship of the constitution and rich people, celebrities, etc.
To do that, you have to get into the minds of people via mass media. Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, the mass media is closed to anything but vapid gossip and horseracing aspects of campaigns. No surprise, there....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
So let me get this straight. The United States can go around sticking it's nose into other countries business, telling people how to live and what to think. Basically telling other countries that they have to toe the line as dictated by the U.S. yet when the same standard is applied to the United States there are howls of indignation? So tell me what are we trying to hide?
You wrote "The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy. "
What planet are you living on? The USA may be a fairly stable democracy, but you can't compare the country that has events like the Los Angeles riots, the twin tower terror attacks and regular civil unrest with places like New Zealand or Australia. Democractic the US may be, but stable? Give me a break.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Well, if the U.S. had not entered Europe then Stalin would probably have beat Hitler on his own. Whether or not US aid made a difference is a separate question, I guess.
As for Japan, Mao's guerillas and the Nationalist army had fought the Japanese to a standstill; Japan was only in control of the big cities at the height of its conquest. It's possible that if Japan had not attacked the US it might have been able to conquer a chunk of China but it really had bitten off more than it could chew.
I would say, it's doubtful that Japan and Germany would have gone on to conquer the U.S.; they were so overextended and unrealistic in their goals. People talk about the limits of American power today, but it would have been even more true of these governments back then.
Anyway, my basic point was that the U.S. is kin and cousin to Europe and has helped promote democracy on every continent. The vitriol and hostility emanating from Western Europe today as regards U.S. military actions in the world are therefore all the more poignant.
I guess the person who modded my original post as "troll" disagrees with Bush's policies. Heh. He just helped make my point; the country is really divided down the middle, and bitterly.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
You do realize that you are suggesting that a model democracy WOULD have broken into civil war over a close election. That is absurd.
Can you guess where this quote comes from?
"When a government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..."
I realize this may make no sense to liberals, but when a tax cut comes, the people that actually PAY taxes will get something, while those that do NOT pay taxes will be left with the same situation.
And let's just ignore for a minute the numerous ways for people who have money to shelter it from taxation.
Currently, I am middle class (programmer) and I received a nice return from the tax cuts and I honestly feel I can spend my money a heck of a lot more wisely than the government can for me.
And yet you utterly fail to address the problem. Tax cuts for the middle class? Sure, why not? At least they'll spend the money. A tax cut of $1000 to someone making $35,000 a year is most likely all going to be spent. That's great for th economy. A tax cut of $100,000 for someone making $3.5 million is likely not going to be spent at the local Wal-Mart.
If you answered C), as opposed to A) and B), then there is your problem.
First off, the government is one of the largest employers in the country. The increased "threat" of terrorism has created a bunch of new jobs. But you're right -- this is the completely wrong way to go about doing things.
with the largest burden falling on the wealthy and larger businesses
No, sorry. The burden most definately falls on those in the middle to lower income bracket.
Maybe you pansy liberals are, but I am willing to fight for my country.
You fear betrays you. You're all hell-bent on a fight, but where, exactly, is the enemy? Why so angry?
Interesting, trying to give people a better education and then GUARANTEEING it is stupid.
Clearly an education major. If you have done the slightest bit of reading you'd know that No Child Left Behind is an utter failure because the federal government is unwilling to fund any of the initiatives they put forth.
That other stuff you mentioned is a social issue and simply has to do with the interests of the week.
No, the other stuff is simply indicitive of a society that has been conned into believing true happiness only comes when YOU WIN (boo-ya!) and someone else LOSES (boo-ya!) because you have MORE STUFF than the other guy (boo-ya!) and they're all just a bunch of LAZY, CRY-BABIES (boo-ya!).
Survival of the fittest, right? Well, in your profession, the fittest are a few thousand miles to the east. Hope you've been saving your duckets.
Oh I know, we could turn around and take all of the money from the wealthy and give it to teachers!!
Oh, THAT'S what we're doing with all that money. I was WONDERING where it all went! It's the damned teachers, with their damned million-dollar salaries.
Please tell me that you are not a programmer or in a position that can influence software architecture.
Don't you know anything about capitalism? I'm a consumer. That influences software architecture a hell of a lot more than some code-monkey churning out lines of code under the heavy yolk of his masters (mostly accountants). Don't worry, you'll have plenty of opportunities to try out different careers once your job is relocated to India.
Please defend how school vouchers keep a population constantly stupid? We all agree that the current school system is woefully under-educating our children. There are three options to solve that: A)build a new public system, b)reform the old one, or c) seek assistance from the private sector. Apparently you and others who are adamantly opposed to school vouchers chose D: throw more money at it. NCLB is Ted Kennedy sponsored reform of that system which has its flaws, but it does have some positive effects. School vouchers http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/09/01/dc.school. vouchers.ap/ are loved by the parents in poor districts, because witht hem their children have the option to escape the inefficaint poorly performing public schools. At the same time, the $/student average for the public schools goes up because the waiver only covers 7500 of the 13K per student spent.
Thoughts?
What happens when OSCE is compromised, granting that it has not happened already?
The USA is a far different animal from Congo or Kazakhstan. There are counties in the USA, many of them, with greater GDP than all OSCE surveyed nations minus the new guy. There's a lot of money, and power, at stake, more than would ever be in the case of Congo, etc.
You know the old adage about security, that any thief with enough a) time and b) resources can prevail against even the toughest security systems. So, if we're going to assume that one of the big players in this upcoming election has an interest in rigging it, we have a serious problem because they control a lot of resources, and have a lot of time.
Humans are always the softest point of penetration or exploit for any supposedly secure system. Compromise the humans in charge of security (and security auditing), and you don't need to worry about protocols, machines or other barriers.
The solution required is much more difficult than hiring a supposed or currently neutral body (composed of individual, corruptible humans). One possibility is transparency, but that comes with almost as many problems as an audit - maybe more. The best solution would be a decentralization of political parties - the more individual political units with autonomous resources, the harder it is to divert resources at any one choke point. But, and apologies for Godwinning my own self, that comes with the problem of minority extremists gaining access to undue political power, as happened in Germany with the Nazi party.
Another solution which could avoid, or at least contain, the Nazi party problem, might be dissolution of the US Federal government and reorganization of individual states into smaller Federations (even monostate Federations). Abe Lincoln was dead set against this, even if the Founders weren't, but these days I don't think there's much chance of a US Federation starting a slave empire. Obviously the problem here is implementation, though.
Why?
Why I respond to an AC who will never see the response is beyond me ;-)
Have you noticed that you have a strange, unaccoutable desire to nuke your Linux install and put XP on your computer?
When you see a picture of Bill Gates, do you find yourself wanting to grovel?
Tech Public Policy stuff
I am surprised that no metion was made yet of the obvious Richard Daley
The US is NOT "a confederation of 50 sovereign nations."
That may have been true under the Articles of Confederation, or if you want to stretch things, before the Great Depression, but after the New Deal, federal power far outweights state power. The 1960's Civil Rights movemement and the addition of the "equal protection" and "due process" clauses made damn sure that Federal power quashed any remnants of State control. Through those two clauses and "Interstate Commerce," Congress can get anything it wants through to supercede State control.
Only recently, with the conservative backlash of the 1980's do we see a slight advancement of State's right's, but it's still in a crappy
state. (no pun)
Just so this isn't totally off-topic, the founding fathers did not institute a popular vote system because they believe in a Republican form of government; Jefferson, Madison, and Washington all found the idea of a total democracy abhorrent - in no way did they want the "common rabble" to vote for the highest office of the land. before the 19th century, the Senate was even not directly elected. The core belief of a Republican (Republican in the form of the Constitution of Pennsylvania Republican, not GWB Republican - big difference) form of government lies in a very few virtuous citizens making decisions for the rest; in NO way did any of the framers of the Constitution want the common people to have a large say in the world - and dear god, especially not minorities or women.
Basically, because they drain much-needed funds that could go to the public school system itself. The "stupid" part comes from the fact that most (not all, but most) private schools are religious, and spend a good portion of their time indoctrinating young people as to why their Invisible Boogie-Man is better than the others. Public funds taken through federal taxation should not be used to put forward religious agendas. See: separation of church and state.
Don't get me wrong -- if the only thing that school vouchers did was make the public schools get their act together, that'd be fine in my book. Unfortunately, there are unintended side-effects that are more socially ruinous than the benefits.
The (main) problems I have with vouchers are:
Who else is not surprised?
What exactly do you know about the OECD? Attacking this institution without any facts to back you up makes you just sound like a very shrill xenophobe.
I guess you mean the same Haider that visited and comforted Saddam shortly before the US invaded? The same guy who still believes his good old buddy Saddam could have never been stupid enough to be captured by the US?
Silly European countries to be upset that such a freak gets so many votes in Austria.
but all I could find lots of rhetoric from every possible angle. Americans trashing the article, Europeans enjoying the opportunity to trash talk, and lots of insults to go around, few of which are even remotely related to the article at hand, and since I don't have 800 moderator points, I will comment instead.
The facts are simple, The US has the longest continuous democratic government in the world. So the comment stable government is accurate in that sense.
However, since it is old, and politicians have been writing the laws for so long to their own advantage, it is a very complicated process in which the laws of each state, can have an impact in how a president of the country is elected. Granted the parlimentary system can get very complicated, and back room deals are critical for a majority to be reached, just ask Italy about that.
No democracy is perfect, and it is safe to say that there has never been a national election in which cheating, mistakes, and outright stupidty on someones part did not cause inaccuracy in the numbers.
Now the European monitors will have no actual authority to do anything. US law, and courts will control all aspects, as it should be. They will see a very boring election in the respect that it will be a bunch of normal people going to the polls on the first Tuesday of November. There will not be gangs outside beating people who do not vote the way they want. No one will feel like they were pressured into voting a certain way, it will be a stable election.
Now if it close again, then the lawyers will get involved, and then the bloodbath will begin. So let them watch. Nothing they could say will match the level of hysteria that media will propagate over every little bit (literally) of ridiculous trash they can find, and in the end, there will still be a peaceful transition of power if Kerry wins, and a peaceful continuation if Bush wins. That is what it is all about.
It's been 144 years since the US failed to have a peaceful transistion based on an election. I think it will be ok.
I know that it's yet more sideshow to distract us while they do their "now you see it, now you don't". Isn't that enough?
Is this some kind of joke? How is this flame-bait? I don't get it.
Yes, that's exactly what it means.
I would agree that the US is, historically, the "most stable" democracy. The only large-scale, contemporary (i.e. not counting the ancients), early contenders would be the British and the French (yes, the Swiss, but they're not large-scale).
The British have had a sort-of representative government (Parliament) for, well, a long time -- many hundreds of years (perhaps you could count starting at the Magna Carta, in some sense). However, for the great bulk of that time, Britain has been only weakly democratic -- only the privileged could vote, and the monarchy exerted very strong power. Gradually, moving toward the end of the 1800's, then through the early 1900's, Britain evolved toward what we would today consider to be "true democracy". And it was a very stable transition. No nasty revolutions, civil wars, etc.
By contrast, the US dived head-first into something close to full-out democracy, over 200 years ago. One could say about 100 years earlier than the British. Yes, there were no votes for slaves or women -- but still, the "common man" ruled, which was dramatic and new -- truly radical! With the exception of one major crisis -- the Civil War -- the country has been remarkably stable. One could offer up reasons (e.g. the "splendid isolation" of North America), but could just as well offer up uniquely destabilizing challenges (massive influx of heterogeneous immigrants). For whatever reasons, the fact is that the US democratic system has been very stable for over 200 years. No other (large) country can really compete with that.
Look at the French, to get a glimpse of a possible "alternative history" -- to see how unstable the process of democratization can be. First the trauma of the French Revolution. Then the Napoleonic Wars. Then continuing backsliding with Napoleon III. Or look at Russia! Just absolute _chaos_ in the Russian Revolution, followed by decades of tyrrany.
The process of the "common man" taking over power from the privileged elite is inherently a traumatic one. It can go very, very badly, and take a long time to stabilize. Truly, the American experience stands out from the crowd.
Dude. I have honestly no idea what you are talking about.
For your information, the U.S. has allready admitted to having large amounts of weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear weapons, ready for use. The U.S. and Russia also keep reference samples of biological agents for use in counteracting biological weapons.
You may be interested to know that there are actually inspection/monitoring systems set up to monitor test ban treaties and such. So yes, the U.S. might be inspected, but I'm not sure it would be by the U.N. but rather by other states.
The U.N. Headquarters is situated in the larges city in the U.S. The open nature of the U.S. society, and the seismiological and radiological monitoring stations around the world help to reveal any test of a nuclear weapon on the planet. If I recall correctly, there is allready in place an agreement not to use nuclear weapons in space. New nuclear powers and any alien governments haven't signed that treaty.
Not specifically related to WMD, is the Open Skies Treaty, which allows other countries to do reconnaissance flights over the U.S.
(The moderators said this was Interesting, so you get a matter-of-fact reply.)
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
This is in no way meant to be a flame or troll post, but I am very curious as to why the US does not have compulsory voting.
I am sure there are reasons for not having it, but I cannot think of them.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit too late - the stable door is open and the bush has already bolted.
Better late than never I guess.
If I'm in florida, and I vote for Gore, along with 49.9% of my fellow floridians, how is it fair that nearly 50% of us have our vote count for crap?
If I'm in a state full right wing whackos (as I am), I might as well not vote, because vote or no vote, my say is worth exactly CRAP.
Explain to me how that is the best system? How is a system in which the majority does not, in fact rule, even a reasonable democracy?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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You might want to cover elementary English punctuation and capitalization rules.
The foundations of democracy has never been in the USA.
A strawman attack, since that's not what was argued.
There are many country's were everyone over a certain age has to vote, this voting is not just federal its state and council elections. That to me helps insure that the majority of a society decides their own government. That is a crucial part of Democracy and USA doesn't have it.
Where does the US not let everyone vote?
USA is also a country that has a heavy lean towards Privatisation and Commercialization.
Yes. Just because you're a democracy, doesn't mean you need to be a socialist state.
Take the actions of the "Florida 2000 fiasco". [...] Yet hardly any American's cared.
