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Presidential Candidates Arrested at Debates
h8macs writes "Third party Presidential candidates Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) and David Cobb (Green) were arrested while attempting to enter the presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis."
I love how a post that is completely factual is "flamebait".
The mods in politics are the absolute worst.
GO freedom of speach!
PS: GO Americans! (Go get a clue, that is)
It worked for Family Guy, it can work for POTUS! Stop watching the partisan media networks! They'll lose advertising dollars! Get the word out on the biggest megaphone around, the Internet!
Btw, I watched a Family Guy DVD marathon instead of the debates, and I consider myself more educated on the issues as a result.
Damn donkeys and retarded elephants.
one two three four five ?!! That's the combination on my luggage!
This at least constitues criminal negligence that has resulted in death. That makes it manslaughter. At least 1000+ counts for the American troops alone.
Who cares who wins the election - Bush/Cheney shouldn't even be eligible. They should be awaiting trail instead.
That's strange. Last time I looked, the US was using precision laser-guided munitions wherever possible. The improvement in war technology is minimizing "collateral damage" among the UNinvolved civilian population.
So are you saying that US soldiers are incredibly bad shots despite all the technology. Check our iraqibodycount.org or a similar website. Statistically, even with the technology, 100 civilians die for every soldier. A big part of the reason is that those "precision" munitions are used to level apartment buildings, markets and other civilian centers.
The US' experiment with representative government has been going on a LOT longer than those in most of the rest of the world, including Europe (which I presume you are from, since it's Europeans who bleat the most about the US not getting democracy right).
I'm not european and I'm more interested in the US' current experiments with vote rigging, political arrests, disenfranchisement etc. You and others like you are welcome to stick your head in the sand and pretend it is not happening. You are welcome to s*** on the rest of the world for not agreeing with you. I bet you hate the French, right. What is it you call them? Cheese eating surrender monkeys? Yet, they, not you, had the courage to stand up and say "this doesn't look right. There is not enough evidence here to invade a sovereign nation". This despite the threats of an economic superpower. The UN (that you probably also despise) turned the other cheek and bailed your hero's fat out of the fire in Afghanistan: that's what freed up your sons and daughters to go die for oil in Iraq (your children are serving in Iraq, right? If not why not?).
I'm going to stay out of the whole presidential candidate thing. I think you've basically got a megalomaniacal madman on one side and a US soldier on the other. I wouldn't vote for either of them.
Gosh, AC. If they're not Al Qaeda, just who ARE those non-Iraquis that are blowing stuff up in Iraq?
Americans.
Hard on the Iraquis? Yep. But nowhere NEAR as hard as Sadam was. By orders of magnitude.
You'll need to give me a source on this. By all reports huge sections of the country have been reduced to rubble, the hopitals are packed. It's gotten so bad that even the red cross/crescent is pulling out. Apparently the only thing working are the oil pipes (and even those worked better under Saddam).
Meanwhile, Bush is the only US president to have put major public pressure on Israel to remove "settlements" in Palestine.
BS. Bush's idea of "pressure" comes 500lb at a time. Bush is incapable of extending any other kind. He has no credibility with the rest of the world whatsoever. Reread your own post on how YOU think the rest of the world views Bush and consider the implications that would have on the ability of the US to accomplish anything at all in the political arena. In 2002 Bush declared the UN to be irrelevant. In 2004 he's to telling them that they have to help bail him out (not in those words of course). What do you think the UN is saying? What is Israel doing?
See previous postings on the subject of tax dollars, Washington U-STL and private property. The fact of the matter is that they were on a PUBLIC CITY STREET and were arested by CITY POLICE, not by campus rent-a-cops. A public street is by definition a public forum. You know, I see a few people who understand it here, but far too many idiots. To put it bluntly, your lack of real schooling is showing. what it comes down to is this: who can do things better, you or the government?, who is responsible for your actions, you or the government, and who can best make decisions for your own life, you or the government? The answer for libertarians all 3 times is YOU. The answer for everyone else is government. Answer the first one government and you are communist. Answer the second one government and you are a neo-con fascist. Answer the third one government and you are a neo-lib socialist. I got news for all of you--those don't work. So why do you insist on them anyway?
This pair of morons did a publicity stunt specifically intending to get arrested. Big deal.
Their arrest had *nothing whatever* to do with either constitutional free speech rights or election politics.
They attempted to trespass onto private property, and to force their way across a police line.
To the Greens and Libertarians:
Ok you're fucking desperate for attention. Big deal. The Green party *and* Nader are seriously discredited across the US for having handed the election to Bush. Most of Nader's goddamned funding is coming from the Republicans already.
I knew Libertarians were a bunch of goddamned windbags. They whine about theoretical 'solutions' to the political & governmental process which haven't a snowball's chance in hell of passing the electorate, which is the Acid Test in a democracy (remember?). This stunt is the sort of crap expected.
Plays great on /. ignored by everyone else.
Get a clue: When you're even 5% of the vote in a democracy you are *nothing*. You're not an interest block large enough to bargain for a paper bag to contain your crappy ideas.
Back to the *legal* context of these morons' arrests: They trespassed on private property and were duly arrested for that. End of story.
To all the locals whining about why it is that they're stuck with only a 2-party system:
On the one hand I suggest you go look at Italy and think on whether you really want a multitude of parties and the fucked-up coalition building that's part of that.
Second (and more important) --- the last *honorable* 3rd party candidate I can think of was John Anderson who had the guts to run as an independent against Reagan's voodoo economics. Since then we've had Perot who had a very specific axe to grind in getting Bush Sr unseated and had the money to buy his way into a campaign that could accomplish that. He like Nader in '00 was nothing but a spoiler who accomplished nothing but further poisoning thei political process.
Now if the Greens and Libs here actually have anything like the open minds that they might like us to think, I suggest they go find a copy of 'Going up river: The long war of John Kerry' which makes a pretty damned good case why he's not just another mainstream politician. (And why he's a far smarter *and effective* politician than Badnarik or Cobb).
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bsds are of course just BSD