Obama Significantly Revises Technology Positions

method9455 writes "Barack Obama has edited his official website on many issues, including a huge revision on the technology page. Strangely it seems net neutrality is no longer as important as it was a few months ago, and the swaths of detail have been removed and replaced with fairly vague rhetoric. Many technologists were alarmed with the choice of Joe Biden before, and now it appears their fears might have been well founded." Update: 09/22 18:07 GMT by T : Julian Sanchez of Ars Technica passed on a statement from an Obama campaign representative who points out that the changes in wording highlighted by Versionista aren't the whole story, and that more Obama tech-plan details are now available in a PDF, saying "there is absolutely no substantive change to our policy - folks who want more information can click to get our full plan."

Comments

All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[h4rm0ny]

When are people going to learn to assess politicians and parties on their actions, rather than their promises? Those that might have really introduced change have already been weeded out. Vote for the puppet of your choice, folks.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[gfxguy]

The "Contract with America" worked really well in the '94 elections, though.

Honestly, there are two reasons I can think of why politicians in the U.S. won't commit to anything:

1. If lobbyists know they are committed for/against what they are lobbying for, they won't shower the politician with contributions and "gifts."

2. Legislators often buy the votes of their colleagues by promising to vote for the colleague's legislation if their colleagues will vote for theirs.

And then we need to keep one other thing in mind: riders. Legislation that gets ONE vote often contains extra pieces of legislation that has nothing to do with the original legislation. This is why I agree with notion that the president should have a line-item veto power, and I feel that way regardless who is in office.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[Anonymous Coward]

but it's a stretch to claim he supported the telecom immunity aspect of it when he supported all the attempts to remove telecom immunity from it.

How much more "for it" can you be than a YEA vote for a bill which contains it?

As a congress critter, if there is a part of a bill you don't like IT IS YOUR JOB TO VOTE AGAINST THE WHOLE THING!!!!

That's what the whole "checks and balances" thing is all about.

The immunity is unconstitutional (see ex post facto) even without the 4th amendment violations.

Between FISA and the Patriot Act, why even have the 4th amendment any more?

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[gfxguy]

Which is yet another great example of why voting third party is not a "wasted" vote.

I'm sick of people telling me I'm wasting my votes (it won't be the first time I voted for a third party), and yet the same people whine about how bad the government is.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[Shakrai]

I'm sick of people telling me I'm wasting my votes (it won't be the first time I voted for a third party), and yet the same people whine about how bad the government is.

You aren't wasting your vote but if you live in a battleground state you really ought to consider the broader ramifications. Do you really think that if Al Gore had won in 2000 that we'd be in Iraq right now? Do you really think that he would have alienated all of our Allies?

You say your sick of people telling you that you are 'wasting' your vote -- I'm sick of people telling me that there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Both parties are too beholden to corporate interests but there are differences on extremely important issues.

I've voted third-party myself when both major party candidates suck (as recently as the 2006 NYS Comptroller election) but I really don't think this is one of those times.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[gfxguy]

Why would I feel betrayed? Bush wasn't part of the contract with America.

Bush has been a horrible president, and I'm voting third party. I've never much liked either of the mainstream parties or politics in Washington in general. If you want a real change, don't vote for Obama, vote for a third party.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, nice dream world you live in. If "congress critters" actually did that then nothing would get passed.... though that might not be so bad :P

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[L4t3r4lu5]

Parent = Insightful.

You can't go voting for a bill which contains all of the things you were just voting AGAINST, and it's idiotic to think that there is any reason to believe this would ever be acceptable!

Here's a hypothetical situation for you; I draft a bill to reduce the criminal sentences for minor drug offences to fines (hefty fines, but still no prison time), and to revoke all patents on proven life-saving chemicals currently patented by multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies, but I include a clause which brings new legislation which states that terminally ill patients are not entitled to medical care of any kind, as it is quite simply a waste of resources.

If you're against the last statement, how can you, in good conscience, vote for bill which contains it? Voting for the bill in whole is exactly the same as voting for its constituent parts seperately. He should have voted against it until the parts he disagreed with were removed, and he's a coward for not sticking to his principles.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[nomadic]

I'm sick of people telling me I'm wasting my votes (it won't be the first time I voted for a third party), and yet the same people whine about how bad the government is.

