Slashdot Mirror
Santorum Suspends Presidential Campaign
bobwrit writes with this excerpt from CNN:
"Conservative challenger Rick Santorum announced Tuesday that he is suspending his Republican presidential campaign after a weekend of 'prayer and thought,' effectively ceding the GOP nomination to front-runner Mitt Romney. Santorum made his announcement after the weekend hospitalization of his 3-year-old daughter Isabella, and in the face of tightening poll numbers in Pennsylvania — the state he represented as a U.S. senator — ahead of the April 24 primary. 'Ladies and gentlemen, we made the decision to get into this race around our kitchen table, against all the odds,' Santorum told a news conference, flanked by emotional family members. 'We made a decision over the weekend that while the presidential race for us is over, and I will suspend my campaign effective today, we are not done fighting.'"
I have a hard time believing that Santorum actually expected to have a chance at this stage. My mother is a Neo-conservative Christian party-line voter, and even she is considering voting for Obama again; and not because she likes him. The entire GOP lineup is a mess.
Nothing so see here, move one. This is on every media outlet.
Because nerds are somehow immune to the outcome of a national election such as a presidential race.....
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I agree, let's take a quiz - Which kind of Libertarian are you?
(multiple choice)
A) Pot-smoking College Republican who isn't quite down with Santorum
B) John Bircher concerned about the impending UN/NWO takeover
C) Mad Max-wannabe survivalist
D) Ex-Southern Democrat who wishes Negros were a 'local issue'
E) Believes Ayn Rand was a serious philosopher
Santorum pulls out after repeatedly coming in number two
Good bye crazy douche-bag, you will not be missed.
Signed, Someone with a college degree a.k.a a snob.
I got here through a series of tubes
...campaign to prove he is not part of the social elite!
The results of elections affect the entire world. Please instruct your ignorance to go fuck itself, and please take time out of your day to send Mr. Frothy-Mix a letter asking him how he thinks people without insurance deal with the hospitalization of a 3-year-old.
Yours,
yours.
"Santorum Wiped Out"
"Santorum Expelled"
"Santorum Voided"
"Santorum Discharged"
"Santorum Creamed"
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Ron Paul is the best candidate America had in over 50 years.
The GOP lineup has the same problem as the 2004 lineup that failed to defeat GWB. I took one look at that ticket and said: A Massachusetts old money man + a slick trial lawyer. That was everything the moderate GOP voter hates about the Dems, and wouldn't make anybody switch. They finally realized they needed something different and went with Obama.
The GOP is making the same mistake. The fact that the front runner is from MA is pure coincidence. It's wealthy businessmen, religious fanatics, and a guy who was fresh in the 90s.
The only "something different" candidate is Ron Paul; but he's too different. The GOP needs something fresh. I'm not sure where it'll come from, but these guys are not fresh. Really, for someone like myself with weak party affiliation the GOP is dead after GWB. The organization itself is defective. Not to say that the Dems are much better. It's the slightly less evil party.
I think we need just a bit more time for things to get so bad that sane people with the capability to lead will want to run on a 3rd party ticket. The two main parties are rapidly on their way to ruining their respective reputations. Not this time though. Not. Ready. Yet.
F) Penn Jillette style atheist nerd free love libertarian
"Nerds" to me implies some degree of intelligence and knowledge. Thus, many nerds DO have an interest in seeing a politician who was running on a campaign of ignorance and hate go down in flames *
The second part of the statement is "News that matters," and this definitely does.
Lastly, there's nothing in the statement along the lines of "News that has not been covered everywhere else."
Thus, I'm declaring this one fair. Not that anyone was asking.
(* Though it is somewhat a shame he didn't fall much much harder. I would have preferred him to call it quits after a report that he was paying for male prostitutes and meth with a check from the Koch brothers and the Focus on the Family group, or maybe running in a general election against Neil DeGrasse and getting 0.1% of the vote, but this is better than nothing.)
Okay, so now will republican voters maybe start paying attention to Ron Paul? He's the guy who is ACTUALLY in favor of smaller governments and the constitution.