Lots of Americans cared. You think it was only covered in non-US media? But in the end of the day, we had two canidates running neck to neck; no matter who won, no great crime to democracy was done.
That is what democracy is about so going to war for democracy is a contradiction.
So Britain shouldn't have fought in World War I or II? Should the US have ignored Hitler? Sometimes you have to fight to protect yourself and other innocent people.
to compare even their so called 'Liberal Media' it's extremely bias
I.e. you disagree with it. There's no bias-free viewpoint of the world.
After Sept 11, USA media was saying the 'world had changed' 'the world has changed!', But the reality is nothing had changed.
So all those reports about people dieing were just lies, huh? Yes, the impact was more social and psychological then physical, but it doesn't mean that stuff hadn't changed.
You only need to look at any world event, You'll notice that USA generally has a different view to the rest of the world, Why do you think that is?
You only need to look at any world event and you'll notice that Europe generally has a different view of it than the rest of the world does. The US is a large cultural block; of course it has its own viewpoint. Or do you really think the Chinese and Arabs agree with the European viewpoint on everything.
Take Cuba for example, Most of the world see Cuba as a country that had a social revolution lead by Fedel Castro and Che Guevara. Yet Americans tend to think of them as dictators.
Pope John Paul II doesn't see it as a "social revolution". It's "long been a one-party state" (according to Human Rights Watch), so Castro looks a lot like a dictator to me. And again, just if Americans tend to disagree with the rest of the world, doesn't mean they aren't democratic.
Take Iraq, Most Americans belive in their war for democracy, yet most of the world don't.
I question "most Americans" here. Once more, this has nothing to do with whether or not Americans are democratic, it has to do whether Americans agree with the world.
i belive it's because of extreme bias media.
I've seen a reproduction of a pamphlet lauding Charles the II and the monarchy, published in the 1600s. Does the fact the viewpoint the pamphlet express is nowhere to be seen in modern society mean that the media of that day and culture was extremely biased, or rather does it mean that the people of that culture held a different viewpoint than we do, and that the media of the time and place may well have offered a balanced selection of the viewpoints common in that society?
I don't see any founded facts for saying USA is the worlds most stable democracy.
Is that what you're discussing? It's funny, because I see little to nothing discussing the stability of the American democracy. No discussion that it's been a democracy of some sort for 230 years, that it's been through one civil war, but the parts not in rebellion had democracy throughout it. It's certainly one of the longest running democracies (Britain by no means being democratic until at least the mid-nineteenth century), but it certainly has its rough points, and the citizens seem to have lost a lot of faith in the system. You could discuss stuff like that, but you would rather give the "why I despise the US" speech, wouldn't you.
...but it's still in a crappy
state.
South Carolina? Ha ha.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
The 2204 election will be challenged in a court of law if Bush wins. The Democrats are already planning to do this.
I was at a party last night, and being in San Fransisco, it was assumed I was a loyal Kerry supporter. So they invited me to a fundraiser next week for a legal challenge fund. "For every dollar we raise, that's one more dollar we can use in the campaign instead of having to save for the challenge." This was the first I had ever heard of this fund, so I inquired more about it.
To many this fund may come as no surprise. But to a lot of us it's a shocking display of politics at its worst. Active fund raising parties are being held NOW for funds that will almost certainly be used in a challenge! It was made clear to me that a legal challenge WILL be issued if Bush wins the election, and it might even be issued before the polls eve close. Florida is the normal target state, but other states were mentioned as well.
p.s. I am not a Bush supporter. When I explained to the inviters that I was a Libertarian, they didn't care, because they assumed I was going to vote for Kerry anyway. When I explained further that I still wasn't going to vote for him, they started looking at me like something dead the cat drug in.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Everytime I read about USA politics in many sites I don't find people defending Bush's administration, but the public polls shows a different situation. What happens? Republicans don't use computers? And no, I don't like Bush.
Public funds taken through federal taxation should not be used to put forward religious agendas. See: separation of church and state. Can you please point out where in any founding document where there is a seperation of church and state the way you define it? The best I can do is " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; " And allowing a parent to send their child to a religious school with public subsidies neither establishes a religion nor prohibits the free excercise of any religion. And regardless, that doesn't apply to non-religious schools, which I willa ssume you address with your other points. Private schools have less accountability Correct there is no formal accountability in the big government sense, but they are responsible to the children and the parents. Private schools aren't successful because people HAVE to go there, they have to operate to the satisfaction of the parents. And under NCL has a host of accountability issues they have to satisfy in order to be eligible for NCLB vouchers. Private schools are allowed to discriminate (particularly religious schools) Not under NCLB. Good try. But even if they did, how does this prevent children frpom going to another school? The distribution of vouchers is unequal (for example, in D.C. the income cut-off is $35k -- what happens to the middle-class families forced to use the public schools that are now underfunded?) The DC run is a trial, and if successful, will be spread out to the entire poulation. And your second assertion is false. Assuming that the schols is underfunded is a gross inaccuracy, I;ll let you in on a little math. Say DC has 10,000 students at 12K http://nationalreview.com/comment/lukas20031120085 8.asp/ is $120,000,000
1000 use funded vouchers of 7,500 to go ot private schools brinign the totals to 9,000 and $112,500,000. That's an average of $12,500 per students. So now we have a better funded school, with less 10% less crowding and 10% less demand for materials.
As with any economic system, an increase in students with vouchers will likely result in a rise in tuition rates for said schools, which means you're right back to square one. Unless you don't mind raising taxes to increase the money we give to students in vouchers to afford the increased school costs
How is this in line with any economic system? The number of schools is not fixed, and it can grow with demand. Many schools have tuition far below the voucher level, so even a raise in tuition would go unnoticed to the parents. With the increased demand at a fixed price, schools will fill that gap. Using very poor economic rhetoric does very little to show you've thought about this at all.
these google links pop up a nasty image like tubgirl, which moves around the screen.
And this is with Mozilla 1.7.3 - I'm *sure* I had turned off most of the javascript stuff - are the preferences wiped when you upgrade?
grr..
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Guess it would be too much to say that neither side played fair or nice in the 2000 election. They are both politicians after all. Either way I'd say we were fucked from the beginning.
Someone hates these cans.
For clarity:
Public funds taken through federal taxation should not be used to put forward religious agendas. See: separation of church and state.
Can you please point out where in any founding document where there is a seperation of church and state the way you define it? The best I can do is " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; " And allowing a parent to send their child to a religious school with public subsidies neither establishes a religion nor prohibits the free excercise of any religion.
And regardless, that doesn't apply to non-religious schools, which I willa ssume you address with your other points.
Private schools have less accountability
Correct there is no formal accountability in the big government sense, but they are responsible to the children and the parents. Private schools aren't successful because people HAVE to go there, they have to operate to the satisfaction of the parents. And under NCL has a host of accountability issues they have to satisfy in order to be eligible for NCLB vouchers.
Private schools are allowed to discriminate (particularly religious schools)
Not under NCLB. Good try. But even if they did, how does this prevent children frpom going to another school?
The distribution of vouchers is unequal (for example, in D.C. the income cut-off is $35k -- what happens to the middle-class families forced to use the public schools that are now underfunded?)
The DC run is a trial, and if successful, will be spread out to the entire poulation. And your second assertion is false. Assuming that the schols is underfunded is a gross inaccuracy, I;ll let you in on a little math.
Say DC has 10,000 students at 12k is $120,000,000 1000 use funded vouchers of 7,500 to go ot private schools brinign the totals to 9,000 and $112,500,000. That's an average of $12,500 per students. So now we have a better funded school, with less 10% less crowding and 10% less demand for materials.
As with any economic system, an increase in students with vouchers will likely result in a rise in tuition rates for said schools, which means you're right back to square one. Unless you don't mind raising taxes to increase the money we give to students in vouchers to afford the increased school costs
How is this in line with any economic system? The number of schools is not fixed, and it can grow with demand. Many schools have tuition far below the voucher level, so even a raise in tuition would go unnoticed to the parents. With the increased demand at a fixed price, schools will fill that gap. Using very poor economic rhetoric does very little to show you've thought about this at all.
The ONLY people I want voting are the ones who care enough to get out and do it on their own. The unmotivated are more likely to be seduced by superficial last-minute appeals for their votes.
I was saying 3rd world to make a point. And actually, Yugoslavia, a former country in Europe, was defined by many as third world.
Europe is decades too late in instituting monitoring of US elections. JFK's daddy already purchased a Presidential election from the Chicago mob, and "Landslide Lyndon" showed he was no slouch in this art. Oh, but wait. They were lefty democrats. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. Move right along until it is a Republican who is awarded a disputed election, based on the ballots tallied, and THEN start to monitor. Yeah. But if this attention can do anything to wipe out this idiotic unauditable electronic voting, I'm for it.
The difference between
Instead of introducing amendment after amendment why not rewrite it from scratch every hundred years or so? When even the dribbling amendment process doesn't get too many amendments passed, why would such a process be thought to be doable without grave questions about the actual popular consent to the new version? Further, why limit it to every 100 years? Why not every 10 or every 1 year, if the question is the age of the document? The virtue of the US Constitution alteration by amendment is that there is little question whether broad public consent to the new version was achieved by the amendment process and by the failure of new suggestions to be adopted but rather becoming failed amendments. This is likely to be absent where you have single Consitutional Conventions intended to rewrite the whole thing, with the usual morons marching outside the convention site, the usual spin doctors at work, the usual ratings hoopla from the "news reporters" covering it, etc etc.
The difference between
Wow. I guess you get to call Kerry a douchebag but nobody else is allowed to call Bush one huh?
Typical republinazi. They can dish it out but they can't take it. Pussies.
As for me I think the days of the peaceful liberals are over. It's time we adopted the republitard tactics. Yes that means dragging them behind cars and crucifiying them alongside the highways.
evil is as evil does
Maybe the real problem is that the federal government has too much power. When the system was designed, the intent was that the federal government would mediate trade between states. From this stance, electoral college makes a lot of sense. If the state is to be represented, then it makes sense that representatives from the state should vote for president. Moreover, the executive branch was never meant to have as much power as it does. The stated mission of the executive is to carry out the will of the legislature (as in enforcement).
Unfortunately, as the federal government has become more and more powerful, the state and local governments have become less and less powerful. Likewise, as the executive branch has become more and more powerful, the legislature has become less and less powerful. It's drifted so far in this direction that most voters don't even care about state and local issues at all. The only election many people follow is the presidential election. It really makes sense that this would lead to parties, since all the eggs are in one basket groups of people are more willing to support a candidate who doesn't support some of their values, simply to ensure that other values will be supported. The ultimate extension of this the existence of only two parties.
Perhaps the best solution for states to stand up to the federal government and say "no, you can't hold federal funding over us because we gave that money to you in the first place".
Or maybe, we should do away with the elected president entirely and just have congress hire someone to be the CEO of the government. That way, if he gets out of line, they could just fire him and get someone else. Also, they'd be drawing from a slightly more talented pool than they are now.
I really don't like the direct representation idea. It draws attention away from state and local governments. People in different states often have different values, needs, and desires. I don't believe that one large government could ever be versatile enough to give everyone in the US what they need. It's not fair that conservative states like Texas or Alaska should have to suffer under liberal presidents, and it's not fair that liberal states like California and New York should have to suffer under conservative presidents.
This is the best voting system I have found : instant runoff voting Check it out.
That's news to the people of Chicago, where Richard Daley was famous for finding all of the neccessary votes the Dems needed in the basement of city hall. Or Louisiana, where so many dead people come out to vote, some residents call the election Second Halloween. Both of these places are longtime democratic strongholds. Even in some places in Alabama, there are irregularities in every single election in some democrat-dominated area with voters that voted, but wonder of wonder, also appear to be deceased. And whenever a serious effort is made to purge the voter lists of the deceased in these areas, a huge stink is made about how this is just a back-door way for whites to intimidate black voters. So don't tell me democrats don't cheat. Not all, certainly, but some are old hands at it.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
He definitely is in near-catatonic withdrawal. Out of his depth.
And keep holding your breath. That may help. Are you suggesting that it's not a problem when the CIC freezes when informed of an attack? Somehow I don't think I'd hear that argument if the Other Candidate had been in office.
The CIC is supposed to lead, even when his underlings don't tell him what to do.
I'm not going to download the video on my dialup connection
Riigghhhhht. So since the evidence to the contrary is too... big?... then you must be right anyway. Open your mind to alternate ideas... that's an essential part of thinking. You don't have to agree with your opponents, but you _do_ have to appreciate their arguments. I mean you should do this if you want other people to take your arguments seriously.
Imagine two people shouting at each other, and neither listening to a word the other is saying. It's obvious that there's something wrong with this situation... perhaps if each took turns talking, and trying to understand what each other is saying; well then they'd get somewhere. They may never agree, but for the purposes of arguing, they would be successful.
About the principal... if he's half the republican you are (and he was invovled in a protomotional event, GWBush's photo opportunity), then you can take what he says with a grain of salt. The guy who whispered the news in his ear wasn't as "flatering" to Bush's reaction.
WATCH THE VIDEO
Bush did say:
"important to project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening"
but the question is do you believe him? He's a politician talking about a sensitive issue in the public eye... do you think he would have told the whole truth?
You can see him pretending to read the book, like he's unconfortable around children and doesn't know what to do. I think he was disturbed by the news, and froze, and eventually someone had to tell him that "we're ready to go".
If he had any backbone at all, he would have instantly abandoned the photo opportunity... "Sorry kids, but I've just received an important message", and gone and found out more information about what was happening. Hell, he could have called anybody in the country who could tell him what was going on.
I think part of the problem with his mindset at the time... he'd been on holiday pretty much constantly since gaining office.
I don't vote for any particular party... so please don't take my comments to be partisan. Open your eyes to how your political system works. Maybe you'll work out that the president doesn't really run the show.
The assumption seems to be that had Bush lept into action immediately, something would have gone differently that day. I breathlessly await a description of how.
