The Man Who Guards Clinton's Wikipedia Entry

Timothy found a profile in The New Republic of Jonathan Schilling, a 53-year-old software developer from New Jersey who works to keep Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry clean and fair throughout the election season. "After he started editing her page in June 2005, Schilling became consumed with trying to capture her uncomfortable place in American culture, researching and writing a whole section on how she polarizes the public... [T]he attacks on Hillary's page mainly take the form of crude vandalism... It's different on Obama's page, where the fans — no surprise — are more enthusiastic, the haters are more intelligent, and the arguments reflect the fact that Obama himself is still a work under construction... The bitterness of the fights on Obama's page could be taken as a bad sign for the candidate. But it may actually be Hillary's page that contains the more troubling omens. Few, if any, Hillary defenders are standing watch besides Schilling. In recent days, the vaguely deserted air of a de-gentrifying neighborhood has settled over her page..."

Comments

Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm just getting older, but this election is really making me lose my faith in the political process. Elections seem to be nothing but bitter slander now. Sure, it's always been that way to some degree, but at least Bill Clinton's first run in the early 1990s, for all the debate and polemics involved, managed to be entertaining (remember Primary Colors ?). This whole process, on the other hand, is just sad.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[morgan_greywolf]

No, I think you're just getting older. Read about the U.S. presidential election in 1828 between John Q. Adams and Andrew Jackson. They really brought out the mudslinging: Jackson's marriage got attacked while Adams was accused releasing an American servant girl to the Czar of Russia to appease his sexual appetite.

The thing is that bitter mudslinging is good for the process in some ways -- the First Amendment allows us to talk trash about the political candidates and some might be true, some not, but in the end, the real truth usually surfaces.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[beakerMeep]

In some ways I chalk this up to the media. They have become increasingly good over the years at capitalizing on scandal and drama with reductionist articles like this one. Stereotyping the arguments and behaviors of each cap in order to enrage the other and you have yourself an anger inspiring sound bite a talking head can use to sell some commercials. I'll be willing to bet if you look at what candidates themselves are saying it isn't, to any drastic extent, more or less intelligent than 20 or 30 years ago. But if you look to open public internet forums for ideas on politics you may come across some people literally frothing at the mouth posting any sort of stab they can think of on both sides.

So yeah considering Wikipedia as some kind of "omen" of general consensus among voters just makes me think of the jokes (from SNL i think?) around when WP was created like: "Wikipedia this July will celebrate America's 600th anniversary of independence thanks to General Hello Kitty's heroic strategies in the war with China."

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Targon]

The problem with the mudslinging is that if you do not follow the process on a daily basis, you may hear about falsehoods spread, but do not hear when those falsehoods are proven to be wrong. The same goes for these small clips that are all over the place that can easily be taken out of context.

There really isn't a lot of press coverage for when baseless accusations are proven to be nothing, but there is a ton of coverage when those initial accusations are made.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[jcr]

Elections seem to be nothing but bitter slander now.

That's largely how they've been for most of the history of our republic. Try looking up some of the things that Alexander Hamilton said about Aaron Burr.

-jcr

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[hansamurai]

So yeah considering Wikipedia as some kind of "omen" of general consensus among voters just makes me think of the jokes (from SNL i think?) around when WP was created like: "Wikipedia this July will celebrate America's 600th anniversary of independence thanks to General Hello Kitty's heroic strategies in the war with China." That actually sounds funny, so it can't be SNL. Probably the Onion.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[morgan_greywolf]

That's not the fault of the First Amendment or of the U.S. political process. That's the partially the fault of the media's sensationalism and everybody's short attention spans. But there is press coverage when baseless allegations are proved false and, IMHO, the ultimate responsibility lies on the voters -- if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug*

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Flying Scotsman]

It is indeed The Onion. Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence. Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Himring]

I'll one-up ya. Read about the political mudslinging between Octavian (Augustus) and Mark Antony during their campaign to succeed the assassinated Caesar, circa 27 BC. Back then, however, the mudslinging got a bit more personal, to the point of bloodshed and lots of it....

Bashing one's opponent with truths, exaggerations and falsehoods has been the stuff of democracries, republics and political processes since the beginning....

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[morgan_greywolf]

Yeah, I knew that, but I figure American audiences usually relate better to stories out of American history as opposed to Roman history, but it is a good example when you consider that the Framers modeled American government after those of Rome and Greece.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[AioKits]

And that's why I voted Adams! I figure the Czar will return the favor one day. They still have a Czar, right? Please tell me they still have a Czar...

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

You know, the 1992 election was the first US Presidential Election I actually followed, and followed at a lower level than most elections I'd followed even in Britain, where I lived at the time. I was at University, and was getting seriously involved in Usenet at the time.

And trust me, it was just as vicious then. Which, in retrospect, is ironic because the stakes were somewhat lower. George Bush Sr was never as incompetent or dangerous as his son and McCain, the country had not suffered any major disasters beyond a single earthquake (I don't want to understate the importance of the Earthquake, but it was one of those things you had limited ability to plan for, and it wasn't man made. Bush's response to it was criticized, but it wasn't dealt with with the exact wrong response of 9/11 or the paralysis that directly followed Katrina), the economy wasn't great but it wasn't on the apparent verge of collapse, and Bush Sr - who was the Republican candidate at the time - wasn't promising 100 more years of the worst policies of his administration.

Right now it's kind of dirty in the Democratic camp, but with good reason.

1. Both candidates are pretty good. One knows how to fight, and she'll do a pretty decent job standing up for the US without isolating our friends if she gets elected. The other is extraordinary in his ability to inspire people and the rest of the world, and has better judgment when it comes to judging what is right for this country. For those reasons and more, the supporters of both are increasingly sharp in their support and terrified of their candidate losing.
2. Both candidates are convinced the other can't win the actual election. Clinton's camp thinks Obama has won the wrong constituencies. Obama's camp believes Clinton is too divisive to genuinely pull over independents.
3. McCain is becoming increasingly scary for those following what he's saying and doing. He has no idea what the situation is in the Middle East with no real idea about the actions and viewpoints of the major players, yet is pushing war with Iran. He's said he's comfortable with the occupation of Iraq lasting "100 more years". Outside of the narrow band of war cheerleaders and defensive right-wingers, it's apparent this country is facing a meltdown because of the Iraq war, with billions wasted there despite our economy being on the verge of collapse and with few friends out there to prop us up or help us. And this is ignoring traditional domestic issues that have always been a concern to Democrats. Meanwhile, the media continues its love-in with McCain, and the media continues to describe him as centrist and a maverick, with the latter term being used as an apologia for the fact McCain has a temper, itself another dangerous attribute.

The stakes are unbelievably high. The candidates are unbelievably good (and I say this despite opposing much of what Clinton stands for.) Needless to say, those who have made up their minds about which to support feel very, very, strongly about the issue.

I'd like to repeat a comment I made in my journal a few days ago, because I think it applies here especially to those who are tempted to ignore the election or politics simply because it's vicious at the moment:

Obama supporters: Clinton isn't ideal, but she's not the enemy, y'know Bill wasn't ideologically that great either but somehow the government didn't turn to crap under his Presidency.

Clinton supporters: Obama's going to be a great President, honestly, he is, he's an inspiring leader, his heart is in the right place, he's smart, and what he lacks in experience he can make up for in his choices of colleagues: he isn't the enemy.

John McCain is the enemy. John McCain wants us to stay in Iraq for 100 more years. John McCain wants us to invade more countries, already preparing the ground for an invasion of Iran. John McCain will inject judges into SCOTUS who reject the constitutional protections, explicit and implied,

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[leicaman]

The truth usually surfaces? That's a half glass full way of looking at it. But people still perpetuate the nonsense that Gore claimed he invented the Internet. People still claim the Swift Boat Veterans were right. It's like people couldn't care less about the truth, as long as their own personal favorite wins, regardless of the long-term cost for lying. The Internet only makes it worse by turning the lies on us like a fire hose. How are people to sort out the truth? But you're right, in theory that's how it works. As Waltern Lippman said, "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." Unfortunately people love to use the "one account" to "prove" the object of their hatred deserves it.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[nstlgc]

Allow me to one-up your one-up. There was some serious personal war going on between Cain and Abel in the election for Best Shepard in the Early Universe.

Bashing one's opponent has clearly been there since the VERY beginning.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

Try looking up some of the things that Alexander Hamilton said about Aaron Burr.

And we all know how that one ended.

Hey! Maybe Hillary and Obama can have a duel to settle the nomination once and for all. Anyone want to place any bets? Will the brother pop a cap into Hillary's ass? Or will Hillary dodge his shots as she did the sniper fire in Bosnia before taking him out? Or will they both have to duke it out with dull steak knifes because both are in favor of gun control?

Coming soon to a pay-per-view station near you! Don King is gonna make a fortune.... ;)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

And this shows that Adams was only of the earliest presidents was one of the first to "pimp out".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[pizza_milkshake]

Why does the media focus on scandal and drama? It sells (advertising) better. The media's job is to sell ads. If consumers shunned trashy news for more thoughtful fair the media would adapt. They don't.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

John McCain is the enemy. First, John McCain is not the enemy. America has many enemies. Osama Bin Laden would be a fine example of one. John McCain is not an enemy of America. For that matter, he's a true American hero. I'm not saying that qualifies him to president any more than it did John Kerry, but don't take an American hero and call him the "enemy". That's just hateful, partisan rhetoric. Enough of the hate speech already.

John McCain wants us to stay in Iraq for 100 more years. Typical of the left. Lying about their opponent and declaring them the "enemy". HERE is a video of what he said.

Notice he didn't say that he WANTED to be in Iraq for 100 years. He said he would do what it takes to protect America.

He then went on to note that we've had soldiers in Germany, Italy, Britain, Japan, South Korea and other places for over 50 years. If you are going to bitch about American soldiers being station over seas, you should start with these places where US forces have been stationed over 10X longer.

So please, stop lying about McCain. I didn't even finish the rest of your McCain rant. If you can't be honest about what he said in the first two sentences, you've lost all credibility over the rest.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[DarkSarin]

You're right that John McCain is not an enemy of America, even though liberals love to paint him that way. It is unfortunate that despite that, John McCain is still a poor choice for president.

War hero or not, and despite all his ability, McCain is a poor choice. I do not waint McCain as president. But even more than that, I absolutely can't stand the idea of Hillary as president. Obama I can live with, but McCain and Hillary both make me sick for vastly different reasons. I don't like Obama's positions much, but I like his personal positions. Too bad I like him MORE before the whole Wright crap.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[AlfieJ]

The problem with the mudslinging is that if you do not follow the process on a daily basis, you may hear about falsehoods spread, but do not hear when those falsehoods are proven to be wrong.

Which is one of the reasons the founding fathers instituted the electoral college, instead of letting the popular vote elect the president. The presumption is that the members of the electoral college will be paying more attention to the process and won't get as caught up in the baseless mudslinging as someone in the general populace might.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Foobar of Borg]

He then went on to note that we've had soldiers in Germany, Italy, Britain, Japan, South Korea and other places for over 50 years. If you are going to bitch about American soldiers being station over seas, you should start with these places where US forces have been stationed over 10X longer.

Why can't we bitch about all of them? The South Koreans (at least all the ones I know) don't want us in South Korea. The Japanese don't want us in Okinawa (soldiers habitually raping 12 year-old girls might have something to do with that). We aren't wanted in the Philippines (again, gang-raping women while sporting a large array of weaponry might make us less than welcome there). I imagine the Germans would like us to leave straight away. Where else do we have bases? I can't seem to keep up with all of them. But we aren't wanted any of those places either.

Of course, one difference between all of those places and Iraq is that we are actually blowing the shit out of Iraq. That might make for a greater sense of urgency, don't you think?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

He's said he's comfortable with the occupation of Iraq lasting "100 more years"

With respect, it annoys me when I see sound bites taken out of context and used against someone, even if that person is someone whom I'm opposing (and I am opposed to McCain winning, FYI). He was attempting to put Iraq into perspective -- consider the fact that we've been in Japan and Germany for over 60 years -- Korea for almost as long.

We can oppose him for his views on the war but trying to beat him to death using that single quote is no better then beating Al Gore to death for "inventing" the internet or swift-boating John Kerry. Can't we have an intellectual debate that doesn't resolve around sound bites and feigned outrage?

Obama supporters: Clinton isn't ideal, but she's not the enemy

I believed that before the voting started. I continued to believe that through Super Tuesday and in spite of the various comments (mostly from Bill) that aimed to diminish Obama's campaign. After watching how Hillary has run this campaign though I can no longer support her. She's gotten the short end of the stick at times (especially from the media) but that doesn't excuse her tactics. Saying that Obama isn't a Muslim "as far as I know", claiming that he isn't ready to be Commander in Chief (and then backing away from that assertion during the debates) and flat out lying about her past (sniper-gate) have all served to convince me that Hillary is not fit to be President. If she manages to somehow win the nomination then I'll be voting for Nader.

y'know Bill wasn't ideologically that great either but somehow the government didn't turn to crap under his Presidency.

No, it turned into crap immediately after his Presidency. Remember the recession of 2001? You can't blame that on GWB, he was only in office for a few months and hadn't enacted any of his platform yet. And the Clintons? Forget all the scandals of the 90s and think about the legislation that he signed -- remember the Telecommunications Act of 96 that gutted regulation and set the stage for the telcos and cablecos to crave up this country into a duopoly? Remember the Communications Decency Act and the blatant attempts to censor the internet? Remember the relaxation of media ownership rules that encouraged the consolidation of the newspaper and radio industries? Remember who signed the DMCA into law? Remember whose failed health care plan and Federal tax increase set the stage for the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994?

The Clinton years weren't all they were cracked up to be. They moved the Democratic Party so far to the center that it might as well have been 'Republican-lite'. Their pro-business DLC platform and obsessive focus on big-donor fundraising (something Hillary continues to rely on today) gave the impression (right or wrong) that the Democratic Party was just as subservient to big business as the Republican Party.

I'm sorry, but you'll never convince me that I should vote for Hillary because of John McCain. I've come to realize in recent weeks just how much I disagree with him (gods, remember the John McCain from 2000? This wouldn't even be a contest if he was still around), but that doesn't mean that Hillary deserves to be our President as the 'lesser of two evils'. I don't think she's morally fit to be President and I have serious issues with some of the positions (*cough* censorship *cough*) that she has advocated in the past. I won't even be voting for her for her Senate seat again, assuming she remains in the Senate.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[FBodyJim]

My name is James Hogan, I'm a software engineer from Long Branch New Jersey and I've never run for, or held, a public office before, so I decided to start high and run for US Congress ( http://www.hoganforcongress.com/ ) against a 20 year politician here in New Jersey. What you posted is what, no exaggeration, 75% of the people I've talked to have said. Each year, they find themselves more and more distanced from politics and, like myself, reference "them" and "us". It's interesting though because these people claim to want a change in government and they claim to not want politicians ruining the county. I'm only 27 and I certainly don't look "congressional", and I probably don't stand a chance of winning either because I'm knocking on people's doors asking for their vote and I've noticed two things: 1) A LOT of people want something in the mail. What the heck??? I'm the guy! I'm the one running for office and I'm at YOUR DOOR. Let's talk! I can't afford to send you something in the mail, that's why I'm AT YOUR DOOR. And still these people don't get it - "I'm sorry, I'll wait for something in the mail".. and I give them an "ok, thanks" and move on. Sad. 2) A LOT of people have told me "No thanks, I'm a democrat" or "I'll vote for you, I'm a republican" - how about the issues? Don't vote for me because I'll be in the R column, vote for me because you know who I am and what I stand for. Don't vote for Pallone (again) because he's a D, vote for him because he stands for an issue you care about and you know his background. I'd rather someone not vote for me because they find my position(s) to be opposite their own instead of not voting for me because I'm in the R column. If I don't win the primary, or if I don't win the general election - and to be honest - maybe even if I do - I'll be switching back to "unaffiliated". The founding fathers, including Ben Franklin, spoke against political parties - the party system is broken. I owe no "political debt" to any party - I've gotten myself on the ballot through my own time and money - if I lose the primary in June - it will be because another career politician who has paid into the party, has taken the party's money to get elected and now he owes "political debt" - he'll get the call "hey remember that time we raised $s for you... yeah.... can you do this for us?" and so the system continues. But again, explain that to someone and they look at you funny. I don't know you personally, I'm hoping that if you are indeed losing your faith in politics that you are at least taking the time to research all of the people on the ballot - I bet I'm not the only average working guy who is trying to make a difference and represent average working class people. Some of those working people might be Rs and some might be Ds, but don't just vote for an R or a D, find out who they are and where they stand. I'll be honest, if the D party wants to find this post and publish it as a smear against me so be it - BUT I don't even know what a congressman does! It shouldn't be a problem, the founding fathers didn't intend to have career politicians running this country - they themselves were self educated farmers and laborers - they themselves had to figure it out as they went along - they expected farmers, blacksmiths, bankers, ship builders, lumberjacks, etc to be the representatives - and yet I've had people ask me how being a software engineer qualifies for congress, my response is always the same "because a large percentage of people in this district are IT workers or otherwise work in a cube from 9 to 5, and I know what it's like to work in a cubicle for a boss just like most other people do, it's hard to be any more representative of the people than me". Anyhow, my point is just that if you find yourself losing faith in politics, just be sure that when some random guy comes knocking on your door asking for your vote, give him (or her) a minute - don't just assume the guy with the clipboard in a suit is trying to sell you something or convert your

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[twistedsymphony]

Maybe the disappointment isn't so much about the political process having "degraded into mudslinging" but the fact that, after centuries, we've failed to progress beyond that.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[KevinKnSC]

According to the story, Cain was a farmer, not a shepherd.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

The South Koreans (at least all the ones I know) don't want us in South Korea. And we don't want to be there. However, they'd prefer that we be there over getting invaded from the north.

The Japanese don't want us in Okinawa (soldiers habitually raping 12 year-old girls might have something to do with that). habitual is an exaggeration at best. You make it sound like it happens daily, when the truth is that it is extremely rare, much rarer in fact than from the general population. I googled "Japan soldier rape" and came up with many cases of Japanese soldiers gang raping women and one case of a US Marine charged with raping a 14-yr old girl. The charges were dropped.

We aren't wanted in the Philippines (again, gang-raping women while sporting a large array of weaponry might make us less than welcome there) Now I was able to find a rape case in the Philippines. That soldier got life. Much more than if he were a civilian (and he deserves 100% of it!).

I imagine the Germans would like us to leave straight away. The Germans are happy we are there. Ask anyone who lived in East Germany what they think of the US presence there. It may not be needed there as much as it used to be, but those that used to live under Soviet control are quite happy to see soldiers with American flags on their shoulders.

Of course, one difference between all of those places and Iraq is that we are actually blowing the shit out of Iraq. That might make for a greater sense of urgency, don't you think? Our job there is to help stop all the shit from getting blown up. Do you think that if we left, all the violence would stop? It would actually get much worse. Eventually, it would stop, once everyone is dead or under the uber-strict control we went there to break.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug*

Bingo! If parent wasn't a 5, I'd say mod it up. Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe. It should not be granted or denied based on irrelevant factors such as race or gender, but I worry about the effect of our cluelessness and lack of perspective when voting in America.

Admittedly, I have been guilty of clueless voting in the past.

Maybe there should be a quiz to get to the polls, replete with being cast off of a cliff (Monty Python style ... Holy Grail) for trying to vote w/o being informed on the issues. ;) Thing is ... I'm certain we'd lose those administering the quiz, just like in the Holy Grail. :O

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-Yankee, I disagree. Obama is the best choice since he has more integrity and honor than the others and has shown that he can fight without being divisive and isn't afraid to confront issues that most politicians are too PC to dare.

Clinton, OTOH, is the worst choice. She has shown herself to be at least as divisive as Bush, and has shown herself to be in the same reality distortion truthiness field that Bush in in (remember Bosnia and her 35 years experience?). The only difference between Bush and Clinton is the Clinton is smart and devious while Bush is an idiot. On this front, Clinton is closer to Cheney. Ms. Clinton, SHAME ON YOU!!!!! (do you *really* want to hear that sort of dirty politics for 4 more years?). As for Bill, I have no idea what happened to him, but this is not the same guy that ran the US so well. I guess either Ken Starr messed him up pretty badly or his time out of office changed him. But if I were a Yank, I wouldn't vote for "the new Bill Clinton" either. Bill is still better than Hillary, but since Hillary plans second fiddle to no-one, anyone holding out hope that Clinton will bring the US back to it's 1990's glory days is just dreaming. SHAME ON YOU!!!!!

McCain, OTOH, appears to be a Regan Republican. Hawkish, but willing to work with "the evil empire" and has worked across the aisle to bring forward legistation (e.g. McCain and Obama have worked together in the past on several occasions). He'll harm the US economy, the way Regan did, but he'll at reduce the damage that Bush/Cheney did to the US internationally. He definitely has more honor than Clinton, which is something sorely lacking in the US right now. Notice that several time, he defended Obama when Clinton tried to go dirty ( http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/03/28/mccain-defends-obama-over-wright-flap/ ).

So from an outsider's perspective:
Obama >> McCain >>>>>> Clinton > Bush/Cheney

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

Hey, it's nice to see somebody stand up and defend the guy. I'm a lil tired of seeing us use that quote too -- how is beating McCain to death over that quote any different from going after Gore for "inventing" the internet or swift-boating John Kerry? I do take issue with one thing you said though:

Typical of the left

Why was that even necessary and what positive thing do you contribute to the conservation by taking that sort of swipe at "the left" (as if "the left" is one monolithic entity with a single agenda and battle-plan)? I think we'd all be a lot better off if the people on both sides of the political divide could at least respect each other and avoid taking those kinds of pot-shots at each other.

I didn't even finish the rest of your McCain rant

I can't speak for the GP, but my rant about John McCain doesn't have much to do with Iraq. I disagree with him completely on Iraq but I can at least respect him for his viewpoint and acknowledge the fact that he was one of the few Republican voices that questioned the Administration on Iraq (he called for more troops long before the surge became fashionable). My rant with John McCain is how he effectively sold out his own positions to kiss the ass of the base in order to secure the nomination. He went from having the courage to stand up to the likes of Jerry Falwell to kissing his ass four years later. That cost him a lot of respect in my eyes -- he got some of it back by speaking out against torture, but still.....

I miss the John McCain from 2000. If that guy was running he'd have a decent shot at getting my vote. Hell, if that guy had won in 2000 I think we'd be a lot better off -- he wouldn't have made Afghanistan into a side-show while outsourcing the job of catching Osama to local warloads of questionable loyalty. He wouldn't have run his administration from the extreme far-right while further dividing this country. He wouldn't have cost us our creditability on human rights by torturing prisoners. He wouldn't have stopped talking about Osama until he was "dead or alive".

Karl Rove has done his country a lot of disservices in the last eight years -- but as far as I'm concerned his biggest disservice was using his gutter politics against John McCain in South Carolina's 2000 Republican Primary.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[morgan_greywolf]

But people still perpetuate the nonsense that Gore claimed he invented the Internet. But he did claim to have invented in the Internet. It's just that later he clarified his misstatement and spoke about his real accomplishment, which was to provide the funding for the transition from the old Internet infrastructure, centered around NSFNet and Milnet to the new consumer- and ebusiness-centric Internet infrastructure centered around commercial networks. Which is very laudable, but the oringal misstatement is so obviously humorous that it gets repeated. I even repeat, tongue-fully-in-cheeck, now and then.

As for the SBVT thing, I didn't actually pay attention, because, IMHO, John Kerry's military service record was really irrelevant to his presidential candidacy. If something that happened that long ago really mattered, many U.S. presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would never have been elected. (Reagan once did porn, Clinton smoked pot and dodged the draft, Bush snorted coke).

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Moofie]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Churchill

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

The South Koreans (at least all the ones I know) don't want us in South Korea

Which ones are you talking to? When I was in Korea I didn't see any hostility towards our troops and the few people that I talked to were either supportive of us or neutral about it. I didn't meet anybody that seemed anxious for us to leave.

The Japanese don't want us in Okinawa

Maybe that's why we are planning on leaving Okinawa and moving our forces there to Guam? We aren't occupying them -- it was a basing agreement that they signed willingly back in the day.

soldiers habitually raping 12 year-old girls might have something to do with that

"Habitually"? I can think of three cases in the last 15 years. That's "habitually"?

I imagine the Germans would like us to leave straight away

Think again. Our forces in Germany are a great economic benefit for those areas where they are stationed. A lot of Germans (in and out of Government) were disappointed when we announced that we'd be pulling upwards of 50% of them out of the country.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[aproposofwhat]

I miss the John McCain from 2000.