You guys still claim to like those things, right?
F. I liked that last alternative and Slashdot got mad at me for giving a single character answer.
So again I say ....
Eff (for the most part, PJ has his annoyances, but high-level, I'm on his side).
Nothing so see here, move one. This is on every media outlet.
Because nerds are somehow immune to the outcome of a national election such as a presidential race.....
Certainly the ones outside the States (or at least, mostly immune).
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
"Prayer and thought".
There's your problem. How about more thinking and less appealing to a non-existent sky-fairy? I truly look forward to the day when politicians can safely declare some sort of rationalist-based intellect instead of this, but I expect it's a long way off.
I guess it's kind of relevant to Slashdot because of Santorum's strong anti-science stance.
Slashdot is a US-oriented site. It's in the FAQ.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Certainly the ones outside the States (or at least, mostly immune).
Not for as long as ICANN is in U.S. jurisdiction, you're not.
and one year after the war in iraq had started, but before it had gone completely to hell in a handbasket.
2004 was in the middle of the housing boom, when every fucking idiot thought they had $500,000 in equity in some piece of shit mcmansion that was in reality just a game piece so that some hedge funder could pump and dump another Mortgage Backed CDO on the widows and orphan investors of the planet.
"ask yourself, are you better off now than you were 4 years ago, using the fake paper accounting that is full of shit and will probably collapse before the next olympics"
Fighting for what? Against the ideals of your own Church that basically came out and said that universal health care is a right? That evolution is just fine? That women don't have to be barefoot and in the kitchen? That the world is older than 6000 years? That social justice is a good idea?
Keep fuckin' that chicken, Rick.
--
BMO
If you end your campaign (quit), you can no longer raise funds. If you suspend the campaign, you can continue to bring in money to lower any debts your campaign might have. For more details, see this: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/04/why-santorum-merely-suspended-his-campaign/50982/
Anyone who has even casually been following the republican primaries can see how incredibly twisted and corrupt the party is. How could anyone still think voting republican is a good idea? Not saying democrat is a great way to vote either, but there are other parties and it's about time for some fresh parties and directions. The old has not served us well for the past 20+ years.
Damn right. Nobody in their right mind would vote for him. What scares me is how many people are not in their right minds.
Now that you mention it... why doesn't Neil DeGrasse Tyson run for President? I mean, he can explain the tides; a phenomenon previously only describable by gods!
If you're an idiot or insane. For normal functional human beings who are not either semi-retarded or sociopaths, he's what you might call a very dangerous, foolish, ignorant man.
This has been a case study in ad-hominem attacks. Thank you for reading.
God told him to run.
Then, God told him to quit.
Maybe God should be Romney's running mate.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
Because if 'News for nerds' is 'News every nerd might be interested in, it becomes meaningless.
Might as well just read CNN.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ron Paul wants to take away their play pretties and pay the bills instead of pissing Trillions away. The left wants to piss it away on people who are "disadvantaged" and the right wants to piss it away on wars. I saw Ron Paul in one debate get booed because he said we couldn't afford to continue being the world's policeman even though it should be obvious to anyone that can do arithmetic. I'm thoroughly convinced that both the democrats and republicans are seriously math challenged.
In a surprise announcement, Mitt Romney announced that he too is suspending his campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination.
In his shockingly candid speech, Romney said "I only stayed in the race this long to ensure that Rick Santorum didn't get the nomination. Now, with Santorum out of the race, it's time for me to withdraw and leave the contest to the two candidates whose beliefs actually differ from those of Barack Obama".
"The American People deserve a choice of candidates who actually have differing beliefs. The only differences in belief between myself and Barack Obama, is that I'm a Mormon, and he is not. My policies when I was the governor of Massachusetts were virtually identical to President Obama's policies. If I were elected, you would be hard pressed to find anything that I would do differently. Therefore, I'm stepping down to ensure the voters have an actual choice in November."
