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

what my party should be?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Green Party offers both Republicans and Democrats the true essence of what each of their parties should be.
...
Greens believe in freedom and privacy. We support same-sex marriage and reproductive choice.

Thanks for the honest answer. As a Republican, I feel this is not what my party should be.

Re:what my party should be?

[0x0d0a]

Okay, I can understand that someone with a fundamentalist Christian background could take stands against gay/lesbian marriage and abortion, but what's your gripe with freedom and privacy?

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.

re: what my party should be?

[ed.han]

my reading of mr. cobb's answer is that he's responding in the context of the failed gay marriage prohibition constitutional amendment. that's a traditionally non-conservative approach to what social conservatives view as a social problem. now, viewed in that context, his answer makes sense: that's not in line with the traditional republican mantras of fiscal responsibility or smaller government.

ed

Re:what my party should be?

[Fred_A]

Privacy for lesbians ? Free gays roaming the streets ?

Are you INSANE ? Think of the children !!!

(mod me down, I don't care, I'm not even from the US :) )

Re:what my party should be?

[strictfoo]

Why should a 6 or 7 month old fetus have any rights? Perhaps because, if birthed at that point, they would easily survive.

From the Mayo Clinic: ...babies born as early as 23 weeks now have a good chance of survival
http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?id=DS00137

People who consider fetuses a "choice" at that stage are so intellectually and morally confused it's unfathomable.

Re:what my party should be?

[runderwo]

Freedom is a problem because it allows people to act in manners contradictory to human welfare. Privacy is a problem because it means society cannot hold a person accountable for his wrongdoings.

Re:what my party should be?

[Slime-dogg]

There's two different types of republicans. There are the big corporate buffoons, like the ones in the White House, then there are the more independant ones. Don't confuse or label Bush as a representative for the whole party.

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.

If I were in government, though, I wouldn't do anything to prevent homosexuality. It is a part of our government that the Church should not have a strong influence over it. I would probably try to get the verbage changed, if anything, because I believe that "Marriage" is a religious institution, as opposed to a "Union," which is a bit more of a legal one. The government shouldn't have any control over who can be in a union with whom, I just find the usage of "marriage" and the power of the government to grant it to people troubling.

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.

Re:what my party should be?

[matyas47]

Uhh.... OK, I know this is going to be considered trolling, but I always wonder about politicians who claim to be Christians and yet espouse anti-welfare, pro-death penalty, or pro-gun positions. I don't think any of those positions are consistent with the New Testament I read. Call me a hippie, but I was always under the impression that the Gospel advocated justice, equality, peace, non-violence, respect for one's neighbor, and responsible stewardship of the Earth. Flame on....

Re:what my party should be?

[corngrower]

There's two different types of republicans. There are the big corporate buffoons, like the ones in the White House, then there are the more independent ones. Don't confuse or label Bush as a representative for the whole party.

I agree with you on there being two types of repbulicans. The problem is, however, is that the bufoons are using the independents pretty much just to get elected. Once in office, the repbulican polititians tend to be pawns of Giant corporations, and the extremely wealty. They do nothing to really help the american citizen. Their goal is to eliminate taxes for the wealthy, and put the tax burden on the middle class wageearner. They want also to ensure that the weath and power they now enjoy is passed down in perpetuity to their descendants, tax free. They pander to the populace on abortion and gay issues just to get elected

Quite frankly, if you're an independant republican, then why aren't you independent of these pompous buffoons? Why do many of you take what is told to you from the pulpit without one bit of questioning or independent thought? Why do you vote for whomever the pastor says to vote for and not really look into all the issues that really affect you and decide which issues are important to YOU and vote accordingly? From my perspective, many of your type of republicans seem to be more dependent( mind controlled) than independent.

Re:what my party should be?

[kwiqsilver]

He doesn't think the gay marriage amendment is necessary, because he thinks the states will all ban gay marriage. He does think it's wrong (based on his religion) and would deny people (of any religion) the right to marry the same sex.
From his front page: we are committed to a civil government in these United States that acknowledges God.
Most of his positions are based on scripture. So as President, he would make Christian issues into government policy.
He supports the idea of putting the ten commandments in court houses: the ones that are applicible (such as "Thou shalt not kill") are already represented in our legal code.

Perhaps I misrepresented his position by saying "theocracy". He does not want to merge Christianity and the US government, but he does want to base the US government, and its laws and policies, on Christian principles. His basic position is that the US (and man) were created by the Christian God, and that the US government should follow His teachings and laws, which is not appropriate for a nation so diverse.
You're right that the Constitution Party has similar views to the Libertarians. But the Constitution Party would say their main distinction is their belief that religion has a place in government.
Here's his page where he talks about how the government should "Honor God".

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.

Re:what my party should be?

[Mr_Icon]

Killing babies, though... man. That's a moral issue, not a religious one.

It's not killing babies. It's killing life-forms in early stages of development. Technically, a month-old embryo is about as advanced as a shrimp. If you are against killing them, then you better be vegetarian, because when you're munching on a ham sandwich, you are partaking in killing and consuming of a creature far more advanced than an embryo, or, hell, moreso than a fully matured pre-natal human child. Pigs can be pretty damn smart.

Now, I am against abortions myself: I think it's a vile, degrading, and dangerous operation. I just don't think that making it illegal will accomplish much other than make abortions more vile, degrading, and dangerous. Most of those I've met who wish to outlaw abortion only want it because that makes them feel good about themselves, not because of any belief in "sanctity of life" or concern about the well-being of the mother or the future child involved.

We have plenty of born children to worry about -- hundreds of thousands of them die worldwide due to malnutrition and diseases. In my opinion this is something far more immoral than the philosophically dubious question of the rights to life of early embryos. Let's not jump ahead of ourselves.

Re:what my party should be?

[Kurt Granroth]

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," [snip]

"[C]hoice" is not a euphemism for "death". That attitude is eactly what makes any Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice debate a waste of time. Both sides are talking about completely different things.

There are two distinct questions regarding this issue that determine your true stance:

1. Do you believe that a person has the right to choose to have (or not have) an abortion? The other way of asking this is "Do you believe that somebody else's moral beliefs should be able to force a woman to not have (or have) an abortion regardless of her beliefs?"
2. Do you believe that life begins at conception (thus making abortion a practice of "killing babies") or at some later point (birth, perhaps)?

The Pro-Choice and Pro-Life camps have each answers only one of the questions and each chose a different question. In fact, it's possible to have four different positions on the issue:

Position 1: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong but I don't believe I have the right to force this belief on others." (Pro-Life/Pro-Choice)
Position 2: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong and furthermore, I believe that I have the right to prevent others from doing it as well." (Pro-Life/Anti-Choice)
Position 3: "I believe that abortion is not morally wrong and also I believe that others have the right to choose on their own" (Anti-Life/Pro-Choice)
Position 4: "I believe that abortion is not morally wrong and furthermore, I think it should be mandated." (Anti-Life/Anti-Choice)

The fourth position is fairly off-the-wall which leaves us with three perfectly valid positions. Unfortunately, the Pro-Life movement is nearly entire made up of people taking position 2 and the vast majority of Pro-Choice people are position 3.

That leaves people in the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice camps out in the cold.

I, for instance, consider myself Pro-Life/Pro-Choice. I don't know when life begins for sure, but it's surely early enough to make abortion a very hard moral position to defend. On the other hand, I cannot allow myself to force my beliefs on somebody else. If another person comes to the moral decision that life begins at, say, birth, then it would be unbelievably arrogant of me to say that only my belief is the valid one.

So saying that "choice" = "death" is just continuing the trend of further confusing two distinct issues.

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.

Re:what my party should be?

[ChristTrekker]

Because it's not government's job to do those things. Even if you and I are both Christians (for the sake of discussion) we may have legitimate differences of opinion. We both have free will after all. To treat you with brotherly Christian love, I must allow you to be true to your conscience before God.

This means I cannot compel/force you to support something in contradiction with your conscience, even if I think it's the best thing in the world. How can I be God's servant if I am forcing my brother to violate his duties as God's servant? If I'm being honest with myself, I have to realize that I might be wrong in my interpretation. (I don't think so, obviously, but the possibility exists.) Thus I have to let you be free to do

This is the Christian foundation for limited government. Each person is responsible for his own conduct before God.

Let's start with charity. It is my responsibility to help the poor, and also my right to do so. As a Christian I believe that I get to heaven by faith and not works/charity, but I also believe I will be rewarded somehow for those works once I get there. When gov't takes over this function, it robs me of my volition in the matter (I have to give), and robs me of the opportunity to gain my reward (since I don't have the extra funds any more). Plus, the charity assisted by government might not be one I approve of, so my material wealth might have been used in a way I would consider wasteful at best and sinful at worst!

Compulsory charity is no longer charitable - you have no choice in the matter. When government takes over these functions from the private sector, it takes away the opportunity for individuals to express love to each other. A government can't love - it's a soulless organization. It can provide food, clothing, shelter - but not the spiritual connection that is just as essential as these.

