Romney Taps Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan As Running Mate

Shortly after 9 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, Republican candidate Mitt Romney officially announced (via phone app) his selection of 42-year-old Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as running mate for the 2012 U.S. presidential race. Ryan's selection was announced by the Romney campaign to various media outlets earlier this morning. Ryan is considered popular among a wide range of Republican voters, being a budget hawk who favors less liberal laws concerning abortion. Ryan's lauded popularity among Tea Party voters is mixed; some reports describe him as a Tea Party favorite, others as a far-right imposter.

Comments

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck is this news for nerds?? Its not remotely related to tech or topics that slashdot normally covers.

This does not belong on slashdot. Stop using this as your personal blog, timothy.

Now I expect this to turn into a left-wing bashfest. Commence.

neither is your comment, but you posted it anyway. Stop using slasdot as your personal rebuttal space.

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

Mitt Romney introduces Paul Ryan as the "next President of the United States"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTzssn6JQVQ

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[axlr8or]

Wrong dill hole we can discuss evolution or creation or Muons and Hadrons but politics is sleezy humanism. The only importance it maintains in our society is what credit peole like YOU give it. There is nothing 'technical' about this story. timothy shouldn't be banned he's offered lots of good stories for us but someone should smack him thats for sure.

Focus Will Be On Economy

[ScentCone]

No matter how much the left will want to make this about Ryan wanting to kill little old ladies (as in their ad showing him literally throwing one off a cliff), what this will really do is force people like Biden (in debates, with Ryan) to directly address some specific things that the current administration would really, really rather not talk about. Which is good for everyone, no matter how the voting goes.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Your country doesn't have a left wing.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[the_B0fh]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-15/poor-census-low-income/51944034/1

Apparently you feel that making the very poor pay more in taxes is a good thing.

And no, you really don't understand what is left wing, you only know how to parrot Fox News talking points.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[tmosley]

On the left, Marxism, on the right, Fascism. Sadly, most politicians subscribe to BOTH ideologies, not matter how much they decry their names.

Vote third party or watch the Republic die.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[iluvcapra]

Vote third party or watch the Republic die.

Vote third party and watch the worst guy win, every time. Agitate for voting reform if you want your vote to be more pure and representative.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, how in the world does the parent post qualify as "flamebait"?

I wasn't one of the ones that modded the post (I have no mod points), but I would guess . . . because it's a bunch of lies.

Putting aside the fact that "I think this is a lie" doesn't qualify something as "flamebait", the ad he mentioned does exist (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnE83A1Z4U), and the part about Ryan vs. Biden being a good debate is clearly an opinion, and since it's an opinion about a future event, it can't be either a truth or a lie.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Entropius]

The problem is that any discussion of voting reform has to be somewhat academic, since there is math involved, and somewhat philosophical, since it's not about any issues per se but in how we decide what to do about the issues.

The American people are too uneducated, it seems, to have this discussion -- our political conversations basically come down to "How can I get more cookies from the government at someone else's expense?"

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[dgatwood]

Sure it does. That's the wing that thinks that one group of people should permanently, structurally, be taxed in order to provide social spending for the 50% of the country that pay no income taxes at all.

I think you misspelled socialist. We have neosocialists. We do not have a left wing. There's more to being liberal than socialism. It must be balanced with libertarianism in ways that make sense.

Our president just reflected on the move he made to take General Motors away from the people who owned it, and while keeping a large share of the company for the government, gave the rest to labor union supporters on the left.

For example, that. That is not left-wing. That's way, way far to the right. It is putting the desire to keep a business artificially running above the rights of the stockholders. That's a corporatist, fascist way of doing things. It means that the people who put money into the company by buying its stock lose their investment, while the big corporations that the company owes money don't lose their investment. They spin off a shell company that holds the company's debts without any of its assets, and the working class get screwed, while the rich get richer. If they had allowed the company to fold, the working class might have at least gotten back some of their investment instead of ending up with worthless stock certificates. Instead, they chose the rights of a few big companies over the rights of the majority.

... The Nanny Staters

Those people are also not on the left. Someone truly on the left is typically in favor of greater personal freedom, not bigger government for government's sake. True left-wing politics requires government to interfere in the lives of individuals only when those individuals hold undue power over others.

Note that this is not the same thing as libertarianism, where the government never interferes. Nor is it socialism, where the government always interferes. Both of those are skewed politics that don't represent the true political left.

The group that is focused on the government as the source of personal comfort, sustenance, housing, medical services, etc., using funds removed from a small group of people who will be the beasts of burden providing all of those things.

You're kidding, right? You just described the political far right, except for the "small" bit. The far right consists mostly of investors who make their money by using funds and effort removed from the masses, who are beasts of burden providing all those things. Most of those people contribute little, if anything, to society other than loaning money, and for that, we reward them with a life of luxury while almost everyone else has to work like slaves just to afford basic healthcare.

Yet even the far left does not want them to become beasts of burden. They merely want those people to pay their fair share. While the rest of us are paying 30% in taxes, they pay 15%. They do less work to earn their money, yet they get to keep more of it. By any reasonable and sane standard, they're cheating the system, and that's wrong.

Capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income. At most, there should be a one-time homeowner exemption so that people can afford to change houses once in a while. Only if we treat unearned income with the same level of taxation as earned income can we legitimately say that nobody is using anyone else, treating anyone else as beasts of burden.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Fwipp]

There exist taxes beside income taxes. If they purchase goods, they pay sales tax. If they drive a car, they pay gas taxes. If they buy cigarettes, they pay "sin" tax. Income tax is not the only tax that exists.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Anonymous Coward]

Your premise is faulty. Your premise is that everyone should be taxed.
My premise is that no one should be taxed, and that all should be entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Instead of "Capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income", a better step would be to have ordinary income taxed at the same rate as cap gains.I'd be happier with that compromise. Wouldn't you?

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[tmosley]

Actually, Marxism and Fascism fall in the "Authoritarian" corner of the political compass. The left and the right have been creeping down to the bottom of said compass for the last hundred odd years at least.

Free market capitalism, being an economic policy, is on the side between the "Right" corner and the "Libertarian" corner. The difference between the two being the level of government intrusiveness allowed/demanded in people's personal lives.

The left/right paradigm is a part of the problem.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[tmosley]

You go ahead and vote for Kodos, then, you damned fool. And I do mean DAMNED, as you are damning yourself and your countrymen to slavery at the hands of "the lesser evil".

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[scot4875]

Also, Communism, Socialism, Rap Music, Religious Persecution, Baby Raping, and all that sort of stuff is on the left. Because, you know, clarkkent09 is on the right and anything that sounds bad must be on the left. Freedom, Country Music, and Charity Work are all on the right.

--Jeremy

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Toonol]

Perhaps the issue is that your country doesn't have a right wing?

Or perhaps you could be a little more sophisticated and realize that all talk of 'wings' is relative to an average, and hence every country has a right or left wing, insofar as they have any political debate?

(Or be even more sophisticated, and realize that 'wings' are generalizations of thousands of unique issues that have a slight tendency to cluster? I'm an atheist with several liberal social views, but feel that Ryan's stance on economic issues is so much more reasonable than Obama's or Biden's, that there's not even the pretense of a choice between the two. It's picking between an unpleasant solution and a fantasy.)

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[scot4875]

Far too many people are getting more in cash and direct cash equivalents from the government than they pay in taxes of all form.

How many is that? Have any numbers to support your statement? I doubt it.

Even more unstable is a popular culture that celebrates the sort of envy and covetousness that makes that sort of thing socially acceptable.

The only covetous people I know are all either jealous right-wingers or are completely politically ignorant, but then I know that I probably succumb somewhat to confirmation bias and that it's anecdotal data anyway. None of my liberal friends have any interest in the culture of Kardashians.

--Jeremy

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Toonol]

Not always true. That's only the case if the supporters of the next-to-worst guy flock to third parties more than worst guy's supporters do. For instance, if Obama is the worst guy in the election, but more of his supporters flock to the green, communist, or whatever parties than Romney's do to the libertarians, than third parties helped get the better guy elected. (Reverse Obama and Romney if you think Romney is the worst of the lot.)

Much of the election will depend on which candidates' supporters are more fractured... but if the worst candidate is the most fractured, hey, we're all better off.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[canadian_right]

Your premise has been tried, and it failed. It turns out that people who cooperate to build roads, sewers, armies, and the other trappings of modern states have much better standards of living than those living in the state of nature you advocate. Just look at Somalia.

If every person on the planet was, good, kind, intelligent, and hard working then the anarchy you proposed would work great, but that is not how the real world is.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[dgatwood]

Instead of "Capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income", a better step would be to have ordinary income taxed at the same rate as cap gains.I'd be happier with that compromise. Wouldn't you?

No, I wouldn't. I make a fair chunk of my income from capital gains, and even still, I think the capital gains tax rate is too low. Most first-world countries have top income tax brackets over 50%. For the United States, a significant percentage of the people who earn the most money are paying 15%. That's basically third-world territory. Governments can't usefully function with such a low income tax rate, with the possible exception of tiny nation states.

Here's a reality check for you: political stability and economic stability require that the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" be kept in check. When this doesn't happen, eventually the people at the bottom get tired of being shat upon by the people at the top, and there's a violent revolution. That's reality, and there's no ecaping it. Sure, some of the people at the top can flee to other countries, but with their money becoming almost immediately worthless, their homes captured by revolutionaries, etc., even in the best case scenario, they end up as a poor shadow of what they were before.

And even if you ignore that reality, there's still the fact that the people at the top got where they are because of the support of all the people at the bottom. You can't become a billionaire in a vacuum. You either get there by hiring people to work for you or by getting lucky on the stock market, in which case you're basicaly loaning money to people in the hope that they'll give you more money later. Either way, your success is almost entirely caused by other people doing the work. And that's true at every level of the economy. I'm successful as a programmer in part because I got a good education from public universities, and in part because lots of other people got acceptable levels of education that enabled them to get jobs that produced economic output, which in turn paid them money to buy the things that my employer produces. Even a grocery store employee is only employed because there are people buying groceries. No matter how far down the economic food chain you go, we are all interconnected, and anyone who claims otherwise is either a complete fool or a liar.

What this means is that when the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" grows too big, there's nobody left to buy that MP3 player, and the economy falls apart. The economy is only capable of functioning as long as there is enough money getting poured back in. Right now, the rich are amassing fortune. They aren't pouring it back into the economy by buying things, by hiring people, etc. And as long as that is true, the economy will continue to suffer. Income taxes are not the only way to cause money to flow back into the economy, but they are one way, and more to the point, they are the only way that cannot be avoided.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[shutdown -p now]

Note that this is not the same thing as libertarianism, where the government never interferes. Nor is it socialism, where the government always interferes. Both of those are skewed politics that don't represent the true political left.

The obvious question is, who gives you the authority to define what "true political left" means?

Around the world, socialism (both the scare quotes kind and the real kind) and welfare state are universally considered to be left wing ideologies. I don't see what's wrong with that.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[shutdown -p now]

It's perfectly sustainable provided that the people paying the lion's share of taxes also control the lion's share of wealth generating assets (i.e. capital). Which they do in US.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Darinbob]

Left and right are always relative to a center. And the center changes with each country. You can not judge politics of a country based on revolutionary era French politics.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Stormthirst]

Then make the minimum wage a living wage. Except that'll never happen because to get back to 1968's buying power for those on minimum wage you'll need to set it to at least $15 per hour - more like $25.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Kjella]

Those people are also not on the left. Someone truly on the left is typically in favor of greater personal freedom, not bigger government for government's sake. True left-wing politics requires government to interfere in the lives of individuals only when those individuals hold undue power over others.

Hell no. Speaking from Norway where two out of the three parties in government is the Worker's Party (red) and Socialist Left (redder) I can tell you that left wing is not only about economics. With social programs the government also take on the cost of our unhealthy habits, drinking, smoking, drugs, injuries, disease, obesity and so on. So they come up with plenty restrictions and taxes to make us do it less - for our own good of course. And because the government is so concerned with the well-being of all its citizens, if 99% of the population can handle it fine we still need to ban it because of the 1% that'd get a gambling addiction or blow their face off with fireworks. A good socialist will always interfere when you're doing anything that's harmful to yourself, even when you're perfectly aware of it.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[emaname]

@dgatwood -- THANK YOU!!!

I've been challenging the don't-tax-the-wealthy crowd with that question re the gap between the wealthy and everyone else. I ask them to point out one time in history when it ended well. So far nobody has been able to answer. That's because it has never happened. Actually most of the time they try to change the subject because they know what the answer is.

You've stated the case re distribution of wealth quite well.

Here are two more important details being ignored re this debate.

1. Some people say increasing taxes has been tried and it has not worked. False. Prior to the Crash of '29, the wealthy got a healthy tax cut in 1925 from 73% to 25%. Four years later the market crashed. Three years after the market crash, the tax rates for the wealthy went back up to over 60%. Rates remained high and a few years later we were recovering but headed for WWII. During and after WWII, the rates stayed high as we paid for the war. The national debt did not become an issue until the wealthy were given a series of tax cuts and a variety of loopholes. Basic accounting says if income goes down while cost of ops remain steady or go up, debt will increase. History shows while taxes on the wealthy were higher, we did pretty well as a nation. ie, We managed our debt. And an interesting point to remember, even while the wealthy were paying these higher taxes, they were still wealthy; they were still living in comfort.

2. Redistribution of wealth is presented as though the common, hard-working American is going to be forced to give his/her money to some indigent who has no intention of ever trying to work. False. Redistribution will occur through the elimination of tax loopholes and an increase of taxes for the wealthy. The wealthy are trying to portray the redistribution effort as though it's going to come directly out of the wallets of the middle class (what's left of it). And when I say "wealthy," I include our "owned" politicians; left and right.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[yester64]

There are indirect taxes and direct taxes. Direct taxes like your income taxes vs. indirect taxes like in products you buy.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[yester64]

I think people tend to assume that anyone who receives welfare is automatically someone who doesn't deserves it. There are many people with illnesses or older people that receive welfare to survive. Of course there is always a small percentage of people that indeed make the system work for them. But thats not the norm. Statistics show that people even with jobs are in need of assistance because their jobs just pay not as much to sustain a living. I always get the impression that people are more jealously of others and the argument that you did not pay enough it, doesn't fly at all. Otherwise why not just abolish the welfare and have everyone see for them self how to survive.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[porkUpine]

Then make the minimum wage a living wage. Except that'll never happen because to get back to 1968's buying power for those on minimum wage you'll need to set it to at least $15 per hour - more like $25.

Where the hell do you live? $25 an hour? Greedy cunt. Entry level IT guys don't make that (hell, they are lucky if they make $15!), and they have SOME skills. Burger flippers are a dime a dozen and worth FAR less than the $7+ an hour they are making now. Minimum wage is NOT MEANT to be a living wage! You are supposed to better yourself and MOVE ON from minimum wage. Jeebus... what are they teaching you kids these days?

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[fustakrakich]

Far too many people are getting more in cash and direct cash equivalents from the government than they pay in taxes of all form.

Really man... I'd much rather see that money go off shore to a Swiss bank account, or other money laundering scheme.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[gordo3000]

It's not true at all a 50 pct tax rate is required. If we broadened the tax basis maximally, you could easily get away with a super low rate to pay for everything. In the realm of 20-25%. A two tier system to keep taxes on the poor similar (say just 10 pct) and for 80 percent of the country a flat 25 could easily cover our country. Remember long term spending by the federal government is expected to be less than 25% of the GDP, most of which can be sourced between personal and corporate income (I think 85% can be sourced through just personal income)

But this means getting rid of every deduction and making your taxes simple to file again. I'm all for just paying 25 percent of my income in taxes and needing a simple calculator to work out the number (or deduct at source?) rather than paying an accountant several thousand bucks a year to get my effective rate down to around...... 26 pct last year. But then politicians can't buy your vote with the earned income tax credit or mortgage interest deductibility or pretax healthcare spending and all that stuff that makes life more complicated and creates a system ripe for abuse.

If you want to see good examples of simple systems we could learn from see HK or Singapore. Even Japan is quite simple for the vast majority of people but to buy favors of the rich the code is incredibly unfair allowing ridiculous loopholes.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Pfhorrest]

So voting 3rd party only helps (in this immediate election) if the guy you would otherwise have voted for would have been worse than the guy you were never going to vote for anyway. That's the problem: voting 3rd party helps 'the other guy' win, and so only does you immediate good (aside from any long-term goods voting 3rd party might accomplish) if it turns out you were going to vote for the wrong guy otherwise. And obviously nobody thinks they were going to vote for the wrong guy (by what standard of wrong, anyway?), so a 3rd party vote, without some serious chance of them actually winning, will always seem "wasted".

I am fortunate enough to live in an area where my preferred of the two major parties is virtually guaranteed to win whether I vote or not, so I can vote my conscience whichever way it swings without worrying about letting any of my least favorites win. But not everybody is so lucky.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[fm6]

You know, the way the GOP is trying to make this election a referendum on the economy and the deficit is really lame. They spent 8 years fucking it up, starting with huge tax cuts we couldn't afford and didn't need, continued with spending a trillion bucks on a "war on terror" (the centerpiece of which was the invasion of a country that wasn't even a terrorist sponsor) and winding up with being totally asleep at the switch while Wall Street went into slash-and-burn mode.

So, after 8 years of that nonsense, Obama is a "failure" because he hasn't undone the damage in 3?

And I really get tired of weird accusations like "the administration doesn't want to talk about" even mean? It's all just rhetorical hocus pocus. It would piss me off if anybody who didn't already hate Obama (because he's a you, know, one of those, uh, not very nice people, nudge nudge, wink wink) actually bought.it.

But sorry guy, the mainstream voters aren't buying it. Seen the polls lately? And threatening to kill their grannies (ot their favorite programs, which is the same thing) will just make things worse. Think landslide.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[dgatwood]

Check the numbers dipshit; the difference between the haves and have nots is increasing under the current government bloat.

Yes, which is why we have to fix the imbalanced tax system that is causing it.

And until threats of cap gains increases and dollar de-valuation came along they would invest it (which creates jobs) or put it in a bank (which then has more reserve money to loan out also leading to more jobs). ... Now rich (and not so rich) people are putting their money into precious metals (not just as a hedge against the dollars instability) instead of investing because of impending cap gains increases.

Wrong at pretty much every level.

• Nobody sensible is putting money into precious metals right now. The economy is turning around, which means the value of precious metals is going to go down as the value of the dollar goes up. Haven't you heard all the ads for precious metals lately? You don't really think they're telling people about it to help the buyers, do you?
• Even if I'm wrong about that, the rich people will eventually have to sell those precious metals in order to do anything with the money, at which point it will be taxed. Or when they die and it gets sold as part of their estate. Either way, like stock, it isn't really worth anything until they sell it, at which point they take a capital gain just as they would if they bought and later sold stock. Therefore, there is exactly zero advantage of precious metals over putting the money into stocks or bank accounts. In fact, last time I checked, capital gains on precious metals were taxed at 28%, which although slightly lower than ordinary income for the wealthiest Americans, is much, much higher than capital gains on stocks (15%). And when I talk about increasing capital gains, I'm including precious metals.
• If people truly don't invest the money at all, short of things getting so badly broken that we have a deflationary period, the value of their money is going to decrease over time. Therefore, only a complete idiot would choose to pout and take all their money and play over in the corner rather than investing it.

Thus, the argument that raising taxes on the rich would discourage investment is absolutely absurd beyond belief. You pretty much have to have zero understanding of economics to believe that drivel. Even somebody who just took high school econ should know better.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[dgatwood]

It's not true at all a 50 pct tax rate is required.

I never said it was. I said that 15% is way too low, and that most first-world countries had top-bracket tax rates of 50% or more. That's not the same thing as saying that we should have top brackets of 50% or more. I'd gladly settle for limiting the capital gains exemption to... say $50,000 per year of gains, with the ability to spread a single large gain (e.g. a house) over several years, but where you do eventually have to pay the piper at ordinary tax rates if you're averaging more than that.

Also, I agree with you about deductions. That said, most of those tax credits are nickel-and-dime. The few that aren't should be eliminated, and the capital gains exemption (special tax rate) just happens to be one of the biggest.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[jamstar7]

That might have been the intent of minimum wage, but it sure wasn't the effect. When it was enacted, there were a lot of people who were making less than the mandated minimum wage. For them, it was a step up. We're still talking about the 60's here, where employers would pay different ethnic groups different rates for the same kind and quantity of work. So, yeah, it helped make a few razor cuts into discrimination.

And the though of being on minimum wage and somehow 'bettering' yourself by buying your way out is laughable. If you work more than 20 hours a week on minimum wage, you make too much money per month to qualify for food stamps in Ohio, for instance, even though you don't make enough to pay your rent. Likewise, you're ineligible for most educational grants to get you above a high school diploma. And of course you won't be able to get a student loan at anything resembling a reasonable rate because you don't make enough to make the payments.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[jamstar7]

Great in theory, not so great in reality. We're not looking at a true 'free market'. Too many corporations have taken over writing the regulations and legislation for their 'industries'. That's not laisse faire capitalism, that's economic royalism. That's wonderful for the handful of corporations that can afford to fund their pet politicians, but not so much for the rest of us.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[jamstar7]

Personally, I'd rather have campaign finance reform. Get rid of those massive corporate campaign contributions that create meatpuppet politicians only interested in keeping their seats on the gravy train. Require full disclosure for every fucking dime they take in as a contribution, stipend, whatever. No 'honorariums' for speaking in public.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[roman_mir]

1. You are wrong on Somalia. Somalia is not an example of lack of cooperation, it is a story of a country that was occupied by the British and then ruled by the Communists for another few decades before it plunged into a civil war, looking for liberation from the dictatorship.

2. You are wrong on the standard of living being dependent on modern type of government that denies individual freedoms and engages into confiscatory policy, denying the right to private property with the income, payroll, corporate taxes as well as with the business regulations and inflation.

The actual rise of standard of living depends on the growing economy, and this is best produced by the free market industrial economy, that is free of government intervention policies, free of gov't inflation, free of income, corporate, payroll taxes, free of illegal wars, free of the welfare state mentality. This is obvious from the example of USA, which became largest manufacturer, exporter, creditor nation past the Civil war before the IRS and the Fed were established.

The welfare state mentality is what is causing the global economic meltdown. Canada is going to be exporting resources to China, where the productivity is higher than in the Western world, so Canada, Australia will not suffer a similar fate as the USA and most of Europe. USA will also export the natural resources to China and others, but USA's population is much larger, so the benefit of the export is going to be diluted among the population so much more (10 times more at least).

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[ScentCone]

So what you want is for a small group to take all the risks and to do things like start businesses and employ people, and then to give away what they create. How long do you suppose that people will want to create things when someone with a gun is standing there promising to take it away and give it to people who don't create things? How about we split what I create 50/50 when you also do the same amount of work I do, and create as much as I create. And then ... ah! No point swapping out equal amounts of things, is there?

You don't want equitable, you want productive, hard-working tax slaves, paying even more than the vast majority of all the country's taxes they already pay. And here I thought that owning slaves being a bad thing was already settled.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Reziac]

Someone in Another Forum[tm] suggested that anyone receiving welfare from the gov't should not be allowed to vote for the duration, because doing so is a conflict of interest -- since naturally they are going to vote for continuing handouts no matter how it screws everyone else.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Stormthirst]

PS Before you call me greedy - I'm not on minimum wage and never have been.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[geofgibson]

And that's a good thing.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Creepy]

um...

Marxism is an economic system
Fascism is a political system

technically you can have a Fascist Capitalism or Democratic Marxism

Part of the confusion is because politicians often associate themselves with the economic systems they favor - Socialism and Communism are other prime examples of economic systems, not political systems. I think the education system and 1950s and 1960s fear-mongering is mainly to blame - they should have been shouting stop the spread of Fascism, not stop the spread of Communism, but since those two were in lockstep at the time, nobody complained. Socialism or Communism as political systems would be interesting, perhaps hysterical - Socialism would mean each person should take the role they are best at for the benefit of the country (so why bother with elections?). Communism as a political system would be everyone sharing their government role (so basically the same as Democracy as the Greeks in Athens practiced).

Anyhow, just sayin'.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[datavirtue]

As I see progressiveness it is problem now. When in government, you sometimes have the power to help disadvantaged people, you use that power once and then it snowballs into a welfare state. I can't say that if I wasn't in a position to help people in some way (as a government leader) that I wouldn't, but it is a slippery slope and I believe now the only course is to reduce the role of government in people's lives. It will be painful at first. No pain, no gain. This whole fiasco started quite innocently about 100 years ago with Democrats wanting to help the lower classes, the people that they came from and who initially empowered them with their votes. Out of a genuine desire to help people we have created a monster. I'm not saying we stop all welfare, and certainly not in a vacuum as we need tax reduction as well to make entitlement reform viable.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[couchslug]

"The American people are too uneducated, it seems, to have this discussion"

They have religion, to which education is a dire threat.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[datavirtue]

You sir, are a fucking idiot. Anyone who disadvantages themselves economically or professes that they are too well-off has plainly jumped the shark. I don't belive a word you utter past that point. I'm all for helping people, but to suggest that we pour our money over to our government who may or may not help other people with it is pure stinky bullshit. You. Suck. Shill. Dick.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[jmorris42]

Sounds good. In fact I have been guilty of saying it in the past. No longer, I have more knowledge of how progs work. Put on your killer DM hat and think on how you could abuse that rule and you will probably agree it is a bad idea.

Give the government the power to forbid the franchise to large groups of people IT defines as too dependent. In other words, let the State pick who it wants voting. No thanks, far too abusable.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[riverat1]

That is a consequence of the widening gap between the rich and the not so rich. If the wealth were more evenly spread the not so rich would pay more taxes and reduce that 94% of all taxes paid by the top 20%.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[randyleepublic]

Quite cogent, but even more to the point, please consider *personal* income taxes. By greatly increasing the tax rates on the top tiers of income, you will absolutely create jobs. (N.B. Corporate income tax is a waste of time and money - we should reduce it to a very low rate, and only keep it to prevent people using corporate spending as a way to dodge personal income tax.) The problem with low personal tax rates such as we have now is that they encourage the short term pillaging of job having enterprises. We should go back to what we had in the late 50s and early 60s: a 90% top tier rate.

Of course this tier should start at the $1M level, not at the low level our top tier starts now, and there should be additional highly taxed tiers for those making making over 6 figures. Once execs know that short term bonus gathering activity is only going to enrich Uncle Sam, then the only game left at that level worth playing is growing the size and employment grip of their enterprises - the long term game becomes the only one worth playing. The whole Reagan trickle down theory turned out to work exactly the opposite of what was (and is still by morons) claimed.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Deus.1.01]

For goodness sake.

I can certainly agree that the left/right mentality is a problem, but you CERTAINLY aren't helping defusing the mindset by throwing around terms like Marxism and Fascism.

Marxism isn't even an ideology...its an dusty old academic discipline, and as much I loathe the flag waving populists is see over there..they don't come close to the level of nationalism and militarism back then.

What I would call left/right( socialist/liberals(libertarian or whatnot)) haven't gone in any diverging or paralleled directions...they have met in the middle.
Social-democrats and social-liberals(freemarket with safetynests) are just being boring and arguing over details...there is no grand ideological battles taking place.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Cruxus]

Socialism is a broad term, but socialism often includes both economic and political elements. For example, Soviet-style socialism included a political system of local soviets that were represented inside larger state units until the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body in the USSR, was reached. Originally, this was meant to be bottom-up, but under the totalitarian system that developed, decision-making was largely top-down, especially under Stalin. Contemporary European social democracy takes part in the "bourgeois democracy" (in Marxist terms) of the parties' respective governments. Other forms of socialism place the organs of government directly in the hands of workers; factories and offices are freestanding entities, and people participate "democratically" via their employment.

Likewise, Italian Fascism and German Nazism included political and economic components.

