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Election Dirty Tricks About To Begin
An anonymous reader writes "ABC is warning that dirty election tricks are about to start. In the past, they've ranged from late-night robo-calls to voter intimidation. ABC has a pretty good list of what to watch out for as told by Allen Raymond, a former Republican operative, who was reformed after spending three months in prison in 2006 for pulling some of the stunts he now helps to prevent." To make this story timely, last week someone broke into a McCain campaign office in Missouri and stole a laptop computer containing "strategic information" about the local campaign.
Clean tricks?
Funny how often "Country First" seems to involve stealing, lying, and trampling all over democracy, law, equality, justice and the Constitution...
A-Bomb
like voter fraud?
CLEVELAND - Volunteers supporting Barack Obama picked up hundreds of people at homeless shelters, soup kitchens and drug-rehab centers and drove them to a polling place yesterday on the last day that Ohioans could register and vote on the same day, almost no questions asked.
The huge effort by a pro-Obama group, Vote Today Ohio, takes advantage of a quirk in the state's elections laws that allows people to register and cast ballots at the same time without having to prove residency.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Don't you mean "began months ago"?
Rob
Where have you guys been? The ads have been on TV for a couple of weeks. The economy is going down the tubes, so distraction is the key.
... don't they have to stop at some point first? You can't start what's been going on non-stop for decades.
"How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative"
Oh ho ho! I don't think this article is trying to make negative suggestions or anything...
Wow, an entry about dirty tricks in politics and only the Republicans are listed as offenders? Does that make this a dirty blog entry?
I would have *never* suspected that dirty tricks would happen this year or start anytime soon. Dirty tricks when it comes to political matters' what is this world coming to anyway?
The biggest trick is the one that Obama is pulling. The one that makes us all think that he is somehow a better choice because he appears smarter, cooler, and more articulate than McCain.
i am already getting
Mc Cain + Palin spam emails
for last few weeks
tho im not from US :( stupid spammers
Who needs dirty tricks when you have Diebold in your wallet?
You might learn something
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
... except for:
1) citizenship
2) name
3) birthdate
4) state driver's license or SSN (required)
But hey, they're poor, so obviously they shouldn't be allowed to vote. Especially since they so often vote the wrong way, and thus prove how unAmerican they are.
I think a dirtier trick is to post a partisan blog entry and pretend that Republicans only engage in dirty politics. Perhaps if liberal blogs continue to tell the same lie long enough, people will actually start to believe it. If you read the Huffington Post or try to post on Obama's YouTube channel you know the censorship that is already in place for dissenting opinions. Pretty soon these people who fear discourse are going to be in power, and we want hear anything but their truth.
It's not the weight, but the size of the struggle that matters.
To do list.
Proctologist appointment Monday.
Replace Corn pads in left shoe.
Remember to set VCR to tape Matlock reruns while I'm out of town.
Arrive at debate an hour early so I have time to pee.
Ask name of that girl I see around the office that looks like Tina Fey.
Ask aids to use larger font on teleprompters.
Change hearing aid batteries before the Debate.
Post Craig's List ad for ten of the twelve cars.
Yesterday I received a DVD in the mail from an obscure group known as the "Clarion Fund." It was a hatchet job meant to scare people about the evils of muslim extremism.... The shocking part was that they somehow had my full name on the address label....
The joys of living in the swing state of VA....
They started immediately after the last election! Only back then it was more posturing and planning than showmanship.
"A plague on both your houses" is the correct line (from Romeo and Juliet)
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
Dictatorships are run by dictators. Monarchies are run by monarchs. Democracies are run by demagogues. What did you expect? for the people to vote for the best candidate? no way. They'll vote what appears to be better for them. It's not like you can vote based on what you don't know... :)
It strikes me as bizarre and hypocritical to see somebody complaining about dirty tricks in such a biased and one-sided piece. It's like stealing and then calling somebody else a thief for doing the same. So breaking in to the offices of your own side is "dirty", whereas lying isn't? Both are immoral, and if you can defend one, you can probably defend the other, given the right circumstances.
Apart from that, complaining about things, but not being willing to do anything serious about it is just whining. And I suspect that the reason why nobody wants to clean up the way American politics works is that this would expose a lot of filth in all camps.
When did they ever stop?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And this is when everyone should dust off their copy of Expanded Universe, give A Bathroom of Her Own a read, and realize that not only has this crap has been going on since (at least) 1946, it's been used by both sides.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Appearance is 90%.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There is nothing more essential to a democracy or representative government than VOTING and ELECTIONS. They must be sacred. Voter fraud, election fraud, and illegal fundraising (thereby affecting the outcome) cannot and must not be tolerated. They must be dealt-with swiftly and severely. They are the moral equivalent of TREASON and should be punishable by death or life in prison.
While some might laugh-off "dead people voting", "100% precinct turnouts", "illegal alien voting", and "Internet contributions from donors named 'Good Will'", these crimes undermine the very foundation of our Great Nation. They cannot be tolerated.
electronic voting. no better device for dirty tricks has ever been invented
paper ballots. ocr. end of debate
anything else, including traditional mechanical voting machines, are ripe for abuse. not because you can't do dirty tricks with paper ballots, but because electronic voting (and to a lesser degree tradtional mechanical voting machines) increases the number of attack vectors by an order of magnitude, and increases the damage a lone operative can do, exponentially
fox news? plutocrat neocons? liberal media? america hating moonbats? corporate lobbyists? christian dominionists? uninformed apathetic voters?
make a list of what you consider the greatest threat to american democracy
nope, wrong
it's electronic voting. electronic voting removes transparency and introduces distrust into the voting process. electronic voting will prove to be the biggest mistake and the greatest threat to american democracy
democracy's greatest strength is that it creates legitimacy, no other form of government renews legitimacy in the eyes of its people. it gives the people a real voice in their own government. remove that trust with black box voting, and you remove legitimacy and stability and faith in the government. lose that, and you lose everything
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...we just don't get this shit! the worst we have got is people abusing postal votes
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Try the turn of the 19th Century. Look up the Adams vs. Jefferson election if you want to see really dirty tricks.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Has anyone seen any of these kind of blody nuckle tactics yet in this election? Do you report them to the local police or state election board? I'm not talking about the typical FUD TV ads or stump speeches. I was hoping to see some of the drama first hand, but now that Michigan is basically uncontested I'm probably out of luck.
So theft is not a problem here?
I'm sometimes curious as to what "news" Fox is covering on their morning show as compared to everyone else. While CNN, MSNBC, CNBC et al are covering the falling markets, what each campaign is doing, comments and the like, Fox is covering the dirty tricks of Ohio and how the Democrats are trying to steal the election.
What dirty tricks you say? The fact that people can register and vote on the same day for a one-week period. Now, as Fox spins it, this opens the door for fraudulent voting and other dirty tricks since there was a big push to register voters and have them vote on the same day.
Mind you, Fox didn't say word one when the head of Diebold made his infamous statement because after all, that wasn't a dirty trick nor even the appearance of a dirty trick.
So have no fear, Fox will report all the dirty tricks the Democrats attempt to pull.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The bigger point is that BOTH parties do this. There's a tendency to think Obama's people are pure in this but I doubt McCain stole his own campaign's laptop. Not to mention Obama supporters going to the police to have dissenting voices intimidated in Missouri. This is politics. It's dirty.
It had a glass front in a strip mall. But hey, it's more "newsy" if we claim it's political dirty tricks.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
When people put money where their mouth is they're worthy of attention, so here's what the bookmakers think about the election: Elections Betting. Obama's getting better odds, last time I checked over the weekend he was $1.40, now $1.26. Republicans are $3.75. Is it a forgone conclusion?
Also, Palin is a one-line wonder and can only screw things up. Anyone else know what October Surprise is?
