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Third 2012 US Presidential Debate Tonight: Discuss Here
Tonight marks the third and final U.S. Presidential debate in the lead-up to the election on November 6th. It starts at 9PM ET (6PM PT, 0100 UTC), and it's taking place at Lynn University in Florida. The topic this time around is foreign policy, including discussions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, America's role in the world, "The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism," and China's rise as a superpower. You can livestream it from the usual suspects: (C-SPAN, ABC, PBS, CNN). Politifact has posted an article fact-checking statements the candidates have made about foreign policy. Both they and Factcheck.org will be using Twitter to verify statements in real time. This presidential debate again excludes the smaller U.S. political parties. If you're interested in hearing other voices, you'll be able to see candidates from the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and Justice parties in a debate tomorrow with Larry King moderating. As before, we're doing a separate post for the debate in the hopes that political talk won't clutter other stories tonight. Tell us what you think as the debate unfolds. For live conversation, remember: context helps. And, as reader Ryanator2209 keeps pointing out, you can entertain yourself by playing Logical Fallacy Bingo while you watch.
If this is what socialism, I love it.
a long time ago, Mitt Romney was chair of the audit committee at Marriott.
And Marriott filed tax returns using a very lucrative tax shelter known as "son of BOSS"
I contend that at the time, son of boss was illegal - it was patently a sham transaction.
I don't know if legal liability attached to Gov Romney then, or now, what with staute of limitations, but this incident tells us that MR is quite comfortable filing fraudulent tax retrns.
Which means, maybe all of these things in MR's taxes are real
magic beanstalk IRA with undervalued capital contributions
Rafalca as business that should have been a hobby
sham transactions in cayman island accounts
listing himself as passive instead of active investor...
and the beat goes on....
I've watched all the #debates so far and it's sad how little they say, tapdance around questions, avoid talking about the critical issues while spending lots of time on things that don't matter for shit.
Sad, sad field. These ain't the best, and they ain't the brightest.
Nice try Anonymous Coward.. But most of the Slashdot readers here are educated enough to know that Obama is only slightly less authoritarian than Romney and 'socialism' is just a word used in the wrong context to demagogue Obama. Further, most Slashdot readers are smart enough to see that Romney changes his rhetoric for whatever crowd he's entertaining and either candidate just continues the march towards facism.. It's just that Obama seems to want to march slower.
I'll be voting Gary Johnson. Even though I think Obama is the slightly lesser of two evils, I am sick of voting for evil.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
"America's role in the world". We already know about this POTUS, he is a novice when it comes to foreign policy.
Chevy Volt is a car, not a company.
My father owns quite a bit of Johnson Controls stock. Trust me, they are nowhere near bankruptcy.
It doesn't matter which wins.
Obama is brown lunch with grey sauce, and Romney is grey lunch with brown sauce. (And no. That is not a euphamism for their races. It's an animaniacs reference.)
It doesn't matter which one wins. Regardless, a deleterious agenda will be spearheaded. It is a false dichotomy to say we must choose which of those agendas to bend over for.
Personally, I'd vote for "assasinate both and start over", but in civilized countries this isn't an option. I'll grudgingly settle for "insane and unpredictable" with a write in for Paul. (Insane and unpredictable at least frustrates all major agendas.)
There is going to be a debate at 21:00 EDT on October 23, hosted by Larry King. The candidates taking part are the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson, the Green Party's Jill Stein, the Constitution Party's Virgil Goode, and the Justice Party's Rocky Anderson.
Although being born with a platinum spoon in your mouth definitely helps. Where would Mittens be without daddy's connections and resources? Of course, the people who couldn't pull themselves up are part of that shiftless, mangy 47% who are just taking up space.
Both choices suck. Obama will win just because of least resistance. Same old, same old.
Somehow, I don't suspect we'll see anything different than we saw in the first two: heated exchange of cliches and platitudes, punctuated with awkward smiles. Enjoy it while you can.
Play logical fallacy bingo! It also makes a great drinking game.
My other sig is clever.
Until the massive media conglomerates agree to put aside the "entertainment" factor of something as important as public debates between presidential candidates, I will not take such things seriously. We have more than two candidates, and only the worst 2 are being presented. If nothing else screamed corruption, this should be an obvious one.
GM paid back their bailout loans. A long time ago.
Not GP, but bankruptcy is public, you moron. If they did file for bankruptcy, it would be public record. And I dont see Solyendra's bankruptcy as one of the bad things Obama did. Infact if he bailed them out instead of letting them go bankrupt, that would be the bad thing.
So on the one hand, you can watch the major party candidates lie as easily as they breath. On the other hand, you can spend those 90 minutes reading about what Obama did as president and what Romney did as governor. Oh, and you can also read about the third party candidates, and what they did previously.
Why listen to lies, when you can uncover the truth?
Palm trees and 8
I was thinking, after seeing clips from the previous debates, that the debate's host should include a real-time fact-checking panel of about six people seated behind the audience, with computers so they can contact their support staff and get quicker results. Then the debators could say "I'd like a fact check on that", and the audience (local and remote) would get a near-instant "vote" from the panel as to whether the purported fact is correct.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hey drones, hows that transparency working out for you?
http://suffolkcountylibertyreport.com/sclr/?p=25837
"After its “cap and trade” legislation to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) admissions was stalled in Congress, the EPA is attempting to issue regulations to force individuals and companies to cut GHG emissions – in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. Landmark was one of several individuals, organizations and companies that filed suit to stop the agency from abusing its authority and issuing regulations that could cost individuals and companies thousands more in annual energy costs.
Because of our years of experience in combating the EPA, Landmark has become the lead amici in the case and authored the first “friend of the court” brief filed in the matter this weekend."
It's a cover up drones, wake up. FOIA is the LAW. Obama care not about the rule of law and he cares not at all about you drones except to steal your money.
Pay up suckahs!
When did ECD get a loan from the government?
The rich in the US are only interested in their own wealth, and not the longterm wealth of their country. So they don't want to ensure that all citizens have a good education and are able to get healthcare they need. This results in the US having one of the worst social mobility ratings in the developed world. Land of the opportunity for the filthy rich to become even richer, and most of the rest to rot.
Sensible alternative to Obama, who is just Bush II.
Romney refuses to answer any HARD questions. Obama refuses to answer them as well. both are lying pussies that REFUSE handle real questions from voters. and the media is too lame to ask the hard questions.
What kills me is the conservative nutjobs that are foaming at the mouth thinking that their guy is any better.
News flash. They both are the same. Hooray for the new king, same as the old king!
No matter who wins, those of us that are not stinking repulsively rich will lose. that is what the Liberal nutjobs dont understand. It does NOT matter... all of them are there for their own agendas.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/content/us/en.html
Stock:
http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/content/us/en/investors.html
Stock history:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=JCI+Interactive#symbol=jci;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
Click on 5 year.
Sure looks like Johnson Controls is one of those good stories, not bad ones. Perhaps you should do even a minimum of research before you open your big mouth and insert foot.
Way to go! Instead of using your vote to keep out the worst possible outcome for everyone (Romney), you're throwing it away. Or are you let down because Obama is just a good president, but can't walk on water like you wanted?
Our current president has an agenda to redistribute the wealth from the smart, capable, entrepeneurs to the fat, slobby, freeloading welfare moms.
His opponent has an agenda to redistribute wealth from the middle and working classes to the fat cats that already have more than their share.
the fat, slobby, freeloading welfare moms. [...] the bottom rungs of our society"
I'm guessing that you've never looked into the question of where most public aid actually goes.
His blatant attempt to inject government control into all facets of our lives
Yea, God intended that big corporations should do that. Usurper! Infidel!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Riot?
They are being sent to a gulag! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/pussy-riot-prison_n_1971069.html
What are the candidates stand on this miscarriage of justice?
is where i watch the president debates. They seem to be more real.
Be seeing you...
Let me guess you voted for Bush or Gore. How is that working out for you?
The Chinese, The Castro Bros. Vlad Putin, Ahmadinejad, Morsi, and Hugo Chavez. With friends like these, who needs enemies! So all you Obama supporters - why would these people endorse Obama and why is that good for the USA? Just the facts please (ps remember Godwin's law please)
Communists hate fascists, and Romney is definitely the bigger fascist. I imagine there are a few thousand white supremacists lined up behind Romney, should I infer something about Romney because of that?
False dichotomy is again false.
I refused to vote at all last election. Obama is a horrible president, and so was bush.
Even if it is a thrown away vote, I at least have a batshit crazy MFer that is contrary to all major agendas to vote for this time, which is more than I had 4 years ago.
Although being born with a platinum spoon in your mouth definitely helps. Where would Mittens be without daddy's connections and resources? Of course, the people who couldn't pull themselves up are part of that shiftless, mangy 47% who are just taking up space.
See the Daily Show / Leonard Nimoy take on that.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Did you think capitalism won with the fall of the Soviet Union? Think again. His blatant attempt to inject government control into all facets of our lives (not just health care - where it has no business anyway) is the culmination of decades of left wing planning and if we don't stop this power grab now, we may never be able to.
Indeed. All this government control ("regulations" they call it) are mightly interfering with my business plan to sell rat poison in cans labeled Nutritious Food.
I can't believe how blatant this government control is, and how people can just sit back and let me be completely unable to sell them rat poison in cans labeled Nutritious Food.
It's un-American!
www.johnsoncontrols.com? No bias there.
Stock history? Proves nothing.
Welcome to fail.
I'm very much interested in hearing what each candidate has to say about things *other* than Libya...in particular China.
Ferretman
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
So how many candidates are being excluded this time? Is the percentage of excluded candidates still larger than the percentage of those allowed to participate?
Also, a nitpick FWIW, it's not a debate between Presidents, it's a debate between candidates.
Do I support the dark-brown-skinned right-wing hypocritical jesus freak who spent this week sucking up to a group of pedophiles, or the light-brown-skinned right-wing hypocritical jesus freak who spent this week sucking up to a group of pedophiles?
