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Democrats Appoint RIAA Shill For Convention
An anonymous reader sends us to Boing Boing for a report that "the Director of Communications for the RIAA, Jenni Engebretsen, has been appointed Deputy CEO for Public Affairs for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver." The DNC site has the official press release. Cory Doctorow notes that the RIAA is the most hated "corporation" in America, having beaten out Halliburton and Wal-Mart for the honor, and writes for the DNC's attention, "This represents a potential shear with the left-wing blogosphere."
That when I vote Republican, they'll sue my neighbor and her kids?
... at the mention of the term "blogosphere".
Birds of a feather...
They used the words "shill", "left-wing" and "blogosphere". Then they mentioend the RIAA. That's as close as you can come to a Godwin violation without mentioning Historical German leaders.
I stopped reading when I saw "blogosphere"...
Can you say, "I'M DUMB AS A STUMP" (Yes; in all caps)
I'm a political party needing the general population to vote for me, but I'm going to have the most hated company by the general population represent my party by letting them running the show.
Lets just tattoo a giant "L" on their forehead...
Unsurprising; both parties are in the pockets of corporate interests, anyway. I hope there is a backlash over this.
It's always amazed me that people seem to think liberals can do no evil. Maybe this will help you all learn the truth.
...about rampant trading of dem speeches on p2p networks and the potential for remixes and mash-ups without compensation to the original artists like Lincoln and Roosevelt.
They plan on flooding p2p networks with podcasts that are just bogus loops during the convention.
I do not think that word means what the author of that blurb thinks it means.
They didn't hire a shill. They just hired someone who used to work for the RIAA. Big deal. The Pope used to work for Hitler too, but it's not relevant work experience.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
to vote libertarian.
you know the Lib party is pretty sound once you get past the "smoke pot" platform. and honestly I firmly believe that because they push that platform so hard is why nobody even thinks of jumping ship from republican or democrat to Libertarian.
I personally like their ideals and goals, and for the most part they do make sense in every aspect if you sit and listen to them.
too bad 90% of americans are baying sheep that are to cowardly to vote for a 3rd party.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is just proof that the scum gathers and rises to the top. As I send my dollars to the least of the evils that stand to win (republican).
Sue me, I'm conservative.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Just ask Howard Dean how much influence the "left-wing blogosphere" wields in terms of getting their darling elected.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
will will all run from the Democrat banner now? ESR says Libertarian is OK. :)
Power to the Penguin!
While she might have public sector skills the Democrats could certainly gain from having on their side, given her organization's (and no doubt her own) agenda, I would be very concerned about the back-channel influence she is going to have on the DNC, the candidates, and their supporters from the executvie and legislative branches. They will be 'rubbing shoulders
a lot in the preparation and at the event and one would have to be naive to think she won't be lobbying for the RIAA.
The Democrats rightly chastized Dick Cheney for his closed-door energy policy meetings with his energy industry cronies and then they turn around and act similarly by allowing a corporate special interest inside access to candiates--before they are even in office. Why don't they pick someone from a non-profit? Sure there will always be some agenda with any person they choose, but why choose someone frm an organization that is so blatant, so hated, and so mercenary?
Have they given leave of their sense?
It might interest you to know that there are more than 70 political parties in the United States.
My blog
Seriously, it's not that hard - Lincoln was a Republican.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
As the democrats are clearly in bed with the RIAA they're not getting my vote any more.
First off: a person who does communications for group 1 is probably going to do a reasonable job of doing communications for group 2. If you're hiring based on merit, how much does it matter if the person is one of satan's catchers?
Secondly: the RIAA is everyone in power's best friend. Republicans love the big companies, Democrats love the film and rock stars, and both parties just absolutely adore lobbyists. They're like groupies only they give money.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
money talks.
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"
- Bill Hicks
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Wait, so you're advocating the libertarian party... and you don't even believe people have the right to use whatever recreational drugs they want?
It just seems like if you're going to be pro-personal freedom, the War on Drugs would be the first thing you'd want to get rid of, not the last.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This sucks, but what are we going to do? Vote Republican?
No thanks
How about considering some of the _other_ parties out there? Yeah, you may not win, but if you get enough seats guess who holds the balance of power?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It might interest you to know that there are more than 70 political parties in the United States.
And exactly two of them have a chance in hell of actually being elected.
Voting against the worst-possible-outcome (i.e. a Republican being elected) isn't ideal, but it's the reality of American electoral politics for a lot of people.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
It might interest you to know that there are more than 70 political parties in the United States.
And until our voting system is completely overhauled, only two of them are electable. That's the reality of it. If you don't like it (and I don't), press your congresscritter for reform of our voting laws. Even then, why do they want to change the system that keeps them in power?
Yet you will still vote Democrat because the only option you see is the Republican's. It's good that you have the blinders on so tight that you can't possibly see any other options. You can have all the freedoms you want because most Americans cannot conceive of a different choice. You are free to pick the color of the car as long as you chose black. Rise up and protest, strike don't just post witty comments on forums... but of course you won't, it doesn't bother you enough... Its good to know that they have realized they can take your life away bit by bit since you can only protest when crazy excesses happen.
The world has gotten to large for your version of government to work. Its a good thing your government has already realized this and removed it from your control. Good luck trying to change anything now without a massive uprising.
So only 2 parties are electable and neither will fix the problem. I submit to you that you must vote for an unelectable party in order to get things changed.
It'll make the trial lawyer and Hollywood/Music Industry contingents of the Democrats very happy. And those groups may be small, but they represent a lot of campaign donation dollars.
[Insert pithy quote here]
The density of Administratium is second to none.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
And it isn't just left-wing.
The RIAA pisses pretty much everyone off. There's enough buzz that people I know that have never visited slashdot, know next to nothing about DRM (other than "this annoys me"), hate the RIAA. Most of them aren't even sure what it is, but they hate the RIAA. I don't understand why the Democrats are cozying up to these assholes. They go all out claiming to represent the very people the RIAA sues.
Most music thieves are too lazy to vote in the first place.
Maybe in the Federal elections, but State and Local elections are less popular (even though they're more important since they dictate the policy that affects you most where you actually live) and are thus more influential to third parties.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Democrats need to be very very careful with DRM and associating with the **AAs. The last 7 years have made me hate the Republican party enough to never vote Red again in my life...and I used to be a Republican (in college when I was clueless about the real world, and didn't have the ability to forsee how the republican party has annihilated the middle class over the last 7 years).
Bottom line, if the Dems go hard with DRM I will go with the independents and libertarians...regardless of whether this gives the Republicans an edge...I will not support a DRM friendly party that puts the rights of corporations over individual human rights. For Christ's sake Democrats are suppost the represent us...the people...corporate interests should always come second to any true Democrat in office.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
And yet, you control but a single, insignificant vote. What have you got to lose? We can't even count accurately enough for a single vote to be significant should a large election come down to it.
Also, do not believe that we, the voters are their constituents in the sense that they are beholden to our interests. This is not the case. They are beholden to those who can pressure them by providing or withholding money, usually (but not always) through lobbyists. If you are not represented in such a way to your government representatives, then you are not in any practical sense one of their constituents. Your vote was the single act in which you are able to influence the process. In principle, you can write to them once they are in office and attempt to sway them, but unless you are onboard with the money-providing players, or unless you are part of a massive broad-based campaign, you will be ignored and will receive a canned response.
I claim that the above is neither an opinion nor ideology, but an expression of practical facts. Please refute that claim.
The voting system doesn't need to be changed because those parties can get on the ballot. What needs to change is people actually looking at their local candidates and selecting the best one for the job or who matches their beliefs the best, not the one that gets the most time in the media.
The problem is that it requires people to be anything but sheep.
My Sysadmin Blog
Wake up. The Democratic party want to regulate the hell out of everything just like the RIAA. Learn from history or repeat it. Time for a real 3rd party. No lawyers or career politicians allowed.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
bnetween the two parties. unless it's the Iraq war (which many democrats voted for by the way), name one substantial difference between the two parties. they both favor unlimited immigration, destructive trade policies, won't push to expand more oil drilling and nuclear power, don't give a crap about the social security/medicare atom bombs, and in general are so beholden to large monied interests. the republicans screwed up the war on terror, the democrats won't even fight it. other than that, they are more concerned with consolidating political power.
as for the media, et al., all those hollywood big wigs (like David Geffen), who love the RIAA. they are all HUGE democratic donors. connection? I guess not.
vote libertarian!!
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Even if you don't get the minor party official elected, if they get enough votes, either a Republican or Democrat could pick up the driving issue and pursue it to their own means. It may not ideal, certainly, but it can be effective to get us what we want. So when the major two parties notice, the vote is not wasted.
And exactly one of them has a chance in hell of actually being elected. Just because the Government party has a Jackass wing and an Elephant wing, doesn't mean they stand for anything fundamentally different. The Party knows all, sees all, and rules all.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who would've thought that it would've been the Democrats that crack down on free speech (Imus) and then pick this assclown to work their convention? Are they shifting to the right, or are they just stupid?
She's a flack. They don't create policy. They're like light bulbs. Burn one out, unscrew it, screw another in.
- - - - - - - - - -
Jenni Engebretsen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jenni R. Engebretsen is the Director of Communications for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Washington, DC-based trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry.
[] Political involvement
Engebretsen spent eight years working in Democratic politics prior to joining the RIAA, most recently as a Regional Communications Director for the Kerry-Edwards for President campaign, where she was responsible for developing campaign communications strategy for top-targeted states including Florida and New Hampshire. During the 2004 presidential cycle, she also served as Deputy Communications Director for the Democratic National Convention in Boston and as Press Secretary for the Edwards for President campaign during the primaries. Before that, she worked on Capitol Hill in the communications offices of Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Schumer ( D-N.Y.) and in the White House press office during the Clinton Administration. She is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Guess what? They won't ever have a chance of winning if nobody votes for them.
Thanks for being part of the problem.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Yes, but the poster's point was that a pro-drug stance shouldn't be the first thing to tout while on the stump. There are many more "pro-personal freedom" stances that are far more palatable to liberals and conservatives alike than "free the weed, dude".
Method of processing duck feet
Considering that McCain and Guilani are the front runners, how is electing a Republican the "worst-possible-outcome"? If the choices were a third Bush term, or Cheney, or Jeb, or Rice, you might have a point, but do you really feel that McCain or Guilani would be as bad as the current Republican admin?
Considering how McCain and Bush smashed each other going for the nomination in 2000, McCain can almost run as the challenger, instead of the incumbent party.
The sad thing is that the Democrats, instead of actually listening to all the voters they've disenfranchised, seem to treat "What are you going to do, vote Republican?" as a policy platform.
I hope this doesn't turn me into a target for the army of Nader-Haters out there, but I voted for Nader in 2000 and I would do it again. (FWIW, I was registered in Washington state at the time, and given the (absurd) Electoral College system, my vote did not actually play into the final outcome of that election.) When Democrats tried to convince me I should vote with them, nobody ever tried to make the "we support those issues also" or "actual progress requires more compromise" arguments. All I ever heard was, in essence, "Yeah, but the Republicans are worse." That just seems pathetic.