This is erroneous, and based a little on hind-sight. You are correct that nothing much would have changed if he'd "lept into action". But Bush didn't know that when he heard the news - nobody did. He's the president, and in a national emergency he may be required to make a decision. Thus either it wasn't an emergency (do you believe that?), or the president isn't needed to do anything in an emergency. Do you see the distinction with you question? Hindsight has a wonderful way of changing the picture doesn't it =)
Bush (and Clinton) could have done something about terrorism eariler, because their own intelligence experts were warning of "an attack". They didn't, and that's past. I agree that nothing would have happened differently on-the-day if Bush lept into action, but the whole event highlights just how much of a puppet he really is.
A great leader would have been... "great"; Bush was completely lame.
You might argue that invading Iraq and Afganistan was the great "vision", and a crucial thrust in the War on Terror. Many believe that. Some guy was telling me that those Iraqis won't be a threat any more, and while the US is there, they should take care of Iran and a few more muslims too.
_You_ may believe that what the Republicans did was right, both on 9/11 and since. But most of the world (and many Americans) believe it's a croke of #$%@ designed to help the Republicans get re-elected (read a history book). The election and the phantom Iraqi WMD have pretty much destroyed the US's credability abroad, and the wo
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
All types of criminals and sociopaths would chose to go along with the tofu eating, group-hugging libertines, knowing, of course, they wouldn't stand a chance with the nasty conservatives. They would terrorize the peace-niks in no time at all. That side would become a pirate state, or, if they're lucky, would be rescued by their estranged brethren.
I quote:
The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy
Not known that way by me anyway. Not even before the Gore/Bush fiasco. What the hell is this "register to vote" nonsense about anyway? In the Netherlands, as I'm sure in many European countries, you don't need to register to vote. The country knows my name and sends me a little tiny voting-form automatically. I need not ask for this myself. Everybody in the country gets it. This makes it easier for people to vote, thus more people will vote.
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the more eyes, the better @@
I'm not American so I might just be missing something but when did Liberal become a dirty word?
Alcee Hastings.
Yes THAT Alcee hastings. The one that got removed from the bench for conspiracy and bribery, IIRC in the 1980's.
He is a Democrat, and a political activist.
I doubt we will see any impartiality from the OCSE given whom they have chosen as the leadership here. The Republicans are probably already getting dossiers together to discredit this guy.
They should have at least come up with a couple of impartial Europeans (say, Scotland, Denmark) instead of a corruptable US politician.
SO no matter what they find out, having that guy associated with it provides any Republican an automatic "attack the attacker" bias claim defense.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Iceland has had a parliament since the 10th century.
Have a look at other histories besides American ones to see which countries have had democratic institutions for a period of time.
"If I [remember], in Florida and elsewhere, there were a lot of blacks that were turned away from voting and this did not look good to the rest of the world..."
If I rememeber correctly, it's suspected that someone whose job was to remove ineligible voters from the lists removed everyone with the same or similar name or alias to the person to be removed. Accounting for last names like Johnson, Smith, Thompson, and other particularly common ones that's a lot of people.
If something like that happens again with any kind of real quantity of the electorate I'll be in favor of extending voting rights to anyone who is a citizen who registers, with convicted felons serving their terms simply unable to physically get to the polls to cast their ballot as the disenfranchising part of their loss of rights. Yes, this would allow parolled and probationed ex-cons to vote, but if they're physically among the populace then we're not exactly doing much more than requiring them to pop in and say, "hello" from time to time. They may as well be included if it prevents this level of crap again.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Sorry, but I'm supposed to trust some toothless european agency with ulterior motives any more?
No, you aren't. You can trust whoever you like.
But the OSCE members might like to know whether they can trust US democracy, and that's why it makes sense for them to look for themselves.
is it possible for fake votes?
If yes,then no harm in monitoring.
If it feels its a insult if europeans monitor,then america is insulting them.
Sorry, you're incorrect too. Ironically, it's only the recount Gore wanted that would result in a Bush win - a recount in every county results in a Gore win. There's a lesson there about being a statesman rather than a politician...
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Let the courts decide which field belongs to which candidate
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
First we have to build an awareness of the manipulation put over on people via "patriotism" and worship of the constitution and rich people, celebrities, etc.
You should know that just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean that they are manipulated. As shown on the example below, it seems that you overuse the words such as "The Corporate Establishment", "Rich People", "well-funded media propaganda", "manipulation", "SLAVE SOCIETY", "propaganda bought by the rich and the corporations"
It's funny how you stated that "rightwing/libertarian moderators are intolerant of opposing viewpoints" when your own journal shows how you are intolerant of opposing viewpoints. And unlike you, I don't keep a list of "foes" on my slashdot account because people who disagree with me does not become my "foe", including you.
From the journal of Cryofan
Slashdot has stopped running stories on the outsourcing of tech jobs to Asia. THey also no longer run stories on the h1b visa scam. Why? Because slashdot is now part of The Corporate Establishment. Have you noticed the flood of stories about how RIAA and the Justice Dept are cracking down on file sharers?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
The dictionary definitions of "democracy" and "republic" both apply to the US. In fact, they apply to just about any Western democracy.
But make no mistake. We won't forget this.
Please don't. And don't just remember it, learn from it too. You know, to make less mistakes in the future.
Okay, this discussion is heading for a prolonged pointless quarrel, and I couldn't ever be arsed. Fortunately those (North) Americans I have the pleasure of knowing are quite different from you. Great folks, and ones I have reason to admire. The things they have enabled me to really learn about USA have given me reason to admire the country, too. You know, always pros and cons, things to fix, where-ever you are in the world...
[By the way, Kerry is popular in Europe not directly because of his views on the world, but his affable manner. You just gotta love the big guy who doesn't show any ego problem. Compare this to slashdotters' attitude toward the IBM of the past (an evil empire of management and lawyers) and the IBM of the present (still strictly business but champions of open source): there is something of a similarity.]
er.. yeah.. why AREN'T those who are out of prison eligible to vote?
:D
oh, i bet the republicans would be really against that.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Really.
So what does, "We won't forget this.", mean exactly? Next you'll invade Aberdeen to get access to (what's left) of north sea oil in a bid to liberate the Scots from the yoke of Blair the dictator?
You're a funny man. Go militia boy go!
If I understand matters, until the Court considers your debt to society paid your civil rights are partially suspended. If you are on parole you have no reasonable expectation of privacy compared to any given person, and you are held to the highest standards of behavior and rules for what you are and are not allowed to do. In theory the Court should restore your civil rights once you are off parole, out of probation, or released from prison with all time considered served.
Sexual predator and sex offender registries complicate matters, as this is another condition upon the individual that lasts past any prison term, parole, or probationary period. I don't quite know how I feel about it, though I wonder if they would be better served to simply redefine the punishments for the crimes to include permanent probation or parole instead of the current registry terms, for right now it gives the impression of continuing to punish the convicted person after after we've otherwise indicated that their punishment is officially considered concluded. They are people, after all, so maybe in addition to the punitive part of their sentence they should be required to undergo psychological help or some kind rehabilitation to help deal with the problems, rather than leaving them to their own devices. It seems to be a broken system right now.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
But technical security of the voting system is hardly the only problem. You're also opening the door for people to complain that the voting didn't work for them at some point after the election. (eg. Connection was cut, display showed incorrect colours, keyboard was mapped badly, or whatever.) With no authorised officials present at voting to monitor the process, equipment, and help anyone who's having problems, there's no reliable way to guarantee that each person is equally capable of voting.
Another problem that's at least as big in a serious election is that there's no way to audit that every vote was cast anonymously and without coersion by third parties. eg. Pointing a gun at someone to name an extreme example, as is threatening someone of repurcussions if they don't return from the voting procedure with the "correct receipt".
Voting in national elections is one of the few places where I personally think that computer-technical solutions should be avoided unless they're really needed. As well as the problems above, 99% of the population simply aren't qualified to understand a counting process when it's done by a computer, and are forced to trust a small minority.
Compared with the concept of people counting pape votes that were deposited in a box while watched by representatives of all sides, the abstract nature of how digital voting and counting works is very difficult for most people to grasp. At the very least there should always be a simple variant of a paper trail produced at voting time, so the option for a mass-understood recount is always available. If a voting system is to be fair and representative, there have to be reasonable grounds for those using it to be able to trust that their votes are being counted properly to produce the result.
Letting people boot into something like a Knoppix-based system might make sure they're not infected by the Windows virus of the month, but it wouldn't solve any real problems with computer-based elections.
so i won't attempt any alternate history. The point is that he did nothing. It seems acceptable by all that Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, said to him "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." Opinions diverge at this point. Card later had this take on it:
Criminy! The US was under attack by persons/entities unknown and he did not bolt? The SS Red Team did not spring into action? WTF was going on here? He sat there for seven minutes completely outside communication* while this was unfolding. Appearing resolved for the cameras a few days later doesn't cut it. I can't fathom that he's been compared to Winston Churchill.**
The quote above is from this page which gives an account of Bush's actions that day. Interesting read. Is it factual? That's what we're trying to find out.
I'm not going to download the video on my dialup connection
i urge you to see the (entire) video. It's sobering.
* though supposedly, Ari Fleischer, his press secretary, wrote "DON'T SAY ANYTHING YET" and held it up for Bush to see. But that doesn't really count
** But it's funny for two reasons. Here's an interesting article about some parallels between events in America during ~1930--45 and those today.
*** the attribution to the herald-trib points to this link, which appears to no longer exist.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
surely britain get's that prize straight away?
i'm trying to give up sigs.
There's lots of partisan crap on this thread.
I want to attempt to put an end to it.
Admit, if you will, that there was a controversy regarding our last presidential election, some of it's methods, and it's results.
Therefore, why WOULDN'T an independant body be appropriate to looking into it?
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I don't think Yugoslavia is in charge of the OSCE. and what was the point? That you distain european nations and wish to inacurately belittle them?
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -Plato
Why do you immediately assume that? We're genuinely concerned about the political health of the US. Why such antagonism about that?
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
When Win95 came out MacHeads used to chide that "Windows95 = Mac89". Some wag (Be sage Erich Ringewald if I remember right) countered that, unfortunately, "Mac95 also = Mac89". The US hasn't moved it's democracy forward enough in the last few decades to stay competitive.
:-)
In fact, the centralization of the American mass media under the control of a few multi-national corporations has more or less made US democracy a bad joke. You might say the USDemocracy2004 = USDemocracy1972, but even that might be optimistic
"The US - a Beacon of Really Bad Political TV" doesn't quite have the same ring somehow...
Hello AC,
;-)
> (from reading a story about 3 weeks ago) that
> Wikipedia is not considered an authoritative
> source, ie, should not be used as a source for
> scholarly works.
My post is not anywhere near scholarly work quality
You can do your own research and try to nitpick what wikipedia has to say, however my post references other sources too, you can read what time.com and the Guardian have to say on Haider, so far no discrepancy.
Can you please point out where the words "fair trial" appear in any founding document? Oh, you can't. Know why? Because it's not mentioned anywhere. Does that matter? Not a bit.
Correct there is no formal accountability in the big government sense, but they are responsible to the children and the parents.
So, let the market decide, then? The almighty dollar is once again the force from which all good will spring forth?
Not under NCLB. Good try.
Have you READ the NCLB? Title IX: Equity -- Prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, or national origin. Notice something missing? Religious preference and gender. Now, I don't know what public schools are like in your neck of the woods, but in every state I've ever lived in, Muslim children and Christian children are permitted to learn together. Boys and girls, too. But nice try.
how does this prevent children frpom going to another school?
It doesn't, provided another school is an available option. Oh right, the market will decide whether a non-religious school should exist in Salt Lake City. Right. Well, I guess those few families that are affected can just move.
Assuming that the schols is underfunded is a gross inaccuracy, I;ll let you in on a little math.
Amazing. You sound consevative, yet what you advocate is essentially a giant welfare program for private schools. Can you please explain why want to replace one central plan with another central plan?
How is this in line with any economic system? The number of schools is not fixed, and it can grow with demand.
Sure it can. Just like private universities. And look at how fair and equal they are. Oh, but that's different, right?
And none of this addresses the main solution vouchers aim to satisfy -- specifically, what about the students? Many see vouchers as a magical salve that will cure whatever ills are creating poor students, yet studies show that there are no achievement gains between children attending private schools under voucher programs versus staying in public schools.
They will be delighted to know it is so easy to get in the nuke club: don't sign anything!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The part that *REALLY* pissed me off, is that it isn't the position of the U.S. Legislation to make such invitations.. it is the responsibility of the states themselves, and depending on what ends, could very well violate our (AZ) state constitution.
Although some here would just assume let even illegal aliens, and foreign nationals vote.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
There are MANY country's worldwide that are run by tyrants or governments that give less then 'American social standards' why aren't you taking upon yourself to free those country's?
Actually we do take it upon ourselves. We have organizations such as the CIA who go's into those countries and bring leaders of their chosing to power. It's more than just government organizations, there are private organizations who do this too so that they can have better 'product placement', which brings me to my next point.
it couldn't have anything to do with oil?.
Actually it probally has less to do with oil than you think. Though it's usually overlooked (at least not glorified as much as looking at all the poor people), but the middle east is has a very rich population which is due among other things to their oil.
Now, at least from my sheltered view, american corporations have a very weak foothold in the middle east, mostly due to the cultural differences. Now I bet you're thinking, "how can my corporation break the cultural barrier and be able to sell product in the middle east?" Well these corporations are the ones who really elect the president. This is done by: they chose someone to fund to run for presidency, but since the odds are only 50/50 that the person running is going to win (maybe only 45% if a third party finds some funding), why not fund two candidates that you can either have in your pocket, or at least have the same goals as you.
Now once you've got a your man in office, they attack one of the most culturally opposite countries that you can destroy. Doing this not only eliminates the loudest opposing voice, it sets you up for your next shot.
Now with the country defeated, they not only need to have a new leader (see above for details), they need to rebuild. But wait, why have them rebuild when there are companies in the united states who can make 100 times the amount a company in their own country could make (if you don't believe american companies really make much money from that, here's a little fact. American employers are paying the employees about 6 - 10 times the amount they normally pay the same employee plus room and board, to go overseas to devolping countries such as iraq).
