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Ask Slashdot: Which Candidates For Geek Issues?
Okian Warrior writes "An oft-repeated sentiment on Slashdot is that we should change the situation by voting in better officials. An opinion that appears in nearly every political thread is: 'we're to blame because we elected these people.' On the eve of the first primary (in New Hampshire), I have to wonder: how can we tell the candidates apart? Ron Paul is an obvious exception, and I am not discounting him, but otherwise it seems that no candidate has made a stand on any issue. Consider the candidates (all of them, of any party) as a set. What issue can I use to divide them into two groups, such that one group is 'for' something and the other is 'against'?"
I'm much more inclined to look at a candidate that uses or has used technology versus those who just like to talk about it.
In that sense, Obama came into his position while using a Blackberry to keep connected. Presumably this allowed him to use the business features of the device to make his work more efficient. As a user, he would be affected by changes to the law that might restrict what he could do if companies now stop things that they've been doing in practice.
A candidate who talks about technology without actually putting it into practice is not necessarily a good candidate, in that their understanding doesn't come to a practical level and the could think they understand issues that they don't, and since they don't even use the tech, making a bad decision wouldn't even impact them.
Run away from candidates who are proud of their provincial, luddite behavior. That's perfectly fine in any random person, but is unacceptable in someone who will be expected to make decisions that affect millions of people but can't be bothered to get informed.
"Those Internets" -George W. Bush
"The Internet is a great way to get on the Net" -Bob Dole
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Full disclosure, I managed Warren Mosler's 2010 US Senate campaign. But I encourage Slashdotters to look at the third party candidates running in their jurisdiction. As Eugene Debs pointed out, It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
You can see John Huntsman tip toe around certain questions about the envrionment by saying that he believes that a leader should listen to the experts in the field on the issues.
What issue can I use to divide them into two groups, such that one group is 'for' something and the other is 'against'?"
Next time you're at one of their townhall meetings, just ask one simple question -
vi or emacs?
I used to think this, but I've come to realize that this thinking is not entirely correct.
The Republicans generally support the goals of big business, and have a top-down approach to wealth. They believe that making people at the top rich will lead to prosperity for all. Many believe that social programs do not help well enough to justify many of them. Many members feel that they have a moral imperative to attempt to push their moral agenda on people who have nothing to do with them, and whose behaviors do not affect them in the slightest. The Republicans are also very good at compelling members to conform and follow, even when a given member may disagree with a lot of party rhetoric, and even when it's not in their best interests to actually agree.
The Democrats look at individuals for success, and define success through a bottom-up approach, rather than a top-down approach, as many believe that top-down approaches have led to severe inequality. They believe government has the ability to address such injustices and to help dampen inequality. Many believe that an individual's right to make ones' own choices, so long as those choices don't victimize others, is important, but are not willing to ignore data that demonstrates particular freedoms causing lots of harm. Democrats generally like to build consensus before agreeing on a plan, which lately has been to their detriment, as it allows their political opponents to stonewall things that should be able to pass despite objection.
There are times for either, and both political parties have this habit of becoming sort of rotted out from the insides due to corruption. Unfortunately, it seems that the Republicans rot-out a lot faster than the Democrats, yet members of the party have seemingly short memories of it, like Newt Gingrich, who has managed to be a serious contender for the Republican party's nominee for President despite having resigned from the House of Representative in disgrace.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Pete Ashdown isn't running for president, but he is running for a senate seat against that epic ass clown Orrin Hatch. He started the best ISP I've ever used here in Utah and has run for congress before with a very tech-savvy platform and utilized cool technologies in his campaign.
Check him out: http://peteashdown.org/
In my mind getting rid of Orrin Hatch and getting Pete Ashdown to replace him is killing two birds with one stone.
or else!
I disagree. The real difference between the leaderships of the two party is which elite interests they represent.
The Republicans are largely the party of the primary economy and part of the secondary economy (resource extraction, agriculture and base manufacturing.) The cultural values that they support - religious values, etc. - are those which coincide with that sector. The democrats are largely the party of the tertiary (and past) economies - some manufacturing, but mostly services, especially financial services and the culture industry. Their cultural values are also thus in line: cosmopolitanism, a sense of "progress" (very important in sectors of the economy that emphasize changing styles, such as retail.) These elites agree on a lot, but they disagree on enough things - where they want public sector activity and where they don't, for example - that the different parties do compete.
The social / cultural values things - the left's diversity, the right's "family values" - are mostly window-dressing.
The two party system has to go. It only fosters a "you're with us or against us" mentality that doesn't get anything done. Get rid of political parties, make lobbying illegal, and one more thing. Make all politicians write summary documents about any bills they vote for. If they can't summarize it like any child does in reading class, they should NOT be able to vote on it. It also provides an audit trail into their dumb thoughts at the time.
today is spelling optional day.