I'm just sayin'.
Jenni Engebretsen has proposed that DNC shall now stand for DO NOT COPY... She also will be instituting a new convention which will be named the Democratic Reform Meeting (DRM) which will be held monthly at a Regional Information Assembly Area (RIAA). She will also be engaging in a heavy handed campaign to support Military Personnel Aid and Assistance (MPAA).
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
What is your definition of "liberal"?
It's not a slam against you. It's just that, especially in the last few years, "liberal" has become a derogatory term for anyone the disagrees with the "right wing" folks. There, I did it myself. And I can't give a definition of "right wing" myself - these days - other than to say, "someone who still supports the Republican party after all of these years of corruption and complete mishandling of international affairs." - IMHO
Back to liberal. I was once talking to a friend of mine and she was complaining about all of the "liberals" who wanted to ban lawn signs on people's yards. How wanting to ban signs on people's yards makes one a "liberal" is beyond me.
Look at it this way:
There are 101 people voting for president of the world. 51 of them are "Liberal," and 50 of them are "Conservative." (Both in the American sense.) In a two party system, the Liberal Candidate would win.
49 People have voted for Jack Johnson, a Democrat.
50 People have voted for John Jackson, a Republican.
That leaves just you (Robert Bobson,) and your close friend (Bob Robertson) to vote. Instead of voting for Jack, you both vote for Jesse Ventura, a "Liberal" independent. Now, you did not vote for John, because you disagree with his policies. You did not vote for jack, because you dislike him personally, although you agree with his policies. As result, you walk around saying "Don't blame me! I voted for a third party!," When in actuality, it is just as much a result of you, as it is of anyone who voted for John. The same scenario also works in reverse, of course, but Conservatives tend to have fewer major candidates.
So in this great place called 'reality,' unless you really don't care who wins, or it is not a close race, voting for anyone but the DFL or GOP candidate is not only a waste of your vote, but probably against your self interests. Now, this isn't to say I never do. Whenever the outcome of an election is clear, I vote Socialist or Green (assuming any candidates are available.) But in elections where my vote could, in fact, make a difference? I know better.
Wasn't it Clinton who signed the DMCA into law? And remember those awful things he tried to do to crypto? Key escrow and whatnot?
The democrats are just as much panderers to corporate interests and net stupidity as the republicans are. No more, no less. Both parties are drifting, and it's not right or left, it's just downhill.
Free speech is neither a right-wing nor a left-wing value. It's simply a value.
That DailyKos page links to the BoingBoing page, same as the /. story. :P
:/
Besides, its individual users who submit stories with their own writeups. If you want to bash on someone for plagarizing, bash the submitter.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
I for one am leaving the DNC feedback on their feedback page:
2 5218.shtmls htmla merica/worst-company-in-america-2007-final-deathma tch-244408.php
http://www.democrats.org/page/s/contactissues
Here is what my feedback looked like:
I think it is a serious mistake for the DNC to closely associate itself with the RIAA. The RIAA is despised in more technical literate circles, and increasingly at universities for their questionable legal maneuvers in their holy war against file sharing.
Close association with the RIAA reinforces stereotypes about the DNC being "no different" then the RNC as both are "owned by corporate interests". Please reconsider the decision to appoint Jenni Engebretsen to the Convention leadership team. I'm sure she is a great lady and did wonderful things for Kerry/Edwards, but I have serious problems with the morality of her employer. Her involvement at a leadership position casts a shadow over the entire Democratic party in my eyes, and in the eyes of many others.
Thanks for your time, a few links about the RIAA follow.
http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/07/04/13/16
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061219/121441.
http://www.riaaradar.com/
http://consumerist.com/consumer/worst-company-in-
apt-get install redhat please god - Me (take it easy, I love Debian)
Oh, I'm hoping McCain gets the Republican nod. I'd vote for him. And I even voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry is 2004.
My blog
Specifically, I'm talking about the 'worst company in america' award that the RIAA supposedly won.
When I read the headline, it smelled fishy. So, I did a tiny bit of research and found:
- The contest was between exactly two companies - Hallibutron and the RIAA. Those were your choices if you participated in this survey. The RIAA won by 3.8%. Wal-mart or none of the above were not choices.
- The 'survey' was done by The Consumerist. Sounds impressive, eh? Like The Economist magazine, perhaps? No, not really. It's basically some shitty blog. Hint: their web page currently has ads for 'Replica Rolex Watches
Rolex, Cartier, Gucci, Brietling Only $189!!'
- So, this poll was a web poll. Hardly what we'd expect from a true 'Most hated company in America' type deal.
- See it for yourself here.
The RIAA may have their bad points, but there's nothing in this survey or elsewhere to suggest that they are the most hated 'company' in the USA, other than perhaps in the overimaginaive minds of a few people who need to spend a little less time glued to the monitor and a bit more time thinking about journalistic ethics.And believe me, the Republican and Democratic parties know what they have to lose should a third party begin to gain sway... they fight tooth-and-nail, even collaborate, to make sure they grind their shared enemy into the dirt. Reform Party. Green Party. Libertarian. It doesn't matter who challenges them, since as the party[1] in power, they can make sure fringe parties don't get the funding to really challenge.
[1] The Democrats and Republicans are, in essence, two sects of the same party. Yes, they fight each other -- but they understand that the two-party system is what is best for them, even when they are on a downward slant, like the Republicans are now. They're not above using proxy parties to siphon votes (see Republican funding of the Nader campaigns) -- but when push comes to shove, most Republican strategists would rather see a Democrat in power than a third-party candidate.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
So, you think the libertarians or the greens would be worse than the republicans or democrats? Hell, at least libertarians and greens base their party on principle, the democrats and republicans are just whores for power and money.
thisnukes4u.net
Ah sorry - my mistake - I see now that it was a 'ncaa college basketball' style elimination tournament to see which was the worst company. Still, it was a web poll and the bulk of my other points are still valid. Mea culpa.
I agree with you - and will just add Republicans != conservative ;)
I'd like a real conservative and real liberal party, so people have distinct things to choose from.
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
Really? I thought a vote for a third party was a vote for a third party. Darned Diebold machines!
Seriously though, I live in CA. There's not a snowball's chance in hell that it will go Republican (and CA is winner-take-all in the Electoral College). How would my voting Libertarian be a "vote for a Republican"?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The RIAA with its tentacles in both major parties does things that are corrupt and wrong when you want to make air use of your music.
Big Oil, which has been mainly a Republican thing, drives the things that make many question whether there's going to be a planet worth living in for our grandkids.
A little perspective on which political shark has which remora-like attachments. We've still made some progress here.
"The sad thing is that the Democrats, instead of actually listening to all the voters they've disenfranchised, seem to treat "What are you going to do, vote Republican?" as a policy platform."
As someone who tends to vote Republican, I can tell you that strategy worked for Republicans for about 8 years. The war on terror might've added a year or two though. That's about how long ago the Republicans stopped pushing a conservative agenda and started asking their constituents, "What are you going to do, vote Democrat?" It is indeed pathetic.
And you all thought the Dems were the party of personal freedom... /soapbox
I guess it makes sense, the RIAA and the Democrats have one thing in common, "give us more money so we can spend it for you."
Vote Libertarian.
First, it's a woman.
Second, did you really just try to make the point that hiring the public face of the most hated corporation is a good idea? Did you miss that "most hated" part?
You think democrats have ever respected the notion of truly free speech?
Fuck Tipper Gore and fuck the PMRC
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
For President, only two of those parties have a chance in hell of being elected. But there have been -- and are, to the best of my knowledge -- people neither D nor R elected to the House, the Senate, and as Governers. In other words, the only office that's pretty much unquestionably going to a D or R is the White House. So, for President, vote D or R if you don't want to "throw your vote away" (although that's a somewhat questionable assertion in and of itself) but below that there *are* viable options, and the more people that think about this, the more viable those options become.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Which of those parties is this guy? He's got my vote, and probably my roomba's vote as well.
Diebold for teh wins!!
Why I'm a Libertarian.
Not because I think that 100% of Libertarian ideals must be enacted, but because I see both Democrats and Republicans push us further and further into a Totalitarian society. As the Libertarian tag line goes:
We have a problem
Democrats - Lets create more government to fix the problem
Republicans - Lets create more government (just less than the Democrats) to fix the problem
Libertarian - The Government is the problem, let's reduce it.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Really? A vote for the Constitution Party is a vote for a Republican?
And if you believe the major 2 are better than the minors, then I'm not really talking to you. I'm trying to win over the people who don't like the status quo. Indeed, if you think we've done well voting for shit or piss, then keep voting your conscience.
I recall a poll that was taken a few years back in the UK. The poll question was something along the lines of "Would you vote for the Liberal Democrats if you thought they had a chance of winning?" A majority polled said they would.
The UK has figured out how to get a third party in the government (actually, they have 11), so I'd think we could do the same thing.
I suspect it means exactly what the author thinks it means, specifically
Shill-
2.a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.
She was a hired PR flack. The word "shill" is exactly right in this context.
For President, only two of those parties have a chance in hell of being elected. But there have been -- and are, to the best of my knowledge -- people neither D nor R elected to the House, the Senate, and as Governers. In other words, the only office that's pretty much unquestionably going to a D or R is the White House.
It depends on where you live, and depends on the race.
Thanks to polling and surveys, we can get a pretty good idea of where the candidates stand, if it's going to be a close race, etc.
If it's going to be a close race, generally I'll vote against the candidate I want to lose.
If one of the two majors is running away with the race, and my one little vote won't swing the election in one way or the other, I'll go ahead and vote for a third party.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
A while back, I complained to my Senator, Diane Feinstein about how the Broadcast flag would cut into time-shifting and other fair use rights, and that it was basically corporate welfare to preserve a flagging industry in the face of a changing environment. Here's the response I got:
Diane Feinstein is what I call a DINO - Democrat in Name Only. She's pro-drug war, pro big media, anti-consumer rights, and is a socially conservative fiscal liberal. Her and Joe Lieberman give progressives a bad name.
Causation can cause correlation
I am not against voting Libertarian.... but when people going to stop and think who they are voting for? Vote independently of party and look at the person.
Small political parties are only devoid of corruption because they have no power yet. The conservatives swept into power in 1994 with the promise of reform -- look what happened. I guarantee the same corruption and shit will happen once the democrats are in power because this cycle is endless. Both sides are the same and we are on a giant merry-go-round with the same shit every time.
I think one of the best politicians recently was Jesse Ventura, and he ran as an Independent. Kept his word on many things and stepped out after 2 terms. Not a career politician by any means.
Contrast this with the average career politician willing to say anything publicly to get elected while toeing the party line while in office. Beholden to so many interests, its no wonder most suck.
