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'Cellphone Effect' Could Skew Polling Predictions
Ponca City writes "A good deal of polling data suggest that Republicans may win the House of Representatives in today's mid-term elections. However, Nate Silver writes in the NY Times that there are several factors that could skew the election, allowing Democrats to outperform their polls and beat consensus expectations. Most prominent is the 'cellphone effect.' In 2003, just 3.2% of households were cell-only, while in the 2010 election one-quarter of American adults have ditched their landlines and rely exclusively on their mobile phones, and a lot of pollsters don't call mobile phones. Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white — all Democratic demographics — and a study by Pew Research suggests that the failure to include them might bias the polls by about 4 points against Democrats, even after demographic weighting is applied. Another factor that could skew results is the Robopoll effect, where there are significant differences between the results shown by automated surveys and those which use live human interviewers — the 'robopolls' being 3 or 4 points more favorable to Republicans over all. It may be that only adults who are extremely engaged by politics (who are more likely to be Republican, especially this year) bother to respond to robocalls. Still, when all is said and done, 'more likely than not, Republicans will indeed win the House, and will do so by a significant margin,' writes Silver. 'But just as Republicans could beat the consensus, Democrats could too, and nobody should be particularly shocked if they do.'"
I'm sitting this one out, and possibly 2012 as well. Voting for the guy or gal that lies the least still means I'm supporting a liar. The very nature of politics nowadays automatically means someone with enough clout to run for election is unfit to serve...
Living With a Nerd
The party which wins will be the party which is more successful in hacking electronic voting machines.
Basically you're telling us what we've already known for decades... that polling is retarded and highly inaccurate.
Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white — all Democratic demographics — and a study by Pew Research suggests that the failure to include them might bias the polls by about 4 points against Democrats, even after demographic weighting is applied.
Umm...isn't the point of demographic weighting to factor in "unweighted" demographics like this?
The noble candidate A, who will lower taxes, expand benefits, and is for a strong America
or
The candidate B, who voted for increased taxes and fewer benefits.
---
Do you want to vote for"
Corporate controlled sock... er "Conservative" Candidate A?
or
Corporate controlled sock... er "Liberal" Candidate B?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I have a landline, actually, but it has caller ID. I don't answer calls from unknown or out-of-area callers, which includes pollsters.
I wonder which demographics correlate with people who use Caller ID to screen calls. (Cue debate.)
Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white -- all Democratic demographics...
And all far less likely to vote than old, white people.
Maybe the Democratic GOTV effort will surprise me, but I was less than impressed with the "historic" turnout among young people in the '08 election. The vast majority of them still are either too apathetic or too cynical to bother voting.
And will those first-time African American voters from '08 still turn out even though Obama is not on the ballot this year? Will Latinos turn out even though the Democrats did nothing on immigration reform?
It may be that only adults who are extremely engaged by politics (who are more likely to be Republican, especially this year) bother to respond to robocalls.
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
...
Phone Respondent One: Well, let's see, what would Jesus do?
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Republican candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Two: Sorry, what did you say? It's cloudy and my solar powered phone is cutting in and out.
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Democratic candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Three: Yes I do, just let me put NASCAR on mute, I can talk and watch at the same time.
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Republican candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Four: I'm so sorry but I just put on a 180 gram vinyl Arcade Fire album and I fear that if I remove the needle prematurely I would
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Democratic candidate*
Poll Phone Operator: Excuse me, sir or ma'am, do you have a free minute to answer a few simple questions anonymously about who you plan to vote for?
Phone Respondent Five: Fuck you and fuck the establishment you rode in on.
*Poll Phone Operator hangs up the phone and puts a check mark next to the Independent candidate*
My work here is dung.
In 2003 it was uncommon for people to port out their home number to their cell. Most polsters don't even know what's a cell and what isn't anymore. I can attest to this being in Madison Wi because Russ Fiengolds called me at least a dozen times this week in a desperate attempt to keep his seat.
Some background is in order here; this is not a typical piece for Silver. He did a companion to it a couple days ago, giving the reasons the GOP could overperform. These are just "what if" stories, designed to flesh out the message he's been driving for some time now, which is that this election has unusually high uncertainty. He isn't engaging in hackery and claiming everything will be fine for Democrats...
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Most polls use the turnout numbers for last election as a baseline for potential voters, then ask questions to determine to which party the respondent belongs. If polls spit out just the raw numbers, they'd be more than useless.
Your worries about skewed numbers are mostly unjustified....it's been 50+ years since the "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!" days. (And younger, urban voters don't vote in mid-term elections anyhow.)
American public: "Wow, those Republicans sure fucked everything up. Better vote Democrat this time."
T+4 years: "Wow, those Democrats sure fucked everything up. Better vote Republican!"
T+8 years: "Wow, those Republicans sure fucked everything up. Better vote Democrat this time."
Umm, people? We have other choices, you know. The extremes of *any* party are going to be nut-jobs, but we can probably do a lot better to let the D's and R's set a few rounds out.
But we won't, will we. Because voting is supposed to be about thinking with other people's brains and voting with the flock.
The younger, more urban, and less white Americans are a lot less likely to vote. With Republicans riding on the rage and Democrats failing to do anything about it, the outcome is too predictable in this midterm election.
"Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white"
That's so true. I just got back from Hawaii with a nice tan and I only use a cell phone.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Republican preference has been consistently underrepresented in polls for as long as I remember- and cellphones didn't suddenly appear in the last year.
love is just extroverted narcissism
"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope
I don't vote. Two reasons. First of all it's meaningless; this country was bought and sold a long time ago. The shit they shovel around every 4 years *pfff* doesn't mean a fucking thing. Secondly, I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around – they say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain', but where's the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.”
-George Carlin
They keep robocalling our house and I keep telling them this is a private line and that I don't talk to robots.
But robots don't listen.
Although, if I ever get a political push-poll robocall that starts by asking "are there stairs in your house?" I will answer long enough to ensure them I am protected.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It doesn't matter who you vote for.
Please do the right thing. Go f***ing vote. And please vote well (i. e. not for the religious wingnuts, right-wing war mongerers, and Fox-News watchers).
Thank you.
Speculation, and playing the odds. It's in our blood. A smart booky will come out of this smelling like rose
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
in your words, is the perfect cattle of an authoritarian country, the perfect double plus good citizen
the simple truth of the matter is, if you wait for your perfect candidate, you will never vote. and even then you will find something wrong with them. every election, ever held, and will ever be held, will simply be a choice between the lesser of two evils. no one is pure, no one doesn't have lies spread about them
the real criminal is you: you who hold your candidates to impossible standards, and then complain no one meets those standards
what you are really doing is rationalizing your desire to absolve yourself of responsibility for the society you live in. you are detaching yourself from any crimes that happens in your society, absolving yourself of guilt: "i didn't choose our leaders"
and in a country composed of people who think like you, sits the happiest tyrant
go to work slave. don't ever complain again. even when they increase your workhours and decrease your salary. not your fault, right?
you, all by yourself, no one else to blame, have given up the right to complain, by choosing not to do the ONE TINY THING that guarantees that you live in a free country: VOTE
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here's how it is going to go down. We will replace a set of idiots who don't care about us, with a new set of idiots who don't care about us.
did you forget to take your meds?
The "cellphone effect" causes polls to under-represent certain demographics, say by 10%. Those demographics also tend to be under-represented in the voting population, say by 50%. That 50% reduces the magnitude of the cellphone effect, so you expect the overall correction to be 5% in favor of democrats. This is how I interpreted "demographic weighting" in the summary, I'm not sure what problem you're seeing with it.
I purchased a book called "How to lie with statistics" by Darrell Huff. It was written in 1954. The first chapter is called "The sample with the built-in bias". It contains amongst other things the story of polling phone subscribers for the 1936 presidential election.
Long story short, phone subscribers were economically and socially biased to be more likely to be republican at that time and so the poll picked Landon as a probable president and not Roosevelt. It's sad and funny at the same time to see how little the pollsters learned.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Democrats could too, and nobody should be particularly shocked if they do.
well I listen to a lot of FOX radio on AM mainly for comedic entertainment, and to keep tabs with what that side is saying, and according to them if Democrats win everyone in the country must have been influenced, intimidated, or bribed
so yes I would think they would be quite shocked and provide me with quite a bit more entertainment value
I'm afraid quoting George Carlin isn't relevant to me. This attitude of "I didn't vote, so I'm not responsible for who gets elected" is complete BS. You are just as responsible for the people who voted for them because you are a part of the silent majority qho sits around on the hole all the time and is annoyed by who actually gets elected. Get up off your hole and vote who you think is the best candidate, if you don't like your options get involved and perhaps even run yourself. But this attitude of "I'm above all that" is pie the sky at best and dangerous at worst
There is no -1 disagree
Complete wishful bullshit.
Amazing how much rationalization is going into analyzing (and trying to explain away) polling data that suggests a Democratic bloodbath. What, too much "change" in the air now?
Fwiw and purely anecdotally, I've always seen results skew 4+ percent to the right of polls, because consevatives (even 'engaged' ones), are far more likely to share their view with a pollster, while liberals - especially the young - LOVE to tell everyone how liberal they are.
That's great. Exactly the opposite of my experience, but it probably depends on where you live. I live in a town with a pretty strong liberal majority, so nobody ever goes around spouting anything about it. It is the more conservative types who go around telling everyone within earshot how conservative they are (but you're right, it does tend to be the younger ones - I think because they are so excited about being all "rebellious" going against their liberal parents).
Come to think of it, it may actually be the independents that are the worst in this respect (but around here independents are usually conservative, so same difference).
Who can really say. Counter-example:
I'm doing graduate research involving monitoring students in computer science labs. Today the instructor asked how many students were planning to vote. Around 15% raised their hands. At least that many had a stunned look in their eyes as though they didn't even realize it was election day.
Young people may be more likely to own only cell-phones and tend to be much more progressive, but it seems as though they may be a lot less likely to vote. Most of them probably live within a few blocks of where they can vote and it's a nice day out so there's not much of an excuse.
I follow Silver's site as he often writes a lot about the statistics behind his model, which I usually find more interesting than the results or political commentary, but if these observations are true, why the hell aren't they built into his model? If these effects actually exist and skew polling results, why haven't they already been taken into consideration? Also, what effects exist that skew the results in the other direction and what evidence supports them?
This article feels sloppy, especially when compared to the usual high quality from fivethirtyeight. Let's wait another twelve hours and then we'll have a pretty good idea about the actual outcome and can start speculating what might have caused it to deviate from the expected results so that the prediction model can be adjusted accordingly.
Complete wishful bullshit.
Amazing how much rationalization is going into analyzing (and trying to explain away) polling data that suggests a Democratic bloodbath. What, too much "change" in the air now?
Why do you even bother trying to pay attention? Who cares what analysts have to say about any of this? Why does everyone put so much stock into figuring out what may happen when they can just shut the hell up for a minute and watch what actually does happen? The election is going to happen regardless of what talking heads on TV do, so why bother with the predictions?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
-1 Idiocy
Whether statistical models are good predictors of future outcomes should be a topic near and dear to every slashdotter. Bringing this up in the context of a midterm election is not "wishful thinking"-- it's an interesting problem.
The difference between your anecdotal story and the one in the article is that the effect the author is talking about is a statistical one, and he cites evidence to support his position. Regardless if the outcome of the current election cycle, if real, this is an effect that polling organizations will have to account for.
I don't see why anyone actually deals with robocalls. You can always tell when an automated system called you, there is that long pause after you pick up the phone before it connects you to the automated message system or the poor call center schmuck. It usually takes a second or two to connect, so you have that nice moment of absolute silence that tips you off to hang up. If robocallers want to get my opinion, or deliver their message to me, they'd better have someone actually on the line when I pick the phone up (not that they seem to be missing my input...).
