Green Party Candidate David Cobb Answers Your Questions

Last Thursday you got to Ask Questions of the Green Party's US Presidential nominee, David Cobb He answered 12 of the most highly rated comments. A thanks goes to Mr.Cobb for taking the time to explain some of his positions to us. Read on to see what he has to say.

Switching (Score:5, Interesting) by MikeMack (788889)

If I was a Republican or Democrat, what would you say to me to make me switch to the Green Party?

The Green Party offers both Republicans and Democrats the true essence of what each of their parties should be. For Republicans, the Greens offer true conservatism, which means keeping the government out of your personal business, out of your bedroom and out of your library. A true conservative would never support the so-called "Patriot Act;" nor would a true patriot for that matter. A true political conservative would recognize that public resources, such as forests, parks and oceans, should be conserved for use and enjoyment by future generations.

For Democrats, Greens are the party which champions what Democrats used to: support for working people and people of color and protection of the environment.

Both Democrats and Republicans don't represent the people of this country, they represent the transnational corporations who line their pockets and make their election to public office possible.

How do you avoid corruption? (Score:5, Interesting) by kwiqsilver (585008)

It's commonly accepted that power corrupts politicians. The Greens are always speaking out against politicians who sell favors to their corporate buddies or other special interests. But the Green party also espouses a system where the government strictly regulates most industry. How do you propose to have such strong government controlled regulation, without falling victim to the corruption inherent in a bureaucratic system?

The bureaucratic system may well be corrupt but what we really need to address is the corruption in the White House and in Congress-that's who makes the laws and the decisions which support the transnational corporate empire. The halls of Congress are filled with lobbyists representing the international profiteers who play Congress like puppets on strings. Although, I suppose, instead of strings it's campaign contributions which make the puppets dance.

If we take the private money out of our public elections and away from our public officials, we'll go a long way in addressing corruption and ensuring that we truly have a government by the people. We also need to strengthen public meeting laws so Dick Cheney and Enron can never again meet in private to determine the energy needs of this country. We also have to stop the revolving door between industry, Congress and the White House. There have to be much tighter restrictions on public servants going over to private industry.

Here goes again (Score:5, Insightful) by MORTAR_COMBAT! (589963)

I'll ask the same questions I posed to the Libertarian candidate:

Would you approve of, and what would you think would be the results of, the following election reforms:

1. Abolition of electoral college, president is elected by simple popular vote.

The Electoral College is an historical, anti-democratic and racist anachronism which needs to be abolished. If you're wondering why it is racist, remember that when it was created, slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person to determine representation, yet they couldn't vote. Therefore, slave states had greater representation in the Electoral College-as if counting any human being as a portion of person wasn't insulting enough.

However, replacing the Electoral College with what you call a "simple popular vote" really doesn't go far enough. We need to replace it with Instant Runoff Voting to ensure that the winner of the popular vote wins with a majority of that vote. Instant Runoff Voting is a voting system, used to elect the mayor of London, the president of Ireland and many office-holders in Australia, which allows you to rank candidates in order of preference. If someone wins a majority of first choice votes, the election is over. If no one wins in the first round, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and a runoff is held instantly taking into account the second choice votes of people who voted for the eliminated candidates.

Instant Runoff Voting will be used in San Francisco this November and a number of other cities and counties have approved of using it or are considering doing so. Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV, solves the perceived "spoiler" problem because you can vote for all the candidates you like; you don't have to make a lesser-evil choice. I encourage people to learn more about IRV at Center for Voting and Democracy.

2. Federal mandate that electoral votes from a state be split proportional to the popular vote within that state. (e.g. if California splits 60-40 Kerry-Bush, then their electoral votes are split 60-40 as well). This helps move away from the very brittle "all or nothing" electoral system, where as few as 1 fraudulent or defrauded vote can change the outcome of the national election for president.

I believe we should move rapidly towards Instant Runoff Voting, as outlined above, rather than tinker with an anachronistic relic.

3. Constitutional amendment granting naturalised citizens the eligibility to run for president or vice president. This would allow for the 2008 ticket for the new political party, C.O.P. (Cast Of Predator) to field Arnold Schwartzeneggar and Jesse Venutra as their presidential ticket.

Democracy should be as inclusive as possible. While I don't necessarily find myself opposed to this proposed amendment, I believe there are much more profound and necessary reforms, such as Instant Runoff Voting and proportional representation, where we should focus our energy and attention.

Our country is made up of immigrants. Your place of birth should not disqualify someone from serving as president or vice president.

Lastly a question: is the democratic system as instituted in the United States hopelessly mired in a two-party stranglehold, leaving corporate interest in defacto charge of the discussion? Is legal election reform necessary, or even possible?

Election reform is absolutely necessary, it is possible and we are being successful in changing our system for the better. Instant Runoff Voting is part of the equation. So are open and unrestricted debates, free media for candidates on the public airwaves which we own, less burdensome access to the ballot, proportional representation and public financing of campaigns. A number of states, including Maine, Massachusetts and Arizona, have been successful in implementing campaign finance reform.

We also have to strike right at the heart of the corporate empire and rescind the human rights which have mistakenly been conferred on corporations.

Voting Rights for Noncitizens? (Score:5, Interesting)by anzha (138288)

Thank you for your time. Recently in San Francisco, Matt Gonzalez, a popular local Green Party politico, has been pushing for the ability for noncitizens to vote in some of the local elections. While there are other places that offer this long before SF, it seems as though this erodes the differences between having citizenship or not. Rather than expanding the franchise this way, why not work to streamline the process for getting citizenship and encourage people to seek it?

Can you expound and explain a bit on your stance on this?

Matt Gonzalez has championed the ability of non-citizens who have kids in school to be able to vote in School Board elections. This makes sense and we should support it.