As you say above, he's sold out to get the nomination.

Now that he has the nomination, I'd expect him to return to his 2000 persona - by far the most sensible Republican that I can remember (though Bush Senior wasn't too bad - he just upset the pro-Israel lobby by threatening to cut subsidies if they didn't stop illegal settlements).

All I can say from a British standpoint is that we certainly would prefer it if you didn't elect Hilary ;P

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[cjb658]

Obama is intelligent and very slick. After listening to G.W. speak for nearly 8 years now, it's no wonder Americans like what he says.

But I can't vote for him because he is just so far away from me on the issues. He supports universal health care (though his stance is still better than Hillary's), he's anti-gun, supports giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses, he's pro-choice and voted against banning partial-birth abortion, wants to raise income and capital gains taxes... I could go on, but you get the idea.

I don't know why McCain's camp never mentions this.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Fozzyuw]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Go commit a felony and you'll see.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

First, John McCain is not the enemy. America has many enemies. Osama Bin Laden would be a fine example of one. John McCain is not an enemy of America. For that matter, he's a true American hero. I'm not saying that qualifies him to president any more than it did John Kerry, but don't take an American hero and call him the "enemy". That's just hateful, partisan rhetoric. Enough of the hate speech already.

This is an election. Osama Bin Laden is not running, despite the excitement a religious fundamentalist who believes in kicking ass would generate for the Republican Party. Therefore, the Republican candidate for election this year is John McCain. And he's a disaster in waiting, for all the reasons I described and more. He's the enemy of Democrats at this election. Oh sure, we have many enemies outside of this election, but in this election we have one serious enemy, and that man is John McCain.

Typical of the left. Lying about their opponent and declaring them the "enemy". HERE is a video of what he said.

Notice he didn't say that he WANTED to be in Iraq for 100 years. He said he would do what it takes to protect America.

He then went on to note that we've had soldiers in Germany, Italy, Britain, Japan, South Korea and other places for over 50 years. If you are going to bitch about American soldiers being station over seas, you should start with these places where US forces have been stationed over 10X longer.

I didn't lie about him. McCain has made it clear he's not going to pull out of Iraq. The "100 years" quote is great because it nearly and succinctly describes McCain's actual position on Iraq. Not only does he not want to pull out, he wants to expand the war. He's talking seriously about us invading Iran.

Iran. We've lost how many lives in Iraq? We've killed how many innocents (an inevitable consequence of war, which is one of the reasons why war needs to be considered a last resort, something you fuckers have serious problems understanding)? And we're losing how many trillions of dollars on this at a time when the economy is on the brink of complete collapse? And here we are, with McCain saying we should hang in there, that he thinks it's just like Britain (did we ever invade Britain?), Germany, and Japan (because those are somehow comparable situations), and we should continue to shove troops that way, keep them in a hostile country surrounded by even more hostile countries, for a century or more, while considering invading a few other countries that we don't like much.

Yeah, damn straight he's the enemy at this election. And as I said to Democrats considering staying home because poor little Hillary or liddle Obama didn't get the nomination: McCain is a terrible choice, and to pull down the imperfect candidate that opposes him because that candidate dared speak ill of your candidate is, ultimately, an act of treason, a betrayal of a nation of people, of your neighbors and friends and family and yourself.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Foobar of Borg]

The South Koreans (at least all the ones I know) don't want us in South Korea.

And we don't want to be there. However, they'd prefer that we be there over getting invaded from the north.

Bullshit. First of all, our government *does* want us to be over there. They want an established U.S. troop presence in Asia. That's why we haven't left. And you must not know many South Koreans. Most of them hate us being there. They hate our involvement in the Korean war. The Korean War was a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union. Their whole country got blasted to shit, three times over in some places (once going north, once going south after McArthur said "I wonder what's on the other side of this river", and once going north again). If they only have to worry about North Korea, they can take care of themselves.

The Japanese don't want us in Okinawa (soldiers habitually raping 12 year-old girls might have something to do with that).

habitual is an exaggeration at best. You make it sound like it happens daily, when the truth is that it is extremely rare, much rarer in fact than from the general population. I googled "Japan soldier rape" and came up with many cases of Japanese soldiers gang raping women and one case of a US Marine charged with raping a 14-yr old girl. The charges were dropped.

Okay, "habitual" might have been a little bit of an exaggeration, but try to use a real search, for example search for the terms american soldier okinawa rape. That would be more effective than doing a search that would largely bring up the Nanjing Massacre. Japanese women and girls get raped fairly often by American soldiers, more so than is in the news. Same thing in the Phillipines.

The Germans are happy we are there. Ask anyone who lived in East Germany what they think of the US presence there. It may not be needed there as much as it used to be, but those that used to live under Soviet control are quite happy to see soldiers with American flags on their shoulders.

The Cold War is over. Why are we still there? Let Germany take care of Germany.

Our job there is to help stop all the shit from getting blown up. Do you think that if we left, all the violence would stop? It would actually get much worse. Eventually, it would stop, once everyone is dead or under the uber-strict control we went there to break.

We *caused* all this violence, you Kool-aid drinking half-wit! We (1) put Saddam in power, (2) invaded in the first Gulf war, (3) imposed strict sanctions, a no-fly zone, and bombed the country from time to time (and *why* did any of you stupid fuckers for a minute think there was the slightest chance he would have WMD? are you just stupid, or what?), and (4) invaded again without any thought of the consequences (and this is assuming that Cheney wanted to do a good job of it, which I doubt - chaos, violence and death is more profitable for that reptile).

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

No, it turned into crap immediately after his Presidency. Remember the recession of 2001? You can't blame that on GWB, he was only in office for a few months and hadn't enacted any of his platform yet.

It seemed to me there were three pillars of the economic problems of 2001.

The dot.com stock bubble.
The attacks of 9/11.
The collapse of Enron.

I don't think you can blame GWB for the problems, but certainly his response to all three was wrong.

What's fascinating about GWB, in retrospect, is that under his Presidency we've seen the greatest introduction of Regulatory Oversight, since the New Deal era. I'm speaking in particular Sarbanes-Oxley, but also this recent call for regulation on the mortgage market. What's interesting about that, is in both cases, his final appeasement towards Regulation has been a direct result of his utter ineptitude in properly responding to the crisis early.

Now, look at your other points...

Forget all the scandals of the 90s and think about the legislation that he signed -- remember the Telecommunications Act of 96 that gutted regulation and set the stage for the telcos and cablecos to crave up this country into a duopoly? Remember the Communications Decency Act and the blatant attempts to censor the internet? Remember the relaxation of media ownership rules that encouraged the consolidation of the newspaper and radio industries? Remember who signed the DMCA into law? Remember whose failed health care plan and Federal tax increase set the stage for the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994?

One could easily argue that Bill Clinton was the best Republican President we've had in 50 years. :-)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

Typical of the left. Lying about their opponent and declaring them the "enemy". HERE is a video of what he said.

2000 called, they want their "Al Gore didn't say he invented the internet" back.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

Typical of the left Why was that even necessary and what positive thing do you contribute to the conservation by taking that sort of swipe at "the left" (as if "the left" is one monolithic entity with a single agenda and battle-plan)? I think we'd all be a lot better off if the people on both sides of the political divide could at least respect each other and avoid taking those kinds of pot-shots at each other. You're right. Maybe I should have said "far left". You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country. Granted, I'm sure there is just as much from the far right (the KKK for example), but Republicans tend to distance themselves from that level of politics. I don't see a whole lot of Democrats calling Code Pink, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, Air America, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and so one what they truly are. Instead, I see people like Hillary Clinton taking credit for starting the smear organization Media Matters while speaking at a Daily Kos convention. I see Obama signs at Code Pink rallies and even Cuban flags with Che Guevara's face in an Obama campaign office. I see Obama's preacher of 20 years saying that the US brought on 9-11 itself and that the white led US gov't started AIDS to kill black people. Jerry Fallwell is a schmuck, but he's no racist, at least not publicly. Democrats, on the other hand, have a real life Klansman in their party as a respected senior senator from West Virginia. Obama even helped raise money for him!

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

Mod parent up. This is not flame bait.

The South Koreans (at least all the ones I know) don't want us in South Korea Which ones are you talking to? When I was in Korea I didn't see any hostility towards our troops and the few people that I talked to were either supportive of us or neutral about it. I didn't meet anybody that seemed anxious for us to leave.

The Japanese don't want us in Okinawa Maybe that's why we are planning on leaving Okinawa and moving our forces there to Guam? We aren't occupying them -- it was a basing agreement that they signed willingly back in the day.

soldiers habitually raping 12 year-old girls might have something to do with that "Habitually"? I can think of three cases in the last 15 years. That's "habitually"?

I imagine the Germans would like us to leave straight away Think again. Our forces in Germany are a great economic benefit for those areas where they are stationed. A lot of Germans (in and out of Government) were disappointed when we announced that we'd be pulling upwards of 50% of them out of the country.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Necrobruiser]

Not all felons lose their constitutional right to vote.
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/usvot98o.htm
It appears to vary from state to state.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[megaditto]

We've lost how many lives in Iraq? 4000 American troops dead

We've killed how many innocents (an inevitable consequence of war, which is one of the reasons why war needs to be considered a last resort, something you fuckers have serious problems understanding)? About 100k to 200k by indirect estimates. Which is much less than the 1,000,000 Iraqi lives lost under Clinton. Look it up, asshole: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions (ref 5 and 6 in particular)

And we're losing how many trillions of dollars on this at a time when the economy is on the brink of complete collapse? Less than 0.3 trillion. Which is a small price to pay for liberating an entire nation (and securing our future hydrocarbon supply).

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly... why must I choose between a Democrat wannabe Republican (who has no real benefit, except that he *might* be strong on international defense... that's a strong might) and Socialists?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, his post was typical of a schizo Clinton supporter. Clinton supporters are the root of all evil. My brother, which is a Tennessee state police officer, is pulling everybody that has Clinton bumper stickers over, and finding a way to give them a ticket. Clinton people are the main reason of everything that is bad on the US.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[1729]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Go commit a felony and you'll see.

Felons lose a lot of rights. Or do you think that freedom (i.e. not being incarcerated) is merely a "privilege"?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the GGP doesn't like Clinton and said as much. BTW your brother needs to spend a few months in jail, might teach him a little about abuse of authority.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

and the sooner the "I'll vote for McCain rather than vote for my party's nominee because my party's nominee called my prefer candidate a poopy-head" Democrats GROW UP and face reality

And where did I say that I'll vote for John McCain?

and face the fact that your little tantrum is going to help destroy this country

"My little tantrum"? That's the way to convince me that your point of view is the correct one. Did it occur to you that there's a bit more of a difference between Hillary and Obama then one calling the other one a 'poopy-head'? I see little difference between the tactics of HRC and those of George W. Bush. Hillary's entire campaign since Super Tuesday has consisted of FUD. Fear (who do you want answering the phone at 3AM?), uncertainty (he won't survive the Republican attack machine) and doubt (he hasn't been vetted). Her stated goal is to throw the "kitchen sink" at him and hopefully create enough doubt in the minds of the superdelegates that she can overturn the will of the voters.

The best part of it all is that she has no one to blame for it besides herself. If she hadn't started drinking the "inevitability" kool-aid then she might have realized that she'd actually have to compete beyond Super Tuesday. Instead, Obama somehow managed to squeeze out a near-draw on Super Tuesday and proceeded to run away with the next 11 contests because Hillary had no plan to win them and no orginization on the ground. She didn't take any of her follow Democrats seriously enough to make the effort to win the nomination until after Super Tuesday and by then the damage had been done. Her own arrogance is directly responsible for the position she's in.

you'd have thought after losing two Presidential elections because you thought your guy wasn't any different to their guy, you'd have learned this by now. "Gore and Bush are exactly the same, I'm going to stay home", "Kerry voted for the war, so even though he has a history of liberalism, and now opposes the war, I'm going to pretend he's exactly the same and stay home."

Your painting with a pretty broad brush here. Personally, I voted for Gore and Kerry. I've spoken out against people who claim that the Democrats and Republicans are the same. That doesn't change how I feel about HRC though. Gore and Kerry didn't run their campaigns the way she has -- I could find things to like and respect about both of them. Try as I might I can't say the same about HRC.

Clinton is not McCain

Your right. She's not. John McCain is capable of taking a principled stand for something even if his own party disagrees with him (torture) or even the majority of the electorate (Iraq -- his quote was "I'd rather lose an election than lose a war"). Hillary doesn't seem to be capable of moving much past the latest focus group or opinion poll. And since the Iraq War seems to be a major issue for you, you do know that she voted to authorize it, right? That was her chance to take a principled stand (23 other US Senators had the backbone to oppose the war) and she made the wrong decision.

She's not the enemy here. Don't fuck up for a third time.

As far as I'm concerned the only way people can "fuck up" is if they allow themselves to be scared into voting for someone they wouldn't otherwise vote for. I won't vote for HRC. I won't vote for John McCain. If Obama doesn't get the nomination then I honestly don't know what I'll do -- probably give Nader a good long look. But I won't be scared into voting for Hillary.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[chromakey]

"Ow, ya got me!"

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

I didn't lie about him. McCain has made it clear he's not going to pull out of Iraq. The "100 years" quote is great because it nearly and succinctly describes McCain's actual position on Iraq. Not only does he not want to pull out, he wants to expand the war. He's talking seriously about us invading Iran. No, you actually said that McCain WANTS to be in Iraq for the next 100 years. That's a lie, plain and simple.
Fact is, no one sane really WANTS war. However, many, like McCain realize that it is necessary when talking and sanctions don't work. Did Roosevelt WANT war? How about Churchill? If anyone in this election understands the horrors or war, it is John McCain. He knows first hand what is involved. I trust him to make the correct decisions and not take them lightly.

Yeah, damn straight he's the enemy at this election Adversary, maybe. Enemy? No. And that is the problem with so many like you. You consider everyone on the other side the "enemy". You'll make yourself believe whatever it takes to justify your raw hatred for them. I don't hate Obama nor Clinton. I do not see them as the enemy. I'll back whichever of the three make it the office because I love America more than a political party and partisanship. I can't say the same for people like you.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

You're right. Maybe I should have said "far left". You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country. Granted, I'm sure there is just as much from the far right (the KKK for example), but Republicans tend to distance themselves from that level of politics. I don't see a whole lot of Democrats calling Code Pink, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, Air America, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and so one what they truly are.

You may want to look at yourself. This attack is laughable and shrieks of parody.

Yeah, I understand you disagree with comments posted on DailyKos or Huffington Post, but given I read them both almost daily, I know that these aren't sites filled with America Hatred. Hatred of Republicans such as yourself, sure. But who can blame them, given how much you guys have fucked things up.

Again, you need to look at yourself. You've become that which you claim to hate.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[slackoon]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Amen to that. Voting is a right, a right that should be thought of as a privilege, but a right none the less. The media should feel responsible for having just as much coverage and enthusiasm for proving falsehoods to be incorrect as they do for printing the slander in the first place. Not all of us have the 20-30 hours that it would take to be truly informed. Lets face it, the media IS what informs us

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ricree]

Maybe there should be a quiz to get to the polls, replete with being cast off of a cliff (Monty Python style ... Holy Grail) for trying to vote w/o being informed on the issues. ;) Thing is ... I'm certain we'd lose those administering the quiz, just like in the Holy Grail. :O What sort of issues would be on a quiz, though, and what if you are most informed about things that the people making the quiz didn't care about. For example, what if you mostly concerned with technology funding, education, and renewable energy, but the quiz was primarily about immigration, gun control, and abortion? Even for well informed people, there is only a finite amount of time that you can spend on any election so there are always going to be issues that you are not well informed about.
I would certainly love to see some way to filter out completely clueless voters, especially in high profile elections like this where all the positions have been collected and are really readily available, but this isn't the way to do it and I'm not sure if an acceptable way even exists.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[VFA]

If you still have any faith to lose in this election, you obviously have been absent during the past two presidential elections. The "political process" is a moot point (the actual elections will be decided by Diebold) and is just a dog and pony show. I envy the few that actually still have any faith in the political process at this point. Just look at the field of candidates! We are in a single party system, let's face it. It's called the big business and special interest party. Good luck on the election day.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Ironsides]

The dot.com stock bubble.

Started in 2000, not 2001.
Yahoo. The NASDAQ was down over 2000 points from the high in 2000.

One could easily argue that Bill Clinton was the best Republican President we've had in 50 years. :-)

Only if we can say George Bush is the worst Democratic President since Carter.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[presentt]

Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe.

No. Voting is a responsibility. Every person should have the right to vote, as long as they are responsible citizens. That means not committing felonies, of course, but it also means paying attention to the elections, and keeping informed about the issues relevant to you as a citizen.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

I don't see a whole lot of Democrats calling Code Pink, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, Air America, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and so one what they truly are

I honestly don't have a clue what Code Pink or ANSWER are, but I'd really love to hear why MoveOn/Daily Kos are anything besides left-leaning blogs that have their fair share of counterparts on the right? And Air America? Is Air America even still relevant? And why mention all of those things but not Fox News, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc, etc? Is the left-leaning elements of the media/blogosphere somehow doing more damage to meaningful dialog then the right-leaning media/blogosphere? Both share the blame for inflaming passions and reducing politics to a shouting match of soundbites.

I see Obama's preacher of 20 years saying that the US brought on 9-11 itself

And I see Jerry Falwell blame 9-11 on lesbians, abortionists, the ACLU and secularists.

and that the white led US gov't started AIDS to kill black people

And that comment was disgusting and was rightfully condemned by just about everybody I can think of, including Senator Obama.

Democrats, on the other hand, have a real life Klansman [wikipedia.org] in their party as a respected senior senator from West Virginia.

Yeah, good thing the Republicans never had some barely still alive formerly racist old white guy as a US Senator. I don't know that I would vote for Byrd if I lived in West Virgina (I get leery of politicians that have been in office long enough to become institutions in-of themselves and he certainly qualifies), but bringing up viewpoints from his past that he has denounced serves what purpose exactly? Do you think he's still a Klansman? Do you think he still holds those views?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[xstonedogx]

Don't get caught up in that horrible 'privilege' word.

Voting is right, but voting wisely is a duty. It's the duty part that those aptly dubbed "the sheeple" regularly forget.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"

I miss the John McCain from 1989. At least back then the corruption was more easily discovered. Don't expect that today from any of the candidates.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[MrMarket]

No, it [the government] turned into crap immediately after his Presidency. Remember the recession of 2001? You can't blame that on GWB, he was only in office for a few months and hadn't enacted any of his platform yet.

You're confusing the government with the economy, so you're half right: The government turned to crap immediately after his presidency - but that falls squarely on the shoulders or GW. The economy is another story; I'm not sure how much control the government has in eliminating boom and bust cycles, but at least Clintons' administration and the Republican congress brought us into the 2001 recession with a balanced budget. The 6-year "conservative" monopoly on government even managed to f*%^ that up as we head into the next one.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Ironsides]

(1) put Saddam in power

Care to show some proof? I haven't found anything that said we put him in power.

(2) invaded in the first Gulf war

Last I checked, Kuwait was not part of Iraq, as much as Saddam may have wanted it to be. If we had actually invaded, Saddam wouldn't have been in power after that.

3) imposed strict sanctions, a no-fly zone, and bombed the country from time to time (and *why* did any of you stupid fuckers for a minute think there was the slightest chance he would have WMD? are you just stupid, or what?)

As did the UN and several other countries. Also, supposedly Saddam wanted others to think he had WMDs.Link

invaded again without any thought of the consequences

you mean, without thinking that foriegn fighters would be coming into the country with outside support?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Xeirxes]

Perhaps the mudslinging is good for the process in some ways, but honestly, I'd much rather hear about what a candidate CAN do for our country rather than hearing about what they CAN'T do. All humans are failures. We certainly shouldn't expect any candidate to have a perfect track record, and the truth is that if someone tries to find fault with another, they are going to succeed at some point. The hard thing is to find good reasons to elect a person, not to find good reasons not to elect a person.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Strawser]

Maybe there should be a quiz to get to the polls

As a concept, it certainly seems attractive on the surface, but who would write the quiz? Whoever that person is appointed by would hold office forever.

Question 1: The reason some people oppose current policy is because they hate America and want the terrorists to win.
_ True
_ False

Question 2: The current challenger has been accused by many media outlets of:
_ Supporting the terrorists.
_ Hating America.
_ Being a communist (or fascist).
_ All of the above.

Etc. Maybe not so extreme (or, actually, maybe so extreme), but it would certainly lead to abuse very quickly. "Absolute power" and whatnot.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what country you live in, or what laws you're understanding, but freedom of speech is not a license to spread falsehoods about someone. The First Amendment does not protect a person's right to lie about someone, especially in their own self-interest.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Kozz]

Remember the recession of 2001? You can't blame that on GWB, he was only in office for a few months and hadn't enacted any of his platform yet.

Well, it is a good lesson we should remember: the current administration must always take credit for what's going right. As for what's going wrong, it's always the fault of the previous administration. This applies to the economy, foreign relations, job growth, healthcare, and so on.

P.S. This applies equally to both major parties.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

And where did I say that I'll vote for John McCain?

You didn't, and I didn't say you did. But apparently you do identify yourself as one of those Democrats, because the next thing you quote is this:

and face the fact that your little tantrum is going to help destroy this country

"My little tantrum"? That's the way to convince me that your point of view is the correct one.

The bottom line here is that there's a large body of Democrats who intend to support, either directly by voting for him, or indirectly by staying home or voting for a spoiler candidate like Nader, if their preferred candidate doesn't get the nomination, and are doing so on the basis of what I summarize as "They called my candidate a poopy-head".

To answer your next question: No, I didn't accept that there's a bit more of a difference between Hillary and Obama then one calling the other one a 'poopy-head' in terms of the arguments you and the other hypersupports are giving. The 3am election ad is hardly evidence that Hillary's "just like Bush", it's actually a perfectly legitimate ad asking perfectly legitimate questions, promoting the concept that you should be looking for a President who can deal with a crisis. And, you know, personally I think Obama wins that test actually, so Hillary asking the question doesn't bother me.

You know who I think wouldn't pass that test? The candidate you're happy to see win if Obama doesn't get the nomination, you know, John McCain. I think a guy who throws tantrums and lacks the judgment to even recognize that the war is harming our security, economy, and even our cause as a nation, would be a disastrous choice to answer the phone at 3am.

But obviously Hillary is asking about our view of Obama, because that's who she's running against right now, and it's a legitimate question, and I personally think Obama has proven time and time again he has the judgment to pass that test.

Had he been through the wringer when Clinton started asking about the Republican attack machine and how well he'd been vetted? Well, no, he hadn't, and it was also perfectly legitimate for Clinton to ask those kinds of questions then too. And then we got our answer. The Republicans started a little early on the attack ads and pieced together some largely out-of-context quotes from Obama's family preacher. And there are a hundred ways in which Obama could have screwed up dealing with that scenario, including many that most of us would have thought were the right things to do. But he didn't, and so again the questions Clinton asked were legitimate, and they were answered, and Obama passed the test again.

Your final comments appear to be directed at the concept that we should support a man of principle, no matter what those principles are, above a woman whose principles on many key issues appear to be absent. I don't believe Clinton is without principles, I believe that she's unable to work out how to do the right things when they're unpopular. She believes, as many politicians do, that stay in power is part of the battle, and that you can't win any battles if you're out of power. Part of Obama's appeal is that he's figured out how to deal with that, the man is a solid unapologetic liberal who can communicate and frame liberal concepts and end up being obviously stronger, smarter, and more approachable than his opponents. Clinton lacks those abilities so she will not appear to be out of step with the public on issues she's being scrutinized on.

And that's sad, but she's at least going to do many of the things that she has to do, and she'll keep steering the good-ship in the right direction even if she occasionally makes a stupid detour.

We know McCain isn't going to do that. He's not going to try. Beyond, perhaps, reducing the reliance of certain government departments on torture, he's going to be steering the country in a less liberal direction whether he's being examined o

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[MillionthMonkey]

"But he did claim to have invented in the Internet. It's just that later he clarified his misstatement and spoke about his real accomplishment, which was to provide the funding for the transition from the old Internet infrastructure, centered around NSFNet and Milnet to the new consumer- and ebusiness-centric Internet infrastructure centered around commercial networks. Which is very laudable, but the oringal misstatement is so obviously humorous that it gets repeated."

Can you actually quote his original misstatement, then? Because from what I remember he never said he "invented the Internet".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

Started in 2000, not 2001.

I don't recall anybody saying it started in 2001, but it was certainly a major aspect of the 2001 recession.