Guns. God gives us the gift of life. My life is mine, and not yours to take away. If you threaten it, I am justified in defending it. It's as simple as that. When Jesus left the pesach seder to go to Gethsemane, he asked if his disciples had any swords. Obviously he thought it appropriate to have them. Later he showed that he disapproved of how Peter used his (he struck first, and was relying on his own strength rather than God's).

Death penalty. God gave mankind dominion over the earth - to fill it, take care of it, make constructive use of it, form societies, etc. You are right that the gospel advocates justice - God expects us to behave justly to each other, and when someone does something wrong, justice demands compensation and/or retribution. God is love, and it is true that love can be expressed in mercy, but not meting out justice to wrongdoers does not show love to victims. Yes, I believe there are crimes so egregious to others that the criminal forfeits his right to continue living. We're human and thus fallible, yes, but God gave us the responsibility and authority to administer justice. To not do so because we might make a mistake would abrogate that responsibility.

The NT advocates peace, yes, but not necessarily non-violence. Overturning tables in the temple in (righteous) anger was violent.

Stewardship of the earth is important as well. But God gave this responsibility to individuals when He said "thou shalt not steal" and thus created the notion of private property. The tragedy of the commons is the logical outgrowth of public property, which results in worse outcomes than personal stewardship. You're going to take care of what belongs to you, after all.

I've tried to be brief so I'm probably not doing justice on each individual point, but the post is already getting long.

Re:what my party should be?

[mvdwege]

Abortion (not killing babies, thank you for that leading categorisation) is indeed a moral issue.

However, it is a moral issue for the woman considering the abortion. A blanket condemnation of abortion is a not-so-veiled implication that those women are incapable of moral judgement. We have left that misogynistic Calvinist notion that women are inherently immoral behind us, therefore it would behoove us to let that moral choice for abortion or not with the person who is about to undergo that ordeal.

Those women have enough trouble and enough soul-searching to go through without your cheap shots, thank you very much.

Mart

Re:what my party should be?

[maop]

I know that we are getting offtopic but oh well. Below I'll put in my 2 cents about homosexuals and abortion.

Don't confuse or label Bush as a representative for the whole party.

I would hope that you are not voting for him then. He is not a real conserative.

As a Christian, I believe that homosexuality is sinful.

Okay, I will admit that I'm not a Christian and that I'm glad that the Constitution prevents the unification of the government and religion. I do consider much of the Christian teachings sensible. In any case I think Jesus's disciples got many things wrong. The way they saw the world and Jeusus's teachings were affected by their own bias and faults. I think that they were best at relaying Jesus's words and actions.

I'm not even interested in difference between marriage and unions. I think that many married heterosexual couples have insulted the institution marriage more than loving homosexuals could.

Killing babies, though... man. That's a moral issue, not a religious one.

I'll agree that abortion is a moral and ethical question. I also agree that abortion is wrong although I cannot be bother to forcefully prevant other people from getting abortions. And Republicans can't be bother with peacefully persuading and enabling mothers to not have abortions. However, we should also care about the child after he or she gets out the womb. Social equality and the strengthening the family unit are very important for the child as well.

However, divorce is good because who needs a spouse that is an asshole or a parent that is an asshole.

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"?

Re:what my party should be?

[aricusmaximus]

As a Christian, I believe that homosexuality is sinful

According to what? The Bible? Or what your hate-mongering preacher spoon-fed you?

If you are planning to hate gays based on the the Old Testament purity laws in Leviticus, then you'd better follow all of them, including no blood transfusions, no clothing of mixed fibers, eating kosher, and not clipping off the edges of your beard. Otherwise you're cherry picking which parts of the Bible to follow, and that's hypocritical. Furthermore, passages in the Bible indicate that adherence on the Levitican purity laws is contrary to Jesus's teachings

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 hear something like this and I think of a kid who cries when Bambi's mother dies and later munches on a hamburger. The cute deer gets the tear in your eye while you ignore the fact you're eating the entrails of probably 200-300 different cows for your mealtime. Your heart's in the right place, but you suffer from moral myopia -- you don't take into account the larger picture involved. Mourning the death of unwanted babies while sentimental, really does nothing to fight the world's suffering.

Tell you what, instead of sensationalistic bemoaning of the unborn children, why don't you work on the following causes first?

- According to estimates, there are 800 Million people who go hungry worldwide. 1 child dies every 7 seconds from hunger.

- Over one million children were homeless in nice warm months - like October and February.

- In Africa, 16 million children are homeless due to the AIDS epidemic there.

- over 3 million children were abused in 2001 . 1300 died from abuse, amounting to 3 per day.

So why don't you work on helping the kids people actually want first before harassing women facing a difficult choice?

Mrs. Roe is now wishing that she hadn't had an abortion.

Hmmm... wouldn't you have second thoughts if you'd become the nationwide target of assholes telling you how to live your life? That's succumbing to peer pressure, not a moral revelation.

Not only is it mindless killing, it is also a psychological burden to most would-have-been mothers.

Ummm... bullshit.

Lastly, unless it's your body that's carrying the baby, it's really none of your fucking business. It's the woman's body; the woman has the right to chose to have a kid -- when she's ready, and no sooner. If you can't respect that, then you have no right to have your grubby hands (much less your penis) in a woman's womb.

And that is why you fail

[paranode]

"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."

In my book, this is why I can't stand neither the Democrats nor the Greens. Libertarians have a much better sense of what equality really means, not overcompensation by creating two wrongs.

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.

Re:And that is why you fail

[Gzip Christ]

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

The thing is, Greens are only interested in championing people one particular color. For shame.

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...

Dear Mr. Cobb

[Letter]

Dear Mr. Cobb,

Is it easy being Green?

Sincerely,
Letter

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.

Re:Anybody from SF

[York the Mysterious]

It will only be used for the local elections in SF. It take some national level change to allow for the system in the presidential elections.

Re:Anybody from SF

[ornil]

You know, I think it is the state that decides how its electoral college votes are distributed. So it could in principle run instant runoff vote and determine their delegation based on that. IANAL, so please correct me if I am wrong.

Re:Anybody from SF

[Luyseyal]

Not necessarily. A state could have IRV and make the electoral votes match the IRV outcome.

-l

Re:Anybody from SF

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Local elections.

I don't think San Francisco City/County government has the authority to change how presidential votes are counted.

The Green Party did very well in the San Francisco and many other Bay Area elections; and actually beat the Republicans in many districts (including my own).

During the 2000 Governer Elections, the Greens beat the Republicans

I believe these elections were a large motivator in the IRV movement in San Francisco.

"Green food"

[SteveAstro]

Food was grown by humankind for an awfully long time and rather successfully without pesticides or herbicides

....but not for anything like as many people. Who is to die if the crops fail from something that a herbicide or pesticide could prevent ? Betch it ain't Americans. It'll be the poor bloody Indians or Africans. And "Green" America will do what then ?
Steve

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:"Green food"

[York the Mysterious]

So what do you tell the people in Africa at the moment when Monsanto knocks on their doors and tells them to rip out their crops as they're patented. It's already happened and something tells me those people starved.

Re:"Green food"

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Most pesticides and herbicides don't prevent a crop from disaster, but rather they're just a good way for the farmer to save a few bucks due to higher yeild. Better off spending money on researching non-chemical ways of pest control, like those cool, bug eating robots that powered themselves from the bugs they killed (It was featured here a while ago).

Re:"Green food"

[Mr. Slippery]

Who is to die if the crops fail from something that a herbicide or pesticide could prevent ?

Who's already dying from the slow poisoning caused by the contamination of food, soil, and water by pesticides?

Betch it ain't Americans. It'll be the poor bloody Indians or Africans

Here's a sample of how our current agricultural practices are doing in India: poisons in the water on top of depletion of water resources.

Re:"Green food"

[homer_ca]

Yes, that is the unspoken implication of green farming isn't it? The fact is, we can't feed 6 billion people with 19th century farming. They couldn't even feed 1/2 billion people in the 19th century with their farming technology. Famine and starvation were a regular occurence. World population is a problem, but the answer isn't turning our backs on modern agriculture (not saying the status quo of GM foods and pesticides is perfect by any means). It might work, but depopulating the world by 5 billion people that way would be ugly.

Some of his responses were quite reasonable, but I have to call bullshit on green farming.

Re:"Green food"

[avandesande]

Slavery was practiced for a long time too. This guy couldnt argue himself out of a wet paper bag.

Re:"Green food"

[Theatetus]

Who is to die if the crops fail from something that a herbicide or pesticide could prevent ?

Who is to die when GM crops fail from a blight that the Genetic engineering opened up? Works both ways.

Incidentally, if you compare calories expended in farming and harvesting to calories obtained from the food, stone-age-tech farming is about 3 times as efficient as anything we do today. People are *better* able to feed themselves with traditional farming; it just makes multinationals *less* able to make a profit off of it.