Well now we've got the government and economy of one country under our thumb. And the surrounding middle eastern countries who have grown up (the individuals not the country) thinking country X are total extremists and hate america more than they do, but now see them as embracing american culture (no I don't think these surrounding countries are full of idiots who can't see these actions happen around them but, it's hard for them, or anyone to break old habits). So now, these countries can and will slowly start adopting american culture and american corperation profits will ballon.
Now I bet you're thinking, theirs no way any corporation is this is this powerful and theirs no way their's some sort of conspiracy going on that the world doesn't know about. And you're right, neither of these situations are true. But it doesn't need to be, all that needs to be there are a few large entities with the money and motivation to increase sales. There really doesn't need to be any sort of conspiracy because as soon as one entity takes a step blindly towards this, the next company will see the opprotunity to take another step and eventually it snowball's into this result. But a snowball effect to get a president elected wouldn't work... well no, it wont. What will work though is to fund a candidate that isn't going to make any rash decisions to hurt corporate america and who is also predictable and easily influenced.
Hey this is all starting to sound like that Michael Moore movie "corporations"! Well sorry about that if that's what your thinking, but hey corporations are what make people rich in this country. Not by being the CEO or anything, just by investing, and maybe investing enough into a few larger companies so you actually have a say in how
"The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy."
By Whom ?
At a quick guess I think that title goes to Iceland. Even the UK's civil war was quite a few years prior to the one in the US.
No but, yeah but, no but...
Wow... Where to begin...
Sorry, but I'm supposed to trust some toothless european agency with ulterior motives any more?
Who the hell are you to be so sure that the OCSE has ulterior motives? And since you seem to know so much about it, what are those motives?
The only one limiting the choice to Kerry and Bush is... you, the voters! You don't have to vote for the Republicrats, you know. There are other candidates, and yes, voting for them does make a difference!
The 2000 election was statistically a tie. Under any reasonable margin of error, the difference (under all counts, recounts, and whatever) was less than that margin of error. As any good scientist knows, most measurement systems have an accuracy, and I sincerely doubt that counting all the votes in Florida on 1970s-era punch-card tabulators has an accuracy high enough to trust a margin of under 500 votes in the entire state of Florida.
I don't much like Bush, but IMO the result was not a complete fuck-up that the "Bush stole the election" folks make it out to be. It was basically a statistical tie, and someone broke it rather arbitrarily. That's a lot different than the case in many 3rd-world countries where the guy being arbitrarily put into power is quite a bit behind his opponent, and rigs the election to make it look like he won.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If the President represents the largest possible number of Americans, that takes us one step closer to the infamous "tyrrany of the majority" that plagues democratic systems. What the President ought to do is represent the largest possible number of cultural and social groups. This is somewhat approximated by the geographical system: Originally that was a very good approximation, as travel was difficult and so the regions differed greatly; these days it's not as good an approximation, but still better than none.
This is the same reason countries get one vote each in the UN, not votes equal to their populations. If that were the case, the US would get one vote, all of Europe combined would get two votes, and China would get four votes. But that's not how it works, because the UN is not intended to represent all people equally, but all nations. Similarly, the US government should represent all groups within the US, not all US people equally.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The small states' people would be at the mercy of the large states' people. People in NYC and LA could pass a law lowering taxes for all people who live in large metropolitan areas, to make up just one random example. They could also get lots of "pork" projects pretty easily: a bill to send a bunch of cash to NY, CA, and TX (while excluding everyone else) could pass without too much difficulty. Etc.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The "USA is the worlds most stable/best democracy" is a propaganda sentence. It is nonbalanced subjective thinking presented as fact. In newsmedia from USA I have often seen that - and a general thinking of "we have the best democracy ever".
And IMO that sentence is very wrong. A simple example would be that fellons are not allowed to vote - SOME groups of people are not ALLOWED to vote - I can't understand why that does not make more people upset in the USA. It is horrible and non-democratic. Another example on the USA democratic system is the fact that there are only 2 parties - a direct result, IMO, of the stupid "one winner takes it all"-system (I am thinking of the presidency, not the senate). Also I am very negative towards the highly individual-focused system; You vote for one president, and focus a lot on his personal attributes - which is TOTALLY wrong - one should only look at the party which the candidate represents.
If I would choose the country that has the best democracy, I would choose Switzerland, followed by a row of other European countries such as the scandinavian ones, germany, etc.
WOW! Only two funny-modded posts! You americans are relly pretentious..
You can recount the votes ten times and get ten different numbers. You've got to pick one of them, and which one you pick is pretty arbitrary. And it's unlikely that the number of votes reported for either candidate is actually, down to the last vote, the number of votes that were cast for them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
After holding my nose through the last several elections and voting for the lesser of evils, this time around I'm going to sit it out rather than continue with this hypocracy. None of the available candidates (that would be Democrat and Republican; the system is carefully rigged through gerrymandered "safe" congressional districts by those parties to preclude others) are worthy of my vote.
As for the argument that if I don't vote I'm letting someone else decide for me: large donors (i.e., corporate, labor, and other special interest organizations) are already doing that. Last time I looked, organizations can't vote so why should they be allowed to contribute? Only donations (with no limits) by individual PERSONS should be allowed.
As for not trusting the electorate; look at the economic condition of California for the reason why. With the state constituion allowing popular referendum with essentially no veto by the legislature, Californians have voted themselves all kinds of benefits without figuring out how to pay for them. Why not? Folks will almost always accept something for "free". The founders understood this.
Bottom line: a careful balance of power must be maintained between all elements of a democratic society. Things are so out of whack I don't know how/if it can ever be repaired.
> It seems the US is quickly being the only country that is inclusive of its immigrants, while Europe is maintains its historical racist policies.
Racist? It's not racist, it is another rule, not related to a race whatsoever.
Meanwhile I do prefer our French law, which allows anybody born in France to become French, as you suggest.
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
Not all European countries, but many of them have laws that if you are "ethnically" of that country's background, you can claim citizenship, but if you are not, it is much more difficult. That was what the example of "ethnic Germans" coming back from the USSR was. Similarly, I can claim Greek citizenship if I wanted to move there, simply because I'm of Greek ancestry, but a "non-ethnically-Greek" immigrant can't. Basically the European version of Israel's "law of return".
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Genuine question, not baiting anyone, but ...
What is the basis for declaring "The United States is known as being the world's most stable democracy"?
AFAIK, The United Kingdom is just as stable. If not more so.
The USA lags behind that on both counts, although some states (Wyoming) predate it. Most european countries also took longer to extend the vote to all adults, e.g. in Great Britain certain occupations didn't get the vote until later.
Yes, it worked in the, "there was no violence" meaning, but there were highly questionable acts committed by members of both political parties.
Let's face it: both the Democratic and Republican parties have some highly corrupt members and have done some highly questionable things in the past.
Apparently punishing criminals is valued higher than democracy around there.
Next you'll invade Aberdeen to get access to (what's left) of north sea oil in a bid to liberate the Scots from the yoke of Blair the dictator?
I know its a joke, but just out of interest...
As a slashdotter, you will have likely played one of the Civilisation series, probably Civ2.
You will realise that under a democracy government, decisions like that will prove impossible to pass through your government.
Britain, far more than North Korea or Iran, is a no-go area for the US 'democracy proces'. Not for any ethical, moral or strategic reasons, but simply because a war there would cost too much. Only in rare situations (like World War II) would any democratic country be able to enter such an apparently costly fight.
Korea and Vietnam appeared cheap fights initially. Leaving aside the political absurdity of it, Britain is never a cheap fight. Britain has submarine based ICBMs, carrier groups, good intelligence and fantastic special forces. You will note that none of those were present in Iraq, even in their heyday when they had the 3rd or 4th largest army in the world.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
One simple question: Why are the US using voting machines? In countries like Germany we are just marking the candidate or the party you want to vote for by a cross in the circle near the candidate's name. Afterwards we fold the paper and throw it into a box.
Then the votes are counted by an independent voting commitee.
Why are you relying on untrustful Diebold machines while counting by hand is much easier?
It wasn't new - the same concept was declared in the British Isles after the civil war - the Commonwealth. The difference is that the USA actually managed to make it work, while the Commonwealth ended up as a dictatorship by Cromwell. The concept wasn't new or radical, but the success was.
The Irish constitutional amendment only requires that the parents of children be legally resident in the country in order for the children to be citizens. Basically, they got fed up of 8 and 9-months pregnant women with no connection with Ireland arriving at their airports and then claiming residence rights throughout the EU as the parents of Irish citizens.
Little brother Bush did it again leading up to this election...shameless!!
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
I know we can all go into a big flam^H^H^H^Hdebate about the state of american elections and the positions many americans are taking behind the democratic and republican parties.
g en/18247440/
/. (I will likely post this again since this article is almost dead).
But we don't seem to be getting anywhere, so I searched my browser history a bit and found this gem:
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/tegenlicht/afleverin
(click the link under "Video" on the right side)
It's a dutch documentary, but over 75% is in english and subtitled in dutch. It's a great piece with a balanced view on democracy in this time and I feel a lot of Americans can learn a few things about the European perspective that you can find a lot here on
A U.S. organization is seeking volunteers to help monitor elections in cities where there is historic concern about voter disenfranchisement: http://www.electionprotection.org/. They're seeking volunteers, especially lawyers, law students and clergy, to become trained and help with the effort. I'm not connected with the organization, I just think it's a good idea.
If there is no problem this shouldn't be a problem.
The OSCE has no business sticking their nose into our affairs. While they perform an important role in 3rd world countries, WE are not a third world country, and the need for moderation simply does not exist in this nation. Even if by some inconceivable event, the Communist Party candidate were elected, because of the system of checks and balances in our government, the country would continue functioning with very little noticeable change. (Aside from the president making budget allowances for grey hats, and little red books.) We simply do not need to have our government validated by a foreign nation in order for it to be legal in the eyes of the world, and if it ever came down to it, our population is still able to own firearms...the people still have the ability for self moderation.....remember the old saying, The only true democracy is the one in which the people are able to take up arms and defend themselves from their own government. While every other "civilized" nation hands over its personal weapons, the American People are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, without outside influence. (In fact the last time I checked, it was the US that had to keep things in check on their continent, not once, but TWICE.) Keep your nose out of our country, OSCE!!!
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!
That's exactly the point. The OSCE is a multilateral organization, consisting of states in and around Europe, with a direct interest in protecting Europe's long term stability. The OSCE will be monitoring the American elections solely with the purpose of knowing if the US can still be trusted when it comes to organizing fair elections.
The OSCE acts out of self-interest, and there's nothing wrong with that.
It's the same as when the US goes to monitor other states. They basically want to know for themselves with what kind of political system they are dealing.
In this sense, the US shouldn't see this as a humiliation, but rather as an information gathering process carried out by Europeans, for Europeans.
Contrast with New Zealand, which had full universal suffrage from 1893, or the dozen or so other countries with universal suffrage before 1920 (when the US got it, unless you happen to be a poor descendant of a slave and where still massively discouraged from voting through poll taxes and the like).
And your handwaving about the civil war is truly precious.
Essentially, you're trying to defend the statement by defining away most countries ("large scale"), ignoring a war fought to force a significant part of the country from seceding, ignoring the fact that significantly less than half the population could vote (after the 1840's - before that the number was a tiny fraction, due to property ownership restrictions etc)
Newsflash: By redefining the issue, any answer can be the right one...
Oh.
I could save them alot of time and money then... they can trust it about as much as at any other time in american democracy these past 100 years... which is to say, not at all.
I'll take half of whatever would have cost them, if they'd done the whole watchdog thing.
Odd how many of those European countries accept more immigrants per head than the US with all those 'racist' attitudes...
I don't think the four fathers had a close election in mind. Just because you disagree with the guy that won, and the system that is in place that elected him, does not mean all hell should have broken loose. The point of the system with checks and all is to ensure all hell does NOT break loose.
The people in the lower brackets don't pay taxes. They're protected by income tax brackets. Read: There is NO burden on them.
Who said I was angry? I am just willing to fight and do what is necessary.
The federal government has put more money into the education system in the past 4 years than ever before; it's not their fault that the states/local governments swindle it away! Have you ever been to a school board meeting? These people are just as power hungry as congressmen!
I don't think anyone has argued that Indian's are more "fit" in terms of coding efficiency. They're just cheaper. It's like any other industry.
Who the hell are you to be so sure that the OCSE has ulterior motives?
A citizen of the country they are monitoring, and presumably with more of a stake in the outcome than they.
And since you seem to know so much about it, what are those motives?
Knowing that there are motives is usually easier than knowing what they are. Still, it's not impossible that they want to steer things towards candidates they favor. Unable to do this on a single election basis, they could easily embarrass the US election process a few times, which would almost certainly lead to legislation of one sort or another. When that time comes, how much do you want to bet that they couldn't get drafts submitted via any number of independent "US based" think tanks?
Though, by no means take this as a suggestion that the "europeans are infiltrating our sacred government". They did that decades ago, and probably have even sneakier methods of undermining things.
World's most stable democracy? Is that a joke? How many leaders have been impeached in the last 250 years from say USA, and UK? How many civil wars? Not very stable What percentage of americans vote - 18% ish? How many non-millionaires have been president this century? Not very democratic.
***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***
Honestly, now I am genuinely interesting whos or what is spreading this nonsense.
A republic may or may not ba a democracy, both concepts are not mutually exclusive.
Please fight your ignorance, it pains me to see people so misinformed...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not being American, it's not at all obvious to me which side of a Mississippi dividing line would be the "conservative" half and which side would be the "liberal". My wife is (very liberal - probably explains why she's living in Europe!) American and from what I've learnt from her, her family and friends, it seems to me the real split is between the liberal West and (northern part of the) East coasts and the conservative interior.
So looks to me you'd need a three-way split into two liberal countries and one conservative, as a country composed of California, Oregon, Washington and the NE from DC upwards wouldn't be very practical.
Yikers! Me too. Shame on me, a pathetic paddy, for suggesting that what's good for the goose is also good for the gander. Jesus, I'll never bother pointing flaws in the system out to my American friends again. Apparently, election systems in western Europe are fair game, but to suggest that anything dodgy could happen here is just... un-American! (but I'm not American!)
