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Best Super Tuesday Candidate for Technology?
Petey_Alchemist writes "With Super Tuesday coming up and the political field somewhat winnowed down, the process of picking the nominees for the next American President is well underway. At the same time, the Internet is bustling through a period of legal questions like Copyright infringement, net neutrality, wireless spectrum, content filtering, broadband deployment. All of these are just a few of the host of issues that the next President will be pressured to weigh in on during his or her tenure. Who do you think would be the best (or worst) candidate on Internet issues?"
Ron Paul thinks anything the government does is socialism. He would never have let the government invest in the Internet the way that it did, and we wouldn't have one now (certainly not the equal-access Internet that's getting everyone online). He wouldn't do anything to stop telcos from blocking or slowing traffic that competes with theirs, or doublecharging servers and consumers (quadruplecharging, really) who already pay for bandwidth, but must pay extra for "on-time" bandwidth ("Network Neutrality").
Ron Paul would let corporations do whatever they want with the Internet, which includes AT&T's plans to violate Net Neutrality and snoop on content (to police for "piracy"), avoid equal access for competition, and every other dirty trick they invent in what passes for their "innovation".
The Internet is one of the most obvious places where the people need the government as our collective representative to protect ourselves from the powerful exploiters of the people. There aren't a lot of monarchs in a position to hurt the American people anymore, but we've got plenty of dictatorial, aggressive, imperial corporations. And Ron Paul's government would stay out of the business of protecting us from them.
--
make install -not war
This will be quite the political discussion if everyone who doesn't say they love socialism and hate corporations (and hate the rich, religious people, the military, etc, etc, etc) gets modded to -1 Flamebait.
Why even ask the question if there's not going to be a serious discussion? Just make it a poll so the "moderators" can say "Ron Paul" or one of the socialists instead of voting to censor other perspectives with their mod points.
The talent of a political candidate is proportional to the strength of the reality-distortion field s/he can maintain during the whole campaign. An genuinely idealist with a clear line of action that never ever bends facts or his/her opinions is sure to never get elected.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Which means absolutely nothing as far as any of the issues mentioned in the summary: "Copyright infringement, net neutrality, wireless spectrum, content filtering, broadband deployment".
No wonder you posted as an AC - your answer is the same any politician would give when asked a question - use a lot of BBBs (bullshit bingo buzzwords) to avoid actually giving an answer.
For every problem, there's a solution that's simple, neat, and wrong. That's Ron Paul, who would dismantle vital institutions of our society.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
I didn't rate you down, but you took a question on Internet issues (examples from the story: Copyright infringement, net neutrality, wireless spectrum, content filtering, broadband deployment) and gave a cookie-cutter (and IMHO unrelated) answer based on what passes for the conservative platform these days (i.e., liberals suck more.)
Speaking for myself, I'd find your comment more satisfying -- or at least more substantive -- if you had elaborated on which positions Romney holds that you feel are important on Internet issues rather than taking what has become a predictable and irrelevant swipe at Democrats whenever the Republicans have nothing reasonable to offer.
- Wants to wall off the country and deport millions.
- Wants to let states ban abortions.
Ron Paul has some admirable positions, but his supporters should recognize that when it comes down to it he is effectively a social conservative and his policies if implemented completely would, if they didn't destroy the economy right off the bat, probably turn the country completely over to corporate rule.
Technology is part of culture, too. And I believe Obama is probably the best candidate from the perspective of overcoming a lot of the old blue-state/red-state cliches and antagonisms. It may sound hackneyed to say this, but I actually did feel stirrings of patriotic (in the sense of commitment to a community, not in terms of jingoism, nationalism, or "national branding") feeling after his South Carolina speech. So much of the divisive rhetoric we see in forums are really perpetuations of crude stereotypes and tired arguments which rely on them.
If there is anything Obama connotes to me, above and beyond his policy positions (which I am generally OK with - though I'm also OK with a lot of HRC's positions, but can't stand her) its the return of a culture of listening, of not seeing conservatives or liberals as "the enemy", but as fellow citizens. It's an idealistic position, but maybe I'm a little tired of cynicism. "Cynicism is the only form in which base souls can approach honesty." - F. Nietzsche.
