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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? "
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.
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.