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Best Presidential Candidate for Nerds?
blast writes "Given the broad field of candidates, I was wondering who the community thinks will make the best President when it comes to representing issues Slashdot readers might care about? Eg: privacy, 'total information awareness', Internet regulation and taxation, net neutrality, copyright/patent reform, the right to read, the right to secure communications, the right to tinker. Who do you think best represents your views? "
Yes, I am in for Ron Paul. Not only for Internet issues, but because he actually believes in the Constitution and Habeas Corpus.
I'll take a stab at actually guesssing what Ron Paul's views on this are. No, I didn't read his website specifically looking for this so I could be wrong, this is just based on what I know of his philosophy and voting record.
privacy/total information awareness: He is as much a privacy nut a the biggest nut job here. Essentially, since the US Constitution does not explicitly grant the federal government the power to collect the data then the government does not have that power. Period. A little more unclear is his opinion on states/corporations gathering information. Corps first... my take on it is that even though he would be apalled by the practice, corporations are private entities and so the government should not prohibit then from collecting data. I really don't want to hazard a guess as to his views on state governments collecting and using data. Obviously he's opposed to it, but whether the feds should prohibit it... you'll just have to ask him.
Internet regulation and taxation: This one's easy. He's opposed to it. Period. Never voted for a tax in his life. Note that since the constitution grants the feds power to regulate interstate commerce, the question is not purely consitutional. It also means he would have no problem prohibitting states from enacting thier own taxes.(I am supposoing here...)
net neutrality: This one has me stumped. On one hand, he would support the rights of providers to run their business the way they see fit. On the other hand, they are usually government granted monopolies which he opposed. I'll have to look into this...
copyright/patent reform: This one is the one that he would disagree with most slashdotters on. While I am sure he would agree tate the current patent office is broken, I am pretty sure he will conceptually side with patent holders on this one.
the right to read: Not sure what is really meant by this? Talking about censorship perhaps? If so, then he is most certainly opposed to all forms of censorship.
the right to secure communications: I am pretty sure he would see this as a free speach issue, so yes he would be in favor of it.
the right to tinker: Pretty sure he would support this as well, despite the patent/copyright implications. At least so long it is for personal use. But this is a guess on my part.
There are things I disagree with Ron Paul on, especially his anti-immigration stances, but overall he is the one I agree with the most. I even changed my affiliation to Republican(from unaffiliated) so that I could vote for him in the primary. Do I think it would be best if he did win... not sure. But I know we need a lot more people like him in office so that maybe, a generation or two from now, we'll have the same rights we used to. It will take that long.
Bull shit he is all for free trade. In fact he wants lower tariffs. I hate disinformation jerks like you. It's the reason why the wrong people get elected.
t m
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst060605.h
"We don't need government agreements to have free trade. We merely need to lower or eliminate taxes on the American people, without regard to what other nations do. Remember, tariffs are simply taxes on consumers. Americans have always bought goods from abroad; the only question is how much our government taxes us for doing so."
Did you even see "An Inconvenient Truth"? They had this staged conversation on his cellphone as he was typing at his computer. As the conversation became more dramatic towards the end, he positioned his finger over a key and at the right climactic moment, pressed it. The key was the spacebar.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
I'm British (and biased as I was a Green candidate over here this month) so I don't know much about the US Green Party's policies, but looking at RMS's website, he seems to be promoting them.
According to Wikipedia, the announced prospective Green candidates are Alan Augustson, Elaine Brown, Kent Mesplay and Kat Swift and there is speculation that Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Rebecca Rotzler, Cindy Sheehan and Al Gore might stand for the Greens.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Ron Paul is different. Check his congressional voting record. Go on. I dare you. It doesn't even slightly resemble any Demopublican or Republicrat you could possibly name. Then check his web site for his stated positions, and compare them to his voting record. You're in for a heck of a surprise. The man isn't evil at all. I don't agree with every position he holds, but the vast majority, I do. Furthermore, they actually are his positions and he actually votes his positions. It'd be a total mindf*ck to have a politician in the white house who made every effort to be reasonable, honest, and true to the constitutional basis of their job. Go on, check him out. I know you haven't, because even if you completely disagreed with the man, you'd never compare him to the run of the mill candidate. You'd have to disagree with him for entirely new reasons. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yes, I am. These states: AR, MA, MD, NC, PA, SC, TN and TX all have such provisions. See this page.
Amazing, isn't it?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Those laws are on the books, but I doubt they'd pass constitutional muster. Of course, that provision won't be tested anytime soon because of this poll:
Gallup. 2/9-11. Adults. MoE 3% (no trend lines)
If your party nominated a well-qualified Candidate For WH '08 who was _, would you vote for that person?
Yes No
Catholic 95% 4%
Black 94 5
Jewish 92 7
A woman 88 11
Hispanic 87 12
Mormon 72 24
Married for third time 67 30
72 years old 57 42
A homosexual 55 43
An atheist 45 53
Remember, even if you're well qualified, if you don't believe in the man in the sky, you aren't going to win an election.
The point is, the libertarian position is directly against wealth redistribution. In most modern societies, this is done through progressive taxing, luxury taxes, and estate taxes. Without those tools, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and eventually are so far behind that they are pretty much slaves.
Stealing from the rich and giving to uncle Sam you mean? Allow more people to keep more of the money they earn then they can create new jobs which benefit everyone. They can do this in two ways. The more money people can keep that they earn, the more they can invest and/or spend. Investing means more money can be used for research and for job creation. The more people spend the more jobs can be created as well. Whereas with government, with few exceptions government is less efficient than the capital market. Also more money goes to the already wealthy.
For instance in the US large multinational agriculture corporations get billions of dollars in subsidies yearly. That was a big reason the WTO meetings in Geneva fell apart. India and other countries demanded the EU, Japan, and the US to stop subsidizing these businesses because with subsidizies multinationals can sell food in India, South Korea, and Mexico cheaper than farmers in these countries can grow food. If you live in the US do you ever wonder why so many Mexicans and other Latin Americans come to the US as "illegal aliens or immigrants"? Many of them are being driven off of their farms because they can't compete with subsidized US agribusinesses who are able to export food to Mexico and sale it cheaply there.
Read some Marx.
I have read him, as well as Hilter's book. I've also read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations , various writings from Thomas Paine, and Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Wrong. I don't know why anyone modded you up for this gross and blatent revisionism, but Clinton promised tax cuts in 1992, then delivered tax increases in 1993. Just search Google for "1993 Clinton Tax Cut".
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/