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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
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.
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
Slashdot is a US-oriented site. It's in the FAQ.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I actually really like about 80% of what Ron Paul claims he'll do. The other 20% scares the living heebie-jeebies out of me though.
Ron Paul's strength is that he accurately identifies a lot of problems.
Ron Paul's weakness is that his "solutions" to those problems are dangerously naive, based on long-discredited theories, or are just downright crazy (or all of the above).
Any enthusiasm about RP has to be tempered with the realization that even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
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.
Santorum.com was registered nearly 11 years ago. You're full of crap if you think that the stain on his name can be wiped out in a single spurt. The seminal example of search bombing coming out in a single wash is a little hard to swallow.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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.
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
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
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.
No. We need the fed. We need the FCC. we need the FAA. We need the FDA and FTC.
We need competent people running them.
We don't need smaller government. We need smarter government. Going on a witch hunt because somehow the fed is offensive is the LAST thing we need.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Why is nobody ever specific on what they find so frightening about his policies? Is the Constitution frightening? His positions are basically the positions of the founding fathers.
I'm going to assume that the 20% that scares you is foreign policy, since most people don't understand his views on that. We bring the troops home and defend our country's borders instead of those of another country. If someone attacks us, go to the Congress and get a declaration of war, identify a specific enemy (not just "terrorists" or some other vague concept), and then attack with overwhelming power and then COME HOME instead of occupying. Some politicians are doves and some are hawks. Ron Paul is a porcupine. They generally want to just be left alone, but if you mess with them you're in for a world of hurt.
Ron Paul is misunderstood on many issues because the media tends to distort his positions. Look at what the man himself has said and done and then decide.
I'm actually curious as to what does scare you. Personally, as a leftie myself (what they call a "social democrat" in Europe), I don't get why left wing is so mad at Ron Paul. I mean, the guy basically just wants to give the states free reign - so what? This means that we can have our own liberal paradise with blackjack, hookers, marijuana, public healthcare and education etc in blue states, rather than having to fight the tug of war with conservatives over who gets to put more crap into Federal laws. What's wrong with that?
Meanwhile, on the federal policies that do make sense to keep at federal level (like foreign affairs / wars), his stance seems to be much closer to your typical leftie - you know, pulling out of existing conflicts, not starting new ones, and generally minding your own business and not mucking around with other countries.
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.
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"
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?
So I'm among those who like about 60% of what Ron Paul stands for and am seriously worried about the other 40%. (For the record, I like about 30% of what Obama stands for and am seriously worried about 70%, and for Romney the split is closer to 5%/95% with the 5% varying from hour to hour.)
The parts I'm all for: drug legalization, bringing the troops home, restoring civil liberties, and cutting back on big military spending.
The parts I'm seriously concerned about: Returning to a gold standard, eliminating all social welfare programs, pretty much complete deregulation of economic transactions, and eliminating any restrictions on what the states can do within their borders. The reasons:
A) Returning to any sort of metallic standard is basically decreeing 0% inflation. This sounds like a good thing for those with wealth trying to hang onto it, but most economists think somewhere around 2% inflation is actually closer to the ideal, and some argue that 4% is better. Current mainstream macroeconomics thinks that lower inflation generally yields higher unemployment, which was part of the argument of William Jennings Bryan's bimetalism campaign back in the 1890's.
B) Eliminating social welfare programs is just plain stupid, because those without jobs and without welfare will do what they need to do to eat. Private charities can't handle the case load (they're already overbooked), so that means that people will be turning to crime in increasing numbers with the goal of keeping a roof overhead and food on the table. Many of those people will get caught and thrown in prison, costing the government even more than welfare does.
C) Deregulation of business makes for unlevel economic transactions with all the advantage invariably going to the side with the largest supply of capital, legal advice, and market share. In other words, if you think software EULAs and cell phone contracts are one-sided now, you ain't seen nothing yet.
D) The basic problem I tend to have with "state's rights" arguments is that the rights in question have almost always been the right to oppress black people (southern politicians were using that exact phrase in 1860 and 1960 to mean precisely that). Which seems to be activity that Ron Paul at least in the past was a supporter of.
I am officially gone from
(a) Nonsense. (And if you think you're right, then quote Mr. Paul where he said "I want to nullify the 14th." You won't find it.)
(b) We're already on the gold standard. At least the world banks are. They are hoarding gold at a rapid pace, because they know the dollar will lose ~20% of its value in just one decade (thanks to the Fed's rampant running of the printing press). A dollar is paper and has lost 95% of its value since 1920, whereas prior to that, from 1800, it hadlost none (because it was tied to gold).
(c) Is wrong. He wants to reduce the military to be a DEFENSIVE force, protecting our east and west coasts, rather than an offensive force that has killed or maimed over million innocent civilians during the last decade.
(d) is also wrong since he voted *against* the Constitutional Amendment to declare life begins at conception.
(e) He is right. The Congress has no authority to regulate who we must, or must not, allow into our private homes. Or force us to buy insurance we don't want. Said power is reserved to the Member States and the People thereof. (Read the 10th amendment sometime.)
(f) But that works both ways. States ALSO have the right to INCREASE personal freedoms, like legalized prostitution, or legalized marijuana, or legalized homosexual marriage (or even multi-partner marriage). For example Ron Paul supports California's legalization of medical marijuana, while no other president ever has. (Even now Obama's admin is arresting californians with weed.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I've never heard Teller complain.
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.
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
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.
#TDSBreakingNews @RickSantorum suspends presidential campaign. Dibs on the "Romney Licks Santorum" headline.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Something to notice about your two lists: Look at which items on the lists a president can actually do and which ones he can't.
Your "all for it" list:
Your "seriously concerned" list:
Also, in the areas where a president went too far in exercising his executive powers, Congress could pull him up short by passing legislation that limits his freedom of action in those areas. They probably couldn't limit his power as Commander-in-Chief, because that's not an authority they gave him, but all of the social programs, business regulation, etc., are powers created by legislation, not the Constitution. The authority given by Congress can be taken away, or limited, by Congress. They'd have to do it with veto-proof majorities, but if the president tried to do anything too extreme, that could be done.
Bottom line: Most of the things you'd like RP to do would be within his power as president, while the things you wouldn't like would not. To achieve any of those things, he'd have to convince Congress.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.