Non-Americans don't matter... unless they are Israeli. Both candidates know they can trash talk the entire world for political points... to demonstrate how "tough" they are.
And for reasons I don't understand, they will both want to curry favor with the Israelis - for what reason, I don't quite know. (I mean I do understand how a boogey man is needed to keep the Arabs in line but why is the US such a fop in front of the Israelis? I don't understand why we must take such scorn in the rest of the world for a bully regime like Israel?).
Anyhow, non-Americans don't vote here and therefore can be denigrated with impunity. We are #1, go USA! Fake bravado, jingoisms, you'll hear it from both of them. Real serious concerns about how the Chinese are rich and growing stronger, the trouble-making by the Russians, the increasingly mistrustful allies who are growing fewer everyday (in private if not in public), the drain on our economy by the huge military expenditure... I doubt these will be discussed. I hope I am wrong.
Our current president has an agenda to redistribute the wealth from the smart, capable, entrepeneurs to the fat, slobby, freeloading welfare moms.
Meanwhile the smart capable entrepreneurs have an agenda to redistribute all wealth to themselves. A healthy society needs that balance.
. His blatant attempt to inject government control into all facets of our lives (not just health care - where it has no business anyway) is the culmination of decades of left wing planning and if we don't stop this power grab now, we may never be able to.
a) The republicans grab power just as aggressively at every opportunity.
b) The government absolutely has a role in healthcare. I do not want healthcare allocated according to who can pay the most for it; nor which insurance companies can model who is likely to get sick and exclude those people, or deny care to people who are already afflicted (pre-existing conditions). Capitalism is not the right model.
Whether or not it should be a federal program vs state is certainly a legitimate discussion, but healthcare is a government mandate that the majority wants in some form.
If you are a true patriot and love this country that we call home, you must vote for Mitt Romney next month and preserve the dream that anyone can come from the most humble of beginnings and succeed in this melting pot we call the United States of America.
Only an idiot should fall that nonsense. Your odds of going from humble beginnings to success are increased if you are given a leg up while in the 'humble beginnings' stage; if you aren't deprived an education because you can't afford it, if you aren't financially wiped out because someone in your family tripped and broke a few ribs, it gets a lot easier to become a productive member of society, to save up a nest-egg, to strike out as an entrepreneur, to become a -gasp- "job creator".
How exactly does the argument that government wealth redistribution prevents people from succeeding work? Bearing in mind that all the evidence shows that the wealthy are doing just fine, and indeed are getting wealthier by the day.
Not GP, but it seems to working pretty well for him. More people are taking note of third parties than in 2000. It will break the majority in time.
Sometimes people look forward to more that the current election. Strange isnt it.
My friend from the future sent me this exclusive footage from tonight's debate.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Fuck Romney and fuck Republicans. Vote Nigger/Bidden '12 unless you want to get reamed in the ass by oil companies.
Way to go! Instead of using your vote to keep out the worst possible outcome for everyone (Romney), you're throwing it away
What I find hilarious is that the Obama supporters I have spoken to, including people who are out canvassing for Obama's campaign, cannot come up with a better argument than this: "Well at least he's not Mitt Romney!" What kind of a reason is that to vote for a someone? Oh, and, newsflash: Obama is a terrible candidate. Here is what Obama's administration has done:
Yeah, that really sounds like someone we need in the white house. Sure, Romney is not going to do things differently -- so why even pretend there is a difference? Anything you can say Romney would do that is bad, there is something equally bad that Obama is doing right now.
Palm trees and 8
It's an international reverse psychology gambit to fool the US population into electing Romney.
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril. -- Lurker2288
Nice cherry picking there. Yahoo link was unbiased source (it has more than the history, FYI). GP cannot prove a negative. The onus in on you to prove that they filled for bankruptcy.
As an Australian, I always find it odd that so much emphasis is placed on these debates. Perhaps it's something that only someone that follows American politics can understand. From the outside it is presented that who-ever does the best stage-show is most likely to get votes.
This strikes me as a very 'consumer friendly' way to pick a politician, but perhaps not the best way to pick the best person for the job. Unless of course normal employment hiring practice in the USA is to stand up and debate the other candidates in all job interviews?
You could support neither; we actually have other choices.
Palm trees and 8
"The 1980's are calling for their foreign policy back" -- Barack Obama :)
http://unfix.org
watch the version of the debate that includes Jill Stein, Green Party candidate, at democracynow.org at 9:30 PM EST
We as a nation always complain about our 2 party system and all the problems that come with it. We also frequently joke about how neither of the candidates are exceptional. We then proceed to completely ignore all third party candidates. Realistically no third party candidate can win, but the more votes they get, the more seriously they will be taken in the future. Parties need to get 15% to get in these debates. If you view this system a bit like a free market, that's like saying a small business needs to take 15% market share from two colluding conglomerates. The third parties have been almost entirely ignored by the major political news dialog. Part of that is the fault of the news organizations that specialize to target a major political demographic, but part of that problem is us.
Perry Metzger tweeted the following suggested political debate drinking game - if a political debate comes on, turn on the TV and go out for a drink with your friends!
(In this case I'm going out for a music jam with friends instead, but it'll do the job.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It will only break the majority if and when the republican (or democrat) parties completely collapse.
I really don't understand how so many slashdotters fail to grasp that the two party system doesn't just happen by chance. It's not just that voters consider only two parties before their brains explode. It's first-past-the-post voting. Get a parlimentary system in place if you want a third party. Otherwise, just vote in the primaries and realize that the same people who are getting elected now are the same people who would get elected under a multiparty system.
if a political debate comes on, turn OFF the TV and go out for a drink with your friends! - Let's try this one again...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The rich have always been against anything that would make life better for regular people. (living in luxury while being surrounded by squalor apparently makes the rich feel special or something) Our society had to fight like hell to get rid of the company stores/housing, get a standard 40-hour work week, OSHA regulations, public education, etc. Hell, the rich were even opposed to the poor having running water and bathtubs at first because the rich thought the poor would just use the tubs to store coal.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
I watched the last debate, out of what I guess was a partial sense of guilt and a partial sense of duty as an American citizen ... but it sorely disappointed me.
Not that I expected better, but it just served as a reminder of what a circus the whole thing is today.
As I pointed out to some friends of mine after the debate, both candidates are primarily concerned with putting on a good show. They went over their allotted speaking time over and over again. I've seen high-school debate classes with students FAR more capable of getting their points across within their time slots! You have to ask yourself if Romney and Obama are really that unskilled at time management? I think you and I both know the answer to that one. They're only running out the clock and continuing to talk because it's a TACTIC. If a candidate really doesn't have a good, effective comment or rebuttal to make, he wanders off topic to run the clock down, and then pretends to start addressing the issue as time is running out. That way, he can appear to have simply not been given enough time to explain his position rather than do so in full and look foolish. Alternately, he can purposely exceed the time limit in an attempt to irritate his opponent and rattle him.
Beyond that? I expect more of the REAL issues will be directly addressed by those "alternative, smaller political parties" we finally get to hear debate in their own little CNN hosted program tomorrow.
If you want to really discuss where the U.S. stands in the eyes of the rest of the world, a good start would be expounding on the recent Wall Street Journal article explaining how U.S. citizens living abroad are suddenly finding foreign banks no longer want their business. The U.S. government (and IRS in particular) have become so demanding and ruthless in their quest to "know all" about each person's investments and spending habits, they've made it uneconomical for foreign banks to comply anymore. Even the Swiss bankers (once considered almost untouchable) are being given the ultimatum by the USA ... turn over all those records of who has what in your bank, or else. Some people have even tried to turn in their passports and renounce their U.S. citizenship, only to find the IRS invalidates it, because they haven't paid past taxes (or even an "exit tax" they expect to be paid first).
It's an ugly state of affairs when your country believes it literally "owns" you, despite your express intentions to leave it behind. And the rest of the world realizes how draconian the U.S. government is getting, and doesn't want to get involved in that mess.... Here's betting NONE of this is even hinted at tonight in the "debates".
"euphamism "?
No.. Third party votes do count. When the Republicans and Democrats are working together to divide the people in half as evenly as possible, and only winning by small margins, a small-margin of third-party votes has a huge effect.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
This message brought to you by an Anonymous Coward. As opposed to Mitt Romney who is a well known coward.
I'll be voting Gary Johnson. Even though I think Obama is the slightly lesser of two evils, I am sick of voting for evil.
Please tell me you don't live in a swing state.
It is sometimes your duty as a thinking individual to choose between two evils. No one wants to have to, but it is sometimes the choice that is in front of you.
I've noticed a lot of Romney supporters making that argument, that all Obama supporters have is criticism.
Which actually serves as a demonstration of hypocrisy, both on his and your part.
Seriously, all you're offering is the same thing you just got done complaining about.
And really look at Romney's campaigning, quite a bit of that too.
Huh.
Palm trees and 8
Er, how do we get a parliamentary system, pray tell please? I think it is easier to fit the third parties in the current system than move to other systems.
Sure, one little typo, and people act like they can't use google!
(I kid! I kid!)
Euphemism
It's bsically a cute expression for a not very cute subject. Due to the appearance of the statement I made, I felt it prudent to point out that I was not employing the statement as a cute-ified slur about Obama's race and behavior, as some readers would falsely believe. That is all. It was more intended that they are both exactly the same "lunch", but with different combinations of food aditives. In the end, you are eating exactly the same thing regardless.
dear betterunix:
the argument - enunciated clearly by D Ellsberg recently (www.commondreams.org i think) is yes, this is all true (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/18)
However, on some things, like abortion, Romney is much worse then obama.
so, there is a difference, however small and it is real
"good president". Joke of the day there, I had a laugh at that one!
what an assclown
Once the majority of either governors or at least 25% of one of the congress-pools is 3rd party, they won't have a chance. I wish people would figure that out; a viable party isn't going to start in the White House.
I agree: For those who could indeed care less
No.. Third party votes do count. When the Republicans and Democrats are working together to divide the people in half as evenly as possible, and only winning by small margins, a small-margin of third-party votes has a huge effect.