I would like to see the process streamlined so that undocumented workers, who are here and are paying taxes and contributing to our society, can obtain citizenship more simply and easily. We have to remember that we are all immigrants or the children of immigrants, with, of course, the exception of the Native people of this continent.

Mainstream Perception (Score:5, Interesting) by Locky (608008)

The Green Party is best known for its progressive policies on the environment, however its other policies are often shrouded by this, most people not knowing where the Green Party stands on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

What do you think might be the best approach to educate the masses about the rest of Green Party polices?

Greens work both within and outside of the electoral system for genuine democracy, social and racial justice, a healthy environment and for peace and non-violence. We have to march both in the streets and into the ballot box. If we do one and not the other, we won't be successful. All great social movements have used this approach.

Greens believe in freedom and privacy. We support same-sex marriage and reproductive choice.

Copyright and Digital Law (Score:5, Interesting) by Nick Fury (624480)

Obviously we here at slashdot are a bit on the techie side. I know that I have personally watched my rights being taken away from me over the past few years. Mainly my right to fair use. Under current law it is illegal to watch CSS encoded DVDs under Linux or any other Open Source operating system. What are you and your party's feelings on loosening certain restrictions to make the act of fair use a right again.

Also, on the concept of intellectual property and copyright laws. What are your party's and your feelings on the current trend of extending the length of copyright terms? Do you have any plans to reverse the current trend or perhaps to set the lengths back to their original terms?

Nick, first let's look at what the Green Party's platform says about open source: copyrights:

"10. The Green Party supports protection of software (free or proprietary) by means of the copyright. We strongly oppose granting of software patents. Mathematical algorithms are discovered, not invented, by humans; therefore, they are not patentable. The overwhelming majority of software patents cover algorithms and should never have been awarded, or they cover message formats of some kind, which are essentially arbitrary. Format patents only exist to restrain competition, and the harm falls disproportionately on programmers who work independently or for the smallest employers."

Greens favor information flows that come from the grassroots and empower the grassroots. Excellent examples include free/open-source software, open document formats, and the Creative Commons Licenses. We recognize that creativity and productiveness do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, most innovations build on earlier innovations. Creators and producers should be entitled to seek financial compensation for their work - or not, as they choose - but to wall their work off from public access for unreasonable lengths of time is, well, unreasonable.

For most of the history of the US Patents and Copyrights Office, most patent applications were denied. Most "inventions" didn't meet the triple test of being novel, useful/valuable, and not obvious to "someone skilled in the art." Patents that were granted lasted 12 years which was considered to be a third of an invention's useful life. Today, the patent office rubber stamps just about anything. We don't need a new policy, we need the old policy. Let's give standing to all stakeholders to challenge and strike down mistaken or overly broad patents, or patents granted despite the existence of prior art. (Besides genetic patents being a particularly vile abuse of corporate power, genes are, by definition, prior art. We oppose the genetic modification of organisms, as well, but that's another topic.) There's also a place for an eminent domain process for striking down a patent when there is an overriding public interest, as in the case of absurdly overpriced life-saving drugs.

In copyrights, as in patents, we favor not a new policy, but a return to the original, which provided for protection for 20 years.

If we get the general principle right, we won't need a special policy for protecting proprietary digital artworks or people's right to make fair use copies of them. But we do need a prohibition on abusive license agreements. The case law striking down "shrink wrap licenses" should be legislated. A valid contract provides an equal exchange of value: It's not all prohibitions on one party while the other party has no obligations and retains all rights. It shouldn't be legal for Microsoft, for example, to license its OS for use on only one particular CPU. That is, you shouldn't have to buy a new copy of XP when you upgrade your motherboard. When you buy a movie on DVD you should be allowed to play it on any DVD player, and when you buy a copy of an OS you should be allowed to run it on all your computers. This should be a natural result of a more general prohibition on unfair contracts.

I am happy to say that our website is open source (Plone/Zope, running on BSD).

Three Contentious Technologies (Score:5, Interesting) by rumblin'rabbit (711865)

Here are three technologies which environmental groups have generally been opposed to, but which have undergone major advancements in recent years: * Nuclear energy. * High-temperature garbage incineration. * Genetically modified foods.

All of these technologies have drawbacks, but they also have many advantages over the alternatives. Nuclear energy does not produce greenhouse gases, incineration destroys toxic chemicals and does not require land fill, and GM foods can greatly reduce the amounts of pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer, or water needed to grow food.

What is the Green Parties' stance on these, and do you see them changing their stance in the near future?

Greens have moved beyond a lesser-evil approach to politics as well as to the issues you describe above. I cannot under any circumstances accept nuclear power and genetically modified foods as a healthy alternative. There are such simpler and more sensible ways to approach these issues. We could easily eliminate the need for nuclear power by conserving more energy. We could replace nuclear power-and coal and other dirty forms of producing power-with the abundance of solar energy which shines on our country. Wind turbines, like the one I visited in Nebraska recently, are also part of the solution.

Food was grown by humankind for an awfully long time and rather successfully before the advent of pesticides and herbicides. We don't need that poison on our foods, on our soil or in our water supplies. And we don't need Frankenfood either.

As to our shortage of landfill space, we need to increase recycling and require manufacturers to take material back if it is not completely recyclable or biodegradable.

Drug Reform (Score:5, Interesting) by L3on (610722)

What is your stance on the use of medical-marijana? What do you think can be done to change the way in which the war on drugs in America is being fought, either legalizing/decriminalizing and taxing or otherwise?

Furthermore, How will you deal with our budget deficit and reform the GOP's relentless tax cuts and the Democratic Party's exorbanent spending?

Marijuana has been declared by an Administrative Judge for the FDA as one of the safest therapeutic substances known. I fully support the right of physicians and patients to use what they deem best for treatment.

The "war on drugs" is racist and an insult to all Americans. This "war" has incarcerated people of color at a much higher rate than white people. It has resulted in senseless attacks on innocent people and on our Constitution. We have to treat drug addiction as a health problem, not as a crime.