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
With less than 28 days to go before election day StopPoliticalCalls.org has started to see reports in the media and from members that the robo calls have started, big time. You can help us Robo calls are the worst form of political campaigning. Candidates can send them and voters receive them and they disappear into thin air. There is no record. Until now. The internet has made it easier than ever to record robo calls and then put them up for the world to listen to. There is no better disinfectant than sunlight. **What we need you to do: StopPoliticalCalls.org is keeping a database of all robo calls that are made in the 2008 election cycle. Since we are non-partisan, we have all calls made from all sides. Here are two examples from members in the past two weeks right here in Northern Virginia. One is Progressive and one is from the VA GOP. 1--Working Families Win Robo call regarding Frank Wolf --> http://thinkdodone.typepad.com/ccd/2008/10/working-familie.html 2--VA GOP robo call --> http://thinkdodone.typepad.com/ccd/2008/09/va-gop-robocall.html **What you can do: 1. Record the robo call. 2. Send the file or link to the file to me at info AT citizensforcivildiscourse.org with the subject: "Robocall Recording: Date, Name of Candidate" **How: 1. If you have a VOIP service like Vonage, it is easy since the system creates files you can email quickly. 2. If you have an old fashioned answer phone simply get out your "camcorder", video tape the answer phone with the volume on, and upload the recording to YouTube. Regards, Shaun Dakin CEO and Founder The National Political Do Not Contact Registry StopPoliticalCalls.org
I don't know about you, but sitting here in India, I kinda get the feeling that there's more dirty work afoot.
When I look at the current gas shortage in the US or the economic crunch/bailouts, I sort of get the feeling that it's all coming together to one point - an absolute sense of insecurity for the middle class. The kind of people who'd do anything to keep their way of life - and in enough numbers to tip over the balance for the ruling class. Abortion and gay marriages are just not really the issues which decide the fate of a country (Roe vs Wade though), but they're easy issues to divide these people with. Tax cuts and bailouts are the real deal, but at this point there seem to be no fiscal conservative in power in the us (to quote myself - "in this economy of bad cheques, the only winner is a spender").
That kind of subliminal fear in the society. If that's not a dirty trick, what is?
PS: and today was the day someone from my office was implicated in a terror bombing case ... and the office is still calm & un-paranoid (*wow*)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
How about ACORN, on a voter registration drive, making up names and addresses from the phone book? Man its going to be a long election :/
One of the linked articles states that the police are not allowed within a certain distance of polling stations during an American election - is this correct?
Here in the UK it's the opposite - there is usually a (discreet) police presence at polling stations, presumably to prevent any sort of intimidation or foul play. Traditionally, the winning candidate begins his/her acceptance speech by thanking the police and officials for ensuring an orderly election.
I can see both sides, but I think on balance I would rather have the police there than not.
Nobody should be allowed to vote unless they provide their public key
We need to continue drilling the McCain campaign on economic issues. Neither McCain nor Palin has addressed the economy in an intelligent, organized manner.
We need to continue drilling Obama on the constitutionality of the things he wants to do. Social healthcare is prominent unconstitutional issue and it must be drilled.
We need to continue drilling the media to get more focus on the third party candidates and the up to 10% of the vote they have in some states, especially swing states like Ohio.
Our dirty tricks--we the geeks--can be to FLOOD iReport, Digg, Reddit, and such with third party coverage. They need to be inundated with it.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
The pointlessness of a two-party system based on false antagonisms and dichotomies. Sadly, there seems to be no hope in sight.
Either approval voting or range voting (aka score votingwould break the forced two-valued dichotomy of the current system.
(In fact, approval voting is just one version of range voting-- in games theory, they are identical).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Since when is 'if you have a warrant out for your arrest, stay away from the cops' specifically voter intimidation?
This is a HUGE stretch of the imagination, if you ask me.
Identifying one's self is absolutely mandatory at these kinds of things. Otherwise, how on earth do you intend to keep people from voting as many times as they want? Registration, of some sort, is fundamental to the process. If registering and identifying yourself when you appear presents a risk to you, then please feel free to not vote.
Seriously. Be an adult and face up to the charges. Don't sit around bellyaching because you don't get to participate in the government, when you're actively ducking the government.
What a lot of those crypto/security people don't about their fancy fool proof electronic voting schemes is:
Elections don't just have to be fair, they have to be _seen_ to be fair.
A typical Joe Sixpack has got to be able to look at the elections and grudgingly admit - "Darnit, my party lost and there wasn't that much cheating".
Rather than "What's this complicated bullshit? They're cheating big time I know it".
And the funny thing is - it doesn't really have to be that complicated. Hand counting scales.
I live in South Carolina, and have seen many nasty tricks over the years (being in a particularly conservative/religious-nutball/reactionary state). Of course, there was the infamous John McCain flyer that was sent out to upstate Rebublicans in 2000 (implying McCain had a black love child). But the nastiest bit is the one they've done the last two elections (and will almost certainly do again this time). Republicans show up a precincts on or near historically black colleges (like Benedict) and demand to see people's ID's before they vote, checking every crossed "i" and dotted "t" and generally trying to intimidate black voters or make it as hard on them as possible (since they know they'll likely vote Democrat). They do not, of course, do this for precincts at predominantly white colleges or in strong Republican precincts.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The choice was to take the laptop or an Eee? Are they morons?
"The laptop contained "strategic information for the [Republican Party] on how we are going to reach out to people in the Kansas City area".
In other words, their plans were all on there for how to prevent the downtown residents from voting.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
1. i think we should abolish the electoral college, since, as 2000 demonstrates, you can lose the popular vote and still win the election (and hasn't the last 8 years proven that to be a mistake)
2. however, if you use the existence of the electoral college as a reason not to vote, no: you're wrong. the electoral college is a negative tweak to a system that still works. removing the electoral college merely makes it work better. the existence of the electoral college doesn't nullfy the entire process and doesn't nullify your vote. it merely warps the value of your vote in ways that are really kind of arbitrary, neither favoring one ideology or another. it's noise in the system
now, there are people out there with learned helplessness, with deficits in their ability to trust. there are plenty of reasons and examples of the system creating distrust, but there are also people in this world with a pathological disability: an inability to trust
such people are not disenfranchised by the system, such people disenfrachise themselves
so if you do not vote, simply because the electoral college exists, you are looking for a reason not to vote, and you found a very flimsy one. its really not a good reason not to vote
and if you don't vote because of the electoral college, there's osmething wrong with you. its self-disenfrachisement
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Obam-ho-tep... Obam-ho-tep... Obam-ho-tep...
Twenty-two Asustek Eee PCs, which are used by phone-bank volunteers and do not contain sensitive information, were left behind by the thieves, Hervey said.
I dunno, I would have taken the twenty-two Eee PC's myself.
CNN covered the Ayers issue too. They even ended it by interviewing someone who knew both Obama and Ayers who was happy to claim they hardly knew each other.
Fox news ended their Ayers story by interviewing someone who reseacrhed the meeting notes proving Obama was far more involved with Ayers then he admits.
Whenever I am watching a politician on television, and they are appearing to be smart and articulate, I just turn the volume back up and that usually solves the problem.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
there is equal willingness to commit fraud, electronic voting, or paper voting
"Electronic voting merely makes fraud a little easier to conceal"
no. the difference is one of scale and ease. the difference is sophisitication of attack vectors, increased number of attack vectors, how easy it is to hide your tracks, etc.