The only problem is that "huge effect" is, usually, negative for the interests they represent. They "steal" votes from the candidate that is near to their interests making the other win. So, you have a real disincentive to promote a third party.
The Chinese, The Castro Bros. Vlad Putin, Ahmadinejad, Morsi, and Hugo Chavez. With friends like these, who needs enemies!
So all you Obama supporters - why would these people endorse Obama and why is that good for the USA? Just the facts please (ps remember Godwin's law please)
I think that as a bid of an ad hominem attack and a wonderfully crafted bit of faulty logic. (golf clap).
Mitt Romney wants to create world peace? By arming the Syrian rebels? Because that's never bit us in the ass. I'm sick and tired of this mentality that the United States needs to police the entire world and Romney keeps saying crap like "it's an honor that we didn't ask for but we have." What the hell?
Oh! But yeah, go ahead and arm Syrian rebels! Iran totally won't view that as an aggressive act! No, they'll sit by and watch that happen! And just say "Gee, I guess the people of Syria have spoken!" Try meeting with them then and using diplomacy to reduce their nuclear efforts!
My work here is dung.
It's not like Obama doesn't have trolls also, but trolls have had more than four years of practice with Obama, and they've occasionally thought of things besides the Birther schtick. But hey, feeding an occasional troll can be fun.
The military-industrial complex likes Romney (especially with Ryan saying that cutting the Pentagon's pork barrel budget is not an option for reducing the deficit), though they haven't been too upset with Obama either (he didn't arrest them all, kept the wars going, and his "cuts" to their budget have been reductions in the rate of increase, not actual cut cuts.) China's also happy that Ryan isn't serious about cutting the deficit. Banksters like Romney's commitment to not regulating them, though they were pretty happy about Obama bailing lots of them out. Vlad Putin wants an American President who's not stupid enough to blow up the world. The Castro Bros are happy if America maintains enough isolation for them to stay in power, instead of opening up travel so they get flooded with tourists spending money the government can't control. Ahmadinejad is happy to have a US president backing Israel's hard-line saber-rattlers enough that he can keep his own country in line by rattling sabers back at them, and knows that the US can't afford to invade Iran. I haven't heard Chavez supporting Obama, but if he did he was probably drunk at the time. At least Obama hasn't sent in the Pentagon to help the oil companies overthrow him. And Morsi? He'd like to be solidly in charge, but his position is too unstable. He can't afford to get Romnesia, but he's waving his Etch-A-Sketch around every week depending on which way the wind is blowing.Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The GP called out both candidates and yet you see his post as pro-Romney for his criticisms of Obama. I can't tell the candidates apart without a microscope. Neither one seems keen on serving my interests, though I am sure both would bend over backwards to tell me otherwise.
Moderator: Reasonable question with seemingly no possibility of motivating a round about answer?
Obama: I have very specific responses (mostly empty rhetoric) I will make regardless of the question asked because it will get people to vote for me.
Romney: I have audibly different responses (again rhetorical) I will make regardless of the question asked because it will get people to vote for me.
Moderator: Please actually answer the question.
Obama: I will tell you how my opponent is wrong without presenting a clear argument that will satisfy the supporters of either my opponent or myself.
Romney : I will prove that my opponent is more substantially wrong, again with a sophisticated argument that even I don't find satisfying or though provoking.
Moderator: You guys suck, I'm taking my ball and going home.
Obama: Please vote for me, I'm super cool and fun!
Romney: C'mon it's my turn! You've been on the swings all day and recess will be over soon!
Did you start drinking a little early? ;^)
The Chinese might support Obama, but they love Romney buttsechs long time because of all the American jobs Romney outsourced to there. And no, Amenijad does not support Obama after he broke the Iranian backyard science experiments. The others? Who cares?
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
It absolutely matters who wins. You're just being lazy because it hurts to vote for a guy who loses, or to vote for a guy who then does stuff you don't like.
Let's say that the Democrats grow a spine and don't let Romney get whatever he wants. At the very least, he will be able to appoint new SCOTUS justices. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 79 years old. It is very likely that the winner of his election will name her replacement. If she is replaced by a conservative justice, Roe v Wade will be overturned within a year. Many women will die in back-alley abortions. Many more will have their lives turned upside down.
And that's if we're optimistic and assume that's all Romney gets to do. He also wants to end Medicare, which will bankrupt countless seniors. He wants to slash taxes by 20% across the board and pay for them in a manner that has been proven to be mathematically impossible. He wants to increase military spending by trillions of dollars. His bellicose rhetoric, constantly accusing Obama of being soft and an apologist, makes it far more likely that he'll bow to pressure from Netanyahu and go to war in Iran.
Now, you're probably a fairly well off young straight male, so who cares if women die trying to get abortions? Who cares if some old people are thrown out into the streets? Who cares if some poor people are sent off to die in a foreign land? Who cares if gay people are treated as subhuman?
It's so much easier to pretend it doesn't matter. And cooler too! You get to show off to the internet how wise and jaded you are!
You disgust me.
I say +1 but I can't remember my password again.
Usually, by causing the person everyone dislikes to win. If you vote, say, Nader because you think Obama is not as good, you are basically voting for Romney. I'm sorry, but that's how it comes down. If you want to bitch about choices, get off your fat idiotic ass and vote in the primaries. You know, the time the people you vote for NOW are selected. They didn't appear magically.
They "steal" votes from the candidate that is near to their interests making the other win. So, you have a real disincentive to promote a third party.
You can't call a person not being given something that doesn't belong to them "stealing". Even the quotes you added to suggest you were already dubious of the use of the term. I may as well tell people that Gore "stole" the election from Nader. If Gore hadn't been running, Nader would have gotten all of the non-Bush votes!
Nothing will ever change if people continue to think in terms of the lesser of two evils since evil always "has a real disincentive to promote a third party."
Yes, I don't see the GP calling out both candidates at all, more of a token "they're all sucky" remark. You may disagree, but the real point I was making was that sort of hypocrisy was coming from the Romney camp, as their supporters blindly proclaim their outrage over something they do endlessly themselves.
Seriously, Romney came across as a whiner upset that somebody criticized him.
And right now he's complaining about Obama in his false litany.
Sorry former Governor, you're not holding water in your pot.
Personally, I'd vote for "assasinate both and start over", but in civilized countries this isn't an option.
I can't see what that has to do with anything. You are in the U.S., aren't you?
There is a slight difference between them, of course. People who say all politicians are the same are akin to people who believe they are completely different. In this particular case, Obama represents a "humanization of the inevitable". The inevitable, as they seem to see, is the unsustainable profiteering march to the increasingly elusive economic growth - the whole of Romney's platform, succintly. Add a few programs to barely help people who are shat on by the system - while taking no action to actually prevent or even slow down said shitting - and you got Obama's.
So yes, both are way more alike than ideally. Voting for Obama is going with the lesser of two evils, while voting for Romney is either greed, lack of information, lunacy or the hope that the country survives him and the Democrats get a grip and come back with better offerings in the next election. Suboptimal, I'd understate.
It is sometimes your duty as a thinking individual to choose between two evils. No one wants to have to, but it is sometimes the choice that is in front of you.
Relevant quote from Douglas Adams's So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish:
... here is what I see.
Religious right: "we love Romney! He's a good christian(tm) like us, and 'hayts teh gayz!' And thinks abortion is evil like us! We don't like Obama, because he sided with Teh Gayz and the baby killers, and wants to give those evil sinners our tax money!" (Nevermind that almost none of us are actually true adherents of the beliefs we claim to aspire to, or we wouldn't 'hayte teh gayz' like we do, and wouldn't try to force our reigious beliefs down the rest of the nation as a whole, because we wouldn't want to be hypocrites, something GOD (as in, red letters) says he simply cannot tolerate. Also, Obama's black. We won't say that publicly, because it's racist, and we have a dirty trac record, but yeah. Its an issue. Also, Obama's totally a socialist, out to take all the hard earned money from god-fearing americans, and give them to shiftless, lazy people who are too lazy to go out and get jobs! Nevermind that there aren't any jobs for them to take even if they did, because of our immigrant labor policies! It's so much easier to abuse foriegn laborers than poor domestic ones!"
Liberal Left: "we love Obama, because he said he is for gay marriage, and supports a woman's right to choose not to be pregnant. He strongy supports intellectual properties and wants to help creative industries remain profitable while giving government funds to help the poor escape poverty. (Nevermind that he only JUST came out in support of those social issues as a result of Romney choosing to not support them, and that his fiscal policies for the past term have been absolutely disasterous, and that historical precident for large scale welfare programs shows a dreadful prognosis long term. He's our candidate. Also, He's black, so he's a minority, and that's edgy. We like that. We won't say that publicly though, because that's racist. Also, voting for him pisses the religious people off, and we like that, because we think they are dumb.)
Libertarians, Moderate centrists, independents: "Seriously, you expect us to choose between somebody that has endorsed legislation that has expanded government powers to defeat due process and harm our citizens, repeatedly and consistently for 4 years, while authorizing expanded military budgets while claiming emphatically that his doing so is all Bush's fault despite his being out of office for 4 years and having the power to veto and recind previous executive orders this whole time, failing to deliver on pretty much all of his promises, and who's financial policies are the thing of nightmares-- and somebody who is pretty much the poster child for graft, corruption, and hypocrisy, who has openly stated that he is fully in favor of corporations being considered equal to living breathing people in terms of rights, despite the lack of culpability for civic offenses, and requirements for public services, and is clearly not going to act in the interests of the american public at large? You honestly expect us to choose between a stupid narcisist with a bright smile, and a raging sociopath? REALLY !? ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!?"
Take a wild stab which group I belong in.
From where I am standing, and from seeing how Romney (and his VP) have behaved, that's a pretty damn powerful argument.