If Paul has no chance, it will be precisely because of all the otherwise well-meaning people who keep saying "Paul has no chance".
The "wasted vote" is a myth, or at best a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you do not vote for who you WANT to win, then someone you do not want will win. Period. It is as simple as that. Thinking about it any other way is nothing more than second-guessing, or mental jerking off.
Luckily, gun rights are something that are easily re-granted through the court system and by future administrations. Economic and foreign policy, on the other hand, are much harder to fight for and to correct past mistakes.
WTF are you talking about? Are you implying that a vote for Bush makes a voter responsible for all the stupid shit that Bush did once he won the office? Bush is a lying bastard, and most of these politicians are. You can't hold voters responsible for that. Bush said ABC in his campaign and did XYZ as soon as he was in power. Predictable, perhaps, but the fault lies with Bush and his cronies, not with voters. You want people to be more responsible? How about voting for someone who ISN'T A LYING BASTARD! Someone who, while you may not agree with his platform exactly, you believe will do his best to bring HONESTY to the process! Someone who WON'T SELL THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION OUT to his business partners! Sounds a hell of a lot better than voting for someone who will only continue the cycle of lies and corruption.
He is the only one with hands off approach to government. And the best technologies emerge and evolve just so.
Y'mean technologies like the internet?
This guy's the limit!
You do not understand Libertarianism. You are confusing it with anarchy. They are very different things.
Others here have confused Fascism with anarchy ("corporate anarchy"). They are very different things.
Libertarians support the FREE MARKET. Free markets do not operate where monopoly or oligopoly exist. Libertarians do not support a corporate-run, completely unregulated economy! That is simply not a free market.
Also, a truly free market accounts for real costs as part of its operation. Therefore, in a real free market, producers bear the cost of the societal problems they cause (pollution, etc.), rather than that burden being borne by the taxpayers. Is there anything wrong with that? And the reason things are not done that way NOW, is because of corporate interests being too involved in government and thereby subverting the free market process. Contrary to what many people are saying, Libertarianism addresses and strives to solve that issue. It is the current corporate-state that preserves and worsens it.
I could go on for quite a while... but I strongly urge you to do some real research about a topic -- especially if it is a major political party -- before you go around spouting such nonsense as the above. I am not trying to say you are an idiot, but it sure makes you look like one.
Don't you think it's telling that the one sector of the economy on which you have the most knowledge and interest is, for you and many libertarians, the one place where you conceive of an "exception" to the presumption of the optimality of non-intervention?
Perhaps if you had as abiding an interest in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation, for example, you would see more "exceptions" to the idea that regulation is bad.
I don't think that that is entirely fair, not least because you go on the attack before actually stating your case as to why transparency of stakeholder interests has absolutely no affect on the mentioned issues.
Science and Technology aren't (or at least shouldn't) be about which agendas are popular at the moment, but ensuring that as much data as possible is made freely available to as many people as possible, so that the best determination can be made. This is the foundation which allows surfer dudes to challenge our notion of the universe.
In that sense, maximum transparency is the single most important agenda for tech issues. Example - if the greater truth was that net neutrality isn't the best policy decision to uphold, then I'd need a lot of convincing, but first on that list would be ensuring me that my cable company isn't just trying to screw me out of more $$$.
It's disturbing to me that anyone would even think of basing their vote in this presidential election on tech issues. My god, we're involved in a ruinous war, and when it comes to civil liberties we're sliding down the slippery slope into fascism.
Find free books.
I want to lead my own life and my own endeavors. I don't want to be spied on by the Government,
and I don't want to give it a 3rd of my income so it can redistribute it however someone in
Washington sees fit. Redistributing my wealth is my own damn business. Not the Governments.
Money is the root of all evil?
Romney's experience speaks for itself: he'll say anything to get elected, even if it means making fun of the state he's "running".
It's good to be friendly and caring; it's much better to be honest.
Its entirely fair - the magic phrase "transparency in government" isn't going to fix the housing bubble, the deficit, the lack of universal medical care - heck, it avoids every single concrete issue the article blurb mentions.
Take the issue of net neutrality ... those who care can find out everything they need to know. We don't need "transparency" in government - we need some common sense.
A good example is software patents. Making the process completely transparent won't fix that - only a change of law will.