If people ever started electing people without even looking at party affiliation, there would be no need for political parties. And a lot better job would get done. I would rather be for election reform if that meant that voting booths could just have the name of the person on the ticket, without party listed (do they list their every stance on issues in the booth too, I don't think so - this is a product of the 2 party system helping each other out - like they rig every other part of the electoral process). Then maybe people would be forced to look at who they are voting for rather than check it off all one party or another. Maybe then we'd getter better choices than between a douche and a turd.
The way I remember it, by the end of 2003, the mainstream media had already anointed him the 2004 Democratic nominee. He had raised more money than his competitors, he had more superdelegates than his competitors, and more high-profile endorsements than his competitors (Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Bill Bradley, etc., and many celebrities, for whatever they're worth).
Going into Iowa, Dean was the strong frontrunner, and what happened in Iowa? That happened. He got his arse handed to him, and his consolation speech congratulating John Kerry was that unstatesmanlike, obnoxious, and petty "Scream Speech" that you refer to.
My point? Despite being the frontrunner, Dean couldn't manage better than a 3rd place showing in Iowa and a distant, also-ran 3rd place at that. The Scream speech did not cause his defeat--he hadn't yet delivered it.
Of course, after that shameful showing in Iowa and reacting to it like a 2 year old, he was pretty much done in '04.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
If you all would simply vote for Ron Paul we wouldn't have to worry about the RIAA, MPAA, Iraq, or most everything else you complain about.
Republican scientists recently discovered how to clone dead people using a technique described as "Unfathomable Dark Magic" (UDM). The technique is said to use DNA samples, a centerfuge, and the bones of still born children.
Associated Press Dew Shbag contributed to this report.
and not only do you control a single vote, that vote is just a SUGGESTION to your electoral college that may or may not decide to cast their vote inline with the majority of the voters. but they are also there to vote what they think would be best for the majority. thats why we have representative republic, not a democracy.
Over time, this would enable viable third parties and independent candidates to 1) exist meaningfully and 2) eventually flourish. Why? Once voters are free to vote their view on all candidates, serious candidates can contemplate a non-Democrat, non-Republican affiliation without fear of being completely stonewalled at the voting booth.
Alone, rank-based voting may not be sufficient to increase political diversity in the US, but it's almost certainly necessary.
When are you people going to wake up? We aren't republican or democrats, we are Americans. Instead, we split ourselves along an arbitrary party line that single handedly fucks up EVERYTHING.
It is my strong belief that we need to abolish the two-party system as it stands. maybe if we stopped putting letters after people's names, the masses would listen to what they have to actually say, rather than what "side" they say they are on.
Fuck that. Fuck all of you who vote republican OR democrat.
What you have done to our country disgusts me.
Living With a Nerd
Maybe Nader lost Gore the 2000 election, but it wasn't so long ago that Perot lost elder Bush the election. 3rd parties can drain votes from either party, it depends who is casting the vote. A traditional Republican voter casting a 3rd party vote is certainly not handing the Republicans a vote... but that should go without saying :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Everyone who's awake and functional knows big business owns the US government - so Big Content backs the Dems while Big Oil backs the Repubs. Did you think that somehow we *really* had 2 separate parties?
Vote Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, or Independent but please don't THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY by voting Democrat or Republican.
Haven't we had efuckingnuff yet?
Caveat Utilitor
If I was hiring someone to spin the press for me, I'd want a person who SUCCEEDS in doing that for their employer. I have never met a person with a favorable view of her current employer. I have never met anyone whose view of her employer has gotten LESS WORSE during her employment. Strikes me as another failure of the hiring process. The HR department strikes again!
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
This would be very interesting if people, you know, UNDER the age of 50 actually voted. And come on. Hilary has already mad her stance on censorship clear. I don't think she cares about the Generation X & Y voting population...so why should the rest of the party care either?
On the other hand, Democrats are such a disparate coalition that they have little else in common. Do you really think that blacks, Hispanics, or union workers broadly support abortion or gay rights? Will unions and Hispanics line up shoulder-to-shoulder on immigration?
Eventually something will give and the parties will either realign or break apart, but for now we are in a perverse purgatory. As the Democrats continue to lose the South, I think you'll see this more and more. Already you are seeing conservative Democrats re-emerge down there.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yeah, and I'll admit this is a big reason why I voted Republican in 2000: I saw the writing on the wall with the way the Democrats were cozying up to the RIAA.
I can't say that the results are quite what I hoped.
I'm pretty much voting for Mack Brown from now on.
I don't hate the RIAA for protecting the rights of the artists and their record labels. I despise their heavy-handed tactics and willingness to sue grandmas on welfare. If the RIAA would act like a forward-thinking organization and stop treating the music customers like criminals, they might find out that we're on the side of the artists too and most of us don't have a problem paying for music. It is the RIAA's own fault that they are viewed as a bunch of hired Mafia thugs!
I think it's dumb, too. But keep in mind the only reason RIAA won that tournament was because the current U.S. administration wasn't in it.
;)
Talk about the lesser of two evils... we've got the actual *bottom *two evils competing for our votes
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I don't think I've read tripe that poorly researched since five minutes ago when I was reading blogs4bush.
...is we can look forward to Rudy Giuliani winning the presidency.
I mean she's Director of Communications for the most hated organization in America^W^W on Slashdot, and she was communications director for a Presidential campaign whose main message was "I'm not Bush" -- and couldn't even effectively get that message out. She certainly doesn't appear to be an effective choice.
Oh well. At least the trains will run on time.
so I'm very dismayed that when we need to take the country back, the democrats have put another functionary of brain-dead scorched-earth "just us" idiots in charge of their PR.
truly, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Because of attitudes like that.
The United States. A democracy of coin flipping.
Do You Experiment?
Democrats = Neo-Cons, and they're all against us. Vote Ron Paul in 2008.
If you vote dem to end the war, you also get minimum wage, tobacco and transfat prohibitionists, inconvenient truths, and equal rights rehash. If you vote reps for the small government, you also get big government, biblical authoritarianism, and endless war.
They don't. Which leaves us with the one option you have available in a democracy that is more powerful than lobbying or writing your representatives. Vote for someone else.
I would like to bring up that third party voting has (for better or worse) happened even in some major elections (governerships, etc...) when people were disgruntled with the major party options. For those that suggest voting for a third party canidate is "hopeless" and "throwing your vote away", consider that it just takes enough people fed up with the status quo to change things.
Do You Experiment?
So replace one evil with another, greater evil? Sounds like a good plan to me. Instead of labeling ALL Republicans like they are as bad as Bush, try to look at it from the standpoint of religion instead of political standpoint... There are a few very good conservative candidates who will NOT allow religion to get in the way of good politics. Bush is bad because he firmly believes that he is serving God... not any better than the Muslims who feel they are sacrificing themselves in the name of Allah so they can be met in heaven by 50 virgins...
Still, it was a web poll and the bulk of my other points are still valid
The BULK? What bulk? Here are your points from your original post:
* The contest was between exactly two companies - Hallibutron and the RIAA. Those were your choices if you participated in this survey. The RIAA won by 3.8%. Wal-mart or none of the above were not choices.
* The 'survey' was done by The Consumerist. Sounds impressive, eh? Like The Economist magazine, perhaps? No, not really. It's basically some shitty blog. Hint: their web page currently has ads for 'Replica Rolex Watches Rolex, Cartier, Gucci, Brietling Only $189!!'
* So, this poll was a web poll. Hardly what we'd expect from a true 'Most hated company in America' type deal.
* See it for yourself here [consumerist.com].
So out of these four bullets, one simply states that this was a web poll, ok true, but not exactly insightful. The last point is not a point at all, just a link to your source. The first point you already admitted was wrong, leaving only your second point as anything that could fall under your term of "bulk" and I would hardly call a single valid point bulk by any stretch.
In addition the consumerist website is not some tiny fly-by-night blog, it's been around for a while and they are the slashdot of constomer service issues and are part of Gawker Media which handles other such blogs as Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Kotaku, and Lifehacker just to name a few. While these may be niche blogs in that they have a sharp focus, they are by no means somebody's part time basement run website. In March 2007 the Consumerist received over 5 million visitors, and they have consistently had over 500,000 visitors per month for the past 12 months, and over 1 million visitors/month for the last 6.
As for the SINGLE advertisement you chose to judge the quality of the page, (ignoring other advertisers such as the prominent T-Mobile ad) the replica watch company is not selling counterfit goods, it sells replicas, clearly marked in both their URL and product page, so it is not an ad from a scammer. Also considering the nature of the consumerist blog, I would certainly think that they vet companies before accepting ads from them.
So in short, you overreacted and shot down a completely legitmate site which ran a survey over a period of weeks that reached a very large audience. Is it a scientific poll? No, but it's also not some two-bit blogger ranting about poll results culled from a handful of readers. Kudos on you for posting a semi-retraction but your "bulk" of remaining points is essential naught.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Well, if you're going to get picky, technically you are voting for an elector, who will then cast their vote for whomever they please. That is to say, you don't suggest anything; you are actually voting, albeit not for what you might think. On the other hand, in practice, you're actually voting for the president in a winner-takes-all race (per state) since electors rarely break rank in a way that makes a difference (yes, I'm aware some states allocate electors according to their percentage of votes).
...keep voting that way, you'll keep "electing" one wing or the other of the cooperating criminal cartel that has hijacked government and runs it as a crony jobs program for multimillionaires and billionaires and transnational non patriotic corporations.
I've been hearing the same shit for 40 years now -"don't waste your vote-don't vote for an independent or third party!"-it was wrong then and is still wrong, but the brainwashed parrots keep convincing themselves and other people to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, somehow magically expecting a different result "this time". IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
Anyone "you" has one vote, wasting it on the lesser of two evils will ALWAYS result in evil getting elected.
The Democratic party is in bed with Hollywood. Not in the sense that Republicans try to say ("they're all libruls"), but when it comes to the RIAA/MPAA agenda, it is completely true.
Foul.
Because frankly, what if I disagree with the policies of both canidates? As unheard of as it sounds, I have found that there are usually more than two sides to any story, and usually more than two options. It's just that American culture has become so polarized (and polarized sells) that we refuse (or perhaps are unable) to see alternatives to the "pro-this / anti-this" mentality. It's all very Nietzschian.
It does not work against my interest if I find neither major party desirable. In fact, given the tendency of the two major parties in non-election years to simply espouse the opposite of the other party, or to ignore genuinely relevant issues at all, I find it better to vote my conscience and let the major parties ping-pong for a few years until the next election rolls around. Sooner or later, more people might come around to a similar point of view.
Do You Experiment?
I don't have any mod points for you.
You're 100% correct. The vast majority of Americans have been brainwashed into thinking there are only two choices. Repulicans and Democrats, hardly a choice at all. I call fallacy.
It is my strong belief that we need to abolish the two-party system as it stands.
People who bitch about the "two party system" act is if you only have two choices, which is far from the case. You always have choices; there's dozen serious presidential candidates for the 08 election. You have primaries, like last year in Connecticut. And the next two most prominent third parties are nutters. The Greens attacked a man that lined with most of their platform, throwing an election to a man who is pretty much 180 degrees opposed to everything the Greens believe in. And the Libertarian philosophy might work fine in small hamlets, but would be an absolute disaster in a nation of 300 million people.
