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How to Hack the Vote and Steal the Election
divisionbyzero writes "Many people have asked for it so that the government will have to deal with it. So here it is: a guide to stealing an election that uses electronic voting machines written by Jon Stokes over at Arstechnica.
From the article:
"In all this time, I've yet to find a good way to convey to the non-technical public how well and truly screwed up we presently are, six years after the Florida recount. So now it's time to hit the panic button: In this article, I'm going to show you how to steal an election.""
1. Make sure head of company that supplies voting machines is a vociferous supporter of your party ...
2. There is no step two
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I'd go as far to say that it is more ethical to distribute it. The information becomes widely known. Maybe someone will hack an election to make it very obviously hacked, thus forcing a re-vote with an honest, verifiable way to count votes.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Or is it more unethical to have access to information that threatens us all and not say anything for fear that some "bad guy" might use it against us? The truth is that some "bad guy" is already sitting around thinking up ways to to use the information or writing the information down for himself from scratch. Security through obscurity never works for long.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Yes, if your ethics demand that you do whatever is in your power to change the situation. The alternative to this? Security by obscurity... and we all on Slashdot know how well that works...
But people aren't listening because they don't understand the problem.
Explaining how easy it is might help people understand this is a serious problem.
Can you think of a better way to explain how easy it is? and how much of a problem it is?
How to steal an election in seven easy steps:
1) Put the word Linux on your website.
2) Add copious amounts of Microsoft bashing.
3) Add Socialist blurbs to the website.
4) Call the current astate of affairs evil.
5) Advocating lowering the voting age to 10.
6) Ask KDawson to post a link to your website.
7) Have everyone on slashdot believe you are the |37357 |]()()|] @®0|\||}
Well, it may not work, but most kids here think it will.
Have you read my journal today?
(libertarian party coming out as first) and get the system fixed subsequently"
If you really want election reform you have to make it in the best interest of the the Dem/Rep party. The best way to do that would be to have a third party victory. As long as someone in the Professional Politicians Club get's elected, the powers that be don't care about voting accuracy. They have no reason to.
We are all just people.
Correct. As a chemist, I know what harm chemistry can cause - illegal pharmaceuticals, explosives, etc. And so, I demand an immediate crackdown on publically accessible chemistry texts, to ensure a brighter tomorrow.
Correct. As a firearm owner, I know what harm firearms can cause - killings, accidental shootings, property damage, etc. And so, I demand an immediate crackdown on publically accessible repair manuals, to ensure a brighter tomorrow.
Correct. As a driver, I know what harm poor driving can cause - vehicular homicide, property damage, etc. And so, I demand an immediate crackdown on access to automobiles, driving instruction literature, etc., to ensure a brighter tomorrow.
Congressmen should maintain an exemption to all of the above, to ensure they can oversee said systems, and protect the workings of our great society. Public oversight should not be necessary, as I have full trust in the state.
Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
I just hope someone does it. MY PARTY!!! lol... the system is screwed.
When people give a shit more about some gays marrying in NJ than they do about genocide in Darfur, military and civilian deaths in Iraq & Afghanistan, and people dying in this country due to being priced out of receiving their necessary meds, we have become a country that has lost focus on things that *actually matter*.
That being said, I'm not optimistic anyone that's in my camp has the guts to steal an election, we'd rather give it away. Liberal media my ass... I wish!
Ever thought that maybe the Electronic Voting Machines might be immune to the type of election fraud that the Democrats have been caught doing over and over in the last century?
Could it be that the richer counties that are more likely to vote Republican are the only ones that can afford electronic voting machines?
Security through obscurity doesn't work for long. I'd feel pretty safe at guessing that by now more than a handful of people with the capability have also figured out what to do and probably some who even had intentions at the next election. The bad guys have the tools already, even if it's only one than that's enough, your argument protects and shields only that bad guy and ensures that he gets full cooperation of the voting machine when it comes round to the election.
The lack of ethics problem going on is with the people responsible for not fixing the issue when first alerted. And to put a tinfoil cap on I myself why would people on purpose install and setup machines with a known configuration that enabled a fixed election even after being notified of the issue, it's beyond a simple little hole like IE problems or something. somebody has gone out of their way to ensure that the election can be fixed, that is who you are currently putting your trust in, i myself would advise against that.
When people give a shit more about some gays marrying in NJ than they do about genocide in Darfur, military and civilian deaths in Iraq & Afghanistan, and people dying in this country due to being priced out of receiving their necessary meds, we have become a country that has lost focus on things that *actually matter*.