What you're suggesting is that we make it illegal to study the correlation between who candidates are popular and who is declared the winner. It seems like quite a big leap away from open democracy... Sure, there could still be polls afterwards... But there would be far less incentive (political, financial, etc.) after someone has already been declared a winner. I really don't consider that such a good idea.
Rather, the system of "Unless your vote is the decisive one, it doesn't matter" (it doesn't help to vote for someone who would win regardless of it or to vote for someone who won't win anyways) is broken. Where I live, we use D'Hondt method (and have quite a lot more parties) so voting is much more likely to have some effect.
It is odd that they act as if these professional polling companies have no idea this is going on. Some of them may not be factoring it in, so you could argue that aggregate polls could be skewed by it. However, I think hoping for too much of a shift is just setting yourself up for a disappoint similar to the one Republicans faced in the 2008 election.
Remember all that talk about how it was shown more people would claim they were voting for a black candidate than would actually vote for him just so they wouldn't seem racist? Turns out, the polls were actually pretty accurate. Who would have thought that people who do these polls for living might actually come up with a decent model? I'd wager at least the big names such as Zogby, Rassmussen, and Gallup have done a great deal of research into how the rise of cell phones would skew their polling.
just make sure that your thinking is based on truth and reality, and not lies
otherwise, you are just a fool, a tool being used by special interests. and the people printing the lies are not the poor on the street, nor those agitating that we care for the poor: they can't afford it. some of the special interests have agendas that will mean that you too will be walking the streets poor soon
know the real enemy of the american people: it comes in a suit, and it lies. some of it is public unions (money to democrats). some of it is corporations (money to republicans)
but its not the poor. don't hate the poor, you might be poor soon too. of all the lies and propaganda and scaremongering and fearmongering, to me, those who attack policies which are only intended to take care of us, US i said, including the poor amongst us, that you may someday be too, that is the most odious and the most evil of political lies
care about your society, take care of it
or stop wondering why the world you live in is so brutal: you are the reason why, your society is merely a reflection of you. take responsibility for it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A cynical, angry, rude comedian. Just the person I want to tell me how I should live my life and whether or not I should vote.
Who would have thought he would attempt to justify his own non-voting by putting down those who do? Shocking.
How do they access AOL?
Ken
I know I enjoyed Nate's blog immensely during the 2008 election. Very good analysis. What I liked most about it, however, was it's *independence*. It placed the science of polling ahead of an agenda. I felt like, here's one place in our society where we can take a detached look at elections, and view it as the "sport" it really is (Nate's experience first came in sabermetrics).
Since the 08 election (and the healthcare debate in particular), Nate's abandoned much of his independence. I stopped reading a while ago because of it. While this doesn't mean his conclusions in the Times article are wrong, but I now view them with a certain skepticism that wasn't there before. I guess taking an independent and impartial view towards politics is just not interesting (or profitable?) for most folks.
Get up off your hole and vote who you think is the best candidate, if you don't like your options get involved and perhaps even run yourself.
I don't think you fully understand our position.
I don't vote on American Idol (Fox? Don't even know) or Big Brother (CBS).
I see no point in voting for any of the "actors". My life will not change (very much) regardless of whom "wins" on Idol or BB.
Doesn't require Carlin's pessimism nor some kind of spacey optimism, just kind of is.
Your ears are lucky that I don't apply to Idol, and I cannot allocate the months of time to be on BB, so I refuse to get involved and run myself as a candidate, if that offends you too bad.
I can't stand Idol and don't watch. Some of the eye candy on BB makes it worth watching. But I'm not going to vote or participate, nor am I responsible for anyone activities when they are on BB or Idol. I do enjoy the right of being offended if I don't like how the show goes, and if that bothers you, well, my apologies for offending you but too bad for you. Your problem does not create an obligation on my part to do anything, up to and including voting.
Your declaring it as dangerous, or pie in the sky, does not make it so, that strategy only works with revealed religious truths. Try again.
My view on Nov 2 is about the same.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This article raises such a good point, I mean Republicans don't have cell phones! This guy has figured out the riddle, I say.
vote or die
That's what happens in many other countries...you MUST vote, or you're punished.
America is one of the few nations on this planet where the citizenry have the freedom to CHOOSE to vote. I'm exercising that freedom.
Living With a Nerd
His problem (and mine) is that the summary basically says "After you adjust for not polling enough democrats, you need to adjust for not polling enough democrats."
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Yeah people tell you it's your civic duty etc and yeah most are a bunch of crooks anyway but if I don't vote one day (when the corporations have achieved voting status...not far off) the right may be taken away from me. Stop bitching and get involved with local politics as that's where you actually have a chance to influence things. The presidential elections are a joke. We've got two parties that believe their shit doesn't smell and have the general public fooled. Both parties are a slave to their own ideology and can't see the house crumbling down around them.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
This reminds me of the great exit poll kerfuffle when John Kerry was seen to be leading in exit polls to a greater extent than the actual poll results bore out.
Ken
As a result of the 2000 election, hundreds of thousands of people died.
And to you, it's the same as a TV show.
Why, exactly, should it surprise you when we're left with only lousy politicians?
"Don't Vote, It Only Encourages Them."
When you vote, you legitimize the process.
If you believe the process is inherently illegitimate, then you can't vote in good conscience. All you are doing is taking the red pill by voting.
You made the choice they wanted you to make and bought into the system which has been corrupted badly (probably irredeemably) over the last 40 years.
Candidates who are not bought and paid for are made to look like idiots by corporate controlled media (radio, tv, print and even web).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So you only want to vote for the person you think is going to win?
I voted this morning. Most of the people I voted for were never mentioned on the news, in the papers, and most people don't even know about them. I did my research, found the person I liked and I voted for them even though they are likely to win. Waste of time? I think not. Every time I vote that's one more little bit of the percentage of being recognized.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
This article makes a great point... if you assume this demographic actually voted in meaningful numbers.
Damn I miss that man...
I don't usually vote (I made exceptions for Bush Jr.) because all I really want is for my fellow Americans to be happy. And if that makes their votes count the tiniest miniscule bit more, then so be it.
But I certainly wouldn't contribute to campaign funds. Politics is all administrative overhead... something most businesses and organizations try to minimize. You don't necessarily get more out of it the more you feed it. Plus, paying into campaign funds is sort of like paying to convince other people to see things your way, which I kinda find offensive. You've got your vote, they've got their vote, any marketing you might pay for to change their minds is somewhat unethical. Sure they might be morans, but then why do you live in a constituency full of morans?
More people tend to show up to vote politicians out of office than into office... that arrangement is probably fine. Politicians will employ corruption and lies as best they can, until they get found out by the other party. So a two-party system isn't really all that bad, as far as maintaining balance goes and keeping things from getting too corrupt. When one party is in power, you simply start getting your news from the other party. If you can cope with the news feeds, then the incumbent party is probably doing OK.
The rest of the time, politics is just for entertainment value, something George Carlin, TDS, and others capitalize on to hilarious effect. "Life is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think" - Horace Walpole.
--
I support public education -- I married a teacher.
You could in theory vote democrat until the republicans become so marginalized they are forced to become "republican-lite".
Personally, I'd vote Republican in a snap if they weren't so pushy about legislating morality.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Back in the days of ELIZA and people wondering whether computers really could be used to augment, if not replace, human therapists, I recall people describing their surprise at how readily people would confide in such software; perhaps people's inclination to post everything on Facebook is related. But:the existence of a difference between what people tell automated polls and human pollers doesn't, by itself, tell you which of those responses reflects what the people polled really think. For all I know, that ELIZA effect still holds, and people will tell the machine something that they wouldn't tell a human. A robocall won't turn on you and say "You favor tax cuts?! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!" (at least not yet!) or give you a dirty look or inflection that indicates disapproval.
designed to make you laugh
not guide your thinking
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Umm...isn't the point of demographic weighting to factor in "unweighted" demographics like this?
You would think they would be allowing for it. But given the admission that they might fail to do so you have to pretty much assume its just a "hail Mary" pronouncement, that reflects more on the polling industry than anything else.
The day when cell phone ownership was significant is long past.
When the majority of 16 year olds and a large percentage of 12 year olds have cells, not to mention both parents, and the grand parents, the days where this mattered are long past.
Certainly there is no longer any basis to assert that cell ownership is skewed along political lines.
Nor is there for land line ownership.
In fact you could make the case that these polls are more likely to be weighted in favor of the Democrats by relying on land lines. If anything, land lines are more prevalent in poor, under educated households (historically a Democratic strong hold), while more affluent better educated have move totally to cells (even for the kids) and use land-lines for answering machines (if at all). The richer you get, the less likely you are to answer a land line.
But virtually everyone has caller id these days, and we all have learned not to answer that robo-dialed 8xx number. I'm amazed they can actually call enough people to create a valid poll anymore.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
All politicians come from American parents? That can explain why we are doing so bad in the rest of the world...
Vote for Kang!
When you vote, you legitimize the process.
I've never understood this argument.
The people in power never cared that only 40% of the people vote and in fact it shows that if no one bothered to come to polls to vote against them, then it most likely occurs to them that they should keep doing the things they way they want to.
I mean... People who can't be bothered to vote won't likely be bothered to go into the streets to protest either, much less take arms up against a legitimate government.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
if you don't like your options get involved and perhaps even run yourself.
Don Quixote, is that you?!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
I am more on the liberal side, but I do agree. That is why Bill Clinton was such a great president, and Bush 1 wasn't that bad.
Every other president I have had the extreme displeasure of witnessing first hand was a whack job or incompetent: Reagan, Bush 2, Obama; They all suck.
Personally I think Carlin actually did vote but wrote that routine because he figured:
People who would take political advice from a comedian probably shouldn't be voting anyway!
Warning: This sig is not thread safe. For more information see Slashdot's sig policy.
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm
the results of the 2000 elections were decided by a razor slim margin. meaning those who chose not to vote had a real effect: they helped bush win
and if you say "politicians are all the same": tell me with a straight face gore would have invaded iraq
those who don't care, or don't want to be involved, are just as guilty as everyone else for the sorry state of the world, if not more so
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So what you're looking for is a financially conservative party that doesn't give a crap about what you do for entertainment, as long as those involved are consenting adults.
Is that correct?
From what I've seen, both parties in the US are fascist; neither lean to the left but are instead right-wing-leaning. They just have different things that they want to curtail.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
So you want your vote to be a certified winner and you're not going to vote until it happens?
The republicrats have definitely bought you.
I'm afraid quoting George Carlin isn't relevant to me. This attitude of "I didn't vote, so I'm not responsible for who gets elected" is complete BS.
Here's a clue, Carlin was a comedian. He said it because it's funny, not necessarily because it's true. You might want to investigate the concepts of irony and sarcasm in humor.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
And I'm not a Democrat.
And I voted already.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
. So a two-party system isn't really all that bad, as far as maintaining balance goes and keeping things from getting too corrupt.
Wait, I get a choice between the party that wants to take all my money and give it to business, and the party that wants to take all my money and spend it on social services, and this is balance? Neither seems particularly concerned about collateral damage.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house
With all due respect to my hero George Carlin, and with a good chuckle at his cutting insight, there's an old adage that comes to mind: All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
Not that "doing something" is any better than doing nothing. "Good people" must accurately identify root problems and attack them at their source.
Washing one's hands of a difficult mess is only lying to one's self. Leaving thinking and fighting to others doesn't give anyone any "right to complain."