It couldn't have. The movie took place back in the early nineties; about the same time as our trouble with Saddam and the Iraqis.
Not "as bad as the current Republican administration" is an utterly unthinkable standard -- and while I used to think of McCain as a reasonable candidate, some of his more recent positions bely that. (Do I remember exactly what those positions are? Sorry, I don't -- and I'm at work, so browsing /. is bad enough; I can't apply my google-fu just now).
I'll vote Republican if they run Ron Paul (unless Obama gets the Democratic nod, in which case I'll have a tough decision); otherwise, I don't consider the options satisfactory.
John McCain? The same man who doesn't know condoms prevent STDs? Who wanted to send even more troops than Bush in his surge? The John McCain that walked around in a Iraqi market with a huge security force to "prove" that it's safer? The same guy whose plan for a solution to Iraq is to send 100,000 more troops there? Are we talking about the same person?
On a more serious note, Ron Paul seems to be a good match if one really cares for liberty.
But of course that's true. That's still not the situation I set up, though. From anecdotal experience, most of the people that vote for Ralph Nader are fine with the policies of the democratic candidate. If you don't, fine. I'm just talking about the "Don't blame me! I voted for Nader!" crowd.
The problem that does encompass your thinking is this: Is there a side you find more acceptable? Certainly not all find either candidate attractive, but most find one acceptable. Now, if neither strongly supports or detracts from the issues that are important to you, so be it. But it's still likely that one is more suitable to you. If it is? You're still better off "hedging your bets" and going for the best fit. After all realistically, no, your candidate is not going to win. Barring an unprecedented shift, a third party won't be viable for decades.
Your best bet? Move somewhere with a more representative government system. England or France are lovely choices. Each has several minority candidates in office, which allows not only lawmakers to realise you exist, but even hear your opinions!
McCain and Giuliani have both amply demonstrated they have no positions on anything at all except where the votes are.
McCain, Mr. Non-Straight-Talk, has changed his position on everything. I mean, everything. He will sprout exactly what's needed to get elected, and then do whatever his Republican masters want him to do, like he's done until now. Or, alternately, he'll break free at that point, having accomplished his goal, and do...well, we have no idea, because we have no idea what he's actually standing for. Plus, he's got the 'PResident Bush is making a mistake, we can't win this war unless he sends more troops.' problem, which are a fairly nice way to assert the failure in Iraq wasn't his fault...until Bush actually sent those troops.
And Giuliani is a celebrity. He has almost no skills, certainly no foreign relation skills, which, after this last president, would seem rather important. He's got an absurd past with various wives and mistresses. His stated and recorded positions are incredibly liberal (He wanted New York to pay for abortions.), and about the only states that would consider him a 'conservative' are New York and California. His only claim to fame is being on TV a lot after 9/11, but when New York finishes explaining to the nation exactly how all that worked out and exactly the screwup he made during that, that will be a minus, not a plus. (There's a reason Spin City takes place in New York. That's basically what New Yorkers thought of Giuliani. Unfair, but true.)
Your logic is like going house hunting after your house has burned down. 'Yeah, this place sucks, the AC is broken, it has rats and termites and mold, and the floors are rotted, but at least it's not a burned out shell of a house.' I really think we can do better than that. I know you really like the street you're on, but come on.
The third candidate, the one catching up that the Republicans want to ignore, is Romney, who almost certainly is going to win the Republican primary if nothing unexpected happens, because he's the perfect religion man once voters get over their Mormonphobia. The Republicans would give anything to make this not happen, as there is no way in hell Romney can reposition himself to win the general election, and they suspect he wouldn't even try.
I say this as someone who would vote for a dried toad to win before a Republican next election, but I'm trying to look at it from the POV of the Republican voters. I'm frankly glad that Romney is pulling ahead, and I'm considering voting the Republican primary (We have open primaries in this state) to help Romney out some.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
If Tipper Gore's moralizing means all Democrats are moralizing prudes, then all Republicans are gay because of Mark Foley and Ken Mehlman. And for every Dem prude you can name, I can name 10 Republican prudes. Hell, it's half their base. Here's a few off the top of my head: Powell, Ashcroft, Santorum, Fallwell, Dobson, Robertson, Bennet, Coburn, Hatch, Brownback.
Ideals with no basis in reality do us about as much good as the Former Congress Critter, Cynthia McKinney.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Connotation- "the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of "home" is "a place of warmth, comfort, and affection." Compare denotation (def. 1)."
Hmm. Guess what sparky, the defintion I gave you WAS the connotative "meaning" of "shill". Read that again until realization hits you. You relied on that as a way to avoid admitting you were wrong, but the very definition I gave you WAS the connotation.
"My name is Profane Muthafucka"
Maybe change it to "I'll say anything to be right"?
bnetween the two parties. unless it's the Iraq war (which many democrats voted for by the way), name one substantial difference between the two parties.
Trade, estate taxes, income taxes, workers rights, stem cell research, wiretapping, abortion, separation of church & state, corruption, the environment, getting a blowjob an impeachable offense for one but shredding large parts of the Constitution not for the other. And so on, and so on.
don't give a crap about the social security/medicare atom bombs
Hardly. And the reason we have budgetary bombs is because of reckless Republican tax cutting, most of which goes to those who don't need them.
the republicans screwed up the war on terror, the democrats won't even fight it.
Are you talking about Democrats fighting terrorism or fighting the Bush administrations boneheaded policies? Either way, you sir, are full of shit.
After the election on Nov 7, 2006, and the radical power shift, someone said "The adults are in charge now."
I don't think so.
Wait, the Dems are now left-wing? Does the author even know what left-wing is?
The Dems are more like centre-right, and the GOP extreme-right.
Ummm, it's a little different. The director of communications for the RIAA is the chief marketroid, nothing more. If she wielded real power I'd imagine her title would at least be vice president. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, was the freakin' CEO of Halliburton. He was the proverbial guy at the head of the table, handing out the cigars. God I hope you realize this.
Breakfast served all day!
Considering that McCain and Guilani are the front runners, how is electing a Republican the "worst-possible-outcome"?
Because both of those guys are worse than worthless pieces of shit?
Seriously, all of you put down the McCain crack pipe and take a look at who he actually is.
He lost the primary in 2000 mostly because the Bush campaign spread rumors about him having a black baby.
Apart from what that shows about the deep seated hatred of liberty endemic to the Republican base that that would matter even if it was true, look at how McCain dealt with that.
He became Bush's lapdog, campaigning for his criminal war even though everyone who was paying aany attention at all knew the whole thing was a scam since 2000 when the PNAC published their policy paper pushing for misusing an attack on America in order to invade Iraq.
So we have a war hero, ex POW, supposed "patriot" campaigning for a cowardly deserter who only beat him through a massive disinformation campaign.
Sorry, but if McCain is too weak and cowardly to actually stand up for his country against such a monster because his only loyalty is to his party, then fuck that bitch right in the ear.
Add in his sucking up to the religious extremists whose stated goal is the destruction of the constitution and you have a portrait of a man who is weak, who is a coward and who is a traitor.
McCain is pure scum through and through and has no moral fiber, integrity or honor at all. He pissed that all away years ago.
What does McCain stand for? Not a god damned thing. He's betrayed everything he claimed to stand for and is still being Bush's bitch pushing the troop escalation instead of standing up for the fucking soldiers who are dying for a piss poor tin pot political game which was never anything more than a transparent scam which only fools bought into.
So, yes. McCain would be every bit as bad as Bush. He's already that bad since he's working to further their crimes instead of being a man and standing up against them. Showing integrity would damage his political career, so you will never see any from that piece of shit.
Folks, all this proves is that the individuals (yes, individuals by God, not some faceless entity) who selected the officers for the Democratic convention don't travel in your circle where RIAA is a four-letter word. If you believe the choice was a bad one, why don't you pick some of the other names on that list and take the time to write and explain to them why you disapprove?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I voted for Kodos.
Breakfast served all day!
I guess if you can do spin for the RIAA, you can so spin for ANYONE. The Dems may have made a very good decision. Her first job is to spin her own hiring!
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
Hiring a RIAA shill (and I'm not sure if she is or isn't as I don't really know anything about her) does not even come close to what the Bush administration has done and really doesn't reflect much if anything on the Democrats.
You're creating a sort of straw man argument and not a very good one. I.E. According to you the Democrats put a former RIAA employee into a political position and the RIAA wants to do all these terrible things therefore the Democrats are evil because they must also want to do all these terrible. Talk about a jump in logic.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
As the Democrats continue to lose the South, I think you'll see this more and more.
There are people in the Democratic party saying 'Forget the South, we can win without them.'. And it's actually looking like they're right.
It's not the Democrats that lose if they can win without the South. It's us, the South, that loses if the fucktards down here continue to vote against their own interests, voting for 'family values' politicians who have been divorced repeatedly, refuse to impliment any sort of mass transit or health care or fix the schools, as long as they are against teh gays and teh terrists and teh librals. (Of course, those are all really the same thing.) The Democratic party will just totally stop listening or caring about the South, which will be lots of fun because they're almost certainly going to be in charge for the next fucking decade.
On the other hand, Democrats are such a disparate coalition that they have little else in common. Do you really think that blacks, Hispanics, or union workers broadly support abortion or gay rights?
LBJ grabbed the Democrats from the dustbin of history by making them inclusive, over the objection of unions, which rightfully saw minorities as competing for their jobs. Unions really need to check their history books again if they're opposing gay rights. They can fight them for decades, or they can accept them and get more members. Their choice.
As for abortion, that's actually been a non-issue for more than a decade. The Republicans use it to energize their base, but in the real world, most people have no problem with the laws as they currently stand. I.e., they're pro-choice, even if they don't describe themselves as such. Religious conservatives are discovering this, because their decade long plan to take over state governments and put conservatives on the Supreme Court has finally finished, so they've started passing laws outlawing abortions and have run into unexpected problems with the voters, even in very conservative states.
Will unions and Hispanics line up shoulder-to-shoulder on immigration?
Unions and Hispanics should line up on immigration, because if they don't one of them is going to be destroyed and the other seriously injured. Republicans would prefer the unions be destroyed, with illegal immigrants continuing to work at slave wages. Some unions, OTOH, seem to think stopping all immigration would help them, but then they'll be harmed by outsourcing and offshore manufacturing. If they don't stand together against the corporate mentality of 'Let's produce everything as cheaply as we can, human beings be damned', they'll fall apart.
The solution? Import tariffs based on human rights and worker protection laws. Guest worker programs. Repealing NAFTA. I don't have all the details, but there's plenty we can do to improve everyone's position.
Oh, and the most important thing we can do: Fix Mexico. Part of this would be stopping the damn drug war that has reduced so much of that country into lawlessness. The Republicans like a third-world country next door, but no one else should. If we keep this shit up with them, they will elect an anti-American leader and we'll be truly fucked.