Funny, I'm sick of third-party supporters telling me that the democrats are the republicans are "the same," which is an utter lie, and I'm also sick of being urged to vote for someone whose policies I detest (like Ron Paul) simply to make a statement.

I remember back in 2004 every political discussion devolved into people urging all of us to vote for the libertarian candidate, Michael Badnarik. It was ridiculous how much support he got here, and the idea was because he was a self-identified libertarian we should all jump on his bandwagon. Now if you did a little background checking you'd find out he was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who explicitly promised to violate the Constitution his first day of office, but that's the sort of background checking that people didn't want to do. Voting strictly along party lines is stupid, whether the candidate is democrat, republican, or part of a third party.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[fabs64]

Good way to shut down a country, all hail anarchy!

And if the immunity is unconstitutional it won't be a problem as SCOTUS will strike it down yeah?

The american constitution didn't even manage to remain an upheld document till it's 50th birthday. It's time to just deal.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[LordKronos]

So let me ask you a question. Do you ever vote in elections? When you do, are the guys you vote for positioned such that you agree with them on EVERY SINGLE TOPIC THEY STAND FOR?

If so, then I can only imagine you are a politician yourself, and the only box you check on the ballot is your own name.

If not, then you either don't vote (in which case, you just lost all ability to criticize how anybody else votes) or you vote for the candidate that overall most closely matches how you believe (which makes you a hypocrite)

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[LordKronos]

Nice try, but I think most people would agree that the last thing outweighs the first 2, making it more negative than positive.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[Kingrames]

Look, there are a few laws that must be passed.

Attached to each one are hundreds of laws that cannot be passed.

Until this process is fixed so that this cannot happen, Congress MUST reject every single such law. No exceptions.

"just deal" is how we ended up with 8 years of bush.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[h4rm0ny]

However, in voting for a third party, he is voting against the two party system which is the problem. Increasing the share the vote received by third parties reduces the consequences of the two party equilibrium. You'll never get a third choice so long as you keep accepting one of the first two you're offered.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[c6gunner]

It's a question of degrees.

Imagine a bill were to be proposed which legalized marijuana, allowed for gay marriage, forbade "abstinence-only" sex-ed and created a federal mandate against teaching ID in science classrooms, created reasonable constraints on domestic surveillance, and placed tight limits on political lobbying ... but also happened to legalize curb-stomping puppies. I'd probably put in a lot of effort to get the puppy provision removed, but if my efforts failed I'd vote for the bill anyway. The bill would do more good than harm, so why withhold my vote?

I'm not familiar with the contents of the rest of the bill in question, so I can't comment on Obama's decision, but I can certainly see that there are many situations in which a person would feel compelled to vote for a bill which contains portions to which he is opposed.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[NotBornYesterday]

Except reality is not that simple. Example: Politician 1 says he will vote for abc, but against xyz. Bill abc comes up for a vote. To kill it or to sneak xyz through, Politician 2 attaches rider xyz to it. Pol 1 is in an impossible situation.

Also, there is no room here that I see for a politician to honestly change their mind for the better.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[L4t3r4lu5]

You've taken my hypothetical situation literally. This was not the idea.

My point is that if you disagree with something strongly enough to vote against it every time the issue is raised, then "how can you, in good conscience, vote for bill which contains it? Voting for the bill in whole is exactly the same as voting for its constituent parts seperately."

Obama should have voted "Nay", and waited for it to be removed. All he's done is whinge for a while, then caved in and preached about the "lesser of two evils" or some rubbish.

Retroactive immunity should not exist, and he shouldn't have voted for it in any incarnation. End of.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[Shakrai]

They'll go shit all over our liberties.

Yes, your "choice" here is which set of liberties you want them to go shit over. I really don't see how the third-parties are any better here though. Nader and McKinney will gut the 2nd amendment. Barr is talking a good game but he has a history of trying to repress religious freedom (Google 'bob barr wicca') so I don't believe a word he says either. I'm inclined to believe that Obama wants more gun regulation but not inclined to think that he's willing to spend his precious political capital to get it.... so he seems to be the best of the five choices that we have (from my vantage point, anyway).