People are not starving because there's a lack of food in the world. That's a huge myth from the ZPG crowd. People are starving because their corrupt and/or inept governments keep food from them and/or do not maintain the infrastructure to distribute it to them.

We don't need more food in the world, we need the food that exists to be distributed better. And we definitely don't need to introduce God-knows-how-many environmental, financial, political, and health problems by growing more and more GM crops.

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:"Green food"

[geekpolitico]

There is an excellent article entitled The Oil We Eat on Harper's website about how it currently takes 1.1 calories of oil energy to produce 1 calorie of food energy. It is very interesting.

There is also an interesting Atlantic Monthly article about how GM foods may be good for the environment.

I find the idea that we've so badly damaged the topsoil in the that the midwest is effectively 6 feet lower than it was 200+ years ago to be particularly interesting.

Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[Steve B]

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.

Solar power and wind turbines have their own environmental problems (e.g. taking up lots of space and requiring lots of raw materials if scaled up to the point of making a significant dent in US energy needs). Nuclear power is actually more environmentally benign if the political problem of waste disposal (and, yes, it is a political, not a technical, problem) can be solved.

Re:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[cephyn]

Europe does better with the political issues surrounding this than we do. And last I checked, France isn't a nuclear wasteland (though it does have other issues. ;) )

Re:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[pctainto]

Ok, I'll bite...

The disposal of nuclear waste IS a technical problem. This problem is inherently imposed by the politicians forcing science to its limits, but to say that we can safely throw tons and tons of nuclear waste in a mountain without a hitch is utterly ridiculous. There are a few problems that are not political...

Getting the waste there:
Yes, that's right, the waste has to get there. ALmost all nuclear plants are on the east coast and would be moving to the west coast. That is A LOT of waste being transported on today's roads or rails. What would happen if just one of these 96,000 (! over 40 years) trucks got in an accident. What if it were hit by a terrorist? Does it make sense to send this waste thousands of miles by road?

Keeping the waste away from groundwater/reducing other contamination:
If you are ignorant on the situation, let me remind you of Maxi Flats, KY. A temporary nuclear waste depository was made there in the 80s. They said that it would take 24,000 for the radioactivity to travel a 1/2 inch ON SITE... they were off by SIX orders of magnitude. It took 10 years for the radioactivity to get TWO MILES OFF SITE. That's a serious mistake! Now, I'm not saying we haven't gotten smarter, but there are many similar assumptions about migration that are still being used.

Geological problems:
There are earthquakes near Yucca Mountain -- there was one there last year. Geologist CANNOT predict what's going to happen. Also, geologist model Yucca mountain as a uniform rock instead of the complex, cracked, structure that it probably is. This makes simulation easier but can lead to drastic miscalculations.

Anyway, if you look at the FACTS and past history, you will see that a permanent storage facility is perhaps not as great as you would think. It makes much more sense to have many, small, repositories that could be guarded for 100 years, and hopefully in that time we know more about what the hell is going on. Politics does not play into these technological problems -- politics is what is making these problems a serious problem because it is forcing scientist to come to conclusions which aren't very well founded..

Re:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, no, the water is let back into the ecosystem as warm water. There's no contamination of the water (here in Ontario, we have two power plants on lake Ontario that feed thier water back into the lake).

The waste is the remanents of the Uranium that was running the power plant, and is now a different radioactive isotope with a longer half-life.

That's what the disposal problem is. And it is not a technical problem -- many viable solutions exist for long-term containment of nuclear waste, as well as reprocessing of waste into less hazerdous materials.

It's a political problem -- the US has a highly, highly irrational stance on Nuclear technologies (thanks mainly to the widespread fearmongering of Greenpeace and related groups), and so any research into reactors that could reprocess this waste into something less dangerous, or any initiatives to find a place to bury it for 50,000 years are stonewalled by groups acting on those irrational fears.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans have a very firm "no new nuclear power" policy. That isn't going to change anytime soon, so the American's needs for electricity have to be solved some other way.

Re:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[American AC in Paris]

Agreed. Conservation is an essential part of a viable long-term energy strategy, but it is a way of reducing costs, not replacing fuel sources.

Solar is promising, but we really need a next-generation solar collection technology to make it viable on a large scale; current systems are cumbersome, comparatively fragile, and contain small amounts of toxic compounds which require careful disposal. Wind power is similarly cumbersome, and requires large amounts of space to generate comparatively little power. They're promising technologies, but they're not there yet, and we may not hit that next-big breakthrough for a while.

The biggest thing nuclear power has going against it as that a lot of people are really, really scared of it. Nevermind that we now have rugged, compact reactor designs that are literally incapable of melting down. Nevermind that we're finding new and better ways of securing/reusing waste every day. Nevermind that we can generate staggering amounts of power in a very, very small space. Nevermind that the physically small amount of waste material is not steadily pumped back into the air we breathe and the water we drink. Nevermind that it could be used to easily meet our power needs in its current technological state.

When, oh when, is the environmental mainstream going to wake up to the boon of nuclear power?

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:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[FortranDragon]

One way of getting rid of nuclear waste is to fuse it glass bricks. (Not encase, infuse it so that the waste is a part of the glass.) Then dump the glass brick into a subduction zone where natural process will carry the glass brick back to the Earth's core. I think the core can handle this negligible addition radiation. ;-)

Also, the half-life of the radioactive wastes isn't that long. Soon (decades, IIRC) it is going to be less than the background radiation. After all, the radioactive waste was originally uranium that is present in nature.

Basically, our challenges aren't can we do this, but will we do this. While I don't agree with profligate waste, I don't' agree with the Green's emotional hatred of nuclear power. You can not conserve your way to a better future.

Re:Knee-Jerk Nucleophobia

[Ironsides]

Actually, the primary solution to Waste Disposal is to recycle it. Yes, RECYCLE. You take the left over waste, run it through a re-enrichment process and what you have left is a small amount of radioactive material that could fit under a desk, more fuel rods and some other non-radioactive products. The reason we don't do this is because the enrichment process is the same to not only make reactor grade plutonium/uranium, but Weapons Grade material as well. Weapons grade is just more pure and left in the enrichment process longer. We have a solution, we just aren't using it do to a fear of someone over purifying the material.

::sigh::

[Reality Master 101]

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.

"Under any circumstances"??? So Fusion power is out, too? Or any future nuclear power that solved the waste issues?

And, of course, we know that genetically modified foods are by definition unhealthy. And nice "Frankenfood" reference later on.

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.

No. Conservation will never work; our power needs will continue to increase, and I have no problem with that. I don't want to live back in the dark ages again, sorry.

He's just another anti-science nut.

Not this year

[Wind_Walker]

I respect all the third party candidates for what they're doing, and I know that he went through a lot of trouble to get these answers to the Slashdot crowd, but this is not the year to be voting for a third party candidate. We need to get George W. Bush out of the Oval Office as soon as possible. And a vote for a third party is a vote that Kerry did not receive.

And don't lecture me about "voting your conscience". I voted for Nader in 2000, and would proudly do it again. Hell, I'd vote for Nader in 2004 if it were obvious that Kerry would win the election and get President Bush out of the office. But in a tight race like that, we can't afford that chance.

If a house is burning down, first you put out the fire. Voting third party this year is like redesigning the house while it's still on fire. Kerry will need every vote he can get.

Re:Not this year

[cephyn]

Dilemmas like this are why IRV voting is a good idea.

Re:Not this year

[Jtheletter]

If a house is burning down, first you put out the fire. Voting third party this year is like redesigning the house while it's still on fire. Kerry will need every vote he can get.

The problem is when Americans continue to vote like this, the only people we put in the house are arsonists. We'll never get to redesign anything if the devil we don't know is always next in line.

Re:Not this year

[iabervon]

Kerry doesn't need the vote of any slashdot reader in Massachusetts. No matter how many or how few vote for him, he will get MA's electoral votes, which are all that matter. In 2000, I voted for Nader, despite wanting Gore to win, and my electors all voted for Gore.

In a tight race like this, if you live in a state that is overwhelmingly one way or the other, you would do more to help your candidate win if you did not vote on election day and instead went to a contested state and offered to provide transportation to voters of demographics generally in favor of your candidate and unlikely to vote (Unless there are other elections locally that you also care about). You could make more of a difference by writing letters to unlikely voters in swing states. The election is not going to be won based on a candidate convincing voters without opinions; it will be won by a candidate convincing his supporters to go to the polls. If you convince just one democrat non-voter in a swing state to vote, you've done more than you can possibly do in an uncontested state at the polls.

Re:Not this year

[Jagasian]

Isn't it funny how every election, people claim that this is not the election to vote for a third party? I heard this same crap last election from both Dems and Pubs. It is a vicious circle, but you don't need to keep feeding the beast.