Re:Focus Will Be On Economy

[Zebra1024]

So that should include people who work for the government, defense contractors, and people who pay taxes? How about senators and congressman? Everyone has a conflict of interest when it comes to the government that is why everyone gets to vote.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[O('_')O_Bush]

I think this falls under the, "stuff that matters", bit.

Using a battleship as a symbol?

[Mspangler]

Fine message to send. "My Party is an obsolete old rustbucket that went aground so hard it was laid up for years as they patched it together again. Oh by the way, it uses so much oil to get anywhere we can't afford to run it anymore."

On the other hand, maybe it is an appropriate message after all. And I say this as a Navy veteran and former resident of Wisconsin.

Re:Using a battleship as a symbol?

[fm6]

Yeah, battleships are expensive to run, but so is an aircraft carrier. There are no more battleships (the WI was one of the last ever built) because long range weaponry advanced, making smaller, more agile vessels a lot more effective for surface warfare. Which I guess fits in with your political metaphor.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[TheRaven64]

Its not remotely related to tech or topics that slashdot normally covers

Seriously? Have you been on a deep space mission and not read Slashdot since 2000 or something?

Pro Move, Romney

[Anonymous Coward]

So Romney, who has attacked Obama for having "no private sector experience" taps a career politician to be his VP. One with less executive experience than Sarah Palin, and one who has advocated for what Newt Gingrich called "right-wing social engineering".

Nice one, Mittens.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[icebraining]

Criticizing Mitt Romney makes one automatically an Obama fan?

I guess that's what happens when your mind is distorted by a de-facto two party system, though thankfully not every American has succumbed to this.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Anonymous Coward]

So Romney, who has attacked Obama for having "no private sector experience" taps a career politician to be his VP. One with less executive experience than Sarah Palin, and one who has advocated for what Newt Gingrich called "right-wing social engineering".

Nice one, Mittens.

So now they have two people, one with significant private sector experience and one with significant political experience. That actually doesn't sound crazy.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[sydbarrett74]

then bumbled his way to a $2 trillion dollar a year deficit

You conveniently ignore his predecessor's tenure, during which spending spiked to its highest-ever levels with two unfunded wars and more military and security spending than even at the height of the Cold War.

the U6 unemployment rate didn't spike up to 16% until after Obumbles was in office.

A delayed reaction to the financial meltdown which, again, happened on his predecessor's watch.

But don't let facts get in your way.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[SternisheFan]

Bush Junior inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's term. Obama inherited the mess of a deficit from Bush Junior. 1. We spent 804 billion dollars in Iraq and didn't even get a "thank you card"..or a drop of oil 2. We spent 90 billion dollars on reconstruction in Afghanistan to "win hearts and minds"...and they hate us 3. We spent 2.5 billion dollars sending CURIOSITY to MARS, a technological feat that set space exploration ahead 50 years, sent a message to the world that the US is still the leader in technology.... and will provide us with a wealth of scientific data for years to come. PLUS not a single life was lost, no buildings were destroyed, and no refugees had to flee their homes. It's time the US started spending MORE money building a positive image, making new discoveries , and advancing human achievement ........and spend LESS money trying to become the policeman of the world.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[fustakrakich]

...though thankfully not every American has succumbed to this.

Only about 98% of them, according to the numbers anyway.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[sleigher]

A previous poster said it well, "supporting either of these candidates makes one part of the problem in this country." I would have to agree really. If people really want to see our government run the way it was designed, with a return to personal liberty and responsibility, then we have to get away from the 2 parties. It really is that simple. The question is how do we get the media to stop presenting the 2 parties as the only choices?

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Eskarel]

Obama has been a useless sack(though most of the problems aren't actually his fault except in not actually doing anything about them). Health Care is about the only thing he's actually done right, and even that's not what it should have been.

Problem is, the Republicans don't actually want an election about the economy(mostly because their plan is going to do two tenths of fuck all to help anyone except the very rich and they don't need the help), instead they've made this election about a level of ideological war which hasn't been waged, since Jefferson put in the Alien and Sedition acts more than 200 years ago.

This election isn't about the economy, the economy is fucked, cutting taxes isn't going to change that and it's probably too late for any serious stimulus even if the economy was healthy enough in the first place to stimulate back to life.

Romney made this election about extreme right wing ideology in the primaries, and by choosing the poster boy of everything wrong with the Republican platform as his running mate he's made the general election about it. Now of course the ironic thing is that there is pretty much nothing he could have done to make it easier for Obama to win reelection than picking this knucklehead to run with, so who knows why he's done this. There's no President etch-a-sketch with Paul Ryan on the ticket.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Yvanhoe]

Hé! Germany! Bring us le popcorn! They are doing this election thing again!

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[bjdevil66]

Bush Junior inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's term.

Along with that surplus, however, Bush Jr. also inherited an economy from Clinton that was fizzling at the very end of Clinton's administration in 2000 as the dot-com bubble popped and the economy was starting to slide downwards. By 2001, the country was primed for a recession, and the 9/11 attack - less than a year into his presidency - pushed the economy over the edge.

Also, the undoing of the Glass-Steagal Act - a major deregulation of the banking industry which directly led to the financial collapse in 2008 - was passed under Clinton's watch.

It's time the US started spending MORE money building a positive image, making new discoveries , and advancing human achievement ......... and spend LESS money trying to become the policeman of the world.

We'll never really know what good those wars have done (vs. what would've happened with inaction), but in general I do agree that Bush's wars are a hard sell - especially the 2003 Iraq occupation. The price for forcibly putting a deomcracy up there was extremely high. And it is time to wind down the Afghanistan operations - that country's a mess. You can't force freedom and education on a people too afraid to stand up for themselves.

With that said, that excuse is several years old now. Look at now... 2012... and the balance sheet of the country. Regardless of the circumstances, the Obama administration has added $5,000,000,000,000 in debt in FOUR YEARS, and the economy - due to bad decisions by people over the last generation of business leaders and politicians - is as brittle and hollow as ever. When are people going to realize how much in perpetual debt service (i.e. interest-only payments FOREVER) was added during these four years that could've been going towards that "building a positive image, making new discoveries...", but will now going into international bankers' coffers? And what happens when those investors finally tire of the super-low interest rates government debt is currently paying out, and the rate HAS to go up? That's HUNDREDS of BILLIONS more... every year.

If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen, but his administration (and Congress) are not taking them seriously.

How many more years is this guy going to get a "it's Bush's fault" mulligan before just look at the budget numbers? They're unsustainable... If Obama is re-elected, and we go thorugh four more years of trillions more added to the debt, and still no long-term fixes to Social Security, Medicare, etc. is he going to still blame Bush and ask for a 3rd term - perhaps because that's what FDR needed? "Make no mistake... By 2020, I'll have the American economy evolving back into the superpower that it once was. China, India, and Brazil will once again fear our economic might... "

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[DesScorp]

A delayed reaction to the financial meltdown which, again, happened on his predecessor's watch.

But don't let facts get in your way.

Blaming it all on Bush certainly isn't letting "facts get in the way". It's downright dishonest. At what point, pray tell, does Barrack Obama ever become responsible for his own actions, ideas, and proposals?

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[DesScorp]

Bush Junior inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's term.

Dubya inherited a phantom surplus built on a tech bubble that went bye-bye, all on its own. The "surplus" was always smoke and mirrors... fake money created by a fake boom built on fake promises. Remember how much the stock for VA Linux... which owned Slashdot... went for? Remember how it dropped like a rock when investors realized there were no profits to be had? Yeah, that's your "surplus" in a nutshell. The "surplus" went away for the same reason that instant dot com millionaires were pouring lattes at Starbucks for a living shortly afterward; there was no "there" there.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Toonol]

One with less executive experience than Sarah Palin

So about the same amount as Obama had when he assumed the presidency?

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[fahrbot-bot]

If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen, but his administration (and Congress) are not taking them seriously.

On the other hand... The passing the actual budget is the job of Congress and it's impossible to do anything to reduce the debt and annual deficit and maintain a responsible community when one party chants only "more tax cuts - for the rich; less support - for the poor". Granted the Democrats are incompetent and uncoordinated, but the Republicans are evil and uncaring (unless your rich).

Both parties and all the Congress Critters should remember that their duty is to the Country first, all the people second, their respective constituents third and then their individual supporters. And by "people" I don't mean Corporations; I mean actual people. Sorry Citizens United, you're a bad law. In addition, Congress should do their job instead of letting Lobbyists doing it for them.

Of course, I could be wrong and everything is actually "peachy".

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[shutdown -p now]

And it is time to wind down the Afghanistan operations - that country's a mess. You can't force freedom and education on a people too afraid to stand up for themselves.

There are plenty of people in Afghanistan who are able and willing to stand up for themselves. The problem is that when those people do stand up, for some reason, the cause which they support turns up to be Islamic theocracy.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Anonymous Coward]

If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen, but his administration (and Congress) are not taking them seriously.

If the Republicans had made a half-hearted effort at working towards some genuine solutions instead of dragging out the same old proposals and automatically opposing anything the Democrats could come up with because it is more important that Obama fail than the nation succeed, your post might have some merit. The only way we are going to make a significant cut in the deficit is by raising taxes, particularly on those who are most recession proof. Opposition to that has become a religion among the Republicans, and somehow they have also convinced 50% of the people in the US that destroying the safety nets that they will likely need at some point (especially if we end up with Republican majorities in congress and Romney in the White House) is a priority. The Republican platform since 2006 has been a) cut taxes for the wealthy and b) cut regulations and social safety nets back down to the equivalent of what they were in say, 1928. We know how that turned out.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[fm6]

No, but there's some kind of rule online that I call the Palin/Obama Paradigm. Basically, it says that if you say something unkind about Sarah Palin, you have to listen to something nasty about Barack Obama. I don't know why this rule exists, but it definitely does.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Anonymous Coward]

> If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and [sic] curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen

President Obama pushed for a four trillion dollar deficit reduction plan. And he kept pushing for it over and over.

There was even a framework along those lines written by the bipartisan Gang of Six. Note that President Obama and 40 or 50 odd senators from both sides of the aisle expressed support for the bipartisan plan.

But thanks to the Tea Party, the supposedly "fiscally conservative" Republican Party rejected it and anything like it. So instead of four trillion in deficit reduction, we got stuck with only two.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[ralphdaugherty]

The question is how do we get the media to stop presenting the 2 parties as the only choices?

When there are more than 2 legitimate choices.

When there has been a legitimate third party candidate (Ross Perot, John Anderson, etc.) they were fully covered in media.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Kjella]

The republicans don't have to promise anything, the economy is so in the crapper people are ready to try something new regardless. If you look at the employment-population ratio in the good years it was 62%, sometimes over 63%. It started falling rapidly in mid-2008 and hit rock bottom in December 2009 with 58.2%, where was it now in July? 58.4%. Of course that includes lots of people that aren't in the labor force but it's more of a honest measure of the economic temperature since people lose their benefits, they get discouraged from apply for jobs, they start studies and other things to stall while they hope the economy gets better. Reality is that it's been at a permanent low for 3 years now with no real hint of recovery.

Politics in the US is a bit strange since it's two parties lobbing the ball over the same fence, it's more about what you do when you have the ball than keeping it - because eventually people will give the other party a shot anyway. So if they manage to win this election then great, they have the political backing for social conservatism and haven't promised any quick fix for the economy. If they lose, well then Obama gets another four years of struggling with a fucked economy that probably isn't going to help them win the next election. The last really long stretch of one party was during WWII, mostly it's 8/4 year ping-pong.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[khallow]

I see three problems with the above post. First, the people who actually use the "safety nets" aren't willing to pay the cost of them. We've established that the US public isn't interested in raising their own taxes high enough to cover the current spending. Sure, some of them just want the rich people to cover it, but it's damning that the middle class opposes raising taxes on themselves.

Second, there's just not that much value in employing developed world workers and it's going to get worse. The developed world relies on protectionist schemes to maintain the "safety nets" (such as agriculture subsidies and manufacture standards and regulations). But those aren't going to do much good as economic power shifts from the developed world to new power centers such as China and India. There's going to be a fall in the standards of living for the developed world (at least until the rest of the world's labor is more or less gainfully employed). Maintaining expensive "safety nets" (whose prime effect is to make developed world labor more expensive) accelerates that process.

Finally, it's worth remembering that "safety nets" are just the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire's bread and circuses. It's the bribe that got us where we are. If you want corruption and government power curtailed, you need to cut back on those "safety nets" as well.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[sleigher]

Really? The media consistently shows us that their are 2 parties and never even talks about the other parties out there. Maybe if they did they would become what you refer to as "legitimate." I suppose Ron Paul is not a legitimate candidate? The media wrote him off and treated him as a joke long before the primaries were over. The media presents 2 parties that are almost identical and calls it "Americas Choice $YEAR". They perpetuate the NO choice system that Americans live in today.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[General Wesc]

Sorry Citizens United, you're a bad law. In addition

The law that "Citizens United" is is the First Amendment. It may be a bad interpretation, but I'm personally a fan of the law itself.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Ksevio]

Obama grew the government less than the previous few administrations.

The reason the deficit increased so much is because of the recession cutting jobs and removing the tax income from those people. The problem is on the income side, not the spending.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[CowTipperGore]

With that said, that excuse is several years old now. Look at now... 2012... and the balance sheet of the country...When are people going to realize how much in perpetual debt service (i.e. interest-only payments FOREVER) was added during these four years that could've been going towards that "building a positive image, making new discoveries...", but will now going into international bankers' coffers? If Obama would've taken even a half-hearted swing and curbing the annual, national deficits, I'd listen, but his administration (and Congress) are not taking them seriously...If Obama is re-elected, and we go thorugh four more years of trillions more added to the debt, and still no long-term fixes to Social Security, Medicare, etc. is he going to still blame Bush and ask for a 3rd term - perhaps because that's what FDR needed? "Make no mistake... By 2020, I'll have the American economy evolving back into the superpower that it once was. China, India, and Brazil will once again fear our economic might... "

Fair enough, but what's the alternative? Are you assuming that Romney and Ryan will improve this situation? No politician who is willing to fix this has a prayer at getting elected in America.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[yester64]

Also, the undoing of the Glass-Steagal Act - a major deregulation of the banking industry which directly led to the financial collapse in 2008 - was passed under Clinton's watch

One of the things i never quite understood. Why?

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[yester64]

I just wonder. If Romney wins and he repeals the Healtcare bill, what will come in its place? I hadn't heard anything concrete from Romney on that.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[grandpa-geek]

"...since Jefferson put in the Alien and Sedition acts more than 200 years ago".

It was Adams who put in the Alien and Sedition Acts and Jefferson who ended them.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Areyoukiddingme]

Tens of thousands of sick people having their insurance cancelled by their insurance company, of course. Because repealing a law that would prevent it is tantamount to endorsing it, and people who are willing to make a profit off of the health of other people are almost the very definition of dickheads. Then they'll cut Medicare. If you can't afford to pay for your own healthcare, you are by definition scum that deserves to die in the street.

The current Republican party is a more outspoken proponent of economically based eugenics than any party in 100 years.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[phantomfive]

Now of course the ironic thing is that there is pretty much nothing he could have done to make it easier for Obama to win reelection than picking this knucklehead to run with, so who knows why he's done this.

Why do you think this? The people who hate Paul Ryan are those that wouldn't vote for Romney no matter what, and the rest of America doesn't know who he is.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Whatsmynickname]

NO it means if Obama and his minions are going to bring up Ryan's experience, then Obama's ""experience"" is fair game also. That's all.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Whatsmynickname]

Criticizing Obama makes one automatically an Mitt Romney (Republican) fan? I guess that's what happens when your mind is distorted by a de-facto two party system, though thankfully not every American has succumbed to this.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Dr Damage I]

There's nothing nasty about facts. Hypocrisy on the other hand...

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Eskarel]

I apologize, right conflict wrong side.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Eskarel]

Elections are, for better or worse, largely about picking up the middle ground. You can mobilize your base and hope you win that way, but for the most part, mobilizing your base is seen as a threat by the other side which mobilizes them making that a pretty awful way of winning. Instead you go and try to convince the folks in the middle left or middle right to swing towards you. That's why political parties tend to move towards a center point, which frustrating though it is, is actually the way that democracy is supposed to work.

When you're trying to win the general election, the very last thing you actually want to do is come off as being substantially off that center point.

Now you can argue that the center point of American politics has shifted somewhat to the right, and you could possibly be correct, but it hasn't shifted as far as Paul Ryan, who aside from being generally a douche, is also the poster boy and flag carrier for the ideology of Ayn Rand, which is about as far from that center point as you can actually get.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[erp_consultant]

You're half right. We do need to raise taxes. Our governments - Republican and Democrat both - have been spending like drunken sailors for years and it's caught up to us. But we also need to curb services and that means spending cuts. Simpson-Bowles got it right but their recommendations were completely ignored by Obama and he was the one that appointed them in the first place to look at this mess. Why? Because they were politically impossible for Obama to embrace. "Let's make the rich pay" sure sounds nice but the numbers just don't add up. That alone is not going to fix the deficit. The top 10% are already paying about 70% of all income taxes so there isn't much left to squeeze. The problem is that when you start talking about reducing services everyone starts flipping out because now it effects ME and not some nameless, faceless rich dude. Health care reform faces the same hurdles. The only way it can be economically viable for the insurance companies is if everyone pays into the system - healthy, unhealthy, rich, poor...everyone. But health care reform got passed without the individual mandate so it's going to end up costing a fortune.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[icebraining]

Fair game, are you serious? You people treat this like it's a sports match or something? Of course the experience of a candidate for President of a country is "fair game". Why the hell wouldn't it be?

And why exactly does "Obama and his minions" have to do with the AC who criticized Romney?

Seriously, you people have issues.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[betterprimate]

Something else happened between those two points: W's tax-cuts.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[roman_mir]

So you are saying that those 5,000,000,000,000 dollars should have been taken OUT of the economy with taxes? And how exactly does it work in your world, if the money that you earn is taken from you, so you can't reinvest? Inflation, regulations, taxes - NONE of this helps the economy.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Dr Damage I]

"What, I'm a hypocrite because I think Palin is an idiot and Obama isn't?

As Palin and Obamas relative idiocy hasn't come up yet, I can't imagine why you'd draw that conclusion. If you're going to condemn Republicans on the basis of a lack of executive experience, it comes across as hypocritical to whimper, whine and carry on like it's the end of the world when Republicans point out that prior to his election, Obama suffered from the same lack of experience.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[sydbarrett74]

Regardless of the circumstances, the Obama administration has added $5,000,000,000,000 in debt in FOUR YEARS

A big chunk of that debt is because the Obama administration ended the Bush-era practice of keeping the Iraq and Afghanistan wars off-budget.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[phantomfive]

Now you can argue that the center point of American politics has shifted somewhat to the right, and you could possibly be correct, but it hasn't shifted as far as Paul Ryan, who aside from being generally a douche, is also the poster boy and flag carrier for the ideology of Ayn Rand, which is about as far from that center point as you can actually get.

I don't think you've characterized him correctly. He isn't Randian, at least he rejects the worst parts of Randian philosophy, which is her utter lack of compassion. Besides, some liberals hate Ayn Rand, but most of the world doesn't care.

For example, the first comment I saw on Facebook about Paul Ryan was, "I'm voting for him! He sure is handsome!" Horrible, but this is the kind of thing that gives people gut feelings when they're voting. Secondly, he is intelligent. Check out this movie. That is, he does a good job sounding like he's intelligent. Third, he's energetic.

Try to look at him with a clean mind, since that's what most voters are going to do. What will they see? An energetic, handsome, intelligent guy. Compare that to Biden. Imagine Bush Sr. with that partner instead of Quayle.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Creepy]

Bush Jr also inherited a balanced budget and his tax cuts actually created the deficit, not the financial collapse. The coming but probably going to be avoided at the last second Taxmageddon would raise 8 trillion in taxes and budget cuts - far more than needed to balance the budget. At our current spending rate, our debt-to-GDP will be at 200% by 2037 (only Japan has worse than that right now - they're at 230%, mainly due to disaster recovery).

I blame both Republicans and Democrats equally for the current fiscal state of the country and for the imminent collapse of the dollar - neither side has been fiscally responsible. The world has already lost faith in the dollar, and twice this year has already looked into an alternate currency - the kicker will be if they switch to renminbi currency and the US has to buy yuan with pictures of a communist dictator (Mao) on the front. Makes me feel patriotic just thinking about it. Alan Greenspan's "we can't default because we can just print money" quote? Kick that shit out the window - now we have to buy money with another currency to pay our debt (and depending on how deflated the dollar gets, maybe with hard goods). After that, possibly the worst recession America has ever seen, rivaling the Great Depression.

  If you want a history lesson, look up what happened when Britain did the same damn thing with the pound sterling in the 1970s and their long, slow, 10 year recovery from it. It's time to cut up the President's and congresses credit cards.

The plan Ryan has to get us back in the black with a balanced budget will take 10-30 years (10 in Ryan's scenario, 30 by current projections) - that is FAR too late. I suspect the US economy will just start recovering from the first great 21st century depressions by that time.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Creepy]

ugh... his health care solution is a nightmare though (not that Romney will offer anything better - his Massachusetts plan was basically the same). Hopefully you're saying we needed one, which we did. I get a kick out of how Republicans forced him to add tax provisions into the system (to pay for part of it), then chide him for raising taxes. But the 20% profit max is bad for business, and inane parts like this and the provision where life saving drugs cost money but life ending drugs are free? wtf?

Here's a wonderful chart of Obamacare

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[ultranova]

The top 10% are already paying about 70% of all income taxes so there isn't much left to squeeze.

How large a portion of total income are they getting? Because unless it's a lot less than 70%, there's a lot left to squeeze.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[erp_consultant]

Sure, until wealthy people get tired of it and decide to take their money, and the jobs it creates, with them to somewhere else. We're seeing this happening in France already. It's happening here in the USA where we are seeing migrations of wealthy people from the northeast to places like florida, texas and nevada. What's the common thread there? No state income tax. Coincidently, job growth in Texas has soared in the past few years. I used to live in the northeast and I moved. You know why? I got tired of paying $12,000 a year in property taxes. This idea of lets just raise a little more money and everything will be ok is bunk. Politicians will spend every dime they get and when they run out they will borrow the rest. The only way to reign in the deficit is to control BOTH spending and revenue and both have to be done in a way the spreads it out evenly.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[datavirtue]

"No private sector experience" is just putting it in layman's terms. It's really called "no fucking clue about economics."

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[datavirtue]

$5,000,000,000,000 in debt in FOUR YEARS

Even giving in to the cheap simple notion that GW caused all of our economic problems, adding to the debt without creating massive economic activity (job swell) is not the answer. Watch some Sowell or Freidman videos on YouTube and get back with us......mmmkay

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Eskarel]

They'll see the man who said that Medicare and Social Security ought to be eliminated and put it into a proposed law last year. They'll see Mitt Romney endorsing said plan. They'll see Romney in office ratifying said plan(whether he would do so or not).

They'll see that because the footage of when that actually happened will be on every TV screen in America for the next 3 months.

Aside from the fact that Paul Ryan is, in and of himself a douche, he's also a boat anchor. I don't mind that he's a boat anchor since for all that I don't actually hugely mind Romney, and am not a huge fan of Obama anymore, Republicans cannot be allowed to win the presidency till they calm down and get over this rewriting the world shit.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[phantomfive]

They'll see the man who said that Medicare and Social Security ought to be eliminated and put it into a proposed law last year. They'll see Mitt Romney endorsing said plan. They'll see Romney in office ratifying said plan(whether he would do so or not).

Medicare is a third rail in America because old people will vote against you en masse if you try to get rid of it. Ryan/Romney have gotten around that problem by promising to keep Medicare the same for old people. Who else has an opinion on Medicare part D? It's a vague futuristic thing, most people don't care.

I don't know what you mean by 'boat anchor'.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[ultranova]

Sure, until wealthy people get tired of it and decide to take their money, and the jobs it creates, with them to somewhere else.

Money doesn't create jobs, it's just a logistics tool. Infrastructure creates jobs by allowing economic activity, but infrastructure needs to be paid for. So either whatever jobs you supposedly created stay right where they are so you can keep receiving their profit (in which case what does it matter where your physical person is, and besides why would anyplace want a useless parasite?), or you take them with you (in which case your new home will need to tax you just as much, so what's the point?), or you deprive yourself of income for the sake of principle - specifically, the principle that you should get all the benefits of a civilization without having to pay for it.

I used to live in the northeast and I moved. You know why? I got tired of paying $12,000 a year in property taxes.

So now somebody else owns your properties there and pays those $12,000. Or did you burn them as you left?

As a side note, it's kinda hard to sympathise with someone who's basically complaining that his share of the pie is so big that the maintenance costs alone are half a minimum wage earners yearly income.

Politicians will spend every dime they get and when they run out they will borrow the rest.

Yet this unchangable law of nature is apparently different where you now live in.

The only way to reign in the deficit is to control BOTH spending and revenue and both have to be done in a way the spreads it out evenly.

The problem is that what gets cut is maintenance, since the harm there takes a while to become visible, and often in ways difficult to associate with the source of the problem. For example, cut funds to education and it may take a decade before the quality of workforce begins to suffer; cut funds to road maintenance and it'll take a few years for them to degrade; cut funds to social programs and it takes a few years for the unrest to build to the level where there's open riots. And at that point it's someone else's problem.

The main difference between the US and China is that the US has better infrastructure, both social and physical. However, China's is improving and US's is degrading, and any spending cuts will only accelerate the latter trend. It's basically the same problem Greek is facing: if they cut spending, they enter an economical death spiral; if they don't balance their budget, they go bankrupt; and trying to get the population to pay more taxes is nigh impossible.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Whorhay]

I believe one of the primary things that changed was the seperation of church and stare... erm I mean Banks and Investment Houses.

Under the Glass Steagal Act banks were purely banks. They held cash savings for people and business while using that money to make loans to individuals and businesses. Because they are allowed to loan out more money than they actually have on hand they can be at risk of suffering a large number of defaults on loans and then not be able to meet withdrawl requests from cash accounts. This is why banks always seek to be FDIC insured, in order to obtain that they must abide by the federal standards designed to prevent them from becoming insolvent.

Investment Houses are similiar to banks. They were not however insured by the FDIC. They focused on growing the assets of their members. This meant accepting much higher risks when making investments. To obtain the desired growth they focused on trading Stocks and Commodities on the associated markets.

When the Act was repealed many of the largest banks and investment houses jumped into each others business whole hog. This meant that you know had banks with a lot of capital and less restrictions on what kind of risks they could take. What could possibly go wrong. Well for starters, how about bundling debts such as toxic mortgages into "investment vehicles", getting your pals to rate them as very safe investments, and then selling them on the open market.

I am sure there are many more things that got broken but this is the primary one that I remember and understand. I think it was Frontline that did an episode some years ago about how the markets melted down and the regulating agencies that had been effectively castrated for having the balls to speak up about the risks in the market. It struck me as very well done and showed that both major political parties were more interested in their gravy train than the health of the economy.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[oursland]

One certainly could in 2008, but that isn't true any more. He's been the President of the United States of America for nearly 4 years now.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[JoeZeppy]

F'in A. the last time I felt anythign like American Exceptionalism was between Apollo and the first Space Shuttle launch. Wheres the Manhattan project for alternative energy? Oh, yeah. that would be socialism, taking money out of the mouths of venture capitalists.

Re:Pro Move, Romney

[Magius_AR]

Undone by the Gramm(R)â"Leach(R)â"Bliley(R) Act. Passed with a veto proof majority.

And where do you think that veto-proof majority came from? Oh yeah, from the 84% of Senate Democrats and 75% of House Democrats that voted for it. But go ahead and keep your blinders on there. Bush is Satan. Republicans are evil. Yaddayaddayadda. At the least the majority of Republicans in office voted against TARP, despite it passing on Bush's watch under a Democratic congressional majority. But I guess that one is Bush's baby too, right?

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[sleigher]

Stuff that matters? enough said...

Doesn't make sense

[Ogive17]

Why pick a guy that appeals to those on the far right of the spectrum when you already know none of those people would ever vote for Obama....