So there's are differences, but damned if we'll know what the important ones are at election time :(

Well, going by his own history I'd say it's much more likely that McCain will continue the polices of GWB than Obama will..... if you think those policies have been a disaster the choice should be pretty clear.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[noidentity]

So let me ask you a question. Do you ever vote in elections? When you do, are the guys you vote for positioned such that you agree with them on EVERY SINGLE TOPIC THEY STAND FOR? [...] If not, then you either don't vote (in which case, you just lost all ability to criticize how anybody else votes) or you vote for the candidate that overall most closely matches how you believe (which makes you a hypocrite)

It's a different situation. There WILL be a president/whatever elected, so it's just a matter of who, and one can either have some influence on this or not. In the case of something like the recent FISA bill, it could have been voted against with NO bill coming through. Congress isn't electing people for a position, it's considering whether to add new things.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[Nerdposeur]

I don't think this is the same thing. It's impossible to find a one-issue candidate, so it's probably impossible to find a candidate I agree with 100%.

It's NOT impossible to write a bill which only does one thing, and it makes no sense to cram 50 unrelated bills into one and present it as "all or nothing."

"Raising the defense spending" and "allocating money for a corn museum in Iowa" and "funding preschool programs" should not be on the same bill. They should be considered separately. And congresscritters should demand that.

But I think they mostly prefer to scratch each other's backs.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[aztracker1]

What has Obama done to change anything? I mean, I keep hearing about Obama being about change, and about hope, and reform. But, what has he actually done about anything? Besides get elected, and sell some books. Honestly, the only candidate on either ticket that has demonstrated a willingness, and effort to really change anything is Palin, and I don't agree with her on quite a few things...

Beyond that, I don't think that change for the sake of it is a good thing. I also don't agree with the continued path towards socialization in this country. I take more of a Libertarian stance, and am very much a fiscal conservative, which makes it hard for me to ever vote for a Democrat. This is why I ask.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[I'm not really here]

The Summary implies "Obama no longer cares about Network Neutrality!", but I say this is just spreading FUD (cue the "flaimbait" mods... sigh). The GP says both candidates are puppets, but the parent says (rightfully so, IMHO) that it may have been "merely a way to package both [of their] views...", and I think xulfer's hit the nail on the head.

Yes, the website has been heavily edited, but as I read the edits, I looked at it from a writer and editor's perspective. Nothing added seemed to take away from the earlier content (and much of it clarified issues not previously commented on), nothing removed seemed to indicate that Obama's stance on Network Neutrality had changed (both versions sate that "Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.").

Basically, when looking at this from a writer and editor's perspective, whomever is responsible for this content decided that to keep all of this content while adding the new content would be information overload. The editor kept the summary portions and removed the long multi-paragraph clarifications and expansion on the summaries.

So, to sum it up: The exceptionally verbose descriptions were edited down to succinct statements of political position, new political stances not mentioned previously were added (with verbose descriptions), and the whole thing was cleaned up to be readable and clear.

Nothing to see here... move along.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[nomadic]

I won't bother looking up McCain's top donors because it'll be close to the same. Remember that McCain was also one of the Keating 5 (same type of scandal we see unfolding now except with a lot more money).

Campaign contributions don't automatically mean control, especially where campaign finance limits severely limit how much companies can give. I am an Obama supporter and I think McCain would continue the disastrous laissez faire, unregulated approach to the markets that inevitably cause these crashes, but while I hold a lot of things against McCain, the Keating scandal isn't one of them. I think there is substantial evidence to support the idea that he really didn't realize what he was doing, and he spent the next two decades trying to rectify his mistake (until he sold out to the right wingnuts in the early 2000s). I accept that our elected politicians will occasionally make mistakes, I just want them to realize it and adjust their behavior accordingly.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[Danse]

I take more of a Libertarian stance, and am very much a fiscal conservative, which makes it hard for me to ever vote for a Democrat.

Who's the last republican president that actually reduced spending? I wonder if you can name him. Google being the great equalizer, I assume you'll get it, but the point is that republicans haven't been a fiscally conservative party for a loooong time.

Here's a rather short, but interesting article that brings up some information that was surprising to me. It's almost like republicans get the reputation for being fiscally conservative just by claiming they are and yelling about how democrats are going to raise your taxes.

Re:All hail the new king, same as the old king.