The main contributing factor to our national deficit is the world's largest military budget. The Green Party supports closing overseas military bases and reducing the military budget by 50% over ten years.

Single Payer Healthcare (Score:4, Interesting) by Coryoth (254751)

You often point out that pretty much every developed western country except the US has some form of single payer healthcare, and I think it is a valid issue, worth dicussing. However, having lived in a few countries that operate such a system I have generally found the governments involved to be having difficulties sustaining the system.

"The dilemma amounts to this: as medical science continues to advance, and as we in general live longer and longer, the amount of things that can be done continues to expand, along with the costs involved with any new technologically advanced treatments. Because of this, the costs of providing complete healthcare continue to expand at a rate faster than we can pay for. With healthcare, if something is possible, people tend to demand that it be done, even if we do not have the resources to do it.

Complete provision of healthcare simply isn't a sustainable practice as the costs are not proportionally bound by population (and hence very roughly speaking, government income), but instead by the ever expanding limits of medical science.

How do you intend to deal with this dilemma? Do you only plan to provide single payer healthcare for core and emergency services only? Do you intend to allow a parallel private health system to provide the more expensive treatments?

The basic point of single payer is that it is cheaper to administer and also that the cost of pharmaceuticals are lower as a result of bulk purchase. It is true what you say, the costs of medical care will increase in all countries as a result of innovation. However, empirical evidence shows that they will increase far less in countries that employ single payer. The best example is that of Canada and the U.S. When Canada enacted single payer their health care costs were the same percent of GDP as the U.S. Now, some 30 years later, they spend 8.9% while we spend close to15% of GDP. They spend much less in Canada on health care while treatment outcomes are similar overall in both countries.

Besides, we could pay for lifelong health care for every citizen in this country, along with college tuition for everyone who wanted to attend universities, if we stopped waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan and cut 50% from the biggest and most bloated military budget in the history of our planet. We could also do a much better job of focusing on preventative measures and take special care of infants and pregnant women, thereby ensuring a healthier start to life and reducing costs later on.

We are not opposed to allowing a private system to offer services not covered by a public system, such as Canada does. However, it is our intention to offer a comprehensive health care system which includes outpatient, inpatient, medication, dental, mental health and long term care, as research shows that this is both the most efficient and effective means for delivering health care to our population.

Viable Third-parties (Score:5, Interesting) by thewiz (24994)

Mr. Cobb, What do you believe is necessary for your party or any other to become a viable third party in American elections? Even though George Washington warned against having a partisan political system in his farewell speech, America seems to have developed a two-party system that forces third-parties out of the political process.

Also, what do you think of the Democratic and Republican parties shift away from what's good for America toward what is good for their respective parties and the businesses / people that support them while leaving the majority of Americans out?.

The need for a viable third party-or a second one, given the similarities between the two old establishment parties-is obvious and dire. We need a viable political alternative because thousands of innocent civilians and hundreds of young American kids have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need a viable political alternative because we are the only industrialized nation which doesn't provide health care for its citizens. We need a viable political alternative because our country is addicted to fossil fuel and will literally kill to sustain this addiction. We need an alternative because both of the old parties support the expensive and failed "war on drugs." We need an alternative because they are more intent on building prisons than schools; because they conspired to pass the unconstitutional civil liberty-threatening "Patriot" Act and because we need to develop a solar-based economy and create family wage jobs.

We need a viable political alternative because we need to manufacture democracy here at home before we can export it.

We don't have a "two party system" so much as we have an electoral system which favors two center-right political parties. And those two parties have done everything in their power to maintain their power and eliminate, ridicule and harass the competition.

To establish viable political alternatives, we first have to create a genuine democracy. Let's remember that this country was founded by rich, white landowners for their benefit. Our founders did not create a democracy. "The people" did not-and still don't-elect the president or the judiciary. Only the House of Representatives was elected by the people when this country was founded and those people were not women or people of color or the poor.

Our democracy is evolving and we still have a long ways to go. We need to get private money out of public elections and public policy. We can't have Enron and Dick Cheney's friends writing our energy policies in secret. We need to open up the whole process including how we make decisions on who will represent us. We need to have presidential debates open to all candidates on enough ballots to win the presidency. We need to address our voter participation rates which are among the lowest of any democracy.

I'm glad to see that we are making inroads with Instant Runoff Voting which will be used this fall in San Francisco's city elections. Instant Runoff Voting is a voting method which eliminates the perceived "spoiler" problem and ensures that the winner of an election has the support of a majority of voters. Our last three presidential elections were won with less than a majority vote. Instant Runoff Voting solves this problem and allows you to vote your hopes instead of your fears.

Most democracies use proportional representation to elect their legislatures. Countries which use proportional representation have a much broader representation of political parties and also have greater representation by women and higher voter turnout.

Of course, first a party has to get on the ballot in the first place and here again, the U.S. is light years behind the rest of the world. The United States is the only country where someone has to comply with 51 different and separate requirements to run for national office.

We also have to address the corporate control of the media. It's gotten to the point where, literally, a handful of companies control everything most people see and hear on the radio, on television and in the movies. We, the people, need to reclaim our public airwaves and we need to support our local, grassroots broadcasters.

Green activists are working on all these issues and, with San Francisco as just one example, we are succeeding, even if success is often incremental and not as quick as we would like. These issues also provide an opportunity to work in coalition with other political parties, concerned citizens and "good government" organizations.

To address your other question, I'm not sure that the two old parties actually ever represented the people. As long as there have been powerful, monied interests in this country, they have had their servants in Washington, D.C.

The Green Party is beholden to no one except the people. That, above all else, is what makes us unique.

All politics is local (Score:5, Insightful) by Quixote (154172)

In the words of Tip O'Neill, "All politics is local".