You left off the words "to me".
The best thing that can possibly happen for this country and secure elections would be for Buggs Bunny to win 100% of the vote in at least one, preferably multiple districts. Until people see these results come in on election night, they'll never believe that it can really happen.
The incorrect presumption here is that voting matters. Does it really matter if you vote for a Demopublican or a Republicrat? Either way they're going to pick your pocket and line their own. No matter who you vote for, the government always gets elected. Funny how that works.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Hannibal is brilliant by all accounts (especially his own...) and one of the few people who understands technology and communication well enough to be able to put esoteric subjects into terms understandable to an intelligent lay person, but he's not anything close to the only person to be able to figure this kind of thing out - especially since he probably didn't spend a whole lot of time on this article compared to the amount of time someone who wanted to actually steal an election would.
If Hannibal can do this then someone who wanted to steal an election, and could spend a trivial amount of money on doing it could absolutely do the same. It is utterly absurd to think that the analysis he did in the course of researching and writing a single article couldn't be done (and probably was done a long time ago) by any one of hundreds of other organizations if they had a small team working on it for months or years.
The result? The only people for who this is news are the people who don't have a vested interest in stealing an election - and those are the people who need to know about it. Bravo to my favourite tech site for doing this.
- ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
It's better that many bad guys know of a "hack" that doesn't work anymore, than that a few know of one that still does.
FRA: STFU GTFO
Or that they're susceptible to the types of election fraud that the Republicans have been caught doing over and over?
Trying to pretend one side or the other is lily-white is stupid, we should use a system that is immune to anything that either side might try.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
In this case, having one bad guy with the directions really isn't any better than 10 bad guys with it.
In fact, the more bad guys that have it, the more likely the problem will get fixed, thus it's actually better that the most 'bad guys' possible get it. If only one person knows how to rig the election, chances are higher they'll be able to get away with it. If 100 people know and all try to rig the election, chances are none of them will get away with it, because the tampering will be too obvious.
Frankly I think the best thing to happen would be for someone to utterly steal the next election; make "Mickey Mouse" or "Elvis" get 100 seats in Congress or something. The cost of having to repeat a single election is certainly much smaller than continuing for decades with a flawed process, where nobody can tell whether the vote is being rigged or not.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
the Democrats have perfected stealing elections to an art
oppose proof of identification at voting places.
People hav ebeen writing reports and letters to the machine manufacturers and politicians since BEFORE the 2004 election warning how unsecure the electronic voting system was. A totally new way to bypass what little "security" these machines have seem to show up on a monthly basis.
People have given sworn testimony in court about the security issues and how their concerns fell on deaf ears in upper management, or sometimes even met with legal threats and unemployment.
Quite simply, proper channels HAVE been exhausted. Either nobody gets it or they are deliberately trying not to hear it.
=Smidge=
Ideally, for the layperson you would simply explain that each pricinct's votes are stored in a small database, and that it can simply be edited with a piece of software commonly included in Microsoft's popular Office suite. Then, show a screenshot of access with the GEMS database opened, highlight the vote tally for some candidate, and explain that you simply click in the box and change the number. Then explain how it would be impossible to know what the vote count could be due to the lack of paper...relate it back to punched ballots (just save the ballots and recount em if necessary), optical scanners (again you have the ballots and usually there is a paper log that prints each vote as it is scanned), etc.
All of that is understandable to even the layperson. Most people understand what Microsoft Office is. Most people have heard of a database and understand thats how businesses store all their information. Most people have seen a spreadsheet and a screenshot of someone editing an access database looks almost the same.
Does anyone know if 'richer' counties are more likely to get electronic voting machines then 'poor' counties? In ohio, poor inner city areas had electronic voting machines (which didn't work, and lacked paper backups, sadly).
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
You're joking? The people with the motivation to rig the election are the main parties. They're also best placed to get away with it. Who are these "terrorists" that would want to rig the results? As far as a group like Al Quaeda (who I presume you're thinking of here), both the main parties are pretty much identical. They are, after all, funded by the same players and neither has shown much compassion to the people of Saudi Arabia in living memory.
Terrorists want attention and to make a statement. Rigging an election is something that has limited benefit once it is publically known. If an election is or has been rigged, you'll find the culprits much closer to home.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
You left off the words "to me".
...