Another thing, I should have made mention of. The Fed was raising interest rates all throughout 2000, despite turbulence in the stock market. This is widely believed to have been because Enron and some other companies were hiding losses, which gave the Fed false indications that the economy was in better shape than it was.

Only if we can say George Bush is the worst Democratic President since Carter.

Well, he has been a Worse President then Carter, if that is any consolation.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Your reasons for voting for someone are the exact reasons I *sO* wanted Romney as a candidate. I would vote for him because I agree with his position on many topics, not just because he has an R. This is also the reason why I am not voting for McCain in November (unless he has Romney as a running mate or another strong Republican with whom I agree with, then I hope he becomes too ill to actually lead the country.)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been an Obama supporter thus far, but I'd sure as hell vote for McCain if he'd promise to eliminate all our support for Israel. Hypocritical fuckers, coming off of their own holocaust just to perpetuate one against the Palestinians.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[operagost]

No one would claim that being allowed to move about freely is a privilege, yet that too is denied when one is imprisoned. Once released, an ex-con is once again able to move about and to vote. The nature of punishment, determined in a fair trial by one's peers, is that some rights must be suspended. Your analogy is fallacious, and the moderators who modded you up are clueless.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[operagost]

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

-Ecclesiates 1:9-11

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I see Obama's preacher of 20 years saying that the US brought on 9-11 itself They didn't? The USA supported the likes of Osama Bin Laden agaist the SU in Afganistan and left troops after the Gulf War in a very similar situation as the troops of the SU were deployed in Afganistan, to support a change. The SU was attacked, so was the USA.

Democrats, on the other hand, have a real life Klansman in their party as a respected senior senator from West Virginia Is this not logical remembering the roots of the Democratic party? By the way, the Republicans should remember their roots as well..

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[John Newman]

John McCain wants us to stay in Iraq for 100 more years.
Typical of the left. Lying about their opponent and declaring them the "enemy". HERE is a video of what he said.

The full context is even more damning, IMO, because if taken at face value it shows that McCain has no idea whatsoever what is actually happening in Iraq. It looks better for him if you take the "left's" perspective.

Iraq has absolutely nothing in common with our presence in Europe, Japan or Korea, except that there are American soldiers there. Landstuhl has far more in common with Ft. Lewis than it does with Camp Victory, and has since 1945. No US soldier ever died of hostile fire during the Germany or Japan occupations. Iraq is an old-fashioned military occupation of a hostile populace, and there are maybe two examples in the twentieth century of that temporarily working out well for the occupier, set against dozens of examples of abject failure - whether that failure was admitted after one year or twenty. I think McCain is a reasonably bright and forward guy, so I just can't believe that he really thinks Iraq is just like Germany, or will very soon be.

Much more likely he's determined to fight to the end to finally defeat those Communists in the North, whether it takes 50 years or 100. Unfortunately, the similarities there are all too real, including the fact that this occupation failed long before we realized it.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Intron]

"But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

The link claims that Wired magazine added "invented".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[operagost]

He said, "I took the initiative in creating the internet," which is very similar. Notice the use of "creating" instead of the words "the creation of," which would have indicated coordinated efforts. It would have still be inaccurate, because claiming that his work in the 1980s to upgrade an internet that had existed since the 1960s was the point of creation shows his ignorance of its history.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

CNN Transcript

But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[zullnero]

That's funny you'd bring that up, because it's having the opposite effect on the overwhelming majority of people.

I went out on a get out the vote effort last weekend. I've been a registered Independent my entire life and proud of it, and this election got me to actually switch over and support the Democrats. The guy I was paired off with told me he'd been an Independent since the last time he voted...which was for George McGovern. I talked to some other folks, and it was by and large the same deal.

As for Schiller's argument that Hillary is this, and Obama is that...that is purely from the perspective of the media. Both candidates have fairly equivalent legislative experience...Clinton 8 years, Obama 10. The major difference is that one of them has been a household name for a lot longer, and it has a double edged effect of making that one more polarizing but more generally a known quantity. Personally, I like it when my candidate has been working at the state level more recently...when you're in Washington, you just create legislation and you rarely ever see the repercussions of that legislation. When you live in the district where your laws take effect and have to drive to work every morning, there's no possible way you can ignore the effects of that legislation. Having one Washington insider after another running for Congress for the past 30 years (with the exception of a few VERY inexperienced and unqualified "outsiders"...like George W. Bush), THAT is the kind of stuff, from my experience, that turns most independents away from their faith in the process.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Well, Jefferson, or at least his party the democratic republicans was already employing those tactics back in the late 1700's. I know you don't have control of wikki, but I find it strange that it lists Jackson as a member of the democratic party that didn't exist back then. It was the Democratic-Republican Party which is significant because when comparing the Democratic-Republican Party and it's successor the democratic party, most all of the party line stances and principle are quite different today. I guess that could just be a side effect of everyone protecting Clinton's and Obama's entry.

In semi-recent years, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush senior, the point was to win against your opponent. Now the point is to defeat your opponent.

Anyone might look at that and think it is saying the same thing but bear with me a minute. To win, you have to be better- the best man for the job. To defeat, you can either be better or stay the same and lower the status of your opponent- show them as not the best man for the job. The important distinction here is that we are getting a lower quality of candidates then we once had. Instead of making an effort to be the best candidate or the best man for the job, the effort is instead focused on why they aren't the best man for the job which gives the impression that neither is a good choice unless your brainwashed by their politicking. You can equate this to running a race and winning because your the fastest runner verses winning because you triped everyone faster then you. It has shifted the politics and perceptions of the politicians quite a bit.

Slander and mudslinging has been a part of the political process from almost the beginning. Jefferson and his party employed this concept quite nicely. But until recently, it was still a focus on why I am the best man for the job. Now, it is "I might not be the best person, but I'm better then whoever else is running" which makes it extremely hard to remain optimistic.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Mix Master Nixon]

Bush snorted coke and dodged the draft.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Actually, the constitution forbids government's from denying people what is considered a right. By the fact that you can admit that some felons will lose their voting privileges, it can't be a right- At least not a right protected by the Constitution of the United State of America.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[operagost]

And I see Jerry Falwell blame 9-11 on lesbians, abortionists, the ACLU and secularists.

McCain and Falwell were far from buddies. McCain ripped Falwell as an "agent of intolerance" until he made peace with the man in 2006. Falwell never endorsed McCain, nor was McCain ever a part of his congregation. Apparently you think every Republican is some belligerent religious radical. I feel sorry for anyone who thinks anything you post could possibly be based in fact with this kind of malicious, misleading rant.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

You're right. Maybe I should have said "far left". You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country. Granted, I'm sure there is just as much from the far right (the KKK for example), but Republicans tend to distance themselves from that level of politics. I don't see a whole lot of Democrats calling Code Pink, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, Air America, Huffington Post, Daily Kos and so one what they truly are. You may want to look at yourself. This attack is laughable and shrieks of parody. I have. I have never compared Clinton to Hitler. Unfortunately, it's not just the "FAR" left that does it. Take a look at MSNBC's highest rated commentator comparing Bush to Hitler. At Huffington, you see comments like the following:

* "Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here's hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub."
* "The old bat will probably steal everything in the hospital room."
* "I feel no pity for the b---- who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband's political beliefs." They are speaking of Nancy Reagan when she was in the hospital.

You don't see me carrying signs calling for the forced sterilization of Democrats.

You don't see me comparing Democrats to Nazis. ...
Or calling for war against the US.

Other quotes from Huffington Post:
(talking about Dick Cheney)

I'm embarrased that this guy hasn't had a heart-attack yet. The kind that end's life.

Get a rope for Dick..

hang cheney for war crimes this week.
hang cheney for treason against america this week.
hang cheney. And that is just page 1.

And that is just after about 2 minutes research....

Nope, sorry. I never called Clinton Hitler. I never called for the overthrow of our government when a Democrat was in office. I never accused our soldiers in Bosnia of war crimes. I've never hoped for the miserable death of anyone on the left side of the aisle (or their families!). Sorry, but I'm nothing like these people. Maybe you should remove your partisan colored glasses when you read Huffpo or any of the other left wing sites to see what I'm talking about. What I've offered here is just an sampling of the hate coming from the left. All of it is over the line and none of it is justified.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[kent_eh]

The problem with the mudslinging is that if you do not follow the process on a daily basis, you may hear about falsehoods spread, but do not hear when those falsehoods are proven to be wrong. The same goes for these small clips that are all over the place that can easily be taken out of context.

Unfortunately, "these small clips" are what passes for mainstream TV news these days.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Foobar of Borg]

(1) put Saddam in power

Care to show some proof? I haven't found anything that said we put him in power.

You're joking, right? Or are you really so willfully ignorant? This is something that has been so well established you would have to be totally immersed in your own little dream world to have not noticed it. But, here are a couple of quick links: here and here.

(2) invaded in the first Gulf war

Last I checked, Kuwait was not part of Iraq, as much as Saddam may have wanted it to be. If we had actually invaded, Saddam wouldn't have been in power after that.

*Boggles* Man, you really are a clueless one, aren't you? Saddam invaded Kuwait. We invaded Iraq in 1991. We did not invade Baghdad, take out Saddam, and completely conquer the country, but we did invade Iraq, set up things like No-Fly Zones, and occasionally conduct bombing campaigns (which generally did not get into the American press).

3) imposed strict sanctions, a no-fly zone, and bombed the country from time to time (and *why* did any of you stupid fuckers for a minute think there was the slightest chance he would have WMD? are you just stupid, or what?)

As did the UN and several other countries. Also, supposedly Saddam wanted others to think he had WMDs.Link

invaded again without any thought of the consequences

you mean, without thinking that foriegn fighters would be coming into the country with outside support?

You seem to have missed the part about it being Americans who were always pushing for the harshest sanctions and the part about it being American and British forces that were always bombing Iraq.

As for the foreign fighter, WTF is your point? There are domestic insurgents as well, as there have been from the beginning. Not counting on foreign fighters coming in as well as al-Qaeda (another American product since we set them up, armed them, and trained them to fight the Soviets) who were not even in Iraq or had anything to do with Iraq before the war is just another of many examples of Cheney et al sticking their heads in the sand (or trying to get us to) and insisting that we would be greeted as liberators. Anyone, including myself, who had been paying any attention to what was going on in Iraq before the war knew already that WMDs and "greeted as liberators" was a load of horse shit. How can a country that we keep bombing the fuck out of for over 10 years possibly have a WMD program and why would they greet us as liberators?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[MillionthMonkey]

Too bad I like him MORE before the whole Wright crap.

Why?

IANABP, but there's nothing wrong or outrageous about what Wright said, even if the entire media decided one day that he's "crazy" and "despicable". He was bitching about the way black people are treated in this country, like you'd imagine a black preacher might do, and said something that can look bad taken out of context. It's kind of hard not to given the setting and the subject. Even if Wright IS "crazy", a microsecond of thought should be all it takes to realize Obama is not responsible for the opinions of every single one of his supporters. I just can't imagine what sort of thought process would allow something like that to influence one's vote.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[rkanodia]

Try reading what Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf had to say about Al Gore and the Internet. Their conclusion:

"There are many factors that have contributed to the Internet's rapid growth
since the later 1980s, not the least of which has been political support
for its privatization and continued support for research in advanced
networking technology. No one in public life has been more intellectually
engaged in helping to create the climate for a thriving Internet than the
Vice President. Gore has been a clear champion of this effort, both in the
councils of government and with the public at large.

The Vice President deserves credit for his early recognition of the value
of high speed computing and communication and for his long-term and
consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to American
citizens and industry and, indeed, to the rest of the world."

If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

"liberating" would imply doing it at the behest of the Iraqis or at least on their behalf. No evidence of either in this war, I'm afraid.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Harlockjds]

>We aren't wanted in the Philippines (again, gang-raping women while sporting a large array of weaponry might make us less than welcome there)

no we aren't wanted there... just our money (and that'll eventually get replaced with a desire of euros)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Necrobruiser]

But the 15th Amendment refers to the voting as a "right".
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
So the Constitution basically says that it is a right and it can be taken away, just not for the reasons listed.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[QRDeNameland]

Try looking up some of the things that Alexander Hamilton said about Aaron Burr.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but gunfire....OOF!!!"

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[GungaDan]

And don't forget that you don't have a right to vote to determine your state's electors - unless your state legislature gives you that right. It is up to the state legislatures to designate electors, and there need not (by Federal law) be any voting involved in its doing so.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

That part was mostly meant as a funny (hence the Monty Python reference) ... oh well, no funny mod this time.

But if we're being serious here and pretending my suggestion was for real:
There are such things as un-biased third parties, or committees/commissions composed of equally-and-oppositely-biased members with a few referees that at least claim to be neutral (been on one myself). There could be a question such as:
1) On the issue of X, candidate Y proposes:
a) foo
b) bar
c) Support CowboyNeal

And you can't vote for a candidate unless you know their position on at least one or two issues (figure up some fancy algorithm that everyone can disagree on)

Theoretically, of course ... but not really. Three problems right away ....
1) Half the time, no one knows what candidate Y proposes about X anyway. You can't get through the media and campaign crap to see ...
2) Yeah ... someone could bias the assessed 'stance' of candidate Y.
3) I could never throw my support behind CowboyNeal except as a /. poll option. That's what I take when I'm uninformed. It's also what we get when we vote uninformed (speaking metaphorically now of course).

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Simple questions like which party is each candidate from, if they are or were a politician and what branch of what government where they elected under with possibly a multiple choice answer like governor, none, senator, representative, state legislature and so on. Perhaps what state are they from with maybe a bonus of they where born in another state- Again with a multiple choice answer.

That alone would weed out a good majority of clueless voters. It would also force most voters to learn a little more about each candidate. If it is enough, I don't know. It seems though that it would favor the republican parties a little more though. There often is an attempt to connect the couch potato who doesn't pay attention to anything outside his immediate surrounding but commercials for doritos or pizza as potential democrat voters.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Fozzyuw]

Once released, an ex-con is once again able to move about and to vote.

Actually, Necrobruiser (611198) has a good link that shows that this is not always the true.

Your analogy is fallacious

It cannot be because "right" = "privilege". A little reflection or pondering on this topic will probably confirm this for yourself. (in fact, all the comments from this thread prove this as they're all arguing the same thing but changing the term).

Voting is a right, and it's also a privilege. The confusion is when the GP implied that they cannot be the same thing, when in fact, they are. It actually through me for a loop for awhile as well until I went and double checked the facts. (Magna Carta, France's Human Rights Declaration, and the definitions of right and privilege). So the point is, there is no point to try and argue the difference, because there actually isn't any except those self defined by oneself. And one cannot argue points if one is using a different, personnel, definition of a term than the other.

In the end, we're all just arguing semantics.

the moderators who modded you up are clueless.

The moderators are, in fact, cluefull given that they probably understood the same before I ever did.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Lemmy Caution]

Securing our future hydrocarbon supply, by giving Iran a new best friend and setting off a civil war?

If this really was about oil, then the US has botched it more badly than I feared. Just what are the Iraq oil industry's production figures since the war began?

I was a critic of the sanctions against Iraq (which were put in place by the UN largely at the behest of Bush 1, not by Clinton - though I'm no fan of Clinton's foreign policy in Kosovo or Iraq, either.)

The war was unjustified, both in principle and in its results.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[The End Of Days]

Who are you voting for, so I know who not to support? I'm just not interested in the elitist's candidate.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

or indirectly by staying home or voting for a spoiler candidate like Nader

Your wrong to label a third-party person as a 'spoiler'. I used to think that way but lately I've changed mind on that issue -- if he wants to run then all the power to him. If someone wants to vote for him then they shouldn't be scared away from doing so by a major party candidate. Hell, in the specific case of Nader, he wouldn't even be running if the Democratic Party gave more then lip service to his issues.

The 3am election ad is hardly evidence that Hillary's "just like Bush"

Why not? It's an appeal to fear.

it's actually a perfectly legitimate ad asking perfectly legitimate questions

If she wanted to ask those questions she could have done so in one of the 50,000 debates. The moderators of the last two gave her many chances to ask this question -- and she backed away from each one. If she doesn't have the guts to make that claim (I'm a better Commander in Chief) in a forum where Obama can respond then why should I assume it's anything more substantial then an appeal to fear?

The candidate you're happy to see win if Obama doesn't get the nomination, you know

You can keep putting words in my mouth but it doesn't change where I actually stand -- I do not want to see John McCain win the election. Nor do I want to see Hillary win it. Put the two of them on the ballot and I'll vote for neither of them. I've been pretty clear about this point so I don't know where you are getting this idea that I'd be happy to see John McCain win. Because I'm not going to fall in line behind Hillary if she wins the nomination?

Your final comments appear to be directed at the concept that we should support a man of principle, no matter what those principles are, above a woman whose principles on many key issues appear to be absent.

I didn't say we should support him. I said that I can respect him for taking those positions. Which is more than I can say about her.

I don't believe Clinton is without principles, I believe that she's unable to work out how to do the right things when they're unpopular

Great! So she isn't unprincipled, she's spineless! That's so much better. Where do I sign up to volunteer with the campaign?

She believes, as many politicians do, that stay in power is part of the battle, and that you can't win any battles if you're out of power

Ah, so the ends justify the means? Take your sentence and replace "She" with "Karl Rove" and you'll start to see where I have a problem with her.

Clinton lacks those abilities so she will not appear to be out of step with the public on issues she's being scrutinized on.

Sounds a lot like John Kerry. He couldn't even defeat GWB. Do you really think Hillary stands a chance in hell against John McCain? More to the point, do you have a better reason for supporting her than "McCain is worse"?

and she'll keep steering the good-ship in the right direction even if she occasionally makes a stupid detour

Occasionally?

John McCain is the enemy

'Enemy' is an interesting word to apply to a decorated war-hero that suffered in the Hanoi Hilton for his country. It's interesting that you are encouraging reconciliation between Obama and Hillary supporters while simultaneously doing your best to encourage the divide between Republicans and Democrats. John McCain is no enemy of mine. I don't agree with him on very much but I won't call him the 'enemy'.

and to pull down the imperfect candidate

"Imperfect" is about the nicest thing I can think of to say about HRC.

ultimately, an act of treason, a betrayal of a nation of people, of your neighbors and fr

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[niktemadur]

You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country.

For a taste of the far right, have a look at the forums of The Free Republic. The freepers are quite a piece of work. It bears mentioning that right after 9-11, many people wearing turbans were randomly attacked within the US, even though many of them were Sikhs. I can't see anybody from the far left acting with that particular brand of blind hatred, can you?

Sadly, there is a deep polarization currently prevalent in United States society in general, which also comes from vicious attacks and infuriating, meaningless yet effective catch-phrases (aka talking points) from the right wing, and a pretty good argument can be stated that they began the contemporary cycle of bile. The list is long and thoroughly undistinguished - Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, et al.

- The incessant bombardment of John Kerry's status as a flip-flopper, whatever the hell that means.
- The purple band aids worn as fashion accessories by the GOP faithful during the 2004 convention.
- "Cut and run", repeated incessantly whenever Iraq policy was questioned.
- Limbaugh, among many other things, mocking a man with Parkinson's Disease, in his crony opposition to stem-cell research.
- Coulter's insane comments, among many other things, about John Edwards - "Total fag".
- And of course, "You want the terrorists to win, don't you?", or "Why do you hate America?"

In the last seven years, progressives have been dismissed or loudly ridiculed to the breaking point and beyond, all the while witnessing how their government attacked the wrong country with fabricated reasons, tortures people in their name, severely eroded their rights as citizens even as the vice-president literally got away with shooting another man in the face.

In 2004, after the dirtiest of dirty campaigns, a textbook Karl Rove campaign, serious allegations of electoral fraud surface again, four years after Florida was yanked from Al Gore. And with a margin of less than one percentage point, with bizarre pro-Bush discrepancies in Diebold paperless machines in key states, Bush pronounced a "mandate" and that "the people have spoken", showing not the slightest hint of acknowledgement at the massive level of dissent on his hands. This attitude will inevitably generate a simmering outrage.

Progressives also witnessed in disbelief how an extensive intelligence operation in Africa and the Middle East was treasonously blown sky-high, to target the wife of a "political enemy", as revenge and an example for all detractors, nobody in government held accountable, Scooter Libby awarded a Get Out Of Jail pass. And then, the consequences of the current administration's policies became apparent in the tragic wake of Katrina and beyond. Also, crucially, every year we hear about the polar ice caps shrinking, and the current administration does exactly nothing. Corporate shenanigans like Halliburton and Enron are just the icing on the cake.

If progressives are furious, with a deep sense of urgency, they have every reason to be. And make no mistake about it, they are also mad as hell at their own party (Pelosi and Reid, in particular), for what they regard as either lack of backbone or complicity. To interpret that as hatred is to not acknowledge the astonishing series of debacles of the last seven years.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Fozzyuw]

through me for a loop

Bad form, but my grammar should be "threw me for a loop".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[QRDeNameland]

Bush snorted coke and dodged the draft.

Which, ironically, may be the two most admirable things in his biography.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Mix Master Nixon]

McCain would merely be a bad president; we survived Bush, we could certainly survive McCain. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a walking embodiment of the repudiation of the American Revolution itself. Bushclintonbushclintonbushclintonbushclinton - President or Vice President since 1980. The New World has gotten a little too Orderly for my taste. No more.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[bogjobber]

During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

Looks like he said that he created the Internet, not invented it. Massive difference there. I'm sure it was bad grammar as opposed to Al Gore actually claiming he alone created the Internet, but that doesn't make it any less funny.

People used to hammer Dan Quayle all the time and there are entire books about President Bush misspeaking. If recent history is anything to go by, people are much more likely to mock a conservative politician for making demonstrably false claims or screwing up a speech.

It's funny. Get the stick out of your ass and laugh a little bit, even if it's your guy they're making fun of.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

While I haven't read the constitution lately and admittedly can't cite where that is. IANAL and suppose are a rocket scientist. I would equally challenge you to show me where it is specifically cited as a right. And whether or not it is a *right*, the point is ... voting is of significant consequence and should not be performed by masses of uninformed. Any party could complain equally on uninformed voting toward the other I'm sure. Thing is, it hurts us all. Is that a ridiculous assertion?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

McCain and Falwell were far from buddies

Where did I imply that they were buddies? In fact, where did I even mention John McCain in the post that you replied to?

Apparently you think every Republican is some belligerent religious radical

I'd be real interested to know why you've drawn that conclusion, seeing as how I never made any such comment.

I feel sorry for anyone who thinks anything you post could possibly be based in fact with this kind of malicious, misleading rant.

What "malicious, misleading rant"? Are you sure you didn't mean to reply to the GP? I wasn't ranting -- I was providing contrast to his rants. He ranted about Dailykos/Moveon but somehow neglected to mention Fox, Drudge and Limbaugh. He ranted about Rev. Wright's intolerant comments but somehow forgot to mention Jerry Falwells. He pointed out an old white Democratic Senator from West Virgina who used to be a racist but didn't think of the old white former racist Republican Senator from South Carolina.

My post had no other purpose then to encourage a dialog and provide the left-wing point of view. You are the one who made a connection to John McCain that wasn't there. You are the one who drew a conclusion that I was somehow attacking "every Republican". You are the one who called my comment 'malicious'. I think my words speak for themselves and you are clearly more interested in encouraging an argument then any constructive dialog.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[CoughDropAddict]

With respect, it annoys me when I see sound bites taken out of context and used against someone, even if that person is someone whom I'm opposing (and I am opposed to McCain winning, FYI). He was attempting to put Iraq into perspective -- consider the fact that we've been in Japan and Germany for over 60 years -- Korea for almost as long.

I've seen the video and I don't think the sound byte is taken out of context. The subtext of the question he was asked is that Americans are growing weary of the Iraq war, and want to know if our leaders will reach a point where they say "enough is enough," or if the Iraq war is a blank check that we keep fighting until we "win" (whatever that means). John McCain's answer here (as well as other statements) indicate that he considers pulling out "surrender" and will not consider it.

Having troops stationed in peaceful countries is not the same thing. We're not shipping body bags home from South Korea or Japan on a regular basis, and they aren't costing us $2B a week like Iraq is.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[severoon]

Really? So I guess life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness aren't rights either, because the government removes all three from some felons. (And that last one from nearly everyone at times.)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

they are also mad as hell at their own party (Pelosi and Reid, in particular), for what they regard as either lack of backbone or complicity

I can get pretty damn annoyed with Reid with at times (he's next to useless) but I'm wondering if you are in the mad-at-Pelosi camp?