When asked who he was going to endorse, he declined comment. This story may contain factual errors, and was, in fact, entirely made up. However, as making up facts and reporting on whatever we want is now commonplace, we figured you wouldn't notice.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
http://www.jest.com/video/165065/porn-stars-against-santorum
The line between ad-hominem and actually thinking somebody represents a dangerous, foolish and ignorant position is a fine one, especially when explaining the depths of ignorance is so futile, but it does exist.
Its only when the US goes fucking up in other countries (which seems to be quite often lately) do we notice, mostly because we have to go in and help clean up your mess.
Contradicts the first part of the point that you thought you were making:
I know many Americans are too arrogant to grasp this, but most of the world's population don't actually know let alone care about most things that happen in the USA.
Given the above,
Regardless of your personal view of how important US politics may be, even on a global scale, Slashdot is meant to be a Tech. news site. Lets keep it that way please.
Regardless of your clear genius, the political direction of the US Congress, Presidency (and judiciary that they put into power) directs the crafting and execution of legislation that applies to geeks. If your head wasn't preoccupied with spelunking the deeper regions of your colon, you'd be aware of such geek-centric topics as net neutrality, copyright, and piracy, and how US policy is deeply intertwined with global policy.
Santorum never had a change because mainstream conservative thought really has moved on from the religious-crazy ideas that Santorum brought to the table - those might have worked 20 years ago, but thankfully times change.
Santorum was an embarassment to the GOP. He was the right-wing of our grandfathers, when what we desparately need now is a fiscal conservative, not a social conservative. Of course, finding a fiscal conservative with enough political savvy to avoid making an idiot of himself on camera is proving difficult - I guess once you've been in the game long enough, a less powerful government doesn't seem so appealing any more.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I was really worried this guy was going to try to keep going. The way he speaks reminds me of Hitler, in both subject matter and candor. This whole business of fighting the good culture warrior fight makes me very nervous. I don't like Romney either, but he doesn't scare the bejeepers out of me the way Santorum did.
I worry at signs that the USA is headed toward fascism, but some browsing on Wikipedia about Germany in the 1920s reveals that we've still got a long way to go yet.
Political murders by gangs of thugs (from all shades of the political spectrum) was almost the norm. Here political murders are still pretty rare, and mostly carried out by individuals or small groups of thugs, rather than by nation-wide organizations.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I don't understand your outrage. You should praise the beauty that is the living language we call English.
Many times, perhaps most times, candidates cede the race while in debt. If they discontinue the campaign entirely, they can no longer fundraise to cover those debts.
There are other also other reasons, e.g. the ability to pay campaign staffers to wind things down, control over delegates, control over remaining campaign funds. But the big one is usually debt, especially if the candidate is well-heeled and partially funded his or her self by making personal loans to the campaign.
You say all of that, but yet he was the only real competitor Romney has had. He's won more primaries than Gingrich or Paul combined, so I don't think I'd say mainstream conservative thought has moved on from embracing the religious right at all.
Certainly the ones outside the States (or at least, mostly immune).
Do you really think that? A dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist Christian that thinks the Apocalypse is a good thing because he gets to meet his BFF Jesus that day, in charge of the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world?
Still think you're immune?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The left wants to piss it away on people who are "disadvantaged" and the right wants to siphon it off to military contractors.
FTFY
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
(a) wants to repeal the 14th amendment and is willing to do it through judicial activism or legislation rather than a proper constitutional convention.
(b) wants to abolish the fed and return to the gold standard, two things which would be suicide according to virtually every economist with any sort of reputation
(c) wants to reduce the US military to effectively being state militias
(d) wants to legally declare that life begins at conception
(e) thinks that the civil rights act was unconstitutional, or at least bad law
(f) thinks states have the right to restrict individual freedoms, e.g. state laws forbidding abortions, forbidding same-sex partners to marry, outlaw sodomy
As a general rule of thumb, Ron Paul is very good at honestly bringing up very real problems, but then he puts forth the most extreme solution available to solving it.
Too bad. I rather enjoyed watching the Republicans feeding upon each other. I am looking forward to Obama's 2012 victory.
Well, you can't really compare Ronulus Prime with the real candidates.