As an added bonus, once the insanely high level of smuggling people through the Mexican border is reduced, (by reducing demand, not ability), we will be safer in case any of these increasingly hypothetical terrorists wants to sneak in. The whole smuggling infrastructure would be gone.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Let me guess -- you live in Northern California, right? Many Northern Californians like to forget that there's another large portion of the state down south, and that portion is home to a certain large and influential industry. DiFi would ignore those business interests to her peril.
Breakfast served all day!
Yes another example of not just some people becoming reliant on the government, but government becoming reliant on government. Why can't people take responsibility for their own actions? Why can't a City that is below sea level take care of it's own imminent threat? Why can't a state take care of it's own crisis? They all have to rely on Uncle Sam to come bail them out. Oh and it's a good way to push the responsibility out of the hands of the Democratic leaders of said City and state up to the failures of the republican leaders and George Bush specifically.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
it wasn't so long ago that Perot lost elder Bush the election.
I would never vote for a Republican because I have integrity, yet I voted for Perot.
I voted Harry Brown over Gore or Nader in 2000 as well.
I don't think it's quite as clear as you make it out to be. Although I'm only one person, I know I'm not the only one who did that exact thing in both of those cases.
a video of Hillary saying "f*ck you", while flipping off the camera. Over and over again.
...are every bit as clueless as the Republicans, they're just clueless about different stuff...
I can tell you that strategy worked for Republicans for about 8 years. The war on terror might've added a year or two though. That's about how long ago the Republicans stopped pushing a conservative agenda
Uh...No.
It's been going on 30 years that the Republicans tossed out their old platform. When they rejected Goldwater in favor of that death squad forming, crack dealing, biggest government supporting assclown Reagan.
The old Republican party died completely back in 1980 and it's done nothing but rot ever since.
If minor parties steal elections or "drain votes", then you have made the assumption that all votes "belong" to the major parties by default and then are taken away by other people who run for office. I wonder how many of Nader's votes Gore "stole" by running. How many Gore voters would have voted for Nader?
When all is said and done, the basic assumption is that minor party candidates can't win and that they have no business giving voters an alternative to the major party candidates. Indeed, voters are not supposed to be even given a chance to vote for a minor party candidate because they shouldn't be given the chance to make that mistake. That, to me, is very anti-democratic and not consistent with the principles this government was founded upon.
Imagine, just maybe, if the "points" I made weren't actually totally encapsulated in the actual physical bullet points of the UL list that I used. Stay with me now - just imagine that my points may actually have been the sum total of my post wherein a general idea was made quite clear: that the Consumerist poll as structured in no way supported a reasonable conclusion that the RIAA was truly America's worst company. After all, while you're right - I did miss the bracket-of-32 system initially, this in no way invalidates the larger and much more damning flaw: that the sample was flawed, the metholology was flawed, and the conclusions are flawed, to say nothing of the basic dishonesty of slapping on a convenient catchphrasey label like "War On Terror" err... "America's Worst Company" and then running with this.
You said something like "well, the poll wasn't scientific, but...". No buts. If it's a shite poll, and its methods are methologically unsound it ends right there. We don't say "well, creationism isn't scientific but let's quote its results anyway." We say, "this poll was done in a half-assed way, and we could not use it unless we heavily disclaimed it. We certainly don't use its suspect findings as the basis of a conclusion upon which we build other premises", as people here have done.
After your post, I spent some more time looking at the Consumerist. Look, I'm happy you have a job there or are receiving blow jobs from their webmaster or whatever it is that causes you do defend such flawed nonense, but, realy - with headlines such as "80% of geek squad employees say they don't use anti-static wrist straps", well, I mean really. Get some perspective. Don't you just SLIGHTLY suspect that a readership demographic that cares about the percentage of geeek squad employees that wear wrist-straps is a bit uncharacteristic of "America" as a whole, which the label of the conclusion purports to encapsulate? I mean really man.
/ and yes, i saw that they had some more interesting articles too, but they still appeal generally to a highly specific demographic.
Guess what? There is such a thing as self-sustaining processes that you need a critical mass to overcome and break out of. Thanks for oversimplifying.
Also, thanks for assuming that the trade-offs are worth it without any evidence. Even if I like the Prohibition Party (just to pick a rather unlikely candidate) more than the Democrats, that doesn't mean that it'd make sense for me to vote for them; it depends on exactly how much more I like them than the Democrats, how much more than the Republicans I like the Democrats, how much of a chance I estimate there is for them to actually start playing a political role (or, alternatively, how long I expect them to take to start doing so), and how much of a chance I estimate there is for the Democrats to defeat the Republicans in the election at hand.
It may WELL be that even though I like the Prohibition Party more than the Democrats (again, I don't actually) and that I STILL decide to vote for the Democrats rather than them, simply because I figure that it's more important to keep the Republicans out of office (and/or because I figure there is no chance the Prohibition Party candidate will win, anyway).
The real solution to the current mess is to reform the entire system and get rid of things like the electoral college etc. that are actually responsible for this pseudo-democratic 2-party system. Once THAT is done, you can start voting for other parties, too; until then, the idea that voting for them is going to change anything or that any of them will actually rise up from meaninglessness is just wishful thinking.
butter the donkey
(yes, I'm aware some states allocate electors according to their percentage of votes).
I didn't realize any did. Do you know which?
>> "Hitler would have said that, if he had had a blog."
If Hitler posted here he would have had bad Karma. I doubt I would have even seen his post with my filter settings.
Which is worse, Republicans or the RIAA?
It's a question mostly for Democrats in the US.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
You know, I see your point and I agree it's not the most interesting issue to talk about with everyone but there is a lot more to the Libertarian stance on Marijuana then "free the weed dude".
It's also about the economy, artificial chemical monopolies formed many decades ago, medicine, the environment and yes, it's also about the personal freedom to take drugs.
If you think partying is all the Libertarians care about when it comes to Cannabis maybe you should look into it a little more. Try googling for Jack Herer sometime.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Can you imagine what it islike to be blind by closing your eyes for a day, even a week?
No. When you are blind, you can never open your eyes, ever again. No matter how long you pretend to be blind, you can always open your eyes.
Can you imagine what it is like to be poor because you spend a few years living on a minimum income, say as a student?
No, the truly poor are not poor for just a few years, they are poor for their entire lives. Just slumming it for a few years does NOT count as the same experience. The worsed thing about being poor is that after enought time has passed everything starts to break down and you cannot afford to replace it. Even the laziest student won't be a student for that long.
Can you judge how good public transport is because you leave your car at home and take the bus to the office?
No, to truly judge public transport, you must be totally dependant on it with NO alternative and then not just take it to the downtown office BUT out into factory zones at odd hours.
WHAT THE FUCK AM I ON ABOUT?
Disconnect. Our "leaders", the people making the decisions about what blind people need, are not blind. The people who make decisions about wellfare, are not poor. The people deciding public transport police, have a car.
It is becoming rarer and rarer for a politician to have a background in the real world. Not that that accounts for much. Remember my comment about student poverty and how it doesn't count? A dock worker turned politician STILL isn't a life time physical laborer, he got out. He cannot understand what it is like to do that job for the rest of his life because he didn't.
Coupled to this is the yes-man effect. You tend to surround yourselve with people like yourselve. Who of you with a job hang out with the unemployed, let alone the homeless? Do you think politicians are any different? And any of those special efforts, like someone living on the street for a week, are ultimately futile because they are NOT real. It is no different then claiming you know what it is like to be blind because you closed your eyes. Only the blind know what it is truly like.
It is not just politicians, the press (the people who are supposed to watch the politicians) are in the same boat. EVERY reporter, has a job, as a reporter. Ever noticed how car related stories get much more press then public transport related stories? How many reporters do you think exist without access to a car?
A few years ago a dutch telivison star (for the KRO) made a bit of a fuss about discrimination against muslims. Two tiny details, one of the other presentators for his station had been caught on film refusing access to a muslim family (restaurant owner and food show presenter Joop Braakhekke (last name as best as I remember)) and another detail, not a single name in the credits of the shows he was in, was remotely foreign. Dutch TV production is not exactly being overrun by "regular" immigrants, only the (sorry) token nigger types. Oh, and they all thend to live in an area of holland that is fairly rich (gooi) and therefore extremely lacking in immigrant groups.
They share this with the politicians.
Mmm, and yet, these two groups, politicians and the press are supposed to lead/inform the "real" people?
You can call it what you like, disconnect with the voter, ivory tower, elitism, the simple fact is that our leaders, and the watchers of our leaders do NOT have to catch an early bus that takes 2 hours to take you to work, haven't lived paycheck to paycheck for decades and haven't done a real job were you get your hands dirty.
It don't really matter wether you are talking left or right wing. NO right wing politician is REALLY a business man. They are working for the state, drawing a state salary and haven't run a company in years. Left wingers are NOT poor, have not worked a "real" job in years and have spent at least several years around the rich and powerfull.
Talking with the voter is a pain and you got all those nice loby
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In all fairness the Democrats have been just as willing as the Republicans to annihilate the middle class. Both parties believe that any job that can't be outsourced to Mexico, India, or China, should instead have its employees be insourced from Mexico, India, or China. Leaving any jobs for American citizens is so 1960s. The Democrats tax and spend, the Republicans borrow and spend. Both parties are eager to bankrupt this country. The Republicans deserve most of the blame for the Iraq War and the Orwellian named Patriot Act, but insufficiently many Democrats will take stands against them to reverse those policies. Both parties suck on the intellectual property issue, but frankly, that issue is well down on my list of concerns. I could live my life just fine without any Hollywood produced content at all.
I will be voting for Ron Paul, the last real American left in Congress.
I'll take demographics over whoever the hell thinks that the Dems can win without the South any day. Even if it works in the next election, the South is where the population growth is.
While I agree with most of your post, it is full of "shoulds" that are unfortunately not realities. Hispanic, black, and union voters tend to be quite conservative socially. They are not going to change just because they "should" - at least, not in the short-term.
The Democratic party can only ride the anti-Bush wave while there is a Bush. The long-term political winds seem to lie in the South, and the inevitable rise of conservative Southern Democrats is going to make national elections a nightmare for Democrats who need to somehow hold a weird coalition together. Currently the only thing holding it together is a common dislike of the Republican party - who is certainly helping by building a wall along Mexico's border. THAT'LL get the Hispanic vote!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The problem that does encompass your thinking is this: Is there a side you find more acceptable? Certainly not all find either candidate attractive, but most find one acceptable.
For me, no there isn't.
The Democrats are absolutely *less* awful than the Republicans on every issue.
However, the Democrats are scum.
Being less scummy than the most scummy group in our nation's history isn't a thing to vote for. It's a symptom of a massive failure of the system.
I will continue to vote third party for a few reasons:
I can sleep with a clear conscience. Voting Democrat just because the Republicans have proven themselves over and over to be completely amoral monsters would not allow me to do that. This is true *even if* the election came down to one vote so that it could be argued that I caused the Republican to win.