What is this desire to aim directly for the Whitehouse? Why not pool resources and fight the local battles? By aiming for the presidency (and ignoring the local politics), you are setting yourselves up for a fall. We all know that in a 2-party system, rigged the way it is, your chances of winning the Whitehouse are somewhere between 0.00 and 0.000. Then why waste the resources on this race?

How many members of Congress do you have? How many locally elected officials does the Green Party have? How many judicial appointees do you have? See the pattern here?

Maybe this isn't a question as much as a rant, but if you feel like, please answer why you are wasting the time and effort on a run for the Whitehouse, when the same resources, applied at local levels, would yield immensely more benefit.

I'm glad you asked this question because many people are not aware of the fact that the Greens have elected hundreds of local officials all across this country, including Green judges. We have elected city and county councilors, school board members, soil and water conservation board members, mayors and members of state legislatures. And that's just in this country. The Green Party is an international movement and around the world we have elected members to over two dozen national legislatures and parliaments. We haven't yet elected a member of congress in this country but we will. We are getting bigger, stronger and better organized in each election cycle. We are the fastest growing political party in America.

One of the reasons why we are the fastest growing party in America is because we participate in presidential elections. Like it or not, much of the nation-indeed the world-focuses on our presidential election. One of the main reasons I'm running is to continue to build the Green Party; to register more Green voters and especially to support local candidates. Running a national and a multitude of local races are not mutually exclusive endeavors. They are actually symbiotic and each enforces and supports the other.

Obvious answer (Score:5, Funny) by RickyRay (73033)

Obviously with the current unpopularity of Bush and Kerry the final vote is down to either you or Ralph Nader. What decisive advantages do you feel you have over Nader that make you more likely to win the presidency? ;-)

Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I am a realist and realize that until there are some significant changes in this country-especially how we conduct presidential elections, including campaign finance reform, Instant Runoff Voting and free use of the public airwaves, the chances of a Green winning the presidency are somewhat remote. I do believe, however, that we will be successful in time.

In this election, the Cobb-LaMarche campaign is the only campaign which supports a genuine, progressive agenda for change and which will continue building a movement beyond Election Day. Greens are in this for the long haul. What we are trying to accomplish is greater than any one candidate or any single election. People who want to invest in a long-term movement for peace, for social and racial justice, for grassroots democracy and for a sustainable economy and environment should vote Green.

We are the party of peace, we are the party of hope and we are the party of America's future.

Comments

Anybody from SF

[MindStalker]

I have to ask, in San Fransciso is Instant runnoff voting being used for just the local elections, or will it be used for the presidential race as well?

It would be VERY interesting to see how the presidental votes come out in that race, you could very likly see a 3rd party winning or atleast getting a lot of support.

...bwa.

[Renraku]

There needs to be a much easier way of voting people out of office. Voting them out of office of mayor, member of congress, or the president himself.

As of now, they can reisntate the draft like the want to, introduce draconian Big Brother type laws, punish pirates as terrorists, etc, and nothing can be done about it.

But what if a few people got voted out of office for it? That'd change their minds!

Re:"Green food"

[DAldredge]

Some people in that movement think that too many people currently inhabit the earth. Crop failure would just help the population level get back to normal.

Re:And that is why you fail

[cephyn]

the libertarian view would work if there was a level playing field.

There isn't. And that is why they fail.

Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[October_30th]

Libertarians have a much better sense of what equality really means

Huh? Equality as in: "You're stupid, sick, handicapped, lazy or environmentally conscious and therefore you should be treated like shit by the dog-eat-dog, profit-hounding winners with a can-do attitude like us"?

Hey, wake up already! It's OK to be lazy (the truly lazy will always be in a minority), stupid, sick, handicapped and politically conscious and to be supported by tax money. It's the primary function of a society to guarantee the welfare of the weak - not to guarantee free trade or maximum profit for you "winners".

I vote for Greens because they've got a pretty centrist - at least in a European context - fiscal policy and very liberal social agenda (drugs, sex, immigration and religion).

Re:Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[travler]

It's the primary function of a society to guarantee the welfare of the weak

I respectfully disagree:

The primary purpose of government/society is to protect its members from physical violence from other governments/societies and to some degree from physical violence of other members of ones own society.

Once a government (basically the people with guns/military organisation) achieves this first objective then perhaps it can go on to other things but it can not do anything until it garuntees physical safety.

Just my opinion but I think it is pretty broadly shared.

staying on message

[Greg@RageNet]

Well at least the greens don't flip-flop. Pretty much opposed to all technology (do you know how many toxic byproducts are created when they produced the computer you are sitting in front of?) and opposed to any source of energy; if the greens had their way we'd all be living in trees eating acorns.

The big question I have for the greens is how can they claim to be for freedom when their policies would strip so much of it away.. i.e. property freedoms (can't buy cars certain, can't shop at walmart), freedom of speech (can't voice your opinion if it's a currently unpopular one that may be found offensive by one group or another), freedoms of whom to associate with (you can no longer form an association to pool resources for a project larger than one person, commonly called a corporation), freedoms of due process, the list goes on...

-- Greg

Re:"racist"

[phyruxus]

>>People who use the word "racist" when there is absolutely no racial argument to be made whatsoever--not even an obviously specious one--are not worth our time or attention.

Please read the story again. Mr Cobb clearly stated that the electoral college's foundation is in the slave era and owes to the fact that slaves could not vote but were counted as 3/5ths of a person for voting purposes; the electoral college addressed the counting of vote-ineligible population by assigning "electors" to represent the weighted populations.

>>Oooh, you lost me at "I'm a colossal dumbass."

I must have missed the line where Mr Cobb said "Twirlip of the Mists is a collosal dumbass". What specifically do you find offensive about his position?

Re:what my party should be?