True enough, the importance of an issue is largely subjective
Another way to look at issues is how time critical are the issues at hand, and one thing you'll notice is that the most time critical issues (genocide for example) are usually the ones that fall lowest on the national/international radar. Gay marriage will be heavily debated both inside and outside of the media where (regardless of the outcome) ten years from now the day to day lives of those involved in this issue will remain (essentially) the same; genocide (on the other hand) will not be a focus of any news report (or debated much by anyone) yet every day that passes means that hundreds or thousands of people die as a consequence of doing nothing.
The premium PDF is an identical copy of the actual article. You aren't missing anything.
I remember election night in 2000, I was watching CBS I believe. They called Florida for Gore.
The influence of the provably biased media on elections as they are occurring should be a shameful thing to us and disallowed. I know people who were standing in (a long) line in Florida and heard it'd been called for Gore and so didn't bother to vote (for either candidate) after that - talk about sanctioned disenfranchising.
To him?
Mass murder, loss of life due to partial failure of socio-economic systems in some classes, war and chaos are all private matters of concern now? Don't know why I should have to actually say this at risk of karma, but a if a few guys screwing each other in NJ with matrimonial ambitions - if they are more important to us than the above issues, then maybe we have lost a lot more than just "focus".
That's what blogs are for.
It needs to have enough supporting evidence that someone can blog it as fact. When blogged, it will inevitably get taken out of context and dumbed down to the level that the average Joe will understand, with the substance behind TFA's link.
Give this a few days to make it around the Internet. I can see this becoming a big stink.
:(){
I agree with the general consensus among slashdoters that voting machine schematics and source code must be open to the public for inspection. I also think that we can improve election security, while still retaining an anonymous ballot, by allowing voters to check to make sure that their own vote was properly counted. Here's my plan:
To begin with, the regular voter verification process happens at the door. You go into the polling booth, select all your options, and a confirmation screen comes up for you to check and make sure you selected everything properly. When you confirm, a small piece of paper is printed out that has a serial number and a dynamically generated decryption key on it. Your vote is then sent along to a tabulation server. Your unencrypted vote is added up with the other votes, and the pair of your serial number and your encrypted vote is stored at the same time.
Later in the day, you can go home, and log onto a special government website. You enter your serial number, along with your decryption key, and the verification server shows your vote back to you. The only identifier attached to each vote is a serial number, and it requires the proper decryption key to view the vote. Nevertheless, it allows individual voters to check to make sure that their vote was counted. As long as source-code can be publicly inspected, we can verify that counting is not being "faked" by saving an individual user's vote for verification purposes but not actually adding it to the overall tabulation, thus preventing fraud by under-voting.
To prevent fraud by over-voting, the tabulation server will keep track of the total number of votes it receives from each machine. Local election officials will keep a hand-tally of the number of voters who visit each poll. At the end of the day, the hand tally is checked against the server's tally to make sure there is no discrepancy.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
If only there were millions upon millions of unwanted children that would otherwise die or lead poor quality lives for these gay couples to adopt so that they could counter your argument.
Oh wait...
And if only having kids wasn't a prerequisite for marriage and licenses weren't being revoked from straight couples who can't produce children.
Oh wait...
Freedom is assumed. Then they try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.
No, he left off the words "to sane, rational people who haven't let their vindictive excuse for morality blind them to the real problems." If you're claiming there are valid reasons to prioritize the "dudes kissing" problem over genocide in Darfur and the Iraq war, you're going to have to present them, because I'm pretty damned skeptical.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I'm fairly certain that the human race would be in no danger of under populating, if same sex marriages/ civil unions, were legal. Or for that matter if marriage were abolished altogether, we still wouldn't have that problem. People have been having babies much longer than the idea of marriage has been around.
No sig for you! Come back, one year!
It's a SECRET vote. That means nobody has the right to know how you voted. INCLUDING the mobsters and union bosses you are so sure are stealing the election. That's why you should never expect a receipt with the vote you cast on it (though you should, IMHO, be shown evidence that your vote has been recorded correctly before you leave the polling place, such as a paper tape with a print out of your vote on it rolling past a window on its way to a lockbox, where it should later be tallied and compared with the computer record to ensure that they are consistent).
Yup, and anyone using this to aid the GOP will be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Disclaimer: My personal philosophical stance agrees that the problems of genocide, etc. should be prioritized above the question of gay marriage, and I personally abhor anyone dying at the hands of someone else.
However, if you leave your personal philosophies out of the equation: what's to say that genocide is wrong, in absolute terms? Just because you and I and many other people recoil in horror from it doesn't mean that it's not the optimal evolutionary or societal progression path. Again, that is completely opposite my personal philosophy (and my "gut instinct"), but scientifically you can't deny the possibility exists.