Gadzooks

[wallace_mark]

The first two answers led me to consider this man. Fortunately for me, I kept reading.

The point where I exceeded my sanity was his harping on the need for a true democracy. In one paragraph he harps on racism and in the next the need for a true democracy. (Care to take a true democratic vote on civil rights in 1860 America?) He think that conservation can substitute for Nuclear power. (Do the math; not unless you're willing to watch everyone's standard of living plummet).

In short this candidate is just as much a politician as the others. Full of symbols that have more to do with adherence to ideology than with solutions to real problems.

Thanks for running, thanks for answering the questions. But your symbols don't appeal to me.

Re:Gadzooks

[York the Mysterious]

Step 1: Stop subsidizing nuclear energy to the toll of several billion a year Step 2: Take that several billion and mail everyone back a flourescent light bulb with their tax rebate. Step 3: Watch as that saves you enough energy to turn off several power plants.

Re:Gadzooks

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

He think that conservation can substitute for Nuclear power.

No, he thinks that conservation combined with increased use of clean energy sources can substitute for Nuclear power. Remember, the Greens also advocate cutting the military budget in half (which is currently half of our entire national budget). That is a lot of money, which, if invested in new technologies as the Green propose, could radically improve clean energy sources. It is all a matter of priority - if we want to build, use and improve clean energy sources, we can do so. The fact that we are not is simply a choice - and a reversable one.

...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!

Frankenfood

[nukem1999]

Pity, I was rather interested in why the Green party (or many people for that matter) are so heavily against genetically modified foods. I was hoping for something a little more insightful than name-calling.

Re:Frankenfood

[Sycraft-fu]

Thing is they usually don't have a good reason. Not because there aren't some good reasons but because there are just as many (if not more) on the other side. It's not a clear cut issue, neither side has a perfect argument. So if you come out with arguments against GM foods, someone who is up to speed on it will come right back with good arguments for them.

So they use a typical tactic for situations like that: scary rehetoric and name calling. They don't want people thinking about the issue, since it might lead them to conclude GM foods are ok, they just want to associate the GM = bad idea in people's minds so they never even consider the benefits.

It is an unfortunately common tactic these days for many groups, try and scare, cajole, name call, shame, etc people to believeing what you believe without putting forth any facts. The extreme environmentalists love to use it, but they sure aren't the only ones.

Re:Frankenfood

[stinerman]

The main argument against GM is that modified animals could disrupt the "natural way of things" in nature.

For example, if GM fish were able to somehow spread their modified genes outside the "control area", then that could cause an unpredictable change in an ecosystem and perhaps drive naitive animals w/o the enhancements into extinction.

As far as plants are concerned, the GM plants often end up cross-pollenating with other plants which may end up wiping out many other types of competing plants.

For now, I think the best solution is to continue ahead with some research into the long-term effects into GM, and provide manufacturers to label their products if they use any type of GM.

Overcompensation of race, underprotection of count

[numbski]

Overcompensatino of race, underprotection of the country.

What I'm seeing here are two things. Reverse-racism (instead of discriminating against those who happen to have darker skin tones, discriminate against everyone who does not to make up for it) rather than treating everyone the same, and leaving it at that, and secondly, reducing military budget by 50% over 10 years doesn't seem correct.

Let me explain...I don't like the idea of us policing the rest of the world. For the most part I would like to see each nation take care of itself where possible. That said, there is generally a large reason most countries won't screw with the US. The US doesn't get scared off or back down, we come roaring back.

Now, if we close all of our overseas bases of operation, and we get attacked, where does that leave us? I mean, unless the Canadians or Mexicans finally decide they've had enough of us, we won't have an operational foot to stand on.

Not being offensive doesn't mean we can't be sufficiently defensive. I believe we can fix our deficit without signficantly reducing our defensive stances.

IRV may sound nice in theory...

[stubear]

...but Florida proved one thing, you can't trust most voters to understand complex design dystems. You're just replacing one problem with another if you swap the electoral college for IRV.

Mr. Cobb also fails to address the issue the EC solves, that of representation for the states with smaller population centers. For all its flaws, the EC forces candidates to deal with issues in smaller states. Going to a proportional voting system or eliminating the EC altogether is going to disenfranchise these states and the people who live there.

Re:IRV may sound nice in theory...

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Actually, IRV suffers from MANY problems. ElectionMethods.org has an excellent summary of many "multiple selection" voting methods. IRV is the worst of all of them, as it can end up selecting the candidate who does not have the most votes. Educate yourself about the dangers of IRV and the many superior alternatives!

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

[Fnkmaster]

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".

No it's not OK to be lazy. Being stupid (genetically) is something beyond our control, but being uneducated is not excusable either. If you are sick or handicapped, I agree, it is fair for society to guarantee your welfare and help support you. I do agree that you can be socially liberal, focused on the concept of individual liberty, and fiscally moderate, without being a Randian bastard. This is why I don't call myself a libertarian, though I agree with libertarians on many issues.

In any case, pure laziness or lack of education are definitely not excuses to be on the dole for life. The primary function of society is to balance everybody's interests and end up with a net utilitarian benefit without screwing anybody over too much. Protecting the weak is definitely one important function of society, but the interests of the slothful and stupid shouldn't be given more consideration than the interests of those who contribute more to society.

Re:Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[WhiplashII]

Interestingly, this says a lot about your preconceived notions:

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

I personally do not want to live in such a society. Yes, everyone should be given the tools to make themselves happy (whether stupid, sick handicapped, etc.), but an external force will NEVER be able to make someone happy.

I believe that the primary function of society is to give everyone an even chance. Beyond that, what you do with it is your own affair. (Yes, there should exist safety nets for people that get slammed by pure economics. But that is not the primary function of society, in my opinion.)

The key here is that what anyone believes the primary function of society is going to be opinion, not fact.

Oh, by the way, I am handicapped.

Re:Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[KefabiMe]

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).

Maybe there's something wrong with my views of what liberal and conservative are, but I always thought the Greens had a pretty conservative outlook on drugs, sex, and religion (maybe not immigration...) Pretty much, keep the government out of it!!!

The Republicans are NOT conservative. I consider myself more of a conservative American than a liberal one when it comes to government, and I have lost all respect for the Big-Government, Control the Population, Republican party we have today. And that is why I am voting Kerry

BTW, I voted for Nader in 2000 (I knew California was going Democratic), I'm a registered Green member, and for most elections for local/state government I vote Green or Libertarian depending on the candidates running.

Re:Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[That's Unpossible!]

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".
Where on earth do you get the idea that society must support the lazy/stupid/ignorant? Society will support those that deserve to be helped and require it. The sick, handicapped, even the unlucky. You are right. It's ok to be lazy. But you must live with that responsibility, not thrust it upon others.

Secondly, the libertarians aren't interested in "guaranteeing" maximum profit for anyone. They are interested in getting the government out of the way of EVERYONE.

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.

Re:Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[ahdeoz]

Start with yourself then. Don't compromise my property and freedom first, and coyly suggest you'll give yours up next, hoping you won't have to. No-one is stopping you from supporting the lazy and feeding the sick. But I should have a say in what you want to do with my money. Because, if for no other reason, than you think that your lazy friend is more deserving of my money than my sick mother is.

Re:Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[jjhall]

"Good points, but I still insist that the society should provide a modest income to everyone (a citizen's salary, so to speak) - even if you admit you're just a lazy son-of-a-bitch who doesn't feel like working. I've got such a friend. He just doesn't feel like having a job, but is perfectly OK with his minimal dole. I'm perfectly OK with that, too."

See, I am not OK with that. Why should I be *forced* to pay him to sit on his duff while I work my duff off? If you are OK with it, great, feel free to donate as much of your salary as you like to him. Sure, I know some people who are like that too, but it is their choice. Now if your friend was laid off from his high paying job, and is being forced to work at a fast food joint for minimum wage just to pay his rent, I'll gladly help support him for a *limited* amount of time until he can either get back on his feet via a better job, or reduces his expenses to match his new income. Again, that part is his choice.

"My argument is that most people simply can't handle the life of being truly lazy. Heck, over here people who've been unemployed for months are getting psychological help in order to cope with the situation of having nothing "real" to do."

I disagree with this statement. I would gladly quit my job and do nothing if I could. But I have to get my own ducks in a row to do that. I would not be comfortable doing so then expecting you to work harder to support it. It is called personal responsibility, and *everyone* needs to be held responsible for themselves. If your friend makes a million in the stock market and wants to be lazy for the rest of his life, more power to him. But since he is expecting to be lazy and expecting me to provide for him, it needs to stop.

"In other words, the financial burden of supporting the real leeches would be insignificant. It's just the people who hate their jobs, but who don't have the guts to actually admit it or the initiative to do something about it, are the ones who are having problems here."

Yep. I can't quit my job because I have the responsibility to my society to support myself, and my family. If I didn't have to pay to support your friend, I might be able to get into a situation where I could quit a lot faster. Long and short of it is, society should not have any responsibility to support the truely, self proclaimed, lazy drains on society when it causes harm to the rest of the society members.