My opinions of her were neutral/mildly negative for awhile but I've started to come around on her -- she stopped telecom immunity and has been a rare voice of reason during the Democratic Primaries.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Strawser]

That part was mostly meant as a funny (hence the Monty Python reference) ... oh well, no funny mod this time.

Ops. My apologies. I sometimes take things a bit too literally.

It's just one of those things that I see people throw out sometimes as a potential patch for the biggest known bug in the Democracy: the dreaded end-user who won't RTFM, and the idea that it may actually be pushed out some day really kind of terrifies me. I mean, sure, we all kinda hate the users sometimes, but Deity help us if that one ever makes it to release.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ultranova]

Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe.

How do you expect to keep any rights if you do not have even theoretical power over politicians ?

If voting isn't a right, then nothing is.

Maybe there should be a quiz to get to the polls, replete with being cast off of a cliff (Monty Python style ... Holy Grail) for trying to vote w/o being informed on the issues

And by "being informed", you of course mean adhering to the viewpoints of whoever holds the poll - in other words, the party in power.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I see little difference between the tactics of HRC and those of George W. Bush. Hillary's entire campaign since Super Tuesday has consisted of FUD. Fear (who do you want answering the phone at 3AM?), uncertainty (he won't survive the Republican attack machine) and doubt (he hasn't been vetted). Her stated goal is to throw the "kitchen sink" at him and hopefully create enough doubt in the minds of the superdelegates that she can overturn the will of the voters.

Don't forget her trying to willfully subvert the process by all her talk that delegates don't legally have to vote for the candidate they're pledged to, but can just vote for who they think is the better candidate. I don't like Hillary one bit, her stances on censoring videogames in particular I find unpalatable, but up until this bit I probably would have voted for her if she won the candidacy over Obama. Now I can't, to me this type of tactic is Karl Rove/George W. Bush redux, and we've seen enough damage done to our country by similar tactics already.

On the bright side, this strategy has already back-fired on her at least once. Frankly when I first heard about her doing this my first thought was "that's a rather dangerous strategy since it can work both ways." I'm glad to see it back-firing on her.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[jesdynf]

I have a donation for your campaign below.

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<p> </p>

Please employ them responsibly. If you run out, I may have some more.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

McCain would merely be a bad president; we survived Bush, we could certainly survive McCain. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is a walking embodiment of the repudiation of the American Revolution itself. Bushclintonbushclintonbushclintonbushclinton - President or Vice President since 1980

Actually, right there is another problem I have with Hillary. For as long as I can realistically remember (I was born in 1981) this country has been run by a Bush or a Clinton. 4 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, 8 years of Bush II. 20 years of two families sharing control over this country.

WTF is wrong with that picture? What happens if Hillary wins? Is Jeb gonna run in 2016? Then the Bush twins in 2024? Or maybe Chelsea? When do we say that enough is enough and we want fresh blood? And how sad is it that the 71 year old white male Republican is more representative of fresh blood then the candidate supported by roughly half of the Democratic Party?

We need to end political dynasties. Democratic or Republican.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, sorry. I never called Clinton Hitler. I never called...

So you are comparing what *you* say (or don't) to cherry-picked rantings from the Internet? You don't think if someone spends 10 minutes scanning the rantings of freepers or right-wing radio they can't come up with just as hateful stuff?

I don't see the mainstream right denouncing Ann Coulter or Michael Savage any more than the mainstream left denouncing the voices of the "far-left". And, honestly, I think the far-right extremists are far more influential in the Republican Party than the far-left has with the Democrats. (Though I do think that may be soon to change.)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You never answered one thing: why do we, as Americans, have to foot the Defense bill for the rest of the world?

And I was East German. I don't quite get what you're hinting at - East Germany was under Soviet control more or less. While America did a service to West Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union was inevitable and in some part due from the Afghanistan conflict which lasted from 79-89 and mostly because communism is unworkable.

They had economic reform after reform in the 1960-1980s, trying to keep a house of cards from tumbling down. But it was inevitable. Gorbachev wasn't trying to free anybody from communist control, that is just how it happened. Reagan didn't do it by himself, although he may have speeded the process up by a few years.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[DesScorp]

"Go commit a felony and you'll see."

Don't commit one and you'll never have that problem.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe in 2012 if he wins this election - remember, president's generally try to get re-elected.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

Saddam invaded Kuwait. We invaded Iraq in 1991. We did not invade Baghdad, take out Saddam, and completely conquer the country, but we did invade Iraq

*Gosh* you mean we actually had the nerve to cross into their territory during a war?!?! The nerve! We should have fought the whole war in the Kuwait and Saudi Arabia so they'd know exactly where our forces were coming from and could mass to stop them. And don't even get me started on all those poor innocent Axis countries we 'invaded' during WW2.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

All good points ... and when you think about it in a computer system access perspective, "right's" or "privileges" are essentially the same.

Being the one who started the semantic battle, my point is best summed up by slackoon I think (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=505248&cid=22921798)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

Hint:

When Monty Python is referenced, it is probably not a serious post (or not a serious portion of a post). I'm done with this... see my other comments if you have further questions.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

That's odd, I've never made any statements similar to the random comments you extruded from various random websites.

Yet you just made a statement upthread claiming that I and ALL of the other commentors over at DailyKos Hate America, and unless the Democratic party as a whole rejects DailyKos, they too Hate America.

I just don't see the logic in all of this.

And besides, don't you think it's possible that someone could do a search of right-wing websites and find similar comments? What would such a summary say about you?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

Hypocritical fuckers, coming off of their own holocaust just to perpetuate one against the Palestinians.

Hey, I'm not the biggest fan of Israel either, but comparing their occupation/settlement of Palestinian areas to the mass-murder of six million people is just a little bit extreme, don't ya think?

Find me the Auschwitz of the occupied territories if you actually believe that flamebait you are spewing.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

So you are comparing what *you* say (or don't) to cherry-picked rantings from the Internet? You don't think if someone spends 10 minutes scanning the rantings of freepers or right-wing radio they can't come up with just as hateful stuff? Again, you need to look at yourself. You've become that which you claim to hate. Which is about *ME* directly!

I don't see the mainstream right denouncing Ann Coulter or Michael Savage any more than the mainstream left denouncing the voices of the "far-left". And, honestly, I think the far-right extremists are far more influential in the Republican Party than the far-left has with the Democrats. (Though I do think that may be soon to change.) I've never heard of Ann Coulter or Michael Savage wishing for the painful deaths of the families of prominent liberals, either. Your comparison is invalid.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Foobar of Borg]

*Gosh* you mean we actually had the nerve to cross into their territory during a war?!?! The nerve!

The person I was responding to wrote:

Last I checked, Kuwait was not part of Iraq, as much as Saddam may have wanted it to be. If we had actually invaded, Saddam wouldn't have been in power after that.

I was correcting this clearly fallacious statement. Learn to read!

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

Let's try that again...

So you are comparing what *you* say (or don't) to cherry-picked rantings from the Internet? You don't think if someone spends 10 minutes scanning the rantings of freepers or right-wing radio they can't come up with just as hateful stuff? Yes! What *I* say, what *I* do and how *I* feel. I was responding to the following:

Again, you need to look at yourself. You've become that which you claim to hate. Which is about *ME* directly!

I don't see the mainstream right denouncing Ann Coulter or Michael Savage any more than the mainstream left denouncing the voices of the "far-left". And, honestly, I think the far-right extremists are far more influential in the Republican Party than the far-left has with the Democrats. (Though I do think that may be soon to change.) I've never heard of Ann Coulter or Michael Savage wishing for the painful deaths of the families of prominent liberals, either. Your comparison is invalid.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[CrimsonAvenger]

Go commit a felony and you'll see.

Alas, while felons generally lose the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, they don't generally lose the Right to Vote. And even the ones who do lose the Right to Vote can get that Right reinstated by behaving for a reasonable period.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[hassanchop]

Yeah, damn straight he's the enemy at this election.

I'm ashamed that at the end of the day that, no matter how much more research I've done, no matter how many more debates I've listened to, no matter how much better informed a citizen I am, people like you get a vote that counts the same as mine.

It's sad that you have so much hatred inside you that you genuinely believe a politician trying to get elected is an "enemy" and not just an "opponent".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Lemmy Caution]

You know what I want a moratorium on? "Typical of..." (non-)responses. Not only is it crudely ad-hominem, it adds nothing to the discussion. Saying that a statement is typical of one group or another, instead of actually responding the statement, is a declaration of intellectual bankruptcy. And it self-Godwinizes quickly: "that's the sort of thing Hitler would have said."

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Ogive17]

G.W. Bush isn't a Republican.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[xstonedogx]

Yes, the one who rejects the idea of a vote as a privilege and sees it as a right and a duty is an 'elitist' because he acknowledges the fact that the majority of people don't see it as a duty.

Thanks for offering me control over your vote, though.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Squirmy McPhee]

"Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe."

I need for you to point out to me in the Constitution where you got that ridiculous assertion.

Have you ever read the Constitution? For starters, the 14th Amendment specifies that people denied the vote for "participation in rebellion or other crime" still be counted for purposes of apportioning Representatives, implying that voting is not a right. More importantly, nowhere does it guarantee voting rights to anybody for any reason -- eligibility to vote is left completely up to the states, and prior to the 17th Amendment the only office for which it even mandated a popular vote was Representative. The 17th Amendment mandates a popular vote for Senator, but even now it doesn't require a popular vote for President -- your state legislature can forego the popular vote for the Presidential election and choose your state's Electors itself, or empower the Governor to do so, or choose them with a coin flip if it wishes.

Now it's true that the 15th, 18th, and 26th Amendments prohibit states from denying or abridging voting "rights" on the basis of race, gender, and age, but beyond that it still leaves voting eligibility up to the states. They're free to put whatever other restrictions they wish on voting. Many states deny the vote to felons, for example, and a growing number deny it to people without government-issued photo ID.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[CrimsonAvenger]

or the paralysis that directly followed Katrina

That got a lot of news coverage, but didn't really happen. Any more than the rapes in the Superdome happened.

I was in Slidell (just across the Lake from N'Awlins) for Katrina. Eye went right over the house, in fact. Morning after Katrina, I talked to one of the guys responsible for dealing with this sort of thing in St. Tammany (he lived down the street, and came home to check out his house after the storm). Based on what he said, I packed up and headed north.

I encountered my first National Guardsmen dealing with the storm damage about an hour later.

Given that Katrina was pointed at Florida three days before it hit (I was in Florida the Thursday before Katrina hit New Orleans, and people were preparing for the storm then), it's hard to justify the statement that the response was laggard, when the responders were moving as soon as the storm got out of the way.

And that's ignoring the fact that the responders had to cut away 75 miles of pine trees fallen across the Interstate (and more on back roads) just to get to New Orleans....

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[wall0159]

>>Voting is a privilege, not a right

You are mistaken. Informed voting is a _responsibility_ for those who live in democracies. You can argue that it is a right _as_well_, but I'd argue that it's a right that if you do not exercise properly will be taken away from you.

(I guess you can argue that voting is a privilege too - since our ancestors fought and died for our right/responsibility to vote)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

there is press coverage when baseless allegations are proved false

There may also be a needle in a haystack.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Panoramix]

May I give you an observation?

You say South Koreans prefer having Americans there, rather than being invaded, and that Germans are happy to have you even if you're not needed "as much as it used to" (which I read as still needed, just not as much). And then you go on about your "job" in Iraq, whatever that is. I didn't really get that part, I blame that on my poor English.

I won't argue the merits of those statements --- I mildly disagree with you, more strongly on the notion that you have any "job" in Iraq whatsoever, but that's not the point I want to make. I want you to note the underlying assumption in these statements, because I'm not sure you are aware you're making it. It is that other countries can't defend themselves, or manage their own affairs, without your "help". It's making you sound like a really annoying and arrogant prick.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything, I think we all know how worthy and helpful America has been, and still is. I'm sure South Koreans and Germans like you there. I mean, who doesn't like a friend who comes through when needed? When you ask for help to fix something at your place, and this friend comes over and bears the grunt with you... man, that's the kind of guy we all like to share a beer with afterwards, and help back whenever we can.

When that friend stays in your house for days, and weeks, and months, in case you need their help again... well, it's not that great, to be honest with you. But c'mon, he's a good friend, you have a spare room, he chips in for the rent. But when the guy starts crowing about how you need him there to fix your problems, with the underlying assumption of how great he is and how useless you are... ah crap, we're friends and everything, but that shit is annoying. And I mean: Really. Annoying.

And when the guy starts picking fights with everyone, owes money all over the town, and even has a booze and drugs problem that's starting to make it really embarrasing to hang around with him... that's probably when you start having second thoughts about this friendship, no mather how helpful he's been in the past. But let's not get carried away with the metaphor.

All I'm saying is, you may wan't to think about this if you're noticing some friends seem less than thrilled with you recently. This can probably be phrased as, "buddy, take a hint, please".

That is all. Carry on.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

The Soviet Union wasn't really Communist.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[jcr]

Maybe Hillary and Obama can have a duel to settle the nomination once and for all.

Well, much as I enjoy the idea, only one of them deserves the nomination. It would be a sad thing if a lucky shot were to thwart the will of the voters.

-jcr

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[CrimsonAvenger]

No US soldier ever died of hostile fire during the Germany or Japan occupations.

This is true. Note, however, that in 1945 this was not the expected result. The Army fully expected that Germans and Japanese would be killing American soldiers for years to come.

And we occupied them anyway. And based on what my father has said on the subject, the only reason we're having problems that way in Iraq is that the Rules of Engagement we're operating under give every advantage to the enemy.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Danse]

Who are you voting for, so I know who not to support? I'm just not interested in the elitist's candidate. How exactly is it elitist to suggest that you have a duty to have some modicum of knowledge about the candidate that you're voting for? Why do you think it's ok to vote without even bothering to inform yourself about who you're voting for, or how they might affect the country?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[amorsen]

If this really was about oil, then the US has botched it more badly than I feared. The Iraq war is actually against Global Warming. It was all to make sure that the oil stays in the ground, where it's harmless.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[amorsen]

It's sad that you have so much hatred inside you that you genuinely believe a politician trying to get elected is an "enemy" and not just an "opponent". Some politicians are enemies. Bush is one, for making the torture happen and refusing to stop it, among other things. Whether McCain is at that level I don't know, but maybe the GP poster does.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[morgan_greywolf]

Creating, inventing, okay whatever. Point is that ARPANET was created in July of 1969, coincidentally about 1 month after Gore graduated from Harvard and well before he ever was elected to a seat in the House (1977).

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

we are probably going to argue interpreted semantics which will end up meaning that we can both be right and wrong at the same time. However, I think the mean of that is that if others can do it, you have a right to not being denied the same privilege on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. In other words, the right pertains to you not being denied something rather then to vote.

However, I think it could be read both ways which like I alluded to earlier, you are at least right. It would be interesting to see if a court has said something about this. Generally, a right can't be infringed upon by the government to where a a privilege like driving can be. But then again, convicted felons are restricted from owning or possessing a firearm contrary to the second amendment. However, they are convicted and you wouldn't necessarily need a conviction to restrict the ability to vote. A simple law could enable or disable that ability in most situations. This is of course not considering state constitutions which may or may not have voting listed as a right.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Do you see life liberty or the pursuit of happiness listed anywhere in the constitution? If it is a right, it isn't a protected one.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an imbecile.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do we need to have a full time job keeping track of this nonsense?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[hassanchop]

Some politicians are enemies.

I disagree, and no argument exists that will be able to justify your statement.

Whether McCain is at that level I don't know, but maybe the GP poster does.

All I know about him is from his posts, and based on that, I'd have to say he doesn't possess the tools necessary to accurately determine much of anything.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[hassanchop]

Have you ever read the Constitution? For starters, the 14th Amendment [usconstitution.net] specifies that people denied the vote for "participation in rebellion or other crime" still be counted for purposes of apportioning Representatives, implying that voting is not a right.

Apparently having read it does nothing for your comprehension of it. The apportionment of representatives is based on population, including children who cannot vote. Your assumption that the apportionment of Representatives has anything to do with the right to vote is a total non sequitur. The removal of the right to vote from criminals by due process of law in no way changes the fact that it is a right.

They're free to put whatever other restrictions they wish on voting.

No they aren't. Jim Crow laws are an example that falsifies your assertion.

I strongly suggest you revisit the subject of civics, you are seriously ill informed.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[nedburns]

I can't see anybody from the far left acting with that particular brand of blind hatred, can you?

To be honest, I sure can. That's the problem with anyone on the far {left,right,top,bottom}.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ubergamer1337]

"Hillary doesn't seem to be capable of moving much past the latest focus group or opinion poll I have never understood why following public opinion is considered a negative. I thought the whole idea of representation was that we would choose someone who would do what we would do under the same circumstances. Thats why we choose a political candidate who has the same general views as we do.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[amorsen]

I disagree, and no argument exists that will be able to justify your statement. Is it impossible for you to think of any people at all as enemies? Or just impossible to think that about people from your own country? Or are just politicians exempt?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Darby]

Do you see life liberty or the pursuit of happiness listed anywhere in the constitution? If it is a right, it isn't a protected one.

Never has your name been more fitting.
Your understanding of what the constitution is and what it does couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

If it doesn't specifically give the federal government the power to prevent you from doing something, then you have that right (subject to state or local legislation against it).

The constitution does not grant rights to the people. *All* rights are assumed from the start.

If you can think of it, it doesn't hurt others, and the power isn't specifically given to the government to restrict it, then it's your right.

Please quit repeating that dead wrong crap.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

Where did I imply that they were buddies? In fact, where did I even mention John McCain in the post that you replied to? You didn't say it directly, but you did compare Obama's preacher, Rev. Wright to Jerry Falwell. Obama and Wright were clearly buddies. Falwell and McCain are not.

What "malicious, misleading rant"? Are you sure you didn't mean to reply to the GP? I wasn't ranting -- I was providing contrast to his rants. He ranted about Dailykos/Moveon but somehow neglected to mention Fox, Drudge and Limbaugh. He ranted about Rev. Wright's intolerant comments but somehow forgot to mention Jerry Falwells. He pointed out an old white Democratic Senator from West Virgina who used to be a racist but didn't think of the old white former racist Republican Senator from South Carolina. By Fox, I assume you mean Fox News, which is not the same thing as MoveOn.org (a far left 527) or DailyKos (a hate filled far left site... the founder actually said "screw them" when talking about US contractors killed in Fallujah and hung from a bridge and posted a picture of Lieberman with a black face). Fox News is a cable news network. While you may not disagree with them because they are not as far left leaning as the rest of them, they do go out of their way to represent all sides and have never celebrated the deaths of Americans in Iraq. 60 minutes for example just did a puff piece on Al Gore and global warming. They did not post an opposing view, and there is plenty to choose from. Drudge is a news site that merely links to other news sites and Limbaugh is an entertainer and radio talk show host not much different than... say, Randy Rhodes of Air America (except people listen to Rush).

My post had no other purpose then to encourage a dialog and provide the left-wing point of view. You are the one who made a connection to John McCain that wasn't there. You are the one who drew a conclusion that I was somehow attacking "every Republican". You are the one who called my comment 'malicious'. I think my words speak for themselves and you are clearly more interested in encouraging an argument then any constructive dialog. Your post was fine, with the exception of the comparisons that I feel are invalid and I posted why I feel that way. Dialog is good and I appreciate your input. Downmodding because you disagree with posts is not. Neither is misrepresenting someone's position ("McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years" or "Obama is a Muslim") Neither is pushing hate onto the other side ("McCain is the enemy" as an earlier poster put it. GGGP or something).

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[VoltCurve]

uhhh, South Korea was essentially conquered before the first american soldiers arrived to push the north back... if they hate us for it, maybe we should leave, and give them to the north and watch how fast their high tech nations gets regressed to a starving agrarian society by their northern benefactors?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Creation of the private-public business model which lead to the successful modern commercial internet. Not all "creation" is in terms of hardware chips and software stacks.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Foobar of Borg]

Considering how you, I and others have been modded into oblivion in this article for daring to question Dear Leader or the operations of the US Military, I am wondering how the right-wingnuts got so many mod points. It seems like they have no real arguments, so they have to try to shut everyone up who dissents. Typical fascist behavior. That and about two or three posters are posting all friggin' day, not just today but a lot of other days. Makes you wonder what their day job is.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Dirk the Daring]

That's not the fault of the First Amendment or of the U.S. political process. That's the partially the fault of the media's sensationalism and everybody's short attention spans. But there is press coverage when baseless allegations are proved false and, IMHO, the ultimate responsibility lies on the voters -- if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug*
How does someone know if they aren't paying enough attention?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Darby]

First, John McCain is not the enemy.

Sure he is.

He is an avid supporter of the policies of Bush who is one of if not the worst traitor in out nation's history. That makes him the enemy of America.

America has many enemies. Osama Bin Laden would be a fine example of one. John McCain is not an enemy of America.

Osama bin Laden and Bush/McCain are on the same side against us. However, Osama hasn't done much of anything to us compared to the damage Bush has caused and McCain has stated his intention to continue.

don't take an American hero and call him the "enemy". That's just hateful, partisan rhetoric. Enough of the hate speech already.

Save it, Sparky. That's just nonsense.

McCain isn't a hero and never was. Were he a hero, he would have refused to go to Vietnam. Quit trying to play the crap emotional ploys and deal with reality.


Notice he didn't say that he WANTED to be in Iraq for 100 years. He said he would do what it takes to protect America.

Ahhh, that's the thing though. Going into Iraq was a complete disaster form the perspective of "protecting America". There was no reason to go in nad there is no reason to stay.

So, obviously, he does want to stay there for a hundred years since he has no legitimate reason to even be there, let alone remain there.


So please, stop lying about McCain. I didn't even finish the rest of your McCain rant. If you can't be honest about what he said in the first two sentences, you've lost all credibility over the rest.

No, he stated a clear, obvious fact.

His credibility is solid.

Yours is nonexistent after years of defending every insane treasonous policy of Bush over the last many years.
Given that you've repeatedly proven yourself incapable of developing a sane opinion you should probably stop flinging mud at your betters.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Darby]

You're right. Maybe I should have said "far left". You can not deny the raw hatred that comes from the far left of this country. Granted, I'm sure there is just as much from the far right (the KKK for example), but Republicans tend to distance themselves from that level of politics.

That's nothing but batshit insane idiocy and lies.

The whole hatred as part of politics is the triumph of the Republican party and the defining characteristic of their campaigns.

From campaigning on a platform of gay hatred, to the redefining of "Liberal" to a meaningless slur, to comments like your nonsense about "the left" .

There is no meaning or value to any of those statements, but you almost never hear a Republican speaking publicly without calling upon one of those demonisations.

Heck, McCain lost to the most anti-American, anti-Christian coward due in large part to Bush spreading rumors about his black baby.

So, seriously, that crap is old, tired and none but the most cowardly of the fools clinging to the shattered shreds of the Republican party still buy into anything that idiotic.

So, yes, we all know you're lying. Reality is right in front of us and it's clear as crystal.
Would you pull your head out of your ass, at long last, and at least shut up if you can't do anything but repeat lying propaganda?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[mrdarreng]

All I can say from a British standpoint is that we certainly would prefer it if you didn't elect Hilary ;P As an American I can say on behalf of my countrymen - we've never made decisions with the intent of pleasing the rest of the world, but there's no time like the present!

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Darby]

I have. I have never compared Clinton to Hitler. Unfortunately, it's not just the "FAR" left that does it. Take a look at MSNBC's highest rated commentator comparing [youtube.com] Bush to Hitler. At Huffington, you see comments like the following:

The fact is that there a mass of very close comparisons to be drawn between Bush and Hitler.
That's called rational thought. It's also called being aware of who he is, who he's surrounded himself with, and what they've done.

Now, the first thing to keep in mind, since we both know that you will lie through your teeth and attempt to portray any reference to Hitler as a reference to the holocaust, is that our (the allies) declarations of war against Germany and our problems with Nazis had nothing at all to do with the holocaust.

So given that the holocaust was entirely irrelevant to our decision to enter WW2, it's obvious that there were plenty of other problems with Hitler than the holocaust.
In almost all cases, those are the things people are referencing when comparing Bush to Hitler.

So, of course you haven't compared Hillary to Hitler because those comparisons do not exist to be made.
The comparisons between Bush and Hitler are many and accurate. From the fact that his grandfather committed treason to aid the Nazis when we were at war with them to his entirely unapologetic use of Goering's philosophy to get the American people working against their own best interests:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Add in the fact that Wolfowitz got his PhD studying under the number one proponent of Nazi philosophy, especially "the big lie", and you see that not only are the comparisons to Bush valid, they're critical to understanding this administration.