"Does it make it easier or more likely? Not really"
no. with paper voting, you need lots of coordination, effort, and hard work by many players in many positions to effect any real damage. and its more open
with electronic voting, you just need one guy and 100 milliseconds to do absolutely ANYTHING you want to do with votes, including introducing random statistical abberations to prevent the raising of red flags
electronic voting does a LOT more than just make fraud easier to conceal (which is bad enough)- it introduces a myriad more attack vectors and decreases the number of players involved to do a lot more damage a lot more quickly. electronic voting makes fraud a LOT easier
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and based on your post, i guess my enemies are pretty stupid
do you think bush would have been elected in 2004 if not in 2000?
really?
i think bush would have been discarded in the intervening years of 2001-2003. candidates that lose elections are rarely reconsidered. the taint of losing is too strong. witness mondale in 1984, dole in 1996, and kerry in 2004. after losing, they were all persona non grata
so yes, winning in 2000 meant 8 more years of bush
furthermore, in 2004, i think we would have had a republican president. this is assuming the 9/11/2001 attacks still took place
if gore were president in 2001, he would have pursued military action in afghanistan, thats a no-brainer for any president. but he would never have attacked iraq. and the electorate, angry over 9/11, would have sought out a warhawk in 2004, and the republicans would have played to this and monopolized on an electorate looking for blood and would have painted gore as a wooden pansy. this approach would have worked too. they would look their 2004 candidate in a hard talking strong military background candidate, like norman schwarzkopf, colin powell... ...or john mccain
if gore were president in 2000, and if the the 9/11/2001 attacks still took place, john mccain would have been president in 2004
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
See the problem with answering questions honestly is that americans don't want to hear the truth. Carter proved that out when he asked the americans to tighten their belts and live within their means. They called his speech a "malaise" because Americans didn't want to hear it or accept it. So Reagan was voted in when he said "Carter is wrong, you can have anything you want!"
Bush Sr. said no new taxes. But a tax hike was required at an important time, so he helped raise taxes. He was then voted out.
A significant portion of Americans believe that the US government is required to preserve their specific way of life, no matter what that is. What's why we require so much foreign oil. That's why we have such large cars. That's why so many people have such large credit card debt. We want our politicians to tell us we can have everything, and they want them to ensure that we can get it. Few Americans are willing to accept that maybe we personally all have to accept responsibility and start buying less and tighten our belts and accept higher taxes. We have to start thinking about quality of life, and not "quantity" of life.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
the EC favors no ideology, so it makes no sense for republicans or democrats to want to preserve the system. think of all the republican voters in california and new york who pretty much know their votes are worth nothing. that the EC gave bush the presidency in 2000 is not something that mean the EC automatically favors republicans, or democrats. there's hundreds of strategic situations where a swing state here or there can illegitimately award the presidency to someone who got less popular votes
so the only thing that is lost by losing the EC is millions of voters with a sense that their vote doesn't count. therefore, lose the EC, by all means, in the name of increasing faith on our democratic institutions
the EC is a sort of aristocratic hedge the founding fathers built into the system, a sliver of doubt about the popular will. god bless their hearts, the founding fathers got so many things right in the name of the enlightenment, but they had a shadow of aristocratic doubt, and that shadow of a doubt is the EC
the EC is an anachronistic albatross around our necks. the EC needs to be abolished, it is a joke, and a dangerous one as 2000 demonstrates. the put the wrong man in the presidency in a time of great international crisis, fomenting a war with the wrong country based on nothing but popular undirected anger and a hidden malodorous agenda
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The founding fathers did not mean to include non-property owning whites, slaves, women, or heathens in that declaration. Remember, to them, the lower classes were dumb, and certainly not able to govern themselves.
This attitude persists in the minority of America - those at the top, with the money, who don't want anything to change. You can listen for ten minutes to any of their mouth pieces - Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. - and hear that sentiment loud and clear.
My guess is that someone stole that laptop to pawn. I don't know why the Obama campaign with their huge lead would feel the need to start stealing laptops at this point. I realize their are always people who get a little too wrapped up in their campaigns, but still...
"A war ends the moment that one contestant decides he cannot win,"
Iraq is not a war. It's an invasion and occupation. Just like Gaza and the West bank.
Need Mercedes parts ?
democracy IS the only way to go. there is simply no alternative in existence, in reality or in theory, whereby the people gain faith in their government in a better format
start with a revolution that places a new government in place. it has enormous will in the people behind it, they will do anything for that government. well, over time and over generations, that government and the people begin to drift apart in agenda and trust. such that only another revolution is the only way to reinstate fidelity between the people's will and the government's agenda
democracy allows for a government to address the people's will, to become reconnected with what the people really want. this creates legitimacy, and stability, without the insanity of revolution
without that constant submission to the people's will, legitimacy of a government naturally decays over time, no matter how much good will it started with. no man or group of men (that's you china) can rule with such perfection that no mistakes or distrust in the people doesn't accumulate over time. decaying legitimacy creates societal instability, societal instability creates revolution. only democracy avoids this
and in spite of all of the clueless fantasy sequences of upper middle class fools listening to rage against the machine: no, revolution is never a good thing. it creates a huge amount of suffering and death, from which a society may never fully recover, and the system that eventually wins power in the struggle is not guaranteed to be better than whatever government was overthrown
only democracy allows for the people's will to be addressed without this bloodshed and suffering. and there exists no real world or even theoretical alternative to this model for addressing the people's will
so you are wrong: democracy, indeed, is the best form of government
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i am not a blind partisan fool like we see too many of nowadays. the idea is faith in democracy. i have my own set of beliefs, and i am saddened by a bush presidency, but more important than my own personal beliefs are the will of the american people. the will of the american people must be fully expressed as closely as possible
what of all the republican voters in california and new york who pretty much feel like their vote doesn't count? please, count their vote. they deserve to be heard. i disagree with their opinions, but that doesn't mean i have the right to deny their voice. so please, abolish the EC so republicans in california and new york can be heard. i am 100% for that
in an environment where the connection between the will of the people and the presidency has issues with fidelity, doubt in our form of government grows. when that doubt grows, legitimacy is put into question, societal instability grows. i don't want that
i'd rather have 40 years of neocon presidents with a fair election than a more liberal government elected in cloudly perturbed way like the EC that large parts of the population are angry that their will is not rightfully represented. this creates the toxic partisan atmosphere we've had in this country over the last 8 years
if my ideology is going to lose, then fine. as long as it is fair and square loss. i can live with that. and then i will stand behind my government
but if my government is created in ways that are not fair to me, why should i stand behind my government, why should i have faith in it, trust it, support it, when it does not think my vote counts?
and this observation applies to me, a liberal, and it applies equally to a conservative voter
in such a way, the EC erodes democracy, and should be abolished, the EC does not favor repulicans or democrats. it EC favors one thing: loss of faith in democracy
we need to lose the historical albatross that is the EC, please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, I didn't think he won. I don't think anyone with any intelligence thought he won, either. Although it proves that P.T. Barnum knew what he was talking about.
I think it proves you're one of those people Pauline Kael made famous when she said "I don't see how Nixon could have possibly won. No one I know voted for him"
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Why are republicans mentioned in the summary of a "dirty voter tricks" story twice any NOT A SINGLE FUCKING MENTION of democrats paying homeless to vote, dead people voting for the (D) candidate for years after their death or any of the other bullshit democrats pull on election day?
God damn, Slashdot. Your left-leaning shit is really starting to get on my last fucking nerve.
There is a guy in extradition proceedings right now in England. While living in Australia he rana website that questioned the official holocaust story. He visited England, and though holocaust denial is not a crime in Australia or England he is likely to stand trial in Germany because of some dumb EU extradition treaty.
Of course we've drifted a bit off topic here.
Just another entry on the subject. Voter fraud and dirty tricks are fun for all!
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/nov04/271676.asp
Bah. I say in order to run for President that you have atleast a PHD in Politics, Economics, or Religion. And also all pertinent questions relating to current issues and you being eligable to being elected must have your answers peer-reviewed with a large(whatever is concidered large for peer-reviews) acceptance by other people with PHDs in the area the question pertains.