[illuvata]

When he talked of 'the true essence' of the republican party, he was talking about leaving people their rights, as opposed to cramming your morals down other peoples throats.

Seems to over use some ideas....

[NeoSkandranon]

How many times did this guy call something racist?

And way get people to take you seriously by using the term Frankenfood. That's right up there with a supposed tech expert spelling Microsoft with a $

I'd love to see what this guy has to say regarding the production methods for solar panels and the waste material that comes from those processes as oppose to nuclear power.

Re:"racist"

[Anonymous Coward]

So it was racist THEN.

Where is the proof that it is racist NOW. Certinaly black voters are no longer counted by partials any more.

"working people"

[That's Unpossible!]

For Democrats, Greens are the party which champions what Democrats used to: support for working people and people of color and protection of the environment.

What exactly are "working people?"

To me, the implication here is that a person with a shitty, manual-labor job is a "working person," but, e.g., a highly successful, obscenely rich, white-collar worker is not. The implication is because someone is rich, they must not have earned it, they don't REALLY "work" for it, and therefore it is OK if we take more of it to help out "the working people."

Am I way off base here? Why use such a loaded term as "working people."

I am a programmer, I make a nice living. Am I a working person? How much money do I have to start making a year before I'm not considered "a working person" by the Green party?

If I sell my company and earn many millions of dollars due to my ingenuity, skill, hard work, and intelligence, I no longer have to work. Yet I earned the money fair-and-square. I am no longer a "working person," does that mean the Green Party is now against me?

Beware of candidates with a dogma

[iamacat]

It's fine to oppose nuclear energy or genetic engineering as an informed choice, but he should be prepared to change his mind when presented with rational evidence. I would love to have this guy as a senator to throw a wrench into Bush'es oil drilling plans, for example. But a president must be able to make a decision against his own beliefs if that's the right thing to do.

Racist?

[Christianfreak]

First of all thanks for the responses. I think I have a better understanding of where the Green party stands. Though I don't agree with all of your points, I would certainly like to see more Green party politics in the elections.

One point I strongly disagree with is the idea that drug laws or the electoral college is racist. Some people are racist yes, but institutions and laws are just that.

Now like you, I strongly disagree with the current drug laws; however, wheither or not you agree with a law, don't break it and you won't go to jail for it.

Its very politically incorrect to say but I'm going to say it anyway. People of color tend to be poor and poor people commit more crimes. Should we change our laws because certain groups of people cannot control themselves and be responsible for their actions?

As for the Electoral College, the idea is so that a rural person's vote counts as much as a person in an urban area. Otherwise we'd have the policies of New York City for the whole nation which are probably not right for a farming community in South Dakota. Instant Runoff voting doesn't exactly do that. Possibly a combination of the two. Anyway, I digress: the point is the EC doesn't count slaves as 3/5 of a person now. How are they still being racist? That's like saying that because I used to be a little kid that couldn't tie my own shoes that I'm still a little kid that can't tie my shoes (even though I learned to tie them sometime ago).

Not the say the EC is perfect. One change that I would like to see is for the EC votes to be proportional to how the state voted. For instance in Florida instead of awarding all the votes to one candidate half should have gone to Bush and the other half to Gore. That way all voters in large states that have a broad range of political opinions have a say in the process.

example as to Why the Green Party fails.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Green Party supports closing overseas military bases and reducing the military budget by 50% over ten years.

Ok, americans have been whipped into a fervor of fear cby the current administration, and the past 10 administrations have done nothing but fuel the hate for americans worldwide.

Doing what he says above is plain suicide. If we were a peaceful nation that was generally liked (Canada or Japan for example) I certianly could see this and support that ideal.

But doing that now and within the next 25 years is suicide. A better plan is to start with FREEZING military spending and start spending time and money repairing the absolute mess we have made in the world in regards to global ideas and attitudes towards the USA and USAians. (Americans cover Canadians through Chileans. If you live in the American Continents guess what, you're an American, I refuse to lump our good friends north and south of us into the huge hate-pile that is towards Americans.)

What is needed is a campain to the rest of this planet of "oops! sorry! we did wrong, how can we fix it?"

Maybe after 10 years of that we might be liked again.

It's sad that in order to travel abroad safely our company tells us to travel and buy Canadian things, and to informa ANYONE that asks that you are Canadian and to never EVER admit that you are American or from the USA.

I've changed my mind on instant Runoff

[bmasel]

because it Strengthens the Duopoly. Even tho smaller Parties gain better numbers, they lose the Spoiler effect, the only thing that forces officeholders to adress their concerns.

Greeens and Libertarians should work out an alliance based on their areas of agreement, and win some elections. the areas where they do not overlap on policy are not something that's changeable in the medium term anyhow. End the War, dismantle the Police State and the Drugwar, and compete on the est in subsequent elections.

Re:Instant Runoff Voting

[0x0d0a]

It's possible -- and I would say that it's pretty much a prerequisite for Green/Independent/Libertarian/etc to ever have a shot at significant political power. It makes candidates much more competitive. It won't be IRV-based presidential elections immediately, but if voting reform advocates can push through IRV in smaller elections (state and local) and the idea catches on, demand for IRV could increase significantly enough to eventually get the required amendment.

The best bet for IRV adoption is probably the same mechanism that has *ever* allowed new parties to become one of the top two US parties -- one "Big Two" party becomes split down the middle, and in desperation (since traditional voting normally eliminates the political power of that party), they secure enough influence to push in IRV to avoid their neutralization as a party. IRV as a concept needs to be in place by that time, though

I mean, I recognize that this is a significant effort and will take a while, but honestly, being a third party and not advocating vote reform of some sort as your top priority is pointless. Doing anything else just siphons voters off of their less-disliked Big Two party and weakens their political stance.

Buzzword distracts from good math - go figure

[PMuse]

The need for a better voting algorithm is obvious, but Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) isn't it. IRV is a particular voting algorithm that produces some unpredicatable (to the voter) results. There are much better methods available, such as approval voting and the Condorcet method.