You underestimate the passion on the right for "anyone but Romney". The general feeling was that Romney (aka Dole 2.0) will lose to Obama, and so every possible alternative candidate was explored - plus Romney is just kinda creepy. But it's clear now that the majority on the right can't stomache Santorum. The primaries he won were just a matter of timing - the "not Romney wave" has slowly drifted form candidate to candidate over the past 6 months, and whichever non-Romney it was at the time might win some primaries (Cain and Perry peaked before Iowa, though).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Outdated ideology? Peace and a balanced budget is outdated? Hardly. He has 70% support among people 18 to 35..... it's a *youthful* ideology not an outdated one.
>>>racist past?
Well let's ask some black people. Professor Walter E. Williams do you think Ron Paul racist? "Haahaha. That's ridiculous. I've known Dr. Paul for many years and he is definitely not a racist. On the contrary he's the most egalitarian person I know in Washington, as you would expect from someone who follows libertarian principles." (Quoting from youtube video when W.E.W. was guest hosting Rush Limbaugh.)
How about you, Bruce S. Gordon, former head of the NAACP? "Not in the slightest. I've known Congressman Paul for decades and he is in no way a racist. People who say that makes themselves look foolish." (quoting from radio interview)
And what Ron Paul's black volunteers? Well there are millions of them so I can't quote them here but you can certainly find their homemade videos on youtube. They think the charge is ridiculous, because they know the Drug Prohibition is the true racist policy (more blacks in jail than whites) and that Congressman Paul is the only one who vowed to end the prohibition as unconstitutional (10th amendment).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Dangerous: He's a gold standard nut. He wants to move US currency back to it. Frankly I don't know a great deal about it, but it seems to me that either way you go you have a faith based economy. In one case it's faith in the economy, the other is faith that the fed has the gold it says it has and will actually exchange it for money, plus faith that gold is valuable.
Foolish: The gold standard thing again?
Ignorant: He doesn't realize that some of his ideologies, totally unchecked, hurt very real people. He seems to think that the market will fix bigotry. Some have gone so far as to claim he's racist, I really doubt it though. He's not considerate of the issues at all, but I don't think it makes him racist.
All that said, I like him. There's zero chance of him getting the gold standard thing through. But some of his other ideas are very healthy: Like his anti-war anti-military positions. We need that, especially from a Republican.
Anyway, he has no chance. He has no appeal for the moralistic nutjobs. He has as much chance as a pro-life democrat.
Ron Paul is the best candidate America had in over 50 years.
While I admire him for many of his views (anti-war, personal privacy, consistent, etc), Ron Paul is not a viable candidate. He is not realistic in many of his plans - and he can get away with it because he doesn't really expect to win. For example, he's the guy who plans to eliminate IRS and (at least earlier) public schools. How realistic is that?
santorum was against porn which effects many nerds!
Only by accident, usually.
I've never heard Teller complain.
I'm thoroughly convinced that both the democrats and republicans are seriously math challenged.
Maybe a few of them are, but most of them are just giving the voters what they want. It's the voters who are math challenged, and they punish austerity by voting (or keeping) its proponents out of office. Natural selection in action.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Wow. I think we need a new category of political thought. State-atarian, perhaps. How else can one say it is libertarian to simply move a decision from Federal to State control. Control, regardless of granularity (or bureaucratic burdens of 50x as many regulatory agencies), is still control. Further, state-level control loses economies of scale: everyone gets screwed by the lack of regulatory uniformity and the cost of learning how to comply with 50 disparate regulatory agencies per regulatory category (god help you if your work involves half a dozen different compliance mechanisms like environmental, consumer product safety, banking/finance, etc). As for state control, the near-century between the end of the civil war and federal enforcement of minority civil rights in the south is a damned solid counterargument to ceding such power to states. The only certainty (and in my impression the **GOAL**) of dropping regs to the state level is arbitrage: someone will let megacorps screw them more easily than if federal regs held the entire nation to one standard.