I didn't want either of them but either way I'd get one of them.
If enough people (5%?) vote for a third party, then they magically become more viable (I know that "more" than none doesn't make it "some" in this case) because they get funding at that point.
As long as people keep voting for the 2 scum parties we'll continue to have the same fucked up problems we see today. I refuse to be a part of the problem regardless of the fact that some people think that I'm "wasting" my vote. The solution requires a third party at least to even get started. I'd rather be part of the solution even if it fails for the rest of my life than to help perpetuate the problem which is what a vote for either major party always does.
You're still better off "hedging your bets" and going for the best fit. After all realistically, no, your candidate is not going to win.
Do you see why "hedging my bets" makes *me* worse off? I'm not unrealistic, I'm unyielding on matters of integrity, and pissing my vote away on a scumbag who is guaranteed to use that power to fuck me is not an honorable situation to put myself into, so I won't do it.
Yes, you are but one data point :)
Polls showed that Perot sucked away enough Republican votes - and in the right states - to hand Clinton his victory. The states where Perot was popular with Democrats tended to be in the Northeast, where Democrats were strong enough to win anyway.
Whether I'm right or wrong, it still made for a more entertaining than usual election.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why? Wikipedia isn't
A) reliable
b) relevant
I've refuted you every time, and every time you try some new tactic. This time it was to ignore the fact that I addressed your previous objection and mooted it. In response, you post a link to a Wikipedia entry that solves nothing.
"I'll raise you a Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill and you can admit that I'm right."
If you were I might consider it. As it stands you haven't said anything that "right" yet, unless you mean the current "connotation" of "right" which means inflammatory, preposterous, morally bankrupt and untruthful.
Is that what you meant?
As an aside, are you like this in real life, or do you just take ridiculous indefensible positions on the internet because you know that no matter how stupid what you say is, or how obviously wrong you are?
First you said I defined salesman. I refuted you. Then you claimed it was the "connotation" that you were talking about, after which I refuted you. Then you posted a link to a Wikipedia article, for what reason I have yet to discern. Did you think I'd read it and say "Fuck the 5 high quality dictionaries that give the definition as what I said it was, this completely unreliable webopedia is FAR more authoritative"? Nope. And the fact that you would think so is only a little more embarrassing for you than the different arguments you've used to prove your right.
How about you post a quote from an associate that says you're right? You haven't tried that yet.
You were wrong. You know it. I know it. Every time you post a new (as yet unused) argument you admit it. You admit that your previous argument was crap, and that I refuted it.
Eventually you'll run out of arguments. Let's see what happens then.
Basically you just have to vote for (what you think will be) the lesser evil for a certain time period. As we all know, power corrupts, and in the USA for example, there is only 2 options: democrat (which currently oppose war, but take away your rights) and republican (which currently go into war, and take away your rights). All other options, parties etc. that have any good ideas, don't have a) the money, and b) the people to grab the attention of the main American public.
And again, it takes lots and lots of money to run for any public office, so the money has to come from somewhere, and you don't get anything for free (especially not money) so you'll have to do some 'favors' for your money shooters later on. Congratulations, you have just laid the seeds for all-scale corruption in the government. Imho, people in politics or running for offices shouldn't be allowed to accept or use the money provided to them by others. All of a sudden, you'll have lots of options more and some democracy will be restored. Most countries in Europe, don't have a 2-party system, but rather have a dozen parties or more each with their own ideals. If they don't get a majority of votes with a single party they can decide to fuse 2 or more large parties together for governance, which is not ideal, but at least you'll have a party that represents the balanced ideals (or a version of it) from the majority of the people that voted and you'll still have a bunch of other parties that took 'seats' in the government which could balance them out.
Of course it's always good to have people in both extremities of opposition, so that they don't pass idiotic things. The problem in the US is that there are only 2 parties on either side of the extremities, so either they collude on their benefactors and pass idiotic things or they fight endlessly over minor things.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
You might think so. You have conventional wisdom on your side. But you might be wrong.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Ahh, the old ideology vs. reality thing... :) It is true that the "third party can't win" conventional wisdom is anti-democratic and inconsistent with American principles. It is also true that it is... well, true. No third party is going to win anytime soon. They'd have to start locally somewhere and slowly build up the machine that the Democrats and Republicans have. Inevitably, it would be centrist as well - so what's the point? You don't really think that the Greens could convince mainstream America to vote for them? Or the Libertarians? Minority interests without any money will always be marginalized under the American system.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Who would've thought that it would've been the Democrats that crack down on free speech (Imus) and then pick this assclown to work their convention?
Most rational people?
Both parties hate freedom. That's been true as long as I've been alive at least and I don't think many people think that the Democrats are defenders of freedom, even the people who vote for them.
The fact that the Republicans are worse on every level doesn't change the fact that the Dems are scum.
Are they shifting to the right, or are they just stupid?
Like the republicans, they've been pretty far right ( with some left-fascist elements) for a long time.
Cracking down on free speech isn't an issue of left/right anyway. Neither Stalin nor Hitler was famous for their support of opposing views.
Whether or not that makes them stupid really depends on whether or not they get away with it.
If they don't, then it was stupid. If they do, then the Democratic voters are stupid.
Both parties are the same. When America started we had about 10 parties or bodies that represented a view. Thomas Jefferson was the last American politician that I could relate to. Alexander Hamilton should have eaten a bullet for giving us what is now the largest government we never asked for in history. Called the Federal government.
Fuck them both. None of them follow the law spelled plainly in the US Constitution. As far as I am concerned they are all traitors and enemies of America. You bitches wanna pass laws that counter the document that binds us? No problem. I'm making a list fuck-O. And when the revolution comes- you'll be the first against the wall. Till then, enjoy your spoils today, because they will not be there tomorrow.
Nobody asked you clownboy. They asked 15000 other people.
I might be wrong :)
I still think that it is a bad strategy to concentrate on states like Ohio or Pennsylvania, which are losing population (and thus congressional seats and electoral votes) while giving up on states that are gaining population (and Hispanic voters!). Losing the left wing of the party would probably be more effective.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Saying you'd rather have a Republican or Democrat in office is like saying you'd rather be whacked by a Gambino or a Genovese.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
The conservatives swept into power in 1994 with the promise of reform -- look what happened.
The only difference between Republicans in Congress in 1994 and Republicans in Congress today are broken promises of term limits. That's it. Republicans 1994, then as now, wanted to gain more power for their party while killing the opposition. Republicans, then as now, wanted to slash spending on social services while making large cuts in income taxes and repealing capital gains and estate taxes. Republicans, then as now are willing to make mountains out of molehills (Whitewater, Pelosi One) and molehills out of mountains (prosecutor purge, Gingrich's book deal). The conservative story will be not that their philosophy is complete and utter failure (you elect people who hate government and are then surprised when that government fails?), but that DC corrupted the class of 94.
I guarantee the same corruption and shit will happen once the democrats are in power because this cycle is endless.
Hardly. You need a sense of proportion. Nixon would have been impeached for what he did, yet Bush and his neocon cabal make Tricky Dick look like a pipsqueak. But even if you managed to find a Democrat as much of a corrupt authoritarian asshole as Bush is, you're forgetting two things. First, Democrats don't band together the way Republicans do. Congressman William Jefferson was found with bribe money in his freezer. House Democrats responded by striping him of his committee assignments and seniority. Tom Delay faced rebukes from the House ethics committee and indictment from a D.A. in Texas. The House GOP responded by neutering the ethics committee and changing the rules to allow Delay to keep his spot as Majority Leader.
Secondly, the press is far more harsh to Democrats than to Republicans. They are so afraid to be hit with the "biased liberal media" tag that they go easy on Republicans day in and day out, while failing to do basic fact checking on stories on Democrats. Take for example, the recent "Pelosi One" and "Pelosi in Syria" stories, taken straight from RNC talking points. Two seconds of fact checking would show that Pelosi did not demand a "luxurious plane", and that Laura Bush flies in the same model of aircraft. Why should the person 2nd in line for the presidency have a lesser plane than the first lady? And two seconds of fact checking also would have shown that many Republicans in Congress have gone to Syria, in fact some were on the exact same trip as the Speaker. And if there are no negative stories to be had, the media is quite happy to Make Shit Up, as Gore found out in 2000.
You know, you're stubborn person. And I mean that by the second definition (persistent). If you argue that stubborn is a negative thing, then I'll just throw your words right back at you.
Yep, stubborn doesn't mean anything negative, and you can call your boss stubborn all day long without consequence. If he objects, just tell him connotation doesn't matter.
Jerk. You type too much.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"RIAA is the most hated "corporation" in America, having beaten out Halliburton and Wal-Mart for the honor"
That makes sense. As you go down the list you get smaller sets of people you reactively hate them. The RIAA is hated by both the left and the right, Halliburton is generally hated only by the left, and Wal-Mart is generally hated only by the affluent left.
p.s. I once asked someone at a party who was venting about Halliburton, what it was that Halliburton was in the business of doing. They didn't know, but they did assure me it was the biggest corporation in the world.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
That may be true about the other personal freedoms...
But, there are few issues where "the evidence" is so compelling. I would wager that most people, when they answer honestly, realize weed is no "worse" than alcohol. But yet, the subject is never seriously debated and the same ol' War continues on. Do you realize we spend almost $40bil/yr fighting the drug war? That's a lot of people's paycheck.
The reason its such a hot-button issue is because the War on Drugs has probably had the largest impact on freedom for the largest amount of people. Both sides are affected. The citizens are policed and the police forces depend on "anti-drug money" for their funding. You didn't think they got those machine guns and new SWAT cars because they were nice, did you? No, they go them as a direct result of the drug war. It has, in a way, transformed our police into tactical military units.
While there are definitely other topics to talk about, the WoD is the single largest rights-impeder out there and that's why the libs focus on it. Not only is it a HUGE source of corruption, but there are truly, some dastardly things that have been done during this war. Just go browse a civil liberties site and you can find countless stories of abuse with respect to the War on Drugs.
No other personal freedom issue has a track record like that one.
Thank you. I'm glad you finally admitted I'm right and you're wrong.
In the future, try to stick to one argument, or even better, just admit when you're wrong in the first place.
"Jerk."
Standard. After all this time, after being wrong over and over, all you're left with is an incoherent post and name calling.
It fells good to own you like I have. Thanks for making it so easy.
However.... we're talking politics here. The first step to getting into the arena is getting elected to begin with. You will *not* win votes by anyone but the extreme fringes by highlighting the fact that you support someone's right to *view* (not create) kiddie porn, or support the right for someone to manufacture and use crack, or support the (perfectly reasonable, to me) stance that anyone without a criminal record should be able to purchase and carry firearms at will without permits or oversight. Yet these are all logical (and perfectly reasonable) extensions to the core Libertarian philosophy. With personal freedom comes personal responsibility.