Local is pretty important. The small suburb I live in was briefly taken over by social conservatives when most everyone except their base stayed home. Probably the corruption of the incumbents, involving a land deal and favorable zoning changes to bring the worlds tallest building (!) to town. The deal collapsed, but not before the mayor made a bundle off the land where the building was to go. After they got the boot, the social conservatives proceeded to screw up big time. Went on a holy crusade against liquor stores. Didn't care about past agreements, the law, our tax base, or anything, just started coming up with bull to run all the liquor stores out of town. The liquor stores sued the city and all the councilpersons who voted against them on the cooked ordinances designed to make it impossible for them to do business. And they won. You can imagine what other brilliant schemes those idiots hatched. Cost us a bundle. Next election was a huge landslide against the social conservatives.
The other reason is that winning isn't everything. If we are ever to have more choices, we have to vote for 3rd parties. Doesn't matter if they don't win, just get them on the radar. We need more parties so we aren't stuck with dilemmas like the above one between corrupt or loony. I noticed this year's ballot had 4 straight ticket choices: R, D, Libertarian, and Green. Green? That's courtesy of the Republicans, trying a dirty trick to suck votes away from Democrats. They're playing with fire. What if the Greens actually collect a significant portion of the vote? Or even-- win?? I'll be laughing at the Republicans for shooting themselves in the foot. Democrats aren't above that crap either. I hear many of them have helped Tea Party candidates win Republican primaries.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
As a result of the 2000 election, hundreds of thousands of people died.
And to you, it's the same as a TV show.
I was assured as a result of the 2008 election, we would end two wars, bring em all back home, close our concentration camp in Cuba, and implement a REAL federal medical plan. Nothing happened. Correct, to me its the same as a TV show, its gonna turn out the same regardless if I "participate" or not.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
So, you're saying that you won't vote for a candidate that has the same ideals as you unless 30% or so of the population agree before the election that they will as well?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
But I certainly wouldn't contribute to campaign funds. Politics is all administrative overhead... something most businesses and organizations try to minimize. You don't necessarily get more out of it the more you feed it.
You couldn't possibly be more wrong. I don't even know where you came up with this...? The majority of campaign contributions go directly into voter contact: mail, phone calls, television and radio advertising. At least, that's what happens in campaigns that win.
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
The solution is that the "independents" need to pick a party and join it. Too many Democrats and Republicans have left their parties out of frustration. But all they have done is taken away their own right to participate in the primaries in choosing who ends up on the ballot on election day. By leaving the Republicans have skewed farther to the right and the Democrats skewed farther to the left.
And if she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood?
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Sane here. I never shy away from voting for people who are not from the major parties. If everyone voted that way, we might have more independents and less power for the Democrats and Republicans in office. Too many think it is "throwing their vote away". Problem is, when everyone thinks like that, no third choice has a chance.
I firmly believe not everyone should vote. Stupid people, for instance. The king that are often interviewed in man-on-the-street interviews who can't tell you who the President is, Speaker of the House, and other basic information people should have before voting. Those people should stay home. That's why I always hope for rain on voting day, it keeps stupid and lazy people at home. Unfortunately, the rain called for my area is holding off.
It's far more accurate to say that as a result of the 2000 election, hundreds of thousands of people didn't die. Check the figures for Saddam's historical murder rate vs. the civilian casualties during the war and subsequent occupation before you start accusing our leaders or our electorate of killing people. I doubt you'd care to argue that because of the 1940 election, hundreds of thousands of people died, right?
Ron Paul 2012 FTW!!!
Lack of landlines means ~4 points for democrats, and robopollers means ~4 points towards republican. So they "cancel each other out" in effect? This article (or the summary at least) has effectively destroyed itself. There is no news here. Move along.
You were assured by whom? Obama always made it clear that he supported the Afghanistan war but not the Iraq war. He's fulfilled his promise to withdraw from Iraq in a rapid by responsible way. He's also fulfilled his promise to invest more in the Afghanistan war and try to turn it around. The left in the U.S. must be deaf because Obama was loud and clear. Obama also tried to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay but he was blocked by Congress. He's President not Dictator, so there are limits to what he can do. He did not promise to set the terrorists free so what alternative did Congress give him? Now if you don't vote you will prove to the Republicans and conservative Democrats that they were right to stop Obama from closing Guantanamo and right to oppose him on health care and everything else he's tried to do. As a non-voter you will have the same effect on the outcome as a conservative Republican voter. You are what the GOP and the Tea Party hope for. Instead of slow progress we will regress.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
I you thought that the wars would end after the 2008 election then you clearly weren't paying attention to what was being said. Afghanistan was the 'right' war according to Obama and he was pretty up front about wanting to continue with it and move our focus out of Iraq.
"Less White" is still racist. It may not be racist to the minority, but it's still racist.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Oh, I'll agree the Republicans have moved farther to the right. People in the center have left the Republican party because it's become more extreme (thus making it even more extreme).
But the Democrats? It's the opposite effect. People on the extreme left have left the Democratic party because the party has tilted hard right. The Democratic party is far right of where it used to be, largely because the party leaders kowtowed to corporate money. This drove away the leftist elements of the party, so what remains of the Democratic Party is more like Reagan than the Republican party is.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
When you vote, you legitimize the process.
If you believe the process is inherently illegitimate, then you can't vote in good conscience. All you are doing is taking the red pill by voting.
You made the choice they wanted you to make and bought into the system which has been corrupted badly (probably irredeemably) over the last 40 years.
Candidates who are not bought and paid for are made to look like idiots by corporate controlled media (radio, tv, print and even web).
If you live in the USA, you legitimize the process, whether you vote or not. You're counted in the Census; your warm body is used to allocate representatives and electoral college seats to whoever your (voting) neighbors choose.
By not voting, you're effectively saying, "Whatever my neighbors vote for has my full support!"
Don't want to legitimize the process? Move out of the country and renounce your citizenship.
I did my research, found the person I liked and I voted for them even though they are likely to win.
We need more people like you.
As for me, last time I accidentally watched TV, I had the following conversation with my neighbor: "Who the fuck is that?" - "That's the mayor." - "Wow. And what about that shithead standing next to him?" - "That's the prime minister..."
I figure a few more votes from some dead relatives won't hurt at all.
j/k
Seriously this is interesting. I wonder if the County Registrars even have the cell #s in their rolls.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Sure, the majority goes into that. But how much of that voter contact is revenue raising in disguise? Pleas for donations coupled with a fact sheet are still pleas for donations (and thus administrative overhead, though not classed as such by the regulations governing 501s).
But even so, we know that airtime costs millions. But ever wonder how Karl Rove became a millionaire? By getting paid to send out political mailings. Ever see the salaries of the people who corporate PACs?
People get rich (or richer) in the career of politicking. Surely that's a sign that 'administrative overhead' might be excessive.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
But given the admission that they might fail to do so you have to pretty much assume its just a "hail Mary" pronouncement, that reflects more on the polling industry than anything else.
There was no admission of the kind. There was a study done by Pew that if you didn't adjust for it, it could skew the results by up to 4 points.
Customers aren't happy when the polls they ordered are inaccurate (unless they specifically ordered a skewed poll for media purposes, which is more likely with a PAC driven poll than the normal polls), so the big names in polling are very keen on keeping their polls as accurate as possible. An 8 point swing would be very damaging to their bottom line, so you can bet your ass they are going to try to nail it by taking every factor imaginable into account.
Thus, this is almost certainly a non-story. If they know the cell phone crowd favors dems, they are going to adjust for it. If they know robopolls favor repubs, they are going to adjust for it. They do this with hundreds of other factors to keep the polls as close to reality as possible. Therefore, I wouldn't expect a huge difference unless the pollsters have missed something major.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I need to retract my post, not because it's content was wrong, but because it suggests George Carlin was in the wrong.
I know of no modern citizen who has more accurately identified root problems and attacked them at their source than the late great George Carlin. And the parent post is a great example.
Go-Go Instant Runoff Voting!
*KA-POW!*
The only people I can imagine being against it are the most cynical of the entrenched power elite. I think we'll all be doing IRV eventually.
-- "Oh. This guy again."
My impression is that the Democrats get most of their votes from the educated middle classes, whereas Republicans are strong among the wealthy and the uneducated (only that would explain their support for creationism). But even if you were right about voting preferences, the percentage of rich people is far smaller than that of old people. Old people are also traditionally conservative, hence the bias. Still, I doubt professional pollsters are unaware of this.
To do list for Windows
George Carlin quote or no, this is seriously misleading:
The electoral system is not very good at producing representative politicians. At the very best, they are representative on a single axis - whatever political axis which the voters judge most important. On such issues as selfishness and ignorance, there's no reason to assume they are typical Americans - the selection effect implied by being able to stand for election and win, ensures that they probably have less of many forms of ignorance, and are more selfish, have less doubt, have less ability to admit mistakes, are more likely to believe they have all the answers they need already, etc. etc. Don't bash representative government, because we haven't really tried it at any serious level.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
. Nothing happened.
Correction: nothing positive happened. Plenty of happened: we've got troops in foreign lands where we have 'officially' ended the wars and combat operations entirely; we're wasting millions of US taxpayer money trying Gitmo combatants in civil courts; we've dedicated trillions to a healthcare system which will bankrupt employers and be unaffordable to citizens.
As an added bonus, we've also nationalized the banks and one of the largest automotive makers in the country. We've inflated the dollar to the point of being worthless and have continued to accelerate the rate of borrowing from China.
I've seen this TV show, except I saw an earlier visioning of it. I think it had something to do with Germany or Italy in the 1930s - I can't quite remember. (Argentina in 2000 is a good enough example as well.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
If Saddam killed them, then we didn't. Blood would still be on his hands, not ours.
Your example would be remotely relevant if we started a 'preventative' war in 1941. We didn't.
Cellphone-only voters tend to be younger, more urban, and less white
How do you measure whiteness?
Is a dance-off somehow involved?
\/\/\/
Sure, proportional representation would be a huge improvement. As the parent says, it gives smaller parties a chance - one they will never have under the current system. Proportional representation also completely eliminates the problem of Gerrymandering. All representatives are representatives of the entire State, elected by the State as a whole. It genuinely is a better system.
Unfortunately, in order to make such a fundamental change, you will need the support of - guess who - the existing political parties. There is zero chance of them supporting a measure that would dramatically reduce their power and influence.
But it is a nice dream...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Crap... to correct myself:
"even though they are not likely to win"
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The electoral system in this country is rigged so that you essentially have only two choices: D or R. You cast your vote for your electoral (for the Presidential election), and then that party's slate casts the electoral ballots. Because of that system, a majority can vote for one candidate, but end up with a totally different candidate in office. It's happened once or twice. For the midterms, the incumbent has a variety of protections. First, the franking privilege; he can send his mail for free. Certain types of ads against him become illegal before election day (unless that law was struck down as unconstitutional; I can't see how that one could remain); IIRC you can't mention the incumbents name in certain circumstances. His party has also more than likely rigged the district so that he has a pretty outrageous shot at victory; because of that, there are plenty of uncontested races, and parties have been know to gerrymander districts jointly to maintain a balance of power. 3rd parties are shut out.
SSC
Sounds like a libertarian to me
SSC
As a result of Bush I and Clinton being elected, hundreds of thousands died as well. Same with Bush II, and I predict Obama may squeeze in a nice 100K or so before he gets out of office too, and he's supposed to be anti-war.
SSC
In fact, a third party candidate that doesn't win, but even comes close to tilting the scales will push the winner to do a better job, as they will feel the pressure to cater to the third party voters for support.