So your feeble attempt to try and claim moral high ground by not making bogus comparisons while you're attacking reasonable comparisons on a basis of total nonsense is typical of the cynical contempt for honesty which has become a defining characteristic of Republicans over the last 30 years.

We're not stupid, and we're pretty sick of that sort of disgusting contempt for integrity, ethics, and morality. So just stop it already. Nobody but the dumbest of the dumb of our society buys it any more.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Squirmy McPhee]

Have you ever read the Constitution? For starters, the 14th Amendment [usconstitution.net] specifies that people denied the vote for "participation in rebellion or other crime" still be counted for purposes of apportioning Representatives, implying that voting is not a right.

Apparently having read it does nothing for your comprehension of it.

That's a pretty ironic statement, considering that your comprehension of my comment seems to be about zero. I'm well aware of how Representatives are apportioned, but that's beside the point. I used the 14th Amendment as an example of the Constitution explicitly mentioning otherwise vote-eligible people being legally denied the vote. That's exactly the sort of example the comment I responded to asked for. I can't help that the language is buried in an Amendment having to do with apportionment of Representatives.

The removal of the right to vote from criminals by due process of law in no way changes the fact that it is a right.

Then let me correct myself: The right to vote is not a Constitutionally guaranteed right. If you disagree, please point to where in the Constitution it is guaranteed.

They're free to put whatever other restrictions they wish on voting.

No they aren't. Jim Crow laws are an example that falsifies your assertion.

How do Jim Crow laws falsify my assertion? Before you answer, keep in mind that in the sentence prior to the one you quoted I explicitly cited the 15th Amendment and its prohibition on denying voting rights on the basis of race. I think I understand what you're getting at -- things like literacy tests and poll taxes that applied to everybody, but disproportionately disenfranchised blacks -- but the Supreme Court eventually struck many of these down and Congress took care of the rest with the Voting Rights Act (under powers granted it by the 15th Amendment). Voter ID laws in some states are under a similar challenge for being discriminitory against minority populations, but they may survive and continue to exist for now.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Never has your name been more fitting.
Your understanding of what the constitution is and what it does couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

Wow.. What a dumb ass. You do realize that your wrong right? Oh wait, no you don't so let me show you.

If it doesn't specifically give the federal government the power to prevent you from doing something, then you have that right (subject to state or local legislation against it). Who said it has to be the federal government. With the tenth amendment the states could do anything they want within this respect. Now, do you see life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness in the constitution? If it is a right it isn't a protected one.

Further more, Article 1 section 8 say congress has the powers

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Without a specific prohibition, nothing is stopping congress from damaging your life liberty or pursuit of happiness in the execution of it's other duties and obligations unless it is expressly prohibited by the constitution. Like I said, if it is a right, it isn't a protected right.

The constitution does not grant rights to the people. *All* rights are assumed from the start.

I never said otherwise. I did however say that if it is a right, it isn't a protection right which is accurate to your statement.

If you can think of it, it doesn't hurt others, and the power isn't specifically given to the government to restrict it, then it's your right.

No because other governments can restrict it. We are a federalist nation by design. You cannot look specifically to the Federal government. And in case you don't know what a federalist is, look to the political party for explanation.

Please quit repeating that dead wrong crap. I will say the same to you, please quit repeating that dead wrong crap. Just because you can't envision it, doesn't mean it isn't allowed.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Mr. Slippery]

Voting is a privilege, not a right as some would have us believe.

Under a democratic government, the moral authority of the state (such as it is) derives from the will of the people. If any person is barred from voting, from expressing their will, the government has no moral authority to subject that person to its rule.

In other words, if you want to bar stupid people from voting, that's only fair if the government doesn't get to arrest stupid people for violating the law.

We don't let kid's vote, but we don't let them be held criminally responsible for their actions. (Trying minors as adults is heinous - you can't rationally stick someone with the responsibilities of adulthood if they screw up, while at the same time denying them the privileges even if they behave well.)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Blakey Rat]

even as the vice-president literally got away with shooting another man in the face.

He didn't "get away with it", there were no charges filed. It was an innocent mistake in which he injured a friend and they both moved past it. You're really weakening your case by including this little gem in it.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[mattsucks]

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Churchill

This wouldn't be a problem if the truth would stop having sex with underage mail prostitutes.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[N1EY]

We have the right to liberty and the right to the pursuit of happiness. The Bill of Rights is not a set of limited rights enshrined to the people. IT is only a restriction against the government from usurping those rights. The Right of Liberty can not be assumed with out due process.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

Have you ever read the article by Vint Cerf where he acknowledges that Al Gore was instrumental in creating the Internet? Gore listened to these scientists, agreed that it was important, and initiated the legislative process which got their funding.

Ohwell, at least Gore didn't say he'd be happy if we were in Iraq for another 100 years.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Trogre]

Why would it need to be in a constitution to be true? It's just a f%*$ing piece of paper.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Squirmy McPhee]

Allow me to clarify my response regarding Jim Crow laws. For awhile the Supreme Court upheld them. Now, I admit I haven't read the Court's opinions on the matter, but I have the distinct impression that the rights of the states to determine voting eligibility had a lot to do with it. At any rate, it wasn't until the Court began to see Jim Crow laws as disenfranchising voters on the basis of race -- and thus in violation of the 15th Amendment -- that it began to strike them down. Eventually, Congress ended all controversy about the laws with the Voting Rights Act, which the 15th Amendment gave it the power to enact.

In the end, I think Jim Crow laws not only don't falsify my assertion, but prove it quite well.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Darby]

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

Do you see where, in your own quote, it specifically backs up my statement?

Does it say to execute any powers somedumass arbitrarily decides it should have?
Why no, it doesn't.

Thanks for playing, but you lose by your own words.

The fact that it has taken many more powers than it is legally entitled to (largely through the type of ignorance of our system among the populace which you have so eloquently demonstrated) is irrelevant to that point.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[urbanRealist]

G.W. Bush isn't a conservative.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Free_Meson]

You didn't say it directly, but you did compare Obama's preacher, Rev. Wright to Jerry Falwell. Obama and Wright were clearly buddies. Falwell and McCain are not.

I'm not sure you're aware of this, but Wright was actually quoting the comments of a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq in that soundbite. How dare a pastor quote a leading expert on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East when discussing a consequence of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/21/meet-the-white-man-who-_n_92793.html

And of course if you actually read what Wright said in that speech you'll notice how pointed and insightful his remarks are, just as you'd expect from a preacher of national renoun for over a decade. (He was the preacher that Bill Clinton repented to with much fanfare during the Monica mess.)

Neither is misrepresenting someone's position ("McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years" or "Obama is a Muslim")

Those aren't even remotely similar misrepresentations. McCain does want to stay in Iraq for 100 years subject to a specific condition (that it's within U.S. interests as he sees them). Given the poorly defined limits on the types of U.S. interest the current administration has deemed sufficient to justify invasion and occupation of sovereign nations, the limiting condition on McCain's statement offers little comfort for those who do not wish the U.S. to be engaged in wars of whimsy across the globe. I'm still waiting to hear what U.S. interest led us to invade Iraq and occupy it for five years. PBS just had a pretty good documentary of how the current administration created a separate office to manufacture "actionable intelligence" that contradicted what our own experts (and the rest of the intelligence community) was saying in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Being a Muslim isn't a position, and this portrayal of Obama as a Muslim is a misrepresentation of an immaterial fact meant to foment a bigoted response. He's never said anything to the effect that he is a Muslim and, if he were, it should have no impact on his suitability as a candidate to lead our country through a period of great domestic and diplomatic hardship.

While you may not disagree with them because they are not as far left leaning as the rest of them, they do go out of their way to represent all sides and have never celebrated the deaths of Americans in Iraq.

Do you actually watch Fox news? In most of their attempts to "represent all sides" that I've seen, they put on some minor player on the "other side" with little or no experience in TV commentary and yell at them. Their purpose isn't to serve as some reasonable counterpoint, but to be lampooned and caricatured in order for the fringe right-wing audience to feel comfortable in their disdain of the center and left. Fox news is theatre.

60 minutes for example just did a puff piece on Al Gore and global warming. They did not post an opposing view, and there is plenty to choose from.

Pray tell which "opposing view" has some traction in the non-crackpot scientific community, makes a distinction that is important to present, and can be clearly conveyed and properly qualified in a 2 minute dissent interview? Just because some wingnut disagrees with the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community doesn't mean he deserves national airtime, especially on a show like 60 minutes.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Nothing restricts the governments from infringing on those so called rights outside of what is outlined in the constitution. Nothing at all. I mean it is implied because of the declaration of independence but nothing is in place to restrict the government from impeding on your pursuit of happiness, your right to life, or your liberty. They can and do take them from people an almost a regular basis.

Lets call a spade a spade and shoot from the hip. If you can find something in the constitution that protects those endeavors, I would like to see it. It just isn't there. So if it is a right, it isn't protected.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Do you see where, in your own quote, it specifically backs up my statement?

Lol.. Your simply not understanding the problem. If any law designed to carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution and ends up infringing on your Life, Liberty or the pursuit of happiness, there is no protections stopping it from happening. I am not saying congress can pass a law with the specific intent to do that, it is just that any other law could step all over those rights and nothing protects it from happening.

Does it say to execute any powers somedumass arbitrarily decides it should have?
Why no, it doesn't.

Like I said, if the state created the law because I said so, there is nothing the constitution can do to stop it. Besides, it is a little late to be worrying about specific constitutionality of what congress can and cannot do. They expanded and grossly exaggerated the interstate commerce clause in order to settle a constitutional crisis during the Roosevelt term. They still abuse that to this day.

So like I said, if it is a right, nothing in the constitution protects that right.

Thanks for playing, but you lose by your own words.

It looks like you can only win by playing dumb and ignoring three quarters of the argument. In the real world, that doesn't really count as winning.

The fact that it has taken many more powers than it is legally entitled to (largely through the type of ignorance of our system among the populace which you have so eloquently demonstrated) is irrelevant to that point.

It seems that you are demonstrating realms of ignorance here too. I would agree with you on this except for the point you made about me. Of course you have been wrong before about stuff like that too. You see, you would be ignoring the incidental situation where another law for a legitimate purpose treaded onto those rights in which the constitution could not do anything to prevent because it doesn't restrict the government in relation to them. Also, you are ignoring the 10th amendment, the power of the states, in which all other power is rested, where they could tread on those rights without fear of constitutional arguments because nothing restricts governments from impeding on those rights.

Now if you can address those two point, I would be satisfied and agree with you. But I don't think you can which is why you seemed to ignore them when I posted the last time.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Ironsides]

Sadam didn't come to power until 1968, after spending a year in prison. The coup was in 1963. Try again.

If you want to call sending in skirmish parties an invasion, you don't know much about war.

And you really don't know much about the area either. Every place targeted during those 10 years of bombing was part of the military. Not random civilians. Ever look at the videos from the 'actual' invasion of Iraq? Where we have tanks rolling down and the people glad to see us come in because it meant Saddam was out?

As for the foreign fighter, WTF is your point? Not counting on foreign fighters coming in as well as al-Qaeda (another American product since we set them up, armed them, and trained them to fight the Soviets)

The US did not set up, arm or train Al Qaeda or Ossama Bin Laden at any time. Try again. And those foreign fighters make up the majority of the 'insurgents' in Iraq. Although how you can call someone an insurgent when they directly target their own people in a market or a funeral is beyond me.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ChaoticLimbs]

Voting for President is not a Constitutional right. It has been asserted that voting for one's Congressional representative is a right subject to some qualifications, but remember that early in our history only land owning males (and just the white ones) were permitted to vote. It has been amended such that one may not be denied the right to vote based on race or sex, but the government and the parties do not have to have a popular vote for president. The states' legislatures could simply select a candidate and it would be perfectly legal.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Dun Malg]

I guess life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness aren't rights either Pursuit of happiness has never been established as a right. The phrase was used by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, which is not part of our nation's laws. The US Constitution says "Life, Liberty, and Property".

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

I'm not sure you're aware of this, but Wright was actually quoting the comments of a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq in that soundbite. How dare a pastor quote a leading expert on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East when discussing a consequence of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East...

Really? That ambassador said that white people in the US government invented AIDS to kill black people? That same ambassador said that the white led US government invented crack so that they could lock the black man up? That ambassador said that Hillary Clinton can't be president because she's never been called a ni... well, you get the idea.
Sorry, that excuse is full of shit! It may explain one comment, but it does not explain what lack of class it took to say it the first Sunday after 9-11. People needed comforting, not to be accused.

McCain does want to stay in Iraq for 100 years subject to a specific condition (that it's within U.S. interests as he sees them).

OK, I have to call bullshit on this one... again. Why in the Hell would McCain WANT US forces in Iraq or anywhere else in the world? If it serves US interest, sure, he'll keep them there but he doesn't WANT them there. Just like doing the dishes serves my interest in getting laid, but that doesn't mean I WANT to do the dishes. Sorry, your stretch is pretty pathetic and well... it's bullshit. You have made yourself look stupid for even trying it. It even made me look stupid to respond to something so idiotic!

Being a Muslim isn't a position, and this portrayal of Obama as a Muslim is a misrepresentation of an immaterial fact meant to foment a bigoted response. He's never said anything to the effect that he is a Muslim and, if he were, it should have no impact on his suitability as a candidate to lead our country through a period of great domestic and diplomatic hardship.

Uh, he went to a Muslim school as a child and fucking name is Barak Hussein Obama! No, he's not a Muslim, but it is a fair question to ask.

Do you actually watch Fox news?

I pretty much watch all the network news outlets. Fox is the only one that shows two sides to a story.

In most of their attempts to "represent all sides" that I've seen, they put on some minor player on the "other side" with little or no experience in TV commentary and yell at them. Their purpose isn't to serve as some reasonable counterpoint, but to be lampooned and caricatured in order for the fringe right-wing audience to feel comfortable in their disdain of the center and left.

Uh, do YOU ever watch Fox News? May I recommend Hannity and Colmes. Maybe Geraldo's show where he calls Bill O'Reilly a racist bigot.
As for liberals that look like jackasses on national TV, it is either because their position is indefensible or they are just not used to being challenged. They are not challenged on any OTHER network. We must also consider the possibility that maybe they are just jackasses.

Oh, and did you know that Rupert Murdoch donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign? Also Harold Ford Jr, Charles Schumer, John F. Kerry, Max Cleland, Edward J. Markey, Edward Kennedy, Bill Bradley and other Democrats. That right wing BASTARD!

Pray tell which "opposing view" has some traction in the non-crackpot scientific community, makes a distinction that is important to present, and can be clearly conveyed and properly qualified in a 2 minute dissent interview? Just because some wingnut disagrees with the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community doesn't mean he deserves national airtime, especially on a show like 60 minutes.

See, you've already set up your response. In your mind, any scientist who does not buy into GW is automatically a crackpot in your view. It doesn't matter if they were on the IPCC board like Chris Landsea Ph.D (here are some of his

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Shakrai]

You didn't say it directly, but you did compare Obama's preacher, Rev. Wright to Jerry Falwell.

I'm getting a little tired of people putting words into my mouth. I didn't "compare" them. The GP quoted Rev. Wright's questionable statements about 9/11 in the middle of a rant about "the left". It's only fair to find a similar quote from a religious figure on the right.

Obama and Wright were clearly buddies. Falwell and McCain are not.

Again, at what point in my original post did I bring up McCain? Or Obama for that matter? You are making connections that I never did and implying that I said things I did not.

they do go out of their way to represent all sides

Finding some far-right wing nutcase who screams at some far-left nutcase is not "representing" all sides. And since when did the news media need to "represent" anything? Their job is to report the news.

Downmodding because you disagree with posts is not

You must be new here ;)

Neither is pushing hate onto the other side ("McCain is the enemy" as an earlier poster [slashdot.org] put it. GGGP or something).

Maybe you should read my reply to said earlier poster before you assume that I'm in the camp of calling John McCain an enemy. I agree with that man on very little but I do have a fair amount of respect for him.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Stormie]

There really isn't a lot of press coverage for when baseless accusations are proven to be nothing

There can be. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_pamphlet_scandal for a story from last year's Australian federal election where the revelation of a falsehood became an enormous story just before polling day, and is believed to have definitely hurt the government in the polls.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ArcherB]

That's odd, I've never made any statements similar to the random comments you extruded from various random websites. Sorry, but MSNBC's primetime show is not exactly some "random website". Oh yeah, the same guy also did commentary for NBC Football. Not exactly someone outside the mainstream.

Yet you just made a statement upthread claiming that I and ALL of the other commentors over at DailyKos Hate America, and unless the Democratic party as a whole rejects DailyKos, they too Hate America. No, I said that many of the comments at Daily Kos and Huffpo are hate filled and bigoted. I also pointed out that no one on the left seems to mind. Besides, I wouldn't exactly call Markos Moulitsas some commentor on the Daily Kos. He's the founder! What was he said? What did the FOUNDER of daily Kos say when talking about Americans whose charred bodies were mutilated and hung from a bridge in Fallujah?

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them. Of course, not all liberals agree with him. Juan Williams slammed him. However, there are WAY too many that think it's OK to say stupid shit like that. There are those out there who defend that kind of hate filled garbage. Congratulations! You are one of those people.

I just don't see the logic in all of this. It's hard to logically justify such hatred. That's why so many people on the FAR left vilify their opponents. That's why you hear so much "Bush is Hitler" talk. It's the only way they can justify such blind hatred.

And besides, don't you think it's possible that someone could do a search of right-wing websites and find similar comments? What would such a summary say about you? If you could find it, I would be the next to denounce it. I looked it up, why can't you? While I'm sure there is hateful things said from the right, they are not nearly as prevalent and others on the right are the first to slam them down. Also, you don't find these hate filled people from the right getting over a million hits on their blogs like the DailyKos.

(I was going to link to another story at Kos where the writer was hoping for America to be invaded, conquered and occupied, just so we'd know what it felt like and would become peace loving hippies. I figure, that has worked so well in Israel and the Palestinian territories that it has to be worth a shot. However, the story "can't be found", however, it has tags and 102 comments! I guess some things are too vile for Kos... Oh wait! It's an election year!)

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

Nobody RTFD the rest of the discussion before posting do they?!?!? Of course not ... this is /.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[galego]

OK ... enough, enough already ... RTFROTD (RTF rest of the discussion) before posting people! I will also show restraint before posting so hastily ... or at least clarify myself better.

Reading the rest of the discussion would highlight that:

1) I admit not having memorized the constitution or even having read it lately. Yes, I can admit hypocrisy and mistakes. One might wonder what I'm doing on /.
2) It was mostly a matter of semantics
3) The real point/issue is that uninformed herded masses of people who don't think before voting (kind of like posting hastily in my case) ... are not good for for our government and society. That, and the media doesn't help a lot because following an issue until the truth is settled doesn't always sell ads and pay the bills immediately.

But, I'll give you credit ... you are the first to actually cite constitution in the discussion. Congrats, go to the front of the thread.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[TempeTerra]

Eventually, it would stop, once everyone is dead or under the uber-strict control we went [to Iraq] to break.

Oh, is that what it was about?

</snark>

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Ohwell, at least Gore didn't say he'd be happy if we were in Iraq for another 100 years.

Yep! And I'm sure glad John McCain didn't say that, either. That is, of course, what you were attempting to allude to, wasn't it? Or are you engaging in a little bit of the putting-words-in-my-opponents-mouth mudslinging that you were so busy condemning a few posts ago?

For the record, John McCain's comments about U.S. troops being in Iraq 100 years from now in no way implied "he'd be happy" with such a situation. He pointed out that about half a century ago we were in Germany and Japan and we're still there today. Surely the time has passed from us being occupiers to being allies, as in NATO and similar setups, but it doesn't change the fact that U.S. troops are still on Germany and Japanese soil. We have an obligation to them since we pretty much wrote their postwar constitutions, forcing them into a pacifist stance with relatively weak militaries. How long do you think Berlin would've lasted had we not engaged in the Berlin Airlift?

It's entirely possible that U.S. troops could be on Iraqi soil 100 years hence, but it's ludicrous folly to suppose that our mission will be that of an occupying army of a defeated foe. The goal we're all working towards is a stable, functioning democracy in the Middle East. It's never been done before (outside of Israel, that is), and it's going to take a while. Ducking out because things haven't been wrapped up in time for the last commercial break is the most stupid thing we could do. Instant gratification might be neat at a mall when picking out clothes, but it has no place on the world stage. Go look up the Marshall Plan and you'll see what I mean.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[electrosoccertux]

I can't see anybody from the far left acting with that particular brand of blind hatred, can you?

To be honest, I sure can. That's the problem with anyone on the far {left,right,top,bottom}. Reddit, digg, and youtube are prime examples of this left hate.

I've never seen such hate and stupidity combined at once. With the republicans at least they seem to be smart about it, or represent a smarter voting group.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[severoon]

So let me get this straight. According to your argument, the Constitution does not specifically grant the right to live, therefore Americans don't have an inborn and innate right to life? Before you answer, I recommend you read everything you've written in this thread thus far.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

The first amendment was never intended to give corporations voice, but people's. In the U.S., an Australian is running the media show. This is only possible due to his vast corporate empire. The whole political process has been subverted and you cannot blame the people. You can blame the media -- the corporate media.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Well, no. The constitution doesn't grant anything except prohibitions on actions of the government as far as rights are concerned. You might very well have an inborn and innate right to life but according to the constitution, nothing is stopping the government from taking that away from you or depriving it from anyone. So it isn't a protected right.

We have seen this happen with draft legislation where a person is compelled under pain of imprisonment to put their life in jeopardy against their wishes. We see this happen in some capitol cases where the government deprives a person of their life. The constitution itsef specifically allows for this in cases of treason. But nothing is stopping them from requiring every first born be late term aborted and so on except common sense and a backlash of the people. They can probably get by with just redefining a fetus to include newborns up to five or ten days old and maybe stretch it to one year. There is literally nothing in the constitution preventing that and the current cases on abortion only deal with the government telling a woman what she can do with her body and the government's ability to regulate in that area. This "to kill the first born child" might not specifically come from the federal government. Like I said, they could redefine a life and fetus in order to include newborn babies and a state could pass the law requiring the abortion after the baby is born for population control or whatever.

It could go other ways too. The federal government could redefine a capital offense and include the death penalty for repeat rape convictions or whatever to eventually or gradually include theft and so on so it wouldn't be all the sudden "cruel and unusual". They did it for kidnapping and you can face the death penalty even if the person kidnapped wasn't harmed at all. Or it could be even less obvious and the feds could institute a law making it ok to use deadly force in an attempt to capture nonviolent persons and forbid anyone from being sued or prosecuted for any actions relating to it (essentially paving the way for an American Tienanmen square).

There are some limitations built in like the specific powers the government has, other protections like the 4th and 5th amendments, State constitutions and so on. It might not even be probably that it would ever happen but it is possible as long as nothing specifically forbids the government from depriving you of your life. But if memory serves me right, in 1946 Truman seized the railroads and was in the process of drafting every last striking-worker and compelling them to service in the military and then force them to work the rails. It happened that just before the vote, when Truman was finishing up his speech, he was notified that the union workers agreed to a settlement that Truman himself put on the table so they didn't have to take the liberty away from union workers. In 1914, the united mine workers of America went on strike at John D. Rockefeller's Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation in Ludlow, Colorado. They built a ten city and survived the winter to be met with Colorado National Guard who open fired and burnt the tents down killing 11 children and two women without retribution.

The constitution did nothing to stop those situations or forbid the actions that deprived people of their life, almost their liberty and for a few, their pursuit of happiness (running their railroad). This is what I mean by they might be a right but they aren't a protected right. In the case of Truman, he use the general welfare clause* (article 1 section 8) to justify his action and congress was going right along with him.

* The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[ViVeLaMe]

And those foreign fighters make up the majority of the 'insurgents' in Iraq.

No, Sir, you're full of shit. The *vast* majority of insurgents are actually iraqis. That shows very clearly in the nationality of the ones arrested or killed by the occupation forces. Or are you saying that US soldiers over here aren't killing or arresting "insurgents"? That would be dreadful, all those innocent iraqi civilians..

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[William-Ely]

I feel the same way but for different reasons. I think voting is like choosing the lesser of two evils since none of the candidates represent my beliefs exactly. Political muckraking is like a Linux vs. Microsoft flame-war that gets stirred up every four years when a new version comes out. Personally, I don't care which candidate can answer a phone at 3:00 AM, nor do I care about their personal lives.