Say, do you like HOSTS files by any chance?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I am not sure how i feel about CCN's poll-o-meter of undecided Floridians. I am one and I feel that on some level they are trying to tell me how to feel. An interesting touch...and here is to 4 years close to inevitability,
What do you all think of this Isreal talk? They both have to answer yes but still...its so fucked up...of course we are four years closer. Even if its a 1000 years from now thats true. There is no sense to that statement
I like /etc/hosts, I find it useful. :-)
You've disregarded human history if you think that "socialism" and "authoritarian" are mutually exclusive.
Obama believes that YOUR possessions are for HIM to distribute. I'm not sure how much more socialist you can get.
Oh, and fascism... a linguistic trick to avoid the Godwin penalty. As defined by Mussolini himself, basically explains the Democrat Party dream in a nutshell.
THL phish sticks
Obama is brown lunch with grey sauce, and Romney is grey lunch with brown sauce. (And no. That is not a euphamism for their races. It's an animaniacs reference.)
Not to nitpick (ok, to nitpick), it was brown LUMPS with grey sauce or grey lumps with brown sauce. But I still think I'd rather go with the carrots in this case.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I'm not voting for a POTUS so much as I am for SCOTUS Justices.
same way England did: civil war.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
It's not a false dichotomy. It's a real dichotomy. Your next president will be either Obama or Romney. If you live in a swing state, you have a civic duty to vote for the least bad one. If you live in the other 90% of America, then by all means, vote for a third party to send a message. In neither case is it a good idea to refuse to vote at all. That just gives the entrenched leaders even more power.
Stop holding him down.
And let's see, he's promised to cut taxes for everyone, balance the budget and not cut spending anywhere. Riiight. I remember when Bush Sr. said that. Got elected and promptly raised taxes, that's what he did. What else could Romney do? Eviscerate Medicare and Social Security? Nope -- cock-blocked in the Senate. And the national Credit Card is probably pretty close to as charged up as it's going to get, so he can't just cut taxes and kick the can down the road for the next president. Romney would have to raise taxes and cut spending across the board. It's really the only thing he CAN do. Obama would have to do that too. And Romney knows that. Why do you think he's so vague when asked for specifics of his plan?
Romney says he'll fix the economy and everyone will have a job as soon as he's elected. Fact of the matter is, the job market is not going to recover to where it was for a generation. It doesn't matter WHO gets elected, unemployment is going to sit around 8 percent for years.
If Romney is elected I predict he'll be a mildly ineffective leader, probably start an unfunded war in Iran, and spent most of his time being blocked by the Democrats in the Senate. If Obama is elected I predict he'll be a mildly ineffective leader, possibly start an unfunded war in Iran and spend most of his time being blocked by the Republicans in the Senate.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I can't watch ANY of it, and quite frankly, the Libertarians are the worst. All of the politicos spout platitudes describing things they will never do, let alone even attempt, pandering to the extremes with promises that can'r possibly come true...
And the Libertarians are the absolute worst, with the exception of Lyndon LaRouche (who has in fact been dead for years - his body was preserved by the same folks who did Stalin). LaRouche and Ralph Nader, now there's a ticket I would vot for, just to be entertained for four years.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Just the facts please (ps remember Godwin's law please)
Interrresting... for what reason would you, a Romney supporter, be afraid that the replies to your post^H^H^H^Htroll would invoke Godwin's law?
Too bad that you forgot to mention what President signed the law that created the DOE program.
Too bad you forgot to mention that it was Republicans Senators who wrote the law.
Too bad you forgot to mention the overall size of the program versus the losses.
Too bad you forgot to mention how Fisker's money which they sent overseas was from a different source than the loan money which went to another operation.
They found a manufacturer in Sweden that could do the job in the time they needed. Heavens no!
Yeah, that is why I said "easier", there are many other difficult ways.
Only an American would be so Fucking stupid as to think Obama is a socialist. Americans don't have the foggiest clue what socialism is.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I didn't fact check all of the companies on your list, but First Solar is not "near bankruptcy" - it's still trading on the NASDAQ with a stock price of $23, or a market cap of around $2B. In its last quarterly report, they claimed to have almost $700M of cash on hand, with $900M in revenues and 25% gross profit.
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/FSLR/2133318876x0x587754/43642762-a08b-47d3-bc57-62ee73d6b300/Q2_2012_Web_Schedule_final.pdf
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/romneys-solar-flareout/
Even if much of the government money went to innovative companies that are struggling to get their product to market (i.e. Solyndra), that's pretty much where government money should be going -- if a company has a solid business plan and is on the track to profitability, the private sector will take care of them. But if a company with a promising product can't get enough private VC funding to get their product to market, then government funding can help them to compete against government subsidized foreign competitors. The alternative to government investment seems to be to let the Chinese dominate the alternative energy market.
Hello Left. I am Centrist. Right is over there.
Just so you know what my personal policies are regarding the issues you just lobbed at me blithely, again, despite two previous postings pointng out that "criticism of Obama != support of Romney" for you, As the saying goes, "third time's the charm."
I support people getting abortions, within reason. For instance, I am in favor of things like "plan B" which induces a chemical abortion during the first trimester. I think it should be OTC, with a free pharmicist consult to prevent dangerous off-label use. (It can cause life threatening bleeding if used on a later stage pregnancy, for instance.) I am against 3rd trimester abortion of any kind. (Seriously, the woman didn't know she was pregnant for 6 months before then? For real?) Religion isn't the issue. I am agnostic. In terms of risk of complications, a ceasarian and a D&E with currettage (literally, having the womb scraped with a kife) are about on par, except that one kills the fetus, and the other does not. Barring extreme medical interventions, 3rd trimester abortion has no medical benefit whatsoever, and cannot be supported rationally.
Medical care is a serious problem as well, but the problem with the "all eggs in one basket" approach by government causes a situation rife with abuse, which happens right now, routinely. Rather than a shortlist of medical suppliers authorized to work through medicare, I would rather see patients receive a fixed credit from medicare, and search for the best provider for their specific needs. That way hospitals have to compete for medicare funding. I would like to see US pharmecutical companies be prohibited from selling pharmecuticals at rediculous premiums domestically, and for peanuts abroad as well. This alone would almost completely fix medicaid. Additionally, I would like to se a mandate to the AMA that they train a radically increased percentage of physicians each year, to drive down the costs of care by increasing supply.
As for my sexual preference, you have it wrong. I am asexual, and don't give a shit what people do with their equipment. I cannot condone anyone being treated disrespectfully over something as rediculous as who they or don't find attractive.
Now. Care to shoe-horn me into the Romney camp some more, or are you satisfied?
Holy shit, they didn't hold anything back. The discussion played out like the US owns the planet and everyone else is allowed to play in our sandbox on our say-so. Highlights included a reiteration that Israel is our "super-duper-mega-happy-ally" in the Middle East (conveniently avoiding mentioning Saudi Arabia) and we should do our utmost to play puppet-master in Syria with a "leadership role" because letting untrained rebels fight and die with your guns in their hands is so much more palatable as an exercise in abuse of power than sending in the military and forcibly removing the government from power. Romney chimed in stating that the only reason we're fucking with Syria so hard is because they're Iran's only friend and we should take Israel's advice on Syrian interests.
This stuff is simply horrifying.
Nice of you to log in before posting. Bonus points if you double-down.
You didn't REFUSE to vote. You simply couldn't muster the mental or physical effort required to get off your lazy ass and do your moral duty.
I don't think you should be compelled to vote. But if you want to abstain, you should follow up by abstaining from living here for the next 4 years.
At the very least, your official position wasn't counted and your subsequent opinion doesn't mean jack shit.
So vote for whoever you want, or don't. But your sense of moral superiority doesn't play well with either side who is doing their best to do their duty for God and their country. And to obey the scout law.
I call you out on your demagogue word 'socialism' and you replace it with 'Marxist' like that is somehow a good argument. It's just name-calling. I'm not worried about socialism or communism.. Like I said earlier, I am worried about facism.
And, since I will be the one voting, I will decide whether or not I am losing by casting a losing vote. Perhaps my only goal is to influence the scope of discussion and open up both 'sides' to the ideas that only Gary Johnson is talking about. My choice is to expand the scope of discussion. My choice is for a better Republican candidate than the one the Establishment dictates to me. My choice is that it would be better for the Republicans in the long run to lose the election to a bad President than to win the election with a bad candidate.
My vote is for Gary Johnson. Obama is simply not better than Romney by enough of a margin for me to vote for him; and vice-versa. Gary Johnson is on the ballot and my choice is for him.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Can I be president now?
seen the debate... i am not angry on the us, and i am not happy either... i feel pitty ive heard leader, one of the candidates mistakenly saying iraq again while iran was ment, quarreling over how to lead the world best. i am speechless now, and i am feeling sorry for you guys that you, and we as a planet have to cope with that.
I have no such duty. My civic duty is *not* to the nation as a whole, but to my local government. My kin, my family. The nation is a sacrifice that comes last.
Not always last, but often last. And that is as it should be. There's a reason federalism was *weak* when the constitution began, and the states and local sheriffs effectively ruled supreme. That government which rules best is that which governs least.
However, even if I didn't feel that way -- in the national issue...I think at this point I have a civic duty to vote for the worst, most destructive, damaging, damning one.
I only hope the revolution comes and ends in my lifetime.
Good debate! I honestly think Obama was able to hold his own on most of the foreign policy discussion, though his case fell apart when it came to the economy. Romney did a great job hammering how we've neglected our military and our allies and how a stronger economy would make doing this easier. Obama got prickly when he got interrupted; Romney tended to ramble. Solid debate. Not sure I could really say either man won outright, though I give Romney the edge on the closing words.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
I'll put in a second vote for allowing things to fall apart and then peacefully rebuilding. Compromise has to be periodically be rebuilt and every so often we need to stop and come to a decision about how we're all going to stand to live with each other.
The winner take all attitude has to end.