;-)
... and that so many of us are shocked to find it isn't the first time we venture outside of our borders. We are spoonfed appallingly manipulative and patently untrue propoganda, while being kept uninformed of events in the rest of the world, to such a degree that my non-American friends who visit are shocked when they see the (lack of) information we get.
Damn unamerican foreigners!
Our Democracy (tm) is the Best in the World (tm). The System Works (tm), and as the Leader of the Free World (tm), Our President (tm) is Staying the Course (tm) in important matters such as Family Values (tm), a Womans Right Not to Choose (tm), the War on Terror (tm), the March of Democracy in Iraq (tm), and other Pro Life (tm) measures.
I know we have the best democracy. I was told so in grammar school, numerous times, for the first 18 years of my life. Plus the TV says so.
Who are you to question such irrefutable facts, you damn foreigner!
Alas, the above should be funny, but aside from the gratuitious trademark symbols, it is appallingly close to exactly what happens here in America. I remember being spoon fed Amercan political myth, particularly about the founding of the country, until I was ready to vomit it up, year after year after year after year. "Social Studies" in America is one big propoganda fest, with history taught from around 1776 through the civil war -- if you have a smart class that can move through the material quickly -- and the next year you start all over again, back at 1776.
We are told by the media we are the best in everything, all the time. Is it any wonder anyone who hasn't been outside of the country believes this nonsense to be true
American people by and large aren't bad folks, and are generally well meaning (Republican nationalist swagger and Bush's unconscionable warmongering nothwithstanding). But we are all indoctrinated every day with large amounts appallingly bad data, and I'm afraind in the tatters of our democracy you really are still stuck with the Garbabe In, Garbage Out truism, which is why this election is neck and neck despite the behavior of the incumbant government over the past four years.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
A republic and a democracy are not mutually exclusive concepts.
Who is teaching you this nonsense????
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So US congressmen asked Europeans to observe, and Europeans have decided to do as asked. I do not see how honoring an invitation could be considered an insult by the inviter. Could you please explain ?
Well, those congressmen don't seem to be as confident about that as you, since they asked for observers.
Nice use of adjectives. Have you considered a career in propaganda ?
Won't forget what ? That you asked for Europe's help in ensuring that your elections are conducted fairly, and Europe delivered the aid requested ?
I could understand your statement if Europe had refused...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
This is true. European countries only hate Turkey because of their religious beliefs. Like how the European Union not allowing Turkey into the EU because it is not of Christian faith.
Which is exactly what they are doing right now.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
Or should somebody down this thread clarify why you are an asshole?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You guys have no hope, honestly, get better informed.
Just for starters Mexico and Germany are both Federal Republics.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Do you even know what "ulterior motives" means?
Though, by no means take this as a suggestion that the "europeans are infiltrating our sacred government". They did that decades ago, and probably have even sneakier methods of undermining things.
I'm not even going to try to respond to that piece of tinfoil hat conspiracy nut paranoia. Never mind, sorry I responded to your post...
God does speak to all his children but I am pretty sure he did not tell Bush to invade Iraq. The God I talked about loved all his children not just the white ones. You speak of Christ yet I don't see his teachings in our president's actions.
You are implying that Bush launched a religious war against non-whites, because they are not white. This is, ahem, at the very least, false witness.
I thought religious wars were behind us, unfortunately a fundamentalist war has been brewing for awhile now and I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg.
It has indeed, and its soldiers think that they are winning glory with Allah.
I don't think we need Europe to add validity to our elections. If the elections need to be monitored, I think we can do that perfectly well ourselves. I find it rather amusing that somehow because these outside inspectors are not US citizens they are automatically considered "objective". What a load of crap.
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Why don't you just check it? Wikipedia says: Republicans have 50,456,002 votes Democrats have 50,999,897 votes. Nader has 2,882,955 votes, but that is yet another problem with the American voting system
What always confuses me, as an outsider, is why so often in discussions about the political system in America, the opinions of the 'founding fathers' are invoked as a standard by which the current situation can be gauged in terms of its democratic legitimacy. Who cares what they thought, or what their purposes were in setting up obscure systems like the electoral college?
Ah, the arrogance of the young ... the past can hold no wisdom for us, we are so sophisticated and wise now ...
For one thing, the states only agreed to join the union based on the compromises and assurances of the founding fathers. You may think that it is OK to just chuck that out once the deed was done, but it doesn't seem quite right to me ("whoops, sorry Vermont! We were just kidding about keeping huge population centers from making all the decisions. Hope you don't mind").
I read some confused messages here about the US being "first and foremost a Republic".
I would just want to point out that "republic" and "democracy" are not mutually exclusive, they are simply referring to two different things:
-a republic is a state form
-a democracy is a legislative-cum-electoral process within a particular state form.
The US is a Republic with a representative democracy. My country is a parliamentary democracy with a Royal House as its highest authority. Socialist democratic republics (like the DDR) were Republics who called themselves democratic but their democracies were not directly representative, although they were republics.
In short, do not confuse the republic as a state form, with democracy as a political process. Both are analytically belonging to different orders.
And for those who are implying that the US is a Republic and hence "republicanism" should remain the driving force, I can tell you that the Bush family is the first in US history who seem to be trying to create a dynasty, despite their superficial Republicanism.
So you think it OK for the US to monitor elections in Iraq or Bosnia, but other countries can't monitor US elections?
Well, of course.
Moral equivalence is nonsense. It may give you a nice warm fuzzy feeling, but it provides absolutely no guidance about how to act.
Of course there actually wasn't any extra strain on Ireland's health care system (due to the "teeming masses" of pregnant women innvading the country or somesuch) or any significant number of people using this "trick" to gain citizenship. Basically the government decided to make an issue about something that wasn't having any impact, possibly as a way to get on the good side of the country's racists and xenophobes (not a small group, unfortunately) without really offending the rest of the populace. It passed with a disgustingly wide margin if memory serves.
Why is anything anything?
Hate? What hate? What for? If the EU was hating the Turks, there would be no more Istambul, just a radioactive desert. Stop using tough words like that if you cannot imagine what they imply.
Like how the European Union not allowing Turkey into the EU because it is not of Christian faith.
Uh? Has it occured to you that EU citizens may wish to share common cultural roots together, that many would appreciate if they could feel like being a EU citizen and no mere members of a mere free trade zone? I personnaly am very much ill at ease with Turkey joining the EU for this reason. I fear there may be too many discrepancies between us, too many reasons not to build anything together.
And if Turkey is in Europe, then why not Russia, Algeria, Mongolia?? Remember Attila? We share something with China, for sure!
And there are Turks who feel this would be foolish too. I met some.
And now, should we Europeans associate with Turkey: of course, peace and prospecrity for all!
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
Really? How many congressional campaigns end up *owing* money? Where do you think that money came from?
Who do you think owns banks in this country, or any other, for that matter?
It's not as if the OSCE can force itself upon the US. If they monitor, then because you asked for it.
I was gonna quote some stuff, but why bother? The subject is enough.
Have you ever visited third world countries? I don't mean just sat in the westernized zones of the capital or tourist spots, sipping drinks and loudly, snidely assuring everyone that that *you* certainly weren't an ugly American/whatever, like all of your countrymen. I mean have you *really* visited one? Lived in one, for weeks or months?
If you had, there would be no way you could even type your subject line.
Communism is a system based ultimately on a misunderstanding of human nature.
But I'm sure you know about this problem already, being a member of the Communist party and all. I won't belabor the point. I more want to respond to this:
>Yes, he's facing militant opposition from exile
>Cubans, many of whom fled for all the wrong
>reasons
Well, I'd actually say they were fleeing for all the right reasons. Protecting your family, and moving from an oppressed to a free country seem to be about the best motives you can ask for to risk a dangerous ocean crossing.
Communists love to equate America with Cuba and other despotic regimes, and as such equate Castro imprisoning 75 people for 20 years for independant thought (google for it) with America throwing protestors in jail for a night when they block streets.
But there's an objective difference there, if you care to think about it for a bit. As much as it's not cool to admit it, America is not a police state.
I'm a strong supporter of the compulsory vote. In my country, the system works perfectly. It is undoubtedly the most democratic system in the world. I think democracy and citizenship imply an "active duty" on the part of the citizen. It's just becoming difficult to call the US a democracy when you see that more people voted on "American Idol" than during the previous elections where turnout was at historic lows. Moreover, sociologists know very well that the ones who would benefit most from being politically represented, are the ones who don't turn up to vote under a free system like that of the US. Compulsory voting is the way to go. It has nothing to do with curtailing freedom. On the contrary, it is a condition to gain freedom.
MS are working very hard to make PCs secure enough to vote from. ;-)
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
How would you compare this to fighting Hitler in WWII or even the French Revolution where violence was used to replace a monarchy with a democracy.
Hitler was not a dictator, he was democratically elected. Also, both of those wars were wars of self-defense from the POV of the US. Germany and France attacked first. Iraq did not attack first.
Do you really believe that Fidel Castro is *not* a dictator? What definition of dictator would that be? Do you believe that violence was not used to install him in power? Do you think the people have chosen to keep him as their leader all this time?
When people are ready for democracy, it comes inevitably. You can not rule without a willing populace. Iraq's social structure makes it incredibly hard to form a democracy there without it quickly turning into either a civil war or a theocratic dictatorship. I would say most iraqis tolerated saddam in power because he kept the peace.
Also, in international law, just being a dictator isn't enough to allow other nations to overthrow you. There is such a thing as national sovereignity, and it is not specific about which form of government a sovereign nation must have. That's why you have Kofi Annan saying the iraq war was illegal. It was. Saddam did not attack the US, was not provably planning to attack the US, and was not provably cooperating with anyone who attacked the US or planned to, so the US could not possibly claim legitimate self-defense, and hence the only reason one nation is allowed to go to war legally with another was invalidated. If you want to get international law changed so democracy becomes compulsory, with america the global policeman to enforce it, please, by all means, try to get it done, but until then please respect the laws as they are.
When you mention the "rest of the world", what does that include in your view? Europe? How do some of the African nations feel. Any reason why Middle Eastern dictators might not like our policies?
I would say that most middle eastern dictators love the US and its policies, because royal families like the house of Saud couldn't stay in power without american support, and they wouldn't have all the money they have without america buying up so much oil. The dictatorships in the middle east (including iraq) have always been supported by the US because it kept the oil flowing. Democracy was desirable, but it always had to move aside if the oil supply was threatened.
Europe has always looked the other way, because the US involvement in the middle east has kept the oil cheap and the region more-or-less stable, even if it hasn't always been the best thing for human rights. I guess the iraqi invasion was just too blatant a form of involvement for some european nations to swallow.
Also, both of those wars were wars of self-defense from the POV of the US. Germany and France attacked first.
Argh, that'll teach me not to reread what I typed. What I meant to say was both of those wars were wars of self-defense. Forget the US part.
"There are many countries where everyone over a certain age has to vote"
And there are many others (possibly the vast majority?) where this does not happen. Many people (including me) find compulsory voting undemocratic.
Breakdown of votes from 1920 to 2002shows that the majority of Americans who voted either voted for Democrats or for Republicans.
Quite simply it's a bi-polar political party system in which the two parties are against each other in the race to control two fundamental processes ; allocation of government resources and formation and implementation of federal and/or state laws.
Obviously, the presence of such rich prizes is a very strong motivator to win for any party. Nobody (disillusioned enough) is going to believe the fight between the two will be an amicable exchange of punches above the waist line, simply because what is at stake is worth any trick ; the absence of an impartial judge is an even stronger motivator.
The presence of external observators like OCSE and others is a serious problem to those that think that a third party is not going to be merely an annoyance ; it may be a problem for X party that would like to buy observator favor somehow..same applies to Y party. It may be a problem to both X and Y if they both think the observator will really be impartial AND show the deficencies of the whole voting system (not only the electronic vs paper ballot).
I think that during the last presidential elections Americans received a strong wake up call : the political oligarchy which really runs the country (too often in bed with too few strong concentrations of private power) is trying to take away the last bastion of a democratic system, by taking away our right to kick away or severely reduce the power of some party we no longer want. We already are subject to the tirannny of the majority system in which the winner too often forgets he/she is representing ALL the population, not only the supporting party.
The issues of corruption of representatives, gullibility level of the average voter and partisan infiltrations in the legislative system are likely to become totally insignificant if the voter will no longer be able to have a say on what's going on...why care about voters interest if their vote isn't worth poop anyway ?
I most always write in the current vernacular slang of the times. When I write I am talking, not just slopping letters on the screen. Some folks like it, some don't. Oh well...When I write professionally (very occassionaly now) under contract I write "proper". Even use a spell checker. Heh. And meh. It depends on the situation, topic, and various other circumstances. For casual forum/bbs posting, I use vernacular most of the time, just suits my nature better. If I used more HTML the inflections would be better. There's one inflection that there's a lack of code for, there needs to be a casual emphasis that's not exactly SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS or bold or italicised, something where you are trying to induce a "sound" as in changing your voice to a dialect. Although it's not proper code, sometimes I will use *double asterix* or a _double underscore_ depending on the situation. In your example of mine where I used a double negative, I am reproducing a casual "guy on the street" voice, the closest I can come without the missing-doesn't-exist code, using the sentence structure and wording. If you could hear me speak it you would have heard the change right in the middle of the sentence, but I can't really reproduce it using current code structure.
Sometimes here and on other forums you'll see a similar problem, where some will go (insert character voice) then go on and use the words from that character. Example "obligatory simpsons quote", then a simpsons characters voice is noted and referenced or changed to suit the situation. See? I'd like to do it without the reference, just using code, but (uh oh, *gonna* do it again!) it *ain't* there!
So, see, it's not really being a wanker, it's just being more free form and pushing the artistic boundaries with the current limitations of writing! It's not a bug, it's a feature! Akk, and if writers didn't do that, we'd still be "forsoothing" around.
In the immortal words of Rush:
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
I will choose Freewill.
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
so i won't attempt any alternate history. The point is that he did nothing.
You mean that after Sept. 11, George W. Bush actually sat and thought about what happened for seven minutes before he nuked the hell out of China? What an inept, impotent fool. I hope if any Muslim terrorist groups attack America under Kerry's reign, he'll have the composure and courageous leadership to nuke North Korea immediately.