Maybe Romney will try to paint himself as more of a moderate now?

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more about getting the far right to bother to show up on voting day. American politics is really more about energizing the base rather than trying to convince the near-extinct creature that is the swing voter.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Why pick a guy that appeals to those on the far right of the spectrum when you already know none of those people would ever vote for Obama....

To help give them motivation to go vote at all. Plenty of conservatives look at Obama and look at Romney and don't see a lot of difference (from their point of view). If it doesn't matter (to them) who wins, why bother voting?

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Rostin]

More of a moderate? I think the problem he's trying to fix is that he's already perceived as too much of one. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, Romney and Obama are practically the same, once you strip away all the silly campaign rhetoric. You're right that there's no danger of those on the "far right" voting for Obama, but that doesn't automatically mean that they'll turn out to support Romney, either.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Ogive17]

If it wasn't clear, I meant to say "never"... wups!

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Why pick a guy that appeals to those on the far right of the spectrum when you already know none of those people would ever vote for Obama....

Maybe Romney will try to paint himself as more of a moderate now?

I always thought that Romney (or McCain the last time) had chosen Colin Powell it would have been a much better strategic decision to fight the Democrats. You'd also be showing people that you were planning a split from Bush in many ways.

Of course that'd be logical, and not something the crazies that have taken over the Republican party would listen to. I think the GOP needs to go full retard/crazy and get their electoral asses handed to them a few times for sense to come back to them—I'm just worried that the lesson they would learn is not that they've gone too far, but haven't gone far enough.

Thankfully I'm Canadian so I only have to worry about the secondary effects of all this madness.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Lehk228]

romney wanted a VP pick who would make the tea party AND the democrats happy

Re:Doesn't make sense

[fm6]

Yeah, the far right will never vote for Obama. But if they think they're being ignored they might not vote at all.

There's also the matter of mending fences with the party leadership and other power brokers, who control money, volunteers, etc. All of them are solid far right these days. They were the ones that wouldn't let McCain have a moderate running mate.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[swb]

Why try to fix his percieved moderation now? As the parent poster notes, there's little reason to appeal to the social right at this point. Anyone with any skin in the game on taxes, religion issues, gun control or other hot button conservative topics was aleady voting against Obama no matter what.

There's been loose talk about religious conservatives "sitting this one out" due to Romney being a Mormon and not towing their line, but really? They have everything to lose from not voting.

Further, the blue blood business conservatives are already likely Romney voters because of Romney's history in the financial sector and business experience vs. Obama, although Obama has demonstarted a surprising (and frustrating) amount of restraint with the financiall sector.

Personally I think Romney should have gone with Rubio instead. It would have given him broader appeal and shifted the attention away from highly divisive issues. A female candidate would have been even more appealing in many ways. I think he's boxed himself in on the right and won't have the cross-over appeal he needs.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[The Great Pretender]

He just secured the ultra-conservative swing vote

Re:Doesn't make sense

[gtbritishskull]

Colin Powell would have been a terrible choice. He has lost most of his credibility because he was the Secretary of State under George W. Bush who helped to get us into Iraq (he claimed to the UN that they had weapons of mass destruction). So, either he is dishonest or was manipulated. I personally believe the latter, but either way he is not someone you want to be next in line to be POTUS (especially if POTUS is McCain because he would be more likely to die of natural causes because of his age). Though, he was MUCH better than Palin, but that is a pretty low bar.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[anagama]

And as a liberal, I have to say they're right. Sure there are some wedge issues here and there, but not of that matters if you've been assassinated by the president or thrown in a gulag till you die.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[gtbritishskull]

I think that Romney is just concerned about actually getting the nomination. I am sure you saw how much he got attacked over the past couple of days (by conservatives) over acknowledging that RomneyCare existed. This tax return issue is really hurting him, and I believe that if his poll numbers keep dropping and he does not release his taxes by the convention there is a very good chance that there will be a contested convention. Republicans really like Ryan, though, so having him as VP makes it more likely that Romney will actually get nominated.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[fm6]

What possible scenario has Romney not getting the nomination? He has 1500 pledged delegates, and only needs 1100.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[SolemnLord]

Yeah, the far right will never vote for Obama. But if they think they're being ignored they might not vote at all.

There's also the matter of mending fences with the party leadership and other power brokers, who control money, volunteers, etc. All of them are solid far right these days. They were the ones that wouldn't let McCain have a moderate running mate.

Those are all good reasons, and I just want to add one more: Ryan looks like he has a plan.

I might think that Ryan's policies would be about as effective as literally setting fire to the entire United States, but the fact remains that he's worked hard at outlining his plan and putting it out there. Romney has been on the defence his entire campaign, ever since he came out as the "one to beat" in the Republican primary. Bringing Ryan into the fold might make it look like he has an actual vision for his presidency now, and puts something up that Obama will have to respond to.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[gtbritishskull]

From hearing what the Ron Paul camp was planning, I think it is possible that the candidates that are pledged to Romney could "show up late" or possibly just not vote during the first two votes. Regardless, I do not know the rules but I can't imagine Republicans would set up their system so that they would be stuck with a candidate that they do not want. Just in case something comes out after the delegates are already pledged.

I hope that someone reads these comments who actually knows (and responds), because I would like to know for sure.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[MacGyver2210]

One more scumbag added to the roster so he can 'moderately' pocket even larger buttloads of cash.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[painandgreed]

Plenty of conservatives look at Obama and look at Romney and don't see a lot of difference (from their point of view). If it doesn't matter (to them) who wins, why bother voting?

Plenty fo liberals feel the same way.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[TheRaven64]

The delegates, as I understand it, are not required to vote in that way, they are merely expected to, just as electoral college voters (from states that have not amended their constitutions to force them to vote in line with the population) are, theoretically, allowed to vote as they please for the President. I believe the plan is for the collective wishful thinking of Ron Paul supporters to overwhelm them and make them all switch to Paul at the last minute.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[fm6]

You're wrong on both delegates and electors. State laws mandate fines for those who ignore their pledges. Though that's probably less of an issue than the fact that Romney's organization will have chosen delegates with great care.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[fm6]

Setting the entire U.S. on fire sounds pretty effective to me, though not in a good way!

Re:Doesn't make sense

[fm6]

I hadn't realized this "steal the nomination" scenario came from the Paul camp.If I had, I would have just ignored it with the usual rolled eyes that everything they do evokes.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Toonol]

More importantly, he just secured the Libertarian vote. Maybe that would just be 1%, but that can make a difference.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[smartin]

Colin Powell remains the only member of the Bush administration that I could have any respect for what so ever. I think that when he looks back on his tenure he must think, "how the fuck could I have gotten myself mixed up in that clusterfuck?"

Re:Doesn't make sense

[newslash.formatblows]

I assumed he picked Palin b/c the Dems picked Obama. He saw the other side (during the primaries) as choosing between a woman and a black guy. McCain knew he wasn't going to get votes from anyone who would base it on color by having a black guy as number 2, since number 1 on the other ticket was a black guy. That's why he picked VP LadyParts. He figured she would bring in some Hillary supporters who just wanted a woman in the office. That was apparently the only woman in politics he knew. If Hillary had won the Dem primary, he would have had to find a black guy he knew who was not smart enough to avoid the ticket (meaning no Powell).

Re:Doesn't make sense

[gtbritishskull]

Libertarian ideologies aside, the Ron Paul camp was very successful at using the Republican bylaws to get their delegates elected. I hope someone does a poll to figure out how many delegates are Ron Paul supporters, because it will be a much higher number than the percentage of the delegates he is supposed to have. He definitely did not get enough to be nominated, but based upon what I have seen I believe in their strategies when it comes to the rules.

Btw, I am not a libertarian or a Ron Paul supporter. And, I don't think that their use of the rules is going to make any difference because they just do not have enough votes. But, I think it would be a bad idea to ignore the strategies they came up with.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[fm6]

There might be a delegate here and there who's not beholden to the Romney organization and will only vote for him because they're required to. But I'd be very surprised if it's more than a handful, at least among delegates elected in primaries (which is most of them). You have voted in a presidential primary, right? Then recall that you didn't vote for any delegates by name, you just voted for a slate pledged to a candidate.. And the candidate's organization chose the slate! Romney's organization isn't brilliant, but I still think it's safe to assume that all their delegates are actually Romney supporters.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[Tablizer]

Colin did indirectly apologize for some of his role in hyping Iraq. He said something like, "I did make some of my most regrettable mistakes in making the case for Iraq".

Re:Doesn't make sense

[FiloEleven]

And the best thing all of those people could do is to get together and vote for a third-party candidate. It doesn't matter which one; only that the effort is coordinated to pick one. How many disenchanted voters are out there? Getting them all on board is a pipe dream, and I'm not suggesting that a third-party candidate would win. Remember how Perot caused a stir because he got 18% of the vote? Imagine what could happen if we got someone above 20%, especially if the effort was publicized as being a protest vote.

With those kind of numbers and a concerted effort to show people that third parties can be viable if enough people decide to stop voting for the lesser evil, and if other people who are dissatisfied with both big parties take the time to vote, we could foster the growth of a healthier, multi-party system. The presidential election is the worst place to try for a win, but it is the best place to ensure exposure to the idea. Sort of an, "If we can get this far in the presidential election, imagine what we can do at the congressional, state, and local levels."

Publicizing it as a protest vote should also address the concerns of people who don't agree with the example party's platform. Alternatively a new party could be created whose sole platform is to make the system more amenable to third parties--call it the New Blood Party or something. That would take years to set up, however. A protest vote if heard and repeated by the right people could be easily organized by the time of this year's election.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[FiloEleven]

Not this libertarian. The Ryan Plan still results in an annual deficit increase, and doesn't touch the bloated military or defense budgets at all. It may result in a balanced budget...in 30 years. Tea Partiers shouldn't like this guy either, but the Tea Party movement stopped being about taxes and monetary policy shortly after it was born.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[purpledinoz]

The US needs another major party, maybe call it the "Sane Party". Right now, it seems to me that the Democrats and Republicans are the same party, just differing on the smaller issues, but for bailing out banks and moving towards and authoritarian state.

Re:Doesn't make sense

[hazydave]

Maybe Romney will try to paint himself as more of a moderate now?

That was the popular theory up until the point at which he chose Paul Ryan. Mittens could easily have swung to the middle -- most of his actual far right talk has, after all, just been talk. That's not the way he functioned as governor. He would have had little trouble picking up fence sitters and those just tired of Obama.

With Ryan on the ticket, though, he's made something of a promise to the lunatic fringe of the Tea Party. And of course, ensure even more money from the Koch Brothers -- Ryan's their boy. No good can come of this, but it sure makes things more interesting. And I'd have bet good money that nothing Romney ever has or did in his life would really qualify as interesting. Well, maybe the way he transports his dog....

Re:Doesn't make sense

[hazydave]

He's got that weird flavor of US Libertarians who, like Ryan, idolize Any Rand, but couldn't tell you the difference between John Stuart Mill and a Wind Mill. But I think Romney had them, or at least those who don't toss away their vote on the actual US Libertarian Party.

Of course, like most fringers, Ryan manages to claim to be both an Objectivist (or something like it) and a way far right Catholic. I mean, he's on the fringe of that group... denies climate change, he's sponsored both anti-gay and Fetus Personhood amendments (yeah, to the Constitution) as a Congresscritter. His stand on personal freedoms would chill the blood of any real Libertarian.

The one thing I did appreciate about Rand... she understood there's no place for religion and other superstitions in a modern society. No good ever came of them.

As a Wisconsinite

[AngryDeuce]

I fine this particularly lulzy. I don't think he could have picked a less likable running mate.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[vlm]

Greetings fellow wisconsinite

Aside from the political talking points blather that I'm hearing a lot of, the mystification from a pure game theory approach is "why wisconsin"... instead of near anyplace else.

Last time around the 1%er candidate with the PR campaign of "change" beat the 1% candidate with the message of (damfino, maybe be a good quisling like me and the 1%ers will be nice to you?). The margin was 6 percent. I hesitate to suspect that Paul will win WI for the quisling party. Its not like the north side of milwaukee is going to suddenly vote for the white guy who happens to be from WI instead of the black guy, or down town madison hard core leftie types will change their spots either. But, lets assume a miracle occurs and the quisling party takes WI... that gives a staggering 10 electoral votes to the quisling party.

However the quisling party lost by 190-something votes last time... Now they'll lose by 180 votes if he wins WI. Hmm is the poison-Palin effect worth more than 180 electoral votes? I don't think so. On the other hand is the "Gordon Gekko" effect of the candidate worse than the poison-palin effect?

So Obama's getting a second term. Whats the phrase, something like "gonna win unless they find a live boy or dead girl in his bed" or something like that? Whats the tech effect of a second term, if any?

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[Trepidity]

I think part of the reason she seems more harmless and amusing now is that the likelihood of her ever occupying the Presidency has declined. Palin as political pundit vs. Palin as a person one McCain health problem away from the Oval Office are pretty different scenarios.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[AngryDeuce]

When she's not talking about politics, she actually comes across like a normal person for the most part. Paul Ryan, on the other hand, is almost as much a fucking robot as Mitt Romney.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[fustakrakich]

It's time to consider that this is not a serious candidacy. The opposition is a facade that most people are still falling for. But man, an upset would definitely be a laugh riot. It would be like that panicky scene in the movie "Airplane" when the passengers were told there was no more coffee.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[Yeechang Lee]

Ah yes, the man who routinely wins a two thirds margin despite his district not having voted for a GOP president since 1984 is disliked by his constituents.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[DesScorp]

I fine this particularly lulzy. I don't think he could have picked a less likable running mate.

Plenty of your "fellow Wisconsinites" keep sending him back to office. So maybe... just maybe... the "lulzy" is just with you.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[Toonol]

Sarah Palin's website featured a gun's scope superimposed on a photo of Ms. Giffords, which inspired a mentally defective individual to shoot, injure and kill innocent people.

Nope. Palin did have a 'defeat these candidates' map with crosshairs (as did other people of both parties). However, the idea that the shooter ever saw that map, much less was inspired by it, is purely a concoction of some pundits hoping to influence a gullible public and seize political advantage from the tragedy. It evidently worked; you believed it.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[Toonol]

Really? I'd vastly prefer Ryan as president over Obama OR Romney.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[brokeninside]

Yeah, even the man who put Palin on McCain's radar, Steve Schmidt, has apologized for his role in the affair and has obvserved that some things are worse than losing such as putting someone as obviously as unfit to hold office as Palin in a position where she could conceivably end up in the oval office.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[scot4875]

Obama was hardly a 1%-er last time around; he's still not particularly wealthy as far as presidential candidates go. And most of his money came from book sales. As in, something he actually did himself.

On the other hand, we've had rich, entitled white boys running on the Republican ticket for the last 2 decades. The Bushes, McCain, and Romney come from long lines of wealthy families and have absolutely no clue what it's like for, you know, us average people.

--Jeremy

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[LynnwoodRooster]

In 2009, an AGI of $1.3 million put you in the top 1%. With an income of $5.5 million in 2009 Barak Obama was most certainly well in the 1%er category.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[Bartles]

How does John Kerry and Al Gore fit into that mix? As a Wisconsinite did you ever vote for Herb Kohl? Although he is self made, give him props for that.

Re:As a Wisconsinite

[Z34107]

"Quisling"? First time I've seen a stealth Godwin.

Diversity

[zitsky]

It's disappointing that Romney couldn't find a diversity candidate, a woman, African-American, Latino etc. How does he expect to beat Obama in the election with this ticket? Saying the economy is terrible isn't enough.

For those that wonder how this article got on the front page, remember it's News for nerds, stuff that matters. I think a presidential election is something that matters.

Re:Diversity

[RLiegh]

. I think a presidential election is something that matters.

And you're wrong. The whole plan for the republicans is to lose the presidency, but remain an obstructive (or destructive) legislative force in the senate, congress and supreme court.

The whole race is just bread and circuses; even more so once you consider that both parties are right wing by any sane standard...

Re:Diversity

[ScentCone]

So you think that skin color or gender is what makes a person correct for a given job? Do you understand how absurd that actually sounds? I guess not.

Re:Diversity

[polar red]

consider that both parties are right wing by any sane standard.

+1 informative.

Re:Diversity

[Trepidity]

There was speculation that Romney would pick a woman as running-mate, but the problem is that too many high-profile Republican women are pro-choice, which is a disqualifying factor with the GOP base. That removes five of the best possible options of highly qualified, popular Republican women: Susan Collins or Olympia Snow (Maine Senators), Linda Lingle (former Hawaii Governor), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska Senator), or Jodi Rell (former Connecticut governor).

What's left? Well there are some who are way too far on the other side to be appealing to independents. Romney could've energized his base by picking Michelle Bachmann, for example, but it would probably not win him the election. Same with Jan Brewer (Arizona governor).

Once you remove the two categories of "too moderate" and "too firebrand", the remaining GOP women tend not to have much name recognition. Who else would he pick?

Re:Diversity

[LocalH]

Anyone who votes for any candidate at any level of government because of the color of the candidate's skin does not deserve to vote. Of all the criteria out there, skin color is the least important (and gender is right down there on the same level, not more nor less important).

Re:Diversity

[vlm]

It's disappointing that Romney couldn't find a diversity candidate

Show a little compassion to the mentally ill. He is a mostly neocon after all, or at least a fellow traveler, so obviously a complete nutcase.
Nothing personal but its kind of like those distasteful comments about Obama being only 1/2 white or whatever.

Re:Diversity

[bky1701]

Do you pay attention? The last thing the average Republican wants is "diversity" in their candidate. Most of them are still trying to justify that odd feeling they have Obama is not an American.

Re:Diversity

[DNS-and-BIND]

By what standard? The far-left standard? Jeez, if you're to the right of Mao Zedong you get tarred and feathered these days. Not to mention your bizarre opinions of the Pubs aspiration for the Presidency. How, pray tell, does losing help in the supreme court? The sitting President nominates new members. Of course, if you're a Euro-leftist (the only sane people left in the world), you likely have no idea of how the American system works. Give the Constitution a glance, it's a good read. Influenced by Europeans, it was, that should make everyone happy.

Re:Diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

By the standards that exist in all other nations on this planet. Republicans are being attacked and losing primaries for being moderates and compromising.

Re:Diversity

[Trepidity]

If it weren't for their disqualifying views on abortion, I think Romney might well have gone for someone like Lingle. She's popular, and would probably put a certain number of independents in play (even if not Hawaii itself). I don't see what Ryan adds really. Romney has more credibility on the economy than Paul "Medicare Part D" Ryan does.

Oh, and Ryan is Roman Catholic, not Jewish.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

Obama's politics place him -- from the European point of view -- somewere around Merkel, probably somewhat left of Cameron. Clearly to the right of Hollande. He is between the European Aliance of Liberals and Democrats and the Eropean Popular Party.

In Europe, to his left, you will find the German Socialist party, parts of the UK Labour, all the other members of the Organisation of European Socialist Parties. All the mainstream parties from the Nordic countries (except the nationalists, who used not to be mainstream).

Yet more to the left, and sometimes a significant force in national politics, there are Ecologists, Marxists, unreformed Communists.

Further to his right, basically, you have the fascists/ultra-nationalists. Which is where the GOP is.

So from the point of view of every one else outside the US, Obama is a somewhat right-of-center candidate, and Romney is basically Hitler. So yeah, we root for Obama.

Re:Diversity

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Yes. When it comes to formulating policy both foreign and domestic, having the point of view of someone who isn't white, upper class, heterosexual and non-transgendered might help when you're trying to figure out what to do for new orleans or maybe what to do in Myanmar.

Right now, Mitt Romney's foreign policy team is the old GWB foreign policy team. How the fuck do you fail that badly and still get to play? I don't even fucking know.

Re:Diversity

[anagama]

If you don't consider Obama to be right winger, you must then agree that GWB was not a right winger. Their policies are practically identical although in some ways, Obama is even more far right, for example, he just murders people by drone rather than indefinitely detaining them. Solves the whole pesky trial problem.

Here's my list of the similarities: nothingchanged.org

Compared to the Lilly Leadbetter Act that he signed (which was basically passed unanimously and is a one page tweak to existing law), there's some serious shit to explain if you are going to say Obama is NOT a rightwinger.

Re:Diversity

[Dyinobal]

The problem with picking Ryan, to focus the campaign back on the economy and away from Mitt's business record and his taxes is that Ryan has already tied himself to this 'Path to prosperity' plan aka The Ryan Plan which is soo radical and sweeping that parts of the GOP don't even like it. It basically guts any sort of social support system here in the USA at the same time making them a playground for private industry. Obama has already fought this plan and it isn't anything new. Obama loves fighting the extreme GOP because it is so very easy for him to win, with out having to say anything that would be viewed as too 'liberal' for moderates and interdependents out there.

So sure Mitt might pick up some of the more hardcore GOP radicals with this VP pick but those guys weren't going to vote for Obama anyway. To get the independents and undecided voters in the swing states he is either going to have to back peddle hard on the Ryan Plan, or flip flop like crazy

Heck Obama already has an attack add out on youtube targeting Ryan, they were ready for this joker and this keeps the campaign comfortably focused on what Obama wants it to be. On the extreme GOP ideas that look like more of Bushes failed policies. Bush might be no where to be seen these days in the republican scene, but to most voters it seems like he is still there in spirit. They don't call them the bush tax cuts for nothing

Re:Diversity

[codepunk]

For myself and many others there is only two things that count, the economy and jobs.

Re:Diversity

[jmorris42]

But I really don't think any of those names would survive even if they were hard core pro-lifers. We in the Party ranks are already swallowing hard to choke down another shit sandich forced on us by the establishment. A double RINO ticket would make it an easy decision for a lot of the base to stay just home. Seriously, we oppose Obamacare; so we are fired up for they guy who pushed the prototype?

And no, Ryan is loved by the base for taking on the budget problem. Other than being a 'businessman' what has Romney actually done on the budget problem? What has he even really said on it? Ryan has passed two actual budgets that show where he is wanting to lead. And we have seen it and saw that it is good. Pretty safe bet there is general satisfaction today out in the Republican base. Maybe not the sort of 'yee hah!' reaction from four years ago, but they should be ready to mobilize now.

> Oh, and Ryan is Roman Catholic, not Jewish.

You are right. I try to keep up with this stuff but there is just too much trivia to remember. Should use Google more. Oh well, still a 'minority' pick in that I don't think we have had one of them since JFK. Not that I particularly care about the personal trivia like that, I care more about their ideas and position than their biography or religion... unless they are the sort who make a big public thing about that sort of thing.

Re:Diversity

[Sponge Bath]

I don't think any post can more completely illustrate bky1701's point. Well done.

Re:Diversity

[khallow]

The original poster said "sane standards". The standards of the rest of the world are no more sane than they are in the US. It's just different sorts of crazy.

Re:Diversity

[gtbritishskull]

The big argument that I heard against Condi was that she was Pro-Choice. It is probably not the only thing that disqualifies them (probably just that fact that they are a woman is a major factor) but I do think it is a part. Especially since Romney promised to pick a VP that was Pro-Life (or Anti-Choice?).

Re:Diversity

[fustakrakich]

Of all the criteria out there, skin color is the least important...

Then why do all the candidates wear so much makeup before going on camera?

Re:Diversity

[Pascal Sartoretti]

So you think that skin color or gender is what makes a person correct for a given job? Do you understand how absurd that actually sounds? I guess not.

Of course it is absurd if you talk about doing the job. But not for getting it, unfortunately. And this is where Romney might have done a mistake...

Re:Diversity

[CptPicard]

A small point about Nordic nationalist parties; at least here in Finland, the "Finns" party (formerly "True Finns") is clearly leftist economically... they tend to be social-conservative otherwise.

The welfare state model is rather sacrosanct here, the only people seriously questioning it are genuine classical liberals, and they are not in parliament.

Re:Diversity

[kamapuaa]

Hitler comparisons? Aren't we past this?

Do Western Europeans ever get tired of holding themselves up as the measuring stick for the whole world? The whole "hundreds of years of brutal colonization and genocide" thing would seem seem to preclude this.

Re:Diversity

[MacGyver2210]

So from the point of view of every one else outside the US, Obama is a somewhat right-of-center candidate, and Romney is basically Hitler. So yeah, we root for Obama.

+1 OMFG can't stop laughing. So true, though.

Re:Diversity

[iluvcapra]

Romney is basically Hitler.

Let's replace that with "Franz von Papen" and avoid the Godwin ruling.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

Yes, and I was also unfair to Hitler: he actually had a sensible social plank to his programme (not the part which involved indiscriminate torture and killing, obviously). In fact, aside from the classical liberals, of which there are representatives everywhere in Europe, no party in Europe would dare have the economic and social policies of the GOP.

BTW, the so-called "classical liberals" in Europe are for some reason always focussed much more on the "keep gvt out of business" side of liberalism, and much less on the "keep gvt out of the bedrooms" plank. They are all-around hateful jerks, and thus never get elected anywhere. I guess they could follow the GOP lead and go all the way to "have the gvt tell you very intrusively what to do with your sexual organs", and thus become mysteriously more popular, despite being even more hateful jerks.

Re:Diversity

[khallow]

If you don't consider Obama to be right winger, you must then agree that GWB was not a right winger.

And why would I do that?

Obama is even more far right, for example, he just murders people by drone rather than indefinitely detaining them.

Killing people by remote control sounds pretty leftist to me. It avoids commitment of more serious military forces (such as infantry on site). A number of relative leftists got into major wars by doing similar tricks, such as supplying military hardware exclusively to one side in a world war (happened in both world wars) or providing military "trainers" (Vietnam).

Here's my list of the similarities: nothingchanged.org

Most of those items are merely authoritarian. They have no real left or right wing flavor to them. For example, increasing police and surveillance of the public appears in both right and left-wing governments. It's useful to government no matter what ideology is in power. And I see that the list misses big differences such as health care (merely because something benefits insurers doesn't mean it is the same), labor (the many actions of Obama that benefited labor unions, such as the bailouts of two of the three auto manufacturers), and the pro-green stuff (such as massive subsidies and loan guarantees to the renewable energy industry while sabotaging the fossil fuel industry in various ways).

The thing to remember here is an unprincipled politician isn't going to show his true stripes until he has a lot more power than Obama currently has, or less to lose. It may be very instructive, should Obama win a second term, to see how things play out.

Re:Diversity

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Do you realize that if someone applied the same theory of yours to select a _white_ candidate, he would be called Satan himself?

Racism is not only bad when it's against blacks. Anti-white racism is despicable too.

Re:Diversity

[volmtech]

For hundreds of years no one in the world did any unless Christian White males let them. We allowed Mao to take over China. We still have military bases in Japan And Korea. When India mastered western weapons they did get to be quite troublesome so is was best to let them go it alone.

Re:Diversity

[Nixoloco]

If it weren't for their disqualifying views on abortion, I think Romney might well have gone for someone like Lingle.

The crazy so-called "birthers" might take objection to her since she confirmed Obama's birth certificate was valid.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

Unlike the US, we actually got the whole continent in ruins during WWII, Had a whole generation wiped out WWI, had a pretty horrible ware in 1870, and Napoleon invented the whole concept of world war. And yes, we also did the whole colonisation and genocide thing.

Basically, historically, we are the worse bastards ever to grace this not-so-peaceful Earth. So we know, deep in our bones, all the horrible mistakes you can make. We've been there. You want an absolute yardstick of what not to do? Look at us. We are that absolute yardstick.

And if you are trying for worse, well, I sure hope you fail.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

But the reference would be lost on many. Papen is not nearly reviled enough for what he caused...

Re:Diversity

[iluvcapra]

I should have attached the wiki link.

Von Papen was a German intriguer, spy and Catholic Party politician in the first half of the 20th century, briefly Chancellor in the 1930s. He is most infamous for enabling Adolf HItler to become chancellor of Germany in his stead, by assenting to Hindenburg and Alfred Hugenberg in creating a sort of unelected junta government following a year where neither Von Papen nor Kurt con Schleicher were able to form a governing majority in the Reichstag.