I understand that Ron Paul is a radical. However, calling him "not viable" is defeatist given that his numbers are significantly strong. I also understand that voting for mainstream candidates is a lose-lose situation no matter what letter is appended to their name. Knowing my vote will not make a real difference, I will instead vote solely to send the message that I'm fed-up with the establishment's shit. And the establishment's treatment of Paul shows that they're afraid, otherwise they'd allow him more lip service, and I'd vote for him for that reason alone even if I weren't paying attention to everything else.
Those of you who are also fed up do the same. If not for Ron Paul, for a sensible third-party candidate. Everybody else is not working for your best interest.
I'm a Libertarian and I don't like either party. You're wrong if you think there's a difference between the two parties.
1. "The Republicans generally support the goals of big business, and have a top-down approach to wealth."
So do the Democrats. How many poor Democrats are in congress? Seven of the top ten richest congressmen are Democrats.
2. "Many members feel that they have a moral imperative to attempt to push their moral agenda on people who have nothing to do with them"
Democrats do this also with issues like affirmative action and gay marriage.
3. "The Republicans are also very good at compelling members to conform and follow, even when a given member may disagree with a lot of party rhetoric, and even when it's not in their best interests to actually agree."
Same for the Democrats. How to you think the Democrats get 98% of the black vote. It's almost impossible to get 98% of any group to agree on anything. My friend is a coal miner and voted for Obama because the union told him too. If that's not voting against your self interest, I don't know what is.
That's one way to look at it....I see things a slightly different:
*Republicans believe that nothing should hold back an individual or group from achieving success and happiness provided that it is done in a way that is not that harmful to society or others - also, that ideally all individuals and families should be positive role models. Furthermore, republicans generally believe that each section of society has a proper role and size where the family is responsible for giving kids a good start in life and being the primary resource for handling emergencies and major events, that the individual is responsible for what he achieves and his health, that religion and churches should look after the moral health of society and also be the venue through which most general welfare and charitable activities be handled, that government be limited to providing basic infrastructure and a neutral safe ground for everyone to interact, and lastly that when decisions in government be made that it be at the level closest to those impacted (e.g. local control of schools rather than state/federal).
*Democrats believe the republican "traditional approach" has failed or otherwise lets too many people out in the cold. Their arguments are more from the emotional side (e.g. everyone has a right to good health, it is better that we all have the same standard of living than that some do too much better than others, that too many people are not capable of governing their own life and we should use government to ensure they are both cared for and that their actions be for the general good).
Both approaches have their pluses and minuses.....I see the sensible middle ground being that for society to succeed long term it must blend both, enough of the republican approach to have wealth, and enough of the democrat approach for everyone to feel they've had a fair chance at life and not rebel.
Politics is more intense now simply because the USA is at the start or middle of an economic decline and there are two approaches being discussed. Republicans want to do everything possible to recover growth and wealth (no matter how painful it will be). Democrats are more fatalistic and believe that we should be directing our attention towards managing the decline in such a way that no one group gets hurt too bad, and that if any group must be hurt -- it should be at the higher end. Unfortunately, these two approaches are somewhat the opposite of each other...
It is uninformed voting. Doing something because someone else tells you to do it isn't necessary against your self-interest. Of course you are in danger of acting against your self-interest if you blindly trust the advice of someone else. But it does not imply that you actually do.
I have no idea whether your friend voted against his self-interest, but you cannot conclude either way just from his choice being determined by the union's suggestion.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yes and no. Democrats definitely are not defined as "look at individuals for success"; the Republicans often like to bash them for being the opposite of that in their support of big government programs. The parties are too hard to define so succinctly though. Democrats are for the workers but they're actually more supportive of unions than actual individual workers per se. Both parties are mostly beholden to big campaign donors, whether those donors are sitting on top of a giant pool of workers versus a giant pool of stockholders. The "big business" side of Republicans is just a small and declining wing of the party, and it's much less of a division between the two than it was in the past.
I definitely disagree with the naive European view that the two parties are identical. Just because both lean to the right of the European center does not make them identical. There are distinct and obvious differences. Maybe in certain areas they look very much alike (pro-business).
A big problem is that because we have a winner-takes-all process in most districts in the US we end up with a defacto two party system. A third party that's viable is very rare and doesn't last long. The two dominant parties will dance around a bit and end up covering roughly half the populace each, with things always kept in flux due to internal party divisions and occasional offshoots. A European parliament may form a coalition of a few parties in order to gain a majority control whereas the US Republican and Democratic parties are essentially coalitions themselves. This is what makes the US parties so hard to understand since they're internally inconsistent.