Ditto for health care. Only a change of law will fix that - not transparency.
The housing bubble bust? Only house prices deflating to their historic norms (2.5 to 3x local income) will fix that. "Transparency" won't. And if it means that a couple of big banks fail because they got too greedy, that's their shareholders' problem, not the government, nor the taxpayer. Throwing a trillion bux at it won't fix the underlying problem - overly inflated housing values. "Transparency" sure won't fix it.
I'm sick and tired of politicians who don't tell it like it is and think we're stupid, which I guess means pretty much all main-stream politicians.
Transparency is a good thing, but it will not solve any of the problems currently facng the US and the rest of the world. Only concrete actions. For example, odon't just say you're in favour of net neutrality - tell us how you're going to achieve it. Specifically, what laws you intend to pass. Ditto for health care, the deficit, etc. Not "policy" - which can change, but LAW. That would be real transparency.
For example, if its the intention of the government to inflate its way out of the current bubble bust and deficit, tell us. (7 years of 10% inflation per annum should about do it - but you'll end up with a US dollar worth < $0.20 on world markets).
With agriculture, I was thinking more of the FDA and other standards-producing bodies which mandate sanitary conditions. Of course, not every regulation is good, and many are either bad or corrupt. But that's different from the blanket presumption that things would be better without them.
I don't like corporate welfare, but the more you look at the airline bailout after 9/11, the more you'd understand how disastrous it would have been for the economy to have let that industry just collapse. Which proves my point: people move away from ideological libertarianism when they get more information about specific sectors and circumstances, which erodes the coherence of libertarianism as a principle.
And yes, when there is a regulatory mechanism, there is the possibility of the interested parties being involved. Sometimes, that's helpful, too: outdated regulations are often cleared because the industries involved make a case for removing them. The corporations have influence over the government, but so does everyone else: the government is part of the domain of public space, and is constantly and indefinitely being contested. This is a good thing.
The contrasting problem that libertarians have is that you can't just have "daddy" government (which does things like prosecuting theft and managing property rights) without some "mommy" government (providing services). The realization that government is a mechanism by which we as a society administer both rights and public services, rather than being some bizarre, alien force, is the beginning of the political maturity of a civilization.
First, let's look at Obama (he's the magical negro, the man not from Hope but offering hope to America, the ethical campaigner compared to ruthless Clinton):
(Obviously going for the "Fabulous" vote there...)
Saavis -- expensive. No game playing here. Says Apache, but doesn't say what the OS is. Smart move.
Now, McCain (the Hero, the maverick republican who shares a platform more like Clinton than other Republicans, he's the anti-establishment establishmentarian):
(Going for the "home vote" and GoDaddy.com, while it sucks ass, is indigenous to AZ)
Never heard of them... Bold move, Mr. McCain -- using a web host no one's heard of.
Now, Romney, the Northeastern governor (the Mormon who was, until recently, pro-choice; son of a one time popular Republican; good-looking but flip-flopping candidate):
(He's Mormon so perhaps UT has not registrars so he's pandering to the regional vote by using AZ-based GoDaddy?)
Rackspace! Heavy advertiser on Slashdot, employer of more RHCEs than Red Hat, ... tech savvy move! And running on LAMP. Nice.
Now, Clinton (the Senator who offers 8 more years of old-time change-- huh? A return to the future that was 1992-2000. Another opportunity for Bill to get some intern love in the Oval Office; a chance to catch Osama Bin Laden and correct a mistake from the last Clinton presidency):
The establishment candidate using the establishment registrar, I see. (Change is ... hard to find with HRC).
So, also Rackspace, but made to look like Paul Holcomb...kind like a lot of the positions HRC takes -- looks like this but really is that. no surprise. Oh, even though at Rackspace using a Microsoft solution. Always playing both sides doesn't she?
And, of course, what about Ron Paul (he's the Libertarian that is really, really a Republican this time, Ok?; the pro-legalizing drugs, anti-war on terror candidate; the one who says things worth cheering and jeering in the same debate)?
Awesome. Using a Germany/EU registrar. How...Godwin of him...
Also at Rackspace! And, obfuscating the netblock owner like Hillary. Interesting...but boldly announcing Apache and Red Hat as the platform.