Van Papen was a weak politician playing a weaker hand, like Romney. In order to consolidate his position, it was his bright idea that he could hire Adolf Hitler as Chancellor, buying off his seats in the Reichstag, while he, Hugenberg and Hindenburg pulled Hitler's strings, with them as a super-executive council and Hitler as the head of the Reichstag as a rubber-stamp body. Things obviously didn't work out that way, and when he belatedly spoke out against the Nazis he was nearly killed by the SS.

Re:Diversity

[phantomfive]

US operates on a different political spectrum than Europe. They're orthogonal. Measuring the US by what happens in Europe is as dumb as looking at everything in Europe through the Americo-centric lens. All it shows is that you don't understand what's going on.

Europe is different than the US. The US is different than Europe. The parties and politics are not comparable.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

Yes, more people need to know this. Hitler was never elected: the schemes of the ultra-conservative religious right put him in a position were he could seize all power.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

Bullshit. No one lives in a vacuum: the needs and hopes of everyone are similar enough. The politics of the US are very recognisable from Europe. We have those parties, except one of them would never go even remotely close to power. Not since the last war...

And there is a resurgence in the socially-conservative nationalist right in Europe. And it is worrying. But they are still far from power, though they have started to gain influence again.

Crises are bad that way. From your politics, one would think that the US has been in a state of economic downturn/stagnation, for most the population for a long time....

Re:Diversity

[ukemike]

even more so once you consider that both parties are right wing by any sane standard...

By what standard? The far-left standard? Jeez, if you're to the right of Mao Zedong you get tarred and feathered these days.

How about by the standards of the right wing just a generation ago right here in the good ole USA.

Reagan's tax policies and Obama's are very close. Broad cuts (or in Obama's case extention in existing cuts) in rates and closing loopholes for the rich. Obama's signature bill was his medical insurance reform act, was a slight mod of the early '90's Republican health care alternative to Hilarycare. Obama has continued extra-judicial detentions of bush, the domestic surveillance of bush, the wars of bush, and has radically expanded the extra-judicial assasinations via drone strikes that bush started. A generation ago it was unthinkable for any politician left or right to attack social security or medicare. The democrats, while still getting some support from unions, have completely abandoned returning that support. Obama is pushing a trade deal with So. Korea that like NAFTA is based on looney right wing economic falderol. Obama and Clinton's supreme court nominations only appear liberal in comparison to the new conservative justices. Kagan and Sotomayor don't hold a candle to any of the great liberal justices of the mid-twentieth century. Recall that Nixon signed into law the EPA, OSHA, and the Endangered Species Act. Hell Nixon didn't just sign the EPA bill, he proposed it! Obama has been a big supporter of big oil and big military spending. Obama has also done nothing to restrict gun rights.

In fact with a few exceptions the Democrats of today look a lot like the Republicans of 20 or more years ago. Those exceptions obviously include social hot-button issues like abortion/women's right to choose, and gay marriage/protect marriage. The other big exception is that Obama after his continuation of big bailouts and stimulus started by bush to save the economy from the freefall we were in, has been that Obama has actually tried to reign in the deficit unlike his borrow and spend republican opponents.

The reason that the US seems so politically polarized today is that the Democrats have only strolled to the right during the last 30 years while the Republicans have been sprinting to the right, while the people who haven't been infected by fox etc have remained mostly in place.

Re:Diversity

[CptPicard]

I suspect the reason why our classical liberals are "real" liberals is that the social-liberalism side in Europe is mostly taken care of already :-)

Re:Diversity

[mellyra]

Yes, and I was also unfair to Hitler: he actually had a sensible social plank to his programme (not the part which involved indiscriminate torture and killing, obviously).

He just didn't have plan to finance all of this other than plundering the riches (lol) of Eastern Europe.

Re:Diversity

[phantomfive]

Sure. They are similar, they all are based on democratic principles, after all. We fear and hate dictators.

What I am saying is, YOU are wrong in your conception of America. You've tried to fit America in the European mold, and ended up with something completely wrong. So if you've ever made fun of a dumb American who doesn't understand Europe, well that's karma coming back to get you.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

Actually, the plans for the Eastern European conquest were mostly about getting raw materials and arable lands. Social programmes mostly pay for themselves in social peace and better health of the workers.

Re:Diversity

[jmorris42]

> The big argument that I heard against Condi was that she was Pro-Choice.

Dunno, I kinda liked Condi when she was doing the NSC thing. Then Bush sent her to State and she failed. Instead of beating State into shape she went native and represented their positions to the administration instead of the reverse. Probably makes me a bigot or something, but I judge people on their performance; screwing up get ya major demerits with me.

Since she hasn't suceeded in anything since to cancel out her horrible State Dept run I wouldn't support her.

Re:Diversity

[digitalaudiorock]

So from the point of view of every one else outside the US, Obama is a somewhat right-of-center candidate, and Romney is basically Hitler. So yeah, we root for Obama.

As a left of center (at least left of what I consider the center) American, it amazes me that so many Americans don't recognize this shift to the right that's taken place in their own country. The right seems to be almost blind to the fact that someone like Reagan, let alone someone like Eisenhower, would be WAY to far to the left for their party today, yet they continue to pretend that they worship them. I just don't get it. In fact, Obama's record puts him closer to someone like Eisenhower than to any leftist...and these folks are calling him a Socialist...really????. I mean hell...is there even anyone left in U.S. politics at any serious level that's even in the same universe as, say for example, George McGovern???...not from where I stand.

I'll tell you what though...it's not flying with everyone. Almost every one of my family and friends who were hardcore Reagan Republicans in the 80s have ended up to the left of me amazingly. They're just dumbfounded as to what's going on there.

Re:Diversity

[IICV]

So you think that skin color or gender is what makes a person correct for a given job? Do you understand how absurd that actually sounds?

So you think that out of all the people who are qualified to be Vice President, the "correct" choice just happened to be a white, Anglo-Saxon male? Do you understand how absurd that sounds?

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

No. US politics are truly and objectively fucked up. This is not a misunderstanding. The policies of the two US parties have counter-parties in Europe. Their philosophical underpinning and rhetoric are not alien, we get them too.

They just happen to map to "centre right" and "batshit nationalist with no social plank". This is because the consensus on social issues is mostly what the Democrats hold true in Europe, whereas the position of the GOP is identical to that of our fascists/ultracatholics/ultranationalists/ultraliberals. For the exact same reasons (our country is the best/illegal immigrants/God/business is always right).

That a large part of the US population thinks those reasons are OK those not make them so. Broken logic based on flawed morals is wrong independently of the flag on your passport.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

There is actual data for that...

Re:Diversity

[DesScorp]

Further to his right, basically, you have the fascists/ultra-nationalists. Which is where the GOP is.

You had some decent analysis until you got to that part. And then you just blew your credibility right out of the water.

Re:Diversity

[Toonol]

I think that's just a talking point that's been overly repeated.

Think of it this way: There's very few objective standards by which you could distinguish left wing/right wing, but one of them could arguably be 'increasing the size and role of the state' and 'decreasing the size and role of the state'. By that standard, Obama is clearly left wing, and Romney would barely be right wing if at all. Also, by that standard, most European politicians of all parties would tend to be leftist.

The fact that Obama is not as far left as many leaders in other countries doesn't mean he isn't leftist, unless you can't abstract your view from your local perspective.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

You are arguing that the GOP is in a magical place, left of the ultranationalists, but right of the Christian Democrats? How is the GOP left of, say, France's Front National?

Re:Diversity

[Toonol]

Nah. Your history was no more barbaric than that of all the other continents. Asia, India...all home to atrocities. America escaped most of that history purely because it went from a stone age culture to post-Renaissance in one generation.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

This is true, but we are the only ones who did those things as industrial nations. Well, OK, not true, large parts of Asia did that too. We are the only ones who did that as industrial nations, as the continent was largely democratic. The democratic Weimar Republic turned bad. The democratic Italian republic turned bad, Spain and Portugal were democracies and turned bad. There were strong fascists parties in France and England and those countries could have turned bad. WWI was horrible, and democracies used combat gasses and sacrificed millions just like the central Empires. Colonisation by European powers was largely colonisation by democratic European powers.

    Guilt for horrible things is not the same when you basically voted for them, rather than merely followed some deluded Great Leader. The point is that we know that good is not an intrinsic property of democracies, and evil a property of dictatorships. This is a lesson yet to be learnt by the US.

Re:Diversity

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Did I say intelligence? I said point of view. There are a ton of straight non-transgender white guys that I'd trust to have the interests of us all at heart. Joe Biden, for instance.

Granted, but to have a better understanding of a particular group, say, what it's like growing up or being black, I'd rather get a black guy to do the job. Constitutionally there's not much for the VP to do other than to break ties in the senate and wait for the President to take it in the squash and ascend. So the VP spends a lot of time setting agenda and policy work. It'd be nice if some of that policy work went towards making life better for oppressed

The selection of Paul Ryan by the GOP and the RMoney campaign just shows that they don't have a fucking grip on reality. We have serious problems in this country. Putting the 'kill medicare' guy into office is kind of a huge joke.

Re:Diversity

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Sure, if whites were an oppressed minority, let's get a white guy to solve all the problems straight white males face for being straight white males.

But that's simply not a set of problems we as a people face. A straight white guy isn't struggling the same way a Haitian transwoman lesbian would be. Could it possibly be that the Haitian transwoman lesbian has a high powered job and the straight white guy is cleaning sinks for a living? Sure. But that instance doesn't change the fact that on average, the straight white dude is going to come out a head in terms of job seeking, college entrance and home ownership simply because he's white, straight and male.

We do actually have a lot of social issues for trans, gay, racial minorities and religious minorities. It'd be nice for the GOP to acknowledge that we even have gay, trans, brown people who might not be christian.

Re:Diversity

[phantomfive]

No. US politics are truly and objectively fucked up.

As they say, European people are closed-minded.

Re:Diversity

[LynnwoodRooster]

Right now, Mitt Romney's foreign policy team is the old GWB foreign policy team. How the fuck do you fail that badly and still get to play? I don't even fucking know.

Cool, so it's Colin Powell and Condi Rice? I guess you really don't like black people, do you?

Re:Diversity

[ScentCone]

It'd be nice if some of that policy work went towards making life better for oppressed

So you should be all for a guy who is laser-focused on reducing the country's aggressive debt death-spiral. Because the poor and down-trodden who've been trained for decades to expect someone else to provide for them are going to have the worst of it when get to the point where several people are living off of the taxes being paid by only one or two people.

We have serious problems in this country

Yes, we do. We have a government that spends wildly more money than it takes through taxes. Taxing millionaires at a rate of 100% of their earnings wouldn't even pay the federal deficit through the first fiscal quarter of the year, let alone touch the debt and the choking interest service we're all passing along to future generations. You cannot tax the economy into prosperity, and you cannot continue to dole out vastly more borrowed money without economic prosperity to back it up.

Putting the 'kill medicare' guy into office is kind of a huge joke.

No, the joke is you perpetuating that nice little lefty lie. But you know it is, so I won't bother pointing out the actual details. The most important one, of course, is that medicare is already dead. Do the math. It's falling off a cliff. The people who actually, really need it - the sort of people you seem to want to claim you care about - are once again going to be the worst-off as that corrupt, nonsensical, and bankrupt program fails and chases doctors away from it as fast as they can back out of the paperwork.

Ryan and his idealogical partners can't kill something that's already dying. Only reducing the rate at which it grossly wastes money can help it, and that's something that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have not only avoided doing, they crafted a law specifically to get around having to address it. But the math is unavoidable, and Ryan at least as the manners not to sugarcoat the issue and pretend - as you're doing, and as Joe Biden does whenever asked - that it doesn't exist.

Re:Diversity

[Areyoukiddingme]

Now that was a fascinating read. I used up my mod points last night, or I'd mod you up informative. Even if there's some degree of subjectivity in the process of ranking individual congresscritters on the scale, the aggregate would be hard put to generate THAT much shift.

And that's depressing. What a mess.

Re:Diversity

[ScentCone]

So you think that out of all the people who are qualified to be Vice President, the "correct" choice just happened to be a white, Anglo-Saxon male? Do you understand how absurd that sounds?

So what you're saying is that it's inappropriate for someone who happens to be the same skin color as most of the people who seek and hold lower offices to stick with that career and wind up in higher executive office after seven terms in congress? Your preference is to ... what? ... have racial quotas for who gets to be a congressional representative - based on skin pigment - so that later, when someone running for president wants to sift through the people that he likes, he'll have a more likely choice among different colors? Are you also going to use quotas to make sure that he's able to choose someone that shares his personal view of government's role in society and the nature of the constituation? How are you going to do that, exactly, based on skin color? Will you use quotas to ship more gay people from New York into Wisconsin so that there are exactly the right number of them running to represent a small Wisconsin district? Please, do go into some details, as I'm sure you've thought it all the way through. Will you be forcing some people to hold certain views so that presidential candidates will have exactly proportional choices from all shades of skin? Do tell! Specifically. Thanks.

Re:Diversity

[phantomfive]

Politicians pretend to worship Reagan because people liked Reagan more than they like current politicians. Furthermore, he can't talk, so they can claim he believed anything.

Worshiping dead people is a long, old, tradition, for exactly that reason.

Re:Diversity

[Bartles]

What are you, some kind of racist sexist pig?

Re:Diversity

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

So you should be all for a guy who is laser-focused on reducing the country's aggressive debt death-spiral. Because the poor and down-trodden who've been trained for decades to expect someone else to provide for them are going to have the worst of it when get to the point where several people are living off of the taxes being paid by only one or two people.

Yes, I'm voting for the guy who suggests we need to raise taxes on the top %2.

Yes, we do. We have a government that spends wildly more money than it takes through taxes. Taxing millionaires at a rate of 100% of their earnings wouldn't even pay the federal deficit through the first fiscal quarter of the year, let alone touch the debt and the choking interest service we're all passing along to future generations. You cannot tax the economy into prosperity, and you cannot continue to dole out vastly more borrowed money without economic prosperity to back it up.

That's a cute statistic. No one's suggesting we tax zillionaires at 100%. At most? 40 or 50. Also, proposals are to also reinstate multiple taxes including closing corporate tax loopholes.

As far as taxing the economy into prosperity, yes. We can. By taxing at 40~ ish percent. Which is what Obama wants to do. That with reducing medicare costs, the military budget and a few other cuts, should do the trick.

Paul Ryan voted for the massive Bush tax cuts. He also voted to go to war(Hillz also voted to go to war, but she also didn't vote for the Bush tax cut). He voted on a lot of things that totally buggered our national debt. Deficit hawk? Nope. Just chuck testa.

No, the joke is you perpetuating that nice little lefty lie. But you know it is, so I won't bother pointing out the actual details. The most important one, of course, is that medicare is already dead. Do the math. It's falling off a cliff. The people who actually, really need it - the sort of people you seem to want to claim you care about - are once again going to be the worst-off as that corrupt, nonsensical, and bankrupt program fails and chases doctors away from it as fast as they can back out of the paperwork.

Ryan and his idealogical partners can't kill something that's already dying. Only reducing the rate at which it grossly wastes money can help it, and that's something that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have not only avoided doing, they crafted a law specifically to get around having to address it. But the math is unavoidable, and Ryan at least as the manners not to sugarcoat the issue and pretend - as you're doing, and as Joe Biden does whenever asked - that it doesn't exist.

No, Medicare's solvent for another decade to come, and if we close the donut hole and increase the ridiculously tiny amount we tax on it, it can be solvent in perpetuity. If we didn't raid Medicare and Social Security to pay for tax cuts for the rich, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.

Taxes are at an ALL TIME LOW. Defense spending is also at an ALL TIME HIGH. (see: this.).

Cut defense spending, increase taxes, close tax loopholes and maybe stop picking fights with third world countries in wars we can't win. Obama's not receptive to the first part, but everything else? I'll take it. Romney's not even close to listening and Ryan's budget plan *increases* defense spending.

Re:Diversity

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

First, a person does not have to be (say) black to care about blacks. Despite what certain Leftists say, the world is not moved by selfish class struggle.

Nice strawman. No one's saying that. The opposite is true. Poor white people in the south and midwest are voting for guys who do not give a shit about their best interests. It's the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" problem. They're getting poorer because they're voting against their own interests.

Also, yes I've demonstrated there are a lot of rich white guys who genuinely give a shit about poor black guys. But maybe instead of being patronizing and letting the boring ass white guys run shit maybe we can get some people of color in the halls of power to make a few decisions. Or are you afraid that Louis CK's prediction that, "We[white people] are going to have to pay for this one. They're going to tie us down and fuck us in the ass." ? I guarantee that isn't going to happen. Just let a few people who don't look like the cover of an Osmond's album work on things that might actually affect them or their families.

Second, one thing is to ensure equal treatment before the law, and some positive help for the needy. Another thing is to ensure equal outcomes, which inevitably results in authoritarianism.

I can't discriminate against blacks, gays, transpeople or Muslims/Atheists/Jews/Fringe_Christian_sect_here! The horror!

Also, this is so fucking stupid. Yes, we have authoritarianism. We have centralized authority. That's the basis of modern law and order. I think it's gotten us a lot of wrong things, but it's also gotten us a lot of good things and wins only because we don't have a better options. Heaven for-fucking-bid we all have to play by some sort of social rules.

Third, the Left is horribly hypocritical when it comes to religious minorities. If someone smears a politician with accusations that he is Muslim, the Left jumps to support that politician, because Islamophobia has no place in America. But, on the other hand, if some politician is accused of having attended spiritual lectures at Opus Dei, then the Left yells, barks, and foams at the mouth with hatred.

Again, nice strawman. Show me ONE Democratic Senator who's called for the shaming of Opus Dei members? Or Quakers, Mormons, Shakers, 7th Day Adventists?

Granted there's a lot of *NUANCE* here. If you're attending a church that supports ending teaching of sex ed or evolution and then you go espouse that belief on the House or Senate floor, it's not that you're a Christian, it's that you're a member of a group that's using faith as a weapon in social struggles. Just happening to be Christian and just happening to be Muslim are two different thresholds.

Name ONE politician who's a radical Muslim calling for any number of the batshit things being said right now in the halls of power in this country.

Name. ONE. And name an OPEN and OUT politico who's calling for it. No secret muslim bullshit here. I'm willing to bet you're not going to find anyone on the level of notoriety of a Michelle Bauchmann, or Rand Paul, or any number of other batshit crazy Christian politicians out there.

Re:Diversity

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I suggested earlier that maybe Colin Powell or Condi Rice would've made for a better VP choice than the asshole who suggested we kill medicare and replace it with coupons.

No, I'm talking about Michael Chertoff and John fucking Bolton.

Source here.

Re:Diversity

[betterprimate]

You are not alone, my friend. I grew up in the midwest. My family having had been strong supporters of Eisenhower as well as friends to his family. Having also grown up in this political shift, it's perplexing. Since then, this increasing polarization of the current two-party political systems has since dominated the midwest and plunged society into derangement, self-isolation and denial. In the midwest, Fox News is to blame. The last time I was there, I remember a group of "rednecks" running around red at the point of heart failure, spitting vile and parroting sensational headlines. There wives had left them, they couldn't pay their rent, their hearts were failing (both literally and figuratively), they shopped only at Wal-Mart, had no concern of their neighbor. In short, they were the worst human specimens one could find; completely incapable of living and were certainly not "men". Yet, they funnel all their personal problems and project them into a "political" discourse. I'm now reminded of Hunter S. Thompson. I think he was on to something when he said, "The U.S. is having a nervous breakdown."

Re:Diversity

[betterprimate]

Ever seen a ginger lifeguard? Neither have I.

Re:Diversity

[Creepy]

The 1870 war... Franco-Prussian war with Bismarck vs Napoleon III, I assume. My (Hessian) great great grandfather fought in that war and after it left his wife and daughters in Germany and fled with his sons to America so they would never have to see the horrors he saw. He never saw his wife or daughters again as far as we can tell, but boxes of letters that my grandparents had kept still exist. Unfortunately for me, I don't have them and my aunt won't let me take them, even though I'm the only one that speaks and reads German (facepalm).

I don't think the Germany people should take the blame for WW1, as technically Austria-Hungary started it after blaming Serbia for assassinating Franz Ferdinand and Germany was honoring their alliance (though they didn't have to since Austria-Hungary was the aggressor - Italy backed out on those grounds, so yes, there is some at-fault, but it isn't directly Germany's fault). After being defeated, the Treaty of Versailles was a disaster, it assessed Germany a fee that would amount to about $450 billion in today's dollars (for a country that was basically bankrupt), took the most mineral rich land from Germany and gave it to France (the Saarland), gave chunks of the east to Poland and Russia... is it any wonder why Hitler repatriated the Saarland and attacked Poland first? Oh wait, Poland attacked Germany, lol (Poland's attack was staged).

As for WW2 genocide, how many people really knew about the death camps? Concentration camps were everywhere - America had concentration camps for Japanese and to a lesser extent Germans as well. Jews and gypsies had been loathed for generations in Germany because some had gotten rich off of usury, which was forbidden by the Catholic church (and even Martin Luther who founded the Lutherans was anti-Semitic, so it was pretty deep-ingrained). I'm sure there was lots of schadenfreude seeing them get shipped away that would turn to shock if they knew they were off to death camps. In a military like Hitlers, you probably took orders or you die as a traitor. I can't imagine being in such a situation, but I can see many people choosing their own hide over someone else's. That is why I don't blame guards at these camps unless they were malicious, but the party itself is absolutely to blame.

Re:Diversity

[ultranova]

Nah. Your history was no more barbaric than that of all the other continents. Asia, India...all home to atrocities. America escaped most of that history purely because it went from a stone age culture to post-Renaissance in one generation.

And almost the entire native population got slaughtered in the process. Not that said native population shied away from atrocities themselves either - the Aztec empire, for example, gave the term "death tax" a whole new meaning. And once it was dead the land left behind needed workers, which leads us to slave trade and all the horrors associated with it, the last of which still linger in your society.

Coming to think of it, that might explain why elevating US Founding Fathers to demigod status and advocating the nastier forms of Social Darwinism seem to have such a strong correlation in the US: an industrial superpower should still be governed exactly like when it was 13 agricultural colonies, and that means the strong should kill or enslave the weak, and in fact the weak should be kept from getting an education least they rise against their masters. Yeah, that explains a lot.

Re:Diversity

[SomeKDEUser]

My point is not the people were worse there and then. They probably were the same as now. However, the regimes and the rhetoric leading to atrocities in democracies is something Europe had the misfortune to experience. Thus the look of disbelief towards US politics.

People are not responsible, but they should know how to identify the kind of phony arguments that only lead to Bad Things Happening.

It's not that we are better: just that we already made a great many mistakes, and it does no one any good that they get repeated.

Re:Diversity

[Rakarra]

By the standards that exist in all other nations on this planet. Republicans are being attacked and losing primaries for being moderates and compromising.

You mean the standards in Western Europe and Canada. Just about all of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and some of South America would disagree with those drawn lines.

Re:Diversity

[Rakarra]

Basically, historically, we are the worse bastards ever to grace this not-so-peaceful Earth. So we know, deep in our bones, all the horrible mistakes you can make. We've been there. You want an absolute yardstick of what not to do? Look at us. We are that absolute yardstick.

I actually wonder what would have happened in the late 20th century if the Atomic Bomb hadn't been developed. What would Stalin have done? I'm not sure if you -could- have had a Hitler at that time.

Re:Diversity

[Magius_AR]

How about by the standards of the right wing just a generation ago right here in the good ole USA.

How is that fair? Times have changed, and significantly I might add...what we could afford them we can't afford now. It seems to be pretty common sense that the entire country would shift more towards the "fiscally responsible" side of the scale. It just so happens that it shifted Republicans from "we're willing to spend responsibly" to "we don't want to spend at all, cut cut cut!" and it shifted Democrats from "we want to spend like hogs on speed" to "we're willing to spend responsibly".

The other big exception is that Obama after his continuation of big bailouts and stimulus started by bush to save the economy from the freefall we were in, has been that Obama has actually tried to reign in the deficit unlike his borrow and spend republican opponents.

Umm, since when? He wants another huge stimulus: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/12/obama-pushes-billion-dollar-stimulus-plan/

And he seems only willing to pay for it primarily through tax hikes, instead of budget cuts. That's hardly what I'd call "tried to reign in the deficit". Regardless, how can someone take you seriously when spend several trillion dollars in three years and then offer a plan to cut the deficit maybe 100-200 billion per year for the next 10 years?

Re:Diversity

[ukemike]

It just so happens that it shifted Republicans from "we're willing to spend responsibly" to "we don't want to spend at all, cut cut cut!" and it shifted

Democrats from "we want to spend like hogs on speed" to "we're willing to spend responsibly".

You are suffering from a complete disconnect from reality. The last Republican President to spend responsibly was Nixon. Reagan, Bush1, and Bush2 all spent with complete irresponsibility. Reagan and Bush1 at least faced reality and tried to increase revenue to match the profligate spending. Clinton did a fair job at bring things back under control. Obama is doing a good job at doing the same but he is faced with the challenge of the worst economy since the 1930s. After the big stimulus of 2009 spending growth has slowed significantly. Look at the chart below.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vd2xLvW0CHc/TsWZiTKb9YI/AAAAAAAAOg0/IeMyHyUuo-Q/s1600/DebtChart.jpg

As far as more stimulus is concerned... stimulus is the only thing that works at times like this. The great depression proved this. Our current debacle proves this. I'm all for i t

And he seems only willing to pay for it primarily through tax hikes, instead of budget cuts. That's hardly what I'd call "tried to reign in the deficit". Regardless, how can someone take you seriously when spend several trillion dollars in three years and then offer a plan to cut the deficit maybe 100-200 billion per year for the next 10 years?

Another disconnect from reality. Excluding the stimulus which was needed to prevent a complete collapse and needed to catch us from the disaster left by Bush2, spending has been nearly flat. Obama's budgets have had substantial spending cuts. Not as substantial as some republicans want. But remember that those republicans only favor such cuts when there is a democrat in the whitehouse. The debt went up about 5.24 trillion during Bush2 and he never made any plan for reigning that in. During Reagan/Bush1 the debt, which had remained stable since WW2, more than doubled from ~2 trillion to 5 trillion (all figures are in 2000 dollars). So exactly how are we supposed to take republican claims of fiscal responsibility seriously? Have they offered an alternative plan? Oh yeah the Ryan plan: raise taxes on the middle class, slash the budget for everything except the military, let the deficit run wild, all to pay for huge tax cuts for the richest of the rich. That seems... irresponsible but entirely typical.

Yes we are in a pickle but the debt is not our biggest problem. Our real problems are real unemployment of nearly 20% and a society that works it's ass off and benefits only the rich while the rest of us are left to fight over the scraps, all while the scraps get smaller.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[axlr8or]

That's a nice try but I'll give you less intelligence than a chat bot if you can't get the context out of a conversation over a simple spelling mistake.

not a surprise, but not sure what to discuss

[Trepidity]

I don't see a real tech angle on this, and it's not even particularly surprising or that interesting from a political angle. GOP candidate makes reasonably "safe" GOP choice, perhaps leaning right, but given his current party, it's not like there was much elsewhere he could've leant. I was vaguely intrigued by a suggestion that Romney could try a gambit of picking a pro-choice moderate to win over independents, at the risk of really pissing off the Republican base. But I don't think anyone seriously expected that to happen.

Overall I think the pick is a NOOP; few people who previously disliked Romney are now going to be won over, and vice versa.

This will energize both sides

[Tony Isaac]

Republicans will be (mostly) pleased with Romney's choice, since Ryan has built up some street cred with them through his knock-down, drag-out fight with Democrats in Wisconsin. But Democrats see Ryan as a monster who must be stopped at all costs, and will likely be motivated to come out and vote against him. It should be an interesting election.

Re:This will energize both sides

[Sponge Bath]

...likely be motivated to come out and vote against him.

I hope so. Reading some of the comments on The Washington Post is disturbing. There seems to be a vocal group that thinks president Obama can now just cruise to victory. That's the kind of complacency that loses elections.