Sometimes I think I should start my own political party. I'd probably call it something like "The Progressive Apathy and Indifference Party". The party slogan would just be "meh". All I would need to rise to power is enough United Statians who only give a small fraction of a rat's ass about politics to vote for me.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Mutant321]

The Romans were a pretty amazing civilization for their time, but you'd hope we'd advanced somewhat since then. You'd hope we've even advanced as a society since the 19th century. I really don't see a place for excessive mudslinging in politics. A small amount is fair enough, so long as it's well grounded in reality. After all, even if your local system doesn't allow you to vote for a person directly, you are ultimately voting for people to make decisions on your behalf.

However, the more important thing should be the issues at hand. Unfortunately, our current Western systems do a pretty bad job of covering them, or even generating interest. My opinion is that the politicians, media and voters are all partially to blame, but it's possible the system itself that needs to be addressed.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

(Original post has disappeared for some reason, reposted so people can read it. This is an important issue to me, people like the parent are, despite their protestations to the contrary, very much following the well-travelled path of "There's no difference between the candidates" that were how we got into this mess in the first place. Just because my comments offend a handful of right-wingers does not in any way mean they shouldn't be made - this is more important than ever, we're up against a candidate that is preparing the ground for more unnecessary wars, does not appear to have any idea of the effects the likely oncoming economic collapse will have on ordinary people and America's future if not stopped, and who has a trigger-personality that's actively frightening for someone whose finger will be on the bomb. We can't afford to let him win.)

The 100 more years quote isn't quoted because we're trying to make McCain look bad by somehow quoting him out of context, it's because it's a legitimate summary of his position on the occupation of Iraq. I'm sure Republican nit-pickers and Clinton haters love the fact it's possible to come up with an apologia for the original comment, but the fact is we're using that quote because that's his position. McCain wants us to stay in Iraq, no matter what the costs, without regard to an objective, without regard to the damage it does to this country, without regard to the value of the lives lost and the hatred and resentment the deaths on both sides will cause.

That's a fact. It's fair to object to a quote being out of context when the purpose of the quote is to mislead. This is not the case. McCain really is that dangerous, and the sooner the "I'll vote for McCain rather than vote for my party's nominee because my party's nominee called my prefer candidate a poopy-head" Democrats GROW UP and face reality, and face the fact that your little tantrum is going to help destroy this country, the better.

I don't like Clinton either. I don't like many of her positions, such as her views on censorship. I'll still support her ahead of McCain, because McCain really is that bad.

You know, you'd have thought after losing two Presidential elections because you thought your guy wasn't any different to their guy, you'd have learned this by now. "Gore and Bush are exactly the same, I'm going to stay home", "Kerry voted for the war, so even though he has a history of liberalism, and now opposes the war, I'm going to pretend he's exactly the same and stay home." Clinton is not McCain. She's not going to keep us in Iraq indefinitely. She's not going to propose anti-privacy and anti-human rights judges to SCOTUS. She's not the enemy here. Don't fuck up for a third time.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

I think the mistake you made was in assuming I and every other American are fucking idiots.

Claiming "That's not fair! It was taken out of context" and then going into a two paragraph rant about how we have to stay in Iraq no matter what the cost really doesn't make for a good argument.

Besides, you do realize the Marshall Plan came from the Democrats. It's clear Republicans don't know a single thing about the foundations of Democracy, much less Capitalism.

Time to hand this over to the Democrats, so they can clean up your mess.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

If you could find it, I would be the next to denounce it. I looked it up, why can't you? While I'm sure there is hateful things said from the right, they are not nearly as prevalent and others on the right are the first to slam them down. Also, you don't find these hate filled people from the right getting over a million hits on their blogs like the DailyKos.

Did your mother not love you as a child?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sheldon]

I've never heard of Ann Coulter or Michael Savage wishing for the painful deaths of the families of prominent liberals, either. Your comparison is invalid.

Didn't Ann Coulter get kicked out of the CPAC convention because her rhetoric was too hateful for them?

Strange that you would defend her. I though you said you would denounce such language?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Just Some Guy]

I can't see anybody from the far left acting with that particular brand of blind hatred, can you?

Never. Members of the far left are always reasonable and sane.

My point here is simply that no faction has a monopoly on crazed jackasses.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[dscruggs]

Go commit a felony and you'll see.

Criminal punishment is a loss of rights, not privileges. If you break the law, you lose certain rights except certain ones enumerated in the Consitution (i.e. the right not to be subjected to cruel & unusual punishment).

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[severoon]

Well, it sounds like your argument is now a lot more rational that it at first seemed, however, I think we might be hung up on semantics here. I'm not quite sure anyone else in this discussion (myself included) is quite clear on what the exact meaning of right and protected right are as you're using them. I presume you're using the same meaning of right as is meant in the Constitution—which could precipitate considerable debate in its own right—but in my way of thinking that definition would leave little air for a distinction between itself and a protected right. I would think that by virtue of being a right, it's something worth protecting.

I don't mean to discount your historical examples out-of-hand, but I'm not sure of their usefulness in this discussion. There are lots of examples throughout American history of actions taken by the government that are to varying degrees unConstitutional—from the examples you cite to Japanese internment camps to wiretapping MLK to Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus—each a complex Constitutional issue in its own right, but more to the point, each requires interpretation. We cannot point to something the government did and say it is, by virtue of the fact that it was done, somehow impactful to this discussion. The fact that something was done in the past and ensuing opinion about that action does not bear on its Constitutionality (and then there's the more complex issue of whether it is Constitutional by today's standards—it is recognized by most that the interpretation of the Constitution has always been intended to change with the times).

In any case, my basic stance in this discussion is this: the Constitution does not grant the people rights—to the contrary, it limits the rights of the people. Its primary purpose is to grant the government specific and limited rights, with the assumption that anything which is not explicitly set forth is by default assumed to be in favor of the people. (I also think that if Jefferson were alive today and watched how our system operates, his first reaction might just be to go running for his musket.) So I don't think the possible futures you set forth are all Constitutionally possible. Abortion is a complex example, but I believe the basic legal premise for the current federal stance is:

• a fetus is not legally considered a separate life
• there is nothing in the Constitution that specifically provides the government rights to interfere with a woman's choices about her own body—which, legally, whether you like it or not, is what a fetus is...part of the woman's body
• therefore the government has no Constitutional right to infringe on a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy, and thusly, we are currently a pro-choice nation at the federal level

So, like I say above, this particular example you chose is unfortunate because it is so complex (life, states' rights, etc) and depends so much upon interpretation, but the basic premise is that the Constitution should be regarded as a government white list, not a people's black list, of rights.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[sumdumass]

Well, it sounds like your argument is now a lot more rational that it at first seemed, however, I think we might be hung up on semantics here. I'm not quite sure anyone else in this discussion (myself included) is quite clear on what the exact meaning of right and protected right are as you're using them. I presume you're using the same meaning of right as is meant in the Constitution--which could precipitate considerable debate in its own right--but in my way of thinking that definition would leave little air for a distinction between itself and a protected right. I would think that by virtue of being a right, it's something worth protecting.

I am allowing anything to be defined as a right in this context. A protected right would be anything considered a right by anyone that the constitution forbids the government from trampling on or that the constitution provides some protect to. Examples of protected rights might be Due process, freedom of religion, free press, not to be discriminated on voting based on your skin color or gender, and so on. The protected rights in this context simply mean that the constitution protects it in some way or fashion.

I'm not trying to be clever or anything, it is just that anything protected by a law can be chaged by another law, anything protected by the constitution stops the government from treading on it unless they change the constitution which is a lot harder to do.

I don't mean to discount your historical examples out-of-hand, but I'm not sure of their usefulness in this discussion. There are lots of examples throughout American history of actions taken by the government that are to varying degrees unConstitutional--from the examples you cite to Japanese internment camps to wiretapping MLK to Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus--each a complex Constitutional issue in its own right, but more to the point, each requires interpretation. We cannot point to something the government did and say it is, by virtue of the fact that it was done, somehow impactful to this discussion. The fact that something was done in the past and ensuing opinion about that action does not bear on its Constitutionality (and then there's the more complex issue of whether it is Constitutional by today's standards--it is recognized by most that the interpretation of the Constitution has always been intended to change with the times).

I chose those examples specifically because no one that I am aware of has been able to challenge the constitutionality of the actions. As you mentioned, that still doesn't mean they weren't unconstitutional but we have no direct evidence that they would be. History has shown us though, that the states are able to use the state national guard against it's own people even if it results in deaths. Kent state Ohio was a situation where this happened and has never been challenged on the constitutionality. There 4 students lost their "life" because a jittery and poorly trained soldier mistook a broom stick held by a janitor on a roof top as a riffle and followed orders to protect their unit. Kennedy was actually upheld by his actions regarding sending national guard troops into Arkansas to force the integration of a school- effectively enforcing a federal "law" and not a constitutional provision.

Also, you mentioned Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. You do realize that this situation had two fazes to it right. Lincoln unilaterally suspended habeas corpus and caught a bunch of grief over which was never adjudicated by the supreme court. It was tried in front of the chief justice who was doing circuit duty at the time and had several conflicts of interest. Lincoln then went to congress and had them suspend Habeas Corpus officially which was held to be valid by the courts (Supreme court) when applied in the ways congress specified. To clear that up, The Supreme court, including the chief justice who ruled against Lincoln earlier, allowed the suspension of Habeas corpus to stand

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Ironsides]

You mean those guys with the equipment stamped "Made in Iran" are Iraqis? Interesting.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

Yeah, I'm kind of bewildered by it. It's not even as if the right are making any sense, look at the fury they've worked themselves into by me describing the guy we have to beat as "the enemy".

I think the far-right have gotten so used to the "hatred" meme (an ironic meme for the wingnuts to paint liberals with if ever there was one) they just work themselves into a hatred-ridden tizzy on principle.

They're lunatics, which is another good reason why we need them out of power in November, whether we get the candidate we want, or have to make do with Hillary Clinton.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

No, you actually said that McCain WANTS to be in Iraq for the next 100 years. That's a lie, plain and simple.

Can't argue with what the man said, so short of you assuming I can mind-read and that McCain really isn't happy with us being in Iraq for 100 years, I can't really determine where you're getting it from that I'm "lying". McCain said it, and I believe him, he, like you, really is that crazy.

Adversary, maybe. Enemy? No. And that is the problem with so many like you. You consider everyone on the other side the "enemy".

Well, yeah, that's the definition of enemy.

You'll make yourself believe whatever it takes to justify your raw hatred for them.

I haven't actually displayed any hatred for the guy, so I'm inclined to wonder whether you've lost your marbles. I'm guessing you're so sucked into the Rush Limbaugh "TEH LIBERALS DISAGREE WITH US BECAUSE THEY HATE US" meme you've lost what remaining ability you had to understand logic, reason, and empathy.

I don't hate Obama nor Clinton. I do not see them as the enemy. I'll back whichever of the three make it the office because I love America more than a political party and partisanship. I can't say the same for people like you.

I look forward to you telling us how you put your hand over your eyes when you voted just to make sure your pick was truly random, because it's not like you'd be disappointed if a particular candidate wins or anything.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

ultimately, an act of treason, a betrayal of a nation of people, of your neighbors and friends and family and yourself

It's really hard to take you seriously when you call John McCain the 'enemy' and link supporting him (directly or indirectly) to something as despicable as treason. Let me help you out with treason: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

It's hard to take you seriously when your talking points appear to be the same as the idiot wingnuts who have also suddenly decided that the act of taking sides in an election is "hatred" and you fail to understand basic English.

John McCain is the enemy. He is the person we're trying to beat at this election. We're trying to beat him because we believe our candidates, Clinton and Obama, will steer this country in the right direction whereas John McCain will fuck it up even more. John McCain's values are not ours.

For us to deliberately vote for John McCain, knowing, as we do, that we will be damaging the country by doing so, is an act of treason. I'm not accusing McCain of treason, I'm accusing you - that is, a member of the group I described that is willing to vote for McCain or refuse to vote for Clinton or Obama if your chosen candidate doesn't get the nomination - of treason. McCain's an idiot right-winger. He genuinely believes that endless war is in the country's best interests. He's not deliberately trying to destroy the country out of spite. You are.

Get it?

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[tgrigsby]

More so than the 2004 election in which news reports circulated of George Bush ordering Constitution-violating wiretaps, Bush's administration lying to Congress about the case for war in Iraq, and the GOP "swift boating" John Kerry? More than when a man that sells our natural resources to the highest bidder was touting his environmental record? More than when a man that claimed to be waging a war on terror left the head terrorist running around the border of Pakistan and turned our forces instead against a sovereign nation that did not threaten us in the least? More than when a man who joined the Air National Guard and then didn't show up for duty in order to avoid Viet Nam slandered a decorated war hero?

And yet that poor excuse for a man "won" re-election?

No way.

Dude, I lost my faith in politics in 2004. What few tatters of faith I managed to gather about me in 2006 were burnt to ashes when Nancy Pelosi announced that impeachment was "off the table." The only faith I have now is in knowing with certainty that Obama is the most inspirational leader to run for president in my lifetime, in knowing that, if America got smart just once and put him into office this country might stand a chance of regaining its power, its dignity, its international standing, and its moral imperative. I have faith that if Obama gets the presidency, he will turn this nation around 180 degrees. I have faith that he will really fight terrorism using whatever means are available to him without murdering innocent people, by proxy, based on lies. I have faith that he will turn the economy around, restore funding to our schools, and make serious inroads to correcting the financial slide of Social Security, Medicaid, and other social net programs. I have faith that he will finally put to rest the notion that only a rich white man can gain the highest office in the country.

But I have no faith that any of this will actually come to pass. I'll believe it when I see him take the oath of office. Then, and only then, will I finally regain my faith in politics.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[squiggleslash]

Ah, the classic double standard of right-wing politics.

1. All liberals are responsible if one person, liberal or not, compares Bush to Hitler
2. All Muslims are responsible if one person who identifies themselves as Islamic blows up a building
3. All Blacks churchgoers are responsible if their pastor quotes a major mainstream political figure as suggesting that the US may have done some bad things in the past
4. No conservatives are responsible if Ann Coulter wishes for the death of the entire staff of the New York Times
5. A Presidential Candidate is not responsible if he actively solicits the endorsement of preachers who have already promoted hatred against blameless groups and who have suggested the US deserved being attacked by terrorists for not being Godly enough - as long as the Presidential Candidate is a Republican

None of the people you're responding to has in any way compared Bush to Hitler, or spewed hatred against any Republican, but apparently we're all responsible for those who have because we're liberals, even in cases where no such hatred has been apparent or implied.

Conservatives: The people who believe in personal responsibility for themselves and collective responsibility for everyone else.

Yet another reason to hold your nose and vote for the Democrat this November, whether it's the one we want or Hillary Clinton.

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[Anonymous Coward]

the ultimate responsibility lies on the voters -- if you're not paying attention, maybe you shouldn't vote. *shrug* Maybe I wont!

Re:Losing my faith in politics

[prisoner-of-enigma]

I think the mistake you made was in assuming I and every other American are fucking idiots. No, not every other American, just you.

Claiming "That's not fair! It was taken out of context" and then going into a two paragraph rant about how we have to stay in Iraq no matter what the cost really doesn't make for a good argument. My God! With one completely empty sentence, devoid of any meaning or even a suggestion of action, you have destroyed my well-reasoned, fact-based argument! Surely, you are profound! My big toe quivers in your presence!

All of which is another way of saying that simply stating I don't have a good argument whilst simultaneously providing no proof of such "doesn't make for a good argument" for your point. Would you like a do-over?

Besides, you do realize the Marshall Plan came from the Democrats. It's clear Republicans don't know a single thing about the foundations of Democracy, much less Capitalism. I don't give a rat's ass where it came from, the fact is it worked rather well. Furthermore, if you examine the platform of the post WWII Democrats, you'd find they're far more aligned with 21st-century Republicans than Democrats. Today's Democrat is much more aligned with an early 20th-century Socialist.

Oh, and before you get your knickers all in a wad, this country is not a democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. The Founding Fathers went out of their way to not create a democracy, which they likened to mob rule.

Time to hand this over to the Democrats, so they can clean up your mess. Yes, because the Democrats have done such a good job in the past of cleaning up "messy" wars like Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, and...shall I go on? Nah, I won't bother. You're cranial density is obviously somewhere north of depleted uranium, rendering you absolutely impenetrable by any rational thought. You have my pity and my contempt.

Original research?

[grimJester]

"researching and writing a whole section"

There's a rule against original research on Wikipedia.

Re:Original research?

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Who said his research is original. Searching is a subset of researching.

Re:Original research?

[Marcika]

It doesn't say he did original research, and he almost certainly didn't. Collecting and summarizing secondary sources is a form of research too.

Re:Original research?

[Anonymous Coward]

not original research.
OR = I do a study, you read it
R = You do a study, I read it

Re:Original research?

[grimJester]

True, the research may be searching for sources. It still looks like he has his own ideas he wants to get across. That might count as POV rather than original research, but is still not very objective. From tfa:

"At the same time, he also believes Hillary the woman is widely misunderstood. "One of the things I've tried to get across in the article was how much people were impressed by her before she got married to Bill," he says."

Re:Original research?

[ijustam]

The article never stated if the research was original or not. Original research in such an article wouldn't last long before a zealous user plasters it with {{fact}} anyway.

Re:Original research?

[Doctor O]

One of the things I've tried to get across in the article was how much people were impressed by her before she got married to Bill," he says." Well, I'd say that isn't of any value. Most people are actually easy to impress.

WP:OWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure to keep http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles in mind, Jonathan.

Re:WP:OWN

[Otter]

What I've always found odd about Wikipedia is how their conflict of interest policy forbids people with overt interest in a subject from editing, but people with free-floating obsessions are free to spend their lives banging away at the page of their choice. Of course, that is the traditional idea of conflict of interest, but anyone familiar with the Internet should have learned by now that fanboys and crackpots are willing to put at least as much zealotry into their campaigns as anyone with money at stake will. So it's a SCANDAL!!!! if anyone from a Wal-Mart IP edits the article on the company, but it's fine for a full-time Wal-Mart hater to edit it day after day after day as long as he's not getting paid by the union-funded anti-Wal-Mart astroturf group which coordinates his efforts.

I'd say, just let everyone have at it. I don't see why Clinton's page would be any less accurate with her campaign editing it than with this weirdo doing it.

Re:WP:OWN

[Anonymous Coward]

the answer is that people with jobs are a threat to the mentally ill unemployed people who camp on wikipedia all day.

Johnatan Shilling?

[wanderingknight]

More like Johnatan Shill.

It's just a property of wikipedia

[rve]

It's not just Hillary Clinton's page.
Just for a laugh, check how often pages on completely neutral and uncontroversial subjects are vandalized.

The Carrot (vegetable)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carrot&action=history

Just in the past week:
- Replacing the entire page with "carrots cause wicked diarrhea"
- Replacing paragraph headers with "==Uses== (I LOVE NICK JONAS) .com! everything free!"

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[rve]

Should have used the preview button...

Just in the past week:
- Replacing the entire page with "carrots cause wicked diarrhea"
- Replacing paragraph headers with "==Uses== (I LOVE NICK JONAS) 3" and "==History== (I LOVE THE JONAS BROTHERS)"
- Inserting "CARROTS A.K.A Juno's mum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
- Adding nonsense like "the carrot was invented by the fairy princess Isis in 5009" and "The Glazed Carrot was Alexander Graham Bell's Favorite Food."
- "The carrot/ Reece(who likes the carrot) Hannam"
- Adding nationalistic bullshit
- "They look like penises."
- replaced page with "Everyone Go To www.some url.com! everything free!"

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[nguy]

Just for a laugh, check how often pages on completely neutral and uncontroversial subjects are vandalized.

Neutral? Uncontroversial? I'm being haunted by killer carrots from outer space, you insensitive clod! Aieeeee....

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[niceone]

- Replacing the entire page with "carrots cause wicked diarrhea"

OK, I laughed. Is that very wrong? Probably is.

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

"They look like penises"

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason I'd really like to vote for the humble carrot for our presidential candidate for 2008.

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[Riff10111]

My own two favorites I spotted were Edgar Allen Poe's entire article reduced to "Edgar Allen Poe was a homosexual." and the list of discontinued flavors of Doritos including the item "Creamy Cock".

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[seededfury]

showing off your vandal work, eh? Nice. Keep up the good work.

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[Hatta]

Why would John Kerry have any better chance this time?

Re:It's just a property of wikipedia

[scaryjohn]

I was going to bring up the recent AD Council campaign about young voters not voting, and its fanciful candidates, like Frozen Peas for Senate. When I went to the site, I discovered that campaign has been replaced with one essentially proselytizing Buddhism.

?!?!

Good to know my Church & State hackles get up even when the majority religion isn't the one benefitting.

I find it interesting...

[Gordonjcp]

... that one of the Obama "editors" calls himself "Bellwether".

  Until recently, Bellwether, a.k.a. Kevin Bailey, was an analogue to Schilling on Obama's page.

Anyone know what a bellwether is? No? It's a neutered male sheep, with a bell on a cord around its neck. You let it loose in open grazing, and it will find other sheep, and then you find it by listening for the bell ringing as it ineffectually tries to mate with the ewes it's found.

Probably not the best nickname to choose, I'm thinking.

Re:I find it interesting...

[El_Muerte_TDS]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellwether

A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

Re:I find it interesting...

[mh1997]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellwether A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.

and the very next sentnece reads: "The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) in order that this animal might lead its flock of sheep." Which is what the parent stated.

Re:I find it interesting...

[howdoesth]

The definition of a word is not the same thing as its etymology.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Gordonjcp]

However, the term is still used in the archaic sense. Ask a sheep farmer.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Given that just about no one uses Middle English anymore, and that almost no one uses the term that way, the more current definition applies. This is just another example of the many words we use that effectively don't mean what they originally meant, just like the surname "Smith" doesn't mean you're a blacksmith.

Re:I find it interesting...

[squiggleslash]

This is true, but it's still worth being careful. The word "Cretin", for instance, is (ultimately, via a level of indirection) derived from the word "Christian"; for those who know the etymology it's generally wise to be careful about whose company you use the word in.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "Cretin", for instance, is (ultimately, via a level of indirection) derived from the word "Christian"; for those who know the etymology it's generally wise to be careful about whose company you use the word in.

Mm... or "Mongoloid" which was coined becuase a racist thought it was devolved Asian genes sporadically coming back in "more evolved" Europeans. His name? Down. Yep, who gave the syndrome the more neutral name Down's syndrome.

Idiot, moron, retard and many other such words were originally medical terms, but they were eventually turned into derogatory slurs.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Medievalist]

Given that just about no one uses Middle English anymore, and that almost no one uses the term that way, the more current definition applies. This is just another example of the many words we use that effectively don't mean what they originally meant, just like the surname "Smith" doesn't mean you're a blacksmith. Um, the term "bellwether" is a modern term, used by sheep farmers, to refer to.... the bellwether of a flock. I've never seen a male bellwether, though, the sheep farmers I know both have female bellwethers. I don't know where that castrated ram thing comes from, perhaps that's antique. I am not personally a sheep herder, I just know some.

If you observe a flock of sheep for a couple of days you will understand that the rhetorical and rural meanings of the term are identical. A bellwether is the non-obvious leader of a flock; where the bellwether goes, the flock inevitably follows, although there is no visible organization and no chain of command. The bellwether does not do "command and control" and does not necessarily do any defense, (domestic sheep are notoriously bad at defense) that's not what being a bellwether is about. I think the other sheep have figured out that the bellwether makes better decisions than anyone else, perhaps from instinct or intelligence or just better sensory organs, and so they graze where the bellwether does simply because it pays off for them.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Mix Master Nixon]

The word "Cretin", for instance, is (ultimately, via a level of indirection) derived from the word "Christian"

I had no idea that was the case; that is without a doubt the most awesome thing I will learn today.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Intron]

Or perhaps, as with humans, sheep just follow the one making the most noise.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Petrushka]

Idiot, moron, retard and many other such words were originally medical terms, but they were eventually turned into derogatory slurs.

For reference, the first two of those may possibly have been medical terms at some time but that certainly wasn't their original usage. "Idiot" and "moron" have always been derogatory. "Idiot" originally meant "someone who doesn't participate in public life", hence "someone completely lacking social skills"; and "moron" meant quite simply "stupid". And "retard" was never a medical term, though it is derived from one.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Just Some Guy]

"Mongoloid" which was coined becuase a racist thought it was devolved Asian genes sporadically coming back in "more evolved" Europeans.

Are you sure about that? I thought it was because of the characteristic eyelid fold that looked distinctly Asian.

Re:I find it interesting...