IRV is little more than a snappy name covering bad math. It makes a lousy poster-child for the movement to adopt an alternative voting method. How bad is the math on IRV? Under certain circumstances, you can benefit your candidate less by ranking him highest than if you had ranked him lower. That is not a result we want adopted. That's actually worse than the current situation where if you cast your single vote for your true favorite, the candidate you dislike most may win.

Re:And that is why you fail

[arose]

What else did you expect from the Greens? They just shouldn't forget that white is a colour like any other...

Re:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[LaCosaNostradamus]

You are simply shitting me. We in America are blessed:

• coal
• natural gas
• nuclear
• oil
• hydroelectric
• solar
• wind
• tides
• geothermal
• biomass

We have a vast array of options in generating electrical power, centrally and distributed. Just because there's a status quo of coal+ng+nuclear, doesn't mean that we can't change that. In fact, with ever increasing demand, new plant must (*) be installed all the time ... providing continual opportunity to change the character of America's electrical infrastructure.

We can mix generation sources with spread, to achieve harmony with regional differences with pollution controls and cost variables. But it's going to take work and time ... and good gosh, it may actually threaten short-term utility profits. But that's OK -- that's what the power of government is for: to force the Capitalists to make the investments in the country's future that they can also enjoy with the rest of us.

(*) California has discovered that you MUST plan for a future of increased energy demand (combined with plans for conservation). So, in skipping over the "must" in building generation plants, they could only encounter the "must" of paying high prices for their power. One way or another, you MUST pay for the future in energy. Californians are fucking morons. They are still putting off the day of full energy reckoning.

Re:Racist Electoral College?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh heh. Slaves didn't get to vote. If they could not vote, then they shouldn't have factored into the EC. However, that 3/5 compromise ( I think it's 3/5 and not 3/4) was designed to try to even up Southern states against northern states in the EC. If the slaves were allowed to vote (quite a paradox, I know), then they would have counted as 5/5 instead of a 3/5's of a person.
If your state has 3 million illegal aliens, you shouldn't be given extra EC votes because of the 3 million people who can't vote.

Not IRV . . . Approval

[frankie]

No. Dilemmas like this are why FPTP is a bad idea.

IRV is also a bad idea, albeit less bad than FPTP in some respects.

Why is the Green party so fixated on IRV? It's especially bizarre that a 3rd party would intentionally pretend that there are only two choices for a voting system.

In texas your vote matters the most

[SethJohnson]

As a Texan, I hear a lot of people voicing the same sentiment that you have above. I strongly disagree that Democratic votes in Texas are unimportant.

The Republican party generates tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions in Texas. Because the GOP assumes a win in Texas, it is free to spend all those funds in the battleground states at the national, state, and county race levels. That's why you don't see a bunch of campaign commercials on TV in Texas. By rolling over and letting the GOP have Texas, you are making it difficult for Democratic candidates to win in the local races as well as making it difficult for them to win in the battleground states.

Your vote in Texas also serves to backfire the recent redistricting on the GOP. Austin, for example, now is split into three different districts. We have 50,000 newly-registered voters in Travis County. If the Democratic voters show up in force in Travis County, then these three districts could all go with Democratic Congressional wins.

While we're on the topic of the GOP agenda for Texas, you might want to review the 2004 Texas GOP Party Platform. Here are some interesting objectives:

We call for the abolition of the U. S. Department of Education and the prohibition of the transfer of any of its functions to any other federal agency.

The Party supports the termination of bilingual education programs to allow individuals to more quickly assimilate into and succeed in American society.

The Party supports the immediate adoption of American English as the official language of Texas and of the United States of America. While encouraging fluency in additional languages by all citizens, no governmental entity shall require any agency, contractor, business, or individual to publish public documents in a language other than English.

In terms of the emphasis on English in the last two items, note that none of the people on the platform draft committee have hispanic names.

Re:"Green food"

[crawling_chaos]

From Taiwan's Patent Law, passed to conform to WTO standards:

Section Five-- Practice

Article 78 Compulsory license

In order to cope with non-profit use in national emergency or improving public interest, or in case still no agreed license is available within a considerable period by a petitioner having been offering a reasonable commercial terms, the patent-dedicated office may grant the petitioner a compulsory license to practice a patent upon petition, provided that the practice shall primarily supply the need of the domestic market and that a petition for a compulsory license on a patent of semiconductor technology is limited to a non-profit use of improving public interest.

Whenever a patentee has an unfair competition act about which the court or the Fair Trade Committee under the Executive Yuan has rendered a decision, the patent-dedicated office may grant to the petitioner a compulsory license to practice the patent upon petition notwithstanding no circumstance in the preceding paragraph exists.

Upon receipt of a petition for a compulsory license, the patent-dedicated office shall serve the patentee a petition duplicate and require reply within three months, and shall directly handle if there is no duly reply.

The compulsory license shall not interfere with other’s re-obtaining a license to practice the same invention patent right.

The compulsory licensee shall pay the patentee a proper compensation which is to be fixed by the patent-dedicated office upon dispute.

The compulsory license shall be transferred, trusted, inherited, licensed, or pledged with the business involved in the compulsory license.

The patent-dedicate office may terminate the compulsory license upon petition upon distinction of the cause for compulsory license.

Re:what condorcet problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

Name them. All the ones I've ever seen brought up have been addressed. AFAIK, Condorcet is completely strategy-free - voting honestly is the best way to get the results you want.

Indeed. My preference is for Condorcet with Ranked Pairs in the case that there isn't a condorcet winner.

IRV has huge tactical voting problems. In my preferred method, if there would be a condorcet winner if everyone voted his true preference, nobody can "improve" the outcome by voting other than his true preference.