I feel uncomfortable just watching him sweat so much. They're not that different in terms of civil liberties, Obama having passed NDAA and doing nothing to stop garbage like the Patriot Act. But Romney is just too much of a liar to trust in a position of power. He thinks it's ok to lie constantly and without conscience, and turn around and negate his opinions with a sincere face as if his previous comments aren't recorded on video and audio. That kind of audacity would be the makings of a criminal if he wasn't so wealthy. Instead he's a promoter of the economic abuses of the wealthy and the growing wealth disparity in America.
Use some sense, don't vote for Romney. BTW I'm a registered Republican.
you have a lot more power than you think
but your power is counterintuitive
in 1992, ross perot voters meant bill clinton won
in 2000, ralph nader voters meant gw bush won (well, al gore actually won, but he lost the bullshit filter we call the electoral college by a hair's sliver that nader voters greatly outnumbered)
in 2012, you guys may again decide who wins since the election is so close
third party voters come from a disillusioned left, or a disillusioned right. it seems to me that this election cycle has more disillusioned voters on the right. meaning: obama wins, as the right is fractionated to some extent by voters for someone other than romney
unfortunately, we live in a system where you have to vote strategically, not idealistically
1. for those of you who vote strategically (not the guy i like the best but the guy closest of the main parties), you get someone closer to your ideology in the white house
2. for those of you who vote idealistically (screw the guy who could win, i like THIS guy), you get someone further away from your ideology in the white house (see 1992 and 2000 above)
now, other systems where more than two parties dominate: is that really such a rosy world? ask someone in parliamentary systems where coalition governments form: you have people close to you ideologically, getting into bed with ideologies that are extremely odious to you, to stay in power. coalitions of perverse arrangement
in other words, other countries are not better than the usa if ideological purity is so important to you, they are just compromised in different ways than the american system
such that, an ugly truth for you: you will NEVER, as long as you ever live, have someone you love ideologically in power. you will ALWAYS have someone who is kinda sorta like you, as your best bet. this is true no matter what your ideology, right or left. why? because that's EXACTLY what politics is: compromise, in order to lead. that's what politics always was, what it is, and what it always will be. and only an ideologue is angrily allergic to compromise. and thank god, therefore, your man will never lead in a sane country. because the leader who champions rigid ideology over compromise is dangerous
politics is a game to appeal a lot of people weakly, than a few strongly. get used to it. the candidates who have the best chance to lead, always, FOREVER, will appeal to you ONLY weakly
you should accept this truth, and always vote strategically instead of ideologically
or help elect the guy further away from you ideologically by voting idealistically
your choice
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No, False dichotomy is false.
A choice between Obama and Romney is a choice between Kang and Kodos.
I clearly see that both are corrupt, and do not have my, nor our nation's interests in mind. Regardless of how small the chance of victory is for the 3rd party, the ethical choice is to choose him.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!" Is what has systematically killed this country for 50 years.
Romney's claim of Iran having 10000 Centrifuges seems to me to either be at least a gross exaggeration or simply a flat out lie. The only way I can figure he is telling the truth is if he is counting each enrichment cylinder as a separate centrifuge, which is kinda of like counting each grain of sand as it's own desert. If Iran is actually operating 10000 centrifuges it means roughly an area the size of Washington DC is being committed to uranium enrichment by Iran.
US politics is w-a-y more of a fake stage show than you can possibly know.:
http://youtu.be/pKaXqoC4DjE?t=3m3s
Well, you might as well vote for Mickey Mouse, then. You're throwing your vote away to make an idealistic point, and nobody will be listening to you. You have a chance to try to keep things from getting a little worse, and you're planning squander it. You, sir, can suck that proverbial bag of dicks. The world needs way less of you.
You made the claim that the candidates are the same. I pointed out that they were different.
That's it. I never shoehorned you into either camp. I said I was disgusted by your apathy towards an election that will literally be life or death for many people. There are clear and important differences between the candidates, and to deny that is the height of recklessness.
Those differences include:
Abortion. Romney would outlaw it, Obama would preserve the status quo. From your post, you should prefer Obama.
Medicare. Romney would end it, Obama would make some minor tweaks to keep it solvent. From your post, you would prefer Romney. You're wrong, and don't seem to understand that sending seniors to the for-profit corporations for care would not improve outcomes, but you should at least acknowledge there's a difference.
Military spending. Obama is trying to cut it by $100Byr, Romney wants to increase it by $200B/yr. You gave no indication of which you prefer, but unless you're barely-sentient, you must have some sort of opinion on the matter.
Taxes. Romney would cut them 20% across the board, Obama would raise them by a few percent on people earning $250k+/yr, and by ~10% on capital gains. Again, surely you have some opinion on the matter.
Gay rights. Sounds like you ought to be in the Democrat's camp on this one, if you truly don't condone mistreatment of people based on their sexual orientation.
War. Romney wants to ramp military spending, has said a little while ago in the debate that we should be arming the Syrian rebels, has accused Obama of not sufficiently supporting Israel, etc. If he's elected, there's a better than even chance that we'll be at war in Iran in the next two years. Obama has resisted calls by Israel to support bombing strikes against Iran, pursuing every possible alternative, and wants to cut military spending. I can't guarantee that he wouldn't go to war, but it seems far less likely.
Any reasonable person should come to the conclusion that Obama is the better choice here. An unreasonable one, who perhaps has their view of the world tainted by religion, might think Romney is the better choice. But only an absolute fool would say it doesn't matter either way.
Don't get me wrong, I approve of a lot of Gary Johnson's platform, but the idea of eliminating the IRS, income taxes, corporate income taxes...I'm sorry but I think that's insane. Not even Ireland has 0% corporate income tax, and consumption (sorry, "expenditure") taxes are regressive.
I'd love to support Mr. Johnson but I rather like the civilized society that we live in and I know that taxes are the price we pay for such a society.
:(){
I really enjoy this crap every four years. Since I live (and am taxed) in the US but can't vote (btw, what about taxation without representation??), I sit back and enjoy the show.
Politics is sad in most countries: In democracies, the majority (not to get into the electoral college nonsense) put a person into a position of enormous power, hoping that he/she will somehow fight their instinct of self-enrichment and do good for the average population. The nice thing about US politics is that they make so many loopholes that politicians can make money hand-over-fist in clearly unethical manners, and then use media soundbites to smear the other guy while taking a holier-than-thou attitude... Corporation financing? Sure. Trading on insider information? No problems. 'Must-not-coordinate with SuperPACs'? wink-wink, no problems. And once they get in, the endless smears from every direction:
A: Your guy sued puppies...
B: Well, Puppies is an acronym for People Usurping Public Property In Every State
A: Call the press, this guy is a puppy hater
B: Oh yeah, well... You're weak on crime and trying to allow redistribution. of resources - you communist/socialist/marxist/whatever
It's almost like mutually assured destruction - do anything, and the other guy will twist your words and actions to make you seem like a crook. It is quite funny from an outsider's perspective. Our politicians lie, cheat, whore, and steal. You make it legal to steal, and they lie, cheat, and whore, and blame the other guy for stealing. At least there is some hope that if our politicians get caught, they might lose something. Politics in the US is a no-loss game for the players.
An actual discussion:
"I'm sick of hearing the phrase 'the failed policies of this administration'! It's a disgrace!"
"Yeah, but you only say that because you know that it was Bush's fault!"
"I tell you, it was Clinton's fault, and then it was more different Bush's fault!"
"It was Reagan's fault!"
"Carter's fault!"
"That blackguard Ford, that's whose fault it was!"
"Nixon's fault and you know it!"
"Oh yeah? It was Johnson's fault! LBJ!"
"Actually, he was kind of a bad person... he did piss on that secret service guy just for the hell of it."
"Yeah, bad example."
No, unfortunately I made the mistake of looking at Twitter, which asploded when the debate started, so I'm still here :-) Time to tune the instruments and head out the door.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
People become the mirror image of what they hate. You aren't broadminded enough to understand what that truly means.
The only problem is that "huge effect" is, usually, negative for the interests they represent.
This is true in the short run. But in the long run, voting for a third party causes the major parties to move in that direction to win these voters back. The popularity of the Socialist Party in the early 20th Century caused the Democrats under FDR to move significantly to the left.
Since neither the Libertarians nor the Greens get many votes, the major parties are under little pressure to champion personal liberty and/or stronger environmentalism. By supporting one of these parties, you can change that. Unless you live in a swing state, your vote is meaningless anyway, so voting third party is the only way to make a difference.
Well, since any third party will likely be excluded AGAIN from the "official" presidential debates, why not gather the third party candidates together for some sports analyst-style commentary on the debate? The debate will be streamed live into a studio where the other candidates are gathered. They will then be given a chance to comment or savage the arguments or lack thereof of the Democratic/Republican candiates. Of course, it won't have the immediacy of a real debate, but since the official debate is shaping out to be a verbal boxing match anyway, this will at least give the third party candiates a chance to have their views heard.
I haven't watched any of the unofficial debates, so I don't know if this is already being done on a time-shifted basis.
550 goddamn votes in Florida and you'd see what difference not electing Bush the Lesser would have made, kemosabe.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
... or is the whole thing gonna become yet another "I can kick China harder than you" pissing contest?
America has a lot of problems right now.
Unemployment ... and so on ...
Gradual loss of talents
Becoming more and more uncompetitive
Sky-rocketing crime rate
Tanking of morality
Are the two men gonna deal with the real problem facing America or are they gonna participating in the "I can kick China harder than you" pissing contest ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Ok, say you are a rich person. Would you rather a) live in a fancy house with slums all around where you need an armed guard whenever you have to travel outside of your closed complex, or b) live in a fancy house with decent houses all around you without there being any slums and without having to pay taxes to support people who don't work because the country is wealthy enough that everybody can make a decent living with a reasonable amount of effort?
There are benefits to living in a wealthy society. That being said:
1) True, not all rich people think the way outlined above. Some just want to greedily make tons of money. I say that's fine so long as they can do it in a non-exploitative way. Theoretically a trade is only undertaken if mutually beneficial to both parties, so somebody making millions of trades (millions of dollars exchanged) should benefit the economy a lot.