He's fulfilled his promise to withdraw from Iraq in a rapid by responsible way.
Last time I checked, we still had about 50,000 troops in Iraq. Yes they are there as "advisors" and not performing "combat operations" (even though they are), but this is hardly a "withdrawal". At most it is a drawdown, at worst it is just a calm before a new storm when the Sunis and Kurds get tired of being kicked around by their new Shiite dictatorship and start kicking back again when the brib... uh... support for the "Sunni Awakening" dies down. Should happen in a couple more months, unless we actually let the Shiite government step up its campaign against Sunn... uh, terrorists.
Yeah... really nice "withdrawal". A lot of honor when we yet again (as in Vietnam and Yugoslavia) stand by and watch the government torture and kill its own citizens. Even better... supporting it by training our puppet government to do it more effectively. Yes, it still would have happened if we pulled out entirely, but at least we would have cut our moral losses by not supporting it. Very nice work, pseudo-liberal, supporting your side even when it's wrong.
P.S. On the other items, Obama is the worst negotiator in the world, caving at even the rumor of any pushback. He is a disappointment on so many levels. I'm hoping that there's an actual progressive who'll take up the challenge of running against him for the nomination in 2012. Actually, at this point, I'd support anyone else not to the right of Obama who actually had a spine.
That is all.
But...but...I voted for Bob Barr.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I understand the desire to send a "protest" vote by not voting for a congressman or senator that has broken your heart, but you should still vote for down-ballot local candidates (sheriffs, judges, freeholders, AG's, etc) and ballot initiatives that have a direct, local impact on you and your community. (And hopefully, while you're in that booth, you'll change your mind about voting for the big-ticket candidates. I mean, you're already there, right?)
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
If the poll's are off or not, or even if it matters.
No, I want my vote to be someone who isn't marginalized. McCain could have won. He didn't; and a "landslide victory" against doesn't mean he COULDN'T have. But every other candidate that popped up was quickly marginalized; they all fell out before the presidential election, and McCain got to go against Obama.
When you find a good candidate, maybe he'll run in the primaries. And then you'll see him get 15% of the votes, and the guy with 55% winds up running in the presidential. Then he becomes less popular, and next term gets 5% of the votes. Then he becomes like the guy that was running against Clinton in the 90s, I forget who. I think he still runs and gets like 0.5% in the primaries.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
So what you're looking for is a financially conservative party that doesn't give a crap about what you do for entertainment, as long as those involved are consenting adults.
Is that correct?
Aren't those people called "libertarians?" I hear that they actually do exist. You can vote for them, and if their isn't a libertarian on the ballot in your district, then you could run yourself.
You don't have to win the election to make a difference: Ross Perot and Ralph Nader have both demonstrated that third party candidates can have a huge impact in the result even when they don't win.
(BTW: "You" in this post doesn't refer to Beardo even though I'm replying to his post)
I think the do care now. The two parties push "Everyone should vote" because all of the people that wouldn't have voted but are convinced to vote even thought they don't know any of the candidates, are going to fairly randomly vote for one of the two names they hear the most.
Everyone votes becomes white noise that drowns out third parties. Of course if uninformed voters could be convinced that their vote is most effective by voting against BOTH parties via a third party, then we would see improvement.
Well there is the Libertarian party but unfortunately still very marginal. For a fiscally conservative and socially liberal guy like myself there are no good options among the main two parties so we just have to hold our nose and pick what's more important. In my case fiscal responsibility trumps social liberalism if nothing else because there are plenty of constitutional protections of my personal liberty while unfortunately the commerce clause, as currently interpreted, allows the left to be as irresponsible with my money as they like.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Huh? Who said it was causation? The article expressly said it was correlation.
We propped up the banks and that automaker. All are on schedule to buy themselves back out. It was a temporary measure, and you're being disingenuous by stating otherwise. Furthermore, neither industry is nationalized -- control is still private, though with oversight; and private competitors remain in the marketplace.
What? That's an extraordinary claim, considering inflation has been markedly low the past several years considering the shape of the economy. Inflation was higher under Bush than it has been under Obama.
What? The deficit is smaller under Obama than it was under Bush. This means less borrowing from creditor nations.
You sir, are chock full of either delusion or lies. I don't care which it is, but it would be nice if you stopped spewing your misinformed/lying bullshit.
One other note...
Disembark from the crazy train, dude. Stop listening to the demagogues like Beck who spew this nonsense.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It's a bit more complicated than that and the fact you don't understand that is also why it shouldn't "surprise you when we're left with only lousy politicians". Are you aware that voting for Clinton caused hundreds of thousands of people to die too, through Iraq sanctions alone? Far greater number of people in Iraq died as a result of sanctions than from the war so an argument could be made that the war saved lives.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Continuing for parent:
If party X gets a low digit amount of votes(lets say 3%), then the next time there is a close election that could be decided by those votes, both the main parties might grab some of party X's stands to get a few more votes.
And the main parties hopefully don't grab some of the batshit insane stances.
I vote.
But how legitimate is the governmet of a country where 10% of the citizenry bothers to vote?
People have a right to grouse, even if they don't vote.
For the record, in the last 15 years, my vote has "mattered" one time. I was vote #31 for a state senator. It being 31 instead of 1 probably helped convince the incumbent to give up after several weeks of fighting it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Funny how the GP complains that hundreds of thousands of people died and your response is that (presumably to stop hundreds of thousands of people from continuing to die) will withdraw us from Iraq. Which in turn will cause far more deaths as the Iraq descends into civil war and chaos. Staying in Iraq and supporting the new government until the country is stable means saving lives, withdrawing will cost lives.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
When you vote, you legitimize the process.
If you believe the process is inherently illegitimate, then you can't vote in good conscience. All you are doing is taking the red pill by voting.
You made the choice they wanted you to make and bought into the system which has been corrupted badly (probably irredeemably) over the last 40 years.
Candidates who are not bought and paid for are made to look like idiots by corporate controlled media (radio, tv, print and even web).
No. When you don't vote you just remove yourself from the process, but you don't remove your responsibility for the outcome. In a democracy, the citizens are responsible for the government they have. No system of government has ever been perfect, nor will any such perfect system ever exist. By voting we have the opportunity to work to better our system.
MAYBE if there were a true requirement of a 50%+ majority to elect, that would be true.
The way that the US system is set up, not true at all. If you have a "sizable enough" third-party candidate, the most likely outcome is that they split the vote of a key demographic, the vote splits 45-44-11, and then some shithead comes in and claims a "majority" and a "mandate" when more than 50% of the population didn't want him in office.
The problem with the US system is (for example), if 10% of the country are libertarian, the libertarians all either vote Republican because the alternative is watching Democrats ruin the country (from their perspective). If 10% of the country are green partiers, likewise - they either vote Democrat, or watch Republicans ruin the country (from their perspective).
In a parliamentary system, however, every party that can get at least x% of the vote, gets at least somebody into office. So that way, the Republicans or Democrats would most likely be forced to come to some form of coalition with another, smaller party that would then hold direct sway because they can always "walk away" if things get ludicrous from their view.
The downside to the parliamentary system, of course, is that you have no say in who your representative is. The "party" gets the votes, and then the party bosses decide which shithead "represents" you later. This makes it possible for particularly odious assholes to get elected in places like Britain merely because nobody can actually vote to directly get rid of them.
If I were to propose an ideal system, I'd suggest we rethink the whole "Senate" concept. Leave the House of Representatives as it is, for local representatives to be elected. Throw the "Senators" out the window, hold a national party election, and let the parties get one senator for each whole 1% of the vote that they acquire. The "Senate" is worthless as hell ever since we threw it to direct elections anyways, it no longer serves as a brake on anything stupid - far from it, it seems most of the stupidity in the USGOV originates in the Senate for the last three decades.
The thing is, the better pollsters do indeed do this. You're absolutely right.
I've seen left-leaning folks excoriate Rasmussen as just being a "mouthpiece" of the Right, but in fact, Pollster.com (now part of the Huffington Post) has acknowledged that they have generally been very accurate in the past few election cycles. Why? Because Scott Rasmussen knows how to ... drum roll, please! ... do demographic weighting, accurately determine who is, in fact, likely to vote, correct for cell phone usage and etc., etc.
On the other side of the coin, my right-leaning friends love to dump on Gallup and the New York Times polls, but all that matters at the end of the day is how accurate they are. This can easily be checked after the election: how far off were they? Who was the most accurate? Why were they wrong? Cellphones are just one reason (and just for the record, the first major pollster to claim to adjust for the "cellphone effect" was John Zogby, way back in 2000 and 2002).
From my experience in the past, the polls have generally tended to favor the Democrats by a few points, especially here in the South. The best example was years ago, when I lived in NC, and Jesse Helms was running against former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gant (sp?) for the US Senate. The polls consistently showed a statistical dead heat, but Helms actually won handily by about 8 points. Post-mortem showed that the pollsters had badly guessed probably turnout from rural areas, which tend to be much more conservative in a state like NC.
(Or, in plain English, Ma and Pa Kettle fired up the truck and headed in to vote, but they were never polled!) :)
HOWEVER ... that WAS in the past. In recent years, the reputable pollsters have slowly become more and more accurate. A good pollster always does a post-mortem after each election to see what he/she guessed wrong and how they can tweak their models to improve for the next election.
realclearpolitics.com keeps a running average of ALL polls. According to their latest results, the Republicans will definitely win the House, and will *possibly* win the Senate. We'll see how right the polls were (and who was the most accurate) in the post-mortem after the election.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
He's fulfilled his promise to withdraw from Iraq in a rapid by responsible way.
Would you like to explain the 50,000 troops still in Iraq, then? Actually, the funniest explanation I've seen so far for this is that the troops are there to "prevent foreign interference" (if 50,000 troops isn't foreign interference, what is?)
I am officially gone from
In 2003, just 3.2% of households were cell-only, while in the 2010 election one-quarter of American adults have ditched their landlines and rely exclusively on their mobile phones, and a lot of pollsters don't call mobile phones.
This is exactly what has happened in Polish presidential elections 2010. In the first voting, one of the candidates was overrepresented while the other one - underrepresented due to surveying companies a) avoiding cell phones and b) wrongly assigning those that refused to answer.
It's worse than that-- I have 4 phone numbers, and only one of them has the area code of where I actually live-- and one has the area code from another state. Number portability means that you get lots of robocalls from idiots in other districts or states that I couldn't vote for if I wanted to...
It's funny you say that!
Personally, I'd vote Democrat in a snap if they weren't so goddamn pushy about wanting to give my tax money to people I have moral problems supporting.
If the Democrats would stick to getting us out of GATT/NAFTA/WTO, rebuilding American industry, and did more than talk about busting up the vertical monopolies and non-taxpaying overseas megacorporations, I'd be all for them.
Instead, all I hear from the Democrats round here is how I'm somehow morally obligated to let my tax money support thieving, lying illegal aliens and the babies they drop (who have, because they keep running off on the bills, caused two hospitals in my area to shutter their maternity wards completely).
It is a really stupid, crazy thing in the US system: if a friend of mine from overseas is here on a tourist visa and goes into labor early, her kid doesn't become a citizen. But if the kid of some lying, thieving lawbreaker pops on US soil, somehow that kid becomes a citizen.
It's a mad, mad world.
So you only want to vote for the person you think is going to win?
I voted this morning. Most of the people I voted for were never mentioned on the news, in the papers, and most people don't even know about them. I did my research, found the person I liked and I voted for them even though they are likely to win. Waste of time? I think not. Every time I vote that's one more little bit of the percentage of being recognized.