Re:This will energize both sides

[Nixoloco]

...likely be motivated to come out and vote against him.

I hope so. Reading some of the comments on The Washington Post is disturbing. There seems to be a vocal group that thinks president Obama can now just cruise to victory. That's the kind of complacency that loses elections.

We should direct them to the comment section of the articles linked from the Drudge Report. I'm sure the right wing nut job circle jerk over Ryan will rile them up.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Kergan]

"credit people" with a typo.

Wikipedia analysis was wrong

[Milharis]

Looks like the story from the other day about knowing Romney's VP from Wikipedia edits was wrong.
Wikipedia Edits Forecast Romney's Vice Presidential Pick

Re:Wikipedia analysis was wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The premise behind it actually seems like it has some truth to it. Just the wrong prediction.

Paul Ryan's page was edited 39 times on August 8 and 27 times on August 9. Before this, he was averaging about 20 edits per month for all of 2012.

Re:Wikipedia analysis was wrong

[fustakrakich]

The results always change when somebody observes them. It's not wiki's fault.

Mitt Romney introduces Paul Ryan as the next Pres

[Anonymous Coward]

Mitt Romney introduces Paul Ryan as the "next President of the United States"

And you thought the Win8 UI was ugly....

[gishzida]

This seems to be the political equivalent of Microsoft's forthcoming release of Windows Vista 2.0... Pretty, but dysfunctional... sleek but pointless, rich but morally and ethically bankrupt.

Re:And you thought the Win8 UI was ugly....

[gishzida]

Michelle Bachmann is that you?
"Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009

or is it Sarah Palin?

  "But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies." --Sarah Palin, after being asked how she would handle the current hostilities between the two Koreas, interview on Glenn Beck's radio show, Nov. 24, 2010

or Paul Ryan?

“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

but in April 2012 he said

“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan told National Review on Thursday. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas. Don’t give me Ayn Rand.”

Politicians... gotta love 'em...

Re:And you thought the Win8 UI was ugly....

[_Sharp'r_]

So your point is that he was influenced by Ayn Rand's ideas to get into politics, but that he's decided to stick with some of her ideals, but reject her overall personal philosophy?

Since I know of hundreds of other people, including public figures, that could describe, I'm not really sure what your point is. There isn't a contradiction in not being a Randian Objectivist while still thinking Any Rand made some good points about government.

Re:And you thought the Win8 UI was ugly....

[gishzida]

Actually I was responding to the absurd statement above it...

as for Paul Ryan... he's playing political games for political purposes... which is clear by the statements quoted. He does not say what he means and obviously does not mean what he says... I won't call him a liar because every politician believes what he says when he says it... regardless if it is counter factual.

Mr. Ryan chose to replace Ayn Rand with Aquinas... so here are a few quotes from Mr. Ryan's new favorite thinker:

on women --
"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power."
[This explains the Republican war on women's rights]

on liberty --
"By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments. "
[Because some are more equal that means they with the largest endowments pays less taxes and has more political clout]

on need --
"Man should not consider his material possession his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need."
[This last quote of course negates the Republican Party's philosophy and platform so Ryan will probably just pretend that Aquinas didn't say it.]

Re:And you thought the Win8 UI was ugly....

[kbolino]

You could also point to the irony of becoming a public servant because you were inspired by someone who derided "public service" every chance she got.

Re:And you thought the Win8 UI was ugly....

[DesScorp]

This seems to be the political equivalent of Microsoft's forthcoming release of Windows Vista 2.0... Pretty, but dysfunctional... sleek but pointless, rich but morally and ethically bankrupt.

Dysfunctional? Are you that much of a hypocrite?

Ryan worked for a long time on a budget, with a real plan, with actual numbers that he'll argue and defend. He has ideas. His opponents on the other side of the aisle... they don't even have the courage to produce an actual budget. How long as Congress gone without a budget? How long has the country been running on "continuing resolutions"? Four years now. Where's your criticism of that. I don't want to hear about "morally and ethically bankrupt" from such people. It's like getting a lecture on ethics from a mugger.

Re:And you thought the Win8 UI was ugly....

[airdweller]

"...he was influenced by Ayn Rand's ideas to get into politics, but that he's decided to stick with some of her ideals, but reject her overall personal philosophy?"
So, where exactly did he say that "he's decided to stick with some of her ideals"?
Paul Ryan:
"I reject her philosophy"? Mmm, no, not here...
"“It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview."? I don't see it here either...
" If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas."? Not here...
"Don’t give me Ayn Rand.”"? Ummm, look at that, not here either.

What a surprise. You and your four mods fail at reading comprehension and basic logic.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[axlr8or]

I get enough of this bullshit in the papers, TV, radio, diner, pamphlets, grandpa.... etc.. I come to /. to get away from stupid shit. Do you really believe this website is a peer on politics. Nope. Is it a peer in tech? Yep. Don't polarize this website with political prop.

Re:Mitt Romney introduces Paul Ryan as the next Pr

[Trepidity]

Perhaps Romney is simultaneously announcing his choice of running mate and his plan to commit suicide if elected.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[jamstar7]

Well, these maroons are liable to cut funding for any nifty science-y type stuff to zip zed zero, so I guess there's a geek hook in there someplace.

And yeah, I spelled 'morons' 'wrong', I'm channeling Bugs Bunny this morning. Need more coffee before these bozos make it illegal...

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Paul Ryan was picked because stupid people will think that he's Ron Paul.

Ryan is an Ayn Randroid! just like Greenspan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayn Rand also nearly worshipped a sadistic child murderer and mutilator. She called this man "ideal".... Ayn Rand's Early Inspiration: A Child Killer

This certainly belongs in the "you can't make this stuff up" category. As J. Brendan Ritchie, who flagged it for me, wrote: "Apparently Ayn Rand was heavily inspired by (and admired) a psychopath. Incidently, objectivism now makes a lot more sense to me."

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged , John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market , Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[icebraining]

The US is not the world, but they do have a huge influence over it.

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama did the same thing when he announced Biden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4QCcwJjk54

Romney introduces Ryan as the next President

[frank249]

Video of Romney introducing Ryan as the next president here. Later he comes back, puts his arm around Ryan and says he has been know to make a few mistakes. Great start.

Re:Romney introduces Ryan as the next President

[fm6]

Last week he repeatedly said "Sheikh" when he meant "Sikh". One of many WTF moments. I find it hard to understand why a guy who so thoroughly sucks at speechifying is even in politics, never mind the Presidential candidate of a major party.

Re:Romney introduces Ryan as the next President

[SternisheFan]

If Romney gets (s)elected like Bush jr. was, than like Bush jr., Romney will disappear from public view for his terms first several months, in order to be taught how to speak in public without sounding like a jackass. And I predict that, like Bush jr., it won't work.

Re:Romney introduces Ryan as the next President

[cashman73]

Somebody might want to check with the RIAA to see whether the Romney campaign properly licensed the use of the Air Force One soundtrack for their campaign. Recall in 2008 that several artists were a little ticked off when McCain started using their music in the campaign without talking to them,. . .

Re:Romney introduces Ryan as the next President

[airdweller]

It always amazes me how people smart in one field can be utterly uneducated and lame in a lot of others. I guess his high school and college didn't teach anything besides math and economics. Or, he's just not interested in anything that doesn't directly bring profit.

Re:but but but...

[vlm]

he he he's not black, female, or even Hispanic!

They're going to vote D no matter what you do, so the R can ignore them because they have no possible political use for them, and the D can ignore them because they're guaranteed votes as long as you make a speech or two. They're not politically important blocks.

None of the 95% of black people who voted for "O" will vote for anyone else, so why bother pandering to them. Now some white guys might change and vote for Ryan, thats why he's important.

Great choice for Democrats

[HangingChad]

Now the Dems can segue from pounding on Romney about not releasing his tax returns to pounding on Republicans about wanting to turn Medicare into a voucher program so rich people don't have to pay more in taxes.

Whoever decided to release this on Saturday should be beat with sticks. Had the announcement gone out on Monday, they could have owned the news cycle. Now the Dems will have their surrogates ready with a simple talking point that they can just keep hammering all the way to November.

The best thing I can say about picking Ryan is it was better than picking Sarah Palin.

Re:Great choice for Democrats

[Howard Beale]

Sarah was easier on the eyes, particularly if you muted the TV.

Re:Great choice for Democrats

[MacGyver2210]

Sarah Palin was at least humorously bad at politics. She provided unending entertainment during the previous campaign, and ensured (much like Ryan) that nobody would vote for the GOP's candidate.

Re:Great choice for Democrats

[MLease]

Easy on the eyes... really hard on the ears!

Re:Great choice for Democrats

[sideslash]

That's not really true. She spoke/speaks with a bunch of folksy mannerisms that are annoying after you get over the novelty of them. She was hated by the left, but actually energized some of the right. The more basic problem is that the top of the ticket (McCain) was not as appealing to the country as Senator Obama. But as a politician she is actually both competent and charismatic, which is how she got to be governor of Alaska. It is reasonable to conclude that she won the debate against Joe Biden -- probably most people who watched it would agree with me. She was articulate and on-message, whereas he flailed around and made stuff up (as he always does), including inventing a whole new foreign war from American history that nobody else had heard of. Ahh, Biden... you want to talk about providing unending entertainment...

Re:Great choice for Democrats

[whisper_jeff]

While I'm Canadian so the Sarah Palin choice was more entertainment than anything else (especially once Tina Fey got involved), I think I can safely say that a punch in the nuts is better than Sarah Palin... How _ANYONE_ seriously considered her for _ANY_ position in politics is a mystery to me. I think I'd rather have a bag of hammers in office than her.

Re:Great choice for Democrats

[Rakarra]

She was hated by the left, but actually energized some of the right

Only at the very beginning. It was an exciting time, but once that excitement wore off, so did Palin's political fortunes.

Challenge Ryan's economics

[Anonymous Coward]

Austerity is a death spiral that creates needless suffering at a time when govt should be fulfilling the Constitutional mandate to "provide for the general welfare."

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[Anonymous Coward]

people on foodstamps have better cars and tvs than you? god damn you must be one hell of a fucking loser!

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[mc6809e]

Austerity is a death spiral that creates needless suffering at a time when govt should be fulfilling the Constitutional mandate to "provide for the general welfare."

Providing for the general welfare isn't the same thing as providing individual welfare.

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[RoccamOccam]

Austerity is a death spiral that creates needless suffering at a time when govt should be fulfilling the Constitutional mandate to "provide for the general welfare."

Which might be an issue if "austerity" meant "spending less than the Democrats want". Luckily, that's not the case.

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[RoccamOccam]

Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current.analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year." Source: http://theclevelandcurrent.com/

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[MLease]

Never mind; it wasn't on the Current, it was at examiner.com

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[broken_chaos]

Actually it's very closely linked.

It's not in the best interests of society and societal stability (the general welfare) to have a growing underclass of people who are so poorly thought of and so poor that they would desire to tear the society down. Individual welfare benefits far, far beyond just the individual -- it benefits everyone in keeping society stable and prosperous, even for hard-line capitalists. After all, how can you be a capitalist if someone else is so unhappy with the society that's been created that they wish to murder you and steal your property?

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[kbolino]

The preamble is not a mandate, it is a statement of purposes. It does not override the rest of the document, which makes it pretty clear that the government's ability to end "needless suffering" is pretty limited.

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[Papeh]

Only if you assume all government spending can be lumped into one and that government spending magically means "more money" into an economy and thus more prosperity. An easy example is military spending. Sure, that 800 billion dollars employs some people, but if that money was never taken out of the hands of individuals, it would be spent on either consumption or investment. Those are actual wealth - a blown up bridge in the middle east is not.

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[LordKronos]

Assuming you are talking about the link that MLease posted to the examiner:

The first thing I see is that a big chunk of that minimum wage person's "income" is $16.5k for Medicaid and CHIP. That's not disposable income, as it never gets to the individual in the form of cash. It's merely the amount the government pays on behalf of the individual for that individual's health care. If you want to count this, then you also need to account for the employer paid portion of the $60k family's health care. His employer may be paying $10k or more for this.

And while we are including employer paid benefits, then let's also count any 401k matching paid by the employer for the $60k individual (whereas the minimum wage person probably doesn't have a 401k, and couldn't afford it if he did).

Next, I'm fairly certain that when we see "Payroll and Federal Income Taxes", that is going to include social security tax payments. Well, the $60k person is going to be paying a lot more than the min. wage person. Larger SS contributions while working is going to end up giving you larger SS payouts at retirement, so that's another advantage the $60k person has (though it is a deferred advantage).

So it's not nearly an equal situation after all, and those are just a few of the things I could think of after looking at the chart for 30 seconds. I'm sure there's a lot more wrong with it than this.

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[compro01]

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 is not the preamble.

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[Fulminata]

Emerich's stats are questionable to begin with, and even he has admitted that he used the term "disposable income" incorrectly. Source: http://www.tnr.com/article/82962/conservatives-economic-chart-fox-de-rugy

His response to the criticisms? His numbers come from free online paycheck calculators, and his conclusions are backed up by anecdote. Source: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/84160/disputations-welfare-emmerich-singal-de-rugy

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[j-beda]

I can't find the article either - though I did find this summation: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b2d_1327531142&comments=1

It doesn't actually seem to be talking about "disposable income", but rather what they call "total economic benefit". Basically taking the earned wages, subtracting the taxes, then adding all of the possible tax credits and program benefits possible. The $60,000 earner comes out to have a net calculation of a bit over $34k, while the $14,500 earner by this calculation has a net calculation of just under $38k. Even if accurate, this doesn't mean that this family has $38k to spend as they see fit, but rather that they qualify for things like Medicare (priced at $16,500 in this calculation) food-stamps, and school lunch programs, for example.

I don't know that it shows that a family would be happier to be bringing in the $14.5k rather than the $60k - mostly I think it shows how vital the support provided by medicare and other such programs actually is - clearly the low income family would no be able to pay for $16,500 of medical care without societal support. $60k for a family of four doesn't get you a lot these days, eh?

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[Toonol]

Why do people lose all rationality when it comes to economics? Slashdot posters who understand that the key to programming or engineering successfully is by rigorous and careful application of logic, seem to have no problem letting wish fulfillment take over when it comes to economic issues.

No, the government spending more does not correct the problem of faltering economy. The only way a government can spend more is by (1) removing money from the private sector, reducing spending by the amount they tax, or (2) increasing the money supply, devaluing all money by the amount they inflate, basically robbing from everybody with savings, or (3) borrowing, passing the debt plus interest onto future generations, thereby reducing all faith in their solvency.

Ryan is the only politician I've seen in many years seriously and honestly attempt to fix our fundamental economic problems, rather than just pandering with crowd-pleasing talking points.

Re:Challenge Ryan's economics

[MLease]

Bear in mind that I was merely posting a link to the article that the GP didn't bother to link to; I wasn't endorsing it. I was a lot better off in 2005, before my tech career imploded and I had to take a security guard job at less than a third of what I was making at HP in order to survive. So no, I'm not planning to regress any further and apply for a job at Mickey D's so I can have "more disposable income". :)

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"what the fuck is a "credit peole"?"

It was ( obviously ) a typo, but in this case it is also an intelligence test which you failed.

Wisconsin's policies were disproven.

[Bananenrepublik]

Interestingly the fight in Wisconsin lead to Wisconsin being distanced by the rest of the USA in what concerns job performance. See this graph which shows the total number of nonfarm employees in Wisconsin (blue) vs. the entire US (red). Note how in early 2011, when Wisconsin's job creation policies were enacted Wisconsin stopped following the upwards trend of the country. (Details: the graph is normalized to the 2009 numbers, any other pre-2011 normalization wouldn't change the picture; nonfarm to not be distorted by seasonal variations; employment numbers instead of unemployment to accoutn for people leaving the state).

I don't know how much of Wisonsin's policies Ryan could claim for himself, but it certainly looks like he shouldn't at all.

Re:Wisconsin's policies were disproven.

[MacGyver2210]

I don't know how much of Wisonsin's policies Ryan could claim for himself

He's pretty much been the bane of a normal, sane person's existence here in Wisconsin. You can give him credit for pretty well anything that dicks over people making less than a million dollars per year, gay people, public employees, farmers, teachers....yeah, he's just basically against anything that doesn't drive public money into the pockets of his backers. Gee, he's kind of like a younger, slimier version of Scott Walker. Go figure...

Re:Wisconsin's policies were disproven.

[Areyoukiddingme]

What's sad is the Republican base will claim that graph is falsified or manipulated.

Re:Wisconsin's policies were disproven.

[Bananenrepublik]

I'm actually surprised that there hasn't yet been a nuttish reply. Normally, if you post something like this you get several angry replies within minutes, especially if your post places prominently enough to receive a +5 moderation. I expected at least one answer claiming that people leaving the state is a good thing because the market is always right (never mind that it doesn't speak for the state and its policies), another claiming that all this is due to reduced government (as if that were an ends in itself), and so on. Repubotrolls today aren't as predictable as they used to be.

Far right? Oh please

[INowRegretThesePosts]

hy pick a guy that appeals to those on the far right

"Far right"? Don't demonize your political adversareis. This causes polarization, hatred, alienation and isolation. It also makes collabortation almost imposssible.
Paul Ryan is not "far right" any more than the DEM is "far left".

Re:Far right? Oh please

[blahplusplus]

" Don't demonize your political adversareis."

Actually they've demonized themselves, they hate anything to do with helping other people. They are demonized correctly. You Americans live in a bizzaro world of misinformation and propaganda, in short, you don't know which end is up. Anyone out-side your country knows your right wing politicians are fucking mad. The fact that you can't see what the world does is why the world is so weary of you people.

Re:Far right? Oh please

[Seraphim_72]

He is far right, get over it. You don't get to drag the marker of the middle to the right until you get to claim the middle. "This causes polarization, hatred, alienation and isolation. It also makes collabortation almost impossible."

You have never seen the left at all. Ever. I voted for every time and I happily told people that though I didn't agree with him even 80% he was as far left as I could vote.

"Don't demonize your political adversareis." You first. Call Rush and a sundry.

Re:Far right? Oh please

[INowRegretThesePosts]

He is far right, get over it. You don't get to drag the marker of the middle to the right until you get to claim the middle.

This is what the Left did! Early America was federalist. The average American citizen would never see a federal employee in their lives. The Federal government did practically nothing besides keeping an Army, a Navy, diplomats, and standardizing the currency. The currency was gold-based, meaning that it was controlled by the free-market. Banks were unregulated.

Today, federalism is very weak, and the federal government has pretty much taken over. The federal government has not only abolished the gold standard, but actually confiscated gold and legally forced every American to accept the paper dollar. Now, the federal government inflates the currency at will. The market is regulated. The tax burden is at 24%.

Clearly, the USA has stopped being Capitalist and became a mixed economy.

So clearly, the Left has moved the marker to the Left and now everyone who supports Federalism is considered far-right!

"Don't demonize your political adversareis." You first. Call Rush and a sundry.

You mean Rush Limbaugh? I have never listened to him. And don't give me "you first". Both sides have to do it NOW, without expecting the other to be the first. Otherwise it will never happen.

Re:Far right? Oh please

[bondsbw]

they hate anything to do with helping other people

And leftist politicians love helping other people? Oh wait, they love helping the majority of people, since a democratic society puts into power those that are loved by the majority.

The other side loves helping the people with the majority of money, since a capitalistic society puts into power those that have the majority of the money.

In the case of the United States, you have both types of society. And it's all about power, and who you pander to in order to gain more of it.

Don't demonize opponents

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Just my observation from being in the middle of Tea Party-Evangelical-vote Republican always-get that Black Boy out of the Whitehouse-Bible Belt.

There are legitimate grounds to oppose President Obama; it is disingenious to yell "SHUT UP you racist!" everytime someone criticizes bailouts or oppose federal medicine.

NOTE: I am not opposing federal medicine, just arguing that we should get over skin color.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[gtbritishskull]

I do believe that racism does play a part, but I do not think it is intentional racism. Some people are just uncomfortable with Obama because of his skin color, but I think most of them try very hard not to be racist. That is why the whole birther thing gained so much traction. It was a reason for them to feel uncomfortable with him that they did not think was morally wrong. Basically, I am saying that people do not want to be racist, but subconsciously they are. So, when the birther thing popped up they latched on to it as a way to explain their feeling of discomfort that was not racism. And, I believe this all happens subconsciously. Which I think is actually very significant progress. The racists (and I am not trying to use the term derogatorily but as a statement of fact) realize that racism is wrong and don't actually want to be racist. But, they can't help it because that is what they grew up with.

As an example, my fiance's grandmother is racist as hell. She just doesn't trust black people. But, if you call her out on it then she will realize that she is being racist and try not to be. But it is so ingrained in her that she will probably be a racist till the day she dies. It is one of those things that only time will fix (basically the old generations need to die and the new generations, who did not grow up to be racist, will take their place).

But, I do agree with you. There is no point in telling these people (closet racists) not to be racist because they are already doing their best. Really, the only way to fix this problem is to elect a few more black presidents. Because, over time, people will get used to it. Actually, the best thing would be for Republicans to elect a black president. Currently, any racists (against black people) in the Democratic party would have dealt with it (at least mostly) because they would have supported President Obama and had to come to terms with any discomfort. So, if the Republicans elect a black President, a lot of the racists will have to face their racism and will most likely get over it.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[INowRegretThesePosts]

! don't see evidence for your theory.

Regarding a black GOP president: that would be nice, yes. But remember that African-Americans are only 13% of the population, so, if you select a candidate based on his views, competence, experience and political skills (not his skin color), he is only 13% likely to be black (actually the chance is smaller, because I think Africa-Americans are still under-represented in the upper classes).

Anyway, Obama has massive support among African-Americans, and I bet there is a big number of DEM voters who are energized (and more likely to get out and vote) by the idea of a black President. So, Obama's skin color is at least "neutral", and most likely a positive asset.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[volmtech]

Uh, wasn't Herman Cain a black person? The Chicago machine trumped up sex charges against him, just like they did to Obama's previous opponents. Romney's so squeaky clean all they can do is make false accusations about his tax records. Besides that Obama is not African American, his father was pure East African, no American slave ancestry at all. And exactly who paid for his collage education and what where his grades like? He gets his opponent's records unsealed, maybe the Romney campaign can do a little unsealing themselves.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[iluvcapra]

I do believe that racism does play a part, but I do not think it is intentional racism. Some people are just uncomfortable with Obama because of his skin color, but I think most of them try very hard not to be racist... Because, over time, people will get used to it. Actually, the best thing would be for Republicans to elect a black president.

At this point, I don't think it's about race per se, but really about the positioning of "racism" as a political issue. Republicans would be happy with a black president today, what really bothers them is a black person (of any party) who claims that racism exists, or that it's any sort of problem demanding remediation.

Republicans aren't racists, the pro racists have moved on to the Right-Libertarian/Paleo persuasions -- not for ideology, but for the leadership. Republicans, people who vote the party ticket, are just casual about racism -- they don't think it's a problem, they think nowadays racism is all a big joke.

For black people in the US, institutional racism lives in their memory somewhere between the Roman persecution of the Christians and the Holocaust (and yes it was that bad); for most Republicans, it's just all a big misunderstanding at GET OVER IT ALL READY!

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[dkleinsc]

The example I tend to use to demonstrate the very real effects of racism are two election results, in Ohio, 2 years apart.

2006, governor of Ohio: Ken Blackwell (Republican, black) - 37% Ted Strickland (Democrat, white) 61%
2008, president of the US: John McCain (Republican, white) - 47% Barack Obama (Democrat, black) 51%
(In both elections, the remaining 2% was mostly split between the Green and Libertarian candidates)

The reason this is quite noticeable is that Blackwell and McCain have similar policy proposals and governing philosophies, as do Strickland and Obama. There was no massive demographic shift that could explain a 10% difference in the results. That leaves the explanation that the candidates' race had a significant impact, probably about 10%.

Your points are quite accurate: People younger than about 35 are far less racist than people over 70, and the reason is that they grew up after the Civil Rights Movement. Lynchings are extremely rare, and when they do happen they earn condemnation rather than approval from the community and the country. Politicians don't get up and give speeches like this. The KKK is tiny compared to what it once was.

It's also not a completely won battle. For instance, mortgage brokers were recently convicted of giving white borrowers a good prime mortgage rate and equally qualified black borrowers a subprime rate, and one of the effects of this is that much of the black middle class lost their life savings in the financial crisis. There's still a measurable and documented pattern of not hiring black people.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[Squiddie]

I don't understand why people keep asking about grades when the man graduated summa cum laude. You don't get that on poor grades.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[volmtech]

Channeling Harry Reid here, a friend told me Obama didn't attend all his classes. We need to investigate.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[Squiddie]

I used to skip class all the time and I turned out fine. Haha.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[gtbritishskull]

Herman Cain was not elected, or even nominated, and was also a joke. I don't think having a black man run for the nomination that was so obviously ignorant of anything that happened outside of the US and whose whole platform consisted of a tax plan with a catchy name did anything good towards getting people to see whites and blacks on equal terms. Its probably a move in the right direction, but I really wish they could have found a black person who actually had a chance of becoming president.

And, it doesn't matter where Obama's ancestry is from. He looks different from what people normally think of as a president (not an old white man) so they are uncomfortable with it.

Have you seen Romney's transcripts? I googled as hard as I could and was unable to find a link to them. Also, have you seen his birth certificate? Obama released his in June 2008, so we are already past that point this election cycle. I find it strange that you find the college transcripts so important for Obama, but are uninterested in seeing them for Romney. Could it be that subconsciously you assume that Romney did fine in college because he is white, but that you have reservations about whether Obama could get a college degree because he is black? Or are you just a partisan hack who just wants to protect Romney and dig up dirt on Obama?

People are so eager to see Romney's tax returns for the same reason they wanted to see Obama's birth certificate. They are uncomfortable because he is not like them. Obama is black (and from Hawaii). Romney is rich. They want to see more details because they are nervous that these people do not understand them. They are both (or both in their own ways seem to be) foreign to the American people. The Obama administration is just taking advantage of that with this tax stuff because they think that there is something in Romney's tax returns that will turn people against him (amnesty on a swiss bank account, extremely low tax rate, deductions on things that only rich people can use). But the basic demand by the American people to know their President is legitimate. Romney has every right not to release his tax returns. But I think the American people will punish him for it at the polls because they don't want to elect someone who does not want to be open and honest about his life.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[volmtech]

Let's put the focus back on the issues. the time for ad hominem attacks is over. What will the in coming president and his party do to strengthen our nation and pull back from financial collapse? Healthcare will also be a big concern. Both candidates have experience with mandated coverage. Demonizing the rich and confiscating their money might some people feel good and ad some extra revenues, but where will the trillions needed to run our government every year come from if all wealth is destroyed?

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[bennomatic]

Oh, it's intentional and overt. Not by everyone, I'm sure, but there are all sorts of examples, including the ever popular "Don't Re-Nig in 2012" bumper stickers, all the way to Romney's campaign advisor talking about how Romney understands the US's anglo-saxon heritage better than the current administration.

I'm not suggesting all tea partiers--and certainly not all republicans--are racist, but a goodly chunk of the electorate hated Obama from the word go. They profess doubt his birth locale; they emphasize his foreign-sounding middle name; they claim that he hates white people, for goodness sake. Majority or not, a lot of people come off as hating him for clearly xenophobic/racist reasons.

What's disingenuous (per the GP's post) is to suddenly decide that race isn't an issue just because a man with an African father was elected president. I look forward to the day when it's so rare as to be noise-level, when we can brush off incidents as if they were nothing. But that's not where we are; we're still in a place where we have to shine a light on it. When someone starts waving around nooses, you can't just say he's got hang-ups; you have to take the offered symbolism in the context in which it was created and intended.