2) Have I been tricked into defending rich people when not rich myself? My reasoning seems to make sense, though...
I find it incredibly humorous that you have the gall to refer to us as "drones" yet can't even manage to establish the veracity of the very list you mindlessly parrot.
For starters, First Solar has neither filed for bankruptcy nor is failing; granted, they did have a rather nasty Q1 2012, as they lost $449.4M (USD), which they made up for in Q2 2012, by posting a profit of $111M (USD), and likely will do the same in Q3, given their current stock price. To find out more about their history, you can peruse their official quarterly financial results that are made available to investors:
(Q2 2012) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fileid=587754&filekey=43642762-a08b-47d3-bc57-62ee73d6b300&filename=Q2_2012_Web_Schedule_final.pdf
(Q1 2012) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fileid=566130&filekey=eb2e729f-983d-466b-bf42-d09461c40ddd&filename=Q1_2012_Web_Schedule_Final_IR.pdf
(Q4 2011) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fileid=546601&filekey=6975fcbc-0591-43f3-8d96-89e3e3ed2a14&filename=Q4_2011_Web_Schedule_Final.pdf
(Q3 2011) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fileid=514964&filekey=d9532d11-f0d6-43b8-8aec-2af1d4f57991&filename=Q3_2011_Web_Schedule_Template_FINAL.pdf
(Q2 2011) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/download.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fileid=489149&filekey=7d51e913-c933-40b8-8cf1-57cf28583eba&filename=Key_Quarterly_Financial_Data.pdf
and the 2012 reports that they sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (US SEC):
(August 1, 2012) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/sec.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fid=1274494-12-33&cik=1274494
(Jun 29, 2012) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/sec.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fid=1274494-12-38&cik=1274494
(May 24, 2012) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/sec.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fid=1274494-12-27&cik=1274494
(April 17, 2012) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/sec.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fid=1193125-12-165498&cik=1274494
(March 19, 2012) http://investor.firstsolar.com/common/download/sec.cfm?companyid=FSLR&fid=1274494-12-19&cik=1274494
(February 28, 2012)
I'll be voting Gary Johnson.
If you're going to vote third-party you could at least vote for electoral reform.
They are both the same? Not to me. As a cancer patient who has gone from unemployed to a semi-well paying job, I can now get insurance that I couldn't get/hope to afford before Obama.
You close your eyes and ears and say it all looks/sounds the same. Your an albatross around the neck of this country, and if you truly feel that way, brush up on your Mandarin and move to China where it really is all the same.
That assumes there's a major candidate that is near to their interests.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Reality check.
Now, you're probably a fairly well off young straight male,
Statistcally significant.
so who cares if women die trying to get abortions?
Not statistically significant.
Who cares if some old people are thrown out into the streets?
TOTAL bullshit. If your 72 year old mother gets thrown out into the street, grow a spine and take her in.
Who cares if some poor people are sent off to die in a
foreign land? Who cares if gay people are treated as subhuman?
Violent revolution is easier than a complete rework of a political regime through Statute.
October Revolution ...but a few notable historical examples.
French Revolution
Spanish Civil War
American War of Independence
The Glorious Revolution
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Sacking of Troy
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
(Shakes head)
The "difference" between the candidates and their policies boils down to how long it is before the US government is completely bankrupt. That is all.
Obama just offers social services, while Romney wants to cut them. (The truth is that they should likk the white elephant in the room that military expenditure represents with great justice in their hearts, and slash government intelligence projects focused on spying on US citizens along with it.)
Neither will do so, for a very simple reason. A HUGE portion of the economy is vitally dependent upon military contracts, without which, the current economic downturn would look like a blip.
I don't envy politicians. The choice they would be forced to make here is unpleasant from every angle, and they will be demonized regardless, but it is important to know that it is a problem of their own creation.
But since you asked for clarification on the war issue: I think the US should stop involving itself in every little dispute the world pukes up. We need to cut military expenditure, not increase it. Clearly, we didn't learn anything from the fall of the soviet union about unsustainable military presences.
And now, the major thing you cannot seem to fathom:
I DON'T SUPPORT EITHER CANDIDATE AT ALL.
*AT ALL*
Yes. I voted in the primaries. I did NOT vote for Romney. (Nor did I vote for the other Right wing troll the GOP vomitted up. I actually voted for Paul on the primary, hoping he would win the nomination by popular vote, which he did in many areas, but was rejected wholesale by the GOP anyway.)
I do not favor Obama, despite many liberal leanings, due to his abysmal performance the past 4 years, and before that, I didn't support him because his promises he made while campaigning were completely impossible to meet by a president.
My prediction: Obama is lying and will do exactly the same things he's done the past 4 years-- which is to sign practically everything put in front of him while going on vacation and blame it all on the bush era, and Romney is a war mongering douche, and is shamelessy open about how he's going to shove hard corporate cock down every man woman and child in the country.
Election outcome prediction: Obama wins due to Paul split of vote on the right, followed by radical increase in govt spending.
I'm somewhat amazed that you can't see obvious policy differences between the TWO viable candidates. Although both are much more to the right than in the past, there is a clear difference in ideology and plans for the next 4 years.
I take it you're moving to Canada when RON PAUL doesn't get elected? If you're entirely blind to all policy differences and don't care about which way the country should be going, then sure vote for your no-name candidate with zero chance. If you do care, then the ethical choice would be to cast a vote against the one you dislike most.
You are so RETARDED if you fail to discern the RADICAL differences between Obama and Romney.
A Gore victory in 2000 would have prevented the invasion of Iraq, and the many other epic failures of the Bush years.
Or, a Kerry victory in 2004 would likely have brought the Iraq war to a conclusion a lot sooner, and would likely have reduced the number of people detained at Gitmo, and might have prevented the housing bubble (and ensuing economic collapse).
So, "retarded reasoning is retarded". But, throwing your vote away is better than voting in a way that is counterproductive. So, maybe you *should* stay away from a voting booth.
"I had my left buttock squeezed by Sir Jimmy Saville 42 years ago and I've been traumatized ever since" says Cheryl in her exclusive paid for interview for the Sun Newspaper.
I know you wanted to make a joke, but what's happening to the BBC is not funny. This is Murdochs revenge for investigating the bugging and phone tapping his empire is up to.
A lot of the claims come from newspaper stories in Murdochs rags, he PAYS people to make those claims. They have a financial incentive to make the FALSE claim, and since Jimmy Saville is dead, he can't fight back and there's no libel in printing it. The Newsnight editors decides not to do a piece on it, and quite rightly, the claims are baseless with a financial motive to tell lies. So Murdochs gets attack a 'culture in the BBC', when Saville did a few programs in the 70's for them, and it's all Murdoch's lot behind it.
You suffer Fox News courtesy of Murdoch, the endless history rewriting, lies and deceptions from Murdochs liebots, but we suffer his News International and Sky News.
The sooner Murdoch and his sons are in jail for their criminal acts, the better the world will be.
My god you are ignorant. I am naming specific, tangible differences. Differences that will decide whether a great many people live or die. And you're just sitting here insisting in broken english that they're all the same. "The truth is that they should likk the white elephant in the room that military expenditure represents with great justice in their hearts"?! What the hell does that even mean? If it's a complaint about military spending, then I repeat: Obama is trying to cut military spending by $100B/yr, and get blasted by Republicans for it. Romney is planning on increasing military spending by $200B/yr and pegging it to 4% of the GDP to ensure that it stays high.
It doesn't matter that you don't support either. One of them will win. If you care at all about your fellow citizens, you should be voting for Obama. He's not great, to say the least, but he's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
Being a partisan means focusing all of your sympathy on certain problems and shutting it off for other problems. Thinking about all ends of things is harder.
It's not that both sides are the same, it's that they both make the same mistake except with opposite chirality. It's a mistake either way and you make it worse by backing either side. The only way to balance things is to pursue the center.
too bad that anglo blood of yours means you'll never join our club
Obama has an established track record of saying one set of things, then actually doing whatever the right wing wants in regard to military expenses.
He is the president. His power is VETO. He should have used it. He did not. Instead he endorsed legislation that increased military expenditures, and got the US involved in libya; and increased the amount of assfucking the government is legally allowed to do to private citizens. If that's left, I don't wanna see what the right has to offer.
Your argument relies on the dumbfounding proposition that what Obama says he is going to do, is what he will actually do.
I am basing my pessimistic view around his previous track record instead.
If my nation is dumb enough to elect romney i think it is time to hand myself. There is only so much stupid that can contaminate my atmosphere. Romney oozes a sleezy kind of stupid like most people ooze sweat on a hot day. Maybe Bush injected him with stupid sauce or something.
Well his current track is cutting military spending by $1 trillion - not really a big increase
If you want to convince people to change why not spend your protest vote at the State or local level where it might matter?
In the event that a 3rd party did win a presidential election under the current conditions it would be because an already famous person became their candidate and won on the basis of their own fame, not because you voted for a Libertarian candidate most people never heard of in 2012.
If on the other hand you focus on the local or state level, capture the state legislature in a friendly state, then get some people in congress, then the senate, then as governor, well now you actually have a credible vehicle from which to launch a national campaign. But starting off as a Presidential campaign? That's not going to change anything.
I stole this Sig
"Further, most Slashdot readers are smart enough to see that Romney changes his rhetoric for whatever crowd he's entertaining "
A Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent walked into a bar. The bartender said, "Hi, Mitt!".
- copy-paste republican troll getting desperate,
- copy-paste democratic troll perpetuating stereotypes,
- editors pre-emptively seeding flame wars to increase hits.
Pick one.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Romney is surrounding himself with Bush neocons and you know a Romney administration would staff key cabinet positions with them. And he doesn't know anything about foreign policy, and couldn't care less about earth sciences - specifically environmental science. No, he would leave all that to neocons and big oil construction companies to deal with. Shock & awe, bombing runs, land wars, fear in the form of colorful terror warning labels, etc. More war (non-infrastructure investment) debt that does nothing good for the US economy, except grab more oil at the high cost of war. The only "good thing" for you Slashdotters are Romney's promised high bracket tax cuts. And if you're a one issue voter that'd be it. Otherwise, you know better. So the question is: get bigger tax returns and fuck-up middle easterners and the earth's biosphere, or not?