If we support the idea that it is OK to be a lazy leech, then more and more people will become a leech. You may be correct that the number of leeches now may not be that large of a burdon to support. But the moment we condone that lifestyle, it will grow exponentially.

Now there are other ways besides a 8-5 job, like volunteering. If your friend is choosing not to work, and is willing to live on handouts, because he devotes all of his spare time to doing charity work, then I am OK with that too. In this case, he would not be a pure drain, he is actually contributing in some way.

That is also a solution for those with "nothing real to do" as you so elegantly put it. Rather than pay for them to do nothing, then pay for them to get counseling because it is stressing them out, put them to work in a soup kitchen, or roadside litter pickups, or a nursing home. The only reason these people have "nothing to do" is because they are, again as you said, lazy and only want to leech. Now they are doing what they can to get everyones' sympathy by claiming to be victims.

My whole point, is that I should not be told I have to support your friend if he is not willing to do something in return. If I choose to, that is fine, it is my choice to do so. But to be told I have to is a violation of my rights as I see it. As others have said, this does not apply to handicapped and sick, and unlucky people, only the perfectly capable people who have a choice.

Re:Libertarians don't know anything about equality

[The Original Yama]

As a European, I find the American use of conservative/liberal confusing sometimes.

Americans have developed some strange idea that liberal is an analogue of socialist, when in fact nothing can be further from the truth. True liberals (although things are less clear in practice) believe in the principles of liberalism, i.e. market liberalisation, individual liberty, etc. They favour minimal state intervention on the economy and on people's lives.

Dogma

[wjwlsn]

"I cannot under any circumstances accept nuclear power and genetically modified foods as a healthy alternative."

*Any* circumstances? How very dogmatic. The only difference between this guy and a hard-core, right-wing, religious fundamentalist is his choice of religious doctrine. The Greens can tolerate no dissent in these areas... dissent is heresy!

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?

He lost my interest...

[Transfan76]

when he said Frankenfood. That's such a scare tatic move. Like Bush invoking 9/11 all the time.

Drug Use Among Minorities

[Cobblepop]

It's simple: When minorities abuse substances, they tend to do higher doses, and do it outdoors more frequently. Some guy laying on his floor listening to Bob Dylan isn't likely to get busted. A guy on the street on PCP causing trouble is bound to make the news. (Rodney King anyone? He now lives in my home town - LOL.) "Past research shows that African American adolescents and adults experience substance-related problems at higher levels than those of White adolescents and adults, but their rates of substance use are similar if not lower than those of Whites." http://www.health.ufl.edu/shcc/cadrc/pdf/alc19.pdf

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"

[magarity]

If Barack Obama were to run as a third-party candidate ... it wouldn't do much, as he would carry very few states and likely receive no electoral votes.

Umm, maybe he wouldn't get any electorial votes because at 41 he's too young to run for president.

While we're on race, compare the Clinton's, the self-styled "first black president", cabinet with GWB's.

What do you think of a Guiliani / Powell GOP ticket in 2008?

"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?

Re:"working people"

[bazmonkey]

It's not because someone is paid less that they get the work-harder label. It's because they work HARDER. A man who does roof-work, construction workers, Manpower-hired day-laborers and fruit-pickers and such work harder than a computer programmer. Period. I don't care if they earned more money than the programmer, it's still harder work.

It's not that the Green party doesn't have room for rich people. Rich people are... RICH! What "help" does a multi-millionaire need!? He lives in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and sends his kids to a good school and goes on vacations and has insurance and time for soccer practice and... what's the problem? Has the economy made a dent in your vacation home plans? Are you butt-hurt because you're taxed more so you can only afford one yacht? Seriously, out of the biggest concerns in politics right now besides Iraq, namely health insurance, social security, gay marriage and drugs, where are you, the poor neglected REDICULOUSLY-RICH PERSON, feeling a little left out?

You're not being punished for succeeding, but you sure as shit don't need help. You should be happy that you don't need a government program to have a decent quality of living. And people should feel downright ASHAMED about devoting their lives to the aquisition of wealth. I hope it buys them something to cover up the shallow uselessness they've become. To undermine that by trying to get the government to give less money to impoverished people because "the estate tax is mean and I want all 30 of my million dollars" is a blatant act of greed. How dare a truly wealthy person even CLAIM that they need the same government help as people that struggle to maintain a third-world quality of life.

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.

Electoral College is racist? WTF?

[tjic]

The Electoral College 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.

By this logic, the first ammednment is racist too, because when it was passed, slaves didn't have free speech.

The 5th ammendment is likewise racist, because when it was passed slaves did not have the right to avoid testifying against themselves.

Finally, the comment "as if counting any human being as a portion of person wasn't insulting enough" displays ignorance of history: the slave-holding south *WANTED* slaves to count as full people, because it would give the slave-holders a greater say in national politics, but the slaves themselves would still be property. Abolitionists, and northern liberals pushed for less (even zero) counting of slaves - it's bad enough to enslave people, but then to count their population in order to give the slaveholders more power? Unbeleivable!

You don't like the electoral college? Fine. Say so. Personally, I think it's a final check on potential extremist movements. ...but reasonable folks can disagree.

Don't try to bolster your argument, though, by throwing in some ad hoc reference to "racism".

Re:IRV

[xtort17]

The best voting method I've seen is Condorcet voting. But even that isn't perfect.

Anyone interested in reading more about Condorcet voting should go to electionmethods.org.

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:I've changed my mind on instant Runoff

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

You obviously have never paid any attention to a preferntial voting system's pay-offs.

Here's how it works in Australia:

Most of the people don't really know how to allocate all their preferences, but they know which party they want. It is legal for the parties to hand out "how to vote" cards with preferences listed in order.

So the greens might have "Vote us 1, put libertarians 2, put democrats 3 and republicans 4"

And as most people follow these preferences, the greens can say to the democrats "you won't get our preferences unless you do a, b and c" and the democrats will alter their policy position for a ton of votes. Thus it allows for the third parties to exercise power all the time.

AND, even without the how-to-votes... there are still "demographics" whereby the democrat candidate will say, after doinng the research, "there is a green vote of 10% and we estimate that 5% of them always preference us over the republicans, but if we take a stand on corporate pollution controls we'll get another 4% of the demographic and secure the election".

Preferential voting, or instant run-off as you call it, does affect the policy. And even if it didn't cause many third parties to be elected (but remember everyone can vote "1" for their first choice), it would affect the policies of the major parties.

The thing that reinforces the duopoly also is gerrymandering. The changing of electoral boundaries to suit the two major parties.

I would argue this is why proportional representation is the best thing since sliced bread. As it allows a 10% nation-wide green polling to covert to seats even though they didn't get the 51% required in any one location. And I mean, for example, if 25 million people were voting green in the US - but not all in the one place - shouldn't they get representation?

There is a false idea that "democracy" is the representative two party democracy of the systems we know. This is not always the case, there are many other paths we can take to democracy, and we need many reforms in the western democracies if we are to hold on to power against a new corporatist power-grab.

(not saying capitalism is bad, just corporatism)

Why the naturalized specification should stay ..

[airrage]

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

Actually, our current specification for President is quite immigrant friendly. Remember, this was put into place because, as it is in the UK's house of Lords, your title, or seat, is handed down from father to son.

Regardless of what you do, you can never be elected to this house. But the US system is different, it says that regardless of the heritage of your father, so long as your are born here in the US (to insure you have no title and or allegiance to another country) - you can hold the highest office. It is actually quite profound once you realize why it is the way it is.

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.

A little misleading...

[Blakey Rat]

I didn't notice this when posting the questions, but isn't the one about copyright a little misleading?

Under current law it is illegal to watch CSS encoded DVDs under Linux or any other Open Source operating system.

To be fair, any Linux software developer has as much ability as a software developer for Windows or OS X to license the CSS decoder and write a DVD viewing application for Linux. The difference between Linux and Windows and OS X is that no company has stepped-up to do so.

I mean, people using Linux get so upset over this issue all the time... so how come not a SINGLE person or company to date has just licensed the technology and make the damned DVD player? It can't be THAT hard, could it?

Whose world?

[gosand]

I'm sorry, but the world will NOT end within the next four years if GWB gets re-elected.

The world ends for more and more American soldiers and their families each month because we are in Iraq. President Bush put us in Iraq.

Re:Whose world?

[anaradad]

And Kerry will keep us there. Your point?

Re:Whose world?

[Arker]

The world ends for more and more American soldiers and their families each month because we are in Iraq. President Bush put us in Iraq.

And Kerry says he'll put the kibosh on the Iraqi elections, a plan guaranteed to turn the few Iraqis that aren't already actively supporting the insurgents to their side. Kerry says we shouldn't 'back off in Fallujah' - which can only be interpreted as saying we should bomb it into dust, killing every man woman and child in the place, since pretty much everything short of that has already been attempted and failed. Kerry says ""I have a plan for Iraq. I believe we can be successful. I'm not talking about leaving. I'm talking about winning." (This was all from the 'debate.')