[jlarocco]

The whole point of checks and balances in the government was to make sure very little got done and few things were passed. Our country only exists because the founding fathers thought being ruled from afar by a giant, overly powerful government was asinine. The original premise was that the federal government should be small, with very limited power, and should stay out of people's lives as much as possible.

The founding fathers would spin in their graves if they knew the Federal Register had almost 70000 pages last year.

It's important... but...

[nahdude812]

The technology stance is important, but there are a lot of substantially more important issues on the table right now.

We're looking at the candidate who has spoken for and stood for change and integrity from before his political career started, and the candidate who has resorted to making bald faced, demonstrably false and misleading lies that in a non-political context would be grounds for a successful slander/libel suit.

When considering technology specifically, your choices are Obama, who at least understands technology well enough to have created a successful social networking style community site, and McCain who admits he barely even knows how to turn his computer on. If you're voting technology, Obama is the clear superior choice to McCain.

I know, 3rd party candidate and all that. I'm a supporter of breaking the 2-party system we have here in the US because I think it really hurts us; but to be completely honest, in this election it is down to two candidates.

It is extremely unlikely that a 3rd party candidate will successfully run for president until there are a fair share of 3rd party candidates in congress who can prove their chops in a way that makes the lot of them look less crazy (some 3rd party candidates look that way, it gives the better ones a bad name). If you support this ideal, trying to support it top-down isn't the way to get it to happen, it's got to be bottom up - local, state, and federal officials.

In the mean time, support a candidate who has the ability and perspicacity to restore our good will with the rest of the world. The way the economy is going right now, in 2 or 4 years, net neutrality is going to be a lot less important than food on the table and whether or not our troops are committing war crimes abroad, and whether or not our government is committing anti-constitutional crimes domestically.

Re:WooHoo

[niiler]

Of course, if it's a choice between this and Sarah "kill all the baby seals/wolves/mooses cause it's manly" Palin, I'm pretty sure it's a no brainer. On a serious note, the new position actually does reiterate protections of net-neutrality:

Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.

In fact this is his number one point under "Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets" as it was before. If you read the previous version, it goes from being a bullet point to being a full-blown lecture. Most people would stop reading. I suspect the ideas are all still there, only they are not being listed in so windy a manner.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Actually the black guy qualifies in anyone's book as a rich white guy ... Unless you're totally obsessed with skin color.

millionaire - check
ivy league educated in law - check
wife and kids - check
lives in suburbs - check

"change" - well I guess not that much change. Okay, let me revise that, no change at all.

Obama is just another lawyer. One who doesn't have a principles stance of "freedom" but "hmmm, these RIAA guys, they DO pay kinda nice".

Concise speech, soundbites

[tergvelo]

It looks to me like they hired an editor to cut the wall of text down to size. The first huge cut under the heading "Protect the Openness of the Internet" kept the main point while eliminating a massive unnecessary explanation. Readers who are unfamiliar with net neutrality would have been turned off by the wall of text anyway. Also, notice that Versionista doesn't track when blocks of text move to different locations on the page. There are a few paragraphs that simply got moved to other sections. This is just a sensationalist headline that doesn't really belong here. It isn't a "position revision." It is an edit that takes a very lengthy page & cuts it down to a more digestible size. Yes, there's new content, and yes, there are revisions. But on the whole, it's nothing to get up in arms about.

Re:It's not just NN

[Anonymous Coward]

The main page got changed, not the actual plan pdf, which is available at the bottom of the page, and is the exact same as the old page was.

It looks like they just cut down the word count for people who want to glance, and hid the details a layer under.

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/technology/Fact_Sheet_Innovation_and_Technology.pdf

Re:Because McCain chose Palin

[DrLang21]

While I don't think that's the whole story, there is definitly something to this. Even most well educated people are going to be dumbstruck by detailing tech policy. Ask any liberal arts major who's 30 years old what net neutrality really means and the chances are going to be pretty good that they either have the wrong idea or no idea at all. The community of people who wont glaze over when reading detailed tech policy is pretty tiny in comparison to the rest of the US population. That's why we often get paid more.

Re:Lobbiest money.

[4D6963]

Yeah, if Harvard and the University of California count as big evil corporations. Refresh my memory, will you please, how many lobbyists work for John McCain again?

I call bullshit

[GauteL]

This post is pretty much pure bullshit.