Disagreement, schmisagreement. Obama just isn't that far off to the left. He's like Reagan for christ's sake. So when poor white southerners are suggesting it's time for a revolution if he get's re-elected, there's really only one believable reason for that sort of vitriol.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[bennomatic]

Herman Cain was, first and foremost, a joke. Secondly, with regards to the sex scandal stuff, no Chicago machine did anything; he had a long history of dodgy behavior that came out. Even if you only believe the stuff he admitted to--giving money to that blondie on an ongoing basis for years and years without telling his wife about it--you have to admit it's questionable. But most men don't just give thousands and thousands of dollars to some random woman because she needs it--especially without telling the wife--unless there's something else going on.

And as far as Obama not being African American, well, his father was African, his mother was American. I think that does actually make him African American. Having no slave ancestry doesn't mean that he didn't deal with racism as he was growing up.

As far as the other stuff, we're getting into silly season. I shudder to think who has enough mod points to give you an "insightful" rating on this comment.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[Reziac]

I'd say your fiance's grandmother is tribalist (ie. doesn't trust anyone who is Obviously Not From My Tribe) which is quite probably a normal human response bred into us by our very distant ancestors. Some of us have been raised or habituated to other races in "our tribe" but many people have not been. So they have that automatic and instinctive distrust of other races, even tho they don't intend to be "racist".

If she were truly racist, pointing it out to her wouldn't make her try to overcome her distrust.

BTW tribalism of this sort is not limited to humans; my dogs will NOT accept unrelated dogs, and when I had two unrelated bloodlines, they never got along.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[Reziac]

"And, it doesn't matter where Obama's ancestry is from. He looks different from what people normally think of as a president (not an old white man) so they are uncomfortable with it."

I don't think that's the case -- if it were, he'd have never been elected by such a wide majority of voters in the first place. Rather, I think now that we've had three years to experience him as President, we're finding that rather than being one of us, he looks down on us. Which isn't going to engender a sense of comfort with the man.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[riverat1]

You don't think Romney looks down on us?!!! He has never in his life had to mingle with the hoi polloi and is shows in his stiffness at campaign events. I'll bet he's far more comfortable at those $10,000+ a plate campaign fundraising events.

Re:Don't demonize opponents

[Reziac]

I haven't seen enough of Romney to make a judgment on that. But judgment against Obama is not necessarily endorsement of Romney -- who I don't consider the great answer either, but probably has more financial sense than Obama. (If only because Obama has clearly demonstrated that he has none, when it comes to other people' money. Romney could hardly be worse in that dept.)

[If the election had come down to Obama vs Santorum, I think I'd have had to vote for Chthulu.]

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[O('_')O_Bush]

There's a different between ignorance and apathy.

Strange...

[publiclurker]

They had no problems voting for white people when they were the best candidates in other elections. Seems like you are transferring your own bigotry onto others.

Re:Strange...

[dkleinsc]

2006, Ohio election for governor - the black Republican candidate lost handily 61-36%, drawing virtually no support from the black population in Ohio.
2012, Republican presidential primary - black voters did not overwhelmingly make the effort to support Herman Cain.

Deep Space

[neoshroom]

If he was, I think Ryan has decided to not being him back.

Paul Ryan proposed an additional 6% budget cut for NASA in the Ryan Budget so that he could increase DOD spending.

Sorry, it's more important that we kill each other than understand our place in the universe. Have a good day.

Re:Deep Space

[ArcherB]

If he was, I think Ryan has decided to not being him back.

Paul Ryan proposed an additional 6% budget cut for NASA in the Ryan Budget so that he could increase DOD spending.

Sorry, it's more important that we kill each other than understand our place in the universe. Have a good day.

Good thing that the president, and especially the vice president don't allocate spending. That's the job of Congress, which happens to be where Ryan is today.

So, the obvious solution to save NASA's budget would be to get Ryan out of Congress and into a position where he can not vote on funding. The quickest and easiest way to do that would be to elect him as Vice President.

Re:Deep Space

[neoshroom]

Your post makes no sense.

Romney would be much more likely to sign a Ryan Budget or a Ryan-like Budget than Obama would and Romney has endorsed the Ryan plan.

Re:Deep Space

[neoshroom]

And come ON, can you think of anything we as a species can do BETTER than kill each other?

Yes.

Re:Deep Space

[Lost Race]

Sorry, it's more important that we kill each other than understand our place in the universe. Have a good day.

Understanding our place in the universe doesn't cost billions of dollars. Just open the bible!

/satire
(not serious)

Re:Deep Space

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that the vp can cast the tie breaking vote in the senate right?

This has happened 200+ times.

I would post the link, except that I'm posting from my phone, and it is rediculously easy to wikipedia for yourself

Re:Deep Space

[Charcharodon]

Sorry, it's more important that we kill each other than understand our place in the universe. Have a good day.

That's why we should take the entire military budget and dump it into a new "Space Force", except for the Marines, we'll keep those guys they are bad ass.

Imagine what kind of space program the US could have with a $800 Billion budget, instead of $18B budget, and how much more time efficient it would be to bomb the "Crap-ic-stans" of the world from orbit.

Re:Deep Space

[wispoftow]

All financial bills must start in the House of Representatives. If you want to know who to blame for a particular era's problems, start there.

Yes, the President can submit a budget to Congress (the House). However, Congress can, in principle, totally disregard it and give the President something totally different.

What I have found is that the Democrats and Republicans are so often doing the same thing, that precisely which party is in control of the House doesn't matter.

Re:Deep Space

[ArcherB]

All financial bills must start in the House of Representatives. If you want to know who to blame for a particular era's problems, start there.

Yes, the President can submit a budget to Congress (the House). However, Congress can, in principle, totally disregard it and give the President something totally different.

What I have found is that the Democrats and Republicans are so often doing the same thing, that precisely which party is in control of the House doesn't matter.

You post is spot on except for that last part. Compare the difference in the economy between 2004-2007 and 2008-now. You'll see that there is a HUGE difference. For starters, the unemployment rate between 2004-2007 never reached 5%. Between 2008 and now, it has never reached BELOW 8%. The budget deficit during the 2004-2007 years never exceeded $500 billion. Between 2008 and now it has never fallen below $1200 billion.

What is the main difference between 2004-2007 and 2008-now? From 2004-2007, Republicans held Congress. In Jan 2007, Democrats took control of Congress. So, when you say that there is no difference, I beg to differ. Sure, both sides oppose fat kids and are pro apple pie, but when you look at the economic numbers, the difference is night and day... or should I say, boom and bust!

Re:Deep Space

[wispoftow]

You take all the fun out of blanket condemnation. :-) But there's no disputing your numbers.

Re:Deep Space

[dbIII]

Typically the position of Vice President is not worth a warm bucket of mild euphemism, but Cheney under a weak President managed to use it as a position of major influence. All bets are off now about what a Vice President can or cannot do.

Re:Deep Space

[jamstar7]

And come ON, can you think of anything we as a species can do BETTER than kill each other?

Depends. Do you include creation of 'Jersey Shore' to be better or worse than killing each other off? Or is it a dead heat?

Re:Deep Space

[Yosho-sama]

Every part of the bible referring to heaven or heavenly beings is referring to extraterrestrials.

Re:Deep Space

[skids]

These days, that is less pertinant: before a bill actually comes up for a majority vote, it usually needs to get past the 60 vote closure/filibuster process, on which there is no such thing as a "tie" for the VP to break. With the minority party dragging its feet so consistently, there are none of the "straight up or down votes" anymore.

Re:Deep Space

[pnutjam]

Just because the music stopped while the Dems were holding the potato doesn't mean the are responsible for the mess.

And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[mister2au]

Given 73% of Slashdot's traffic is non-US based (and the lack of cross-over between geek news and politics), surely this musters a giant yawn at best ??

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[deanklear]

The United States has 700 military bases in over a hundred countries, far eclipsing the military presence of any other nation. The rest of the world has no choice but to pay attention to the elections inside the empire.

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[mister2au]

Don't kid yourself ... 99% of the non-US population couldn't tell you which party Obama represents let alone what his policies are. There is that little difference between the left and right of US politics (in a global context) that the whole event is meaningless to us.

Likewise 99% of Americans couldn't tell you anything about foreign politics.

So thats a wash ... except 3 out 4 Slashdot readers are not American and not caring about US politics.

Interestingly have a look at TIME most influential list ... at a quick glance I see Bashar Assad, Vladimir Putin & Aung San Suu Kyi all more influential than Barrack Obama. And in case the penny hasn't dropped yet Shakira, Lady Gaga and Adele are also all more influential.

I don't know if your president are effectively hamstrung by congress or their own party or the electorate when it comes to international policy - but military aside, who was the last president to have real impact on the world stage?

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[mister2au]

For which I'm sure all the people without jobs, homes & healthcare are very grateful.

Anyway that brings the people that care to maybe some of 27% Americans + whoever is from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Uganda, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Georgia, Lebanon, Haiti, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Grenada, El Salvador & whatever 3rd world country is lucky enough to be next on the list.

http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/25/decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire.html

"Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out." We sense the "consummation" of the American Empire occurred with the leadership handoff from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.

Unfortunately that peak is behind us: Clinton, Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and all future American leaders are merely playing their parts in the greatest of all historical dramas, repeating but never fully grasping the lessons of history in their insatiable drive for "economic progress," to recapture former glory ... while unwittingly pushing our empire to the edge, into collapse.

As you sow so shall you reap !!

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[volmtech]

When the U.S. sneezes the world catches cold. Remember the global recession caused by our housing and banking crisis? The rest of the world has a big stake in political choices. Yes, we are still that important. At the rate we are going not for much longer but at least the next ten years or so.

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[bussdriver]

Parent post: It is nice to know there are some conscious people out there.

2020 is the expected downfall. Rome didn't fall in 1 day but it'll be undeniable around that point and surely some big event will be used to symbolize the fall (it will not necessarily the same symbol everywhere.)

The level of insanity continues to rise each year in the USA. I've been wondering who will become the scapegoats when things get really bad; just blaming the tiny short bursts of weak Democratic control of some branch is not going to be enough anymore (especially thanks in part to many "reforms" and rulings that make them more dependent on the SAME sources of money... but the charade will continue if anything just to appease the religious believers in the party their parents raised them to be in. )

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[marsu_k]

So thats a wash ... except 3 out 4 Slashdot readers are not American and not caring about US politics.

I'm not American and I do care about US politics. It's an infinite source of entertainment, it makes local politics here seem so boring. Everything must be as polarized as possible, it's always "us vs. them". And then there are gems like "not intended to be a factual statement" - as an outsider, that's 100% pure awesome. Were I American though I'd be quite infuriated, and for your sake I wish you'd have effectively more than two parties. Not that it would in itself solve anything, in the end there will be the government and opposition, so in a way "us vs. them" as well. But as the government will more than likely contain more than a single party, some compromises have to be made; instead of partisan bickering (which sadly will still exist, but perhaps not so much), politicians will have to try to reach a consensus. The result may be disappointing to all parties, but that's politics for you.

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[aaaaaaargh!]

I can't speak for other non-Americans but I personally do care for the elections. Romney would be as bad as Bush jr., perhaps even worse, and nobody wants that. We still haven't figured out how you could vote for Bush jr. two times, though. I have met many Americans in my life and all of them were nice, reasonable, intelligent, and voting for Democrats. I'm not kidding you, I have never met personally or heard of any personal acquaintance of a friend with an American who was even remotely a Republican, pro Bush, pro Romney, pro Palin, anti-abortion, fundamential christian, pro guns or any other things like that. What's even more bizarre, a friend of mine is living in LA and he told me that he never met such a person there either. As it seems, the US is not just divided into few rich people and many poor people, with a rapidly dwindling middle class, but also between the coasts and the countryside, and only the people at the coasts have occasional contacts with the rest of the world.

Perhaps it's time to split the country into two?

Re:And for the other 73% of non-Americans?

[Toonol]

Remember the global recession caused by our housing and banking crisis?

Triggered by our crisis is probably more correct. The root causes of Europe's economic crisis is entirely their own doing; it was going to crash sooner or later. The banking crisis in the US just pushed it over the line.

Take off the tin foil hat

[INowRegretThesePosts]

The whole plan for the republicans is to lose the presidency, but remain an obstructive (or destructive) legislative force in the senate, congress and supreme court.

Oh, it's a conspiracy.Are Jews and the CIA involved?

both parties are right wing by any sane standard...

WHAT? The Dems are progressives. They strongly adopted the values of the New Left (Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, Theoror Adorno).
To claim they are "right wing" is astonishing... What are your sources? Michael Moore perhaps?

Re:Take off the tin foil hat

[RLiegh]

Oh, it's a conspiracy.Are Jews and the CIA involved?

No -the RNC.

You know, the part of the republican party which is responsible for deciding it's platform and then 'conspiring' to achieve it?

You're new to this whole 'politics' thing, aren't you?

Re:Take off the tin foil hat

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Don't change the subject.

The subject is a hidden plan to deliberately lose the presidency.

I doubt that you heard this from an official GOP document. Likely you got this from shady source that claims clairvoyance; thus my "take off the tin foil hat" comment.

Re:Take off the tin foil hat

[TheRaven64]

I don't know if it's an official plan, but it's a good strategy for the republicans. Whoever wins now is going to be blamed for the recession continuing and will find it hard to win next time. Whoever wins next time (hopefully) gets to take credit for the recovery (assuming that the next president does a moderately competent job) and so will get two terms and their party should get 3-4 in a row if they don't seriously screw up. Now, the Republican party may be too stupid to realise this, but I doubt it.

Re:Take off the tin foil hat

[iluvcapra]

What the hell is wrong with Herbert Marcuse or Michel Foucault? Have you read any of their works?

Besides, I challenge you to point to one policy of the Democratic party that's attributable to Marcuse's An Essay on Liberation or Foucault's Discipline and Punish.

I suppose next you'll be telling me Agenda 21 and the American Jobs Act were the dying works of Jaques Derrida...

Not an imposter

[fm6]

some reports describe him as a Tea Party favorite, others as a far-right imposter.

The "imposter" link just proves that you can find a blogger to represent any idea, however absurd. The Tea Party isn't right wing? Please.

Re:Not an imposter

[LordKronos]

I think you misread it, because that statement doesn't imply the Tea Party is not right wing. It says some people see him as true right wing (thus "a Tea Party favorite"), while other see him as only pretending to be right wing.

Re:Not an imposter

[fm6]

In the second sentence he says that the TP was founded by people "of all political stripes". How did I misread that?

Re:Not an imposter

[LordKronos]

Sorry, it was I who misunderstood. I thought you were talking about the construction of that sentence, not the article that was linked to.

As for that article: Sorry. I couldn't be bothered to read it...it being TWENTY PARAGRAPHS OF UNDERLINED TEXT! Who the hell does that?

Re:Not an imposter

[fm6]

I myself didn't read beyond the first few sentences. Formatting issues aside, that was what made linking it in this particular Slashdot post stupid.

His intellectual hero is Ayn Rand.

[erikwestlund]

Ryan is the so-called "intellectual leader" of the Republican party. According to him, his intellectual hero is Ayn Rand. That is all.

Re:His intellectual hero is Ayn Rand.

[erikwestlund]

Just to add on: Multiple times I've been in situations where someone talks about Ayn Rand as an intellectual (or worse, a philosopher), and all those who actually read stuff have to kind of embarrassingly smile as not to shame the person. It's not even spiteful, it's just an embarrassing moment. Granted, usually the people in these conversations are useless slackers who sit around and read all day while collecting degrees (i.e., intellectuals). I guess this tells you what counts as erudition now, for better of for worse.

Re:His intellectual hero is Ayn Rand.

[sandytaru]

The Bioshock II game was a lot more fun once I realized the underwater city Rapture was actually a Galtian/Randian paradise gone horribly horribly wrong.

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

They get all "Brony" together.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[fustakrakich]

Maybe for a psychology geek learning what it takes to work a crowd. I mean, really, <rhetorical question> how is it possible these people get a single vote?</rhetorical question>

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[dreamchaser]

How the fuck is this news for nerds?? Its not remotely related to tech or topics that slashdot normally covers.

This does not belong on slashdot. Stop using this as your personal blog, timothy.

Now I expect this to turn into a left-wing bashfest. Commence.

The potential next President and VP certainly IS news for Nerds, since it will affect all of us one way or another, even if one isn't American. Unless you live under a rock, or your Mom's basement. Now shut the fuck up please :)

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Snarfangel]

Your modern world frightens and confuses me.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[dreamchaser]

You people all need to stop feeding trolls like axlr8or. You just give him or her the attention they want when you do so.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[sleigher]

I tend to agree with you, but evidently those who run the site think it's stuff that matters. Although I have to admit that I like reading all the political banter on /. Gives me some good laughs occasionally.

Re:Mitt Romney introduces Paul Ryan as the next Pr

[Missing.Matter]

We'll be seeing that on the Daily Show come Monday.

Media didn't mention that ...

[drnb]

Obama did the same thing when he announced Biden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4QCcwJjk54

Really, I don't remember the media mentioning that. :-)

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[tmosley]

Having supported TARP and government bailouts of car companies, I don't really know how you can claim that he advocates Ayn Rand. Perhaps you mean he invokes Rand and her vision of small government while actually taking on the role of a Randian villain?

Meanwhile....

[KalvinB]

Ryan's budgets and other plans consistently pass the house and are blocked from even getting a vote in the Senate by Reid.

This choice gives all Americans a chance to do what Reid doesn't want to allow: vote for Ryan's plans for America.

If 2010 is any indication, Romney just won the election with this pick.

Of course stupid people think Ron Paul

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Is the guy who invented Almond Joy

Re:Of course stupid people think Ron Paul

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Which is laughably wrong. Everybody knows that Almond Joy was made by that guy who sings "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane".

I think he also sang "Wreck of the Almond Fitzgerald", too.

Re:Of course stupid people think Ron Paul

[mallyn]

The problem with that is that Almond Joy contains high fructose corn syrup and I cannot eat that due to health reasons.

Re:Of course stupid people think Ron Paul

[Smallpond]

That was Duane and Gregg Almond.

Re:Of course stupid people think Ron Paul

[theshowmecanuck]

Now that was a real wreck.

Re:Of course stupid people think Ron Paul

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

And their other brother Daryl.

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[AngryDeuce]

Since he's a fan of Ayn Rand he might as well be called Andrew Ryan.

Ruh Roh! Looks like the romance has ended.

Oh, what a difficult thing it must be, to be forced to reject a person's entire philosophy because of their atheism, which has nothing to do with said philosophy at all anyway. I do heartily enjoy watching him swallow that bitter pill, though.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[AngryDeuce]

Nope, he rejects her because she was an atheist. He's always rejected her, didn't you know? All those words of praise in the past never happened, we all imagined it! We've always been at war with EastAsia!!

Be serious

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Using sarcasm only debases the debate.

The original subject: Paul Ryan is not far right. You only believe he is far right if you take your news from Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone or some other wacko.

PS: I know that Chomsky gave excellent contributions to linguistics and other areas; that does not change the fact that politically he is a wacko.
Gottlob Frege admired Hitler (yeah, Godwin), and his technical genius doesn't make Hitler-admiration any less crazy.

Re:Be serious

[shutdown -p now]

I have no idea who the guy is, so I went and looked on Wikipedia:

In late January 2010, Ryan released a new version of his Roadmap. The modified plan would: give across the board tax cuts by reducing income tax rates; eliminate income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolish the corporate income tax, estate tax, and alternative minimum tax. The plan would privatize a portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, and privatize Medicare.

If that's not far right, economically speaking, then I don't know what is.

Re:Be serious

[Bartles]

It's not far right, it's liberal, economically speaking that is. Apparently you dont know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism

Re:Be serious

[shutdown -p now]

Economically speaking, classic liberalism is on the right side of the political spectrum today. Again, pretty much everywhere.

Re:Be serious

[datavirtue]

Low taxes have ALWAYS resulted in more tax revenue. Show us an example that makes this statement untrue. Not that I agree with more tax revenue....

Re:Be serious

[shutdown -p now]

The plan in question is being derided because it is that stupid. No budget balancing plan that doesn't involve severe cuts to military spending deserves a second look.

Re:Be serious

[shutdown -p now]

Taxes were much higher than today when US economy was peaking in 60s.

Re:Be serious

[Deus.1.01]

you are comparing to a fiscal year with lower tax rates to the fiscal year that preceded it.

Ignoring the fact that economies GROWS, you use growth rate when comparing budgets...because just having more then last year means shit if the revenues doesn't increase in tandem with the expenditures.
Congratulation...you have yourself a deficit.

Re:Ryan is an Ayn Randroid! just like Greenspan!

[SternisheFan]

Thanks for that informative post, I never knew that. I tried to read Rand once, couldn't make much sense of her work. If what you've posted is true (I trust it is, but will verify), than she, like many of 'the greats' you hear the real stories about, was an easily impressed fool. Glad I never fell for her shit back then.

Actually the battleships are useful ...

[drnb]

Fine message to send. "My Party is an obsolete old rustbucket that went aground so hard it was laid up for years as they patched it together again. Oh by the way, it uses so much oil to get anywhere we can't afford to run it anymore." On the other hand, maybe it is an appropriate message after all. And I say this as a Navy veteran and former resident of Wisconsin.

Actually they are not so rusty. The battleships are quite useful in one of their historic roles and some of these "museum" ships are required by law to be maintained at a level that would permit them to be recommissioned should the need arise.

The role is shore bombardment. There is nothing like those big 16-inch guns for bombardment. Battleships basically own anything within 25 miles of the coast. Ask any U.S. Marine contemplating an amphibious assault on a contested beach, or who needs artillery support. Or consider a Syrian General in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley that made the mistake of firing on U.S. aircraft. A U.S. battleship put 16-inch shells into his command post. The Syrian officers who replaced this general and his staff moved the command post farther inland.

Regarding vulnerability. Consider that these ships were designed to slug it out with other ships of their class. Modern weapons were designed for ships with much thinner armor. After an Exocet missile took out a British ship during the Falkland Islands war the commander of a U.S. battleship was asked about his ship's vulnerability to the Exocet, Silkworm and other similar anti-ship missiles. The commander pointed out that the ship has 12 inches of steel armor and would take about 30 minutes to repaint the dent from an Exocet hit.

In her niche of shore bombardment the battleship still rules.

Re:Actually the battleships are useful ...

[Anonymous Coward]

A battleship is too much ship, too much money and too much crew to just lob shells 25 miles inland. A better bang for the buck is a smaller vessel standing off and plinking away with 5 or 6 inch gun with precision munition. For the occasional really hard target that might warrant a 16 inch shell would be better served by a LGB being dropped from an carrier aircraft.

The Exocet/Harpoon are dinky little missiles excellent for taking out corvettes and frigates. They wont sink a battleship. But they will easily mission kill the lumbering beast - no one has yet come up with armor for comm antenna or radar faces. But the real threats out there like Shipwreak, Brahmos and the new fangled Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles will hard kill the battleship quite well.

A battleship has as much relevance and use in the modern world as a horse mounted cavalry unit. Yeah there might be a niche role somewhere, but it is generally not worth bothering with.

Re:

[davide marney]

What a deeply ignorant opinion this is, in the best sense of the word. Hilter was an authoritarian. The right wing in the US is libertarian.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[dgatwood]

There's a different between ignorance and apathy.

Okay, I'll be the straight man and set up the joke. What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[jmorris42]

> If the tea party wasn't so dead stuck on tax cuts for the wealthy

And if YOU could get away from the Soros/Think Progress/CAP/Kos talking points you might realize we aren't for 'tax cuts for the wealthy' we are for either keeping rates WHERE THEY ARE AND HAVE BEEN FOR A DECADE or for a major overhaul of the tax code to reduce rates across the board in exchange for eliminating deductions, carveouts and loopholes such that it is revenue neutral on the static CBO scoring but will actually produce MORE revenue to the treasury, almost all from the 'wealkthy', from a growing economy.

> but when you want to cut medicare/medicaid, funding for schools and teachers

We are spending over a trillion more than we are taking in and Obama plans to do that into the forcastable future. That isn't a sustainable plan. And most of the spending growth is in the welfare state. Taxes at all levels (fed, state, local) are almost certainly on the side of the laffer curve where raising rates won't bring in more actual revenue and my team isn't into 'redistributive justice' so why in the name of hell would we want to raise tax rates? So that leaves cutting spending untl it matches revenues or making the tax base grow until it can support the spending. So lets hear YOUR plan. What do you want to cut? Or do you want to try inflating our way out? Or what? There aren't many choices available so please stop bitching about our choices and pick something to be for.

And screw the teachers. We have more than doubled per pupil spending in the last generation and test scores have went down. The best thing we could do for the students is fire the lot of em and sell off the infrastructure to private entities. At least some of them would succeed.

Or maybe Europe is leftist?

[INowRegretThesePosts]

So from the point of view of every one else outside the US, Obama is a somewhat right-of-center candidate, and Romney is basically Hitler. So yeah, we root for Obama.

That could also mean that Europe is dominated by leftism? When you find it normal to arrest a person for saying that "homosexuality is a sin", then you are quite leftist, yes?

People forget that the Left nowadays if very focused on feminism, abortion, affirmative action, immigrants; people think that a country is "right-wing" because it has private banks... They have missed the whole New Left development.

1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/7668448/Christian-preacher-arrested-for-saying-homosexuality-is-a-sin.html
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-12598896
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/7952526/Last-Catholic-adoption-agency-faces-closure-after-Charity-Commission-ruling.html

Re:Or maybe Europe is leftist?

[iluvcapra]

That could also mean that Europe is dominated by leftism? When you find it normal to arrest a person for saying that "homosexuality is a sin", then you are quite leftist, yes?

No. But no true scotsman, I guess. The British have a long tradition of freedom of religion, however, unique to them, they also have a long tradition of libel and harassment litigation. The British have also locked up people for the crime of harassing fox hunters. It has nothing to do with economic or civil right ideology, it's just how they feel about people yelling obscenities. We are of course, very different on this count.*

These are foreign countries and their ways are strange to us, I reject the premise of the thread that "leftism" is some sort of international movement or trend. There are parties, they advocate policies that appeal to their constituencies. That is all that can be said with certainty -- wether the UK Labor Party or the German Green Party is "leftist" or not has no meaning in the context of the United States.

* The guy in your article, however, sounds like a candidate for the Westboro Baptist Church, and I'm not sure most Americans would come to their defense if they got arrested one day

Re:Or maybe Europe is leftist?

[INowRegretThesePosts]

The British have a long tradition of freedom of religion

Actually, a lot of Catholic blood was shed there; not to mention marginalization and huge fines. Their tradition of religious freedom is not deep-rooted; it is recent.

The guy in your article, however, sounds like a candidate for the Westboro Baptist Church

What makes you think that?

Re:Or maybe Europe is leftist?

[iluvcapra]

Actually, a lot of Catholic blood was shed there; not to mention marginalization and huge fines. Their tradition of religious freedom is not deep-rooted; it is recent.

Recent on a geological timescale, but the Catholic-Protestant conflict in England proper has been pacific since at least the time of the US founding. America didn't have a Catholic persecution in 1600s because it didn't exist in the 1600s, not because it's better or different. The American colonies systematically practiced anti-catholic discrimination, and this actually continued in the US long after the issue in Britain was basically settled. Ireland's a whole other thing though ;)

What makes you think that?

Just an inkling. It's not really a part of my point, though, except maybe that in the UK, you're just as unlikely to find many who would defend the right of someone to obnoxiously defame a passerby with sin and damnation. Englishmen have a healthy anti-clerical streak Americans seem to lack.

Re:Or maybe Europe is leftist?

[Xest]

Ah yes, extrapolation, what fun. Obviously by the same measure, because America now decided everyone should have healthcare, it'll be communist by 2018.

It sounds like your beef is that you feel you should be free to be openly homophobic, but this is identical to suggesting you should be free to be openly racist, be free to be openly anti-semitic. That's fine if you believe that, but you're a far right minority, and your viewpoint isn't one shared by the vast majority of the population.