So, yes, I agree completely that GWB needs to be removed from office. But Kerry as an alternative? That's a rigged choice, it's no choice at all. Kerry may well turn out to be, not just every bit as bad, but even worse.

When the election is simply a choice between two war criminals, both of which are publically commited to pursuing ruinous and evil policies that the majority of electorate rejects, voting is nothing but a sham. It's no different from the old-style communist elections where you only had one candidate - here you have two, with no real difference between them. Frankly, voting for a third party candidate, or not voting at all, looks to me like a better choice than voting for either one of these scallywags.

Observations from a skeptic...

[MobyDisk]

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.

This quote smacks of party politics. No party should champian "people of color." Is black a color? Is white a color? How about yellow-brown? Or red-brown? Saying "I support blacks" is just as racist as saying "I hate blacks" simply by the nature that you are separating them into a group. Equality does not mean adjusting the scales to be even - it means getting rid of the scale entirely.

...we really need to address is the corruption in the White House and in Congress...

The democrats say that too. And the republicans. It's easy for a party who is outside the system to say that, but what is the plan for doing it?

We need to replace it with Instant Runoff Voting.

I said the same thing last week. Someone from Slashdot corrected me. IRV is worse than our current system - the problems are subtle to see but very significant. Here is why. I didn't believe it until I read it.

Question: ...Electoral votes from a state be split proportional to the popular vote... Response:I believe we should move rapidly towards Instant Runoff Voting, as outlined above, rather than tinker with an anachronistic relic.

This is a naive response. You can't just say "okay, let's replace all the state election systems and change all the state constitutions all at once, and forget the steps that get us there." This country's system is an anachronistic relic. Good call there. But you must tinker with it until you get what you want.

One common thread amongs the smaller party replies is that they are often ideologically good, but realistically bad. I heard a Green party spokesperson on NPR say that if the Green party wins, they will immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq and apologize. That's beautiful, but it would also plunge Iraq into civil war, cause the UN to hate us even more, and kill millions of Iraqis. Great in concept, but unrealistic. We need people who realize that politics is compromise, and that small steps are what move us forward.

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

This is the most political of all the answers. "Undocumented workers" is a nice way to say criminals who illegally tresspassed, dodged or lied to border police, and/or forged identities to get here. They are criminals and should be sent home. There are people who wait patiently for work visas for years to get into the US. But since the illegal immigrants have gotten good enough at forging IDs to vote, they are now a constituent base and must be appealed to.

50% of my coworkers are immigrants, and I respect every one of them. I went for lunch today, and I was served by immigrants. I respect every one of these people from IT professionals to minimum-wage workers. But it is really scary when we decide that we need to give voting rights to people who shouldn't even be allowed to walk the streets. I really hope it is just some massive trick to have them all come out, admit it, and ship them home. What's the unemployment rate right now?

Just so everyone understand where I am coming from, I am an independent who voted for Greens, Libertarians, Democrats, and Republicans. I look at candidate's qualifications first, and the party has no bearing on my decision. I'm not anti-green, I merely question some of these responses. I do fear that some of these Green part

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.

Does he know what he's talking about on patents?

[Hortensia Patel]

"Mathematical algorithms are discovered, not invented"

I'm strongly opposed to software patents, but this statement just makes no sense to me. Proofs are discovered. Algorithms are invented, surely?

Re:Electoral College is racist? WTF?

[p3d0]

No, I think what he meant was that because slave states had greater representation in the Electoral College, their (presumably racist) opinions held more sway.

Re:"racist", perhaps prejudice

[Untimely Ripp'd]

Yes it was a long time ago true, but its not true anymore.

He said it is a racist (among other things) anachronism. Note the word "anachronism". The point is that the Electoral College system was created, in part, to prop up the racist slave institutions of the south. Since nobody is interested in doing that anymore, at least one intended function of the Electoral College is anachronistic.

It is too bad that all these years since President Clinton tried to explain it to y'all, many conservatives don't understand that it really does depend on what your definition of "is" is.

The Electoral College "is" a racist anachronism. That doesn't mean that it functions to enforce/abet racism today (although it might, and maybe Mr. Cobb thinks so -- but his followup discussion suggests that this is NOT what he was getting at).

there were non black slaves

Were there white slaves? Where? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I'm unaware of it. The Constitution doesn't actually refer to slaves, it refers to "free Persons" and "all other Persons". To my knowledge, "all other Persons" was never interpreted to included indentured servants, but I don't know that for a fact. I've never even given it any thought.

However

[paranode]

So yes, they get extra help -- because they're poor, not because they're white. Same as the others -- get help because they're poor, not because they are of color.

Except that you are overlooking the entire issue of affirmative action, what it is and why these people support it. Their mindset is that the only poor people that matter are hispanics and blacks, and similarly in doing so they also manage to insinuate that all black or hispanic people are poor. I would imagine that minorities would take offense at this, but I guess nobody wants to turn down handouts. You can't deny that many schools and companies still use race as a factor in admissions or hiring. They get away with it because they are perceived to be helping "the poor" but all they are really doing is creating another injustice based on a racist logical fallacy.

Moreover, you can't even label it as "assisting minorities" because as it turns out Asians do not meet this "poor" stereotype so they are conveniently left out. Yet another gaping hole in their claim that anybody but the white Christian male deserves this assistance.

Equal should mean equal in the eyes of the law.

answer on "corruption" misses the point entirely

[tjic]

The bureaucratic system may well be corrupt but what we really need to address is the corruption in the White House and in Congress

Sounds good to me, but why not do this at the same time as fighting corruption in the rest of the government? It's an age-old logical/rhetorical fallacy to cast things as either/or when they're not. "Well, I'd sure it would be great if the US gov used more free software, but we've got to concentrate on health care!" Huh?

There's an old political joke "sometimes the Republicans lose, and sometimes the Democrats lose, but the bureaucrats always win".

What is the Green dodging when he refuses to agree that corruption in the bureaucracy should be dealth with?

-that's who makes the laws and the decisions which support the transnational corporate empire. Actually, Congress votes on, and the President signs, legislation that *enables* various bureaus to pass the detailed legislation. Do you think Congress specifies how many acres of BLM land are open to cattle, or how the feds should pay farmers not to grow food, or how the bidding works for military projects? No! Congress leaves all of those details to others...and, as we all know "the devil is in the details". Saying otherwise is refusing to acknowledge how government works.

Oh, yeah, one more thing "transnational corporate empire" ?!? Another "WTF" moment.

Resolved:

• I do not vote for people who wear tinfoil hats
• I do not vote for people who call dollars "federal reserve fiat currency"
• I do not vote for people who complain about Jewish bankers
• I do not vote for people who have - even once in their life - used the phrase "transnational corporate empire".

You want to be considered a serious candidate? Then put down the "Free Mumia!" level rhetoric.

The halls of Congress are filled with lobbyists representing the international profiteers who play Congress like puppets on strings.

Yep. And when the Greens control how every single acre of land is used, and you need a permit and special dispensation to spread DEET on yourself before going on a hike, all the lobbyists are going to pack up and move to Canada?

I should beleive that...what?

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.

Donations to political parties aren't a sign of corruption, they're a sign that government has power. How many of you are worried about crypto rights, free software, etc., and have given money to the EFF? How many of you have a candidate you think is dangerous, and have given money to the other guy, to help him get elected?

Saying "money is the problem" ignores the fact that people have differing views, that each of us wants some politician to win some race and some other politician to lose, and that we sometimes give money to help make this happen.

When money is outlawed, do you think that folks will stop trying to influence elections? No! It just moves into backrooms. Look at the last round of campaign finance reform we had - now instead of folks just donating to their favorite candidates, we've got a proliferation of seperate groups, all running attack ads. I can't get too upset about lots of free speech myself, but my point is that political speech sees censorship as damage and routes around it. You can't stop it. Thinking you can is naive.

We also have to stop the revolving door between industry, Congress and the White House.

It sounds nice, but tell me how you're going to implement it? The "once you work for government you may never work for private business again" rule?

There have to be much tighter restrictions on public servants going over to private industry.

Again, sounds great, but it also sounds like this politician hasn't actually thought any of this through.

Re:Thank you Mr. Cobb

[kryonD]

Sorry, but all respect disappeared the moment he used the term frankenfood. He rattled on and on about current policies being racist, but then he turns to GM food and suddenly drops to the level of a 5 year old by calling it names. This is almost always the sign of someone feabily assaulting something they don't understand and have just been convinced they are not supposed to like it.

I'm not saying I'm for or against GM food, but a candidate for the presidency of the united states could have produced a more intelligent argument aginst it than just calling it "frankenfood"

Not a party for conservatives

[ChiralSoftware]

He says: 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.