We need a way for high-level educators, who educate because they're good what they do, help filter out bad candidates.
--You know. Where script kiddies use dumb hacks to effectively ruin the experience for everyone. Where you hear, "But if you want to win, you ALSO have to cheat!"
This proves it. America has the mentality of a 12 year-old video game brat.
You don't see this shit to the same crazy degree in more mature countries. If that ignorant twit, Palin, is allowed to become the next president, the U.S. will not only deserve to be turned into black glass, but it may well be required by the rest of the planet simply for yhe continued viability of the human race.
-FL
ABC, a controlled puppet of one of the 5 corporations who own 95% of all USA mainstream media and who's masters hold controlling shares in both presidential candidates, wants you to believe that there is some sort of real choice and buy into this false left-right dichotomy.
Unfortunately for you, this is all a puppet trick played out on a stage when the real usurping of our government occurred a century ago and we have been subjected to a form of subversive slavery with increasingly severity since.
Watch this great big brother talk.
The real battle is not between obama and mcain. The real battle appears to be between the neonazi faction of bush and cheney who have been moving towards a coup for the past 8 years and may have finally made their move on oct.1 versus the established uber elite who oppose this and would like to see the system of subversive control remain in place as-is.
Was the 20 trillion payout the bush administration handed out this fall enough to satisfy them? Remember, because of fractional reserve banking, every trillion they dump into existence immediately becomes 9 trillion (conservatively: see "modern money mechanics").
Liberty.
Good! Laptop burglaries at Democratic offices here in Minnesota every election like clockwork.
It seems strange to me that ABC would use go.com to publish news. Why not their own site? The language seemed a little bit too crazy for me to be reputable. If I had to guess, someone just pasted the ABC logo on their paranoid rants.
OK, I'm going to play the part of a party-neutral observer, since I hate all politicians. Here is what you need to do to get a clean election.
-Republicans: Alright, you need to let minorities and homeless people votes. I know, it sucks. And you can't vote for dead people. And you can't arrange for campaign contributors to provide the electronic voting machines. Etc. I know you guys are aware on some level of the crap you've done.
-Democrats: You need to get rid of winner-take-all voting systems. California, I'm looking at you.
Of course this won't happen because the margins will always be close enough to make voting machine scams worth it. And truly representative voting would be a disaster for the dems, since taking the winner take all states gives them equal footing against all the representative states that are taken by republicans. Funny how that works.
OK, go ahead and rip my plan apart.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
when the sun king ruled france, all of the propaganda and lies you pointed to above was in full force, deeply ingrained in the social dna of aristocrats and serfs. and yet the people still rebelled. not so much because they were smart and knew better, but simply because they were hungry
china's government has been described as the harvard alumni society with a standing army. it can do no wrong. it is perfect. except it isn't. it's human. it can, and has, made mistakes, and will do so again. the difference between the usa and china is that when the government deos something that proves deeply unpopular with the people, or makes some teribble mistake (the great leap forward, or invade iraq), or some horrible national crisis hits, in a democracy, the government can be swept aside and a new one can take its place, bloodlessly and without any effort. meanwhile, in china, in a totalitarian state, no matter how many lies are spread, the real world effects of that mistake or crisis persists, and grows, and stays a permanent mark on the system. not that the people have to even know the truth. they can blame foreign countries for something their own government did wrong if the propaganda machine is solid enough. but you can't make up a lie that covers an empty stomach. meaning: the mistakes compound over time, and you permanently impoverish the country, regardless of what the people believe is to blame for that impoverishment. and that leads to revolution: the empty stomach
the usa is not even 250 years old. and it is the most powerful country in the world. more powerful than much larger countries and much older civilizations. why?
because of democracy. when you have the freedoms and social stability in a democracy, you get a country that can adapt to horrible challenges and difficult times, and survive, because it can, with a snap of the fingers, change course with a new government and a new ideology. the ultimate in adaptive pragmatism. no totalitarian state can be that nimble. its more like an aircraft carrier trying to turn on a dime: it has massive investment in an ideological framework, and it cannot merely elicit edicts that contradict deeply ingrained ideology
well, actually, in some ways, it can. does it strike you as odd the the chinese communist party lords over the most capitalist system in the world? do you think this ideological hollowness results in no decrease in legitimacy?
that harvard alumni society with a standing army realizes this
a totalitarian state cannot persist, no matter how absolute its control over the people's will. for the sake of retaining power at all costs, it simply devoles into a weak, brittle, impoverished country. no lie fills an empty stomach. and then its revolution, or mass starvation, and even greater weakness
meanwhile, a democracy simply changes its ideological colors, and marches on, as demands and crises change, completely adaptive and nimble. this country outsurvives, outcompetes, and is richer than the ideologically brittle ones
so yes, if absolute retension of power is your point, yes, you win: you can lie to the people completely. however, if also want to have a country that can stay healthy and rich and survive as a force on the world stage, then you want a democracy, because a totalitarian state can do nothing but devolve into poverty over time
you can say china is an example contrary to this statement. actually, china is liberalizing economically, just not politically. the story is incomplete. there will come a point where any further growth, or even retention of growth, will require greater nimbleness that can only come from a democratic government. that further adhesion to a totalitarian ideological iceberg will simply mean china will begin to slide back into poverty. then its the empty stomachs of the peasants that will lead the way to revolution, that have always led the way to revolution, no matter what the propaganda is or what people believe
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i love this phrase "the tyranny of the majority"
what the hell does that mean?
the tyranny of the majority IS democracy. the will of the people is the will of the people is the will of the people. you can't call it somethng different and its somehow illegitimate
"The people in the cities should not solely decide the direction of this country."
the people in the cities should decide the direction of this country directly proportionate to their share of the population. beginning and end of the discussion right there. the direction of the country should be decided by the people, in aggregate. what does that mean? that means if 60% live in the city, people in cities deserve 60% of the say. that means if 20% live in the city, people in cities deserve 20% of the say
the people in the country deserve to retain some sort of power over the people in the cities? beyond their natural population? this is democratic to you? this is the wisdom of the founding fathers to you?
if the countryside makes up 45% of the electorate, then the countryside deserves 45% of the say. not 50%. not 40%. they deserve 45%. any warping of this one person one vote popular will is an abuse of power, is an error in the system
therefore, the EC needs to go. it warps one person one vote. it is therefore illegitimate and anti-democratic
"tyranny of the majority"
hah!
funny
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
joe sixpack needs to look at his vote and feel like it is counted
if he understands how it is counted, he has faith. integrity and legitimacy and social stability prevail
but if he sees a black box? if he sees a redundnat relational database, if he sees triple DES? this is not transparency
fact: the mechanisms you invoke for preserving "transparency" in electronic voting actually serve to introduce obfuscation and opaqueness. regardless of whether or not joe sixpack understands what is going on. making the system more complex then it needs to be increases attack vectors
simplicity must prevail. there is no need that a more complicated voting system achieves- faster vote tallies? that does not also undermine a much greater problem: perception of fairness in the eyes of the electorate
i am not being a luddite, you are being a technofetishist. simply because you can vote in a more complicated manner does not mean you should. you should think about what you are losing in that process. you haven't paid that any consideration. and you are forgetting the point of the entire exercise of voting: make the people feel like their voice counts in their government
the black box of electronic voting only wins their distrust. this makes any other positive effect of electornic voting over paper voting a moot point
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> Iraq is not a war. It's an invasion and occupation.
And your point would be? The usual result of a war is the taking of somebody else's territory and the normal word for what happens after is occupation. By your 'logic' WWII was not a war, we just invaded and occupied Germany and Japan. And Hitler and Tojo didn't even start a 'War' they just invaded and occupied some minor countries. In a few years when you graduate and realize that not only do YOU not know squat, that your profs were 'tards too you will regret your words being imortalized in the slashdot archives.