Let's not forget Huckabee...(oh that we could, though, forget this Kevin Spacey look-a-like)
Sounds populist. I wonder if DOMAINPEOPLE are evangelicals?
Sounds...like a $5/mo web host. Huh. And running on IIS. Wonder if its a s
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
> I actually agree with you. But voting for yourself is voting your conscience.
Only if you actually want the job. And that assumes you believe you could do
as good a job as the candidate. I'm sure neither is true for me - I *don't*
want the job and I don't have the patience to be good at it. Maybe the parent
poster is in a similar position.
Position on issues is important, but there are other things to consider.
The problem is you vote for who you want to win, with no ability to say who you don't.
Random numbers and names pulled out of my ass as an example:
30% of the people wanted Ron Paul to win and hated Romney
30% of the people wanted Obama to win and hated Romney
40% of the people wanted Romney to win.
More people didnt want Romney to be president, yet under our system he would win.
Arguably this is what got Bush in office.
Now I'm not saying you shouldn't vote for Paul, just that it isn't as simple as voting for who you want to win. Personally I feel a little lucky that at this point in the election, I don't really dislike any major candidate on either side. I like some more than others, including some that have already dropped out, but theres nobody that I'd strongly vote against if I had the chance.
I do have to say though that it's pretty sad that even Debian has a saner voting system than the US presidential elections.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Asking about technology policy with all this other stuff going on is like asking:
"But other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Software patents are a good example: Of course only a change of law will fix that situation, but without the transparency to see who is lobbying who on the issue, where the money flows, it won't even be debated.
"For example, odon't just say you're in favour of net neutrality - tell us how you're going to achieve it."
Please respond to the point I made earlier about S&T not being about who knows the right answers (or who can spout the most convincing ones at the time), but who can create the environment where the right answer can be determined.
I look at the present election as-if it's already November: who could possibly beat Hillary or Obama? Based on the numbers, 'dark horse' candidate Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate with a snowball's chance in Phoenix. In comparison to Clinton and Obama, McCain has no money and no support for his "100 years in Iraq" platform, and Romney is just spending his own money to try to buy the nomination.
So, if you're registered as a Republican, a vote for Romney or McCain is a vote for Obama or Clinton. A vote for Paul counts for something.
Ron Paul is the best candidate because he tried to prevent the housing bubble, by introducing bills to abolish the Federal Reserve system. He gets no coverage from the Media-Political Complex because his platform is to take their toys away.
As for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton has done nothing to distance herself from Bill Clinton's 'free trade' policies (NAFTA, GATT, WTO), which made the housing bubble much worse than it otherwise would have been. Clinton's recession arrived the first time in March, 2001, which was too late for him to get credit, and too early for it to be Bush's fault. Bush tried the standard Keynesian "stimulus" recession remedy, but all the stimulus flowed into Chinese factories and non-productive units of housing. Now the economy's goose is cooked, so we should be thinking about who best to lead the country's reindustrialization. Obama may lack experience, but he's not evil.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Paul has no chance because the majority of Americans disagree with him on major substantive issues like his foreign and monetary policies.
Libertarian philosophy is in large part responsible for the failure in Iraq. After all, if the solution to bad government is no government, all we have to do is get rid of Saddam and the economy will take off and society will flourish, right? And we can have Halliburton coordinate the rebuilding instead of the State Department and have Blackwater mercenaries do jobs in place of the U.S. Army. But it didn't work out that way. Halliburton overcharged and underperformed. And the Blackwater guys stumbled into an ambush in Fallujah and got strung up from a bridge, which led to two major battles in the city. And as awful as Saddam's Stalinist regime was, the power vacuum that followed was filled by militias, organized crime, religious zealots, and terrorists, so that life is, unbelievably, worse than it was under Saddam. Bush and his Neocon buddies thought that Iraq would be the perfect little place to test out their neat Libertarian ideas and show how well they worked; instead they got thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and have left the place a wreck.
What Iraq shows is that a functioning free market needs good government. You need security so you and your customers don't get killed, infrastructure so you can run your store, courts so that you can resolve disputes. Without an effective police force, reliable power and water, and a functioning justice system, it's hard to run your shop at a profit.