And it's what I do every year, too - just like I did this morning :)
antipaucity
Nothing happened yet. You will get all of those things eventually because McCain didn't win, die after 3 months in office, and have Palin start WWIII.
Or maybe you won't. But please don't confuse "Obama isn't perfect" or "Obama is flawed" or "Obama has serious problems" with "Obama is worse than the alternative."
Just what do you think the political correctness pushed by the left is all about? It's all about forcing their particular version of morality on everyone else.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
That was rude, and frankly uncalled for. I too am sitting this one out, because in my home state I have the choice of a DINO or a religious nutball. wow, great choices there, One that panders to big corp worse than any R, and the other is a foaming at the mouth religious right. Before anyone says "vote independent" there aren't any actually running here for the main slots open, as both the Ds and Rs have frankly blown an obscene amount of $$$ trying to get the slots in the senate and congress. At least with other states one might get the illusion of choice, in my state looking up our senator's voting record they voted straight R even with the D in front of their name more than 88% of the time.
So there is NO reason to be rude, for all you know he may be like me and simply have been given two choices that simply aren't worth wasting time and gas over. The only one I cared about in this race was Governor, and the latest poll shows the gov with such a huge lead that short of killing babies on live TV he is a shoe in to keep his job. The rest? Total Coke VS Pepsi here, and not worth getting drowned in one of the worst flooding situations we've had in awhile just to waste my ballot.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The status of third parties does seem to be stuck in a frustrating chicken and egg situation, AFAIK.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
People on the extreme left have left the Democratic party because the party has tilted hard right. The Democratic party is far right of where it used to be, largely because the party leaders kowtowed to corporate money. This drove away the leftist elements of the party, so what remains of the Democratic Party is more like Reagan than the Republican party is.
Too right. Obama is in bed with corporate fat cats so much that he wants the government to own the means of production and eliminate corporate bonuses. If only he were more leftist...
46 & 2
In your hypothetical 45-44-11 scenario, if the group with 44 can sway just 2 percent of the 11 to their side, they win and the 45 group loses. That is a strong incentive to force the 45 and 44 to behave the way the 11 want.
Breaking News: 'Polling Predictions' Could Skew Polling Results. Don't forget the Heisenberg Principle here, you can't observe something without changing it. I wish they would let elections run their course without publishing any stats.
People who can't be bothered to vote won't likely be bothered to go into the streets to protest either, much less take arms up against a legitimate government.
Don't count on that. The colonial rebels never bothered to vote. It never even crossed their minds.
To generalize: Voting on local issues is more important to you because it's more relevant to you and you have greater influence on it?
Someone wouldn't *have* to vote on state/national things while they're at the polls for local business, but people would be inclined to while they're there, right?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
"The way that the US system is set up, not true at all."
Really? Remember Ross Perot? He had a significant effect on the election. He had no chance of winning but he forced the other parties to compete for votes. That was an improvement.
And if all the people eligible to vote wrote who normally didn't vote decided to write in votes or vote for minor candidates, they might not change the outcome but they would make a massive difference. Because then their opinions would have to be considered. Because in politics, silence IS consent.
I live in a state that is completely vote by mail. It is ridiculously easy to register to vote. You can vote for anyone you like. Anyone who doesn't vote is lazy, indifferent or ineligible. They get the representation they deserve. The problem is that I also get the representation that they deserve.
Obama always made it clear that he supported the Afghanistan war but not the Iraq war. He's fulfilled his promise to withdraw from Iraq in a rapid by responsible way.
No he didn't. There are still combat troops in Iraq. If they are trained for combat, equipped for combat, and receiving combat pay then they are combat troops. Anyone who tries to spin it otherwise is lying.
Obama also tried to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay but he was blocked by Congress.
Congress blocked funding. Surely the Commander in Chief in a time of war can find enough funds to open the doors, turn off the lights, and walk away. It can't be any more expensive to close the base than it is to keep it open. Use those funds.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Has there been an election or study where the voter has *one* vote which can be exercised either for *or* against a candidate? This would be a useful option when faced with the a bunch of candidates who are all unspectacular.
The President isn't actually all that powerful, but what he does have can be used effectively.
The problem is, the past few have been supremely good at drawing attention - "Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it", and "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job", respectively. (Thanks to the late, great Douglas Adams).
What you really want is divided government. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." The whiny partisan asswipes will scream "waah gridlock", but the BEST thing we can have is for only those things which both parties manage to agree on happening. Remember, 99% of the real business of governing happens not in the President's office, but instead in Congress. In this respect the most powerful person in our government is the Speaker of the House, who can single-handedly ensure that a proposed bill never sees the light of day.
Where it goes to pot is when the majorities in Congress, Senate, and then the President are all from the same party.
Look at the times we've been fucked in the last three decades. Jimmy Carter had a Democrat congress and nearly doomed us all. Bill Clinton, for his first two years, almost did what Obama has done to us now. Most of the people on this site are probably too young to understand how truly horrible both of those time periods were.
Shrub 43 is an oddity. For his first couple years, there was a major crisis. Then, "dealing with" that major crisis, his advisers convinced him and Congress to run around spending like drunken sailors.
When it came time to be a lame duck, Shrub 43 may as well have been a democrat. Count up the number of vetoes he issued once the Democrats took congress following the 2006 elections and it's pretty clear he was nothing but a joke. Effectively, Pelosi and Reid were running the country even before they got an official rubber-stamper put into the White House.
Of course, this kind of crap is why George Washington warned us about forming political parties at all in his farewell address: political parties effectively take the checks and balances system and make it meaningless unless the people are smart enough not to let one party get hold of House, Senate and Presidency all simultaneously. It's a damn shame nobody listened to him.
I voted for "Burn In Hell, You Despicable Scum" for several offices.
Democracy comes from this. If you elect someone to represent you, you're not choosing democracy - you're in an elective oligarchy.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Inflation was not a problem in Germany in the early 1930s - deflation was the problem. The Germans did suffer hyperinflation, but that was in the early 1920s.
According to wikipedia you are incorrect. Please forgive the formatting, I dont think slashcode will let me drop a table in my comment.
Fiscal year Value % of GDP
2001 $144.5 billion 1.4%
2002 $409.5 billion 3.9%
2003 $589.0 billion 5.5%
2004 $605.0 billion 5.3%
2005 $523.0 billion 4.3%
2006 $536.5 billion 4.1%
2007 $459.5 billion 3.4%
2008 $962.2 billion 6.6%
2009 $1785.6 billion 12.5%
2010 $1471.0 billion (est.)10.0%
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Yes, I had my dates incorrect.
This is, indeed, what is happening in the US as we speak:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920s_German_inflation
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Certainly by not linking to a politically biased blog with known credibility issues.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I've not experienced any of these "credibility issues" you allude to. Given that each article on this "politically biased blog" as you call it has its sources linked neatly throughout the article and at the bottom. Would you mind providing some indication as to your reason(s) for thinking this is a politically biased site?
So we have economical prosperity just around the corner? The German economy did quite well in the late 1920s - with 2% unemployment and everything.
My god, you are delusional. LOOK up when the economy in the US crashed. Bush was in power. In fact Obama was elected because people couldn't believe the mess Bush had made of things. And now they get the republicans who created the mess back because Obama can't fix decades of mis-management in two years.
The US economy was fucked over by reagonomics were the intrests of wall street and short term speculators have ruined the American industrial base leading to more and more Americans contributing nothing to the economy. Basically, the US has since WW2 played the "lets pump up economy X and sell them our movies". It worked for the EU, it worked for Japan, ir worked for Korea. Then they tried it with China and forgot that China is far far larger. Sony went from a crap copy maker to a company that beat US companies down. Korean car makers do better then US companies, but they are as nothing to the growing industrial might of China. Once China stops like Japan and Korea to copy US tech and make its own (In Japan, nobody thinks the iPhone is the best, there are far better phones available already) and in China already you can get very decent LOCALLY designed gadgets that start adding their own tech.
Meanwhile Detroit is a ghost town and it ain't the only one. All so wall street could score a quick win by stripping American business for their last penny and fire every American worker and then claim employment is good because families can only survive holding down a double job per person.
And you blame congres... my god. You sure get the wool pulled over your eyes. Wall Street controls the economy.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No we don't (any more).
By the time you vote, it's really already over. You are just putting a rubber stamp.
Politics has been made so expensive that unless the people with money give you millions of dollars AND don't activate their smear campaigns, you are never going to get a chance.
Obama may have side tracked the process with all those small donations, but he's been effectively both coopted and neutralized.
Hell, one of the best investment after the insurance company written national health care plan is the insurance companies.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You make several good points, but ultimately, I still find I disagree with you on some of it.
Although major party candidates of the "2 party system" may in fact use a 3rd. party candidate as "leverage" to get more votes (channeling support to them so votes for them siphon them away from their direct competitor), I'm not sure that should be viewed as a "problem"? If you happen to believe that neither a Republican or a Democrat that's running for a given position is right for the job, you're stuck with the following options:
1. Refuse to vote. (Useless, because by sitting it out, you're ranked among the apathetic. Everything goes on without your input.)
2. Go to the polls and vote for the "lesser of 2 evils" of the Republicans/Democrats in question. (That means your vote just counted the same as the next guy who was in FULL SUPPORT of the candidate you disliked, but only voted for because you hoped they were slightly better than the alternative.)
3. Vote for a 3rd. party candidate who is closer to your own beliefs than the others in the running.
4. Vote for a write-in candidate. (Practically-speaking, this option seems to accomplish nothing except in some oddball case where you knew the majority agreed to go with a write-in. Otherwise, it's pretty much a statistical impossibility your random write-in candidate is going to be selected over people actually named on the ballot as choice, who spent money actively campaigning.)
So optimally, I think your options really boils down to either 2 or 3 here, if you're wanting to accomplish anything at all? And the way I look at it? If nobody cast any votes for the 3rd. party guys or gals on the ballot, they'd eventually just go away completely. Sure, their chances of actually winning might be slim to none, but your vote for them helps legitimize what they're doing. For example, the Libertarian party has pretty much always managed to get somebody onto the ballot in every election I've ever voted in. They may only get 3% of the vote in the end -- but that's enough so they know some people out there are listening to what they're saying. In turn, they may influence some of the Democratic or Republican voters to demand more Libertarian-minded solutions from their candidates down the road.
He is talking about the trade (current account) deficit when talking about the indebtedness to china. In that context, he is generally correct. In the fact that the federal deficit is partially funded by china, you are largely correct. Of course both yours and his numbers are more a reflection of the economic climate that Obama inherited rather than anything particular done by the administration.
Golly. I oversimplified on Slashdot. What a surprise.
it enviably comes down to degree to which they want power VS Ideals/Ideology. Compromise is part of the political process on every level.
I am a bit conflicted.
I hate politicians that throw away their ideals, simply to get into power.
I also hate politicians that have ideals yet refuse to compromise to get stuff done or to serve their party rather than their country.
I am a firm believer that you can do both of those things and that they are not mutually exclusive. However from my experience thus far the failure rate seems pretty high, most seem to do what I hate about politicians. It seems most actually like to break both rules, by doing/saying whatever it takes to get the votes to get into power, yet once there not compromise, braying the party/partisan line as hard as they can.
Its a crazy world.
There were decent Republican candidates in the primary that were rooted out quite quickly. The writing was on the wall: America had enough of the Republicans. Even the Republicans had enough of it considering Bush was rubber-stamping everything the Democrat congress was sailing his way.
People go on and on about how "historic" Obama's election is but, really, a polished river rock could have gotten elected. That was the attitude. The fact that he put a little more effort into his campaign over a river rock is what earned him his golden halo (and the subsequent -- read, today -- palatable performance dissatisfaction).