> Just like Gaza and the West bank.
See? Ignorance on display. They could have peace any time they wanted it. It's easy. Requires some simple things:
1. Understand that War does solve things. They fought on the wrong side in WWII and lost. Thus the Jews got a big hunk of their territory gifted to them by the victors, to whom the spoils of war rightfully belonged. That is a done deal for the forseable future. So accept that 'driving the Jews into the Sea' isn't an option because of the ginormous disparity in military, political, diplomatic and economic strength between the two sides.
2. If for no other reason than needing the goodwill (and buttloads of military and economic aid) of the US and the West in general the Israelis are willing to make a deal. Being a Western Democracy (on paper ar least... more like a socialist theocracy in practice) they pretty much can be expected to honor a treaty.
Personally I think the Israelis have been more than tolerant with the abuse they have taken from the so called 'Palestinians'. My solution would be to demand a ballot measure in the occupied territories on a couple of general questions.
1. Does Israel have a 'right to exist?'
2. Are we willing to forsake violence in exchange for a two state solution?
If both questions passed (cold day in hell) it would be time to help em throw off the terrorist yoke and establish a real State.
If only one passed I'd call off all talks and tell em to first have a serious conversation with themselves about what they really want, because no deal can happen in the absence of a large majority in support of both questions. Odds are this would quickly gell public opinion to one of the other choices.
If both failed I'd empty the territories while I still could, driving every last one of em into the neighboring countries. Thus would I repay the same treatment the Jews living in the Middle East suffered upon the creation of Israel.
One way or another the decades long problem would be solved and there would be peace.
Democrat delenda est
are you some sort of paid oil industry operative?
all you say is drill this, drill that
instead of drilling, why can't we wind farm social healthcare?
instead of drilling, why not biofuel the media?
and instead of drilling, why can't we nuke the mccain campaign? ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
between religious moderates versus religious fundamentalists
religious moderates understand their religious texts at a higher mental level, to abstract out from the larger framework of ideas, and apply them to new (and old) problems according to broad principles that reflect the spirit of their religion
meanwhile, religious fundamentalists only understand how to regurgitate their religious texts like a robot reading device does. its a shallow understanding, with no thought invovled, but they grip tenaciously to their literal interpretation, even when it goes agains the overall spirit of their religion. in this way, religious fundamentalists are less true representatives of their religion than religious moderates, even though unfortunately they are often the loudest and most zealous
same with constitutional fundamentalists. its a kind of religious zealoutry, where people adhere to the written word like a pit bull, and think no deeper about the real concepts the founding fathers had in mind
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"So socialized heathcare is unconstitutional? Is socialized police protection unconstitutional? Socialized fire protection? Socialized public education?"
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. We don't have any of those things in the U.S.A. The federal government provides money to the STATES for education, and perhaps for the other services you mentioned as well (I honestly don't know). However, the federal government does not provide me fire protection (most firemen in the U.S.A. outside large cities are volunteers anyway), education, or local police. These things are outside the enumerated powers of article I, section 8, U.S. Constitution -- http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A1Sec8.
...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
First, send in your permanent absentee ballot early, before all the lies leak out.
Second, use your key to hack the Diebold machine (renamed to protect the guilty) and change all the votes for McSame to Bob Barr.
Third, watch the media go nuts!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
To make this story timely, last week someone broke into a McCain campaign office in Missouri and stole a laptop computer containing "strategic information" about the local campaign
Whoa there... I'm gonna need some pretty solid evidence if you want me to believe that the McCain campaign had strategic information.
First, "troopergate"? REALLY?
God how desperate are you, no one gives a fuck about that nothing story outside of people who have a direct, vested interest in smearing the candidate.
Second, please post the entire quote that proves what you're claiming she thinks is true.
what the fuck are you mods smoking that open partisan slander rises to the level of insightful to you?
And to answer the question, she's smart enough to get elected governor of Alaska, in addition to her previous achievements.
But let's pretend like the work she's actually accomplished is somehow dispatched by some ridiculous nonsense, sure that's genius.
I'd just to say a big "grow the fuck up" to those of you who think your sides talking points are useful in discussing the quality of a person's job performance.
Another one to be aware of is Michigan Republicans using lists of foreclosures in the precinct and challenging a voters eligibility to vote based on that list. NPR Story, Michigan Messenger Story.
If you're concerned about this, look up your states Voter Eligibility and Identification Requirements on a state.XX.us website. Print out a copy and bring them with you. If you're challenged, challenge them right back and stand up for fellow citizens around you who are being unfairly challenged.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7656546.stm
Imagine somebody paying an author to write slanderous material about whoever opposed the Republican party.
Golly I'm *so* surprised.
Need Mercedes parts ?
we're talking about a presidential election, correct?
i think you are trying to say it is unfair if the city majority imposes its policies on the rural minority
#1: we're not talking about issues that apply to a racial or religious minority, whose rights should be respected, and are respected. nobody is discussing or making laws like "your religious day must be sunday, not saturday" or "you must be lighter than this brown paper bag to vote". we're talking majority and minority in terms of ISSUES. issues like health care, economic policy. issues in which there are minority and majority opinions, having nothing whatsoever to do with the idea of racial and religious minorities. i honestly think you have a problem differentiating between these two ideas of minority and majority, which frankly, is absurdly laughable that you should confuse these two ideas of what majority and minorty means. completely differenty contexts
#2 it assumes that los angeles and new york are in some sort of league against the people of kansas and nebraska. utterly absurd. there's plenty los angeles and new york disagree about, and there's plenty that new york and nebraska agree on. there is no such thing as an issue which is purely city folk versus country folks
#3 finally, for the sake of argument, lets assume that there really is a difference of substantial opinion on an issue between city folk and country folk. well, who decides the policy? first off, most policy differences are already handled in jurisidictional differences. in other words, when you are talking about policy differences that only matter at the national level, its a completely different ball game.
the issue of your need to register a gun, for example: this can easily be decided at a munipical level, and in fact, there are differences in laws between the states in the issue of gun registration. so this issue isn't a valid national one. here's another issue: invade iraq or not. well this deicison is being made at a country level. a decision that effects the people of manhattan kansas as equally as it doesn the people of manhattan, new york city. at this level of decision making, a countrywide level, there is no valid separation between country and city. there is no majority versus minority other than majority versus minority on terms of OPINION, not geography, not race, no religion. which is what democracy is all about: who wins the decision making rights based on majority of OPINION
but even so, lets make believe 75% of country people say we should invade iraq, and 40% of city folk believe we should invade iraq. someone is going to lose here, someone is going to have someone else's opinion imposed on them. ok. now we really are talking about a "tyranny of the majority". so should the city folk be inconvenienced by a MINORITY country opinion. should country folk be inconvenienced by a MINORITY city opinion. no and no. but yes: city folk SHOULD be inconvenienced by a MAJORITY country opinion. and country folkd SHOULD be inconvenienced by a MAJORITY city opinion
guess what: there is no valid way around this problem. do the people of the country deserve to impose their will on city folk? YES, if they make up the majority of the population, on a question of national prominence. do the people of the city deserve to impose their will on country folk? YES, if they make up the majority of the population, on a question of national prominence.
on questions of local prominence, city folk can't prevail on coutnry folk, and visa versa. on questions of national prominence, absoolutely do city folk deserve to prevail on country folk, and visa versa. because its ONE COUNTRY. there is no abridgement of fairness, or morality, or democracy in play here. yes, majoriy rules. and this absolutely the way it should be!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
a black box voting system that works with 0% election fraud is inferior to a transparent voting system with 10% voting fraud
got that?