Bush and his neocon buddies are completely opposed to Libertarianism. They've hijacked the Republican party, and they'd rather have Hillary Clinton than a libertarian like Ron Paul.
Iraq is a contractor's wet dream. Big government contracts are awarded to US companies, while soldiers die to protect American assets. This is exactly what libertarians oppose, and it pisses me off that you've tied the one group of people who've consistently opposed this war with the mess that is Iraq.
Iraq doesn't show that a free market needs government(*). It only shows that under a civil war and illegal occupation nothing works.
(*) Besides, libertarians aren't anarchists. Libertarians favor SMALL government.
"Family Oriented" is usually code for "Hates the gays".
You seem to be confusing libertarianism with anarchy.
Your comment talked about how the lack of government ended up being a bad thing... well of course it was! The markets that libertarians embrace rely on a functional legal system and other services of government to provide the foundation on which they operate. Then, libertarians spend all this time talking about the enforcement of rights, enforcement that would be provided by governments.
The solution to bad government is not no government, but a fixed government, one that keeps people from screwing with each other but largely stands out of their way, allowing people the freedom to make of themselves what they want.
Libertarians recognize this. The lack of a government is often as bad a failure as a bad one.
You know what they say: "Lead, follow or get out of the way." Ron Paul isn't a leader or a follower... I believe Ron Paul and for the same reason, Dennis Kucinich aren't ever fit to be President for what you said. They both have never accomplished anything. I was talking to a state level Democrat in Ohio earlier this week about Kucinich, and what she said was something to the extent: "Dennis is a great man, and has never compromised himself, yet he hasn't ever accomplished anything. To me it is more important to make some progress than none. I'd rather go 75% towards my goal and be only 25% away than have gotten nowhere." I think that applies directly to Ron Paul, he may have never voted to raise taxes, but he hasn't ever accomplished anything. Politics is accomplishing your goals and improving your country, but it is also requires a great art of compromising, not to the extent that it compromised your character, but far enough that it will accomplish most of your goals. The President of the United States needs to be someone who can reach a compromise.
Why is this moderated as Flame Bait? This is the truth. We are supposed to be the enterprising free. We can't be that if the government tells us how much milk to drink, how to live and who we can marry. On top of that, we get to pay them 30% or more of our paycheck for them to say things like "Hmm, where DID we put that 9 billion dollars?" Say what you want about the current crop of Republicans. All but one of them are pandering old school politicians. Hillary and Obama (yes, him too) are both part of the political machine. Check out his record. He is about changing the guard, but not the message. Wow, the stormtroopers get new uniforms, but they are still building the death star, folks.
This is exactly what libertarians oppose
Show me five people who are libertarians, who can all agree what a libertarian is, and I'll mail you a waffle.
~Wx
sig?
I don't think it's so far out. Tech issues underly quite a few other issues of economics and liberty, and those are certainly as important as foreign policy.
But I think there's an even bigger reason why tech workers *definitely* should be looking at how candidates understand and address issues they understand. Because this is the arena where *you* may actually know enough, as a professional, to really gauge a candidates policy acumen. I doubt most slashdotters are experts in military tactics or nation building. Most of us have a shallow grasp of economics -- yes, even most of you Austrian school autodidacts. Same goes for health care, education, criminology, etc -- Slashdot readers may be smart laymen, but that's all most of us are in those fields.
But lots of us are IT pros. And if a candidate seems to really get it in the area where you can tell buzzspeak and platitudes from real knowledge, that tells you quite a bit about their ability to reach into an issue, understand it, and formulate a plan to do something about it.
So, yeah. I think slashdotters should be concerned about tech issues.
Tweet, tweet.
Their plans would turn it from bad to worse — from the business-chosen insurance plans to the government chosen. It has to be individual-chosen instead. You'd be able to keep your insurer (who will remain stuck with your "pre-existing condition") regardless of your place of employment (or lack thereof).
That's a lie. Matt Romney — a Republican — created a workable health-insurance system in Massachusetts and is not averse to implementing the same nation-wide. He would not be my top-choice among Republicans, but your claims are false nonetheless.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
So, I'm supposed to pay for your health care so you can start a business? The healthcare system is currently a mess, but getting the gov. even more involved is not the solution.