Why would they ever consider putting out a great candidate when they knew that even if they got the resurrected zombie of Ronald Reagan on the ballot they wouldn't win? The mood in the country was that it's the Democrat's turn.
Which is the huge issue for the two party system... that dissatisfaction just swaps the sides, instead of bringing in new blood that might actually deliver legitimate change.
More Twoson than Cupertino
1. what the hell is a prime minister?
2. you can't identify your prime minister by sight?
(#1 is a joke.)
If I were to propose an ideal system, I'd suggest we rethink the whole "Senate" concept. Leave the House of Representatives as it is, for local representatives to be elected. Throw the "Senators" out the window, hold a national party election, and let the parties get one senator for each whole 1% of the vote that they acquire.
Not really sure why it matters, but you touched on a point. At one point in time, Senators were elected by the States and not by "populous" vote.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Which are you?
Republican: The government should have a say in what is wright & wrong but the government should keep its hands out of the free-markets and individual profit.
Democrat: The government should not try to shape morality whatsoever but it does need to regulate the free-market and the distribution of profits to prevent greed and keep the market fair for all.
Authoritarian: Everyone benefits from government regulation of the markets as well as the using legislation to make sure that the citizens have a moral framework to abide by.
Libertarian: Individuals should be free to make their own decisions on their personal moral convictions. Individuals should also be free to earn an honest living however they like; and spend/give their honestly earned profits any way they like. The Constitution permits the government a very short list of things they may tax for and legislate. Overstepping that amounts to legalized theft and an infringement of individual liberty.
Actually, I'm a big George Carlin fan (may he R.I.P.).... But comedy aside, all Americans are not equal when it comes to possessing virtues like honesty. Our current political structure encourages the corrupt to rise towards the top, while those who don't take any interest in bettering themselves at others' expense often steer clear of anything resembling politics.
Basically, Carlin was a nihilist (at least in his comedic themes, if not really in his personal life). Maybe as I get older and more cynical, I'll come to agree with him on that completely? But right now, I still hear enough stories about the good individuals do to believe we're not totally hopeless.
I've been saying for years, I think our political system might do a lot better if we eliminated the idea of it as a career job. Make all the positions volunteer ones. Maybe throw people a few little perks like free haircuts or car washes at certain places (not like they don't already get 'em now!), but basically make it no more profitable a position than jury duty is. That would tend to attract people who have more than self-interest at heart. (And yes, I realize it would make it so "only the wealthy could do it" -- but to that I say two things. First, isn't that who FOUNDED this nation and wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights in the first place? Seems like THEY didn't do too shoddy a job! And second, isn't it pretty much only the wealthy in political office today anyway? Nobody else can afford the ridiculously high cost of campaigning.)
Be careful. Republicans talk about expanding citizen rights and shrinking government, but they never actually do that. For the last 77 years every single Republican administration has not only grown the government, but grown it *faster* than the previous Democrat. So, what exactly would you be voting for?
Both parties and pollsters blew up my cellphone this election cycle. I've gotten no less than 3 phone calls a week for the last month.
I decided to vote this year because there's one candidate I'm really excited about. The candidate is honest and will always put the rights and freedoms of Californians first and foremost. This candidate goes by the somewhat odd name of "Yes" and is running for California's proposition 19.
Uh, then you weren't paying attention.
One major candidate (McCain) wanted to expand both wars. The other major candidate (Obama) wanted to slowly and carefully wind down one war while massively expanding the other. What candidate in 2008 was telling you he would end two wars and bring the soldiers home? FWIW, the elected candidate did what he said he would with the two wars.
The Gitmo snipe is fair.
The medical insurance snipe is not fair -- the Dems passed what they could, which was a fifty-year effort. Sure, I wanted socialized medicine, but I'm happy enough with nearly-universal coverage and coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Voting for someone who doesn't stand a chance of winning is equivalent to not voting in every practical measure.
The design of the political system means that nobody's vote means very much. All candidates who have any chance of winning were purchased prior to the election. And if they ever go back on their word to their financial backers, they are through in politics. Popularity isn't sufficient. It wasn't even sufficient when Teddy Roosevelt got disgusted and founded the Bull Moose party. (And lost.)
What a marginally acceptable candidate running means is merely that the person elected will have views even less acceptable to the majority of the populace. This is something that either Instant Runnoff Voting or Condorcet voting would fix. I think that Condorcet voting is the superior choice, but Instant Runnoff (IRV) is easier to explain.
If all elections went to either of those choices, then over time politics would become cleaner. You couldn't buy a candidate, because there would be too many of them. You'd need to buy a Legislator. That's still cheap, but it's less guaranteed to be successful, and it's more expensive. And it's more public. (Note that this wouldn't be a quick process, and things might get corrupted on a different front while the one front was being cleaned up. So don't believe promises of paradise from ANYONE.)
As it is, however, politics is an auction. And corporations have made things more corrupt than the political parties ever did in the days of "smoke filled rooms".
OTOH, because all candidates are bought ahead of time, the big money isn't interested in fixing the vote. Thus the electronic voting systems are trivially easy to corrupt BECAUSE those who want to do the corruption are low stakes players. If it became important which candidate was selected (to the large financial interests) then things would change, so that only those with lots of backing could corrupt the vote.
Am I too cynical? I don't think so, but then I wouldn't, would I. So I'll acknowledge the possibility that I'm wrong. The only way to tell would be to try the experiment. Even then it would take decades before the results were in.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
American is NOT a true democracy. It doesn't have any room for opposing views. No, democrats and republicans are NOT opposing views. Britain is much the same. ALL parties there now are right wing. You can't have a discussion about how the economy should be run if ALL participants believe in the stock market. If any question that perhaps having speculators control your countries industry MIGHT be a bad idea, becomes impossible with that most horrible insult in the US, socialist. Sooner rape children and kick kittens then question Wall Street.
But it was Wall Street that caused the economic collapse which is hurting America worsed of all. You think Greece got it bad? Not at all, the media won't tell you this, especially US media, but this kinda things happen all the time. It is the way these countries run. France and strikes? The way things are. Only right wing over paid media whores scare up the few people outraged by the strikes and pretend this is how all of France feels about the strikes. For most French, these strikes are the way THEIR democracy with TRUE left and right wing elements works. By clashing and then finally some balance coming in once it has become clear who has the biggest support. Strikes like these are VERY good sign in a democracy. Far better then the US were nobody strikes or protest because they are to worried about their mortage. A nice way to keep the population under control, "do as we say or you will miss your credit card payments and we reposses your house, your car, your flat screen tv". Why do you think right wingers favor home ownership? Renters can just move on, home owners are committed.
Countries like Greece have a different standard of living that makes it far easier to thighten the belt. The family is more important and the kids can just move back in. The grand parents help out. The wife goes to work and parks the kids with the extended family. And nobody depends for their sense of worth on a second car or a huge tv or a house that is far to large. The US? Not so, the worth of an American is his possessions and if the wages go down, then he becomes less of a man. So he lends, but that is breaking down with the banks in turmoil. Greece and France have strikes but in the end, things will adjust, people are just fighting to have the adjustments be fair and not as harsh. In the US, their is rage. Bitter hatred. They have no alternative but switch back and forth between two parties who BOTH favor Wall Street and the banks over real industry and have sold out the American worker for decades.
Look at the Tea Party, how can such a party REALLY claim that the best bet is to go BACK to the republicans who cause the whole economic disaster anyway. And not just the current crash, but the whole reaganomics. Everything from outsourcing to making banks not a servant to the economy but THE economy to the house ownership craze. And their solution in a economic down turn... cut spending.
That is the most foolish thing. Yes it seems a sensible simple reaction but if you CUT spending, you cut spending. Don't get it?
Okay, say the state has 1 million employees who together earn 100 million and spend that on food and housing. Now you are going to CUT spending, so you now have only 100.00 state employees earning 10 million and spending that on food and housing... oh but that ain't the end of it. Those 100.000 now fear for their jobs, so might postpone the purchase of a new tv (made in China) or new car (made in Korea) and keep it... even LESS spending.
BUT you claim, surely the less the state spends, the less taxes it needs to collect so taxes can be lowered and so people have more of their salary to spend? Sure... that works... if any government ever has been able to cut taxes. You see, cutting all those jobs ain't going to be easy. Somebody needs to fire all those people and will want to be paid for it. There are claims to be made and dealt with, the remaining people are going to have to do more work and demand salary increases. If you don't do that, then you migh
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wow... what a skewed viewpoint!
I know many Libertarians and none of them are particularly well-off financially. In fact, quite a few live more of a "neo hippie" lifestyle, if anything. They believe in things like bartering for goods whenever possible, minimizing use of credit cards or debit cards, and growing their own food instead of trusting big corporate farms to supply everything.
Sure, there are millionaires and billionaires who believe in Libertarian principles. It's not rocket science to realize that government regulations and controls make running a business much more difficult. Those who are the best at building businesses would be the most opposed to such things, since they have the most experience running up against them time and time again - whether or not they became very financially successful in the end, despite them.
But all in all, being a Libertarian really isn't that different than being a traditional conservative Republican, except for a disconnect when it comes to personal freedoms. (Your Libertarian candidate, for example, is not going to support things like the "war on drugs" or side with govt. instead of the individual on a "land rights" dispute.) Even when it comes to such issues as military buildup for the sake of "deterrence", I'm not sure that wouldn't come down to individual beliefs and personal justifications more than a "party line ideology"? Ronald Reagan considered himself a very Libertarian-minded Republican, yet he was obviously a big believer in a powerful military. (And yes, the drug war started with him too -- but most of us realize that had a lot more to do with his wife's urging than anything he was personally advocating.) Other Libertarians would argue the opposite ... that the military should only be used defensively, as needed -- and not maintained constantly as a huge drain on taxpayer dollars.
Honestly though, the Libertarian party suffers from the same problems other independent parties have. You get the nut-cases who sign on because it's a relatively easy chance to say you're "involved in politics", and the people who simply want to undermine the party. (I remember we had some goofball running as a Libertarian candidate around here, some years back, who got his name legally changed to Chief Wannadoobie. Pretty obvious this idiot was just a recreational drug user who thought it'd be a kick to say he was a politician. Wouldn't imagine he even formed much of an opinion on anything outside of wanting to get high legally.....) That's why so many people make the distinction that they're a "small-l libertarian" and not an official card-carrying supporter of the party itself.
Give me a democrate-moderate that can win and I'll hope the other party votes him in
Wait, so you'll identify the best candidate, then not vote for him because he's in "the other party."
Not to put so fine a point on it, but you are the reason the country is headed down the crapper. You have more loyalty to your party than the Constitution, your country, or your fellow citizens. To that, I give a hearty and polite - fuck you.
Learn to love Alaska
This.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
People who can't be bothered to vote won't likely be bothered to go into the streets to protest
Are you purposely, or not purposely, describing the Tea Party in and after 2008?
The fiscal years and presidential terms overlap. As such, that means that a president can spend massive amounts his last few months and blame it on the next president. War expenses and government bailouts by Bush were a majority of the 12.5% in 2009. The first full year of Obama was lower than the last year's budget passed under Bush.
Not that I'm claiming either of them was competent. I'm just making sure when listing either of their long list of flaws, that they are accurately represented. Well, unless you are one of those strict Constitutionalists that hypocritically asserts that Obama should have unconstitutionally ignored Bush's last budget, in which case I'm calling you a hypocritical ass.
Learn to love Alaska
Most of the younger people in this landlineless subpopulation do not bother to vote. As a result, the fact that they are not counted in polls is inconsequential.