Great, by doing that they will have plenty of time to stay in our financial affairs, bank accounts, financial transactions, and gun safes. They talk about things like having not just a minimum wage, but also a maximum wage. Basically, to enforce their financial plans will require law enforcement powers that may be even worse than what they say they want to get rid of. I sympathize strongly with their ideals but it ultimately sounds like they want to create their own police state, like somehow having a police state will protect workers and minorities. They tried that once. It was called a "dictatorship of the proletariat". It sounded like a great idea but pretty soon there were mountains of bodies of people they "saved". It's the old logic of "we had to burn the village in order to save it."

I call bullshit

[Tony]

We have too many freeloaders. There are many who are fully capable, who are *LAZY*.

There aren't as many as you seem to think.

My wife manages a regional welfare-to-work program. She deals with welfare recipients *every day.* Her job: get them off the dole, and into the workforce. She experiences *every day* the reason *most* people are on welfare.

The system is stacked against them.

Most of the people she helps *want* to be independent. Many have come on poor times because of lost jobs, or poor seasonal work performance. (What's the difference between a fisherman and a large pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four.) We live in a country where 10% of the population controls 50% of the wealth, but only pays 28% of the taxes. We live in a country with a 3% unemployment rate.

How are these people you call lazy supposed to get a toehold in a world like this?

There are some that are truly lazy, and expect a hand-out. But these are few. Very few. Within a population of 50,000, there are 3 that she claims, "Even Jesus hates."

A captialistic society is dog-eat-dog, and it makes everyone better for it.

What's your evidence for this? I see a lot of Randian rhetoric, but very little evidence. In fact, the evidence I *do* see suggests that those in power will do everything they can to retain and increase power. Without government regulation (or at least government oversight), those in control will destroy potential competitors *before* they become competitors.

I am well-off, and I'd prefer *not* to live in a dog-eat-dog world. I think everyone would be better off if we realized we were all in this together, and only through kindness, cooperation, and good intentions will we come out the other end a sane and good society. I don't put my faith in some vague "market," or in well-debunked and overly-simplicistic views of economic theory.

The market looks out for the market, not people. And I don't give a fuck about the market. I care about people.

Granted, I doubt many people share that point of view, and many people would exploit anything vaguely innocent for their own profit. But there you go.

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.

Re:I call bullshit

[Tony]

You simply mean their potential competitors won't be able to turn a profit.

History indicates otherwise. It's not that one company is so successful that competitors can't make a profit; the problem is when one company is able to *control* the ability of others to turn a profit, or even survive.

Our anti-trust system was instituted because the free trade of the 19th centry led to situations where major corporations were able to block upstart competitors from even entering the market, let alone turning a profit. Standard oil controlled access to distribution routes, and was able to block anyone from transporting competing products. This was back in the days of mostly-unregulated markets, closer to the "ideal" of a free market than we are today.

The "free market" has historically *not* worked. Those who yearn for complete freedom in the market ignore the preponderance of evidence from history. In *every* case, a certain handful of corporations get so large, they become the de-facto government, controlling access to the ability to make wealth. That is exactly what we are seeing today.

Re:I call bullshit

[Dr. Transparent]

It's worth noting that your figures are off a bit...

2001 Income/Tax Shares

Adjusted gross income share (percentage)

• Top 1%: 17.53%
• Top 5%: 31.99%
• Top 10%: 43.11%
• Top 25%: 65.23%
• Top 50%: 86.19%

Adjusted income tax share (percentage)

• Top 1%: 33.89%
• Top 5%: 53.25%
• Top 10%: 64.89%
• Top 25%: 82.90%
• Top 50%: 96.03%

Statistics: http://www.house.gov/jec/tax/09-26-03.pdf

Re:I call bullshit

[Tony]

The ideal of communism is great? Maybe the end-dream is great, but communism itself is hardly great. To think that one man, or a small number of men, can central plan an economy efficiently is absurd.

The failed "communism" of the USSR is about as close to communism as the capitalist economy in the US is to free trade. Close, but not close enough.

Communism at its heart requires no central planning. You can have a democratic communism, as well. Communism is not a form of government, but a form of economy, which is idealised by cooperative production and fair disbursement. There is nothing wrong in principle; it's in practice that it fails, because as a model it doesn't take into account human nature.

Free market economics suffers from the same drawback. It has several advantages over communism, but that doesn't mean it isn't seriously flawed.

You view a free market, and open trade as a zero-sum game. The truth of the matter is, the poor don't have to win, and the wealthier business owners don't have to win, in order for both parties to increase both their own wealth and their own living standards.

There are limited resources, therefore it *is* a zero sum game. As long as one group of people can control the majority of the resources and lock out the majority from participating in control, there *will* be losers.

It certainly doesn't *have* to be a zero sum game. But, history indicates that there are people who will wrest as much control as possible. To limit the amount of control one group can grab, you must have some sort of limit. That requires government intervention, which is exactly what you are arguing against. The market *does not* self-correct, at least not in a timely fashion.

I would never claim that a free market society is the road to utopia. Humanity is far from perfect, and humans have proven to be unjust on more than one occasion. My stance is that to limit the amount of damage and power one person or small group of people can accumulate, you would either have to evolve into, or form a free market society, or you would have hope that people can some how manage to find a way that allows for the welfare state to be affordable over a long period of time.

Sounds like we agree on principle. It's just a matter of degree.

The free market is a result of limited resources. Power is the fundamental control of those resources. I *do* agree that a free market is probably the best we have; but I don't think resource control should be controlled by anyone but the citizens of the state and/or federal government.

Personally, I'd agree to a free market in which corporations exist at the whim of the citizens of the country. The corporation charter may be revoked if the corporation is found to be in violation of the laws of the country.

But to do away with corporate law and oversight (that is, "government intervention") is to give control of the resources directly to the biggest corporations.

Re:Why the naturalized specification should stay .

[AzureWraith]

On a personal level, I was born in Korea (RoK) at the age of 2, and moved to the United States, I hold no allegiance or title to another country, no more than say my native born Korean friend. Now not that I'm going to run for president, but why should he be allowed to run while I cannot?

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.

And Conversely...

[tid242]

Freedom is a problem because it allows people to act in manners contradictory to human welfare. Privacy is a problem because it means society cannot hold a person accountable for his wrongdoings.

totalitarianism is a problem because it allows people to act in manners contradictory to human welfare.

Lack of Privacy is a problem because it means the wrongdoings of society may be used to justify punishing an individual for his/her differences of opinion.

-tid242

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.

The Electoral College is going NOWHERE

[ElForesto]

Anyone who thinks the electoral college is going to be done away with needs a big phat reality check. This is something that will require a Constitutional amendment to change, which requires 2/3 approval of the House and Senate. Such a measure may clear the House, but the Senate, where the small states have as much say as the big states, will likely reject is since it would weaken their power. At least 25 states would end up being losers under this change, more than enough to block passage in the Senate.

Even if, by some miracle, it passes the Senate, it still has to be approved by 38 state legislatures, and usually amendments sunset in 7-10 years. Chances are that it would languish and die.

The Electoral College was designed the same as the Congress, to protect the smaller states from the larger states. I am loathe to upset this balance.

"Sustainable" Agriculture

[GrnArmadillo]

Quote: 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.

There were also awfully fewer PEOPLE to feed for an awfully long time. Regardless of the need for public health education to slow global population growth, that fact is that more people means a greater need for food. Now you've got several ways to approach this problem. 1) Do nothing to increase food production, allowing people (hint: we're talking poor folks, not the Dick Cheney's of the world) to starve. 2) Farm more land, requiring destruction of the environments currently occupying that land. This option can obviously only be used for a certain amount of time before we've clear-cut all arable land in the world. 3) Increase the productivity of the land we already have. Since we have been farming for an "awfully long time", I think it's fair to say that we've done pretty much all we can on this one if we forego the use of modern science. Which leaves options 1 and 2, and eventually just option 1.

(Side note: I don't know if it's because production costs are higher or because organic farmers are in a fair wage program, but I can observe at my local grocery store that organic foods are more expensive than the alternatives. Raising the cost of food ought to have obvious consequences for the world's poor, see option 1 above.)

-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:what condorcet problems?

[chill]

Consider, for example, the following vote count with three candidates {A,B,C}:

8: A,B
7: C,B
5: B

B doesn't win because B shouldn't WIN! More people didn't want B than did! So why should be win? The above logic doesn't make any sense to me.

No, you had 13 people who didn't want C AT ALL, and 12 who didn't want A AT ALL. But EVERYONE could live with B. Most (13) people preferred him over C and most (12) preferred him over A. Where as only 8 people preferred A over B and 7 preferred C over B.

Think of group 1 voting for Bush, and then Mickey Mouse -- ANYONE but Kerry.

Think of group 2 voting for Kerry, and then Mickey Mouse -- ANYONE but Bush.