Very broadly speaking and due to history, Republicans tend to be mostly rural and southern whereas Democrats are urban and on the coasts. And this strongly influences their outlook. Republicans in the last 50 years have also been the most staunchly anti-communist as well (and thus anti-socialist). So a more rural Republican base is very distrustful of anything to do with welfare whereas a more urban Democratic base is in favor of government programs and assistance. However that strong southern and rural leaning in the Republicans make them much more conservative with regards to moral issues than the urban Democrats.
So you end up with the inconsistency of the Republicans being for individual freedoms in economic issues while being in favor of restrictions on individual freedoms in social areas, with the reverse broadly holding true for Democrats. Most of the other big differences can be traced back to either historical issues or the demographics of the voting bases. And the history goes all the way back to before the states were independent.
My friend is a coal miner and voted for Obama because the union told him too. If that's not voting against your self interest, I don't know what is.
Wait, explain how voting for McCain would be in his self interest? Explain how putting the party in power that wants to dismantle any kind of environmental regulation, any kind of workplace regulation, and that has since then introduced legislation in several states to try and dismantle the power of unions would be voting in his self interest? If anything, the Democrats have the interest of the working class in mind far, far, far more than the Republicans.
2. "Many members feel that they have a moral imperative to attempt to push their moral agenda on people who have nothing to do with them"
Democrats do this also with issues like affirmative action and gay marriage.
Generally arguing politics on Slashdot is the blind screaming at the deaf. Still, this point deserves to be addressed. Preventing discrimination based on gender is not forcing morals on anyone. On the topic of gay marriage it is ensuring individual liberty. Allowing each individual to choose for themselves is not pushing a moral agenda on others. It is giving each individual the freedom to choose. Now if there were a law trying to force people to marry those of the same sex, you might have a point.
I have never had any objection to people being wealthy, even ridiculously wealthy, and most Democrats that I've talked to on this matter do not have a problem with this either. The problem is in shirking responsibilities. No legal document founding this country makes any guarantee of being wealthy, or any respect for it.
If you want to talk about what wealth disparity does, look at the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. ALL had large elements of a super-rich, corrupt elite who wouldn't return to society some of the fruits of their success that they benefitted from society. When income and resource inequality gets too far out of whack, revolution happens.
I am not going to get into a debate about affirmative action right now, the issues of generations of racial discrimination and the ramifications of it are far too far reaching to get in to depth on in this forum. On the other hand, I don't see anyone forcing a social conservative to have a gay marriage. I don't see anyone forcing a social conservative to participate in a blow job, or in birth control, or in sex for pleasure, or in sex in anything other than the missionary position (I'm pointing directly at Santorum here), nor is anyone forcing them to have premarital sex or extramarital affairs. The point in this is that Democrats generally want to not prohibit activities between consenting adults. I do, however, see Republicans arguing that their social restrictions on who can have sex with who when everyone involved are consenting adults, and I find that more disgusting than any of the sexual practices that they seek to render illegal between those consenting adults.
I was referring to the elected officials, not to the public. Terri Schiavo comes to mind. In my opinion, Democrats should have removed the filibuster from the Senate's rules of order and rammed single-payer-with-optout (ie, if you opt out, no one is required to care for you if you can't pay), end of DADT, appointment of judges, cabinet post and agency director positions, and a whole host of other legislation down Republicans' throats just as the Republicans did when they managed to gain majorities in both chambers.
I know, you're libertarian, so you don't like many of my ideas, but if you want roads, clean air, clean water, postal delivery, the ability to purchase things that require loans, someone to deal with the results of your rights being violated, someone to put out fires, and much, much more, you'll need some form of organizing body, and that is called Government.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In a true free market, you set up and operate. If you are good, you succeed,
No regulations, just economic success or failure That way a person who is very talented, yet not certified or educated can rise on their own merit.
What's your thought on taking your children to a pediatrician under this system?
And that is the problem. Free marketers want to believe that the free market can cure all ills. It doesn't. It has the fatal flaw of assuming that everyone is ethical. What it doesn't take into account is that there are some people who are not going to be satisfied until they control everything. It doesn't take into account the many things that actually operate better when there is some regulation.
Because the application to the true free market of say taking your children to that free market pediatrician is that he might be totally incompetent. He might kill your children. But after he kills enough children, his name will get around and he'll go out of business. The free market worked. There's a whole list. Your house might burn down because of bad electrical work. You might buy a car that falls apart at highway speeds and kills you. But if it happens enough, word will get out and that company will go out of business. But yeah, the free market worked. It's kind of like evolutionary adaptation. What doesn't adapt, dies. But people seem to forget that that adaptation is the small percentage that doesn't die.