I see an awful lot of people who say "voting is of no use." The amount of it in these forums is disconcerting. It is little wonder that Obama, the president facing a nation in the worst condition on taking office of most any modern president, is about to have the rug yanked out from under him. This after two years in office trying to do battle with problems that have been created by the legislative excesses of the past decade or so.
You need to vote for candidates you believe will be responsible; failing to do this, you abet the irresponsible. Our zero-attention span attitude towards politics has brought us to the buffoonish specacle we now see of plutocrats with piles of money buying media time and space for lie-filled ads. These cynical individuals are doing this to keep their tax burden low. That means that you, Mr. and Ms. Professional Class, will be borrowing money from the Chinese to fill the gap. Meh, let your kids pay it off.
Americans don't want to be bothered educating themselves about the state of their nation. So they believe a lot of this made-up crap. Election season features enough straw men to choke the Wizard of Oz, and enough red herrings to keep Cannery Row going for millenia.
In America we all expect someone else to do the right thing (not litter, give money to worthy causes, vote responsibly, support our schools and social institutions. pay lawfully due taxes, etc) but we're all too entitled to pick up any of the burden ourselves.
As a result, Americans will get the national decline they deserve. By the way, that means your standard of living is going to fall.
Too goddamned bad.
I get a choice between the party that wants to take all my money and give it to business, and the party that wants to take all my money and spend it on social services
Um, is this a hard choice for you? Providing social services is the #2 thing I want my government to do, after #1 shoot at people who try to invade us. Giving money to private companies isn't even on my list, with the rare exception of when it is required to prevent economic meltdown.
First - FORD pardoned Nixon. Carter didn't. So your whole first paragraph is raw idiocy.
Obama has not wreaked this economy upon us, the Bush administration and the prior Congress did.
"The prior Congress" - you mean the one Obama was a part of as a US Senator, when Obama voted for every last one of the fucked-up policies that said Congress passed and Shrub43 signed...
Clinton fixed a broken economy,
Please, do tell me what alternate reality you came from. The economy was already on the mend well before Clinton got elected, just too late to save Bush41.
Between being scared to death of Hillarycare and reeling from Clinton's tax hikes, the economy took another nosedive until 1994. And that we can blame squarely on Clinton and the Democrats he had in Congress.
Man I love FOX News and political campaign ads! It is so refreshing to see the products, well educated and informed citizens.
My opponent is a liar and a devil! He wants to instate death panels that will decide your medical fate. If he's in charge of the government he will take control of your life, and sell your children as slaves to Al Qaeda!
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Tax and spend democrats? Wow, you still really believe that? Take a look at the deficits and debt. The majority of our debt was built up under Reagan and Bush II (Bush I added to the debt, but at least tried to fix it). Meanwhile Clinton gave us a surplus. If you want to stop spending you better start up a 3rd party that's willing to either cut 50% off our military budget or stop social security/medicare. Otherwise you won't solve the debt by spending cuts. You'll solve them by raising taxes. There's a reason why the top tax rate in the 40s and 50s (under the last sane Republican president, Eisenhower) were 90% and they were 70% until Reagan came along.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I've seen this pop up in a couple of places recently. It's not just wrong, but hilariously so. Where are you getting this information from?
Do you have ESP?
Try again.
Run the numbers comparing the ACTUAL crucial factors:
#1 - did just one party control both Congress and the Presidency?
#2 - Were the Democrats holding Congress?
Remember: CONGRESS WRITES THE BUDGET. "Power of the purse", clearly delineated in the Constitution. All the President has is the power of veto.
Clinton didn't "give us" a surplus. The guys writing the budget from Congress did. Guess which party they were from?
2. you can't identify your prime minister by sight?
Would you remember this guy? Never was anyone, never did anything, didn't even run for re-election. After the previous shithead stepped down, his job was basically to smile at the cameras until the elections they were sure to lose.
I'm sitting this one out, and possibly 2012 as well. Voting for the guy or gal that lies the least still means I'm supporting a liar. The very nature of politics nowadays automatically means someone with enough clout to run for election is unfit to serve...
I love the fake premise that I'm voting for someone who "lies the least." Give me a break, even if you disagree with both major parties, they represent different legislative agendas. Example: Is Harry Reid ineffectual as a Majority Leader? Yes. Is he the one promising to kill Social Security and telling girls raped by their fathers to "make lemonade" of the situation? No.
Don't like the candidates in the general? Then get involved in the primaries. Otherwise, STFU.
I did my research, found the person I liked and I voted for them even though they are likely to win. Waste of time? I think not. Every time I vote that's one more little bit of the percentage of being recognized.
I did much the same, except that I don't care whether my candidates get recognition or not. I mean, of course I hope they win! But even if they don't and no one but me ever bothers to learn about them, I still get to go to bed tonight knowing that I cast a ballot for someone that I genuinely liked.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
"I've seen left-leaning folks excoriate Rasmussen as just being a "mouthpiece" of the Right, but in fact, Pollster.com (now part of the Huffington Post) has acknowledged that they have generally been very accurate in the past few election cycles. Why? Because Scott Rasmussen knows how to ... drum roll, please! ... do demographic weighting, accurately determine who is, in fact, likely to vote, correct for cell phone usage and etc., etc."
And those are mutually exclusive why? Rasmussen does two types of polling. One is extremely biased and inaccurate. Basically the "mouthpiece" variety. But it also does some very accurate polling close to the election. That's why is has a poor reputation. They can do very good polling, it's just at times they chose not to.
The real problem with polling is figuring out who is going to vote. And that seems to be a problem this cycle. People are making assumptions of a large Republican wave. And if that assumption is used in most of the polling or most of the polling is done by one agency for much of the cycle (Rasmussen) you tend to create a narrative. It can create reality rather than reflect it. The problem is that no pollster actually knows what reality will look like. They might guess right but that will probably have ended up being a guess.
Polls are starting to be used as the final word on reality. This is really dangerous. Just like reporting the results of elections before polls close, it matters. Polls are becoming weapons. Just another campaign ad. But people don't realize it. Yet another failure of the media.
Why is this modded troll? This is exactly what I do as well.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
Really? The first two years of Clinton were pretty damn shitty.
Really? And why was that? Was it because his policies and positions were shitty? Or was it because the losers were so petulant and spiteful that they did everything they could to stall legislation, investigate his wife's real estate business, and investigate his dalliances with the office help?
I was no fan of Clinton. When I first saw him in the primaries I thought he was shifty-eyed and a total sociopath. And he is. So I voted Perot. But the behavior of the opposition was so corrupt, petulant and antidemocratic that by the end of his first term, they actually made him look preferable. And eight years of Bush and Cheney made me long for the days of Slick Willie.
I can see the fnords!
>>What? The deficit is smaller under Obama than it was under Bush. This means less borrowing from creditor nations. How is 2.7 TRILLION in addtional debt in two years smaller than under Bush?
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
I would be happy if they would just report *any* number they called but got no answers from (even if it's from not picking up) as a "no response" in the results, rather than filtering these out. I'm guessing you'd see something like,
23% democrat
24% republican
3% other
75% no answer
Not very informative when you see those results, you know?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
But this attitude of "I'm above all that" is pie the sky at best and dangerous at worst
I believe the attitude is "I'm beneath all this and it's crushing me and the idea of voting for which foot is doing the crushing is frankly appalling."
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
And who were they during most of Bush II, who ran the biggest deficits of all time? Oh right, the Republicans.
Who were they during the 50s, 60s, and 70s when we had balanced budgets? The Democrats, mostly.
But I do have to love your technique there. Quite fitting most Republican policies really. But nothing more than you expect from a group that still espouses trickle down economics, one of the causes of the Great Depression.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
you know it's a tough crowd, when George Carlin only gets a 4 insightful.
Don't worry. They're coming home about 50 years after we get our troops out of Japan and Germany. Which if our withdrawal of troops from the Phillipines from the Spanish-American war says anything, that's in another 50 years or so.
I think a conservative-moderate and/or a democrat-moderate would easily win.
Unfortunately both parties see the other one going extreme, and instead of saying "hey we can win easy by grabbing the middle" they say "that means we can go more extreme too". So there are no moderates any more.
I think you're overreacting to what he said. He just wants a moderate to win and thinks that only extreme right or left ever win in actuality. You can't vote for the candidates except in your own party (the party in which you are registered to vote) in most states (all?) in a primary election. In the general election (like the one happening today) you can vote for any candidate on the ballot, but because of the primary process, it is felt by many (including GP I think) that we end up with extremist candidates to choose from on the general election ballot.
I think GP is saying that he'd rather have a moderate from the "other party" win than even the extremist from his own party, opposite of the conclusion you drew.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
How is it racist? Merely pointing out a statistical bias towards one race among a group does not imply a moral judgement!
Ayjay on Fedang
"Democratic voters more able to avoid annoying pollsters",
or
"Pollsters' last-century polling methods increasingly inaccurate"?
And thus the humor of my original post, and the resulting irony of the discussion is completely lost.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Either I am misunderstanding you, or you misunderstood what I posted. While the Wikipedia article I linked to is entitled, "United States Public Debt," the table I posted in my comment was the deficit by year, not the debt.
I fail to understand how the government can borrow 962 billion in 2008 (Bush's last year in office), then borrow almost 1.8T in 2009 (Obama's first year in office), followed by another almost 1.5T in 2010, and have that be a decrease in borrowing.
Of course, we're both ignoring the fact that the congress actually controls the purse strings. Since the Democrats took the legislature in November 2006, they have been responsible for the roughly five trillion dollars added to the national debt in that time.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
You REALLY don't want the executive branch ignoring the legislative branch. That's a Very Bad Thing(tm) for democracies.
There may be reasons to use this approach. In Russian presidential and parliamentary elections in 2008, the results of the elections were significantly falsified by editing votes, but it's much harder to falsify the number of people shown up (it's very easy to count by simply standing outside the voting stating, even if one is not a registered observer). After the elections, the old-new government has evoked the electoral results several times to justify their actions since they "have the mandate from the majority of the country's population" - figures being obtained from combining the (falsified) voting results with the attendance figures.
Most assuredly not... to suggest so would be to invite anarchy as the Executive does whatever the hell it wants.
Your point about Bush signing that budget is, however, well taken. I believe I owe Red Flayer a bit of an apology for not taking that into account. However, I stand by what I said above: the legislature controls the purse strings, and the democrats have controlled that since 2007.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
FY 2009 was Bush's last budget. Fiscal Years in the US are numbered by the year in which they ended. FY2009 started in 2008, before Obama was elected.
I'm not the one you replied to, but the best source is The Office of Management and Budget.
Are you forgetting that the "2009" deficit is the deficit in the FY 2009 budget? And since that started in 2008, did you forget which president proposed that budget?
People always try to swing it as "throwing away your vote by voting for a third party", but I think your post has helped me to see it the other way around. Fuck all the partisans who always vote straight ticket one way or another; there's nothing you can do to change their minds, and I have nothing but disgust and pity for such unthinking wastes of a vote. But me, hey I'm not registered with any party. My vote could go any which way. So I'm locked out of primaries (actually, recently primaries have been opened up to third party voters); guess what? No matter who your primary picks, they will have to cater to *me* and people like me to get our votes, and those are the only things that will make a difference and that they have any chance of getting. So by keeping my options open, my vote becomes more important than all the registered republicans and democrats. The only ones throwing their votes away are the ones who are too stubborn or stupid to think about it and change their mind.
And yes, I *do* still write, phone, fax and email my representatives, even if they are the ones I voted for.
Nathan's blog
One year.