because in the paper ballot system i can openly quantify the shenanigans
meanwhile, in the black box electronic voting system, i have to trust some guy in a government office that all is well. oh really? says who? i have no way of verifying that, of running my own checks. its opaque. i have my doubts. my trust is not 100%, and nor should it be. and so my doubts only increase
not knowing the full extent of a few shenanigans in a vote is far worse than knowing for certain the exact extent of a lot of shenanigans
see the difference?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
absolutely is a paper ballot system more vulnerable at the social level
and this is good: you need an airtight conspiracy involving the coordination of a lot of players (good luck)... to do a little damage, that is a lot of hard work and planning (emptying ballot boxes in the potomac, making a bunch of bogus votes). and then if you exmaine the votes, you can notice discrepancies: where is district 13s votes? where did this bump in votes in district 12 come from?
meanwhile, with eletronic voting, i need 100 milliseconds, and one man, to do complex statistically airtight ghost moves in votes across a national level. virtually impossible to trace
see the difference?
the social level vulnerabilities are kids games compared to the horrible electornic vulnerabilities of electornic voting
"I find your tone toward joe sixpack condescending and not quite right."
joe sixpack can be composed of it security professionals, my observations hold rock solid. it security professionals know that the more complex the system, the more attack vectors there are. it security professionals would pick the system that was as simple as possible, and as transparent as possible. a paper ballot represents that ideal. a bunch of security professionals would recognize a database, ESPECIALLY one involving encryption (are you going to have zero security?) as something opaque, and as something with more attack vectors
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Someone broke into McCains office... Hmmm... I'd bet on the RNC trying to figure out what the hell he is trying to do.
The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The SCOTUS doesn't have to uphold nothing. It's in there.
Notmysig
Yeah, I know you're kind of kidding, but posts like GP make me sad, mostly because someone can remain intentionally ignorant, and still have their vote count as much as mine.
Of course, I'll probably be subjected to attack, because repeating bullshit claims about Obama the Muslim terrorist is evil, but doing it about a Republican is considered a public service around here.
You people are ruining my country.
Biden makes huge gaffes and nobody ever reports it. Like "we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon"? And let's not forget his genius statement earlier that FDR went on TV after the 1929 crash.
Palin is new to foreign policy - just as every governor is, Clinton, Reagan, Carter - so she's going to be learning. Biden is a long-serving senator on the Foreign Relations Committee. What's his excuse?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Possibly, but at least Biden gives the impression of understanding the constitution. It's not a lot if you want to lead a country, but a basic understanding of the law is kind of vital, I think.
Go back and look. Biden, ranting about Cheney's role in the Bush Administration said that Article I made it clear that that the VP was an executive branch officer. Wrong, first, because Article I is the legislative branch (Article II spells out the Executive). Scary, the guy makes law and sits on the Judiciary Committee and doesn't even know the 17 enumerated powers of Congress are in Article I.
Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesnâ(TM)t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. - Con Law expert Joe Biden from last Thursday's debate
Even my freshmen Poli Sci students know better than this. Also wrong because the VP is the one member of the US government that has powers in both branches, as VP in the executive and as president of the Senate. Biden has been in the Senate like 30 years and he doesn't know who the president of that body is?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
You'll notice one of the partisan mods I was referencing decided to try and censor me, rather than respond to my points.
That's what trying to have rational discussions will get you around here.
but not very technologically knowledgable
true or false:
any voting system you can devise is open to attack
true or false:
an electronic voting system is more complex than a paper system
true or false:
a more complex system has orders of magnitude more attack vectors than a simple system
true or false:
eyeballs and pencil on paper is transparent
true or false:
ip stack to application layer to ram to io channel to drive head to platter, and back to lcd, across multiple computer systems, is opaque
essay contest:
any electronic voting system must involve encryption due to security concerns. please write some poetry describing the transparency of encryption (snicker)
dude: if your technological acumen and your honesty were up to par with your obvious technological fetishism, you would admit paper ballot is superior to electronic ballot, assuming you also understood what is really important in the process
go read some popular science and wired. while you are doing that, note that we don't have any rocket cars yet. because besides being really neato, they don't solve any problems that are not already solved with lower levels of tech
technology is important to the advancement of mankind. that doesn't mean every thing benefits from technology, and plenty of examples throughout history have shown technology to not improve things. nuclear airplanes? video phones? teledildonics? these and many other examples: simply throwing technology at a problem is not the answer. in certain contexts, you are not only involving overkill, you are making things worse. and plenty of people throughout history have been burned by misplaced enthusiasm exactly like yours, completely disregarding the fundamentals of the problem before you
i do not want your technological hubris to sink my country like the titanic. your technological enthusiasm is blind and ignorant
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow. Somebody forgot his Haldol!
Free Martian Whores!
Have you considered this? There probably are people out there that are better off than you. There are many ways to measure worth, wealth, morality, politically connected, intelligence, strength, health - you name it. Does this mean their vote is worth more than yours? In my opinion when you start to measure the worth of an individual (or their vote) you yourself become a worthless individual.
> Funny how "hope" and "change" seem to involve attacking an elderly war vet because his injuries prevent him from typing.
No matter how honorably you come by your ignorance, it's not a good thing. We need the most capable leaders, not the least! And you're distorting the claim. They never attacked him for not being able to type, they attacked him for not keeping up with things. It's perfectly possible to learn to use a computer even if you can't touch-type. I've personally taught many elderly people to use the computer, several who were older and more crippled than McCain.
> Funny how "changing politics as usual" involves attacking a woman's family and accusing her husband of incest. Funny... really...
I don't believe Obama has ever made that claim. You're comparing what some nut with a blog did to what McCain personally did. Right now, they're inciting their supporters into a rage with accusations of Obama "palin' around with terrorists" and some have shouted things like "kill him!" If that's not like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, I don't know what is! I've seen more than a few people online who probably are mad enough to assassinate Obama and I can only hope that they get caught.
Besides, if you want to talk about "change", I think McCain stole that theme already.
last week someone broke into a McCain campaign office in Missouri and stole a laptop computer containing "strategic information" about the local campaign.
Of course, the McCain campaign was smart enough to encrypt their laptop drives - just standard IT policy these days, right?
I suggest that you do some research of the Clarion Fund. I did and it's rather hard to figure out who they are. Indications are that their biggest contributors are a Canadian and someone who might be an Israeli. It's all very nebulous and there are indications that one source of money might cone from the Israeli government itself. I don't have any arguments with foreigners per say but they should keep out of US politics. For those of you that say why not, the US does this all the time to foreign nations. The US does interfere and it is WRONG!
I imagine if you asked Alaskans, they remind you of the boatloads of public works projects and large amounts of money he brought in.
You seem to think the fact that he's also a criminal somehow cancels out the work he did for those people, and I imagine they'd disagree.
And what does that have to do with anything, really?
You're a perfect example of the kind of person I was referencing, all talking points and no knowledge of what is really going on.
"1. i think we should abolish the electoral college, since, as 2000 demonstrates, you can lose the popular vote and still win the election (and hasn't the last 8 years proven that to be a mistake)"
While I agree that the electoral college has got to go, I am pragmatic enough to know that it will never come to pass. It would take a constitutional amendment to do it and that would require 3/4 of the states to ratify it. There are too many small states that are over represented in the electoral college. To ask their legislatures to ratify an amendment that diminishes their states political power is unimaginable.