As for Paul's stance, I don't get the charm: his libertarianism is just as naive and flawed as pure-play communism or unregulated capitalism. Hell, every hacker knows that stuff built on ideals are like will-o-wisps, and easily hacked.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not anti-Libertarian. I like it. But I also like socialized things like cops, freeways, and social security. The best ideas come out of the tug of war between libertarianism and socialism and capitalism. Keep all three ideals in your hip pocket as reference and guidance, but keep a copy of Machiavelli and the Art of War, too. Balance their ideals and mechanisms to reach your goals.
Regulations are akin to infosec 'defense in depth' -- they're countermeasures to combat rogues who simply seek to game any simplistic, idealized system. When they get crufty, don't be afraid to refactor (this is what the US **SUCKS** at, IMHO). But please don't pretend that the flaw isn't the cruft itself, but the presence of an ideal you loathe. YOUR idealizations won't survive alone. None do. They'll either be gamed (and that makes them unfair) or they'll need enforcement and balance mechanisms. In other words, they'll need regulations. But (to repeat myself) be vigilant to keep regulations simple and sane. A good regulation mechanism would be a well-designed no-deductions progressive tax simple enough to be autocomputed off paystubs, property records, or whatever. A crappy regulation mechanism is the current US tax code. Or state/local/county sales taxes -- due to the very complexity that the AnonCoward parent advocates by pushing policy down from federal to state levels.
TL/DR: fed vs. state regulation isn't a libertarian issue. Ideals never actually work ideally. And most of our (US's) problems aren't ideological: they're cruft and an unwillingness to refactor crufty legal code. And don't ever implicitly trust an idealist -- always look behind the curtain and try to understand what can go wrong.
One other thought:
The latest CBS polling shows that Romney will lose to Obama by 4 percent, whereas Ron Paul would defeat the current president by 5. Maybe YOU hate him but Paul has crossover appeal to independents and Democrats that Romney lacks.
- So if you like Obama and want 4 more years, hope Romney is the republican candidate.
- If you dislike Obama and want him out, then Paul is who you should be backing. The D's and I's like him more than they like Obama, and will put him into the white house.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
How would he manage that? Public schools are run at the State and local level, not by the Federal government.
And the President really doesn't have the power to shut down State and local programs.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Yeah, tell that to half of the Middle East. Our elections have vast global consequences, which makes the idiocy we've demonstrated as far as that's concerned all the more egregious.
RP is right about our military spending. It is just wacko that we spend more now than we did when we had an actual hostile superpower (the USSR) to contend with. He is also right that the government should just butt out of people's private lives (but curiously, he doesn't think women should be able to choose to have abortions). On most other topics, he is a nutter, pure and simple.
The IRS could use some trimming... we can all agree on that.
He never said anything about getting rid of public schools that I'm aware of. He just wanted to get rid of the Department of Education at the Federal level. He feels the individual State Boards are doing a good enough job and the Federal level is a waste of resources. (At least, that's how I interpreted it. Never did I get the feeling that he wanted to get rid of Public Schooling though.)
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The comments here will be very different from anything you might encounter on CNN. Actually, I never cared about the comments at CNN. Here they can be interesting.
"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
WIkipedia - costs of Iraq war - latest Brown University estimates are 3.2 to 4 trillion dollars for combined Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan war effort. So, about $400 billion per year. This does not count the costs to other countries - that is just U.S. costs. The estimate offered before starting the first one - $100 billion for a two year effort. Afford it? It's easier now, while interest rates are low. It'll be more difficult once interest rates start increasing. The increased debt service will be substantial. The disruption to the labor force in the U.S. with so many reservists called up was real. So were the effects in long term disabilities or deaths to our soldiers and their families.
Regardless of whether you agree on whether it is affordable or not, it is just plain wrong. You've got a bunch of people who have hated each other for several thousand years, and our sticking our noses in their affairs won't solve anything in the long run, and will increase our long term defense costs and increase the probability of retaliation at home or abroad. This is what RP objects to.