Hm. Maybe you can have two passports if you were born in Germany - I have the vague memory of some recently passed law on the subject - but rest absolutely assured that Germany remains extraordinarily hostile to the immigrant in general terms. A friend of mine (from Bulgaria, as though it matters) came to Germany to marry a rather nice chap, and though she was permitted residence she was not allowed dual citizenship, which due to some interesting legal tangles implied that if she wished to become German, it would have meant losing the property that she owned back home...
Germany's attitude to immigration is not far from the Queen of England's approach to casual sex. And then they have the guts to complain about their aging population and lack of workforce. But this is another rant.
You may have a point about Britain -- I'd have to study the subject more to be able to make a fair comparison. Who had what franchise starting when? And how much practical power did the monarchy exert, as a function of time?
The thing about little countries is that they just don't operate on the same scale as big countries. You don't see the same sort of massive disruptions -- civil wars and such. The smaller the group you're trying to organize democratically, the more stable it is. (The US federal system works to ameliorate this -- gaining some of the stability of small countries, by giving very significant powers to the states.) If a small country is nicely isolated, then it suffers from less outside stress, too. It's no accident that frequently-cited antecedents to American democracy are small, isolated countries (Switzerland, New Zealand).
Look at the two early, big, democracies -- the US and Britain. Both benefitted from geographic isolation. That's no accident either.
You can argue that my distinction between big and small countries is artificial -- fair enough. But looking at New Zealand in the 1800's, I'd be thinking "Sure, your democracy's nice. But does it scale?"
I beleive that this is the definition of a democracy.
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
Now this might not be perfect in the US so we have checks and balances so it doesnt spiral out of control. To my knowledge, and I could be wrong elections with this kind of margin of error are not common place here in the US.
This is the reason why it is considered by some as a "stable democracy".
However the real reason why I am even posting this is because you had to bring up one of the worst and pretty much the last "dictators" still around. Nonetheless I felt compeled to correct you. Americans as well as Cubans living in that country (Cuba) feel he is a dictator and they are all suffering from his grasp.
I know I was born there and I was there till I was 10. I went back recently and it sucks. So if you ask me will I take, according to you, an unstable democracy over Cuba? Hell yes any day of the week!
You will never know until you leave in a country like that.
This is almost like having an elderly parent looking over our shoulder as we work at our job in middle age. Im not saying that there shouldnt be someone checking the voting process in the USA this year, but why europe? They dont exactly have a good record letting other nations deal with their own self determination either.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here...
This comment is informative. These European "return laws" are not driven by ethnic group, they allow descendants of people on the country to claim for citizenry.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
If I rememeber correctly, it's suspected that someone whose job was to remove ineligible voters from the lists removed everyone with the same or similar name or alias to the person to be removed. Accounting for last names like Johnson, Smith, Thompson, and other particularly common ones that's a lot of people.
Actually, the real crime in it was that the job of purging the rolls was subcontracted out to a private company with obvious ties to the political party that won in Florida. Also, Katherine Harris, the head of the Florida Election Commission, who is a big time Republican once stated out loud that, "Gore should have been nice to me and he would have won the election."
Anything here smell fishy about this who debacle?
The US system needs an overhaul. It needs no electoral college. It needs overall popular vote. The surprisingly terrible turnout mostly comes from a system where if you were a democrat in Indiana (a state that has been Republican for 40 years) like me, why vote? It doesn't matter.
That is why there is crappy turnout.
I live in a state where my vote won't matter for president... but I am still hitting the polls anyway, so I can clown people when he sends us into Iran or another nation, and people are shocked.
Nobody learns from "mistakes" when they arent mistakes in the first place.
Take this lovely example of manipulating the democratic process: Jeb Bush is ONCE AGAIN using the same felon-list he did four years ago- the one they hired an outside company to sloppily produce to have the widest range of (mostly african-american, democrat-voting) names match those on the list, so that every T. Jackson (for example) in the state was flagged as a felon. This is intentional voter intimidation and is a BIG problem.
I am all for allowing someone to monitor of the election. Let us be reminded that the Florida State Police department purposefully stop African-Amercians on the way to polling areas. People in Missouri weren't even allowed to vote because they got off of work late. These things just didn't happen in Florida; it happened all around the country. If, we Americans, are so civil in our righteous b.s. and that our country is so great, why not allow another system of government monitor to monitor our "perfect democracy". That will prove whether it's great or not! Our country has been through a tremendous ordeal with two wars on two fronts and attack on American soil. Should we still continue to allow ourselves to be represented by exclusive group like the republicans? US v.s Them Your either with us or against us, with no shades of gray. The American people should be able to vote in a way the represents every one and not just the select few. A fair vote! That will be the ultimate question at the polls We need to allow the people to speak freely even if you have to work late. What happened in the election of 2000 was disgraceful and every American should be ashamed.
So peers, convicts, fraudsters and the insane can't vote? Looks like somebody's really got it in for Jeffrey Archer (who could answer "yes" to all of the above, as a perjured sociopath who's served time but somehow kept his peerage).
Just for information purpose, the US does NOT accept dual citizenship neither. You're supposed to give up all your other citizenship if you're naturalized.
Bring it on. We can take it.
Haider never became PM of Austria. Haider never had a mandate in any state level function in Austria. Haider did not win any election at state level in Austria.
The election you are talking about did not take place in 2000 but in 1999. These are the results:
Socialdemocratics: 37.85%
People's Party: 16.98%
Freedom Party (Haider's party!): 24.77%
Greens: 10.33%
Liberals: 6.96%
The people's party coalitioned with the freedom party, but Haider had to retreat to Carinthia and pull out of any state level agitation, which he mostly did. Today Haider's Freedom party is below 10% in most elections.
Yours sincerely,
an Austrian.
&& aemula C. ab stirpe interiit
> Hm. Maybe you can have two passports if you were
;-) (Also: bad memories from 65 years ago, when this actually happened - so a very dangerous subject)
> born in Germany
True. Now that you reminded me of it....
http://www.einbuergerung.de
> that if she wished to become German, it would
> have meant losing the property that she owned
> back home
That's not Germany's fault.
You can't make our legislation responsible for the stupid legislation in other countries.
> Germany's attitude to immigration is not far
> from the Queen of England's approach to casual
> sex. And then they have the guts to complain
> about their aging population and lack of
> workforce. But this is another rant.
Well, look at Bulgaria - they obviously don't want foreigners to own real-estate.
Is that any better ?
We don't "complain" about aging population, it's merely an observation. Also, there's hardly anything politics can do about the age-pyramid.
You can't force people to mate
UNO/UNESCO calculations suggest that Germany needs 150 000 000 immigrants in the next 50 years to keep the population to the current level.
Those are really frightening numbers.
cheers,
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Hello people in the US,
I come from another country. I have a pleasant life and I normally don't care too much what is happening in the US. But this time I have to give you a warning.
I always look at the long term consequences of actions. Dependant on whom you will elect as president this year, the future will look very differently for you. And it will also affect everyone else in the world including me. That's why I warn you.
If you vote for the Republicans (Bush) there will be a war against a lot of countries that will last several decades. To finance your war US taxes will rise dramatically. But that is not my problem, because my country won't take part in that war. The real problem is that the Republicans will hinder the science of stem cells. The effect will be that cures against nearly all deadly diseases will be found much later. In fact it will take longer than your and my lifetime. So we will all die of one of these diseases at one point.
If you vote for the Democrats (Kerry), the war will be much shorter and you won't have to pay taxes for the war all your life. But what's more important is that decisions of your government will be based on science again. Stem cell sciences will get a lot of funding . As a result of this medicines against most deadly diseases will be found during your and my lifetime. We will be able to live a healthier, less stressful and longer life.
So if you vote, remember that it is a decision about your life or death in a few years. Ignore the unimportant arguments that the press presents you, e.g. the hobbies, the family or the past of the candidates. Vote Democrats.
Please spread this mail. Everyone needs to know about the real consequences of voting this year.
To a republitard every else is evil and an enemy of the united states. THey hate people who disagree with them often enough to kill them.
Thank your stars you are not an American, we are not too far away from a civil war. The flames are already being fanned by the right wing media. There are numerous books out about how liberals are the "enemy within" and are traitors and hate america. A call to arms is already beeing sounded out it won't be too long before liberals are being rounded up.
evil is as evil does
Hitler was invading other country's, installing his own governments, and killing people worldwide.
So you change your tune. Now war is fine, it's just war you don't like that's bad.
Cut a lot of crap that has nothing to do with the stablity of the American democracy. Go rant in some forum where it's actually on topic.
Your country is assuming that 'American democracy' is the only true way the world should be run
He says, after telling us why American democracy doesn't match up to the standards of European democracy.
So even if you feel that the U.S. does not need it, or that it is insulting or some such, please keep in mind that, as Beacons Of Democracy, all free nations ought to welcome international inspection of their electoral processes.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you a moron. Lets see Republicans hate everyone, but tolerant Democrats look at people individually, oh wait except for republitards..
Thank your stars you are not an American, we are not too far away from a civil war
Highly unlikely
The flames are already being fanned by the right wing media.
Yea Micheal more and faked CBS memo's are sure a sign of how the evil right wingers have a lock on hatred in the media..
There are numerous books out about how liberals are the "enemy within" and are traitors and hate america.
And I hear the exact same points all the time from the left when it comes to the right (they hate freedom, they are all racist, they want to starve school kids, blah blah)..
No one came over to monitor the 1880 election after the 1876 election
How do you know? It was interesting to hear about the 1876 election, but what is the source of there being no observers at the 1880 election?
By thinking these thoughts, you have committed thoughtcrime and are now a class traitor!
Damn, I guess it's back to the "re-education" center for me!
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
I don't know if inviting is necessary, but part of the definition of democracy is that the whole election process can be observed and verified by independent observers. That's the "open" part of "Free, fair and open elections".
This is nothing US specific.
If you can't personally go down to the election office and make sure for yourself that your and others votes are being counted, there is little chance that your vote actually counts.
Will they be watching CNN or FOX.
Get a free ipod.
:) Well of course having a criminal record doesn't per see disqualify you from the commons or Lords. There is no way to remove a peerage save by Act of Parliament.[There was a proposal to expel those sentenced for a set period or greater from the lords but that has been abandoned for the moment.] This is too great a hurdle for practical use. By contrast, knighthoods can be revoked by the Sovereign and have been on many occasions.
Can you please point out where the words "fair trial" appear in any founding document? Oh, you can't.
"The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed."
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
I think you need to learn the constitution (or at least some basic reading comprehension) if you're going to argue about it. Just because the words "fair trial" don't appear directly doesn't mean the foundations for fair trials are not established by the constitution.
Just admit it...you are an angry, reactionary conservative curmudgeon that does not want a single dime of his money to go to social programs that might actually help another human being.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Or Bulgaria does not see why Germany cannot deal with people having dual passports, given that much although not all of 'Old Europe' gets on with it just fine. If you look up Bulgarian policy, you will discover that they indeed do permit dual nationality... What are they supposed to do, fall over backwards to help their citizens deal with Germany's half-baked ideas?
As for 'complaining' about aging population, you were clearly not in my Deutsch als Fremdsprache courses and have, unsurprisingly, never read the course material... otherwise, you would realise the emphasis that is placed on the issue. And as for forcing people to mate, who asked you to? One could make it a bearable place for all those (German-speaking, European, Christian if you must) foreign immigrants to move into, thus partially solving your age-pyramid -- but why should you, right? Let the immigrants work it out.
See, people like myself and my Bulgarian friend move to Germany, learn the language, get used to the culture (and the food), and then get it in the neck when it comes to immigration policy. Fortunately, it doesn't matter for me (being a UK citizen and thus in the EU), except of course that I have no vote, but you better believe it impacts on other peoples' lives. Psychologically if for no other reason; if I were to move to France to marry, gaining dual nationality would be simple (although it takes about a year, most of that is just waiting). If I went there to study or to live it would take between four and seven years' residence. Spanish friends of mine who moved to the UK have gained UK nationality by waiting until they got past the minimum legal residency time and applying. Whereas if they would have moved to Germany... forget it.
Now maybe Germany thinks it's in a Special Peoples' Club and shouldn't share passports with any other lot, but that Bulgarian PhD is disgusted enough to leave the country; and that after getting her Oberstufe German by the way, thus making her unusually literate even by German standards according to the PISA report... a better immigration policy might persuade people like that to stay.
You're actually displaying an attitude that I see in Germany all the time, which is a) superior and b) far from serious. Realise that a partial solution to the age-pyramid problem is to recruit (welcome!) all the Bulgarian PhDs you can get, dual nationality or not. Or at least actually defend the current policy... don't just sit there blaming everybody else for failing to fit in with German policy, actually tell me what precisely is wrong with allowing German-speaking immigrants to share the nationality in a sane, sensible manner.
Take the 'War for Democracy' path the USA is taking now. Anyone who understands what Democracy is knows War is the failure of democracy. We are suppose to go to war if we can't figure out a democratic solution to the problem, That is what democracy is about so going to war for democracy is a contradiction.
I think you have your definitions mixed up. War is the failure of diplomacy. We are suppose to go to war if we can't figure out a diplomatic solution to the problem.
That said, I think 'War for Democracy' is a ridiculous idea, however, I don't see that it is necessarily a contradiction in terms.
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
It's basically taking a genetic-lineage view of nationality, which is rather race-based IMO. Someone whose ancestors were French, but who does not speak any French or have any French culture, is 0% French IMO, whereas someone who is not "of French heritage", but lives in France, speaks French, and is part of French culture, is French.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
+3 is from karma mod, my bad.
If you mean that the immigrants are in their countries, perhaps (it depends on the country). If you mean that the immigrants have citizenship and can vote, the US wins by a huge margin.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If Japan's immigration policy were like the US, but more lax, then those Koreans would have citizenship. You seem to have missed the part where the US gives automatic citizenship to anyone born in the US, regardless of "ethnic" origin.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
a) whealthy
b) corrupt ones
c) corporate interests
Take the actions of the "Florida 2000 fiasco". [...] Yet hardly any American's cared.
Lots of Americans cared. You think it was only covered in non-US media? But in the end of the day, we had two canidates running neck to neck; no matter who won, no great crime to democracy was done.