[Medievalist]

"Mongoloid" which was coined becuase a racist thought it was devolved Asian genes sporadically coming back in "more evolved" Europeans. Are you sure about that? I thought it was because of the characteristic eyelid fold that looked distinctly Asian. You're both right. But I don't think Down was any more racist than most people of his generation. So-called "white" people (I'm sort of pinkish, myself) were for the most part extremely racist by modern standards, especially in England and the US. But we're getting better!

Down, who'd apparently never met a real live Mongol, thought that his "mongoloids" were literally the same as Asian Mongols based on the accepted descriptions of the time. I read his stuff a long time ago but I found it fascinating, really, especially the part about the chickens...

encyclopedia entries

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anybody guarding this page?

Re:encyclopedia entries

[Anonymous Coward]

Is anybody guarding this page?

      Anonymous is.

Re:HOLY CRAP

[rvw]

This is the worst slashdot story I've ever read and I'm an avid reader, have a shirt and everything. Make a bookmark people, this is it, one of the milestones of the decline and fall of slashdot. You have a shirt!?! And everything??? Wow, that's impressive.

I've bookmarked your reply. I think it's even worse than the article. Not that I read it.

Re:HOLY CRAP

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't have a shirt or anything.

born for the job?

[superwiz]

His name is Schilling? And he shills for Hillary? Is her campaign manager Miss Moneypenny? Am I the only who sees the irony?

Re:born for the job?

[superwiz]

no there's legions of other dumbass's posting about this obvious pun. Thank God! And if you don't like geeky jokes, may I suggest a different website for your "news": http://www.mtv.com/

Re:born for the job?

[mgblst]

A geeky bad joke is still a bad joke, and the joker still deserves to pay for his crimes against humour.

Re:born for the job?

[Fear the Clam]

His name is Schilling? And he shills for Hillary?

Only on the off season.

Re:born for the job?

[Foobar of Borg]

His name is Schilling? And he shills for Hillary?

Actually, he's a gynecologist, but this is his lunch hour.

The man is none other than Dick Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

And he guards it well with his shotgun. Don't even think of clicking that edit button, or it will be the SECOND last click you ever hear.

Re:The man is none other than Dick Cheney

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't even think of clicking that edit button, or it will be the SECOND last click you ever hear.

The word would be "penultimate," Chet.

I'm Loving It

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the best political theater I've seen in my 45 years: watching up-tight white Democrats tear themselves apart trying to choose between Clinton and Obama.

Man, this is better than when that asshole Paul Watson got his ass kicked by those Makah boys back in 1988. . .

It's just so - so satisfying watching smug, self-appointed know-it-alls tear down their own temples of self-righteousness.

Re:I'm Loving It

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just so - so satisfying watching smug, self-appointed know-it-alls tear down their own temples of self-righteousness. That description reminds me of the war in Iraq.

Re:I'm Loving It

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just so - so satisfying watching smug, self-appointed know-it-alls tear down their own temples of self-righteousness.

That description reminds me of the war in Iraq.

How so? I wouldn't necessarily call anti-war terrorist hugging hippies as smug. Pussies, yes. Smug, no.

Wikipedia, beacon of literacy

[192939495969798999]

Makes sense... if anyone goes to Wikipedia and sees "Hillary iz dumb!!!LOL1BBQ", we know that her official campaign stance is that she's dumb!!!1LOLBBQ

Just my two pence worth ...

[daveime]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

And for those of you who can't be bothered to google for the Wiki entry ...

"Who guards the guardians".

I thought the whole point of Wikipedia was that is was essentially a public resource, where anyone could add to it. If the whole whing is moderated, who draws the line between "vandalism", and just something that might put the subject "in a bad light" (regardless of the factual accuracy of it).

So anyone looking for "real" opinion may as well stay away from Wikipedia, as it's being managed by some of the same spin-doctors who manage the actual campaigns (and we all know how unbiased they are) :-(

Re:Just my two pence worth ...

[JasterBobaMereel]

The Guardians who are neutral (Well there must be some non-americans who don't care)

On articles about people it is blindly enforced that unsourced unverified statements are removed immediately ... it's very simple if you can't prove it remove it

So it's not moderation it simply verification

Re:Just my two pence worth ...

[Squeeself]

Without debating whether or not it actually accomplishes it, Wikipedia is about presenting facts, not opinions. If you want "real" opinions, Wikipedia should not be the place to go.

yet another reason wiki's don't work

[timmarhy]

who would have thought a totally open forum for posting nonsense against another persons name wouldn't work out....

Re:yet another reason wiki's don't work

[Foobar of Borg]

who would have thought a totally open forum for posting nonsense against another persons name wouldn't work out....

I'm confused. I didn't realize slashdot was a wiki.

Re:Twofo buttplugged goatse

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

Am I the only one who found parent entertaining?

As Steven Wright says...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

Re:As Steven Wright says...

[baldass_newbie]

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

Everywhere?

Re:As Steven Wright says...

[autophile]

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

I'd leave it all right where it was.

Speaking of imminent elections...

[Psicopatico]

(Please remember that Political Elections in Italy are due in April, 13 & 14)

And still the vast majoity of Italian politicians just say: "Wikiwhat!?!?!?!"

This saddens me.

"The Man" who guards clinton's wiki

[Flaming Babies]

He's got 5 of the last 500 edits to the page. Yeah, he's a real one man army defending the wiki...

Re:"The Man" who guards clinton's wiki

[Flaming Babies]

Maybe I should RTFA instead of just the comments. I thought that Bellwether was the one being given credit...

Re:"The Man" who guards clinton's wiki

[Anonymous Coward]

Utterly and completely incorrect. (And I'm not a coward, just lazy.)

Fairness

[wetelectric]

Jonathan Schilling, a 53-year-old software developer from New Jersey who works to keep Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia entry clean and fair throughout the election season.

Let's hope Jonathan isn't as 'fair' as the writer of the article summary.
Jeebus.

Self-appointed dictator?

[GauteL]

Having browsed through the Hillary Clinton page today I can't help feeling that the article has been vacuumed clean of any real criticism against her. One thing is removing obvious vandalism, but has Schilling (or someone else) gone too far in removing any reasonable criticism of Hillary?

1. Where is the mention of her being criticised for taking lobbyist money?
2. Where is the mention of critisism for her "exaggerating" her own stories for dramatic effect?

These are just two issues I can list at the top of my head which are completely missing from the article. Instead there is ample reference to awards she has been given.

As far as I know, Schilling has no official authority at Wikipedia and at the moment just acts as a self-appointed dictator that spends so much time on it that he manages to keep it "clean". When this happens, it is only fair to question whether he actually has an overly censoring position with regards to this article.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[dkleinsc]

The campaign page has a few more of the criticisms, but you're right that her biography page is carefully missing anything negative.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Yogi_Stewart_4]

Or the fact that Hilary is getting the female vote while staying loyal to a complete skirt-chaser, for strictly political reasons. I think the women vote that goes her way is the typical stereotype men detest - irrational, manipulative, will do anything to get her means (vote for a woman even though she's a political hooker).

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[sheldon]

That's pretty common for any wiki entries relating to current political events. Any criticism will be removed.

For instance looking at John McCain, there is some small mention of the Keating Five but it's limited to simply saying "He survived it", Which is interesting considering it is probably the biggest blight on his career. It doesn't even acknowledge the lessons he learned from that, which one can either see as smart politics, or cynicism. That being, when caught with your hand in the cookie jar, attack the makers of cookies. aka his "Maverick" quest for political reform.

Or if you want to get into games of political gotcha. There is no mention at all of his quotes on not knowing anything about the economy, or wanting us to stay in Iraq for 100 years.

Whether criticism is fair or not is entirely dependent upon your biases.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[sheldon]

Whoa, I don't support Clinton at all, but this is a perfect example of the childish inanity of many of the attacks upon her.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Yogi_Stewart_4]

How? Care to give a reason? Or are you one of the Hitlary bandwagoners who just "know it in their hearts" that Hil knows best. (and everyone else is no good)

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Ironsides]

or wanting us to stay in Iraq for 100 years.

"Wanting to" and "being able to" are two different things. Last I checked, we've been in Germany, Japan and England for over 60 years and South Korea for 50.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any criticism will be removed" is a problem. It's not an encyclopedia's job to make sure nobody gets their feelings hurt. Any criticism that can be verified (WP:V) by a reliable source (WP:RS) can and should remain in the article. Removing criticism for the sake of avoiding controversy is not supported by any Wikipedia policy. If such incidents occur, you A)talk it over and attempt to reach a consensus; B)report editors removing well-referenced statements (this qualifies as vandalism); and finally C)protect the page and enforce edits the hard way.

Of course, I have not looked at the article history so I don't know exactly what this person is doing in terms of "keeping it clean". Maybe he is doing the right thing. But the scenario that you suggest is wrong, according to Wikipedia policy and procedure. The quotes that you bring up about McCain are clearly out of context -- there isn't a single reliable source in the world that would present the quotation that way. Hence, they don't appear on his page, and rightfully so. I'm sure there are equally ludicrous interpretations of things Clinton has said, and likewise they don't and won't be put or remain on her page. Whether criticism is fair or not may depend on your bias, but the job of an encyclopedia is to give you all facts and let you draw your own conclusions, not to limit the facts to make the candidates "equal".

And why are we talking about this as if Clinton was going to be the nominee?

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[gad_zuki!]

>1. Where is the mention of her being criticised for taking lobbyist money?
>2. Where is the mention of critisism for her "exaggerating" her own stories for dramatic effect?

Oh man, that could be used against any politician. Look wikipedia is supposed to show a general entry about that person and their career. It shouldnt be whitewashed but it shouldnt be a line by line item of manufacturer media outrages. For instance if she had a conviction it should be noted, but if some bloger or newspaper says 'OMG DUDEZ SHE TOOK LOBBYI$T MONEY - $ELLOUT' that isnt noteworthy or unique. If fact, demanding this just shows how people want to turn wikipedia into a political flamefest.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, this is due to the Wiki police and their mastering of the rules.

For instance, on the Frank Luntz wikipedia page, you could try to say that as a pollster for Fox News he gamed the system in the Republican debates with his "impartial" undecided audience being fake and him contriving to get the answers he wanted. Even though video of this (shot in secret) was on Youtube -- all the wikipedia-ites cited "credible sources".

Well, if the NY Times doesn't cover it, I guess it doesn't exist. Fuck you wikipedia.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[sheldon]

Any criticism that can be verified (WP:V) by a reliable source (WP:RS) can and should remain in the article. Removing criticism for the sake of avoiding controversy is not supported by any Wikipedia policy

But criticism is opinion, and violates the neutral POV.

It's not so much about avoiding controversy. It's just that many of these entries are monitored by interested parties and they will eliminate any criticism, even if it's referenced, by claiming it violates the Neutral POV.

As such most pages regarding contemporary political subjects are gold plated fluff.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[sheldon]

"Wanting to" and "being able to" are two different things. Last I checked, we've been in Germany, Japan and England for over 60 years and South Korea for 50.

Al Gore called, and he'd like to offer some advice on how to explain away something you said and was taken out of context.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Plugh]

The Free State Project has a "what's your trigger point?" page, that lets people who join the Project, specify an event that would trigger their moving to New Hampshire. Basically, "What's the straw that would break the camel's back for you?"

For what's it's worth... by a long shot, the most common answer is, "If Hillary Clinton is elected to the office of President of the United States"

Go, Hillary, go!!

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[randyest]

But reporting that some prominent or respected figure criticized someone for something specific is fact, and does not necessarily violate NPOV.

As such most pages regarding contemporary political subjects are gold plated fluff.

Really? Try GWB's page:

After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism...

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[sheldon]

But reporting that some prominent or respected figure criticized someone for something specific is fact, and does not necessarily violate NPOV.

This goes back to the age old media question. What is a NPOV? Is it he said/she said, or is it pointing out that yeah he said something, but he's clearly wrong?

Now the historical references on wiki are generally filled with proper analysis pointing out who was wrong, etc. So it is possible to have this kind of analysis on wiki. I'm simply pointing out that it is impossible with a contemporary subject.

Really? Try GWB's page:

Actually Bush's page is a perfect example. There's very little criticism with substance. A bunch of crap about poll numbers, but given the dozens of books and thousands of scholarly papers dedicated to critiquing his foreign policy positions it is surprising that none of them are referenced.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Ironsides]

Dodging gets you no where.

Original Gore Quote: During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Questioner: President Bush has talked about us staying in Iraq for 50 years. Original McCain Quote: Maybe 100. We've been in South Korea. We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me so long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.

More like a deliberate misquote.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[sheldon]

More like a deliberate misquote.

And "Al Gore invented the Internet" was not?

you must be new here.

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[GauteL]

"But criticism is opinion, and violates the neutral POV."

And awards are just opinion given with a shiny metal/glass/whatnot object. Referencing criticism, as well as praise does NOT violate neutral POV. The crucial thing is that a neutral POV stipulates that you report things with references, but you do not make judgements. In fact, if you only reference the good and not the bad, you are violating NPOV. The same goes for the opposite case of course.

For instance this does not violate NPOV:
"On the third of July 2007, Washington Post reported that XXXX was having a sexual relationship with YYYY. XXXX has so far refused to comment on the allegations"

This does violate it:
"On the third of July 2007, Washington Post reported that XXXX was having a sexual relationship with YYYY. XXXX has so far refused to comment on the allegations, but we all know what the truth is"

Re:Self-appointed dictator?

[Ironsides]

Tell me, how much difference is there between creating and inventing?

Re:I maintain pedro's page....

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedro has no leadership ability.

Re:HOLY CRAP

[asylumx]

Clearly shirts from Slashdot are "Shirts that matter"

Well, as long as we're bringing fictional characte

[FreeUser]

Allow me to one-up your one-up. There was some serious personal war going on between Cain and Abel in the election for Best Shepard in the Early Universe.

Well, if we're going to start including fictional characters rather than historical figures, I'll do you one better. The mud slinging between Suaron the Deceiver and Gandolf the Grey was hard to beat...

Re:Well, as long as we're bringing fictional chara

[daff2k]

Suaron the Deceiver and Gandolf the Grey Ouch, how did you manage to misspell both names?

Typical /. troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you think it's fiction, that does not make it so.

Re:Typical /. troll

[Enlightenment]

Yet when all evidence suggests that it is fiction, that makes it likely.

Re:Typical /. troll

[JoshJ]

The burden of proof is on those who claim it to be fact. If you claim a book is nonfiction, prove it.

Re:Typical /. troll

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the beauty of it. I know I'm getting off topic (hence the AC) but their logic is that if you can prove it, it's no longer faith, therefore it's no longer proof. Like that? The logic of religion:

Truth = Faith. Faith = Divine Trust. Divine Trust *requires* NO proof, therefore Truth = No proof.
Scientists and those who tend to follow the scientific method believe Truth = Proof (replicatable processes.)

All I'm saying is that to tell a religious person to prove their philosophy is like telling a scientists to believe his experiment works just because it does. I don't believe the two communities will ever truly see eye-to-eye, but then again variety is the spice of life!

--beckerist

Re:Typical /. troll

[zehaeva]

just because you think its fact does not make it so.

Re:Typical /. troll

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're talking about the God of The Bible then no proof is needed. God has a "salvation plan" and will forcibly step into your life and "save" you. Your works or your beliefs are not relevant and there is no way to predict when God will step in and modify your brain.

Anyone who has not experienced that is just faking being saved. Religion...you can't make this stuff up--oh wait...

Re:Typical /. troll

[operagost]

Please show me the papyrus/stone tables/cave drawings that prove your assertion.

Re:Typical /. troll

[thegnu]

Truth = Faith. Faith = Divine Trust. Divine Trust *requires* NO proof, therefore Truth = No proof.

You just set off an electron cloud in my brain, and I'm now wondering if people really consider the comment about it being harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Because really, as Americans, we're some of the most ridiculously affluent sons of bitches EVER.

And yet all those people we're fighting are so poor...

Re:Typical /. troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Atheists use the term 'faith' like Creationists use the term 'theory'. No Christians, except perhaps fundamentalists, would have any problem with proof of biblical events being offered. A Christian's faith is not in the bible per se but in God. If there is no proof it does not bother Christians. If there is proof it does not bother Christians. For most Christians even proof to the contrary would not bother them. They'd simply reserve judgment or adapt their beliefs and maintain their faith in God.

Sincerely,
Anonymous Pantheist

Ironic

[Phoenix666]

It's ironic that in keeping Hillary's wikipedia page "clean," Schilling perpetuates the meme that the Clintons are always complaining about everyone picking on them whenever anyone calls them on their evasions, distortions, and whoppers.

will work for cushy job

[uncledrax]

If I end up doing e-police for the winner, think I can get an appointment as ambassador to a tropical island?

That said.. this article just helps to reflect the fact that major candidates might need to start thinking more on the IT side.. the elections are still held in Meat-Space, but a growing number of people are getting their news solely from Internet Sources, and of course many of the news programs get their sources from the Internet.

So.. do any candidates need a CIO?.. like I said.. i'll do it for a comfy post in the Caribbean :]

Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[sootman]

When seeing only the last name 'Clinton' in non-election-related news, the first name that pops into my mind is
[x] Bill
[_] Hillary
[_] Neal

Re:Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[Vellmont]

[x] George.

Re:Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[Mesa MIke]

[x] DeWitt.

Re:Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[aproposofwhat]

Would be good, except that we've got the Parliament over here - you've only got pay-per-vote Senators and Congresscritters.

Re:Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[BrettJB]

[x] George

What can I say, I like the funkadelic...

Re:Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[Detritus]

George!

Re:Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[niktemadur]

[_] Bill
[_] Hillary
[x] CowboyNeal

Re:Slightly OT: poll suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

First I think of Bill Clinton, then that reminds me of Neal and Bob.

OT comment on her body language

[Froze]

I finally decided to watch one of her speeches the other night and discovered that she has an amazingly obvious tell. If you pay attention to her head motion you sill see that every time she make an affirmative statement she nods her head (as if to agree with herself). Contrary, every time she make a negative statement she shakes her head from side to side. There is also a diagonal gesture to accompany the ambiguous statements as well. She does this for every fact that she speaks, however if you watch her head during her declaratory statements, she does the same thing, but these are the promises she is supposed to be making and she will actually show which ones she really believes in. For instance at one point she made a statement to the effect that

.. this will provide health care for all Americans while simultaneously shaking her head as if to say no, not really, not all - only some.

When I watched her speech and payed attention to her body language, almost all the "good" parts (IMNSHO) are qualified as negative or ambiguous and all the self serving political promises are affirmative. If anyone else cares to post some specific examples that lay out what her real intentions are I would gladly like to see them.

Re:OT comment on her body language

[gatkinso]

The only body language you need to watch to know if a politician is lying is any movement of their lips.

Re:OT comment on her body language

[NeutronCowboy]

Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll be looking for that, and see how that correlates with my understanding of her statements.

Re:OT comment on her body language

[Froze]

I hope your comment was an attempt at humor. Personally I find your observation somewhat trite. It seems patently obvious to me that a politician would happily utter the truth if served their own purpose and that there are ample examples to verify this with which I could use to refute your observation.

Supporting Obama

[nutshell42]

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

.

I like Obama, I really do, but sometimes it's hard to count yourself among his supporters. Ok, it's probably my fault for reading reddit (for the non-political stuff) but every time I visit that page I can't help but feel an irrational hatred towards Obama. It's not only all the "FUCK HILLARY!!!!!11 LOLTHXBY" headlines, it's mostly when they heartily applaud arcane primary rules and elections biased towards rural areas that favor Obama (e.g. Nevada). Or when the page erupted in Christmas and Easter celebrations over the allegations about McCain's affair.

They support all the stuff that helped Bush win in 2000 just because it helps their guy this time around. And this despite the fact that the last 8 years demonstrated that this "hey we can do this kind of thing, we're the Good Guys(TM)" thinking doesn't pan out long term.

I'm not naive enough to think that Hillary's supporters are better but (a) it's a lot easier to find rabid Obama fanboys on the internet and (b) Hillary doesn't run her campaign on moral superiority.

Re:Supporting Obama

[aproposofwhat]

(b) Hillary doesn't run her campaign on moral superiority.

Good job too - she'd have run out of fuel before she got out of the driveway.

Re:Supporting Obama

[Bored MPA]

I live in SF, liberal land, and don't know what i'll do if obama wins the nomination. I'm actually _opposed_ to him at the gut level because of the issue you raise--his most vocal campaign/followers are fundamentally anti-democratic and I want to see us get away from that. And clinton's negatives are a strong reminder of just how far hate speech can change debates--most of the grating voice/fat ankles stuff has seeped into the national consciousness--some of it misogyny some of it just consistent trashing over the years by media hacks.

But there are also other issues at play--the blogosphere is a new system having a profound effect on the election process and rumor mills (sadly, mostly for the negative side since the blogs are spouting rumors/bs and then the 24 hr news cycle reports them as well and the corrections rarely get play in the blogs or news).

So is this a party problem or a technology problem? Or both? Will it work itself out over time? Does the party need a correction (i wonder if that's way fewer clinton voters say they'll vote for the other candidate vs previous election polls)? Or is this yet another education issue since few people understand politcs/rhetoric/media cycles.

Either way, I would hesitate to vote for someone campaigning on unity/moral superiority who had a lawyer challenge ballot signatures of all his opponents in illinois, took the low road on MI/FL (very bad for the general election), and stayed in a controversial church that was politically useful. I'm the queer son of a UCC minister, so that last issue has been pretty damn personal, because I know exactly what I would do if a family member said things i disagreed with...and just how far i would bend ethics for political gain.

blah. enough rambles. this election is so frelled. thanks for the post.

I giet speaketh Middle English...

[snarfies]

ye insaensitieve clode!

Re:I giet speaketh Middle English...

[ari_j]

I think you spelled some of that wrong.

.oO ( I am Jack's desperate hope that more people get the joke than miss it. )

Re:I giet speaketh Middle English...

[niktemadur]

Hmm... needs to replace "s" for that weird medieval "f" type and replace "i" for "y" somewhere in there.

ye infaenfityeve clode!

There... fixed that for you? He asked, expecting the answer "no".

Article Date???!

[kc2keo]

Published: Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Didn't any of you guys ever work on a farm?

[Medievalist]

I guess slashdot is not the best place to learn about animal husbandry. Cue sheep jokes now!

Bellwethers are not necessarily male, or neutered, and they aren't used to find other sheep (that is something that could work, but not because a neutered ram "ineffectually tries to mate with ewes". Where'd you hear that?). Bellwethers are frequently older females.

A bellwether is like that kid in grade school that everybody copied - there wasn't anything special about him, he wasn't taller or smarter or anything, he was just "cooler" than anybody else, and if he wore a purple cummerbund to school everybody else was doing it within the week. People don't create bellwethers (through castration or any other process) instead they learn how to identify them. It's not obvious who the rest of the sheep are following, because the bellwether is not waving a flag and marching at the head of a line, in fact the bellwether is usually right smack in the middle of the flock.

You put the bell on the bellwether because all the other sheep follow it around. If you are moving the sheep and the leader tries to sneak off you need to be able to pick that leader out of the crowd. If you want to put the sheep on a truck you put the bellwether there first and the rest will not panic when you drive them in.

For your next assignment you can look up "judas goat".

Re:Didn't any of you guys ever work on a farm?

[Gordonjcp]

Bellwethers are not necessarily male, or neutered, and they aren't used to find other sheep (that is something that could work, but not because a neutered ram "ineffectually tries to mate with ewes". Where'd you hear that?). Bellwethers are frequently older females.

I breed sheep, oddly enough. You're right about the older females, though. They're often "pet lambs" that have grown up and are prepared to sell out the rest of the flock for a munch of something tasty ;-)

Re:Didn't any of you guys ever work on a farm?

[Medievalist]

and I thought it was unusual that I know people that breed sheep... you're a "Renaissance man", my friend!

Re:Clinton just needs to step aside

[harshmanrob]

Damn...flame-bit for pointing out a couple piece of factual information? Does Jonathan Schilling have a slashdot.org account too? I am going to be laughing in 2009.

Anyway, I am not here to earn respect from anybody or make anybody happy. Especially when there nothing but trolls, SEO contractors, political organizations, and factions of the government moderating this so called "forum". I do not need their respect. I am likely one of the few people here NOT being paid to make comments. Can anyone else say the same? Likely damn fucking few. Jonathan Schilling is an admitted troll in my opinion. Same goes for digg.com too. Nothing but paid-off posters digging down comments that criticize anything and everything.

Social networking is proving to be a god damn joke at this rate.

Piss on everyone else. Moderate my comments and get on with your life. Just because you dislike what I say does not mean I care.

Pot, meet kettle

[LanMan04]

That's just hateful, partisan rhetoric. followed by

Typical of the left. Lying about their opponent Hello pot, meet kettle!