I liken some of the ideas of libertarians to be kind of like the anti-vaccination crowd. "No one gets such and such disease any more, so getting vaccines is stupid, and dangerous sometimes!" they don't remember when Polio and pertussis and measles other childhood diseases killed many children each year.
The libertarians don't remember why we made anti-monopoly and anti trust laws and an environmental protection agency and other laws and regulations.
Funny thing is, on a intellectual level, I am a libertarian. On a pragmatic level, I know enough about humans to understand it won't work.
Although it would have been kind of neat to see the Cuyahoga when it caught on fire...
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Both parties attract those who are power hungry to their elected ranks:
- Republicans unfortunately have a tendency to allow politicians who are being paid by big business who want to gut all regulatory oversight and put in place laws that protect them. These guys certainly are as you describe.
- Democrats have the equal and opposite problem - politicians who are eager to give away other peoples money for projects and programs that don't work, as long as it gets them elected and in the elite so they can become the new "ruling class". When challenged about the fact that they are bankrupting the country, they respond with fake data/arguments or simply imply that some magic fairy will pay for it all ("the rich"), etc.
I find both very bad, but I don't blame the parties per say for the problem as much as the american voter for letting them get away with it. I also still think most voters intend to put someone who follows the party ideals I stated above into office, they just don't research enough or vote party line rather than review each candidate individually.
2. "Many members feel that they have a moral imperative to attempt to push their moral agenda on people who have nothing to do with them"
Democrats do this also with issues like affirmative action and gay marriage.
Generally arguing politics on Slashdot is the blind screaming at the deaf. Still, this point deserves to be addressed. Preventing discrimination based on gender is not forcing morals on anyone. On the topic of gay marriage it is ensuring individual liberty. Allowing each individual to choose for themselves is not pushing a moral agenda on others. It is giving each individual the freedom to choose. Now if there were a law trying to force people to marry those of the same sex, you might have a point.
...I'm not against gay marriage but it is a moral issue for many people.
Yes, it is a moral issue. The issue is some people want to force their morals on others with the force of law and prevent individuals from making their own choices. Presenting the concept of allowing individuals to choose for themselves as an example of Democrats "do this also" when "do this" was previously described as "push their moral agenda on people" just shows how easy it is to buy into the fiery but empty rhetoric spewed forth by politicians.
Gay marriage is not an issue of Democrats pushing their morals on others. It is an issue of personal freedom and the government not promoting any specific religion. Marriage started out as a legal contract and then religions latched onto it. If the government wants to use marriage as a legal contract and write laws about it, they should do so in a way that does not discriminate between different religions or genders as is required by the first amendment. If Ron Paul and his ilk actually gave a damn about freedom they'd have exactly the opposite position on this topic.
Other than John Huntsman, the GOP candidates have serious issue with basic science.
As in, they all claim to believe at least part of this list:
- Creationism is a valid theory. (Nevermind fossils or the definition of scientific "theory".)
- Global warming is a hoax or not something that should be addressed. (Nevermind the data and the >98% concurrence among climatologists.)
- Vaccines cause retardation (Nevermind... facts)
- Abstinence education is effective. (Nevermind the data that show how high pregnancy rates are when it's all that's available.)
- Abortion is pretty much never a medical necessity. (That's from the ACTUAL PHYSICIAN candidate, too.)
- Being gay is a mental disease/lifestyle choice/bad decision/horrible influence on children (Nevermind that the AMA and American Psychiatric association recognize it as normal variation, and studies show gay parents are fine.)
- Sex is only for man-woman-marriage-baby-making. (Nevermind reality. And Newt Gingrich.)
It's quite evocative of that famous Asimov quote: Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'
So yeah, I'd say Huntsman at least doesn't try to play "who is the most sincere anti-intellectual for their Deity" by denying science. As a geek, that's something I like in a candidate.
I wish sanity were something that was a little easier to parlay into support, but the Primaries are the Crazy Olympics, and it's all about who can out-God and out-blue-collar the next.
I want to like a party that espouses fiscal and personal responsibility. I want to embrace the idea of less intrusive government. I just don't think it should come at the cost of science.
Marriages should not be licensed by local, state, or any government. Government shouldn't be involved with defining religious sacraments. If two people, regardless of sex and sexual preference, want to get married, then they can find whatever church/synagogue/temple/witches circle/shaman's tent that allows it and get married.
The rights that are associated with marriage such as health benefits, inheritance, etc. can be assigned in a legal agreement. Government can have what it wants (legal rights defined) and religion can have what it wants (definition of a sacrament) and they don't have to be (and shouldn't be) entangling each other over this.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.