The problem, as I see it, is that Libertarians running for office tend to *start* with the logical extremes. I don't know why. It scares people. Such radical shifts in thought are uncomfortable. Things need to be taken in smaller steps for the people to adjust and accept things. Bush wasn't elected in '04 because he said he's tap your phone, read your bank statements, and torture people -- those are the extreme logical conclusions to the powers he asked for. Instead, he said he'd be "tough on terror" (some some such nonesense) and, issues of Kerry being an asshat aside, he won. Again.
Maybe it's media bias towards the Big 2 parties or against the others. But libertarians end up looking like radical fools when they gain a large enough audience come election season. They need to focus on getting into office to begin with, then start the pot warming to eventually boil those proverbial frogs. To be honest, I'm not sure *what* a good tactic for Libertarians to take while campaigning, but based on my observations of the past, I have a good idea that their current tactic isn't a winner.
Method of processing duck feet
You can't even read English, how can you claim you know what a word means? I didn't admit anything. I've been toying with you, and you're still replying. I am FUCKING with you. Eat it up. I am right, nd you are wrong. Shill has connotations which are not applicable to this RIAA woman, and most of the parts of the definition are inapplicable too. Shill was the wrong word to use to describe her. Admit it, fuckstick.
Since I'm such a nice guy, I'll give you the last word in this thread. Go ahead now.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
A bigger problem with the system (not quite sure how the electoral college is to blame) is the uneven playing field for third-party candidates. A candidate is not even eligible for federal election dollars unless their party received at least 5% of the vote in the last election cycle.
Now it's not likely that we can (soon) remove that requirement. We can, however, start voting for these parties so that they can at least qualify for those dollars and have a chance at some publicity in the next election.
It's easier to just throw up your hands in frustration and declare the system broken (even if it is) than to make a choice that, while maybe not immediately gratifying, will get things moving in the right direction.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Maine (2 districts) and Nebraska (3 districts) each assign 1 electoral vote to be winner-take-all only within the confines of the congressional district from which the vote is granted. The remaining 2 electors (granted by Senate seats) are winner-take-all within the whole state.
In 2004, Colorado had a referendum on the ballot whereby its electoral votes would be given proportionally based on each candidate's share of the statewide vote, and would take effect immediately if passed. The referendum was defeated, one of the reasons being that it would take a significant landslide for the distribution to be anything other than 5-4, and candidates would have little reason to campaign in Colorado if they were only fighting over who gets a 5th electoral vote, instead of all 9.
I definitely see your situation, although I don't think it applies to most people. I still say move to England. I'm not sure about Canada's government, I'll have to wiki it sometime.
"You are right and I am wrong, and I know it. Therefore I will now resort to a profanity laced tirade reminiscent of a 12 year old. I will pretend that doing so makes me better than you, but we both know that I was wrong and my inability to form a coherent argument is the real reason I'm ranting and cursing. You are far smarter than me, so I have to find some ridiculous co out in order to prevent you from making me look any worse"
Fixed that for you.
And thanks again, it was fun watching you say such ridiculous crap, then run away when you realized I had you.
The blame lies on many levels. Nevertheless, most Americans want the government to play a role in mitigating the effects of natural disasters (or at least assist warning people and transporting those without cars when possible). Still, the point is that just because the government doesn't always solve the problem it spends money on, doesn't mean that it ought to stop providing said service or instantly attempt to privatize it.
No, not really. I think the current situation of the "War on Drugs" is stupid, but I don't want to get rid of it. I want to fix it. It's been proven that trying to get users off drugs or preventing them from ever useing them is the only place in the "war" that you get a positive return for your money. I do not think we should just open up the market for everybody to use any drug they can because their drug use (in many cases, I'm being general) does effect everybody else. Anybody want the pot smoking kid next door driving durring rush hour? Anyway, that is about the only place I differ with the Libertarian party, so when I talk about personal freedom, I usually talk about taxes, land use, gun ownership, etc...
His options were to be a Republican where his social views would be ignored (and have been) or be a Democrat where he would be castrated for not supporting their economic views. When it comes to politics either party will support a candidate who wavers on their social policy as long as they support their economic policy. If you waver on the economic policy then you are dead.
That doesn't even make any sense.
Ron Paul's economic ideas are directly opposed to those of the Republican party and his social views are much more in line. He supports a lot of the religious extremist nutjobism.
He opposes big government, the Iraq war, and the other major fundamental Republican economic policies.
...there was a return to honesty. Even a little bit.
I wish that more people could see the hypocracy on both sides and not believe that the other side is all evil. The truth is, no one side has all the answers. No one side wants to kill the children and poison the water either.
I wish the Dems would tell what it really is they stand for. I wish the Reps would STFU enough to let them.
I wish a white man could say what a black man can say and not be persecuted for it.
I wish for too much...
meh.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
OK, as a bleeding heart liberal ... I'll take McCain, even though I disagree with him on several issues, over Hillary any day.
McCain hasn't a chance of a Republican presidential nomination. (He might manage one if he switches to the Democrats and both Hillary and Obama self-destruct.)
McCain blew it a couple election cycles ago when he sold out the gunnies. He's also a liberal on a number of other issues. (Major exception being the war in Iraq.)
There's a term of art in US politics: "RINO". Stands for "Republican In Name Only" - a politician who is a member of the Republican party but has liberal opinions. At the state level the poster-child RINO is Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the federal level it's McCain
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The sad thing is that the Democrats, instead of actually listening to all the voters they've disenfranchised, seem to treat "What are you going to do, vote Republican?" as a policy platform.
No, this is why the Greens were idiots: rather than get involved in the party that already supported the majority of their platform, they instead became purity trolls and threw the election to the party 180 degrees opposed to most of that platform. That's not principled, that is idiocy.
Except for that whole Contract with America thing most of which was passed by the House but then killed in Committee by the Senate or vetoed by the President. They did for a brief moment become conservatives again. That brief moment coincided with when I began voting for them again.
Tell that to Ralph Nader. Democrats used all sorts of dirty tricks and filed lawsuits to keep them off the ballots for the 2004 elections.
Since when has following the law been a dirty trick?
Which is why you need to vote for a minor party. I can guarantee to you that they'll get to changing things.
Countries with strong multiple parties have just as much corruption as we do, but they also have a lot more gridlock so nothing gets done. Parties are irrelevant, you need to vote for principled candidates.
Democrats!=liberal. The sooner everybody realizes this, the sooner we can actually have a liberal party in the US.
However:
- Democrats = Liberal, but
- liberal != Liberal
Closest idology and party to classical liberals these days are the large-L and small-L (Ll)ibertarians, respectively.
Too bad the Libertarians are clueless about order dependencies in achieving their goals and take any advance they can get.
Example: They're willing to go for open borders BEFORE fixing (or eliminating) the social welfare programs. Doing things in that order makes things worse rather than better.
(That's why I sometimes style myself as a law-n-order anarchist. I think it would be good to repeal all the laws, but in the correct order.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
but it wasn't so long ago that Perot lost elder Bush the election
:)
That's the CW, but Clinton would have most likely won a head to head contest with Bush.
A traditional Republican voter casting a 3rd party vote is certainly not handing the Republicans a vote... but that should go without saying
True, but as of yet there is no serious third party to split up the god, gun nut & free market jihad.
Some Democrats and some Republicans are principled, others are whores. It would be no different if the Greens or the Libertarians became competitive parties. This is why all the bitching about the "two party system" is a red herring: it's not the party, it's the candidate you are voting for.
Except that's not how it would work in reality. Here's a much more accurate version of your thought experiment:
101 people voting for president. 51 are "liberal" and 50 are "conservative" (both in the American sense). Here are the results of the two party system:
21 people voting in State: 10 Dem, 11 Rep. State's 5 Electoral Votes go to Rep.
17 people voting in Statesylvania: 11 Dem, 6 Rep. Statesylvania's 3 Electoral Votes are split proportionally, 2 Dem and 1 Rep.
28 people voting in Statefornia: 14 Dem, 13 Rep, 1 Ind. Statefornia's 5 Electoral Votes go to Dem.
20 people voting in Statessissippi: 8 Dem, 12 Rep. Statessissippi's 5 Electorial Votes go to Rep.
15 people voting in Statesachussetts: 7 Dem, 7 Rep, 1 Ind. There is an immediate recount and media frenzy. People fly into Statesachussetts from all over the country to support the recount effort and stand in front of cameras and make stupid statements about finding the truth. The first recount results in 6 Dem, 7 Rep, and 2 votes misplaced. The second recount results in 8 Dem, 8 Rep, and 2 Buchannan. The Election Board throws up their hands, a lawsuit is filed, and the Supreme Court decides that since the first recount showed a total for the Republicans, that they should get the state's 3 Electoral Votes should all go to the Republicans.
This leaves an Electoral College result of 10 Dem, 11 Rep. The Republicans take office.
And your vote for the independent candidate in Statesfornia? It didn't even make a blip on the radar. Statistical noise.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Go ahead, take the last word. I insist.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
You right now are embodying one of the most destructive impulses of hardcore Democrates: Demonizing the opposition.
Look -- I'm fairly typical Democrat material. I'm not associated with any organized religion. I'm in favor of gay marriage. I'm maybe even starting to think about conceding that universal healthcare might be a good idea. That said, any time someone simply shuts down and goes into an "us vs. them" mentality, it means they aren't seriously thinking about their opposition's viewpoint and perspective, other than coloring it in overbroad lines.
And that's bad.
Sure, it's not like the Rove & co. didn't do most of the escalation lately -- but the response to venom and hatred isn't to shut down your brain, because that stops you from thinking about why Average Joe Republican is in fact voting Republican. And ya know what? Chances are, Joe is unhappy about a lot of the same things you are -- but when you go on the attack (or only speak from your perspective without taking Joe's worldview into account), you lose the opportunity to make that sale. You're even turning me off right now, and I'm probably pretty typical of your target audiance.
It should be pretty obvious by now that I'd like to see Obama as President. I grew up right-wing Christian conservative and still have a working model of that mindset handy even though it's not something I espouse -- and Obama speaks to the old me as powerfully as the new one. The last thing we need now is more division, and Obama stands for a return to saner, less polarized politics more effectively than anyone else I know of.
As for my support for Ron Paul, the man has principals and he follows them. I don't like his personal social positions -- but he keeps those out of his voting record, and the principals which do reflect themselves in his voting record are such as to enact an effective policy of "first, do no harm". That's the kind of person I want holding the power of veto, no matter what banner he rides under.
Good point. As one example, Ron Paul is a Republican, yet I would consider him principled and for sure cast my vote for him.
thisnukes4u.net
The problem in the US is that there are only 2 parties on either side of the extremities,
The problem in the US is that the Republicans are far-right, and the Democrats are moderate-right. Both extremes are pulling in the same direction.
Yep. It'd be nice if we had a system a little more like that for electing the President, instead of the current "giant douche or turd sandwich" choice we get every time.