Note that every country outlaws some speech, some do it explicitly (like Germany and nazism, China and Tianamen square), some do it implicitly (like America bankrupting the Phelps, going after Assange/JÃnsdÃttir, abducting foreign Islamic preachers to guantanamo, ICE DNS seizures etc.). Ultimately America censors much like everyone else, it just has to pussy foot around it because it has to pretend it still cares about the constitution absolutely, whilst everyone else doesn't have this rather obscure situation, so they just explicitly state it instead.

In the UK we outlaw hate speech that is offensive based on race, disability, and interestingly, religion. It only makes sense therefore that homosexuality is equally protected, as it is, like race and disability, extremely natural, and certainly not something someone chooses like religion (which is why plenty of people change their religion without problem, but no one genuinely manages to change their sexual desires). For what it's worth homosexuality doesn't have the same degree of protection in the UK as religion, but it hopefully will soon as homosexuality is simply the latest fight for equal rights, just as there was a fight for gender and race equality beforehand.

For what it's worth regarding your original question "Perhaps Europe is just leftist?" the answer is no, because when you also look at countries like China, India, Japan etc. it's most certainly the US that is far to the right compared to Europe and the rest of the world, than Europe being far left compared to the US and the rest of the world. You can effectively use other nations as your point of reference and the idea that America is far right is the only thing that makes sense using a global frame of reference. Europe being much more leftist doesn't really make any sense, as where would that leave the genuinely leftist nations like Argentina and Venezuela, or the far left like Cuba and North Korea? In contrast, there aren't many nations that are particularly more right wing than the US nowadays, and certainly not to the degree that say Argentina and Venezuela are to the left compared to Europe.

Re:Or maybe Europe is leftist?

[shutdown -p now]

Recent on a geological timescale, but the Catholic-Protestant conflict in England proper has been pacific since at least the time of the US founding. America didn't have a Catholic persecution in 1600s because it didn't exist in the 1600s, not because it's better or different. The American colonies systematically practiced anti-catholic discrimination, and this actually continued in the US long after the issue in Britain was basically settled.

Your dates are wrong. Discrimination of Catholics in UK was pervasive, and not just in Ireland. Corporation Act of 1661 and Popery Act of 1698 was an English one, for example. It wouldn't be until late 18th century that those restrictions would start getting lifted in UK.

Re:Or maybe Europe is leftist?

[scot4875]

I am a converted AGW denier. It's a scientific issue, and the competent scientists have pretty much settled it.

You were wrong about AGW. Your posts in this thread have made it pretty clear that you're wrong about a lot more, too.

--Jeremy

Re:but but but...

[iluvcapra]

They're going to vote D no matter what you do,

Among latinos in California this was absolutely not true until someone got the lunkheaded idea of staking the entire party on Propostion 187. The Republican party in CA has been at 35% ever since.

It's not that Republicans are racist, it's that they mock and ridicule people who earnestly believe they're the victims of it.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[TheRaven64]

There are plenty of political forums to discuss non-tech stuff.

You mean like politics.slashdot.org, where this was posted?

Re:

[SomeKDEUser]

And they like intra-vaginal ultrasounds. Keep telling yourself lies, buddy: the US right is libertarian like I am turnip.

Clinton gave us econ crisis, Bush MSL Curiosity

[drnb]

Bush Junior inherited a budget surplus from Clinton's term. Obama inherited the mess of a deficit from Bush Junior

Actually Jr inherited the fake prosperity of the Internet Bubble and its popping, a popping that began under Clinton. Jr was then immediately hit with 9/11. Clearly the economy took hits that were not Jr's doing.

And despite this Jr managed a recovery of sorts within a few years. Something Obama seems incapable of. However then the Housing Bubble popped. And who authorized those Credit Default Swaps so critical to the current economic crisis? It was Clinton. Clinton not only authorized these financial WMDs but he also made it illegal for states to enact state-level laws that would regulate them.

It seems Clinton had far more of a role in the current economic crisis than Jr. Jr did not help with his spending however Obama is going far beyond Jr in terms of spending and that is also contributing to the ongoing crisis.

1. We spent 804 billion dollars in Iraq and didn't even get a "thank you card"..or a drop of oil 2. We spent 90 billion dollars on reconstruction in Afghanistan to "win hearts and minds"...and they hate us

And Obama continued Jr's war policy and exited Iraq on Jr's timetable.

3. We spent 2.5 billion dollars sending CURIOSITY to MARS, a technological feat that set space exploration ahead 50 years, sent a message to the world that the US is still the leader in technology.... and will provide us with a wealth of scientific data for years to come.

And the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity mission began and hardware and software mostly completed under Jr's term.

Re:Clinton gave us econ crisis, Bush MSL Curiosity

[phantomfive]

Actually Jr inherited the fake prosperity of the Internet Bubble and its popping, a popping that began under Clinton. Jr was then immediately hit with 9/11. Clearly the economy took hits that were not Jr's doing.

This is the thing. Most of the deficits under Bush and Obama, as well as the surplus under Clinton, were not primarily the fault of any of these presidents. Sure, in some ways they contributed, but theirs was a secondary contribution. The primary contribution is demographics....people are getting old, so they need social security and medicare.

Anyone who tries to put the blame or credit entirely, or even primarily, on a president is naive.

Re:Clinton gave us econ crisis, Bush MSL Curiosity

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a nice rant, but you're kind of forgetting about this little thing called "Congress" which is actually responsible for such things. You fuckwits need to stop pretending that the President is a dictator- yes he has power but not nearly as much as you people give him credit for. He doesn't get to pass laws, he only gets a chance to veto them, and that can be over-ridden. The fact of the matter is that plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle supported presidents on both sides of the aisle, they are all equally responsible for the mess.

You're being manipulated and falling for the Decoy while the actual assholes you're looking for go about their business in peace. Politics is NEVER as simple as "Person voted for/against law X", and most of the time what "law X" contains has very little to do with how it's billed in the media.

Re:Clinton gave us econ crisis, Bush MSL Curiosity

[drnb]

You're actually defending that clown JR??? Gimme a break!!

Nope. Just stating the historical facts.

"Likable" not working so well ...

[drnb]

I don't think he could have picked a less likable running mate.

Both Bush Jr and Obama are quite likable guys. How has electing guys for likability been working out?

Racism

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Basing your vote on skin color, ethnicity or sex is preposterous.

We should call racism for what it is.

Even blacks themselves would benefit by the end of anti-white racism. Because the victory over racism will only be achieved when race becomes a non-issue. As long as there are pundits saying that white politicians hate blacks, that the police hates blacks, etc., blacks will be distrustful of whites, will be consumed by hate, will be more likely to drift into crime, and will be over-represented in the prison population, in a vicious circle.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[newcastlejon]

What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?

Don't know, don't care.

Also, you forgot the social issues

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Economically, the DEM may be centrist by European standards.
But on social issues (abortion, homosexualism, etc.) it ties with Hollande.

People forget that the Left nowadays if very focused on feminism, abortion, affirmative action, immigrants; people think that a country is "right-wing" because it has private banks... They have missed the whole New Left development.

Re:but but but...

[beltsbear]

I wish that were true. In Maryland over 10% of blacks will vote republican over the gay marriage issue. Maybe not more then 20% but it could be enough to make a difference in other states. Black preachers are pushing hard on this one, some of them with money from the Republican party. In Maryland Obama will win but in swing states like Pennsylvania the republicans may win by less then 1%. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/08/nom-newest-anti-gay-marriage-front-man-william-owens

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[mallyn]

It's the new in-store credit card that will be issued by Walmart.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[iluvcapra]

And if YOU could get away from the Soros/Think Progress/CAP/Kos talking points you might realize we aren't for 'tax cuts for the wealthy' we are for either keeping rates WHERE THEY ARE AND HAVE BEEN FOR A DECADE

A decade of tax cuts which the cutters in question promised to end in 2010, because otherwise they totally raped the deficit, and doing so it was the only way to get them past the Byrd rule and passed under Reconciliation rules. And at that, only after Trent Lott had the first senate parliamentarian fired for not accepting their fairy-story economic growth projections (which didn't pan out, either).

We are spending over a trillion more than we are taking in and Obama plans to do that into the forcastable future. That isn't a sustainable plan.

See this is what the election is going to come down to. The Republican platform is now "Vote for us, or else we will become Greece." And whenever someone voices and disagreement, factually or otherwise, Paul Ryan will do what he's done his entire career: he'll climb up on a cross, demand the spikes be hammered, and declaim from on high "They are doing this to me because I dared tell the Truth!"

And I bet this will work. American folk history is filled with valorizations of people who are persecuted for speaking out, even when the guy speaking out is lying through his teeth.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

The left wing in the USA thinks that the government should control every aspect of your lives. The right wing thinks that this can be done more efficiently by the private sector. Both are authoritarian, it's just that your left wants to retain the illusion that you have some influence over your oppressors via elections, while the right wants to retain the illusion that you have some influence over your oppressors via marketplace competition.

Re:Lets get down to accountability....

[volmtech]

Every government expenditure should be posted on the internet. A few "black" national defense operations could allowed but that would only account for a few percent of the budget. A balanced budget and tax surpluses would quickly occur.

Hypocrisy

[INowRegretThesePosts]

OK, I'll bite.

Don't pretend that the original poster was flamebait. It wasn't.

That does sound absurd. But then explain why politicians are _overwhelmingly_ white

Not because of any active racism (which is quite small nowadays), but because African-Americans are less than 13% of the population and, additionally, they are still (probably due to inertia) under-represented in the upper classes.

male

Partly due to inertia, and partly because women are naturally (due to child-rearing) less likely to have stellar careers*, and people with mediocre careers are less likely to win an election in this money-focused society.

christian

They identify as Christians, but many of them don't practice.

. Why is it that you can _accuse_ a politician of being muslim?

The Left makes a huge hatefest when some politician is accused of having read some Josemaria Escrivá (founder of Opus Dei) book. That these same people complain about Islamophobia is a textbook example of hypocrisy.

* I'm not saying that women are bad politicians, or should be forbidden to work, or that they are all less talented. I am just saying that a significant percentage of them choose to be a housewife or to work shorter hours so they can care of their children, and this makes them less appealing as political candidates because our society is so focused on money and careers.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[ISoldat53]

"If only I had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won" - Mumford and Sons I Gave You My All

Wisconsin Strategy

[feidaykin]

Political pundits often claim that part of the reason you pick the VP candidate should be to help win a key state. Obviously that wasn't an issue with Palin in 08 since Alaska is dark red, but Wisconsin has been light blue the last couple elections, and with Scott Walker surviving his recall election here, perhaps Romney is hoping Ryan will help flip the state red? As a native Wisconsinite I don't think it's too likely... The state hasn't gone red that often, in fact you'd have to go back to 1984 to find Wisconsin flipping red in a Presidential election. Still, past performance isn't always a guarantee and the Romney team might feel energized by Walker's recall victory. Then again it could just be that Romney is afraid the base thinks he's too moderate and wants a loyal Tea Party running mate to fire up the base. That has the potential to backfire though, since moderate voters might shy away from Ryan, and elderly voters will almost certainly have a hard time voting for the guy that prioritizes tax-breaks for millionaires over social security and medicare. And of course Ryan is now going to be thrust into the spotlight more than he's ever been in the past, with every last detail of his life examined and scrutinized. I have no reason to believe there's any skeletons in his closet, but if there are you can bet the media will dig them up. Overall though the VP pick is really only important in what it shows about the Presidential candidate, and Romney has had a problem of never really wanting to commit on issues since he's likely afraid whatever he says will come back to bite him. His VP pick is obviously something he can't easily walk away from, but I think it's too early to tell if it will help or hurt him.

Re:

[istartedi]

The right wing in the US is libertarian

Libertarianism is objectively pro-$strongest. In the US, $strongest is the corporations. Thus, the right wing in the US is corporatist. I'd say "fascist", but that's a word that people in the US associate with a charismatic "leader for life", and a degree of internal oppression to which we have not yet risen.

Not for being an antheist

[INowRegretThesePosts]

He has shown no evidence of dislike of atheist _people_. He criticized an atheist _philosophy_. Those are different things.

Second, it is possible to change one's mind. I have changed mine some times. About AGW for example.

Re:Not for being an antheist

[Fwipp]

I'm sure his previous praise of her was entirely unrelated to the philosophy that she espoused in her novels.
"It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are."

Re:Not for being an antheist

[scot4875]

That's idiotic, because there is no such thing as "atheist philosophy", unless he thinks that "I don't believe in god(s)" counts as philosophy -- in which case he's still an idiot.

"Atheist philosophy" makes as much sense as coming up with the best practices for not collecting stamps.

--Jeremy

Re:Not for being an antheist

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Why are you my freak?

Re:Not for being an antheist

[INowRegretThesePosts]

That's idiotic, because there is no such thing as "atheist philosophy", unless he thinks that "I don't believe in god(s)" counts as philosophy -- in which case he's still an idiot.

"Atheist philosophy" makes as much sense as coming up with the best practices for not collecting stamps.

Absurd. There are more than one meaning to the word "atheism". One of those meanings encompasses materialism. By "atheistic philosophy" he probably meant "materialistic philosophy", which Objectivism probably is (AFAIK) along with Marxism (which very explicitly is). There is nothing "idiotic" about that.

Re:Not for being an antheist

[Stormthirst]

I suspect you need to look up the word atheist. Let me do that for you:

atheism noun the belief that there is no god. atheist noun. atheistic or atheistical adj. atheistically adverb. Compare agnosticism

So no, not absurd. Accurate

The USA has a strong Left

[INowRegretThesePosts]

In economic terms, the DEM is centrist by European standards, yes.

But in social (abortion, feminism, affirmative action, immigration), the DEM is clearly leftist.

People have missed the whole New Left (Marcuse, Adorno, Foucault) development and they think leftism is dead. Couldn't be farther from the truth; it is alive and kicking.

Re:The USA has a strong Left

[INowRegretThesePosts]

See what I wrote in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3042199&cid=40958245 and http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3042199&cid=40957843

Re:The USA has a strong Left

[INowRegretThesePosts]

No, it is merely in the 21st century.

Something being popular now (while it was unpopular in the past) does not mean it is good. Intellectual debate should actually discuss ideas, instead of just cheerleading what is popular and seems to be becoming more popular.

All of the EU agrees, bipartisanly, on the issues you mentioned.

Which means that on social issues, Europe is dominated by leftism.

It is only the Republicans (and the Vatican and the Islamic states, hmmmm) which seem to be against the issues you mentioned... which gives me a great idea for anti-Republican campaign slogans... "Iran thinks abortion is bad... so does Romney", "Stand firmly with Iran and stone all gay people (and unmarried people who have sex)", "Iran doesn't want your children to learn about evolution, neither does Romney", damn, the list just goes on and on and on...

That would making the debate even more debased and ad hominem and fallacious (guilt by association, straw man) than it already is.

I don't know why I am even responding to this. You are posting AC for a reason.

Re:The USA has a strong Left

[Magius_AR]

In economic terms, the DEM is centrist by European standards, yes.

Source?

Re:The USA has a strong Left

[INowRegretThesePosts]

This is my overall evaluation, based on the DEM wanting high government interference in the market, high taxation, no school choice, etc.
This is not Wikipedia; not everything needs a citation.

Re:The USA has a strong Left

[Magius_AR]

Wouldn't that make them left rather than center? I always hear about these "European standards", but outside of closet cases like France with its 75% rich tax, I never really hear of any real examples that differentiate DEMs there from DEMs here. They generally all want high taxes and a bunch of social programs.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[iluvcapra]

PS. This guy above is not a Troll. He is merely wrong. Do not censor this discourse.

Re:Mitt Romney introduces Paul Ryan as the next Pr

[Bowling Moses]

Nice editing there. What Obama actually said was "...the next president, the next vice president of the United States of America, Joe Biden." Mediaite's clip from Fox News, of all places.

Thanks to Slashdot for posting this, else we'd not

[couchslug]

have known.

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[fm6]

Hard to believe that they'd be dumb enough to associate themselves with a movie by that name. Then again, this is the foot-in-mouth brigade.

My favorite movie flub actually comes from the Obama side, though it's one only a nitpicker like me would notice. After BO gave his victory speech in Chicago, they played the theme from "The Patriot," that Mel Gibson movie about blacks and whites fighting together to overcome tyranny.What makes it a flub is that the movie started out as a biopic of Frances "The Swamp Fox" Marion, though it went into "inspired by real events" mode after somebody did some research. IRL, Marion's plantation was burned, not by the British, but by rebellious slaves, who then went off to join the British.

Ayn Rand worshipped a child killer

[Anonymous Coward]

” Like many conservatives, he claims to have been profoundly affected by Ayn Rand. After reading “Atlas Shrugged,” he told me, “I said, ‘Wow, I’ve got to check out this economics thing.’ What I liked about her novels was their devastating indictment of the fatal conceit of socialism, of too much government.” He dived into Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman.
In a 2005 speech to a group of Rand devotees called the Atlas Society, Ryan said that Rand was required reading for his office staff and interns. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he told the group. “The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” To me he was careful to point out that he rejects Rand’s atheism.
Ayn Rand also nearly worshipped a sadistic child murderer and mutilator. She called this man "ideal".... Ayn Rand's Early Inspiration: A Child Killer

This certainly belongs in the "you can't make this stuff up" category. As J. Brendan Ritchie, who flagged it for me, wrote: "Apparently Ayn Rand was heavily inspired by (and admired) a psychopath. Incidently, objectivism now makes a lot more sense to me."

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged , John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market , Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

Hyperbole

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Sorry, it's more important that we kill each other than understand our place in the universe. Have a good day.

I'm not advocating for his budget moves (I do not have enough information), but you have to do better than that.
A 6% budget cut, which presumably would be reversed once the economy recovers, is not killing the Space program.
His budget move does not necessarily mean that he thinks NASA in unimportant.

Regarding the defense budget, he may think we are in an emergency (due to the war in Afghanistan), which would be
reversed in a few years.

Anyway, I do agree that the USA is a bit too aggressive. You should fix your electoral system so that more than two parties have a chance. A non-interventionist party (which neither the GOP or the DEMs are) would get at lot of votes.

Re:Hyperbole

[shutdown -p now]

A 6% budget cut, which presumably would be reversed once the economy recovers, is not killing the Space program.

It is, it's just a death by thousand cuts. It's not the first budget cut for NASA. And, of course, once it's cut, it's very hard for them to argue for bringing it back.

Regarding the defense budget, he may think we are in an emergency (due to the war in Afghanistan), which would be reversed in a few years.

How many more years?

And how exactly do you identify the end of that emergency? i.e. what should happen before the president can truthfully say "mission complete" and disengage?

Re:Hyperbole

[INowRegretThesePosts]

The war is scheduled to end by 2014, is it not?

Re:Hyperbole

[shutdown -p now]

Troop withdrawal is scheduled then, yes. Problem is, if that is done, the end result will be same as Vietnam - Taliban will just roll back in. So every cent spent on Afghanistan between now and then is effectively wasted. Either pull out right now, or at least cut spending to bare minimum needed to provide security for the troops there, or don't pull out in 2014.

Re:Hyperbole

[shutdown -p now]

IIRC, the following happened to South Vietnam: when the USA pulled out, South Vietnam was left alone against North Vietnam, China and URSS - one David against another David backed by two Goliaths.

That wasn't the real problem, though. The problem was that North Vietnam had more popular support. Even when both US and USSR were actively engages, there was a thriving Vietkong guerrilla underground in the South (which is only possible when popular support exists to provide housing, information, food etc), while no such thing did in the North. And, ultimately, it was Vietnamese tanks driven by Vietkong soldiers that rolled over Saigon.

The situation in Afghanistan is quite similar - most Pashtuns seem to be siding with Taliban these days. Besides, Taliban has its own Goliath - Pakistan (or rather ISI).

On the other hand, I am disappointed; some Slashdot user informed me that the current Constitution of Afghanistan punishes apostasy with the death penalty.

It doesn't quite say that. What it does say is:

Article 2 [Religions] (1) The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam. (2) Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.

Article 3 [Law and Religion] In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.

Article 130 [Judicial Discretion] (1) While processing the cases, the courts apply the provisions of this Constitution and other laws. (2) When there is no provision in the Constitution or other laws regarding ruling on an issue, the courts' decisions shall be within the limits of this Constitution in accord with the Hanafi jurisprudence and in a way to serve justice in the best possible manner.

In practice this has been interpreted by the judiciary to mean that Sharia law as interpreted by Hanafi school is uniformly applicable, and overrides any secular law that is contrary to it. For apostasy, Hanafi prescribes death penalty for males, and imprisonment for females until they repent. On that basis, a court in Kabul sentenced one guy to death for converting. He narrowly escaped because western governments demanded that he be handed over to them, which Karzai did over the head of the courts, but the latter (up to and including the Supreme Court) weren't happy about it. Of course, this is also just one widely publicized case, which is why we know about it in the first place; it's hard to tell how many more people were in fact executed for apostasy, or indeed for other "crimes" punished by death in Sharia (e.g. adultery for married people), under the current Afghanistan regime.

By the way, their constitution also has this gem in it:

Article 149 [Islam, Fundamental Rights] (1) The provisions of adherence to the fundamentals of the sacred religion of Islam and the regime of the Islamic Republic cannot be amended. (2) The amendment of the fundamental rights of the people are permitted only in order to make them more effective. (3) Considering new experiences and requirements of the time, other contents of this Constitution can be amended by the proposal of the President or by the majority of the National Assembly in accordance with the provisions of Article 67 and 146 of this constitution.

So basically there's no legal basis on which it can get better with time - it would require a coup d'etat.

Re:Hyperbole

[dbIII]

it would require a coup d'etat

Considering the lack of central control that's not going to do it either.
The place (and a very large portion of Pakistan) is not a country as most people imagine it. It's like a whole lot of medieval Italian city states or American Indian "nations" of the 1700s. It's been like that for over a century due to the treaty with the British being mostly just an access agreement and mostly leaving alone - sort of what a lot of libertarians see as their ideal government.

Re:Hyperbole

[shutdown -p now]

Yeah, that's true also - regardless of what is or isn't written in the Constitution or laws, in practice the tribes do as their whims dictate, subject really only to their customs (which, means Pashtunwali, and their interpretation of Islam).

Though Taliban actually acts as a unifying force in that respect - on territory controlled by them, they did institute a more or less uniform implementation of Sharia. It just happens to be more compatible with Pashtunwali than western liberal democracy (or mockery thereof that we're actually spreading there). And, of course, talibs never had any qualms about quashing any dissent in very brutal ways.

Re:Hyperbole

[myowntrueself]

You should fix your electoral system so that more than two parties have a chance. A non-interventionist party (which neither the GOP or the DEMs are) would get at lot of votes.

The ultimate effect of a rigidly fixed two party system is that it is actually a one party system that pretends to give voters a choice.

Many of the so-called communist states did something similar; people were allowed to 'vote' for 'candidates' from different factions of the communist party. Thats much the same thing that happens in the USA; people are allowed to 'vote' for candidates from two factions (Dem and Rep), selected by the 'one party' (the corporations).

Re:Hyperbole

[myowntrueself]

A people who interpret their religion to prescribe the death penalty for people converting away from it must be very insecure in their faith.

Re:Hyperbole

[shutdown -p now]

A people who interpret their religion to prescribe the death penalty for people converting away from it must be very insecure in their faith.

It's not actually about faith, so much so as a public profession thereof. To become an apostate in Islam, you'd have to explicitly denounce Islam in public (IIRC you need 4 witnesses?), and repeat the claim thrice - and then also in front of the court, which should always explain the consequences first. It's not something you can be charged with from circumstantial evidence (though that could be used to compel you to either affirm or denounce your commitment).

By the way, it's how they've got Abdul Rahman off the hook - they basically claimed that he was obviously insane, since only insane person would have persisted in denouncing Islam after having been warned several times that to continue doing so is death. So, they diagnosed him with mental illness, and declared that he cannot be liable on that ground. Kinda like catch-22 in reverse.

The reason why it's punished by death is, again, not to do with faith, but rather with the nature of Islamic government. Remember that Islam regulates all spheres of life, not just spiritual: it lays down mundane laws for everyday affairs, and sets up a system of government (Caliphate). Said system is hierarchical, with Muslims as full fledged citizens, and Islamic Sharia being the law of the State. To that extent, a public apostate is considered to be harming not just oneself, but the community as a whole - in effect, openly refusing to follow its laws, and through his own example inviting others to do the same. So it's actually considered a crime against the security of the state and the society, not against faith - rather akin to treason.

This, by the way, is also why Hanafi argue that women should be merely imprisoned rather than executed - they are considered inherently more weak-willed, and therefore much more likely to be forced to withdraw their proclamation of apostasy by force; at the same time, since the role of the warrior in that society is assigned primarily to the males, a female "traitor" is also seen as significantly less harmful.

Note also that this all has to do with public expression, not one's state of mind - it's censorship of expression, but not a thoughtcrime. Obviously, a woman jailed until she "repents" is unlikely to do so wholeheartedly, i.e. she's still probably converted inside. But the only thing that matters in Islamic law with respect to apostasy is public adherence to the state. An unrepentant apostate is, of course, still considered a grave sinner, with appropriate punishment proscribed in the afterlife to be delivered by Allah; but earthly laws, governing the community, only serve to secure outside conformance.

I will demonize them

[rsilvergun]

if they are already demons. Even the Catholic Church campaigns against Paul Ryan's Economic plans. Meanwhile the 1% has 2 or 3 times the national debt tucked away in offshore accounts. You want to know where our debt comes from, there's your answer.

Re:I will demonize them

[INowRegretThesePosts]

If they are already demons. Even the Catholic Church campaigns against Paul Ryan's Economic plans.

What do you mean by "even the Catholic Church"? In economic matters, the Catholic Church is quite leftist. In immigration and environmentalism too. Regarding "affirmative action" it seems to be neutral, because I have never seen a priest or bishop touch this subject. In foreign policy, it is non-interventionist (Pope John Paul II was against the Iraq War, many bishops are against the Cuban Embargo, etc.).

The Catholic Church is only conservative regarding life and family values. It is not a right-wing organization by any sane measure.

Re:I will demonize them

[LordLimecat]

Meanwhile the 1% has 2 or 3 times the national debt [democracynow.org] tucked away in offshore accounts. You want to know where our debt comes from, there's your answer.

Please, flesh this out for me. How, exactly, does someone having money contribute to the national debt?

Here I thought debt was incurred when you spent beyond your means, but now I find out that neighbor Joe earning a bonus increases my debt.

Re:I will demonize them

[eugene ts wong]

Government contracts. Government bailouts. Special tax breaks that are not available or accessible to the poor.

I'm an economic conservative, mind you.

Re:I will demonize them

[LordLimecat]

Youre claiming that all people with lots of money get government bailouts?

As for tax breaks, please. Corporate tax rate is significantly higher than personal, and in order to get these "loopholes" you have to satisfy conditions-- thats the ENTIRE point. The tax breaks are to get corps to do certain things, and taking advantage of them is, in theory, exactly what we want-- thats WHY we have the incentive!

And whats wrong with taking a government contract?

Re:I will demonize them

[TheRaven64]

Corporate tax rate is significantly higher than personal

This is quite misleading. As an individual or a corporation, you pay tax on income minus losses, whoever the rules on what you can put in the loss column are a lot more strict for individuals. That means that the people who go to the effort of setting up a company (or a set of companies) to control their assets end up paying a lot less tax on their income overall. The cost of setting up a shell company to do this is more or less constant, which means that it's far more likely that someone with more money will do so, because the marginal gain is significantly greater.

Re:I will demonize them

[Isaac-1]

Wow the liberal mindset of my bicycle is old and broken, my neighbor has 2 nice new bicycles, so he should give me one.

Re:I will demonize them

[eugene ts wong]

That's not what I was saying at all. If you make 0, then obviously, you pay 0, but the point is that when you are making $25,000 - $50,000 each year, the amount that you pay in taxes make a huge difference.

Corporations could set up shell companies and shell accounts, while individuals can't.

Re:I will demonize them

[eugene ts wong]

No, I don't mean all. I mean, rich people in general. I'm talking about the richest of the rich.