That's why the person that posted about the words "to me" being left off the original rant is correct - each and every person in the US (and in the world, for that matter) is entitled to an opinion on what the priorities and proper courses of action are for each and every issue. In the US we're fortunate enough to be able to vote on these issues, according to our own philosophies. If someone is going to vote for a genocidal warmonger, even though you find that abhorrent, there's no absolute ground you can stand on and tell that voter he or she is wrong; if there was, there would be scientific grounds that the Supreme Court could base a decision on and eliminate his vote.
Well, there's an argument to be made that whether it was the Republicans or Iranian intelligence, the result would still be the Republicans in power. After all, the current administration has been a boon to recruitment. According to our own intelligence estimates, more terrorists are being recruited than are being killed. It does seem that Osama shows up on TV at just the right time to help the Republicans get elected. So, either he's totally clueless about how we react (admittedly, a possibility), or he *wants* Republicans in power (also a real possibility for the reasons just mentioned).
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
everyone else is missing the issue.
The e-voting machines were predominantly placed in heavily democrat-leaning districts, by DEMOCRAT elections supervisors. It's an elected position. By starting at >90%-D, odds were good that they'd close toward the mean a bit before the election.
It's pretty obvious when you start looking at who was complaining about the machines in the lead-up, and who was buying the machines that they were purchased for the express purpose of claiming vote-rigging. Obviously, a properly secure machine with a paper record would distract somewhat from the claims.
The only problem is that insecure machines are insecure and that's bad for everyone regardless of affiliation.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Which is that we don't have an independent media anymore. Rupert Murdoch is as likely to be a whistle blower as Karl Rove is.
Unless we have a real free press, with real media outlets (read: TV, radio, internet, magazine, newspaper, etc.), then we don't have a democracy.
Personally, after watching 911mysteries and other films on related topics, and reviewing the scientific facts for myself, I'm convinced that we already live in 1984, and the only solution is the bloody ugly one that Thomas Jefferson and most of our other founding fathers completely supported.
You did mention the "liberal" media, so you touched on it, but really, when 3 channels are quoting each other with created facts by obvious pundits who are clearly party members.....
You don't have freedom of the press anymore, and it's game over for democracy.
It's been that way since Kennedy got whacked, and on a related issue, that was also our last real election.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Hm. People dying vs. marriage between same-gendered people. Yes, clearly priorities here are only personal preferences.
Look - nobody is saying his (or your) way to reform the medical system is right. But it *is* broken, and we need to talk about fixing it. It's not bums who don't get coverage - it's blue collar people who need to take several jobs and *still* can't get decent coverage. Who's poking whom where is not exactly an overriding concern, compared to that.
Iraq is undebatably a clusterfuck - even el Jefe agrees by now. Again, nobody says either side has the right solution, but shouldn't that discussion *also* receive more exposure than sex between consenting adults? (BTW: If your complaint is that they now get privileges from the government, there's an easy solution - neither hetero nor homo couples get any preferrential treatment over singles. Screw government interference).
As to your other perceived threats: Kim Il Jong, on a *really* good day for him might be able to kill a million Americans. That's if he's having a really good day, and around 2015 when he might have ICBMs. In the meantime, each year 60,000 Americans *do* die due to missing medical coverage. (I'm not even going into the fact that Dick Cheney more or less killed negotiations with both NK and Iran because "you don't negotiate from a position of power" - water under the bridge).
Either way, nobody is proposing to ignore NK. Or Osama. Just maybe focusing a couple of the billions we hand to Haliburton (look at the GOA reports how *much* of that is just waste) on other topics, and doing something good on the side.
But I guess the thought that you might have to give up some of your money to do humanitarian works as opposed to blowing people up is just not bearable...
Marriage is the very cornerstone of American civilization, and to allow same sex marriages would fundamentally damage the institution of marriage, and by extension fundamentally damage American civilization. By that reasoning, it must take priority over any external issue.
Again, I, personally, don't believe that to be a logical viewpoint, but there are others out there who do.
If people really wanted to defend marriage, they'd outlaw divorce.
Also, when people pull out the "damage the institution of marriage" I usually ask them
how exactly the damage occurs, because honestly I don't see how gay people getting
married affects the marriages of straight people.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
People always play this stupid game - it's about life and death, who cares about [insert lesser issue].
So we shouldn't build roads, fund museums, build schools, create wildlife sanctuaries, and so on. All of our cash should go to immediate life-saving projects.