If you look at the revisions, Obama has shortened some bullet points to make them more readable.

He still lists what he supports, but he does not going into massive detail in each one of them.

For instance, his current stance on network neutrality is now (emphasis mine):

"* Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet."

Instead of:

"* # Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices. They have a right to receive accurate and honest information about service plans. But these guarantees are not enough to prevent network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or non-profit speakers, have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences. Obama will protect the Internetâ(TM)s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy. "

So instead of a massive (and unreadable) paragraph, it is now a very simple bullet point saying that Obama strongly supports network neutrality. How on earth is this "downplaying" network neutrality?

Re:I call bullshit

[Tyger]

There needs to be a way to mod a story down.

Re:I call bullshit

[jefmes]

I came to this posting this morning ready to be pissed off, because Obama's tech stance is one of the first reasons I started supporting him. But I agree, after actually READING the comparisons, it looks more like a clean up of some of the points and the addition of Biden throughout the listing. There's nothing major in policy change there that would make me think differently about his stances. But yes, the proof is all in the pudding, and I'm glad there are sites like Versionista for comparison down the road.

Re:WTF?

[CrimsonScythe]

If you look at method9455's user info, this submission is his/her only activity since registering, which is quite recently if you go by the user number (1368959). No doubt this is just another republican troll.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[Shakrai]

Obama is just another lawyer

Could we please stop attacking lawyers just for being lawyers? Do civil rights attorneys bother you? Consumer rights attorneys? How about the lawyers who argued Brown v. Board of Education? How about Clarence Darrow (argued for the defense in the Scopes Trial)? What about John Adams (Founding Father)? What about Ray Beckerman (aka: NewYorkCountryLawyer)?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that not every lawyer is a RIAA extortionist.

Re:Lobbiest money.

[Shakrai]

Open Secrets shows Obama accepted far more money from the employees of large corporations than John McCain.

Fixed that for you.

Re:It's not just NN

[Shakrai]

Change what exactly? Details please

Well, for starters Obama has (from the very beginning -- read Audacity of Hope) decried the deregulation that got us into this financial mess and been in favor of restoring some of the regulations that have been gutted over the last 16 years.

Both candidates have the details of what they intend to do up on their webpages. The only thing you can do is view those details and take their history into account when deciding how much you believe them (i.e: seems odd that McCain recently embraced regulation after spending two decades opposing it). If you are looking for "details" in the stump speeches or television advertisements you are going to be pretty disappointed though.

Important Differences

[copponex]

These are guesses, or even hopes. I agree that any of the viable candidates are going to serve the corporate interest, but there are important differences.

1. Obama will engage in diplomacy with Iran, and hopefully in covert ways with Hezbollah, Hamas, and the nationalist Iraqi forces. If you're serious about ending terrorism, you have to engage the enemy dipomatically and address the conditions that lead to it. Protip: killing more muslims with western weapons isn't helping.
2. His Administration will sweep out the Bush/Reagan Administration, while McCain would probably keep a lot of it. That's worth my vote right there.
3. Obama does not pander to Jerry Falwell or any of his imitators. It's America, so he has to recognize the religious element, but he doesn't associate with the fundamentalist nutcases.
4. Obama has shown his distaste of the Bush and Clinton Dynasties. Change is good.

Most importantly, Obama is not McCain. McCain has turned from a moderate Republican, who I would have seriously considered voting for in 2000, to a complete shill, pandering to evangelicals, touting proto-fascist military slogans, and most importantly, has shown the same inability to engage in serious self-criticism that has truly frightened the rest of the world in regards to the Bush Administration. McCain also claims to believe that the Iraq war has something to do with counterterrorism or the spread of freedom, which to any serious observer, is total fucking nonsense.

Re:Important Differences

[Uberbah]

1) Iran had a peaceful, democratic government. Until it was destroyed by the United States. If you want to complain about Iran's theocracy, start yelling at a mirror.

2) If you want to know the kind of personnel McCain would have in his administration, look at the staff he has running his campaign.

3) Racist bullshit. No, seriously, harping on Rev. Wright when white preachers say worse things every single Sunday is straight up "angry black man" racism. And what he said wasn't even bad: he was talking about how minorities had been horribly mistreated by the U.S. government - Wright grew up while the feds were experimenting with syphilis on black men. As opposed to guys like Falwell and Hagee who talk about how the U.S. is hit with hurricanes and terrorist attacks because God hates homosexuals.