Some nerds read it on CNN, others read it on FOX, all of them come here seeking someone who can agrue about it. It explains why slashdot always posts TFA a day or two after the MSM, and why nobody RTFAs on slashdot.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Pretty much - both R and D are against different freedoms, so that they can point at each other and yell to get enough support to get elected. When they swap turns in power they just take away more each time. In other words, whenever the other party gets in power, they never give back any freedoms, they just work on their list for a while...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Well, you might be able to say that it hasn't really mattered to them. Pretty much every President in the last 30+ years has screwed with them so I'm not sure how much it actually matters. I realize I am over simplifying and it does actually matter somewhat, I guess my point is more that it doesn't seem to matter as much as it should.
Hospital? What do you mean? Aren't you against science, progress and think that god and prayer can do everything for you? Well, stay the fuck out of our hospitals and just leave your daughter at home and pray until she dies, then say it was god's will.
Really, that's what we should do to the anti-science bigots. You are "pro-life"? You want creationism in schools? Great, go live with the Amish. If you enjoy living in the 21th century, embrace science and dump your imaginary god.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
State boards are doing a good enough job? What his definition of a bad job be, then?
He's from Texas, too. Wow.
Penn Jillette is what you get if you cross John Lennon with Ayn Rand, a rich selfish hippie who works for a conservative tell-you-what-to-think-tank. He also has a great sense of humour, (probably from the Lennon side of the family).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
While I agree with your point about more regulatory agencies - if a particular state chooses to regulate a particular activity - I think you miss the essential point. If decisions that have no constitutional basis are left at the state level and not promoted to or addressed at the federal level, I have more say and influence in adjusting the state laws to suit me (as does everyone else for their respective states) than I do at the federal level. If the state refuses to change existing laws or passes laws I don't agree with in a strong way, I have perhaps 49 other states to chose to live in that might have laws more to my liking, yet will still enjoy being a citizen of the United States. If the law is federal, you're stuck with it wherever you live in the United States.
I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of the things that are getting people riled up wouldn't involve regulation other than by police forces. Few are complaining about the FCC or the ICC or the other multi-state workhorses and their desire for uniformity. The complaints noted in the threads are about abortion, drug use, marriage laws, and kid's education to cite a few. These would be regulated by the state's existing judicial branch if the states passed laws about them, wouldn't need any regulation at all if they were made legal in some cases, or are already handled in parallel with the federal government in the case of education.
For the record, I think Ron Paul would be great. I think that roughly 0% or maybe slightly higher of his ideas would become law since they require the Congress to act in order to accomplish it. That's why I don't worry a lot about some of the things he thinks should be done.
He could cut back the spreading executive branch and it's departments without much congressional interference and that would help some. Some of their work would devolve to the states, some would be shifted to other departments, and some of it would just not get done any more and probably nobody would miss it except the people doing it now. It would be refreshing for a change for a President to ask Congress to pass a war resolution before going to war, and RP would obey the constitution. I know they all promise they will, including the Congressmen, but they stretch it well past thin. It would also be refreshing to have a President who would veto the morass of legislation that comes his way that has unconstitutional bits and pieces inserted in "must pass" legislation. I'm pretty sure that given RP's congressional record, he'd be happy to do that.
#TDSBreakingNews @RickSantorum suspends presidential campaign. Dibs on the "Romney Licks Santorum" headline.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
>>>>>He has 70% support among people 18 to 35....
>>
>>[Citation doubtful]
Look at the breakdown of the primary results. Ron Paul has won among that age group in almost every state..... And of course he is waaaay more popular than any other candidate on facebook/twitter which is a youth-dominated medium..... Plus being filling-up small stadiums at college campuses all over the U.S.
I mean really -- did you need a citation Anon. Coward? Ron Paul's popularity with the youth is self evident to anyone who's paid attention since December 2011. Santorum/Romney/Gingrich wish they had that kind of young support.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The 1880s and thereabouts, the start of the Industrial Revolution, with robber barons everywhere and unions starting up for the first time because the corporations were overtly evil and would kill workers for profit (not directly, though I don't doubt they would have if they could have figured out how to profit from it).
Learn to love Alaska
He plans to eliminate the IRS... how realistic is that?