Nice try Anonymous Coward.. But most of the Slashdot readers here are educated enough to know that Obama is only slightly less authoritarian than Romney and 'socialism' is just a word used in the wrong context to demagogue Obama. Further, most Slashdot readers are smart enough to see that Romney changes his rhetoric for whatever crowd he's entertaining and either candidate just continues the march towards facism.. It's just that Obama seems to want to march slower.
I'll be voting Gary Johnson. Even though I think Obama is the slightly lesser of two evils, I am sick of voting for evil.
And that's the attitude that got us 8 years of Bush! Al Gore won the popular vote and take away the Ralph Nader votes and it was a landslide for Gore in 2000. Kerry lost over the Swift Boat BS which should have never been an issue since it was obvious lies. Voting for Gary Johnson IS a vote for Romney and history supports that stance. Obama means things won't change much. Vote for Romney and he's said he wants tax cuts for the rich and fewer deductions for the middle class. Get over the fact Obama is black and listen to what they actually say. Obama rarely wavers on his stances while Romney changes with every sunrise. In the court of law the guy that changes his story is assumed to be the liar and the one that never wavers is the truthful one. Funny how in elections that rule never applies unless it's a Democrat. Kerry was hammered on changing a couple of stances. Romney has changed practically EVERY stance! By that metric who is trust worthy?
Actually, the Libertarians are having a strong effect on the Republican party. You'll notice that Ron Paul debated on the stage with the other Republican candidates, and got a strong response. The effect is usually sneered at as "The Tea Party". But if you look at any candidate labeled as a Tea Party candidate, you'll see a strong libertarian streak.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that, just before the Civil War, the Republicans WERE the 3rd party. The bad thing about a 2-party system is that, no matter who the 3rd-party is, if they get strong they eventually become one of the 2. The good thing about a 2-party system is that some fringe group (like the Greens or Austria's Freedom Party) can't hold the coalition government model hostage in order to advance their narrowly-supported agenda.
I will be voting of Ozzy. Always have.
I refuse to take part in the charade that is the presidential election. It is bogus, our votes are MEANINGLESS and either way it goes, an evil douche gets a job for 4 years. Who gives a fuck. I don't watch that tv show, and neither should you.
The biggest fallacy in the US is that voting means something. Every four years idiots start yelling at people to VOTE VOTE VOTE! Use your freedom and right to vote!! blah blah blah.
Do you know what changes when the president changes? Nothing. Not ever. The president doesn't hold any power. He draws attention away from it. He is a scapegoat and a figurehead. The real power lies where votes cannot reach: appointments, bureaucracy and lobbies. You show me a politician who has actually read the entirety of the law he has voted for/against, and I'll show you a liar. It is all a big fucking joke.
So I will be voting for Ozzy. Because it really truly does not matter who I vote for.
You DO know Obama's cutting military and Romey's plan is for more spending than the Pentagon has requested?
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hum, shouldn't we be more concerned about who gets into the house and senate? I mean the legislative branch is the place where laws are proposed and legislated. The u.s president's powers are very limited. You want change, stop putting corporate puppet whores in house and senate. Medicare/Medicade $793 billion, SS $700 billion, Total defense spending 2012 is $1.4 trillion, Net Interest? $197 billion, Other Mandatory? $416 billion, Discretionary $660 billion. I mean it freaking adds up to $3,456 Trillion. WTF. The u.s government spending is out of control. If health insurance covered 80%-90% for $100-$150 a month I would be happy to get it, but I used to pay over $600 a month which i canceled it and by next year it's going to be higher than this. The so called obamacare(False, cant create bills) or more like the republican corporate care(democrat public option left out) is to phase out medicare in ten 10 years completely which is okay except that you will be paying freaking higher premiums than today and probably bankrupt a lot of people since everything like housing, rent, gas, electricity, water, going up while salaries are stagnant.
Thank you.
A 3rd trimester abortion cannot be made easy. The fetus is the size of a football. (American.)
For the same degree of invasiveness, the woman could choose a ceasarian section, with a very good chance the fetus will live. (It is functionally no different from a premature birth.)
3rd trimester abortions require curretage. Look it up. Its basically having the inside of her womb, which is by then swollen with bloodvessels to supply the placenta the fetus is attached to with oxygen and nutrients, scraped with a knife that resembles a spatula with a hole cut in the center, with sharp edges, so she gets scraped like a potato with a potato peeler. That is what currettage is. By comparison, a ceasarian section is a vertical surgical insision, followed by removal of the fetus and more controlled removal of the placental mass.
In terms of postoperative complications, both are nearly equal. Many women require histerectomies after botched 3rd trimester abortions. They rent something you get on a whim. Ever.
Trolls and turfers, $2 billion buys a *lot* of turf.
Karl Rove's leaked email on how to turf websites:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/27/1010778/-BREAKING-Leaked-Rove-email-singles-out-Daily-Kos
One of the companies he hired to do it:
http://web.archive.org/web/20110622211824/http://advantageconsultants.org/
Most people who run around trying to claim they will vote third party or that everyone should because of benefit X, are generally either pouting because their "cause" wasn't championed by one of the major party candidates and trying to "teach them a lesson" or they are plants pretending to be for third parties in an attempt to weaken their guy's opponent's chances.
They have heard all the reasoning to why it is rubbish to vote third party. They know it lets the guy most unlike them win. They know that a third party president will be unable to effect any change and it would in fact be one thing that would unit republicans and democrats in making sure they the third party president gets nothing done.
So from the way I see it, they know full well what the effect is and are actually trying to perpetuate it.
If Obama is so "knowledgeable" about foreign relations, how is it that our foreign relations are in such dire straights?
No improvement in the middle east, and in fact things are generally worse than when he entered office. No improvement in regards to ally or "non-allies" like Iran and Pakistan, and very soon things will be worse with Iran.
Lots of promises, no deliveries and even Libya is significantly tarnished as a victory. Woo-Hoo that we managed to assassinate a key leader of Al-Quieda, but they are apparently organized enough to still do significant harm.
The one thing Obama could have done a lot earlier was to cut losses in Afghanistan and realize we really could not do more there than already has been done. But he was fully in for a surge there because it worked in Iraq, without seeing the differences.
I don't feel like the world at large is at all better place for having Obama as a steward, why would I want to escalate the train wreck that is already not in very slow motion at all? The fact is the U.S. is simply too powerful to sit out world politics but Obama is just not suited to figure out how to wield that power to positive effect.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But Nader wouldn't have received all the non-Bush votes, just as Perot wouldn't have received all the non Bush Sr./Dole votes. But the inverse is true. Gore would have received nearly all (I would guess 99% with the remaining 1% just not voting) of the Nader votes and Bush Sr./Dole would have received those Perot votes.
There's historical precedent for this conclusion: The elections of 1912 is a particularly good example, where the Republican vote was split between Theodore Roosevelt running independently and Howard Taft the defending Republican incumbent.
The biggest problem is that our system of government is outdated, inefficient, and ineffective. But to criticize the U.S. Constitution is taboo (funny how the most staunch defenders of this antiquated document know the least about it). Voting for a third party candidate is just voting against one's interests and will continue to be the case as long as our government is run by this ridiculous bicameral legislative system and selects the head of state through an electoral college. The only hope for this to happen is for the average citizen to become better educated and thus better able to see through the nationalistic bullshit of worshipping the U.S. Constitution and the men who founded this country. That's why I'm voting for Obama - I don't think he'll enact the specific changes I would like to see, nor do I think he'd have the power to do so if he wanted to - but he does prioritize education, which sets America on the path to overcoming the chains of our federalist system. In an era when technology is steadily making manual labor less necessary, this country cannot afford to have as many uneducated, unskilled people running amok as it currently does.
It doesn't matter if people think in the terms of the 'lesser of two evils' or not. The average voter is a moron. It doesn't matter what they think. Statement votes to third party candidates will do nothing to better this country. Voting for Obama does.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Should have read "Kill", not "likk". I have serious problems with this rediculous froyo device.
Again, as I pointed out, killing government military spending will result in a major unemployment spiral, because many state economies, especially in traditionally republican states, are hoplessly dependent upon major military contractors landing big contracts to keep people employed.
Analogy: voting to kill FoxConn in the foxconn factory city.
This is why it is a white elephant, and they try so hard to ignore it, while simultaneously awarding bigger and bigger contracts, and why obama's promise to cut the spending is laughably farsical.
Hello, did you just invent a straw man out of whole cloth, assign the GP some attributes you hate, and then tell this straw man that he disgusts you? Seriously, did you really do that?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Oh, I'm sure they do. They just don't see it as some utopian entity like others do and claim every slight lean towards it is bad.
Most "Tea Party" republicans are nothing like libertarians - they're mostly fiscal conservatives with a heavy dose of social conservatism.
Romney refuses to answer any HARD questions. Obama refuses to answer them as well. both are lying pussies that REFUSE handle real questions from voters. and the media is too lame to ask the hard questions.
The media is too lame because they cannot (or will not) ask questions that might make Obama look bad. It's well documented that a vast majority of journalists are registered Democrats, and they over the years have become softer and softer to Democratic candidates.
That will not happen with a Republican in office, the press will be more than eager to ask the tough questions and drill into Romney or any other Republican/Libertarian/Green candidate. No more softballs, no more pretending business has not made major inroads of control of government.
The press are supposed to be the dedicated watchdogs to help alert the populace when trouble with the elected leaders is afoot. If you elect a Democrat again, that job will continue to go undone and even greater piping of federal revenues to connected private individuals will occur (like almost all of the green energy companies the government invested in agains the advice of financial advisors).
I'm not even sure it matters which other party; I'm pretty sure the media would actually pay attention to any other candidate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'll settle for slower--slower means we have time to turn around.