And you are completely ignoring the hypocrisy aspect: in 2000, McCain called Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance". Now he can't suck up to their kind enough.

And chances are that Jeremiah Wright is a far, far better American than you. He voluntarily gave up his student deferment and went off to Vietnam for two tours of duty as a United States Marine, as opposed to the Bushco chickenhawks. And when he finished his second tour, he reenlisted as a medical corpsman.

4) Baseless crap.

McCain has flip flopped on every issue that made him a maverick to win the backing of troglodyte wingnuts

There, fixed that for you.

His nomination of Sarah Palin, a completely unvetted woman he met only once shows his impulsiveness makes him unfit for the presidency.

Fixed that too.

Vote with a list.

[Ostracus]

"Actually the black guy qualifies in anyone's book as a rich white guy ... Unless you're totally obsessed with skin color."

Or checklists.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[jacquesm]

true enough, but I would prefer a world without lawyers to one with 'good' lawyers and 'bad' lawyers.

I realize we need laws but the very large majority of the lawyers is simply parasitic to society.

It should be possible to get by with far far less of them then there currently are.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[theshowmecanuck]

That is being racially intolerant of his mother. Or does black plus white equal black?

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[Simon80]

Yes, but if all lawyers were good lawyers (crazy, I know), wouldn't the problem fix itself?

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[jacquesm]

I think the legal profession is a bit like a priesthood, it actually thrives on obscure interpretations of language and on serious consequences of failing such interpretations. It's like an arms race, if your opponent has a lawyer then you'd better get one yourself and so on. The end result is a legal system that is well beyond the average smart persons capability to interpret.

It should have never ever gotten this far.

If you simply removed all lawyers and let the parties argue their own cases exclusively we'd see two things:

- a significant drop in caseload
- a return to reasonable verdicts instead of verdicts on technicalities

Of course it's a pipe dream (especially in criminal law) but like with most extreme positions it has a grain of truth in it somewhere and it would be nice to be able to shift the 'middle ground' to the point where lay people would stand a chance against a seasoned lawyer, and where verdicts would actually make sense to an informed outsider.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[jabithew]

Okay, well. He fulfills the requirements of 'blackness' for racial stereotyping, or at least he fills in the checkbox on two items on the list, for the camera.

Er, he also fits the white guy by racial stereotyping. Is it any wonder the blacks in America have such a crappy time if people question their "blackness" as soon as they start to achieve? It's like to be black is to fail from these posts.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[aurispector]

US law schools churn out far more lawyers than we need, yet we have a looming shortage of family physicians since the insurance companies (i.e. their employers) don't want to be bothered actually paying them. The average salary for non-ivy league lawyers is far lower than you might think, particularly if you exclude the hapless drones working at the big lawsuit factories.

We will be able to do without lawyers once we can all agree to make and abide by the rules rationally, i.e never. We COULD do with fewer lawyers which could happen but probably won't.

I'd suggest we would do better with a major reform of the health insurance industry so every doctor doesn't feel compelled to specialize in order to make their investment of time and effort to become doctors (which is far more difficult than in law) pay off.

Re:All hail the new lump, same as the old lump.

[Shakrai]

Eh, I just don't see a line-item veto as anything more than a power grab by the Executive. Have the balls to veto the whole bill if the riders are that bad.

If you really want to fix this problem then I'd suggest starting with gerrymandering and not the line-item veto. If Congressional races were actually competitive maybe our Congress-critters would be more responsive to the citizenry.

Re:Because McCain chose Palin

[Lumpy]

more educated does not mean smart.

I know many people with masters degrees that are dumber than a box of rocks.

So waving your educated flag around does not impress many people.

the GOP chose a woman simply because they want to get the "we want a woman in the white house vote" there are a lot of pissed Hillary supporters and the GOP hopes to high hell they will get them over to their side.

there is NOTHING intellectual about this presidential campaign. It's all about bullshit, which makes it typical.

Re:America vs Freedom

[SQL Error]

10-second civics lesson for you: America has a president, not a dictator. Congress wields considerably more power. No single person, not Bush or McCain or Palin, not even Obama, has the capacity to wreck the country. Or to fix it, for that matter. Much less the entire world.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why America will fall. As I see it, you just turned having an ivy league education into a negative point...