It's actually very realistic if you eliminate the military industrial complex. It balances out quite nicely on the accounting books.
Liberty.
The latest CBS polling shows that Romney will lose to Obama by 4 percent, whereas Ron Paul would defeat the current president by 5. Maybe YOU hate him but Paul has crossover appeal to independents and Democrats that Romney lacks.
The only CBS polling that Google seems to know about (and that is reported on Paul's own website) is one that shows Paul beating Obama amongst independent voters. And Romney's slide in the polls has a lot to do with his massive loss of support from women (he still beats or ties Obama amongst men) after supporting all the right-wing insanity over birth control, forced ultrasounds, and the general assault on Women's rights. If the economy takes another dip, if republicans can successfully blame rising gas prices on Obama (who apparently controls gas prices world-wide; they are skyrocketing in Europe, too), or if Romney can dig up an effective October Surprise, then low-information voters (read: morons) will swing back to "the other guy," who is going to be Romney.
Don't get me wrong; I love Ron Paul, and I think that it is incredibly important to have his voice out there as a counterweight to the entrenched, inbred beltway thinking. In fact, I wish there was a Ron Paul on the left, so that people could see what the left--and not the center-right that FOX News calls the Far Left--actually looks like. But let's not delude ourselves; the GOP establishment will never take Ron Paul seriously, the media view him as an eccentric crackpot, and the delegate system is heavily rigged in favor of Romney (yet he still has to outspend his opponents by an order of magnitude because he's such an unlikable douche). Ron Paul has embraced his role as a foil and says crazy stuff that renders him completely unelectable nationally and Ron Paul supporters just have to accept that, just like Nader supporters did when Bush was sworn in as POTUS.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
The US has a very long history of actively interfering in other sovereign nations affairs and not just those it has labeled openly as an enemy. It has physically and politically assassinated people from allied nations to steer election results. If you think the US elections have no effect on you just because you don't obediently salute the flag (what does a man do and what does a slave do) you are silly.
Mind you, since I am already burning Karma, I wonder if Santorum, the god-fearing Catholic believes that the illness of his child is gods way of stopping him from becoming president. That is how it works after all if you have the faith. Everything is gods plan. Funny how that never is acknowledged by the religious in defeat. You never see a Muslim going after they lost another war, it was Allah's will. A Catholic when they loose an election, god willed it. There may be no Atheist in hell but there aren't many true believers in defeat either.
Ah well, may I congratulate the American readers with the election of Obama for a second term? Lets face it, the only thing at the moment to prevent that would be the end of the world and that isn't due until just after :P
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Because nobody who would make a good president would want the job and, as we all know, nobody capable of getting themselves elected president should under any circumstances be allowed to do so.
Well, what data do you actaully have? How frequently do you socialize with conservatives, or with religious folk? Spend a lot of time on popular right-wing blogs? There's a very obvious generation gap between the views of the Boomers and older, and the Generation Xers and younger. Heck, even the televangelists are strikingly different - you can instantly tell the age group of their target demographic by how they treat gays. And check the ages of the very social-con cable/radio talking heads.
Until about 2000, the religious right was the mainstay of the campaign workers for the GOP - the door knockers and phone staffers and so on, but that has fallen off with every election since 2000. They're still there enough to matter, but not to control.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I did grow up in a religious family: Roman Catholic. Force-fed church every Sunday morning, religion class right after. Got my first communion and confirmation. In fact, I've had all seven sacraments, except for Holy Orders. (I came close to dying, once, so I got Last Rites.)
After graduating from college and getting a taste of the real world, as well as learning more about history, it struck me that religion is a concoction of man intended to control man. Just look at the "conservatives" of today, like Santorum, wielding their bibles as moral cudgels to attack anyone who doesn't toe that line. I'm sorry - or not - but I'd be daft to believe that someone who knew so little about their world could have such insight about the creator of everything. Would you take the word of the pimply-faced-youth at Best Buy about how much you could super-cool and over-clock the latest i7 CPU? Probably not. Same principal: consider the source.