One thing that can be done is to eliminate the "winner takes all" principal. This principle says that whoever wins even a plurality of a states votes gets ALL of the states electoral votes. This is patently unfair and something can be done about that. There is nothing in the constitution that requires that. As a matter of fact two states (Maine and Montana) allocate their electoral votes proportionate to the vote in that state. I would prefer that the federal government mandates all the states to go to proportionate allocation but with states rights issues that might not be possible. The only alternative is to have all the states enact this method.
i too recognize the futility of fighting EC directly, and your approach of somehow cajoling the states to register EC votes proportional to popular votes is certainly not perfect, but a heck of a lot better than what we have now
start with the states that are evenly divided, that's where the cause would find the most traction. once you get enough of those, its a matter of cajoling the disproportionately republican or democratic states to recognize their minorities
it would be a state-by-state effort, but national level interests would probably drive the effort once the issue is cracked, out of fear and anger: if every state were proportional except say, california and texas, you can bet those states would be under enormous pressure to change, since they would wind up deciding the fate of the entire nation otherwise. which is good for texans and californians, but unacceptable to everyone else
its a matter of driving a crack in the issue with a few states, then the issue would accelerate in importance due to fears and anger at disproportionate influence
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Where's that quote I asked for?
And honestly, after your previous post, your HO isn't very credible.
lets keep it simple, i will describe a scenario, you tell me where my assumptions are wrong:
a vote is in question. how do you audit that vote?
electronic: assume all electronic checks are hackable. so lets go with the receipt that was printed and retained when someone voted. well, how is it certain that that receipt actually represents the person's real vote? hmmm. have them visually verify the paper receipt before retention for audit reasons
ok, with me so far? describe where my scenario is wrong above if not
so, now you have a system where you vote on a machine, print a recipt, verify the receipt, and go on your way
(smacks forehead)
for the sake of simplicity, speed, and lower cost, why not just pick up a blank receipt and mark with a PENCIL your vote. then, OCR it!
now the entire system works the same: faster, cheaper, simpler
where have i stumbled above?
where are the supposed benefits of electronic voting in the scenario above? have i not addressed something in the scenario above? maybe where i said "assume all electronic checks are hackable"?
oh, government employees are the pinnacle of payscale and integrity? ONE volunteer poll worker in aiken county south carolina would never in a million years be persuaded to take advantage of a backdoor port discovered by a hacker to artificially massage the results in ways invisible to statistical analysis of shenanigans? you can do the same with paper? no, you CAN'T do the same thing with paper! it's a question of the amount of mischief one person can make, and their speed, and detection level. electronic voting introduces vast new abilities for mischief. that MEANS something you have not addressed
my assertion, that you haven't refuted, because you know i am right: an increase in complexity results in an exponentially proportional increase in attack vectors. how is that observation wrong? where have i stumbled in my scenario above?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There's a big difference between trying to cheat (disenfranchising voters) and a winner take all system that applies to all but two states - and benefits Republicans as much or more than it does Republicans. Dems have New York and California, but the Republicans have had most of the west and the south.
As far as what could be done better - sure, make voting proportional to population, but we should have serious, point me in the ass prison terms for those who try and disenfranchise votes or perpetuate voter fraud - but we've had vastly more of the former than the latter.
HO?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Promote the General Welfare. It's in the Constitution. Twice. If your response is the canned "promote, not provide", Article I Section 8 uses the word "provide". If your response to that is that General Welfare in Section 8 only applies to the listed powers, then Common Defense is also similarly limited.
So if nationalized health care is unconstitutional, so are:
And that's just off my head. Conservatives who complain about the so called unconstitutionality of socialized medicine are being just as selective as Evangelical hacks that don't protest usurious rates from Countrywide or NRA hacks that fight Democrats tooth and nail for supporting gun control yet give a 100% free pass to Republicans that support gun control, like George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani.
Now that that chestnut has been put to bed, the reason why you want socialized health care is because it provides better care for less money. It provides better care for less money. It provides BETTER care for LESS money.
You the second person making that claim that I've asked for a quote from, so please demonstrate either of them said that as you claim.
It stands for "where's the quote to support your ridiculous bullshit assertion".
Seriously, IMHO? HO?
You act like your smart enough that it shouldn't have been a problem for you...
Quote please. No excuses, thanks.
And, not surprisingly, your link doesn't point to a quote of any kind.
Maybe you shouldn't be such a dick when you're caught making shit up.
I love how you think the approval ratings now have anything to do with the quality of job he's done.
That such a gross, obvious, ridiculous fail on your part.
You're really not very smart are you?
Make the whole process so simple that any member of the electorate can understand it, not just PHD mathematicians. Physical security is something that everybody can understand. Multiple independent (or adversarial) observers is something that everybody can understand. Two different people counting each stack of ballots is straightforward. Marking circles on a piece of paper is something every American school kid is already an expert in by the time they get to high school, thanks to standardized testing.
It's not that hard. The vast majority of the supposed "benefits" of electronic voting are entirely illusory. Under the guise of making voting easier for folks with disabilities (which is a noble goal), we've thrown out thousands of years of accumulated knowledge about how to run a fair election.
"voting in a system that allows me to access it at a later time to verify accuracy."
voting is meant to be anonymous. people won't vote if you can put a name and face to what they voted. that you don't appreciate or realize the importance of anonymity in voting is woefully ignorant on your part. no one, no one will ever go for a system where who voted how is tracked
oh, it's a one way cipher? a hash? you build it as a code phrase the voter can look up and enter anonymously in a public terminal to later verify the vote is as they recorded? you have some other incredibly hairbrained scheme in mind?
what the fuck are you smoking?
who is going to build this completely unnecessary system? who is going to believe its genuinely anonymous? who is going to believe the vote as shown is represented in the final tally?
the more security you build into the system, the more opaque it is. the more opaque, the less trustworthy. and all the time you are making something more and more complicated, and therefore more expensive, and therefore introducing myriad new ways to hack it
"Simpler things are easier to secure, but no more inherently secure than the next"
whu?
"coca cola is wet, but not inherently more wet than milk"
(smacks forehead)
as for the rest of that paragraph, what i see is a very keen and technically oriented but stubborn mind grasping at straws attempting to say something insightful about a losing premise. just admit it: you've proceeded on a flawed initial assumption. you need to go back to the beginning, and admit your starting assumptions are wrong
let me help you: electronic voting is intrinsically more complex than paper voting, and as such introduces unnecessary added cost, and an exponentially proportional amount of new attack vectors. admit those unassailable truths, or continue sputtering in blind stubbornness
electronic is cheaper than paper? electronic is less complex than paper? more complexity does not increase price, or increase attack vectors exponentially? are any of those observations unsound?
you lose. just stop being stubborn and admit it. blind pride will not save you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
ACORN in Las Vegas being raided in voter fraud probe. Also it has been noted that ACORN/Project Vote is targeting states Obama needs. Oddly, Obama recently paid ACORN for specific services...and when questioned the reason for the payment changed; if it was a payment for services then why change the reason for the payment?
It's really annoying to me to have to call the Democrats "the Party of Fiscal Responsibility", because they didn't get that way by being responsible and wanting to cut government spending, they got that way by default, with Bush,Cheney,&Rove spending borrowed money like there's no tomorrow.
Bill Clinton does deserve some credit - it *was* the economy, stupid, and his administration did a good job of managing the situation they got left with, though they did manage to spend the proceeds of a radically productive technology boom. And a lot of the spending restraint he showed was because the Republican-dominated Congress kept attacking him over his tacky personal life so he couldn't do most of the Democrat-agenda big-spending programs like HillaryCare, whereas after Bush got elected they were too scared to say no to anything he wanted (and even after Katrina and losing the war demonstrated the failure of Bush's Strong Trustworthy Powerful Father-Figure model of government got enough of Congress replaced by Democrats, Bush kept them scared as well.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
In Missouri they upgraded the Voter Registration database 2 weeks or so ago and dropped a number of registered voters (including my wife's sister who voted last month in local elections). To check to see if you are still registered hit sos.mo.gov (very ironic there) you have until midnight today to register (sorry for the short notice but I just found out 30 min ago.) BTW - no local news stories on that one.