OH, and for the record, while I'm not in either "camp" and don't give a squat about the sexual practices of NJ males, it was never really about that. It's all about the money (government benefits to spouses), and it always is. Both sides put a bunch of nonsense up on the airways and refuse to talk about what matters in grownup land - how much does it cost.
Personally, I think government should get out of the marriage promotion business altogether and just concern itself with guardianship laws and contract law. But hey, now both sides can target me for not caring.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
The quickest way to get the system changed is to create a scandal by actually stealing an election. I would suggest making a Libertarian, Green, or other 3rd party win the govenor's race. That should make it pretty obvious.
Statistical analysis has already demonstrated fraud in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. There is no doubt whatsoever that significant voting irregularities took place, and that they had the effect of giving the election to Bush rather than his opponent in both cases. There were also, it is worth noting, some anomalies that favoured Democrats, although not by so wide a margin (perhaps they were just playing their cards more closely, or didn't need as big shifts to win in those races.)
I sincerely hope that some American hero stands up and hacks the upcoming elections in a big way. They will get jailed for some kind of crime, but someone has to stand up and fight, and not say, "Oh, but my career would suffer if I was willing to sacrifice myself for the good of my country." But I have no illusions that such a successful hack would have any immediate effect. It will take many hacks over many elections to convince the idiots who think that election fraud is simply a stick to beat Republicans with, or who dismiss all evidence of fraud as impossible because "they" would never allow such a thing.
We know Diebold machines can be hacked very easily. We know that they have been hacked in past elections, based on analysis of exit poll anomalies. We know that there is a great deal at stake in the American elections in the next two years.
If America deserves to survive, there will be at least one person somewhere who is even now implementing a plan that will result in 100% of the votes cast in their county going to third-party candidates. In practical terms it must be third-party, because otherwise the vast majority of voters who cast their ballot for the favoured candidate would simply shrug, spit, and say, "I don't see no problem with that." Nothing short of a third-party landslide victory will put a dent in the partisan complacency of mainstream voters, and even then the lying bastards in power will claim that this was a special-case problem that they know for sure didn't affect any other races. And the complacent sheeple will believe them.
If no one is willing to take the risk of throwing egregiously throwing the vote in their county then America does not deserve to survive as a functioning democratic republic, and it will not.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Now, let's say that the House Race for the fifth district in the state of Ficticia is down to the wire. Candidate Smith has a strong showing in the densely populated Ficticia City, where he's beating Candidate Doe by a two-to-one margin. On the other hand, Candidate Doe has a solid lead in Uniform Heights, Graded Meadow, Irongate Estates, Culvertdale, and the other suburbs and exurbs of Ficticia City. Between the two areas, the candidates are locked in a dead heat, and accusations of voter intimidation have been flying thick.
Let's assume that of these two candidates actually is planning to engage in wholesale vote fraud. Should he do it in all districts, in a district he's sure to carry, a district that's split about 50/50, or a district where his opponent is likely to win?
If he throws the vote in a district where the two candidates are neck and neck or where his opponent is likely to win, his opponent's supporters will be more likely to notice tabulation discrepancies. A closer-than-projected result in a district that was supposed to be a "lock" for his opponent--or a wider victory in a contested area--will not go unnoticed, because most people expect voter fraud to occur in places where the person committing the fraud is the underdog. Because the point of voter fraud is to "win", most people assume that a potential fraudster would try to rig the "obvious" areas: the areas where the fraudster is vulnerable or likely to lose.
If, however, the fraudster's "core" areas report a stronger than expected performance, people are much more inclined to assume that it was the last minute get-out-the-vote operation, or strong appeals to the base, or whatever. People simply don't expect others to cheat where they've already "won".
In the end, it doesn't matter which candidate "won" which precincts; what matters is the total across all precincts. If a candidate inflates his performance in his own backyard, his opponent is less likely to notice that it happened...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
It's not the details of the issue itself that gives it such a high priority in the public eye, it's the fact that one or more sides feels that it is of vital importance.
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
If your complaint is that they now get privileges from the government, there's an easy solution - neither hetero nor homo couples get any preferrential treatment over singles.
But the whole point of what the Christians want is to be able to reward people they like (i.e. themselves) and punish people they do not like (i.e. fags). So, taking away their special privledges to put them on a level field does not accomplish this. Giving gays the right to marry does not accomplish this. What they want is the government to send checks to Christians and put the fags in jail. Because, you see, Christians are so "loving".
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Honestly, I don't see how it damages the institution of marrage either. However, the fact that you and I, as well as many others, disagree with something that group feels is so fundamentaly important is the reason the issue gets so much attention.