One Native American culture "believes" that a pregnant woman fell through a hole in the sky, some birds helped slow her fall, and that a muskrat dove deep into the water to grab some mud to place on a great turtle's back, which then became mother earth. The woman was lowered onto the turtle's back and gave birth to a son, and it progressed from there to everything we have now. There's more to it, and it's interesting, but it sounds almost as implausible as the Old Testament.
Your social aspect of religion sounds nice, but I can get the benefit of that through my local YMCA - yes, I get the "Christian Association" but there's nothing dogmatically religious about it - or the after-work social groups. My point was that so many people of today still believe that ignorant authors from thousands of years ago could possibly know what "God" wanted, when they couldn't even figure out indoor plumbing.
Santorum never had a change because mainstream conservative thought really has moved on from the religious-crazy ideas that Santorum brought to the table - those might have worked 20 years ago, but thankfully times change.
Santorum was an embarassment to the GOP. He was the right-wing of our grandfathers, when what we desparately need now is a fiscal conservative, not a social conservative. Of course, finding a fiscal conservative with enough political savvy to avoid making an idiot of himself on camera is proving difficult - I guess once you've been in the game long enough, a less powerful government doesn't seem so appealing any more.
Are you joking? The right-wing of our grandfathers? The right-wing of our grandfathers was Hitler...we didn't even have that extreme here (in the mainstream) until the last 40 years or so. Conservatives USED to be conservative...you know like conserve...not send troops all over, highy protectionist, isolationist (anti NAFTA) conserve the environment. It's only the last 40 years or so that these lunatic neo cons (there's a reason it's called NEO) started cropping up. Do you realize that by these people's standards Nixon was a massive liberal? Reagan would never be able to get the nomination these days; he'd look more like Obama. I don't know what history books you're reading, but they're off by a long shot. Oh, and all these ridiculous "social" issues also barely came up. Gay rights and contraception. Issues meant to distract and appeal to people's emotions, not help them make a rational decision that's in their best interest. That's all a new marketing thing. Go back to our grandfathers time and you'll find a lot more honesty and a lot less political marketing. "would you have a beer with him"...that's new. That's why we're in for a fascist dictator one day because people can't vote their own interest anymore. That's why life in America is sucking more and more. People vote for the guy they "like" and who appeals to their emotions. Try balancing your checkbook spending on emotions...it doesn't work. At some point you have to take a cold, hard look at the candiate and that's just not possible anymore. W'e're in for MORE radical right wingers, not less.
In the U.S., local, state, and federal governments are separate entities. A state was originally almost a county on its own - in fact some of them were. The powers the states gave up to the federal government were spelled out in the Constitution of the United States. There weren't very many of them and after those federal powers were listed, it basically says, "Everything else belongs to the states." Remember that states joined the United States voluntarily.
But what does someone with power always want? More power.
Take one example - public roads. This is run by state governments and the federal government has no say. So what they've done over the years is to gradually tax the people and then gradually return that money directly to highways departments. It's my money going to pay for my local road, but it's passing through the federal government first.
Now they come along and pass a federal law that says, if a state does not set a maximum 55mph speed limit, they will stop returning that money. They'll still take the tax money, of course. So the state can either comply or pay twice for the same service. This happens now with many, many government functions.
So when someone says we should completely eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, they're not advocating the closing of public schools. It just means that the federal government would stop taking that money from my paycheck. The state would take it instead. Schools would still receive the same money they did before, but without the strings attached by the federal government.
Which is better? Well, that's the fundamental reason we have a 2 party political system. One wants a big federal government with far reaching power, and one wants a limited federal government. Although recently it's more like one wants a HUGE federal government and one wants one that is almost but not quite as enormous.
:wq
It's his accent. He actually said bacon of the world. It was his plan to combat obesity in the USA...
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What strikes me about this contest is how the candidature of Ron Paul hasd been ignored by the entire US media.
"The countywide totals for Dr. Paul include 246 Congressional delegates, more than double Mitt Romney's 120, and 360 alternate delegates for Ron Paul, a clean sweep in that regard". link
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