The FY 2009 budget was Bush's last budget. Obama has only proposed one budget, FY 2010. Fiscal years are numbered by the year in which they end. FY 2009 started in 2008, before Obama was elected and thus before he could propose a budget.
My god, you are delusional. LOOK up when the economy in the US crashed. Bush was in power. In fact Obama was elected because people couldn't believe the mess Bush had made of things. And now they get the republicans who created the mess back because Obama can't fix decades of mis-management in two years.
This is where I stopped reading. I figure that if you didn't read my post, why should I read yours?
Congress controls the economy. The economy was rocking until the Democrats too control of congress in Jan 2007. Yes, Bush was in the White House, but Pelosi and Reid wrote the budgets. Now you tell me who had more of an effect on the economy.
Oh hell. I don't know why I'm telling you this. You didn't read (or couldn't understand) the first post. I don't think you are capable of reading this one.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Um....09 was the last Bush budget. See, the "09" budget was for FY 2009, which started in 2008.
Yeah, I can understand that fiscal years are confusing.
The "2009" deficit was for FY 2009. FY 2009 started in 2008. It was signed by President Bush. President Obama has signed one budget, the FY 2010 budget.
Bingo! The more people we can make understand that, the more the major parties will have to behave.
I noted elsewhere in here that I owed Red Flayer an apology for not catching that subtlety. You're correct, of course.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
You are just as responsible for the people who voted for them because you are a part of the silent majority qho sits around on the hole all the time and is annoyed by who actually gets elected
Bullshit. Give us a way to STOP the scumbags from getting elected (and no, voting for the OTHER scumbag doesn't count. A "none of the above" vote that's not just tossed as a "spoiled ballot"/"abstain" might) and you might have a point. You cannot vote and vote AGAINST someone without also voting FOR someone else, and if the one you voted for does win, then YOU are partially responsible for the scummy shit he does (and the whole "run yourself" canard is just too fatuous to even consider).
I didn't vote for president in 2008 either. I went to the polling place, since I had to vote against Amendment 2 (Florida's own version of Prop 8, put right into the state constitution... 43% of voters in the state supported it anyway and it passed. Fuck Florida.) but I was not about to support either of any assholes vying for the big chair, so that box stayed empty.
This ignorant, self-righteous characterization of actively not voting is unworthy of a "+5 insightful," much less of the respect of anyone who purports to value self-determination and the freedom to make ones own choice. When the ballot says "Do you want to endorse the continued corruption of a career sociopath at the expense of your own dignity? Yes/Yes", abstaining is most certainly a valid response.
The saying that "Those who seek power should never be given it"(can't find an attribution) is just as true now as it was at the dawn of humanity.
Or, if you prefer: "If the primates that we came from had known that someday politicians would come out of the gene pool, they'd have stayed up in the trees and written evolution off as a bad idea" -- John Sheridan (Babylon 5)
Go-Go Instant Runoff Voting! ... The only people I can imagine being against it are the most cynical of the entrenched power elite. I think we'll all be doing IRV eventually.
I doubt we ever will, and for precisely the counter-reason you suggest: that it would endanger the dominant parties. The people will never be able to accomplish anything that endangers the political status quo so fundamentally. To be more blunt, one of these two political behemoths (the one that rhymes with Shmepublican) is tremendously good at taking any benign issue and turning it into a terrible communist plot. Examples:
Instant Runoff Voting is a great idea, and one entirely compatible with conservative ideas, but that doesn't matter. If it were somehow to gain a public spotlight, the Republicans would do the same sort of thing they've done to other good ideas. IRV would become Tea Party fodder; they'd ignore all specifics and call it Instant Rigged Voting. And the media, which also ignores all specifics and strives to cover controversy, would fuel it. Sorry if I'm a cynic, but I live in the United States and have been paying attention for the past decade. The country's ability to communicate effectively and think independently is broken, and we won't have things like IRV until or unless this changes.
Sure, I wanted socialized medicine, but I'm happy enough with nearly-universal coverage and coverage for pre-existing conditions.
If you think you'll ever see it, I've got a bridge to sell you. None of that good stuff starts until 2014, which is more than enough time for for the red team to get the ball and squash it dead.
Hmmm. Interesting. You are sure it will be repealed? In its entirety, or partially? It is both true that the Dems didn't campaign on that success, but also that the Pubs didn't campaign on repealing it. The way I see it, the Republicans got their cake and can eat it too: they love big government, too, but they can make a rhetorical play for small-government voters, who for some keep voting for the Pubs, who consistently outspend even the Dems. But no, I guess I don't think it will be largely repealed.
Rejecting the corporate bonuses of companies on government welfare is not leftist, it's conservative: the taxpayer should not be paying bonuses to the management of failed companies. And if you think the financial bailouts themselves are leftist, you have a funny idea of what "leftist" means.
Take out your wallet and look at your ATM card. If the card bears the name of a bank rather than that of the government, the president is not a leftist.
You don't have to vote for the "establishment" candidates, you know. Everyone in the country above the age limit is, technically, running for office, they just haven't declared it yet: write ins
Now, let me be clear. I'm talking about real people, who are genuinely eligible for office, not joke candidates like cartoon characters. One of those candidates is you.
So, if you really don't want to compromise and vote for someone who is unqualified, there's always one fallback candidate you can vote for: yourself. Just be sure to leave enough information so that it's unambiguous. You don't want to accidentally vote in some idiot who happens to share your last name and first initial in a low-turnout race.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
All he is saying is that election media coverage is too much about the horse race and the political games, rather than about the issues. e.g. After a debate, commentators are more likely to comment on who scored more political 'points' that night rather than discuss the merits of the arguments the candidates brought up.
He says nothing about restricting speech, the 1st amendment, or government control of the media. He's just criticizing the media, and rightly so.
When someone responds to criticism with, "FREE SPEECH! I HAVE A RIGHT TO MY OPINION!!!11!!!1" To me that tends to mean, 99% of the time, that that person does not have an intelligent response to the criticism of their idea, and so instead they must respond by trumpeting that they have the right to their idea. The fact that they talk about their right to have their idea, rather than the merits of their idea, indicates to me that the merits are either weak or non-existent. We're challenging the ideas expressed in their speech, not their right to say it.
The sooner people see through this sham of a response, the better off we'll be.
Wow. You need to get a little bit of perspective.
I was replying to someone who said the Republicans were the ones trying to force their morality on him. In response I pointed out how the left is much more forceful in trying to force their own morality. Political correctness is a very pervasive and pushed very stridently in our society today, much more so than the influence of Christianity.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
That should be "left is much more forceful in trying to push"....
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
" What's so wrong about wanting the person who will be representing me to actually represent me?"
you are only one constituent among many, and you are representing a colossal narcissism in your words. you are holding your vote hostage to an impossible demand, the only effect of which is that person who will actually represent you, will represent less of you than was possible if you only voted. and they will represent you, in reality. i know that in your lofty ivory tower you think you can retire from the world. how selfish of you. you don't represent the high road or a sense of nobility, you represent foolishness
you want the person who is the closest to your ideology. even if very far away, and only slightly closer than the other candidate
if you live forever, and see an infinite number of candidates, they will never represent you, ever, in any democracy, for all possible societies, for all future times. they will represent THEIR CONSTITUENTS, which will be at best an average of the ideologies of their district, and that will never overlap with only you
you are a vain narcissist, and the only real world effects of your choice not to vote is to doom whatever you believe to less representation, and therefore less realization
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You are sure it will be repealed? In its entirety, or partially?
Not "sure" in the sense of 100% certainty, of course not. But seeing the good bits like the near-universal coverage and pre-existing condition coverage requirements survive long enough to come into force would instill me with a sense of awe and surprise rivaled only by the sight of Jesus Christ descending on Times Square riding a Pink Unicorn, which then torches the city with its fiery breath.
You guys need a choice #5, a silly party. I used to vote for the rhino party, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_party until they were forced to disband due to changes in the electoral rules. Their main promise was not to keep any of their promises, and were their promises unkeepable.
Now I vote for the marijuana party to let it be known how I feel about that issue. Unluckily the leader is now a political prisoner in the States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
And who were they during most of Bush II, who ran the biggest deficits of all time?
Barack Obama's deficit for just the last two years is bigger than all 8 years of Bush43 in aggregate.
So I really must ask, what illegal substances have you been smoking?
No, democrat-moderate doesn't lean into my political views, so I won't vote for them. Simple as that. I can respect them; but this isn't the guy *I* would put in power.
If "the best we can get" gets 80% of the popular vote, that'll be seen as "the will of the people." If he wins, but only with 20%, then you can argue that the will of the people is not currently available and the few that decide to vote are only voting for something that's not as bad, or just you appeal to very few people and most people don't see anything they care for at all.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
The problem you cite here is principally the result of the Primary Election system we have in the US. Because the parties get together and pick their champions to duel on election day in a winner-take-all gladiator-style matchup, they pick the most extreme candidate they can. Then the country has to choose between two extremes, either one of whom is going to be loathed and detested by half the population. The moderate conservatives and moderate liberals are filtered out by the primaries; we never have a chance to vote for one of them in a general election.
There are gobs of alternatives to this sort of system, but I haven't had a chance to research them all well enough to pick my favorite.
And I think you are a lying sack of shit. The difference between a conservative and liberal in the USA is a line in the sand that's broader than the spectrum of politics. The southern Democrats are more conservative than northern or Californian Republicans. To claim that no one from the "other party" could line up with your views better than the worst possible candidate from your party means you are insane. Clinically. It's a neurosis. Seek help, and for God's sake, please don't vote in the mean time.
Learn to love Alaska
You gotta love Slashdot moderators. Link to an aggregation of facts regarding a piece of legislation, and get modded "troll". Nice.
It's pretty fucking easy to work this out: Democrat == big government nanny state; Republican == small government. What we have today is a bunch of sociopathic extremists that can't help but compete in a popcon, riding their white and black stallions, pushing for full socialism under another name or ... honestly I'm not sure what the far right has in mind, their goals seem to be primarily reactionary. Right now we're "threatened" because of this huge "terrorism" thing the media won't shut up about, so now the trend seems to be to react to the military threat by military force. At one point there was a reaction to the demoralization of America (which is actually happening), and the reaction was similarly overblown and mishandled.
I want someone who wants small-government, which is never anyone in the Democrat party. They're also by definition progressive (rather than conservative), which means they're of the mind of "how can we change?" instead of "Should we change?" The second question needs asking and it needs asking BEFORE the first; but someone of a moderate stance will struggle on the second question before conceding, rather than fighting beyond all logic to keep the status quo. I need a candidate that will RESIST change, not continuously meddle-- no matter how slow they want to go. But I do need a candidate that WILL change when it's proven that change is needed.
As for worst possible candidates, as I said, I just don't vote for any of 'em. Fuck it. If all I'm given is stupidity, I'm not getting on board with the least stupid; you're just going to be the last one to sail into a rock.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Certainly by not linking to a politically biased blog with known credibility issues.
Could you cite this? FactCheck.org is pretty well respected in its field.
Bullish Machine Tzar
It's pretty fucking easy to work this out: Democrat == big government nanny state; Republican == small government.
Excepting Obama, that's the opposite of reality since the 1960s. Carter was smaller government than Reagan. Bush was larger government than Reagan. Clinton was the only president in recent history to balance the budget, and had to shut down the government multiple times to get the Republicans to submit a budget that was balanced. Then Bush made it balloon again.
I know what you would like to think, but reality is the opposite. The Republicans grow the government faster than Democrats for the past 50 years. It's simple and clear, and no personal opinions on what should happen can change reality. But thanks for making up shit and posting it like a fact. You should host a blog or get a radio show.
Learn to love Alaska