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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?"
Well, the only one who understands economics and business is Romney. Since technology companies and their employees are what makes "technology" happen, Romney is the best.
The others primarily think that business (including the technology business) exists to produce goods and wealth for them to tax so they can redistribute it to politically-connected unproductive folks.
Check out the Technology section of his website. He knows what's up with net neutrality and privacy laws, and vows to change it (although that's what everyone says, I think he could really help the tech world)
Hillary Clinton, however, could possibly crash the global economy. She wants to crack down on violent video games, which, due to the pins and needles the economy is on right now, could devastate the economy if a major sector of the gaming industry would collapse. She even supports "media literacy" in the United States (aka censorship).
In my opinion Obama could do a lot of good for America. He is not a conservative, so he would be more likely to reform and change stuff that is in dire need of it.
An excerpt:
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at this point, we need as much transparency as we can get for most of the tech issues: Intellectual Property, RIAA, MPEG, copyright, frequency, Cable regulation, bandwidth prioritizing. Obama has flatly stated that he supports maximum transparency at all levels of government. That makes him more libertarian than the other candidates by a long shot. so, based on that, i would say obama.
I agree, Obama actually understands technology, patent issues and creative rights. I'm Canadian, so my vote doesn't matter however I've noticed other candidates seem to be less educated in these areas, or relying on basic knowledge; however Obama seems to have personal knowledge in these areas.
However, there's a different between being unbending in one's ideals and being unbending in one's understanding of the world; the latter leads to an inability or unwillingness to understand or empathize with the motivations of one's opponents, and that leads to the political environment we have today. Much of what makes Obama appealing is his willingness to think things over from perspectives other than his own and strike considered compromises that still accomplish his intended goals while making people who disagreed feel like they weren't completely steamrolled. Hillary strikes me as the win-at-any-cost type -- but winning at any cost means making the other side lose, and that leads to still more division and partisan hatred.
Paul understands economics better than any of the other candidates, in my estimation. While I'm sure Romney knows all about microeconomics and running a business, the debates have not shown that he knows anything of economics on a national or global scale.
Paul does not look at business in the way you describe either. He detests taxes that redistribute wealth to anybody - be it the lobbyists that are in bed with congress or through nanny programs that sustain a welfare state. He believes that free markets are the best thing for technology. While it's nice to think that the government spends money on research, you have to remember a few things: a) they have to get that money from somewhere (taxes) and b) by subsidizing technological research, unsubsidized programs suffer. As you mention, the government is likely to favor subsidies for politically-connected unproductive folks, so Paul would say: don't subsidize it at all.
I was on the fence last summer and fall as to whether Obama was "the real deal." That is, I was until I saw the Q&A portion of his November 2007 talk at the Google campus. This was my true turning point.
It is a typical question and answer session with some pretty advanced questions lobbed by the Googlers and moderated by Eric Schmidt. It is, beyond any combative debate or stump speech, a truly (+5) insightful conversation about his views on technology.
(As others have mentioned, Senator Obama's Technology page is also a helpful peek at what he stands for in case you don't have the patience for the ~20 min. video)
The mormons I know are very friendly, caring, family oriented, smart, and law abiding. I'm paying close attention to Romney this election because I think it will be good for America to have someone with those qualities in office. Running a country isn't that much different from running a business. It all boils down to doing cost/benefit analysis on a bunch of huge multivariable problems. I think Romney has the best brain for that compared to the other candidates. He has already proven he can do successfully with his own business (Bain & Company).
That's true. I was planning on voting for Edwards all along but when he dropped out I switched to Obama. The more I've learned about him in the past few days the more I like him.
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Yeah, I'm a libertarian, but Ron Paul makes me shudder. It was an interesting exercise to go through the US Libertarian Party platform and compare with all Ron Paul's positions that I think are way wrong. On every single one (abortion, free trade, anti-immigrant xenophobia), his positions are the opposite of the party's planks.
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Where's Ron Paul's Net Neutrality policy statement? His votes to intervene against market manipulation and monopoly during his long House career?
I am not trying to say you are a liar, but blanket assertions about the Ron Paul your personal version of "libertarianism" imagine him to be sure make you look like one.
BTW, if Paul were a "Libertarian", he wouldn't be a member of the Republican Party. Even when he ran as the LP nominee, he didn't leave the RP or join the LP, and that was 20 years ago. He's at best a "libertarian", whatever that means exactly. These distinctions between members of the Party and adherents to the philosophy are important, because they've each got their "center of gravity", neither of which is entirely consistent with what any one person usually thinks, or wishes, they were.
When you "libertarians" start talking your favorite absolutes, it always comes out nonsense.
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make install -not war
In the context of the interview, he was really referring to the internet as more of a government project. Replace "the Internet" with something like "new police stations" and you get the idea. That doesn't mean he was laying bricks or training officers, but that he supported it as a government initiative.
Larry Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons, made a very cogent endorsement of Obama last fall. It makes for a good read. "Clearly on the big issues -- the war and corruption. Obama has made his career fighting both. But also on the issues closest to me. As the technology document released today reveals, to anyone who reads it closely, Obama has committed himself to important and importantly balanced positions."
Not only does Lawrence Lessig endorse Obama, he's actually advising him on copyright policy. This could bring about the single biggest policy shift in Washington on copyright, IP, and free culture that we've seen in years.
His wife is (was) an IP lawyer--she understands restricting those creative rights with the best of them.
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I've never actually met a self-professed Libertarian that wasn't primarily motivated by greed - it only takes a little questioning to get past their parroting of the party line and realize that their core belief isn't "government shouldn't be involved with..." but "I don't want to pay for that".
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