Exactly. It drives me crazy to still listen to people bitching four years later about Bush "stealing" the election. They're just sour because their guy didn't win. I don't like Bush either, but I, and most of the American public, can look back and acknowledge that the difference between the popular vote accross the entire country was within the margin of error of the mothods used to record and count votes. In the end, you had two candidates who had each received almost exactly 48% of the vote. It's time to get over it....
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Remember during the 2000 election dispute, when The Onion treated it just like a 3rd world country collapsing into civil battles, regional warlord declaring martial law, etc? One of the articles was "Serbia Deploys Peacekeeping Forces to U.S."
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
> Or Bulgaria does not see why Germany cannot deal
.... ;-)
> with people having dual passports, given that
> much although not all of 'Old Europe' gets on
> with it just fine. If you look up Bulgarian
> policy, you will discover that they indeed do
> permit dual nationality... What are they
> supposed to do, fall over backwards to help
> their citizens deal
> with Germany's half-baked ideas?
As someone else pointed out, it's not uncommon to be forced to give up one nationality to get another..See USA.
Also, I just pointed out that it cannot be possibly Germany's legislation's fault, if your friend loses property when she gives back her Bulgarian passport.
> a better immigration policy might persuade
> people like that to stay
Maybe. The problem is, in the past, German has let in a lot of people without a real concept of how to assimilate them. That concept is still not there. Or I cannot see it. This is especially problematic in case of all the immigrants from the former USSR (who, and this I must agree is an absurdity in its own, get their German passport very quickly)
Also, German politics (and public) is devided on this whole issue and as a consequence, nothing really changes.
> You're actually displaying an attitude that I
> see in Germany all the time, which is
> a) superior
I'm sorry you see it that way.
> and b) far from serious
Well - given the numbers and the current political landscape, there's not much else one can do other than fall into sarcasm, I'm afraid.
You see, in Germany it's very difficult to communicate to the people that the current status-quo can not last forever, not without a lot of hardship. Unfortunately, people tend to vote politicians who say so quickly out-of-office (see no evil, hear no evil...).
I have nothing against Bulgaria, really.
But the immigration- and naturalisation-issue is only a fraction, a symptom of larger problems.
BTW: If your friend is very good at any kind of (Olympic) sport, she can get a German passport very quickly
cheers,
Rainer
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
The institution normally monitors elections in third world countries in transition,
Many observers of long term socio-economic trends in the United States regarding wealth and income distribution have indicated the U.S. is in transition towards a neo-feudal third world country, whe
Russia beat us to that objective by a couple of decades, but we'll make up for loss ground.
Soon enough our budget deficits and social welfare policies such as Social Security, Food Stamps, etc. will come under the harsh guidelines of the IMF and World Bank if we want the bailout that we're certain to require if U.S. debt levels keep increasing.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Hate? What hate? What for? If the EU was hating the Turks, there would be no more Istambul, just a radioactive desert. Stop using tough words like that if you cannot imagine what they imply.
Get out of your hole, boy ! I happen to read newspapers message boards of different european newspapers (namely: french, swedish and danish, sometimes german), and it's clear to me that there is something wrong in the way most people (posting on those forums) think about the Turks in western Europe. Perhaps you're one of them, by the way ? And what is most saddening is that most of them know nothing about turkish culture or have never been to Turkey.
I personnaly am very much ill at ease with Turkey joining the EU for this reason. I fear there may be too many discrepancies between us, too many reasons not to build anything together.
I'm personally very much ill at ease with people thinking like you, who prefer to emphasise the differences instead of the common points.
And there are Turks who feel this would be foolish too. I met some.
great ! you met the 3 or 4 Turks who are against joining the EU, in comparison to a huge majority out of the 70 million people populating Turkey. Consider yourself lucky !
I think you need to learn the constitution (or at least some basic reading comprehension) if you're going to argue about it. Just because the words "fair trial" don't appear directly doesn't mean the foundations for fair trials are not established by the constitution.
This is exactly my point. Please re-read the above thread if you are having memory difficulties. The fact that "separation of church and state" is not specifically mentioned in the constitution does not mean it isn't a fundemental concept of our nation. Similarly, just because the words "fair trial" don't appear does not mean the meaning isn't there.
It's called an analogy. And this just cracks me up:
Just admit it...you are an angry, reactionary conservative curmudgeon that does not want a single dime of his money to go to social programs that might actually help another human being.
It is obvious that you have not read the comments that spurred this thread. If you had, you would not have insulted me by calling me a conservative.
I feel you're a bit out here. What grandparent poster is referring to is that most european countries apply the "droit du sang" (literally "citizenship by blood rights"), which, to my french ideals, seems at least a bit racist.
You're right to point out that France is more like the US American custom of granting citizenship to people living in France for a "long time" (or being born in France, of course) , what we call the "droit du sol" ("right of citizenship by the soil"). Namely, in France you need to live 5 years continuously in France, and at least speak a bit of french, to be granted citizenship (and of course you have to ask for it, it can take time to process the application, but in the end you get it).
However France's situation doesn't change anything to the fact that the Swiss voted in a racist way. This is even more clear when you see that it's the german-speaking districts (the "cantons") that voted against, whereas the french-speaking voted for.
That really is funny.
Almost as funny as the way the FL misshap was handled.
Almost as funny as Gore winning the popular vote.
Almost as funny as several states wanted to get rid of the traditional electoral college system.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
It has nothing to do with religion. Turkey has not been allowed to join the European Union because it still abuses human rights.
A latent existence
Yeah... he's got a car.
...
But where will he go?
Nowhere, I was just making the point that you were wrong when you said that he couldn't go anywhere
please stay here while we clear a route
What's the point of having a president, with presidential powers, a figure head and symbolic leader for a country, if all he gives all his responsibilities to others? He did come to the photo shoot from an extended holiday.
There's a saying called "hurry up and wait" it especialy big in the government
You've never served in the army have you... it's an infantry expression. Leaders, at the very least, are meant to be seen to be doing something. The WTC being hit by a plane is very serious, terrorism or no. Either Bush was unable to grasp the importance of that particular building, or he is so dependent on his staff that he had no friggin' clue that it would be an appropriate time to stop pretending to love children in front of the cameras
And the president pretended to read a kids story while he awaited instructions
And you know he was waiting for instructions because?
He sat there with a bored/uncertain expression... and did nothing until someone told him to. That what is means to wait for instructions.
How do you know he wasn't waiting for information?
He was waiting for information... he was waiting for someone to tell him what to do... because he relies on other people to be the president for him... so who did you really vote for... that's the point.
How do you know he wasn't told to stay put.
lol... people are questioning his basic independence and intelligence.
Remember that when there is concern for the president's life, the Secret Service overrides his decisions of movement.
The old security excuse. Do you think that said "don't leave the chair, you might die". Don't be ridiculous. He could have stood up and left the room, signalling to the world that a major aviation and financial disaster was more important to to him, personally than a PR stunt with children.
The point is that either he was incapable of coming to this conclusion himself, because he's so scripted (read no independent thought)... or that he considered the PR stunt more important until it was obvious that it would turn into bad PR later.
And I'm still waiting for you to tell me what he should or could have done that would have had any impact on anything that day.
There was nothing he could have done, in the material sense, with the benefit of hindsight... but what we saw was a guy playing a playing to the cameras in front of children.
The point is that it is obvious that he wasn't in charge of the situation . By definition, that's what leaders do... take charge. His aides and men behind the scenes were in charge... all the other people you refer to. In fact, they were so in charge that people are question if Bush is anything more than a card-board cut out.
A card-board cut-out isn't an inspiring leader... we haven't seen the face of the real leaders... we only see their front man. Isn't this a democracy? Isn't he your president?
How many ways can I say it? It isn't that there was nothing to be done! It's more than that he chose to do nothing! It's that your fearless president is led round on a noose, which begs the question, exactly who did you vote in as president!
Perhaps organize a press conference
Ah yes, instead of reading to kids from a book, he can read to the press from a script. Ignoring for the moment that those preparations are done automaticaly, and he is not the one that organizes them, what would he have told the press that they didnt' already know?
A skilful politician can make an impromptu press conference, I've seen it done many times. One of the most famous moments in Australian political h
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
How can a news agency quote a website that quotes news agencies?
Is anyone else confused by that?
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
You can bash Americans all you want, but try at least to be a little fair: the least we can admit is that the US has a long tradition of accepting immigrants and integrating them. Whether they do it well or not, or even "enough", I don't know, but honestly I don't think they're better or worse than us Europeans. I think this is really one question on which they don't need any lessons from Europeans.
That's sort of like Canadians and USians emigrating to each others' countries. Accepting immigrants from vastly different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds is something Europe seems a lot worse at than the US. Generally nobody in Europe seems to like Turks, Arabs, Albanians, and etc.
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Hmm I don't think you read my reply carefully as they was no 'bashing' of the US contained, rather a dismissal of the parents use of 'racist' moniker for all Europeans.
That would have covered it, nicely.
And do you think he was processing information? What was there to process? He needed to get out of there and in communication to get some information to process.
Face it - he was lost. He froze. He was the antithesis of leadership. He was irresolute, unless he was so determined to finish "My Pet Goat" that an act of war couldn't pull him away. As I understand the man, he's not a big reader.
I've already argued with him on several things. His idea of a debate is to call names and blame everything on the evil Republicans. I did point out he wouldn't have the balls to call me names in person :)
This guy is way out there
The voting in Florida does not need to be monitored.
The news reporting of the election needs montoring. The premature reporting of the Gore victory in Florida and susquently the nation is the real debacle that we suffered in 2000.
On the basis that mainline news called the 2000 presidental race, Smarty Jone won the Triple Crown. The practice of guestimating the winner of an election should be outlawed. Make everybody wait until the official publication of the results.
Oh dear, you seem to have revealed sensitive information about me to the world at large; information so secret it's freely and easily available to anyone who cares, which, not to devalue myself too much, I suspect doesn't include too many slashdotters. You're also wrong: I know asses from all over Ireland who would say such a thing.
Why is anything anything?
do you really think posting anonymously is going to stop them from finding you?
yeah, that's about it
Given that you seem to know more about this than I do would you care to enlighten the rest of us as to the numbers of people involved, their ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds and any other pertinent information. Note that references to supporting evidence from the medical community would be hugely worthwhile, as would any hard figures relating to the economic impact of the practice. I genuinely would like to see this, as all I saw at the time was spin and question-dodging from Minister McDowell.
Incidentally, I'm neither a first-year nor an arts student.
Why is anything anything?
MIchael moore never refered to anybody as traitors or enemies of the united states unlike the republitards.
Republitards ARE racists and homophobes though. I don't think there much debate about that. Lately they have tried to put on a friendly face towards the blacks and the hispanics because the elections are so close but lucky for them there are always other brown people to kill.
BTW nothing you said contradicts my point about the upcoming civil war in this country. I hate you just as much as you hate me. Eventually we will be lobbing grenades at each other for real instead of on slashdot.
evil is as evil does
There is no sense in replying intelligently to a republitard. Jihadists like you don't understand reason anyway. The only thing you understand is violence.
As I said I will continue to speak my mind. Until the republitards succeed in rounding up their enemies and shutting them for ever I still have the right to do that.
One day you evil bastards will shut up people who disagree with you and dump us all in mass graves but until then I get to speak my mind.
evil is as evil does
Can you find me any elected offical saying that any other is a traitor?
Republitards ARE racists and homophobes though. I don't think there much debate about that.
Just because you really, really want it to be true does not make it so.
Lately they have tried to put on a friendly face towards the blacks and the hispanics because the elections are so close but lucky for them there are always other brown people to kill.
No democrats do a fine job of that too, I think it was Clinton who bombed an aspiran factory in the Sudan, and lobbed more than a few missles into Iraq..
BTW nothing you said contradicts my point about the upcoming civil war in this country.
Because its not outside of the realm of possability, I dont think its likely. I have seen hatered of those differnt (like yours) throught human history.
I hate you just as much as you hate me.
Umm I dont hate you I just think you are (a) A Bitter, hateful man (because of your words not your political beliefs) or (b) a troll
Eventually we will be lobbing grenades at each other for real instead of on slashdot.
I really hope it does not come to that, but it has happened all too many times in human history. Just remember my side has all the gun nuts ;)
YOu must be self hating person then.
evil is as evil does
It's still bad, in that when things are essentially a tie, we'd like to break them fairly and impartially. However in terms of "will of the people", it's the same either way: to a very good approximation, you can say "half the people will not have their preferred candidate in power". In a country of 300m people, whether 500 people prefer one over the other hardly matters: if it's that split, you have no clear "will of the people" either way, but basically two wills of the people pushing in opposite direction with approximately equal strength.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You miss the point. It is not "mythologising" the designers or their process. The fact is, they made some remarkably good decisions and *WE* have weakened or even unmade a number of them over the long period of time since. The rationale for many things is as valid today as it was then--some things even moreso. There were just as good of reasons not to choose senators by popular vote as there were to use popular vote for representatives. There were good reasons the electors chose the president. There were good reasons the people were part of the judicial branch and could themselves overturn laws, rather than being treated as drone like on-off switches for whether, regardless of situation, the written law was broken. The horrible irony is that these reasons have become far more important as the country grew, yet we ignored them and made many obvious (certainly to me, now) wrong changes that undermined the commendable work done by our founders.
They were far from mythological, but that doesn't change the fact that an unusually large number of unusually bright people got together and forced themselves to work some really difficult problems to an unusually high degree. That work is a legacy that we should make as much use of as possible, rather than making the very mistakes they suffered in that hot, miserable room to avoid.
I hold up their work because our errors have made their foresight so plain.
The large majority of large companies in the US give you a chance to vote, if you want to. I'm sure there is a stockbroker in your town (and better ones online) who would be glad to help you. I own shares in a few companies, and I get a chance to vote.
Why should be allowed to vote for who runs McDonalds without owning shares? You could vote to screw up McDonalds, and it costs you nothing. Share holders are screwing themselves when they screw up the company. Just ask all those who voted for Enron's board a few years back.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
You love absolutes, don't you. Who says you can't be a Christian? If you believe in the words of Christ as a moral philosopher and follow them completely, you are a follower of Christ. Why aren't you a Christian?