Does "guard" == "Censor" ??

[jgarra23]

Really!! While I don't have a list of instances on hand, I'm sure we can all think of different moments where someone or something was "guarding" anything when really the guarding was really just a method of censoring or suppressing some sort of information.

I hear that Hillary is looking for a Gordon Libby type figure, this guy may be a great choice for her.

An Intellectual "Car Wash"

[The Angry Mick]

Nothing gets rid of the mud quicker than an intellectual "car wash". The more people become aware of sites like Media Matters and Fact Check, the less likely they'll be to buy into the bullshit.

Opening Bout

[The Angry Mick]

Don't forget, Zell Miller still has a standing invitation to Chris Matthews for a duel. Perhaps this could be the opening bout?

Re:Opening Bout

[Shakrai]

Don't forget, Zell Miller still has a standing invitation [youtube.com] to Chris Matthews for a duel. Perhaps this could be the opening bout?

Only problem with that is I don't know which one to despise more. Maybe they'll take each other out (i.e: we all win)? ;)

How the wiki page resembles district conventions

[retrzim]

Just for reference... This was for one of the district conventions for Dallas County. Unlike some of the Hillary supporters, I stayed for the entire convention 8am to 5pm and (regardless of the negative aspects) marveled at the process. In addition to the neutral local officials running for office, we had a couple of representatives for each presidential candidate speak. Those speaking for Hillary were heckled or ignored. Those speaking for Obama were treated with respect and applause. Anyone trying to speak about issues and their support for Hillary were publicly degraded. It was interesting to see the lone Caucasian women senior citizen ridiculed by groups of young Obama supporters. What's more interesting, is that no one stepped up from the Obama camp to make the discussion more civil or to stop the shouting Obama supporters. Disgusted by this behavior, I'd say about 50% of the Hillary representatives left before the end of the convention. The problem isn't that the Hillary candidates are resigned to defeat; they're leaving the party for McCain (or none of the above). The Democrats are losing old yellow dog Democrats that championed civil rights, public assistance, and other progressive ideals. Finally, I'm not saying that there aren't any civil Obama supports. I'd say over 90% of the Obama supporters were respectful and well-informed. However, they're letting the 10% control the discussion.

Makes me angry they don't share this account

[Anonymous Coward]

This is from a GI that was there and saw the whole thing. "Actually Mrs. Clinton was too modest. I was there and saw it all. When Mrs. Clinton got off the plane the tarmac came under mortar and machine gun fire. I was blown off my tank and exposed to enemy fire. Mrs. Clinton without regard to her own safety dragged me to safety, jumped on the tank and opened fire, killing 50 of the enemy." Soon a suicide bomber appeared, but Mrs. Clinton stopped the guards from opening fire. "She talked to the man in his own language and got him [to] surrender. She found that he had suffered terribly as a result of policies of George Bush. She defused the bomb vest herself." Then she turned to his wounds. "She stopped my bleeding and saved my life. Chelsea donated the blood."

Re:Makes me angry they don't share this account

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the part where she beat Chuck Norris at arm-wrestling, then the two of them teamed up to beat the crap out of Satan. *rolls eyes*

1/10

1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago

[lag00natic]

Hello??? Anyone remember the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago? Huge anti-war debate - on the floor of the convention nonetheless - and there was inter-party slander and politicking galore. I agree that the Clinton years were fairly benign. Although a bit off-topic, I see this year's convention headed on the same track as '68. There is even a radical anti-war group 'Recreate 68' trying to get permits for the Denver convention... should be entertaining at the very least.

CARROTS

[Anonymous Coward]

Woooo!!!
Four more years!! Four more years!! Four more years!!

I see what you're saying

[hassanchop]

That's it is a right and can only be removed by due process of law.

I agree.

Re:I see what you're saying

[sumdumass]

Passing an aptitude test could be implements by due process of the law too. Basically the only reason we don't still have them is because they where designed at one time to limit the ability of blacks to vote. And surprisingly, it was always the democrats attempting to limit the black vote in the south which generally voted republican until Kennedy was running for president and got MLK jr out of jail.

Anyways, a voter registration could easily have a test that would show general knowledge of the candidates before allowing the registration though. And that would follow the due process of the law.

Honestly?

[hassanchop]

Can't we have an intellectual debate that doesn't resolve around sound bites and feigned outrage?

As sad as it makes me to say this, no, I don't think "we" (the American people) are capable of this anymore.

I for one...

[KoshClassic]

I am really sick of the Obama bandwagoners who are going around the internet insinuating that we're all supposed to give up our right to vote for whom we want to vote for, even if they aren't necessarily popular or have the best chance of winning. And its sad to see that creeping its way on to /. now too. What is the point of this article? Since there is supposedly only one guy watchng over Hillary's page, we can conclude that she's in political trouble and we shouldn't vote for her? WTF?

Hell, I am going to head over there right now and volunteer to help this guy out if it will shut up the author of this article and people like him.

Re:I for one...

[electrosoccertux]

I am really sick of the Obama bandwagoners who are going around the internet insinuating that we're all supposed to give up our right to vote for whom we want to vote for, even if they aren't necessarily popular or have the best chance of winning. And its sad to see that creeping its way on to /. now too. What is the point of this article? Since there is supposedly only one guy watchng over Hillary's page, we can conclude that she's in political trouble and we shouldn't vote for her? WTF?

Hell, I am going to head over there right now and volunteer to help this guy out if it will shut up the author of this article and people like him. I know it's bad, but I have less of a problem with this when it's against leftist candidates. I sure would love to have a more pro-capitalism government. We're spending too much to be considered "pro-capitalist" because eventually those debts must be repaid from a tax which comes out of citizens pockets, which decreases consumption of goods produced, which decreases corporate profits, which reduces their operating margin, which reduces the incentive to function in America. Just take a look at all the European businesses that jumped ship to Scotland because of the lower taxes.

Frankly, this is appalling

[Hillgiant]

How dare you compare the present administration to a bunch of carrots. Carrots are far to intelligent to warrant such a comparison.

Re:Frankly, this is appalling

[electrosoccertux]

How dare you compare the present administration to a bunch of carrots. Carrots are far to intelligent to warrant such a comparison. We have found the April 1st 2008 slashdot meme! Carrots!

Who cares about Hillary's entry?

[electrictroy]

I can think of better ways to spend my few remaining years,
than monitoring a wikipedia page. Get a life.

Re:Who cares about Hillary's entry?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of better ways to spend my few remaining years,
than monitoring a wikipedia page. Get a life. Such as spending your time on Slashdot, making posts that tell somebody who will never see them to "Get a life"? Yeah, you've sure proven how much better a person you are. Go you!

Re:Who cares about Hillary's entry?

[electrictroy]

You saw it.

So did a couple thousand other people. Plus it only took me a minute to create the comment, not weeks of devotion to editing a wiki article. Most importantly my comment is MY opinion, whereas a wikipedia entry is all about other people's opinions (citations), and thus wikipedia editors demote themselves to just being a scribe. A servant to others.

Worse... the article is about a politician. If I'm going to spend weeks of my life, I'd rather spend it someone who matters. Like my wife or daughter, not a politico.

Hence my original comment.

And don't forget NAFTA

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Clintons? Forget all the scandals of the 90s and think about the legislation that he signed -- [...]

Most of us here in Ohio will never forget NAFTA. Too bad the state didn't notice the impact until shortly after Ohio re-elected that poor excuse for a President.

I won't get into details, but it's taken me a long time to recover from the impact of our crappy job market here in Ohio, thanks to the former president (and due to our former shady Republican governor -- I don't discriminate on party lines.)

Hillary who?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"The Man Who Guards Clinton's Wikipedia Entry"

When I read the articles title I immediately assumed it referred to Bill Clinton. It quite literally never even occurred to me to even consider that it might be referring to Hillary. She didn't even come to mind. This is despite the fact that I am often around TVs tuned to CNN. That is how important she is to me now. And, no, I am not sexist. I do think there are women who would make a great POTUS, and I originally thought she would be adequate, or maybe even slightly above the norm ... then she started opening her mouth and dispelling the illusion.

I own the largest collection of Seashells.

[Anonymous Coward]

You may have seen it. I keep it scattered on beaches all around the world.

By your logic, Americans have NO rights at all

[FreeUser]

Actually, the constitution forbids government's from denying people what is considered a right. By the fact that you can admit that some felons will lose their voting privileges, it can't be a right- At least not a right protected by the Constitution of the United State of America.

Actually, the constitution forbids government's from denying people what is considered a right. By the fact that you can admit that some people will lose their speech priveleges (by not adhering to Party Free Speech Zone restrictions, for example), it can't be a right- At least not a right protected by the Constitution of the United State of America.

Just in case you're still blind to your fallacy, let me spell it out a little more precisely:

Local, state, and federal government routinely violate people's rights in unconstitutional ways. It usually takes years of litigation, at great expense, for such wrongs to put right--and often at the end of such litigation, the very government that has been judicially chastised goes on to violate the very same rights in a slightly different manner. Lather, rinse, repeat, and watch the remaining tatters of the constitution swirl down the drain. Welcome to America 21st century style.

Re:By your logic, Americans have NO rights at all

[sumdumass]

Actually, the constitution forbids government's from denying people what is considered a right. By the fact that you can admit that some people will lose their speech priveleges (by not adhering to Party Free Speech Zone restrictions, for example), it can't be a right- At least not a right protected by the Constitution of the United State of America.

Oh god.. Not another one of these clueless posts.

You are guaranteed the right of free speech, not an audience or a platform to make it from or the ability to stop anyone else from exercising their free speech rights. The first amendment is not, I repeat, _IS_NOT_ a license to deny others of their rights or to abuse private property or possibly endanger others without the consent of the owners and those people affected. Free speech zones while I don't agree with them do fall under the umbrella of not violating the constitution. I would like to take any opportunity to trash a democrat (they are the ones who implemented the free speech zones) but I won't damage my integrity in doing so.

Local, state, and federal government routinely violate people's rights in unconstitutional ways. It usually takes years of litigation, at great expense, for such wrongs to put right--and often at the end of such litigation, the very government that has been judicially chastised goes on to violate the very same rights in a slightly different manner. Lather, rinse, repeat, and watch the remaining tatters of the constitution swirl down the drain. Welcome to America 21st century style.

Let me spell this out for you a little better. People, because of ignorance, brain washing or a number of other reasons often assume they have more rights then they actually do or they often think their rights extend into areas that it doesn't. They often become shocked or dismayed and often refuse to accept that they are wrong and insist violations where no violations of protected rights have ever occurred.

You want to talk about damage to the constitution, you should go back to the biggest blow it ever had which was under Roosevelt's term in the 20th century with policies of the new deal programs. It is exactly what has allowed this cycle you incorrectly attribute to free speech zones but does exist in other areas to happen.

Re:By your logic, Americans have NO rights at all

[Dun Malg]

the constitution forbids government's from denying people what is considered a right. Half right. You forgot the part that goes on the end: "...without due process of law". Various rights are abridged to many varying degrees through due process. The rights to Life, Liberty, and Property are still subject to Execution, Imprisonment, and Fines so long as there is due process of law. There are whole chunks of the constitution about due process. Read 'em some time!

Re:By your logic, Americans have NO rights at all

[FreeUser]

Half right. You forgot the part that goes on the end: "...without due process of law". Various rights are abridged to many varying degrees through due process. The rights to Life, Liberty, and Property are still subject to Execution, Imprisonment, and Fines so long as there is due process of law. There are whole chunks of the constitution about due process. Read 'em some time!

Read the constitution some time. It does not say you can be denied your freedom of speech "through due process". In point of fact, it prohibits the government from passing any law denying you said rights, period.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble

Note that it doesn't say "abridging the freedom of speech, except with due process" it says "abridging the freedom of speech" PERIOD.

Your willingness to "reinterpret" the constitution to support Bush et al says a great deal about you and others like you, and your willingness to sell your basic rights down the river for a moment's expediency, but you really ought to take a gander at the constitution. It is quite clear that things like "Free Speech Zones" are unconstitutional. The fact that the republicans have stacked the courts (including the supreme court) and the fact that congress has no backbone doesn't change that fact, it merely means the constitution will not be enforced, and we as Americans will have our rights abused and stripped from us at our leaders' whim, which is exactly what we deserve for having tolerated this nonsense and continuing to do so through, in no small part through doublespeak like yours.

Re:By your logic, Americans have NO rights at all

[BungaDunga]

You should check out the anti-sedition laws during WWI. Basically anything that could be construed as "damaging the morale of the armed forces" could land you in jail for years. Now, I know we currently have our problems with constitutional protections but they're not the worst we've seen, and in some respects we've come a long way. I don't hold much with people who whinge about how everything is worse than it has ever been: that's simply not true. We've gone from a country where only white landowners could vote to one where practically everyone can.

must be that grating voice

[Anonymous Coward]

congratz, you're a more blatant troll than I am.

and i adore i'm-not-sexist disclaimers in the middle of a misogynistic hit-job.

Which matters how?

[hassanchop]

I would assign more relevance to your post if you could tell me why it shouldn't be ignored because there's no mention of aptitude tests in the Constitution, and thus has no bearing on my post.

Re:Which matters how?

[sumdumass]

First, if you where up on your constitution, I wouldn't have to justify my post.

Article 1 section 4 states

The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

This specifically states that the manor of holding election- an aptitude test would be included- _can_be established by each state.

Furthermore, if you knew your history a little better, you would know that poll test where commonly instituted by democrats in order to stop blacks from voting "republican" after the civil war. Oklahoma had a literacy test on the polls for a long time and an enfranchisement clause that stated people who where enfranchised before the 15th amendment was passed where exempt from the literacy test. This was finally put to rest in 1915 after the courts ruled that the "law was adopted in order to give whites, who might otherwise have been disfranchised by the state's literacy test, a way of qualifying to vote that was not available to blacks".

A minimal amount of searching would have popped this article that is available from the US DOJ website which shows exactly that a poll test is legal as long as it doesn't discriminate based on race, gender, color or previous condition of servitude (covered by the 15th and 19th amendments). If you continue to insist the others educate you instead of you looking for some answers yourself, you will be doomed to becomes a severely crippled intellect who appears to be a dumb mother fucker. And yes, I took an attitude with your reply. All the information you needed to understand this was on the first page of results from a google search. If you can't find them, I suggest it is because your intellectual laziness has handicapped your though process to the point that you cannot do a relevant search to a simple topic like "court decisions on poll tests". And yes, court decisions is relevant because history tells us that poll tests were implemented several times in our countries history. The lack of them today means something- but not that they are illegal by default.

I suggest that you stop insisting on others to educate you and instead make a conscious effort to understand the topics you are discussing.

Re:HOLY CRAP

[RobBebop]

You clearly don't have a shirt or anything.

But you could get one!

Changing the conditions of presidency

[HalAtWork]

So maybe we need to change politics a little so instead of the position of president being highly desirable because of the power, it would instead be more conducive to making objective decisions. This is just a made up scenario, feel free to add your own:

The president earns minimum wage, as it is what is expected to suffice for the cost of living.
- During the presidency, the president would not be able to posess anything outside of what they are able to purchase with their salary, and they cannot accept any gifts or extra-salary compensation, as with police.
- The president would have to be under 24h surveillance, including phone taps, computer and mail logging, etc. I understand it's difficult to imagine, but it is for 4 years, not life, and they are not forced to accept the presidency. It's for the safety of the country. Just because you're president doesn't mean you're not subject to temptations, and humans aren't infallible.

Anyway it's just a suggestion, but how could the position of presidency be made to be more conducive to serving the public and the country?

mission option

[Ogive17]

George! My vote is for Parliament Funkadelic!

Nope

[hassanchop]

Your attempt at playing fast and loose with definitions fails.

The act of defining a privilege as a right does nothing to make a right a privilege. A privilege can in fact be a right, but that does nothing to accurately define what a right is.

A little reflection or pondering on this topic will probably confirm this for yourself. (in fact, all the comments from this thread prove this as they're all arguing the same thing but changing the term).

I reflected, then checked the definition, and found yopu are incorrect. I think the reason you're having such a hard time understanding the arguments that refute you is because you're using part of a definition as the whole definition, which is disingenuous and silly.

Privileges can be rights. There is no requirement of any kind that rights be privileges, and in fact they are not.

Dismissed might be a bit of overstatement

[hassanchop]

In the last seven years, progressives have been dismissed

This doesn't really hold with the indisputable fact that the Democrats have controlled the House since the 2006 election. It's impossible to claim they have been dismissed while being in control of one of the most powerful institutions in the world, unless you're trying to destroy your own credibility.

And your entire post is one large Tu quoque argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

If you're going to get upset about the "debacles of the last seven years" you need to lay blame where it belongs, and you haven't.

Re:Dismissed might be a bit of overstatement

[n dot l]

Emphasis mine:

In the last seven years, progressives have been dismissed This doesn't really hold with the indisputable fact that the Democrats have controlled the House since the 2006 election. It's impossible to claim they have been dismissed while being in control of one of the most powerful institutions in the world, unless you're trying to destroy your own credibility. Speaking of logical fallacies, there's a world of difference between large groups of people and the politicians who often fail to properly represent them.

Re:Dismissed might be a bit of overstatement

[hassanchop]

Speaking of logical fallacies [wikipedia.org], there's a world of difference between large groups of people and the politicians who often fail to properly represent them.

1) That's not a logical fallacy

2) I was speaking specifically of the Democrats, as "progressives" is a meaningless and inconsequential label, and useless for identification. Your choice of labels matter little to me, and does not apply.

3) You haven't identified a single "progressive" in congress that isn't a Democrat, so if I were attempting to use the labels interchangeably, you have failed to demonstrate why that is incorrect. At best you may find a few exceptions, but the vast majority of "progressives" will in fact be Democrats, justifying their grouping.

I don't mind being corrected, but you should try to be correct before you do so, and you've failed at that simple requirement.

Re:Dismissed might be a bit of overstatement

[n dot l]

Let's skip the pedantic argument over how the Association Fallacy should be classified.

I wrote:

there's a world of difference between large groups of people and the politicians who often fail to properly represent them. Where in that sentence do you find the words "progressives" and "Democrats"? I specifically avoided using them (outside of quoting your post) because my statement applies equally well to many other groups. "Progressives" have been ignored by both Republicans and Democrats. They've gotten little more than lip service from the people they voted for. The same holds for "fiscal conservatives" (who have yet to see the government spend any less), "Evangelical Christians" (who have yet to get their way on gays and abortions), the anti-war movement (who may soon see the war expanded to Iran), and many other large groups of people in American society.

And I'm sorry if grouping large numbers of fairly diverse people under such vague and politically loaded labels frightens or confuses you. That's just the nature of political discourse; you'll have to get used to it if you want to have a meaningfull discussion.

Answer me THAT, Mr Churchill!

[SteveFoerster]

And what was the truth doing with its pants off that gave the lie such a big head start, hmm?

Nothing like an adult response

[hassanchop]

This specifically states that the manor of holding election- an aptitude test would be included- _can_be established by each state.

No it doesn't. The bolded part is wrong.

Furthermore, if you knew your history a little better, you would know that poll test where commonly instituted by democrats in order to stop blacks from voting "republican" after the civil war.

I know that, what is the point of statements like "if you knew your history a little better" when we haven't even attempted to broach the subject if history? Is it that important to you to attempt to demonstrate your superiority that you jump to conclusions about someone else's level of education on a subject that hasn't even been discussed? Are you really that immature?

Also, you're wrong. Poll tests have been ruled unconstitutional for everyone but non-English speaking citizens, which you apparently were unaware of. I guess I know my history better than you thought.

A minimal amount of searching would have popped this article that is available from the US DOJ website which shows exactly that a poll test is legal as long as it doesn't discriminate based on race, gender, color or previous condition of servitude (covered by the 15th and 19th amendments).

Um, no it doesn't, you've misread your own link.

I suggest that you stop insisting on others to educate you and instead make a conscious effort to understand the topics you are discussing.

Ok, you are that immature. Well I suggest that when you post, you at least try to your facts correct, you haven't yet. And honestly, why would I want to continue a conversation with you when you can't accurately address the subject and think personal attacks do anything but destroy your (already shaky) credibility.

Don't bother replying, I won't read it, you've proven fairly conclusively that you won't say anything worth hearing.

Re:Nothing like an adult response

[sumdumass]

No it doesn't. The bolded part is wrong.

Umm.. No it isn't. Unless you are taking the statement literally as in those exact words aren't what is said in the constitution. Of course I would have to wonder why you would resort to obscure technicalities to keep your point. But it does allow aptitude tests which would be a poll test that has been found constitutional.

I know that, what is the point of statements like "if you knew your history a little better" when we haven't even attempted to broach the subject if history? Is it that important to you to attempt to demonstrate your superiority that you jump to conclusions about someone else's level of education on a subject that hasn't even been discussed? Are you really that immature

It is important to me to demonstrate that you should have known this if you paid a little attention. It is the best way to encourage you to pay attention so you won't post replies that boil down to Educate me or I won't pay attention to what you said.

Also, you're wrong. Poll tests have been ruled unconstitutional for everyone but non-English speaking citizens, which you apparently were unaware of. I guess I know my history better than you thought.

You don't seem to understand the concept. A poll tast isn't illegal or unconstitutional, the effect or how it is used is. If a test would address everyone equally and now favor a race or gender by default, nothing would prohibit it. This is why they haven't been ruled unconstitutional for non-English speaking people. There is no protection from discrimination for non-English speaking people. This is important because if it doesn't discriminate against any of the protected conditions in the process of disenfranchising the public, then it can be legal and constitutional.

Um, no it doesn't, you've misread your own link.

GO practice your comprehension skills a little the reread that. The poll tests were legal, the use to deny people the ability to vote based on Race, color, previous condition of servitude and sex was illegal. I made this more then abundantly clear in my post. Your trying to equate getting a ticket for driving through a red light to getting a ticket for driving. They aren't the same, one is an action, the other is the intent of an action.

Ok, you are that immature. Well I suggest that when you post, you at least try to your facts correct, you haven't yet. And honestly, why would I want to continue a conversation with you when you can't accurately address the subject and think personal attacks do anything but destroy your (already shaky) credibility.

Well MR Educate Me, Tell me where my facts are incorrect. So far you have just alluded to something being wrong but you have failed to point out which are. I am sure when you do, you will be educated again. That is what you want after all isn't it?

Don't bother replying, I won't read it, you've proven fairly conclusively that you won't say anything worth hearing.

You copped the attitude first and now you are blindly denying what has been shoved in your face. Are you attempting to remain stupid for a reason or do you just not know any better?

Re:Clinton just needs to step aside

[Petrushka]

Damn...flame-bit for pointing out a couple piece of factual information?

Heh. From your original post:

First off, Jonathan Schilling should change his name to Jonathan Tool.

Yes, that's a useful bit of "factual information". Thanks for my first laugh of the morning.

do you mean the elron OT or the cmdrtaco OT?

[Anonymous Coward]

OT as in scientology (operating thetan) or OT as in slashdot (off topic)?

Not irony

[snowwrestler]

Aptonym

Wipe himself out

[kylehase]

I wonder how often he has to remove references to himself cleaning the entry in the entry.

Proposal

[Adzigari]

I think this should be tagged "themanwiththegoldengun", or "from the man-with-the-golden-gun dept."

Re:Twofo buttplugged goatse

[petermgreen]

somewhat amusing the first time I saw a troll of this style. But after you have seen multiple copies of the same troll which is itself a minor modification to another worn out troll it quickly gets wearing.

Re:Clinton just needs to step aside

[harshmanrob]

I got a flame bit score for that? Not only is your interpretation of the English language debatable, you obviously are a moron.

Don't be stupid.

[geekoid]

They had their rights taken away. Prisoner don't ahve the right to talk out the front door, or say what they want.

I would argue that they should be allowed to vote. A felony doesn't mean your vote is somehow 'wrong'.

They are not the same thing at all.

[geekoid]

A privilege is special right not enjoyed by all.
A right is inalienable. Meaning available to all. The founding fathers meant that globally, not just within the borders of the US;which is why rendering is just shitting on the constitution.

Anyways, yes there is a difference, and Anyone who is not allowed to vote is being denied there rights. All Adults have the right to vote, and in fact I would lower the voting age to 16, and I would revoke the driving privilege from anyone who doesn't vote. That's just me.

Re:HOLY CRAP

[QuietObserver]

No offense, but did Kryten (from Red Dwarf) iron it?

Ok I get it

[hassanchop]

You're stupid and you can't read.

In the future, when you post, try to follow the argument you're replying to. You'll look less idiotic that way, and you won't repeat this experience.