Think of group 3 voting for ANYONE BUT BUSH OR KERRY. :-)

As a Kerry/Bush supporter, would you rather see Bush/Kerry in, or Michael Badnarik? He isn't Bush/Kerry and odds are Congress would stifle most of what he does but at least Bush wouldn't get re-elected and Kerry wouldn't get in!

Re:Oy

[JustNiz]

>> Both him and Badnarick have said things so amazingly stupid... Badnarick claiming that literacy was better 100 years ago than it is now

What's so stupid about that? I have no experience of the literacy of 100 years ago, but todays average standard is certainly worse than 20 years ago.

On example is that the vast majority of people below the age of 25 don't seem to know the difference between "your" and "you're".

Re:Why the naturalized specification should stay .

[flossie]

Actually, our current specification for President is quite immigrant friendly. Remember, this was put into place because, as it is in the UK's house of Lords, your title, or seat, is handed down from father to son. Regardless of what you do, you can never be elected to this house.

I would certainly never be an apologist for the House of Lords, it is undemocratic and should be replaced by a democratically elected chamber. However, your characterisation of it is no longer accurate. The Lords is now populated primarily by Life Peers. These are people who have been appointed non-heriditary peerages by elected politicians. Many are appointed for services to political parties, but there are also many eminent members who have been appointed for their contribution to society: scientists, industrialists, etc. The honour does not pass to their children. Also, as far as I am aware, there is no restriction on who can be appointed (although there was talk recently of them preventing convicted criminals from sitting in the Lords).

The Lords is a chamber of cronyism, but it is not quite as bad as you imply.

Lived a long time without...

[AvitarX]

Why is it that our long history without pesticides makes them unimportant, but our long history without cancer therapy makes it vital (replace with any other medical attention beyond mild anestesia (booze, tree bark)?

I would like an honest respons from and Green party member.

Think of the children

[Psymunn]

Look, all that banning abortions and gay marriges will do is force homosexuals to have children out of wedlock. Sound like republican family values to you? i didn't think so.

there's solar, then there's...

[zogger]

...solar. Ever hear of solar troughs or heliostats? Look em up, interesting tech, for sale now. No silicon wafers needed. No need for armed guards and surface to air missiles either, to protect them. That's part of the problem with nuclear energy now, and it can't be ignored. If it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't need triple containment vessels and shifts of guards, etc. Nuclear power makes "hot", that's it, that's what it boils down to. We can get "hot" other places with much less risk. Granted, at TODAYS prices it might be somewhat cheaper, but that's today, tonmorrow? No one knows, stuff happens, things change... Say some goombah gets off a lucky shot with an actual decent attack missile at a nuke plant. I know they can withstand a small plane crashing into them, but a cruise missile or icbm designed to penetrate concrete, etc? Or some plant gets raided by a few dozen serious attackers who have sophisticated weapons?

It could happen, then what? Downwind might be bad news for a long time......

The other good thing about solar (and wind) is that anyone can OWN it, you don't need to be megacorp, it's not just limited to the same billionaire energy monopolies. ain't it time joe user got a chance at that? Going all nukes means you will always be forced into shipping them billionaires a check forever and ever, with no guarantees of pricing. Last I looked, anyone you as joe homeowner can't get a 10 year contract on pricing for juice, you pay what it costs or..no juice. No competition using the energy monopolies as the only source.

The scaling with solar & wind is great, from tiny run-a-single appliance size to industrial / commercial sizes, and everything in between.

To ME it's like the early days of personal computers, back then, only large businesses had computers, big, heavy, expensive, arcane to operate. Now, anyone can get one and do all sorts of stuff, and you can OWN it. And it's only taken roughly 20 years for it to become so common as to be normal in most homes. Personal Energy (I will now coin an acronym, call it PE) needs the same efforts. And it's because the early adopters of personal computers actually went and DID it, ignoring the naysaysers who said it wasn't practical, cost too much, would never work, mainframes were it, the only way to do it, and yada yada yada, same thing we hear now about "energy". They didn't wait for some pie in the sky period in the future when "someone" or "the government" would do it for them.

I'm a geek, I use juice, I want to *own* it, not just accept some lifelong juice "lease" from some billionaire down the other end of the wire. He's got enough of my money now, thankew. Time to move on to something a little more competitive and cheaper and safer, something people can actually own, IMO.

Re:Thank you Mr. Cobb

[gaijin99]

I agree with around 90% or so of what the Green Party Platform advocates. My major objections are their opposition to atomic power, and genetic engineering.

I can see the reasons for those objections: under the current setup both atomic power and genetic engineering are accidents waiting to happen. Some fission power plants in the US have operated up to 25 years before the *first* safety inspection, that's just plain stupid. But the problem is not with fission itself, but simply with the way fission power plants are regulated and administered. Fission power can be perfectly safe (I'll continue to advocate for fusion research, but I'll take fission in the meantime), it just isn't now.

The same thing goes for genetic engineering, I do not trust a for profit corporation to voluntarially take the necessary safety precautions. Safety and testing cost money, and Monsanto (or whoever) would much rather use that money for a fat bonus to its bloated CEO's. But, just as with fission, the problem is not the technology, but its implementation. Greater enforced transparency, government oversight, mandated testing, etc can make genetic engineering perfectly safe.

I'd vote Cobb for president if I thought he had a chance (and, considering I live in Texas, where the Electoral College's winner take all insanity will throw my vote away, I might vote Cobb anyway), but I'd feel a lot more comfortable voting Cobb if the Greens didn't have that nasty streak of neo-luddite-ism.

Re:Here is what they will do...

[LMariachi]

we've been genetically modifying plants and animals since the beginning of time. We call it agriculture -- taking a type of grapes that doesn't taste good but it hardy and joining it with a type of grapes that tastes great but won't grow anywhere.

-1 Disingenuous. What kind of agriculture results in genes from fish or insects being inserted into a plant's DNA? Genetic modification is quite different from selective breeding or grafting. Besides, we don't need increased yields. World hunger is a problem of distribution, not production.

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.

This is my basic understanding of GM crop risks:

[the_REAL_sam]

I once took a course on the biology of populations (at U.T. Austin). Here's what I remember about the risks of GM crops.

(1) GM crops are cloned plants, started from seed (genetically identical, or genetically common).

(2) Use of clone crops reduces genetic diversity in field crops.

(3) As a clone, each plant in the crop is vulnerable to the same adversities. I.E. the same frost, same pest, same flood, same drought, same nutrient deficiency, same disease, etc, can now affect each plant in the crop in the same way.

(4) This puts all the genetic eggs into one basket.

(5) A "natural" field of non-GM crops is genetically diverse, resulting in a reduced likelihood of the same adversity erradicating the whole crop.

(6) Pollen contamination -- GM pollen can sometimes hybridize with natural strains of plants, meaning that the natural strain of wild plant is no longer 100% natural, and could potentially fall victim to the same vulnerabilities as the original GM crop.

(7) Diversity is the mother of evolution. Diversity enforces the likelihood that some, or all, strains of a crop will survive a given drought, disease, pestilence, etc. Natural strains of crops are the product of thousands of years of crop evolution, AND those strains have enough diversity to continue evolving. Man is not competent to know how or why these diverse crops are suited to survival -- i.e. we just dont know why they are a decent batch of "good survivers." So man's genetic strain might help ALOT against one particular pest in the short term, but in the long run there's no telling what beneficial traits we've cloned out of the crop. Using a full diversity of strains therefore assists a crop species' long term viability -- and expanding the use of single-strain GM crops is what I'd call a VERY BAD IDEA, in the long run, and possibly even in the short run, because there's no telling what "stealthy survivor traits" we've unwittingly removed from the population. So if an iceberg melts and releases some harmful spore that was frozen 3000 years ago, the diverse crops still have a genetic memory, and some of them "know" how to survive.

(8) Seed dependency -- once a farmer's bought into GM seeds, he's dependent on a corporation to provide each year's single-strain seeds. In "ye olden days", he could simply store some genetically diverse seeds from the year before.

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:Abolish The Electoral College?

[torstenvl]

Actually, this is the case already.

I live in Michigan. We're basically two states tied together. I'm not talking about the two penninsulas, I'm talking about the Detroit Metro Area vs. everyone else.

If a candidate wins Detroit, they win all of Michigan.

Retraction

[Tony]

I said "taxes," not "income taxes." And I *was* wrong; 28% is *way* understated. 28% is their tax *rate*. Sorry about that. 2004 numbers are lower than stated, of course.

But here is interesting look at taxes.

I apologize for shooting off my mouth.

There's still famine

[freejung]

We still have starvation and famine now, and we're growing more than enough food for the whole population. The problem is not production, it's distribution.

Furthermore, green farming does not mean refusing to use modern technology, it just means refusing to use destructive technologies. See my earlier post about permaculture. With modern technology, we can grow more food without using destructive technologies, if we do it right.

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?