And, he's a rich white guy because he's got a wife and kids? Really? Couldn't think of anything else?

No, you're right. There's absolutely no change between a white child of privilege who's father and grandfather's influences gave him his education and career, and a guy from a single family mixed race household who went to college on scholarship, earned his admittance, and finished in the top of the class.

Re:it does not matter

[The AtomicPunk]

Although I'm sure you and I agree on how big of a jackass GWB is, you can hardly say he *created* the national debt. I think that honor is shared among a long line of democrats and republicans.

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/history.gif

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/inflation.gif

Re:America vs Freedom

[jacquesm]

sorry, but by the looks of it from the outside in you might as well have a dictator. Your president is ignoring the laws of his own country as though they did not exist (or at least do not apply to him), let's not even get started about the vice president.

That he has a lot of people enabling him goes without saying but it is a very serious situation nonetheless.

Re:America vs Freedom

[jacquesm]

For you to say 'Europe's ever-leftward growing interests' means that you have no clue about European politics.

There is a very strong right wing revival in Europe in full swing as you write this and it is a source of some concern.

As they say, 'education has a left wing bias', unfortunately the US of A does not even have a left wing to speak of. Nader, maybe... Not that he stands a chance of ever getting elected.

Winner takes all is the American way, this disenfranchises a very large part of the population, coalition government is the european way and it seems to work a lot better in getting some actual representation.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[torstenvl]

What a troll.

The anti-lawyer rhetoric on this board is pretty ridiculous. In case you forgot, the drafters of every open source license are lawyers. Lawrence Lessig is a lawyer. Charles Nesson is a lawyer. The people representing the defendants in RIAA suits are lawyers.

Obama is just another lawyer ... who ... ha[s] a ... stance of ... "hmmm, these RIAA guys, they DO pay kinda nice."

[citation needed] buddy. This truthiness crap is ridiculous. Unless you can prove the RIAA has employed Obama, that's libel. Watch yourself bub.

Give Obama a Break, and Your Vote

[tjstork]

I'm a right wing Republican whose endorsing John McCain but I am appalled at the way you liberals are once destroying yourselves and your candidate with your withering self doubt. We have on the right have a joke, that is, only Democrats could be so smart as to figure out a way to blow election after election and here you go again.

Can you please have some hope?

What Obama did with his web site was to basically rewrite it from the mishmash that it was into something more coherent. There is nothing substantively different about this restructuring. Obama has always been in favor of strong IP legislation, but, so what of it?

Do you really think that a man who spent his formative years arguing in favor of some form of socialism will suddenly turn his back on that?

Do you really believe that a man who has worked his entire life organizing his own liberal constituency into an election machine is suddenly going to come out looking like Reagan?

I mean, seriously, don't you think Michelle would kick his rear if he even thought of selling out?

I mean come on liberals. You are getting a guy whose is your best standard bearer for your commy liberalism in easily 40 years, if not since Roosevelt, and arguably all time. Obama knows well that which he argues and that's why on the right hate the son of a gun so much. If you are liberally inclined, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Obama is a committed idealist with the trappings of greatness about him and in spades. A minor shift in a political position or a rephrasing of a web site is not going to alter the overall thrust of this man's policy or his life.

So, don't lose faith because some staff member re-edited the web site. Obama is going to deliver for you liberals nearly everything that you believe in if he is elected. Obama is the real deal of liberalism. This is your chance. Don't f--- it up.

Now, quit whining, liberals, as you so often do, and get off your asses and vote for this guy. He's the best you'll have in your lifetime and now is the time to go for it.

Re:America vs Freedom

[kellyb9]

WRONG. Congress is ALLOWING him to break and ignore the laws of his own country. The GP is right. None of this would've happened if Congress didn't give him that type of power he has. Blame Congress for where we are now.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[SageinaRage]

If you removed all lawyers and let all parties argue their own cases, you'd immediately see a drastic shift in power to the upper class and more educated, who would actually know the law, and have time to study and interpret it. The reason we have lawyers is so that EVERYONE has an expert on the law on their side. Also there'd be a shift in power towards prosecution, since the state pretty much by definition has to have a lawyer, or at least one person who puts forward cases against a multitude of defendants.