You are correct, in a sense, but there is more at play here. As northern states become more blue, they can gerrymander out republican districts after the next census, so the losses might be minimal. In addition, some of the most "conservative southern democrats" aren't very conservative at all. Newly elected VA senator Jim Webb ran on a populist economic platform, and is very vocal about the gap between the rich and poor in this country. Remember that the dixiecrats of old were very much the party of "share the wealth" and strong proponents of FDR's New Deal.
Thanks,
Mike
That, to me, is very anti-democratic and not consistent with the principles this government was founded upon.
This government was founded with a flawed voting system that caused this two-party system to develop.
If minor parties steal elections or "drain votes", then you have made the assumption that all votes "belong" to the major parties by default and then are taken away by other people who run for office. I wonder how many of Nader's votes Gore "stole" by running. How many Gore voters would have voted for Nader?
I would have voted for Nader, but I voted for Gore because Nader didn't have a chance, and Gore was less evil than Bush. In the end, Bush won. Presumably, many of Nader's voters would have voted for Gore if they were forced to choose between Bush and Gore; this would have caused Gore to win. It's quite obvious that Nader unfortunately "drained votes" away from Gore.
If we're going to keep the current election system, I think it should be restricted to the two major parties only. Yeah it sucks, but the system sucks. If you want the system to not suck, change the voting system so that other candidates have a realistic chance (this means run-off elections, 1st-2nd-3rd choice options, or some other new voting system that's been devised). But that's not going to happen as long as the two major parties control the government, because it'd require a Constitutional amendment, and there's no way they'd agree to something that would reduce their power.
"This represents a potential shear with the left-wing blogosphere."
Come on...
Most Republicans and die-hard conservatives hate RIAA as well.
You do have the likes of Pat Buchanan running as the Reform Party candidate in 2000... getting only 0.4% of the vote. This is nowhere near the rousing success of Ralph Nader and the Greens and their whopping 2.7%. :) Still more than enough to turn the 2000 election!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Gerrymandering won't help in the presidential elections, though... they'll still lose electoral votes. I agree that the Southern Democrats aren't conservative compared to Southern Republicans, but they still aren't big on gay marriage, immigration, abortion, and other traditional Democratic platforms. I dare say that Northeastern Republicans are probably more socially moderate, frequently being pro-choice and even pro-gay-marriage.
I wish the Democratic party would just say that they had no national platform for such issues.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Fixed.
Ok, yes, you can argue the current war has gone farther than prohibition, but I think that's mostly because it's gone on longer.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Considering that McCain and Guilani are the front runners, how is electing a Republican the "worst-possible-outcome"?
Charges of flip flopping are so old and automatic that they should generally be dismissed, but with McCain, they're actually true. He's changed positions inside of a minute. As for Giuliani, he is simply unelectable. On one hand, he's said that he, as president, has the authority to throw people in prison indefinitely with no lawyer or hearing. On the other, he has had messy, public divorces, favors gun control, and publicly financed abortions, which I don't know if any of the Dem candidates are currently advocating.
No thank you, a vote for a minor party is a vote for a Republican.
That's based upon the idea that by voting third party, you gave up the chance to vote for the Democrat - hence heping the Republicans. I can use the exact same logic to claim a vote for the third party is a vote for the Democrats. In other words, the argument just doesn't make any sense. A vote for a thrid party is a vote for a third party. Any other vote (or simply not voting at all) is a vote for the same old bullshit.
Since when has following the law been a dirty trick?
Use a technicality to break a strike and send a signal that outright declares open hunting season on worker rights- all in the same penstroke.
Link
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Extrapolating the group of people who read that blog to "the most hated company in america" just blows my mind. You wouldn't work for "The Consumerist" by any chance, right?
Touche, and an example I agree with. However, following clear, unbiased election law as those Dems did isn't "dirty tricks".
He pretty much grew up outside the USA.
This is a problem. The president needs to negotiate with countries around the world, and sometimes worse. It's no good if he has personal preferences beyond the USA.
Perhaps this comment is completely offtopic, but since most comments on this story concern politics, I'll risk a few words.
It seems that democracy such as it is in America is a fundamentally flawed system. Consider these two citizens:
Citizen A works a good job, contributes over $10,000 to the general welfare through the IRS, takes interest in politics and tries to vote conscientiously having studied the issues and their possible ramifications on the life of his fellow citizens and the country at large. After some consideration - not much, mind you - he casts his vote for the candidate he seems best apt for the function.
Citizen B works, but barely clears enough to keep his apartment. Concerning taxes and contributions through the IRS, close to zero. Having no family, politics really don't interest him. He gets up in the morning of November 6 and votes, but more to get even with 'the man' than with any knowledge of what the candidate wants to accomplish.
Many would agree that Citizen A contributes more to the common good of the country - and yet the political system grants him no more power than that which Citizen B has. The reality is that their votes are equal, independently of whether they have even the intention of promoting the general welfare and even independently of their ability to contribute to it.
At face value such a system seems nonsensical - but it is the system in which we live. And worse, we can't even seem to count the votes that are cast, as the debacle of the elections of the year 2000 showed.
Perhaps it is un-American to pose such fundamental questions, but really the situation as it stands really should be thought through:
1/ is the system one man one vote really indicative of the actual political power of the average citizen?
2/ is the democratic system even capable of representing the people (as it claims) when only 45% of the populace even votes? Does it even have the mandate to rule when the majority don't even cast a vote?
3/ isn't it unjust to give Citizen B the same political power as Citizen A?
Ironically it seems that the average citizen had more political power under monarchical rule, for at least the ruler was a known entity whose person could be influenced. Yet now we are ruled by the candidate who sells himself to the lowest common denominator, or who simply has more TV time than the others.
Just some food for thought. Anyone here actually think that these candidates are even interested in the common good? But I guess we have the leaders whom we deserve....
JJ+
this is something to mod up.
there has not been a true "left wing" candidate in some 40 years, and the last couple were shot.
i want a real left wing thank you.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Ron Paul is just the man this guy is looking for. But don't be a defeatist; yes his chances of getting the nomination are minimal, but his support is growing. I for one am telling everyone I know about him. They all say, "why haven't heard of him before"; to which I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
From http://www.ronpaul2008.com/html/AboutRon_fx.html
"Brief Overview of Congressman Paul's Record
He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.
"
Search for him on youtube. Some of his lectures to his fellow congressmen on the house floor are outstanding!
shill will probably be reversed by Monday.
For some reason, quite a few Democrats are writing the DNC saying "fire her or we stop giving you money", my e-mail to that effect was sent hours ago. DailyKos is at the head of the "dump Jenni" bandwagon.
Unlike the Fearless Leader you worship, Howard Dean is capable of figuring out he's stepped in shit and getting himself out.
There will be no "RIAA surge" to try to salvage a failed political policy.
Too bad YOUR master isn't quite as bright. Perhaps you should point this out to him the next time you kiss his ass.
Tech Public Policy stuff
will be equally offended by the fact that the head of the RIAA is Bill Frist's former chief of staff.
Birds of a feather and all that.
Tech Public Policy stuff
"I wasn't surprised that she crossed over to the Liberals. I don't think she ever did have a Conservative bone in her body. Well, maybe one."
Oh, by the way, I'm not afraid of looking worse. You seem to think this is about ego for me. It is not. I masturbate in public and kill small animals. If you think I have an ego, you are guzzling cum.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
...and passed by a Republican controlled Congress. The Republican party owns this as much as the Democrats... which really highlights your point of "just as much panderers".
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
In case anyone's interested (probably not), we communists usually agree on the following:
The Republicans serve the interests of the ruling class in their purest and simplest and most natural forms - They promote total, unrestrained exploitation and free market.
The Democrats serve the interests of the ruling class by making sure the Republicans don't fuck up things too badly. They put restraints on the market in order to avoid the catastrophic depressions totally free markets bring, and in order to keep people out of such a sorry state that they rebel. The Democrats exist also to reign in rebelliousness and leftist sympathies and send them to the graveyard of liberal politics.
The Republicans represent the imperial interests of the ruling class in it's simplest forms. They simply try to take over the world. Democrats have a more sensible approach to foreign politics. The Republicans have manic adventurism, the Democrats have sanity.
Property is theft.
your main man Frist (whose former Chief of Staff now runs the RIAA) a thing of the past.
Why not ask a Republican named Sensenbrenner about the latest anti-consumer pro-RIAA legislation?
Of course, the real truth is that neither party has clean hands with respect to consumer technology law. Why don't you clean out your own GOP sewer before whining about Democrats? Are you afraid that if the corrupt Republicans got tossed out of office, there'd be no Republican Party? Judging from the current GOP track record, your fears are justified.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Why not open it up? Does anyone really think that there is anyone out there who wants drugs but somehow isn't able to get them due to the effectiveness of the War on Some Drugs? Your next door neighbour is already driving stoned, or he isn't. Legalization would have no impact on that.
and prevented it from being passed in the first place. Sure Bush didn't try to remove it either.
Just that people are quick to blame Bush for the actions of the RIAA and MPAA but forgot on who's watch the bill was passed.
Frankly there isn't much difference between the Republicans and Democrats, neither one of them does enough for the common people. Just that Democrats make empty promises to the common people and break them for over the past thirty years or so and keep doing it.
I just hope that the Reform or Green party gets more of their people into Congress to help even out the score.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Bullshit.
New words come and go. Get used to it. The 'blogosphere' is a reasonable term for an extension of the web that's grown around new syndication media formats. It's used by quite a lot of intelligent people.
Are we going to suggest Jon Udell is a know-nothing, even though he's had very successful runs at BYTE and Infoworld? How about Tim Bray? Mark Pilgrim?
The folks at BoingBoing?
I remember back around 1995 when people thought the "Web" was a ridiculous word, because it really was all about the Internet, the Web was just a popular fad soon to be supplanted by other & better applications.
-Stu
"Blogosphere" is not limited to blogs. It encompasses any internet-enabled means of speaking to people who don't know you.
"Oh, by the way, I'm not afraid of looking worse."
Of course not. That wouldn't be possible at this point.
As to the last word, why lie about that? Oh wait I forgot who I was talking to.
How sad is your life that you think posting what you did was a good idea?
"I masturbate in public and kill small animals."
I suspect that's closer to the truth than you'd like to admit.
I win. Again. That will never change.
You're a cunt, but I'll let you go ahead and get the last word.
Closer to the truth? You cunt, it's true. Can't get much closer to the truth than the truth.
Go ahead, get the last word now. I give you permission.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"You're a cunt, but I'll let you go ahead and get the last word"
Yeah, you've told that lie three times now, and then once you followed up your own post with another post (what kind of no life having loser does that? Wait you did...). Why lie liar?
Oh wait I forgot who I was talking to...
Lie x4 and counting.
I don't what's better though, that you're a liar, or that you finally admitted I was right, or that you got so owned that you only had insults left. Oh I forgot that you posted AC too, that was the cherry. I out debated you, out cited you, out thought you, and then after had nothing left but insults, you couldn't even post in your own name because you'd lied three times already.
I win. Again. And you made is SO easy...