Tax breaks for good things are good, but when people abuse them, then it's not too much to ask for taxes.

Taking a government contract is a good thing, when it's done at free market prices, and when there is no high pressure sales and deceit. The money for the war on terror has to go somewhere. If they are going to waste our money, then they deserved to be taxed to discourage such practises.

Re:I will demonize them

[LordLimecat]

If they are going to waste our money, then they deserved to be taxed to discourage such practises.

Discourage WHAT practices? Providing support for military action that the government has committed itself to? Listen, if you have a problem with the "war", dont take it out on the corp that fulfills the contract, take it out on the government that requested it. Its like youre getting mad that a cop shot an unarmed civilian, but you've directed your anger at the producer of the ammo. This is how capitalism works: Someone has a market demand, and a company finds a way to fulfill it.

Tax breaks for good things are good, but when people abuse them, then it's not too much to ask for taxes.

What does "abuse them" mean? The gov't has said "do these things and we reduce your tax burden". If theres supposed to be a limit on how many of those "things" they can do, perhaps we should do something about the tax code rather than going after companies for following it.

Re:I will demonize them

[eugene ts wong]

So, you're saying that companies can't create a market demand through lies? Are you implying that you believe everything that you are told via marketing materials? Do you hate government watchdog organizations?

Regarding the cop and the unarmed civilian, I wouldn't judge cop, until more information is in. That being said, if corp encouaged the use of ammo to shoot unarmed civilians, then judge them both.

Abuse means what it means. It's not the government's job to make every single rule for every single possibility.

Paul Ryan and Technology Voting

[brit74]

Ok, let's make this about technology. From the "Danger Room" blog on Wired:

On technology and civil liberties issues, Ryan has generally voted along party lines. Ryan opposed net neutrality bills; voted to extend the Patriot Act’s roving wiretaps and to immunize telecom companies from legal liabilities for cooperating with warrantless government surveillance. He co-sponsored a ban on internet taxes. Ryan initially approved of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which WIRED editorialized would “usher in a chilling internet censorship regime,” but backed down in the face of a pressure campaign from the internet-freedom supporters. Activists on Reddit cheered Ryan’s reversal on SOPA — and appear to have reactivated the Ryan thread now that Romney has tapped him to be vice president.

Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/paul-ryan-vp/

Voted YES on terminating funding for National Public Radio.
Voted YES on retroactive immunity for telecoms' warrantless surveillance.
Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet).
Voted YES on increasing fines for indecent broadcasting.
Voted YES on promoting commercial human space flight industry.
Voted YES on banning Internet gambling by credit card.
Voted YES on allowing telephone monopolies to offer Internet access.
Ryan co-sponsored permanently banning state & local taxation of Internet access
http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Paul_Ryan_technology.htm

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[DesScorp]

Nope, he rejects her because she was an atheist. He's always rejected her, didn't you know? All those words of praise in the past never happened, we all imagined it! We've always been at war with EastAsia!!

This is the kind of dishonest argument we see on Slashdot all too much. One can agree with some of a person's positions and not all of them. Thinking that Atlas Shrugs is an important book doesn't necessarily imply that you agree with Ayn Rand on every single thing she believes. I'm fond of saying that Rand got many things right for the wrong reasons. I certainly don't agree with her on her anti-religious beliefs, and I have some serious misgivings with Objectivism. But that doesn't change the fact that I think she made a lot of important arguments in her books. You seem to be arguing, however, that to endorse one idea is to be forced to endorse all the ideas of the writer. This simply isn't true. Do YOU endorse every single idea of the writers that you read? No? Then why do you expect others to do so?

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[10101001 10101001]

And whenever someone voices and disagreement, factually or otherwise, Paul Ryan will do what he's done his entire career: he'll climb up on a cross, demand the spikes be hammered, and declaim from on high "They are doing this to me because I dared tell the Truth!"

Well, whenever he gets "the Truth" we'll be right there with the cross and spikes. Until then... But I do agree with your point, as the "they're persecuting me" is used by politicians and con artists--yea, that's largely redundant--to justify all sorts of things, including various religious revivals. Of course, there's also "Truth to Power" which only proves that if you're annoying/egregious enough, you can make power flinch regardless of what you're saying--which is one major reason I've always disliked Hamlet. But, then, all the world is a stage; I just wish politicians were more entertaining actors.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[jmorris42]

> The Republican platform is now "Vote for us, or else we will become Greece."

Consider why that strategy is one you are afraid will work. It is a combination of two factors, remove either one and it wouldn't work. One you can argue isn't under your control/isn't Obama's fault/blah blah but the other certainly is.

One, the economy is in the crapper and most Americans think it is more likely to get worse than to get better. Worse they think, by a large margain, that we are on the wrong course.

Second, the D team is offering no plan at all to deal with the elephant in the room. The ginormous deficit and rampant spending. Obama promised to cut the deficit in half and instead doubled it. Congress didn't even try to pass a budget in 2010 and the Senate refuses to even start debate on one for the third year in a row. Obama's last two budgets were forced to a vote by the Republicans and went down in flames by his own party. In short, the entire Democrat machine is totally AWOL, ceding the most important issue to the voters to the Republicans.

Ok, you don't like Ryan's budgets. You aren't supposed to, that is why we have two parties. But you won't beat something with nothing. Right now Ryan looks like the adult in the room while you guys are banging your spoons on the high chair. Get you ass in the game and tell us what you are for, we know what you are against. We are spending a trillion a year we don't have and the cutrrent plan is to do that until things go kaboom. What is your plan, other than kaboom. We can see Greece and hell, we can see California; we know how this story ends and it isn't somewhere we want to go.

Re:

[inode_buddha]

holie fuck I nee mod points for this guy, +1 insightful... cut-pasted and printed the whole page.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[russotto]

You know who else thought you could pick and choose ideas from the writings of various authors? Hitler.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Emetophobe]

See that url? politics.slashdot.org

If you don't like political news, disable the politics section in your account settings.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[wisnoskij]

But his politics do effect nerd stuff.
Obomas and Romneys spending for NASA and general science are different.

Ryan on Ayn Rand

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a copy of a post made by someone else on the ArsTechinica Soapbox forum which was fantastic enough I thought to share here. It sums up Ryan perfectly.

"Ryan on Ayn Rand:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics ... and/51711/

Quote:
“I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people.”

“I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are.”

“It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.”

“But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.”

“And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.”

“It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are.”

“Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.”

And some video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmW19uoyuO8

Quote:
Ryan: “I think a lot of people would observe that we are right now living in an Ayn Rand novel, metaphorically speaking. Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.”

And then the 180:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... bert-costa

Quote:
“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[canadian_right]

Apparently, some nerds live in the USA, and who is running the government affects their ability to play with computers due to various laws these politicians pass.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[evilRhino]

Incurring God's wrath by ignoring the plight of the poor is actually central to the Judeo-Christian mythology. Decadence is cited as the reason god cursed and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and also why Jehovah abandoned Judea and Israel when the Babylonians attacked. Jesus himself was killed because he attacked the moneychangers in the Jerusalem temple, whom he claimed were economically exploiting the pilgrims. Ayn Rand specifically stated that her aims were to change culture by replacing our morality by a new one that is not guided by our religious past. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6LSpFgxL94

Emmerich has been widely debunked

[FhnuZoag]

Bullshit claim is bullshit:

http://www.tnr.com/article/82962/conservatives-economic-chart-fox-de-rugy

Indeed, the real story here isn’t necessarily Emmerich’s fuzzy math; as important is the fact that the chart was posted again and again with so little discussion of its accuracy. If those who pushed the chart along in its Internet journey cared about its content and the methodology, rather than its underlying political message, they could have done a little Googling. It wouldn’t have taken much to crack the surface, get below the presumption that poor people are coddled by the government, and find the beginning of a long list of problems with Emmerich’s work. But, perhaps because of ideological bent or maybe due to simple laziness, people decided that no fact-checking was required.

Re:Emmerich has been widely debunked

[MLease]

Thanks, I found the article (since the GP didn't bother to provide a link to where it could be found), but didn't have time to dig deeper into it yesterday. My gut feeling was that the author keeps using the words "disposable income", but I don't think they mean what he thinks they mean. A lot of the benefits he cited are not direct cash subsidies, and shouldn't really be counted as "income" (disposable or otherwise).

Re:

[shutdown -p now]

The right wing thinks that this can be done more efficiently by the private sector.

Except for your bedroom. That's too important to be left to the whims of the market, apparently.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[ragethehotey]

Second, the D team is offering no plan at all to deal with the elephant in the room. The ginormous deficit and rampant spending. Obama promised to cut the deficit in half and instead doubled it

Without being dishonest, explain why offering large tax cuts for the wealthy somehow solves the problem of the deficit?

"Deficits are too high" is a red herring for selfish pricks that are too cowardly to actually say what they mean.

Paul Ryan was elected on a platform of fiscal responsibility, and one of the first things he did after taking office was to support legislation attempting to criminalize forms of already widely accepted birth control.

MOD PARENT UP to offset mod abuse

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Can the parent post possibly be described as against Slashdot guidelines?
It is my genuine opinion, I was polite, and it is ontopic.

This is crystal-clear moderation abuse.

Re:Ryan is an Ayn Randroid! just like Greenspan!

[beforewisdom]

Ayn Rand died on welfare and medicare, two things Ryan would cut to the bone if he had a chance. Part of the reason she was living on government assistance was that she was sick with cancer. She refused to believe the medical warnings about smoking. In that way she was a forerunner of the TEA party type denialists. The mentality of believing what you want because your opinion matters as much as someone who has studied something for years when you have not.

Obama owes Romney a huge thank-you

[damn_registrars]

Romney just surrendered this campaign to Obama. Ryan's far-right perspective on fiscal and social issues will drive away all the independent voters that Romney may have been able to pick up. The only hope for the GOP now is that they can suppress or discourage enough voters to manage to win just on the republicans showing up in larger numbers than the democrats.

Romney would have been better off choosing just about anyone else if he wanted to get undecided voters to come to his side.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[Eric Damron]

I think you are living in a fact free zone.

The Republicans are not offering real solutions. All they want to do is give tax breaks that will mostly go to their rich cronies and privatise everything, again for the benefit of the richest.

They are in the process of killing the U. S. Postal service by requiring that they fund their retirement system 75 years in advance. They want to sell off our national treasures and they don't mind rigging elections to get that done.

Right now they are enacting voter suppression laws that will primarily suppress voting in areas that would tend to vote for Obama under the guise of preventing voter fraud even though voter fraud has never been a major problem.

They create gridlock like little children throwing a tantrum. Can you say filibuster, filibuster, filibuster? Sure you can! And then claim that Obama can't get anything done. Well no shit Sherlock. Remember that they admitted that their number one priority was to make Obama a one term President! THERE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY! Screw the economy, screw anything else. And they announced their evil little pin head plan right from the start.

The American people cannot afford to allow these cheating low life scum bags to stay in office. They almost destroyed our country during the eight years that Bush and his cronies ran the country and we just can not afford to have a repeat. Oh, and isn't it curious that Bush didn't even really win the election but the Republicans suppressed the recount which later showed that he lost!!

Get ready folks. These bastards are gearing up to steal the election again. They have already voted in Iowa to extend the voting period for Republican leaning counties while shortening the voting period for Democratic leaning counties! That's right! Make it harder to cast your vote if you live in a primarily Democrat county and easier if most of the people would vote Republican!

Is it any wonder people are getting pissed off?

Re:but but but...

[damn_registrars]

Now some white guys might change and vote for Ryan, thats why he's important.

And who exactly would those white guys be? Nobody who voted for Obama would likely change to vote for a far-far-far-right conservative like Ryan. Perhaps some people who voted McCain (or did not vote at all) in 2008 and were thinking of skipping this one might vote Romney but they would not have voted Obama anyways.

In other words, the GOP just gave away this election to Obama. They no longer have any legitimate claim to the independent vote. If they get lucky the independents will just not show up to vote and maybe they will pick up enough disenfranchised conservatives to have a chance. But there is nothing even approaching moderate about Ryan.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Stormthirst]

You end up with a more balanced political debate here than on for example Fox News

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[cvtan]

Our local news turned down the volume on Romney when he said, "next President..." We may have another Bush in the making!

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[the_B0fh]

You really need to take an economics class. Might learn something.

Or just google for "sales tax". Or are you saying sales tax is not tax?

Re:Ryan is an Ayn Randroid! just like Greenspan!

[CMontgomery]

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

This may be true I don't know, but I feel you're focusing on 'OMG CHILD KILLER' and missing the point. It's like praising Hitler, because of his charisma and ability to gather people so strongly behind him. Yea he did bad things, but he was a good speaker.

It's the same here, these sociopathic qualities brought such a different way of thinking it opened her eyes. It allowed her to see things from a different viewpoint, and base her characters around that. Hell, the whole Galt's Gulch idea could've come from this. It fits the "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," idea pretty well.

In fact her openly admitting this shows how she took this lesson to heart. It takes a pretty strong person to tell the truth openly and completely all the time, but the idea she gained from this man, and the idea she says in her books, is that you should do exactly this, live life like 'other people do not exist for you, and do not see why they should.' Now that's not to say go out and kill a 12-year-old, but just to be yourself, and not what you think society would want you to be.

Why do I care where she got her beliefs? I read the books and attained my own beliefs based on them.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[iluvcapra]

Consider why that strategy is one you are afraid will work.

It's important to make the point that I don't think the strategy is fact-based; I don't think most political arguments are fact-based, and there's nothing wrong with that. The facts of the matter are irrelevant, in the end these are politicians making promises, promises which, from the White House, are impossible to guarantee. John Boehner and Eric Cantor will be the ones writing the law if Romney/Ryan wins, and they'll have to get it past Harry Reid -- it's impossible for a president to make any sort of specific promises on such a basis (it pisses me off that they even try).

What it's really about is providing a certain amount of people with a satisfying story to tell themselves. Moderates swoon for "mavericks," people who "buck their own party" and tell the "hard truths"; these low-information voters generally assume that any solution to a problem that is painful must be the right one. They crave to be told that America has been "indulgent" and "spending like a drunken sailor," on "luxuries" like health care or retirement -- this attitude is completely independent of the fiscal health of the country, its programs or anything else. They naturally gravitate towards these people not because of the actual policy goals, but because they say and do things that signal they are "serious."

I for one don't go into this style of moralistic narrative, I go in for different ones. But it's not about the actual laws that will get passed, it's about what sort of person people trust to write the law for them. As you say, Ryan "looks" like the adult in the room. And that's all it is, looks.

Re:

[shutdown -p now]

How did you know what "my side" is? Are you a telepath?

Republic or Democracy? Not this again...

[Pfhorrest]

Contrary to what many think, the U.S. is not a Democracy, its a Republic
I get so tired of people spouting this off like it means something.

A republic is necessarily democratic. A republic is a government of the people -- literally a "people's thing", <em>res publica</em>. Democracy is rule by the people. The two terms are virtually synonyms. (You can technically have a government which is not a republic -- where supreme authority ostensibly resides in the hands of someone besides the people -- which is nevertheless governed day-to-day by democratic methods. The UK's monarchy is one prominent current example of this).

The distinction you're trying to make is between a direct democracy and a representative democracy. Both the US and the UK have representative democracies, but one (the US) is a republic and the other (the UK) is not.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[theshowmecanuck]

So you don't consider someone who might be the next leader of the U.S., a person who can hugely influence on how much the U.S. government funds basic science projects as well as major scientific organizations like NASA, the CDC, the EPA, etc. etc. etc. ... you don't consider what this person thinks and who he surrounds himself with to be very important or interesting to a group of people interested in science? You're a fucking idiot. Get out of the 1940's nuclear bomb lab... what goes on inside a technical shop is affected by outside influences like who it the potential next president and his running mate, and the outside world is affected by work done in many labs. There are consequences in both directions.

And just because he isn't elected yet (if he ever will be) doesn't mean he won't affect spending patterns. His policies could influence Obama's if Obama decides he needs to change his current ones in order to get re-elected. Narrow minded narrow focused... get a grip, some things outside of science are very, very important to science.

Personally I'm glad he chose Ryan. This guy is so tea party crazy right he has the power to induce a La Chattalier stress on the system and push moderates and undecideds towards Obama. Don't get me wrong. Normally I do side with the democrats, but I really don't like how Obama has performed in many respects and would have liked to have seen the more moderate side of Romney to provide at least an alternative or to force Obama to back off of all the Bush era policies he adopted. But by going hard right as Romney has been doing of late, Obama is likely to seem like the only sane choice to more people (not the rabid right, but more like the silent majority). Especially with the tea bagger Romney just picked. Who doesn't want medicare when they hit 65? Vote Romney!

Re:Oh please

[Stormthirst]

It's often understood as this by people who don't have a clue what it actually means - typically Christians who haven't explored anything outside their own understanding of the world.

I have an atheist philosophy, but I don't have a "materialist philosophy" and I'm pretty certain most of the atheists I know (which is most of my friends), similarly don't have a materialist philosophy.

Re:Ryan is an Ayn Randroid! just like Greenspan!

[Toonol]

Read more about what she said. You'll ignore it, because it ruins this little talking point.

Re:Real Question

[Toonol]

That is basically because the US economy is crashing more slowly than Europe's. Kind of like people flocking to the end of the sinking ship that is still above water.

Forgotten lesson

[dbIII]

Bubbles look good before they burst.

Re:Oh please

[Concerned Onlooker]

Fascinating. This is the first time I've ever heard that. However, lots of people like to redefine words to suit them.

The phrase "atheist philosophy" sounds a bit nonsensical to me since atheism simply means a disbelief in a god or gods, and is not a set of views.

Should be interesting...

[erp_consultant]

It's pretty clear that the Democrats are going with a "make the rich pay" sort of campaign. They will do everything they can to demonize Romney and his wealth while conveniently ignoring several very wealthy Democrats (Pelosi, Kerry, pick a Kennedy any Kennedy, John Edwards, etc.). The clear message being that it's ok to be rich if you're a Democrat but if you're a rich Republican then you're a prick. Say what you want about Romney's money, at least he worked for it. Sure, venture capitalism has questionable ethics at times but show me a single really rich person - Republican or Democrat - that hasn't broken a few rules on the way up. His father was of modest means and he earned his way to success. John Kerry got his money the old fashioned way. He married some rich old broad with a trust fund. John Edwards was an ambulance chasing lawyer that made hundreds of millions of dollars in asbestos lawsuits. The Kennedys got their money the real old fashioned way - they stole it. Not only that, they have their family fortune squirreled away in tax havens such as the Isle of Man and Fiji where they don't pay one red cent of tax on a family fortune estimated by some to be several hundred million dollars. Isn't this exactly what the Democrats are going after Romney for? For having a Swiss bank account? He is alleged to have had $3 million in that Swiss account and it was closed in 2010. Why do people put money in Swiss banks? To avoid taxes of course. See a pattern emerging here? Republican or Democrat, if they are rich they are all doing this sort of thing to some degree or other. So let's just stop with these silly games shall we. Would someone please wake me up when the mud slinging is finished and we actually start talking in an honest way about the real issues that face America and what to do about them?

Re:

[betterprimate]

Thus, the right wing in the US is corporatist.

Wrong. Clinton was more of a corporatist than the past three Republican presidents. There are different forms of corporatism and Clinton relied heavily upon his neo-corporatist advisors.

I'd say "fascist", but that's a word that people in the US associate with a charismatic "leader for life", and a degree of internal oppression to which we have not yet risen.

There is also fascist-corporatism. What we might be seeing is actually a return of Absolutist Corporatism to enforce social hierarchy.

Ron Paul or Gary Johnson

[roman_mir]

I suggest that everybody, Democrats, Republicans, come to the elections with one mission - put either Ron Paul or Gary Johnson in the office and nobody else.

Re:Ron Paul or Gary Johnson

[damn_registrars]

I suggest that everybody, Democrats, Republicans, come to the elections with one mission - put either Ron Paul or Gary Johnson in the office and nobody else.

That would be distinctly against the best interests of 99.99% of the country's population. Very few people yearn for or would benefit from a restoration of 1850's social and economic values.

Re:Ryan is an Ayn Randroid! just like Greenspan!

[roman_mir]

Ayn Rand died on welfare and medicare

- she died in 1982, which means she paid into the system for quite a number of years since it was established. Being unjustly forced to pay into the unjust system and then voluntarily refusing to draw from it is stupid, and it doesn't prevent one from being against the injustice of being forced into the unjust system.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[Charcharodon]

If you pay $1000 a year is sales tax, and you get $5000 back for child credit plus every single penny you paid in federal taxes, extactly how much "tax" did you actually pay?

Try taking a remedial math class maybe you can learn to add and subtract.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[dreamchaser]

I never said they would be elected, but just being on the ballot is newsworthy and falls under 'stuff that matters'. I think Obama will be re-elected despite his piss poor performance because Romney is that bad of a candidate. For the record, I too am a swing voter and registered as unaffiliated. I've voted both sides of the aisle, even in the same election cycles. You seem to assume otherwise, or perhaps I misinterpreted your diatribe.

I do however disagree with your assessment that it is a slam dunk for Obama. I think it will be a very close election but I do believe he'll get another 4 years.

I meant just what I said to the GP. This is news that belongs here. Unfortunately someone with mod points thought that was flamebait, though that could have been my 'shut the fuck up' piece. I stand by it.

Re:Oh please

[AngryDeuce]

Are you serious? Pretty much every single atheist I know is decidedly not materialistic. Honestly, it's the Christians I know that think they need to acquire crap to prove how much God has "blessed" them.

I have never in my whole life heard anyone define atheist philosophy as materialistic, which leads me to believe it was just a subtle dig at atheists by another CINO (Christian In Name Only).

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[Creepy]

The problem is the voters are used to the current tax rate, provided by a government that cut taxes too much in wartime and incurred massive debts. They don't concern themselves with what happens when the central bank loses faith in their currency and switches to another one and the recession that follows, all they care about is the government letting them keep more money so they can continue to pay off their own credit card and the minor recession that would follow some tax increase from any part of taxmageddon. America is all about the me, and not about the us.

Re:

[Creepy]

I agree - Libertarians feel many businesses are too big and should be broken up to create competition. The right wing would prefer all businesses be monopolies they own.
Also...
Libertarians want social freedom. The right wing seems to favor surveillance on its own people
Libertarians think drugs should be decriminalized (and even some legalized). The right wing thinks they are winning the war on drugs (and blowing billions fighting a war they can't win the way they are fighting it - basic economics will tell you that removing the demand is how you win it, not reducing the supply).
Libertarians want small government. The right wing says they want small government, but what they really want is a police state with more military spending*
Libertarians think the government has WAY TOO MANY LAWS. Both parties write one new one a week, and nobody can keep up.
Libertarians want to balance the budget, ditch the fed and go back to the gold standard (I disagree with them here, but I agree we should abolish the fed). Neither party has shown any fiscal responsibility.
Libertarians are typically moderate, and don't base their views solely on religion because church and state are separate. The right relies on Christianity to guide their philosophies (For instance, Jews believe that a fetus doesn't have a soul until 6 days after birth, so abortion would not be murder for them, right? This is why we need to have a healthy medium for our legal system and if you believe it is wrong, preach it in church. Same for gay marriage and other issues).

I don't always see eye-to-eye with Libertarians (for instance, I think we should decriminalizing drugs, not legalization at a federal level - let states decide both legalization and criminalization and only enforce trafficking at a federal level), but I tend to agree with them more than Democrats or Republicans.

*and Democrats want a nanny state with massive underfunded social welfare

Re:Was that from Armageddon

[JBaustian]

Obama did the same thing four years ago, announcing Joe Biden as "the next president of the United States".

It just flows off the tongue, whereas saying "the next vice-president" requires a conscious effort.

Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot?

[the_B0fh]

Another clueless fucking idiot. Child tax credit _REDUCES_ the amount of taxes you pay for to IRS, not give you money back. And is only $1k/child.

Seeing that most states have sales tax of between 5%-12%, are you saying that this family with 5 children are living on $20k/year? That's below the fucking poverty line - and you still want to tax the shit out of them? You are a heartless bastard in addition to being a fucking idiot and a damned liar.

So, to summarize: Child tax credit does not give you money, only reduces your tax burden to IRS. And you're a fucking idiot.

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=106182,00.html

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Isaac-1]

This just goes to show how wide the political spectrum is in the U.S. today, where I live most people are Repulican, and the general vibe I get is that they feel Romey is so liberal that the base of the party will just boycott the election without someone more conservative on the ticket to make them bother showing up at the polling places on election day.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[theshowmecanuck]

You don't generally get as rich as Romney by being a liberal. Shows the stupidity of many of the republican base lately. Fox news and Limbaugh are rotting their brains.

And with this choice Romney has already lost.

[Criton]

If Romney wants to win he really should steer far away from the tea party types like Paul Ryan as they're more a liability then an asset. His best chance to win would be to choose Ron Paul as a running mate. Yes this would piss off a lot of people in the GOP but the old GOP has become hated because of the Bush corruption and change is the only way they can regain what they have lost.

My thoughts for Romney?

[DiEx-15]

Game Over.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[Cruxus]

Isn't Warren Buffet considered to be a liberal?

Nope

[rsilvergun]

the liberal mindset of my neighbor claims ownership of 999 out of 1000 bicycles, and me and the other 999 people in my neighborhood have to fight over the one left.

Better: A rich man, a Union man and a Blue Collar man sit at a table. There are 10 cookies on the table. The rich man grabs 9 cookies, sticks 'em in his pocket and turns to the Blue Collar man and says: "Hey, I think he's gonna steal your cookie".

It's wealth transfer

[rsilvergun]

from you and me to them (well, assuming you're not an Astroturfer working for them). It's not possible to accumulate that sort of wealth through honest means. If you trace their wealth it's mostly government contracts and (as others have pointed out) buyouts. Take Paul Ryan. He used social security to pay for school while his family had millions from a road paving business that made it's money filling potholes.

Re:News for Nerds???!!

[theshowmecanuck]

I don't know if he really is or not. Maybe from a republican standpoint. From Europe or Canada he might be center at most. He might be an Eisenhower republican, which OK, is a liberal to the new republicans. After all he believes the tax base should pay for the services they use, like in Ike's day, when taxes were near or at their highest levels ever. This was so the war debt incurred by Ike's generation could be paid off. I think Buffet has those same radical left (50's right) ideas. But the modern republican wants to not tax the over 600 or 700 thousand a year earners (like Wall Street republican party donators, I mean bankers, I mean honest hard working bonus receiving workers) because they think they're going to spend more when taxed less when they already spend as much as they want right now, because they're rich. If they want that Beemer or big house they can already afford it. When they get a big tax reduction what, are they going to all of a sudden go ape shit and by tens of thousands of dollars on jello to put in their swimming pools? They already buy what they want to buy, I mean they'll have to think up some crazy shit in order to spend their extra untax payments. So if they're not spending more where is that trickle down coming from... nowhere. It's a bullshit strategy that didn't work in Regan's time, and still doesn't. :)

Re:Oh please

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Are you serious? Pretty much every single atheist I know is decidedly not materialistic. Honestly, it's the Christians I know that think they need to acquire crap to prove how much God has "blessed" them.

You have seriously embarrassed yourself.
"Materialism", in philosophy, is the doctrine that anything that exists is material.

Re:Oh please

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Do you even know what "materialist philosophy" means?
"Materialism", in philosophy, is the doctrine that everything that exists is material. Thus, materialism denies the existence of God, angels, and the human soul. To a materialist, the human mind is nothing special; it doesn't exist separated from the brain; the human "mind" is just a software that runs on a wetware (the brain).

Have you ever asked you atheist friends "do you believe that the material universe is all that exists?" If they say "yes", then they are materialists.

Re:Oh please

[INowRegretThesePosts]

It is pretty weird that this is the first time you hear that.
Marxism, an extremely well-known atheist philosophy, is radically materialist. See the "materialistic conception of History".

Re:Oh please

[Concerned Onlooker]

Marxism incorporates atheism. It is not an "atheist philosophy." Atheism just means not having a belief in gods.