"It's the Supreme Court, stupid..."

[Slartibartfast]

Honestly, while I care about the candidates' views on technology, I think long-term impact will be felt far more strongly based on who they appoint to the Supreme Court ("SCOTUS"). The reason I say this is because, by-and-large, republican nominees have been more willing to clamp down on civil liberties, with special attention to interpretation of free speech. (Alas, they've all proved pretty wrong-headed when it came to Eldred v. Ashcroft, a/k/a the unfettered expansion of copyright... but that's where the difference between interpretation and legislation comes in, and, alas (for this case), the SCOTUS isn't nearly as revisionary as the fundies would have us believe.)

So, anyway, I care about McCain and Obmama's positions. But I care far more that the Court is becoming substantially unbalanced, and worry that a republican in office will have decades-long influence over most every freedom we currently take for granted.

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[Just Some Guy]

Could we please stop attacking lawyers just for being lawyers?

Turn on any TV channel less high-brow than The History Channel (and maybe even that one; I don't watch it because I'm not that high-brow). Wait 15 minutes. You will see at least one advertisement for lawyers who want you to get rich from asbestos exposure ("even second hand!") or to get you that social security disability check that "you know you deserve". This probably accounts for 90% of the average person's contact with the legal community. Can you really blame them for thinking poorly of the profession?

Re:FP!

[GuyfromTrinidad]

I totally agree with you, right now it is all about telling your point in the simplest way possible and making that emotional connection (hence the heavy prevalence and inclusion of Science and Math two subjects that America ranks about 23rd worldwide at 7th and 8th grade level).

Re:Vote with a bullet.

[GarfBond]

McCain's income is missing his wife's, which should be fair game to include. All reasonable people would consider that "household" income anyway. Good job playing games with the percentages though.

Re:FP!

[adisakp]

If anybody bothered to read the diff, it is obvious that the page was re-written to improve accessibility, so that more voters can understand the issues. Long paragraphs were shortened.

The original page is a huge amount of text -- 5462 words on the page. This is like "War and Peace" for a web page. The new version only has 3319 words on the page and the text has been simplified.

The average person reads around 200-250 WPM for fifth grade reading material. For technically detailed information (the earlier version of the webpage), the rate can drop to 70-80 words per minute.

The first version had a large number of technical details and was extremely long. Assuming a generous 100 WPM for non-technical readers, it would have taken nearly an hour (54 minutes) to read. The new version is much less wordy and the technical details have been simplified a bit so if we assume a faster reading speed of at least 200 WPM, it will still take most people over 15 minutes to read.

What Obama really should do is make the web page smaller still - to the 5 minutes-to-read range and then have an extended document like the original page that you can download to read over an hour or two if you want the technical details.

Re:FP!

[MrNaz]

Yea, because of course, we don't want to make people spend more than five minutes doing something as inconsequential as choosing who gets to be the most powerful man on the planet.

Yes, obviously an elitist

[Mark_in_Brazil]

Yes, Barack Obama, by mentioning arugula, has shown he is the elitist among the major party candidates.

John McCain, on the other hand, is just chock-full of mavericky goodness and simple values, and isn't elitist at all, despite the fact that he and his wife own a private jet and 8-12 homes on 8 properties (McCain says he doesn't know... it must be hard to keep track), spent $273,000 on household employees last year, and THIS JUST IN: own 13 cars. Oh, and despite McCain's claims that he has only bought American cars all his life, those cars include a Honda, a Lexus, and a Volkswagen, and also in the family is the Prius he boasted about his daughter buying just last year when he was pandering to voters with different concerns.

Oh, and Cindy McCain may have worn a $313,100 outfit on the first night of the Republican convention and said you just can't get around Arizona without a private plane, but trust the people who brought you the Iraq war: she's as down-to-Earth and "simple folk" as they come.

Those "uppity" Obamas, with their one house, on which they got a better-than-average mortgage deal (gasp!) based on Obama's senate income and book proceeds, have one car for the family. And both Obamas paid for their education with student loans, with Barack, who was raised by a single mother and his grandparents, ending up as president of the Harvard Law Review. John McCain, the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, was practically the definition of a legacy admission at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Yeah, that arugula comment really tells the whole story of who's an elitist.