If there's no condorcet winner, you can always produce a vote set where tactical voting can be used. However, the level of information required in order for someone to successfully vote tactically in a Ranked Pairs runoff is sufficiently large that it is unlikely to be reliably available to voters or political groupings from polls or canvassing.

So whilst it's in principle vulnerable, in practice it isn't.

IRV, on the other hand, sucks.

Re:I call bullshit

[the_meager]

You can't blame the free market for half the nations wealth coming into the hands of 10% of the population. Such a statement shows signs of both ignorance and naivete.

What's the evidence that a capitalist society is dog-eat-dog, and it makes everyone better for it? Little and uncommon.

I think Rand is a whacko. She was never any good at libertarianism or economics, and always kind of imposed a sort of cult-like following in her supporters. Heinlein and the Austrian economists did it better.

What a free market society does do is reward empathy and service. In a free market society, only the businesses that serve the costumer, honestly and efficiently, succeed. In a mixed market society, those who start accumulating wealth can influence politics to protect them.

I would prefer a separation of the term "free market" from "capitalism". Capitalism, as defined by Karl Marx, is really "Market Socialism". That is to say, he took a free market system without any government regulation or intervention, labelled it capitalism, and then put a spin on the definition of it -- essentially saying that in a free market, businessmen exploit everyone -- ignoring the links between businessmen in politicians. Modern America isn't about free markets, it is about "capitalism" as defined by Marx. It is, in essence, Market Socialism, with the modern corporation being the greatest utility in nationalizing industry, and maximizing profits at the expense of everything.

Who, pray tell, has debunked the free market?

And as far as hard times causing the loss of jobs... You can't use localized problems to demonstrate a national crises.

As population rises, the number of jobs increase. The more of a welfare state you have, the larger the unemployment.

as Thomas Sowell said,
"One of the most dangerous things about the welfare state is that it breaks the connection between what people have produced and what they consume, at least in many people's minds. The welfare state makes it possible for individuals to think about money or goods as just arbitrary dispensations."

"The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites."

Now, even being a free market libertarian, I would not object to a minimal welfare state in which a widower ended up with the children after her husband left her, or died in some accident or defending the country. However, I think it is complete bullshit to suggest that I would be of dubious character if I did not want to take care of some lucentious bink who has like nine kids from thirteen fathers (I know the math doesn't work out...) and demands to be taken care of. I think anyone who does, is either incredibly twisted, or inclined to use such a position to acquire influence within politics.

I think what you're missing is that without government regulation and interference, the wealthy elite DO NOT get to say in control, and they do not get to ward off would-be competitors as they are no longer protected. They are forced to play on a level field. For most of them, this would be their undoing. For some of them, they might make an honest business and prove to be ok people. Could you honestly argue against that?

I don't think so.

-1, factually wrong, rhetorically misleading

[brokenwndw]

Do you have any idea how the U.S. presidential election system works? I'd dismiss you as a troll but you're currently modded at 3, so I hope some actual facts will help here.

Electoral vote result in 2000: Bush 271, Gore 266, no vote 1 (one Gore elector withheld in protest)

Electoral votes from Florida in 2000: 25

Official Bush margin of victory in Florida: less than 0.1%

Nader votes in Florida: 1.6%

Likewise in New Hampshire: 4 EVs, Bush margin of victory 1.3%, Nader votes 3.9%.

Please consider researching your facts before making unfounded accusations!

Re:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[Anonymous Coward]

you obviously know nothing about transporting nuclear material. Ignorant? ok black kettle.

1) shipping casks can withstand extreme impact, including falling off bridges and a certain degree of explosive force. They are massive and very strong.

2) In modern reactor designs, waste can be reused until there isn't anymore high level waste left. There are also experiments that have determined that it is possible to convert high level irradiated fuel into low level material.

4) radiation does not contanimate anything, its the dust particles from the irradiated fuel that contaminates so cracks emitting radiation are the least of your worries and would be blocked from soil and rocks. Radiation does not get absorbed by water, it actually kills bacteria that lives in the water. Again, its the dust.

The problem with nuclear is all political. The problem is the waste that is sitting at the bottom of a pool awaiting disposal that has rusted and is now a big sluge problem that should even be a problem because the government didn't want to move it 30 years ago.

There are scientific solutions to these problems that should have been implemented a while ago. We should stop using old water reactor designs and use new gas ones that can use recycled waste as fuel. The solutions are here.

This post will probably be buried but here goes anyway...

Re:what my party should be?

[Idarubicin]

Killing babies, though... man. That's a moral issue, not a religious one. Even the most vocal proponent of "choice," which is just a euphamism for "death,"

I'm pretty sure that most of them aren't really in favour of "death" in general; I think that "choice" is genuinely what they're interested in. Death is an inconvenient side effect.

So, what is a "baby", and is abortion killing them?

It sounds like a flip question, but it's a deeply complicated one. In in vitro fertilization (IVF), eggs are fertilized outside of the body, and some of the embryos thus created are implanted into the would-be mother's uterus. Often, IVF clinics will fertilize more eggs than they implant on the first round. These excess embryos are often discarded if a pregnancy is successful. Is it murder to throw out these fertilized eggs? Is it murder at the two-cell stage? Four cells? Eight? Is it murder, or not, if the embryos are never implanted?

Is the ethical balance satisfied because where a couple could have had no children before, they now have one--despite the dead embryos they left behind? Often more than one embryo is implanted in IVF to improve the odds of success. Knowing that most of those implanted embryos will not survive, is it ethical for a doctor to carry out the IVF procedure? Are "babies" being created wholesale, and then killed through a medical procedure that is highly risky, from their standpoint? Net production of children seems a risky doctrine--would abortion be acceptable as long as the woman promised to let another embryo develop later?

Incidentally, this also leads into the side issue of embryonic stem cells--is it appropriate to use those excess embryos as a source of research cell lines? Is that better or worse than discarding them entirely?