Palin belongs to a church whose pastor, Ed Kalnins, believes that all criticisms of George Bush "come from hell," and wondered aloud if people who voted for John Kerry could be saved. Kalnins, looming as the answer to Obama's Jeremiah Wright, claims that Alaska is going to be a "refuge state" for Christians in the last days, last days which he sometimes speaks of in the present tense. Palin herself has been captured on video mouthing the inevitable born-again idiocies, such as the idea that a recent oil-pipeline deal was "God's will." She also described the Iraq War as a "task that is from God" and part of a heavenly "plan." She supports teaching creationism and "abstinence only" in public schools, opposes abortion even for victims of rape, has denied the science behind global warming and attends a church that seeks to convert Jews and cure homosexuals.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
But it's the plostitute giving ferratio to my "dirty election", yes?
S.
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
"Last remaining European colony in Africa" seems like a good description of Israel to me.
Okay so it's not quite in Africa but it's very, very close!
Personally I don't see why the Palestinians should (or will) "give up." Give it a few decades and there will be a majority Arab population in Israel anyway, so unless Israel can find another million Russian "Jews" to reconstitute their population, we'll see just how democratic they are.
About the only thought I have on the contentions issue of Israel is this: Israel could make their nation more hospitable to those who aren't Jewish but have historical roots there by removing the Jewish iconography from their flag. Israel is ostensibly a western democracy, yet the only other country that comes to mind with a similar flag is the theocratic monarchy of Saudi Arabia. Hmmm.
The "right to exist" question has always baffled me. Does the number zero have a right to exist? How about Kurdistan? How about the Roman Empire? The question's purpose seems to be an attempt to detect underlying bias on the part of the responder. I'm not sure what the purpose of such an exercise is, other than a popularity contest.
Anyway, after all that, I think the solution is to give the land back and have a two state system. :)
With respect to your statement that "they fought on the wrong side of WWII and lost" I think Ahmadinejad has a good point that the land gifted to the Jews should rightfully have come from Germany, as it was the Germans who put the Jews in such a position that they deserved a gift. But of course this isn't what happened at all; Israel existed as a vestigial organ (or by-product if you prefer) of the British Empire since at least Balfour, it just didn't fully emerge from its cocoon until after WWII.
Just like Gaza and the West bank.
See? Ignorance on display. They could have peace any time they wanted it. It's easy. Requires some simple things:
1. Understand that War does solve things. They fought on the wrong side in WWII and lost. Thus the Jews got a big hunk of their territory gifted to them by the victors, to whom the spoils of war rightfully belonged. That is a done deal for the forseable future.
Talk about your revisionist history.
The Palestinians never fought in World War II.
What happened was that since the Jews lived in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago and suffered through the Holocaust during modern times, they were given a slice of the area called Palestine to create the modern Israeli state.
Israel then kept enlarging and enlarging their territory.
Whatever you think of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, the only fault the Palestinians had in the beginning was living in the wrong place.
> If this is 'Informative', I have completely missed the sarcasm tags...
He was pointing out that there ARE important questions asked of those trying to vote. Maybe you should have read the whole thread, rather than just one part of it?
Politicians so uncertain about their future that are forced to do deals when needed and to take care all the others don't become more corrupt than themselves, if only to make sure there is something left for them to plunder when reaching power.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You're missing GP's point. GP's mother doesn't need an amnesty. She is a natural-born US citizen, because she was born in the USA, and has never renounced her citizenship or involuntarily lost it. Having a USA birth certificate is not a requirement for being a natural citizen; being born in the USA is the requirement. The birth certificate is just evidence that somebody was born in the USA, but neither necessary (since some US births may go unregistered) nor sufficient (since birth certificates may be in error, either by accident or on purpose).
Sworn statements from people who know her well can also be used as evidence that she was born in the USA, if the need arises for such evidence. GP's bigger point, however, is that putting extremely strict and bureaucratic documentation requirements as a requisite for voting, for the sake of preventing fraudulent votes by aliens, also has the practical effect of making it much harder for many legitimate citizens to vote.
I will add that the idea of illegal aliens showing up to the polls in large numbers to vote is a big moral panic. Actual illegal aliens would actually rather not vote. Showing up in voter registration rolls (even under false ID) is not good for them; it just increases their risk of getting caught, with very little to show in exchange for it.
Are you adequate?
The Democrats are not the party of fiscal responsibility. At best they can change their motto to "Less irresponsible than those other bastards, maybe".
Budgets are ultimately dictated by Congress, not by the President. So Clinton deserves no credit for a budget he never advocated since the Republicans went to the wall time and time again to reign in his spending. Bush does deserve considerable blame for our current budget mess, however, as he has advocated a lot of economic policies that are just fucking stupid, like the unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, which despite it's fairly innocuous sounding name adds about $16 trillion in unfunded liabilities to the Federal ledger over an infinite horizon, which how the private sector has to account for expenses. The government though does it Dumb and Dumber style and writes an IOU and puts it in a suitcase where no one can see it.
You can look forward to me reminding you of the fact that I caught you lying.
Now you can frequent slashdot again, congratulations liar.
If you could back up your argument, there wouldn't ber a trail of posts from me asking for a quote that shows you weren't lying, followed by a trail of posts making bullshit excuses with links that lead to nothing resembling what you claim.
I find it ironic that you lie about being able to back up your "arguments" when there's a long trail of me asking you to do that and you failing.
The best part though is that you admitted you aren't very smart and prrobably don't even realize it.
I tend to have that affect on right-wing trolls. Are you getting wet yet or should I write some posts about how Palin also wanted to ban books in the local library?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
this is so crazy, people just should vote for who can know that they can do something, this is why i am going to move away from US when i get the money ha ha.
The Republicans and Democrats have already rigged the election to exclude any opposition. I don't care what tricks they use on each other; after the Bailout and Telecom Immunity votes it should be obvious that it makes little difference which one wins, voting for either of them is the greater evil.
First of all it is nearly impossible for anyone else to get on all 51 ballots. When Obama and McCain failed to qualify in Texas, the Texas courts refused to even hear the case to remove them. Yet a court in Louisiana removed Bob Barr arbitrarily from that state's ballot, Oklahoma Courts refused to hear his challenge to their requirements, Maine and West Virginia have removed Barr for the exact same reason that Texas should have removed McCain and Obama. Bob Barr may have no chance of winning, but his supporters have already been denied their voting rights in four states.
Then look at the Debates Commission, the Republicans and Democrats have agreed that only a Republican or Democrat will ever participate.
If you want to hear some real alternatives, support the efforts to create a debate with all of the candidates who are on a majority of ballots at thirdpartyticket.com.
minds, get scrambled like eggs, abused and erased. Hard Hearted Alice is who you want to see.
And a lot of the spending restraint he showed was because the Republican-dominated Congress kept attacking him over his tacky personal life so he couldn't do most of the Democrat-agenda big-spending programs like HillaryCare
Yes, thank god Republicans were able to save hundreds of billions of dollars for the insurance industry. Americans have shorter lifespans, a higher infant morality rate and longer lines while spending at least twice as much per patient as other western nations. But corporate profits were kept high, which is the important thing.
Budgets are ultimately dictated by Congress, not by the President. So Clinton deserves no credit for a budget he never advocated since the Republicans went to the wall time and time again to reign in his spending.
Nonsense. It's the President who submits a budget to Congress, who then make changes to it. And it's the President who signs it.
They say that they are using clean tricks? That is contradictory! By the way, why would someone break into an office to steal a laptop computer, even it was was to steal "strategic" information? McCain is already behind in the polls... what more can a citizen do that he hasn't already done? [P.S. If I could vote, I would vote McCain.]
College professors are smarter than the capitalists-- They don't give money to people who hate their guts! -Geeks by Jon