What if you don't "see how" because the statement is a lie? What if people aren't against gay marriage because it would "damage marriage"? What if people are against gay marriage for the same reason that people are against mixing of the races, women having the vote, or that other religion being permitted to meet in an other wise good, my religion town?
Why were so many people against rights for blacks? Fear of competition? Hatred of anything different? Something else?
Does it really matter why they're this way? The reality is, lots are that way. Does having a lot of bigots in our town/state/nation mean we should permit bigoted laws?
This is why we've things like the Bill of Rights in this country. This is why we've something to fear in a tyranny of the majority.
Those that would consider voting with their bigoted natures should realize the conceit in the assumption that they are safe because they're in the majority. Demographics evolve. Those promoting an intolerant society will only have themselves to blame when they're the next target of intolerance.
I agree that the world is full of problems and that there are pressing and important things going on all over. Nevertheless the election of a US president is the single most important event in the world. That may sound a bit over the top but I really think it's true.
The US has the biggest military and is willing to use it to pursue what it thinks is best for it. On top of that it is one of the largest economies in the world.
What happens in the US effects the rest of the world. Imagine if Gore had won the presidency. Would the world be different? You bet. Maybe under a Gore presidency 9/11 would never have happened.
evil is as evil does
"It is also a fact that owning a Hummer is a big financial burden on people that those without Hummers don't have, and they can use some help."
See how ridiculous that sounds? People have choice on whether or not to breed, as do they have a choice to own a Hummer. I don't feel pity for the financially strapped family in either camp.
(posting from Utah, where 5+ kids is too damn common for my comfort)
Method of processing duck feet
Gays are not being "forced on you". If you agree that gays should be allowd to kiss, then you should be fine with them doing it wherever they please whether that be in the privacy of their own home, in public places, or on the big screen. Gays are not displayed in movies for the sole purpose of disgusting you, just like like fat people kissing each other or ugly people kissing each other in movies isn't done for the sole purpose of disgusting you. They're simply parts of everyday life. A racist person may find the idea of interracial relationships disgusting. That doesn't mean that those relationships should not be in movies, right? The same applies to homophobes and their view on gay relationships. Just because you don't happen to like watching it, doesn't mean that Hollywood should no longer be able to depict it. As for government aid: it's easy to complain about the government digging into your pockets when you're not a victim of circumstance. Just realize there are people out there who deserve a chance to succeed. It's not the cripple's fault he lost the use of his legs in a car accident. It's not the african american child's fault he was born into poverty and gang violence. There are always going to be people who abuse the system, but there are plenty more who should have an equal right to live healthy, productive lives.
And those are no problem if they're of the opposing sex?
More likely, if Gore had won, Saddam would still be in control of Iraq, but we'd have captured Osama. There wouldn't have been a "War on Terror", but rather a "War on the Taliban/al Qaeda". Perhaps I'm giving Gore too much credit, but this much I'm sure of: it wouldn't be any worse than it is now.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
You did mention the "liberal" media, so you touched on it, but really, when 3 channels are quoting each other with created facts by obvious pundits who are clearly party members.....
When I hear or read of the liberal media I ask what liberal media. But nobody bothers to reply. ABC? Disney owns ABC. CBS? It used to be owned by Viacom but after the split it's owned by CBS Corporation. And National Amusements is the majority owner of CBS Corp. NBC? NBC is owned by GE. Fox is owned by Murdock's News Corp. Are Disney, National Amusements, News Corp, and GE liberal? Well there's PBS but as it's government it's controlled by government wich is currently run by Bush. There are others but these are the major media organizations that broadcast over the airwaves.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Nevermind the absurdity of this discussion. As a Christian, I'm offended by your gross mischaracterization of my faith. Homosexuals are more at odds with tradition (the traditional family values that have defined our modern society) than any single religion. Christians are more likely to invite homosexuals to church to learn about Jesus than "put the fags in jail", as you put it. Any one that screams "God hates fags" or "You're going to Hell" is either not a Christian or an extremely misguided Christian. But, such oversimplifications underline your ignorance of the different denominations that can be found in America. Finally, I believe that Christians are far too sophisticated to subscribe to your system of blindly rewarding any politician that claims to hold their values. Christians believe that they are no more and no less a sinner than anyone else. So, from a Christian standpoint, we're all equal in God's eyes. And as a Christian I'm constantly questioning and testing my faith. Christians are not the religious zombies you've so recklessly characterized them to be.