There are many other country's in the world that have to vote (by law) after a certain age to help insure we have a democratically elected government.
So a bunch of people who don't really care have to go in and punch random holes in a piece of paper? Great.
If your one of the richest men in your country or the poorest you have equal value of '1 vote' everyone get thats freedom. That is the core foundation of democracy if that is destoryed you no longer have a democratic country
So the UK wasn't a democracy until 1940, when the universities were deprived of the vote? Again, you're being absolutist; in every real society, ballots are going to get screwed up and misread, ballot boxes are going to get lost, and yes, out and outright fraud is going to happen. It should be minimized, but that doesn't mean that it's not a democracy.
One person, one vote is still the principle in the US and usually the practice.
But clearly the interest of the corporations doesn't tie in with public interest so they don't go hand in hand.
"Clearly"? It's easiest to assume what you're trying to prove, isn't it.
No one's interest is the public interest, and no one can be relied upon to follow it. The theory of capitalism is that the interest of the corporation will approximate the public interest in most cases, with the government moderating the rest.
But its law that corporations put the 'self interest' of the shareholders (profit) over social and environmental issues. And yes that is law in the USA.
And just about everywhere else. In theory, if the people are concerned about social and environmental issues, the corporations will be concerned less they lose market share.
Your making the assumption I'm from Europe. I'm not I'm actually from one of your allied country's
No, actually I'm not. And why should I believe you anyway, if you won't even say which nation?
sometimes war is the only opinion
"option". And it's never the only option; the UK could have peacably surrendered to Germany.
I guess that part of the constitution that covers freedom of speech, your not to big on that either.
This is a private forum. And even if it were, I would still have the right to ask you to stop causing a fuss and leave so other people could enjoy themselves. That is my freedom of speech.
Again, I assure you I'm not from Europe.
Fine, your standards. Big difference.
I don't dispise the people of America.
But you despise the US, the society, the government. That comes through loud and clear no matter what you say.
That is why i'm not pro war.
The point being, once you give the UK the right to wage war on Germany just because Germany was attacking Poland (remember, the UK declared war first), you are at best usually anti-war, a viewpoint which most people in the modern world agree with. Now we're haggling over the details.
The same reason why every year 100,000+ Mexicans try to enter the borders of USA
The differnce being is that the Mexicans that immigrate to the US don't try and get the US government to overthrown the current Mexican government. On the other hand, Cuban immigrates are vocable about how bad Castro is.
Can you please point out where the words "fair trial" appear in any founding document? Oh, you can't. Know why? Because it's not mentioned anywhere. Does that matter? Not a bit.
...a giant welfare program for private schools. Can you please explain why want to replace one central plan with another central plan?
Al pointed out below, the basis of what we know of as a fair trial is all over the founding documents. The separation of Church and State in the form you describe is no where in there. The ONLY constituional restriction on Church and State is found in the 1st Amendment. You can't just decide it means more to suit your liking.
Well, I guess those few families that are affected can just move.
What do families with the only option is a failed public school? Should they just move? This has zero affect on the argument.
No one is propping up private schools with vouchers, this is welfare like food stamps are grocery store welfare. It is not a central plan, this is keeping public schools open, but allowing children in failing districts to escape. This relieves the overcrowding pressure while increasing the per-pupil monies in the school. This should help the public system reform and improve so that they don't lose kids to private school.
And look at how fair and equal they are. Oh, but that's different, right?
No, all schools aren't equal, but trapping kids in the worst school shouldn't be the only option. If private schools are better than public, even if not as good as the best private school, the child is still served better by going there than to the public school. Once again, trapping students in failings schools is 'fair' but not right.
As to your final point that vouchers don't solve the ills creating poor students, is based on a premise I don't accept. By removing over-crowded, poorly run schools as a reason for poor students, you absolve the school system of any blame and therefore any need to change. Ladd bases her findings on her own studies of the New Zealand schools sytem and then looks back at the US data. She clearly states that this data is "preliminary" and not conclusive. Vouchers are not a cure all, they are merely a tool in an arsenal of reforms that when used properly can transform underperforming schools into successful ones.
Admittedly, I am extremely conservative and I feel that vouchers are a good thing.
The signs that you are dealing with a zealot.
1) The belief that God asked you to run for president and assured your victory.
2) The belief that God speaks through you.
3) The inability to admit your mistakes.
4) The belief "if you are not with us you are for the terrorist"
5) Willingness to amend the US constitution in order to codify some bizaare belief in a two thousand year old book.
6) Willingness to put the country in danger in order to destory people who disagree with you. Specifically by advertising the identity of a CIA agent who is married to somebody who disagrees with you.
7) Willingness to kill tens of thousands of people in order to invade and occupy a country for personal gain or pleasure.
8) Wanting to have a discussion on slashdot while posting anonymously.
OK maybe the last one does not make you a zealot, just a pussy.
evil is as evil does
Wow working from assumptions make you a zealot?
Where did you get that gem from? Is that something your high school teacher said?
A pussy and a retard.
evil is as evil does
Because Iraq was a Republic under Saddam. Do you even know what a Republic is?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Yahoo story, just in: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/ 20040928/ap_on_el_pr/election_observers_1
Presidential Elections - AP
Observers Foresee Snags in U.S. Election
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Problems loom for the presidential election including voting equipment changes that could delay the outcome past Nov. 2, a group of international observers said Tuesday in a report.
A five-member team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation (news - web sites) in Europe, a 55-state security group invited by the Bush administration, also pointed to problems with voter registration lists and provisional and absentee ballots, allegations of voter intimidation and slow implementation of the Help America Vote Act.
"In general, the nationwide replacement of voting equipment, inspired by the disputes witnessed during the 2000 elections, primarily in Florida, may potentially become a source of even greater controversy during the forthcoming elections," said the 11-page report.
Many of the new touch-screen machines that will be used by up to 50 million voters on Nov. 2 do not produce the paper ballots needed for a manual recount of votes, the report said.
This "may cause postelection disputes and litigation, potentially delaying the announcement of final results," it said.
The OSCE (news - web sites) observers were in the United States from Sept. 7-10. A larger group will return for the election and focus on the potential problems noted in Tuesday's report. Among them:
_Slow implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which authorized $3.86 billion to replace outdated machines and reform election procedures.
_Poorly maintained voter registration lists and a hodgepodge of procedures for handling absentee and provisional ballots could result in voter disenfranchisement and postelection litigation. Provisional ballots are a new feature, meant to allow anyone who shows up at the polls to vote even if their name isn't on precinct lists.
_The report criticized steps by states to allow military and overseas voters to fax rather than mail their completed ballots, calling them inconsistent "with the principle of the secrecy of the vote."
_The observers said the scale of complaints about intimidation of minority voters was difficult to assess but that "such allegations were repeated by Democratic Party representatives, while the Republican Party officials did not seem to share these concerns."
OSCE: http://www.osce.org/odihr/?pageelections
Trust me on this.
Your argument is that his freezing had no effect on the day's outcome, so it was o.k. SO it's o.k. for a prez to freeze in a crises. I suspect there's a clause in your thinking - 'so long as it's my preferred candidate'
Any Dem would have been impeached.
Does everybody who disagrees with you automatically become a "jihadist republitard evil bastard" who will round up people who disagree with them and dump them all in mass graves? I must confess, I haven't seen one person on /. threaten you with that and also have never heard of one Republican who plans that. What's with your pathological hatred of a political party anyway?
This guy is way out there
As for Europe or any other intrusive group monitoring the elections of the United States - let them - the vast majority of them, including myself, in the states will not care since no other country, no other government and no other authority has any power of our proceedings. Others of foreign countries might not like the truth yet our country was founded by dedicated individualists on the axiom that the United States answers only to the United States. If the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) finds any action not to their preference, their approbation, we in the states will kindly invite them to return to their own country and STFU. Again other countries might not like this but it is the very foundation of our way of life from the Founding Fathers, Frontiersmen, (image) of cowboys to modern day. While the misconstuction will be there, the United States has not produced a dictatorship while Europe has historically excelled at that.
Well, I'm sure the EU will eventually quit abusing those rights...
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Well... I have never been to Turkey but I do not hate Turks, why should I? And message boards are places to find outrageous comments if you are looking for some.
I have emphasised no differences, but could you please underline the common points? Are you going back to Constantinople? Would you argue that a part of Turkey is West of the Dardanelles?
And the Turks I met were living in Paris. Sorry if I haven't met more. And as for the polls, I doubt one would find different results in Moroco or in Tunisia, for instance.
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
I do intend to answer you, but I have some work to do. If the story gets archived, look for a reply in my journal.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I'm particularly not looking for outrageous comments when I read the forums on Le Monde or Libération. Granted I don't do it often, but each time I do I'm surprised by the amount of stupidities I read. Of course I expected those message boards to be of higher value than other places, and I agree it's a mistake from my part.
Whether those are the wrong places to go for insightful comments doesn't change anything about the general impression I have about how Western Europeans see Turkey. As a majority of them have never visited Turkey, not even for a few days, they do NOT know how people live there, what are their expectations for life, etc... As a matter of fact, they know nothing about Turkey's history, and indeed that is a major point argueing for its integration into the EU.
If you have a satellite dish, you might want to point it to Turksat or some other satellite showing turkish programs. Then you may understand why I say the differences are not major: private TV in Turkey looks remarkably similar to italian TV, for example. You will get what I mean: you don't even need to understand turkish. By the way I take TV programs as a very good marker of a population's culture. I think they are an insightful window on a society.
I do not understand your "going back to Constantinople" comment. Neither the one about Eastern Thrace being in Europe (as that is an argument FOR Turkey in EU, not AGAINST, which I understood was your opinion). What was your point exactly ?
As for common points, I think the most striking is just the way of living. If you are able to make a difference between how a Greek lives in Athens and how a Turk lives in Istanbul, you're just the type of person who sees only differences. There may be differences between a parisian and an athenian, but Greece is already part of the EU, right ? To sum up, I think that Turkey's culture is profoundly and mainly Mediterranean.
But YOU have been the one to write "I fear there may be too many discrepancies" !! You cannot even be sure since you fear there are differences, but you do not even specify those ! Would you care to do that ?
Concerning the few Turks you've met: how can you draw any conclusion from a handful of them ? I know the turkish community in Paris. Their opinions are as diverse as they are for Turks living in Turkey. What would you think if I told you that all the French are like Le Pen because I met 7 of them and they were all racists ? (just an assumption, of course I know it's not the case)
The comment about the polls was just to show that your argument based on the opinions of a handful doesn't mean anything in democratic countries. If you don't get that and start bringing out the polls in the Kingdom of Fiji or in Kazakhstan, I'm not following you.
well, in fairness the health care system was doing really shitty way before this "problem", the health care system is doing worse now and it'll continue to to badly. this law, like the smoking ban, was a distraction. our government is doing a really bad job with the health care system and they know it.
I hate it when other ppl do that. Note to self, check before you hit submit. :)
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
When the US observes other countries' elections, it protects their people. When other countries observe the US elections, they're "trying to embarass the USA". Unless they make up stories of corruption, it is the USA that is embarassing the USA - and since nothing has changed since Florida 2000, we don't need any help. This kind of competition among nations to run legitimate elections keeps us all performing better.
--
make install -not war
Re: US Military personnel and US property, limiting foreign court access.
I wasn't able to find that. Maybe that was some other legislation. Patriot II may make it easier for the other countries to extradite from the US. But the US can't legislate the actions of other countries, that's what treaties and conventions are for.
If you happen to have convinced your fellow citizens that they are living in a truly open society, they will be less able to conceive that it isn't true anymore and any facts that gets in the open will be dismissed as rumours.
No doubt helped by the kooks who will believe and spread any and all conspiracy theories. I guess some of them are part of the cover-up. What a great job, eh?
Fake openness ends somewhere. If the public believes in freedom, and transparent democracy, there has to be people that knows that it's NOT open. Do you controll all journalists? A select few? The courts? Police? The spokespersons? You need motivations or threats to keep the secret. As this number of people shrinks, it is less likely that people will find out about the fake openness. But, the fewer the people in on the secret, the harder it is to keep the public from talking about what they want.
By the way, when did you heard about the stealth fighters programs? If you were not part of those projects, i mean. So now, we know about them. Did your hear about breakthrough in chemical or biological warfare recently? No? But there must be some.
Or at least in other areas of research. I was thinking more in terms of big booms, and of things that the country publicly lies about. Wouldn't some disgruntled person speak up? The stealth fighters didn't violate treaties. US civilians can speak up about what they've seen. US servicemembers probably have less motivation for revealing secrets, but they won't be fed through the woodchipper if they do. They'd go to jail. And they might get away with anything if the journalist kept the source confidential and there were a large number of people who knew the secret.
It wasnt a credible threat and never has been. Come on! The country was rumble, the economics was dead, the population was starving, they even didnt have medications, for christ's sake.
I see your starving people, and raise you palaces and super-expensive medical equipment.
It was known BEFORE the war that one of those reports has been made by a student and was 12 years old and outdated.
Yeah, the sources should have been provided by British intelligence. UK accused of lifting dossier text. Was the 12-year-old part of the report the part about past history, or was it represented as describing the 2002-2003 inspection round? If the latter, that was deceitful or sloppy.
The un inspectors said big and loud that they found nothing but sand and rumbles. There were evidence that were produced before the un that were known to be fakes.
Source, please? I was not online much around the time of Powell's UN briefing. I got the impression that it wasn't an obvious case against Iraq, but also that there was more material about WMD in Iraq than there was information warning against the 9/11 attacks.
We're not talking about an open society anymore here. We're talking about a society wich lies to its citizen, wich lied to the un undermining its ability to influence events toward peace, wich started a war with NO other reason than its selfish interest and which destabilizes other countries in doing so.
I was thinking "openness" more in the terms of how easilty information unfavourable to the administration is comming out, not wether or not decision makers made public why they made their decisions. But yeah, as long as the information doesn't compromise security and ongoing operations, the public should be told everything straight up.
And it was the point of my joke: all those points are what was hold against irak.
Well
Irene KHAAAAAAN!