So, what is a "baby"? It's easy to agree to the statement "Killing babies is wrong." I'll even grant that that is a moral and not an outright religious position to take, though I'm sure that there are other posters here who would be less generous. Deciding that a "baby" exists at the moment sperm fertilizes ovum (or, indeed, at any specific stage of development thereafter) is very much a religious (or, to use a less loaded term, philosophical) issue.

For anyone interested in the development of an embryo/fetus/baby, there's an excellent site here. To my knowledge, there are no known surviving births younger than 22 weeks (a bit more than five months, and seventeen weeks shorter than a normal-term pregnancy.) At 24 weeks, the survival rate is 50%; that climbs to 96% at 28 weeks.

Get your tax facts right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your tax example is bunk. The fair comparison is of wage earners. The top 5% of the wage earners pay more than 50% of all the taxes.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincometable.ht ml

If the numbers retrieved from the IRS are not correct then what is?

Re:what my party should be?

[dasmegabyte]

You really have no idea what a symbiotic relationship is. "Helpless without a specific entity" is quite different from "needing assistance." The point is that a fetus is NOT its own entity until it can survive outside of its mother. After that, it's no longer symbiotic. Though babies are certainly quite helpless, the care need not come from a specific person.

Furthermore, where the fuck do you derive "crippled persons should be sacrificed" from "fetuses are not their own entity?" These are two completely different and unrelated statements. You're right that the first one makes no sense. You're wrong that this has anything to do with the abortion debate.

Incidentally, if a crippled person WANTED to be "sacrificed," I believe he should be given the same options -- and counseling -- as a potential mother seeking abortion. I think it's fucking COLD that we force the crippled to burden their families and insurers if they don't want to be. It's why I have a "living will" saying KILL my ass.

Re:Why the naturalized specification should stay .

[Idarubicin]

Actually, our current specification for President is quite immigrant friendly.

Well, aside from barring immigrants, yes.

My experience with immigrants who seek out involvement in politics is that they generally aren't beholden to some foreign country. They're interested in contributing something here. I don't know--might have something to do with living in Toronto. A shade less than 60% of the city's population are first-generation immigrants, and another 20% are second-generation. (I'm part of the 21% who fall into the 'other' category.) Barring new immigrants from some political offices would seem silly, since they're more than half the voters around here.

Several of our Prime Ministers were born overseas. The most recent foreign-born PM was John Turner, who served in 1984. Our Governor General is the most powerful person in Canada, Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, able to dissolve Parliament and call elections, empowered to refuse to sign any bill into law. The post is largely ceremonial now, but still legally essential--and it's filled by a woman born in Hong Kong. She came to Canada as a refugee during WWII.

Re:what my party should be?

[Bombcar]

pro-gun positions.

Not everyone believes that the New Testament requires that you don't defend yourself.

Also, notice what Jesus did in the Temple to the moneychangers - he was willing to give himself up, but did not like the insult to his Father. In some way, I think that is what we are called to do: defend others perhaps even more that we would defend ourselves, especially the weak.

Sadly my link is to dead tree format only

[Theatetus]

I read it in a quaint text file written on a dead tree. Linky link.

But, a bit of googling did help me find a related study (sorry for the PDF).

Re:you mean human life?

[DM9290]

It's not obvious where yo draw the line.

Agreed. Although "law" is filled with arbitrary points. You must be 18 to vote, 21 to drink(some places), 35 to be president.

An arbitrary point can be chosen based on some scientific/legal rational. At that point a fetus can be granted "human" or "person" status. However, at that point, the mother still should not automatically relenquish all rights to her body.

There is a weighing of harm, just as in all other cases where the rights of 2 people infringe on one another. The unborn "person" (if personhood is defined to occur at some time prior to birth) does not have absolute rights. There are 2 parties involved.

I do not think most pro-choicers advocate that abortion should be legal up until moment the umbilical cord is cut.

I would argue against that position.

But I also argue against the position that a fetus has a right to life which outweighs the mothers right to self-defend from the instant of conception.

I also do not think a fetus is automatically a human being just because of its potential to be born.

Any more than I think a living person is a corpse (just because they have the potential to become a corpse).

Re:what my party should be?

[Stephan Schulz]

As a Christian, I believe that homosexuality is sinful. I also believe that unborn children are living humans, and killing them because they are inconvenient is wrong.[...]

Killing babies, though... man. That's a moral issue, not a religious one. Even the most vocal proponent of "choice," which is just a euphamism for "death," Mrs. Roe is now wishing that she hadn't had an abortion. Not only is it mindless killing, it is also a psychological burden to most would-have-been mothers.

I can accept that many people feel uncomfortable about abortion. It's not an easy topic, and it touches very fundamental philosphical questions, as well as very basic mammalian instincts.

However, at least in Europe it can be observed that more liberal abortion laws (often, but not always coupled with better sex education) lead to lower rates of abortion than stricter laws. Thus, I wonder if opponents of the right to an abortion are more more interested in "saving the babies", or in "punishing the sinners"?

Economy of Scale

[freejung]

As I said before, some things scale well, but agriculture is not one of them.

The economy of scale applies very well to industrial manufacturing. However, when you apply it to farming, you get problems. The conventional assesment of the costs of modern farming do not usually include environmental damage and soil depletion and so forth. If you include those, the cost, not just in calories but in money, is higher with factory farming.

The solution, as I've pointed out before, is permaculture. With permaculture you can produce surplus food using less land and less labor in the long term than industrial agriculture. This is because permaculture uses modern science and technology to develop self-sustaining food-producing ecosystems. These require little maintanance and produce more food per acre than industrial monoculure.

Permaculture does not scale, but it does allow the population to grow its own food, produce a surplus, and sill have plenty of spare time to work on Space Ship One. Sounds like a pretty good deal, eh?