Posts like this make me wish slashdot had a "-1 Uninformed".
You have a chance to try to keep things from getting a little worse
And how exactly do you propose that he keep things from getting worse? By voting for someone who will screw shit up, but not as badly as the other one, so things get worse but a little less worse than the alternative?
It's not his fault people keep voting for getting worse.
It would appear so. This happens to centrists from both partisan camps: they rent extreme enough for either side.
When we criticize, we are denounced in the same way the "evil other side!" Are. In this case, I was immediately accused of being anti-abortion, which is false. Accused of wanting increased military spending, which is false, accused of hating women, which is false, and accused of wanting to see old people tossed out on the street, which is false.
He then said I should support obama, because of my positions, despite my open stating why I won't do so.
Apparently my lack of zealous fervor is what he finds disgusting. This happens frequently with centrists actually. We are universally reviled by the partisan crowd.
It means getting dirty with two girls, if you know what I mean.
You belong to the group you failed to list.
This group is the- I don't know enough to say anything with authority but I've decided based around little actual knowledge but my own opinion what everyone else is about and even jaded my critique of them in order to seem uber important when spewing shit opinions as fact.
You can decide on a name yourself to this group of people. Every single group you ranted about contains factual errors.
You guys have a system where third (and fourth, etc.) parties get low single digit percentages in presidential elections and rarely elect any representatives to either of the two legislative houses. And it wasn't always that way.
Your problems won't be fixed by getting rid of the electoral college or some sort of proportional representation in the legislative houses. The entire country is brainwashed into voting for "their" party. That's what has to change.
That attitude is what's wrong with US elections. Vote your conscience. Sure, it might cause your least favourite party to win this election, but how big is the difference anyway? And if you keep up the strategic voting crap, nothing will ever change.
You sound fairly reasonable (you actually described the situation in my country with regards to plan B and abortion). Except... plan B isn't for "first trimester abortions." It works within the first 48 to 72 hours. That's why it's called the morning after pill. It prevents implantation of the embryo, it doesn't abort it.
Tangentially, Roe v. Wade is essentially in agreement with your position, even if it is a little wishy washy on it. Roe v Wade requires that states don't interfere with women getting abortions up until the time a fetus is viable outside the womb, which the justices put between 24 and 28 weeks -- right around the end of the second trimester.
Yeah, and if you do not like paying 20-35$ extra per tire for your car, you can go back to eating nutritious rat poison. I mean seriously, you probably shouldn't' be driving that car anyways.
And you shouldn't set your thermostat to 72 degrees all the time either. For one, it's going to cost you a lot more in electricity to be comfortable in your own home and if you don't like it, you can go back to eating that nutritious rat poison.
Because you know, when the call against unnecessary and overly burdensome regulations results in an alternative that means you will be eating Rat Poison, I guess the real things this regulation effects would have the same result had they not been in place.
Actually, third(ish) trimester fetuses can feel pain. The parts of the brain required finish being hooked up early in the third trimester. Second trimester fetuses can't.
That will not happen with a Republican in office, the press will be more than eager to ask the tough questions
were you alive during the bush era?
he got more passes than your favorite football star.
tell me again how the 'liberal press' really socks it to the R's. I could use some good fantasy about now.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Umm... 2 party system? USA has about 30 parties. Problem is only the two have pockets deep enough to pretty much block everyone else. The lobbyists need control.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
I found it covered most of the main points:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/10221238-uranus-keck-photos.html
were you alive during the bush era?
he got more passes than your favorite football star.
Were you sleeping or what?
Bush was hammered on every small detail, every small flub in a way that Obama (and even Biden) have never been. The media attacked him constantly before and during the Iraq surge, until they realized it was working. Nary a peep against Obama's Afghanistan surge, before during or after even as it fails.
I'm not saying it was wrong. I'm saying it happened then and happened not at all for Obama, even with the most dire of mistakes.
That is just one of countless examples. As I said if you care to look almost all journalists self-identify with Democrats and if you think they can overcome that group-think and partisan outlook I have a few failing major news oriented magazines to sell you!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If he voted for Bush he got a two term president who signed a lot of legislation, and appointed two Supreme Court justices.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You are stupid and ugly. That is pretty much what you said.
I specifically listed the stereotypes for a reason. If you have your head so far up your ass that you could not possibly comprehend why, you should be the one to be quiet.
As I said, this is what I SEE. As in, what is heavily portrayed by both major parties. (Rather, what each group says about the other.)
Of course it isn't completely true.
A shocking number of people are pro-Romney for purely religious reasons, and are completey oblivious to the horrors that his pro-corporation policy would cause.
A shocking number of people support obama for his very recent decision to spontaneously support gay marriage. About the only thing Obama seems to care deeply about was his healthcare system, which would be better replaced simply by increasing the number of doctors.
The assertion that obama wants to cut military budgets is laughable. Do you have any idea what percentage of the american public is employed, either directly or indirectly, by miliary industrial contractors, like Ratheon, Boeing, Learjet, Lockheed-Martin and pals? Here's a hint. More than half. (You have to factor supply lines in too. People who make boxes for the components to ship in. People who make adhesives and sealants. People who screws and airguns. All are sustained by a market created by military expenditure. Removing that would cause unspeakable financia ruin. I don't believe obama is that stupid. Instead, I say his claims to willfully slash federal budgets for military expenditure are just hot air for election time.)
No hey don't. In just about any Western European country Obama would most certainly be right of centre.
The United States has no socialist part of note and has has damned few politicians tha ever fit the bill.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And welcome to your 30 hour workweek while you are waiting in line for your state mandated colonoscopies.
Well, even if that were true, I'd prefer that to having my wife forced to go in for a state-mandated vaginal-ultrasound if she wants an abortion.Your mom should have had an abortion when it was legal and easy, btw.
You haven't actually met any journalists, have you? How precisely do you explain the 6 years where journalists were giving Bush a free ride without asking any particularly pointed questions about the various crimes against humanity and violations of the constitution?
The reality is that the media does a piss poor job lately of serving as a watch dog until things go way off the rails.
And trust me, if a journalist had to choose between getting the scoop on something embarrassing that Obama did, they would go for it, it's mostly just right wing nutters that seem to think that the liberals have some sort of lock on the media.
Not technically. The bailout loans made to GM were not in the form of loans alone. Something like 70% of the loans were in the form of stock purchases in order to hide the full amount of restructuring the company after bankruptcy.
After the government forced GM into bankruptcy and negated any previous stock, part of the bailout gave the unions and GM control of all their stocks. The government then purchased about 60% of this from them at $33 a share. The treasury department sold all but about 25% of these shares right after the IPO of the new stock. The government still owns 25% or more of GM stock and 70 some percent of the former GMAC company that financed GM's own car loans. The new Finance company is called ally finance or something similar.
So yes, GM has paid back the direct loans given by the government. They haven't paid back the costs of the stock purchases and the current stock is going for $24.60 something. Sometime in August it was estimated that selling more of the stock would result in a 26 billion dollar loss.
There also exists a chemical abortion drug other than plan B, but can't recall the name. I think it starts with M. (I am not an OBGYN afterall. )
It works up through 2 months gestation, but due to placental infiltration, is too dangerous to use after that time. That's well within first trimester.
Second trimester is unfortunate, but I can see how women would fail to be sure up until then. (You can't just rush to the OBGYN and get a test any time of the day, afterall, and home pregnancy tests require the test taker to have been pregnant for awhile to be conclusive.) I would expect women who chose abortion at this stage to d so for well considered reasons, as getting one can have lasting psychological effects on the woman. For those that do, and are perfectly sure, there are many relatively uninvasive approaches.
Third trimester, outside of extremely morbid circumstances, should be avoided. They place the woman in considerable risk of being permanently harmed, which should only be done for very specific reasons. "I don't want to be pregnant!" Is not one of them. A ceasarian will make you not pregnant anymore too, and has better post operative care.
This is true in the short run. But in the long run, voting for a third party causes the major parties to move in that direction to win these voters back.
Very true, and voting third party can also have other benefits. You just have to do it smartly.
You only risk letting "the greater evil" win if you live in a swing state. If your state is solidly for one of the major parties, you can safely vote third party without risking the vote affecting the major parties. So for example, living in California, I can assume that Obama will win my state not matter how I vote, and so I can vote for whatever third party I feel like without worrying about "spoiling" anything (depending on which I would otherwise support, either victory is assured or it is impossible, either way there's no point wasting effort fighting about it).
So if you live in a swing state, yes, vote the lesser of the two evils who are most likely to win. If you don't, however, voting for your preferred third party will get you several other benefits, besides the one quoted above (major party platforms shift to try to recapture the third party vote):
- It increases the size of the third party supporter bloc (both for that party, and for the concept of third parties), which helps promote the third party (and the concept of third parties) even if they didn't win. Since they weren't going to win anyway, and your non-swing state was going the way it did anyway, this is pure win at no risk here.
But besides that obvious benefit:
- If people in your non-swing state start doing this who would otherwise vote for your state's shoe-in candidate (e.g. if California liberals start voting Green instead of Democrat), then that eventually makes your state a swing state, and suddenly your vote matters a whole lot more! This combined with parent poster's point about major parties courting the third party vote, but even better: since you're not a swing state, they care a lot about capturing your vote, giving your preferred third party's platform a major influence on them.
- That second point can however go the other way, e.g. if California conservatives start voting Libertarian, that just entrenches California more firmly as a Democrat state, with a large Democrat bloc vs smaller Republican and Libertarian blocs. However, since (for example) California is already a firmly Democrat state, you can feel free to take this all the way and eat up all the Republican votes you want, go right ahead and kill the Republican party in California, you won't be making any difference in who wins there so still no harm in letting the "greater evil" win since (for a conservative who ranks Libertarians > Republicans > Democrats) they would have anyway. So you can feel free to "spoil" the "lesser evil" all you want, and if you can manage it, go on to supplant them, e.g. turn the California election into Democrats vs Libertarians instead of Democrats vs Republicans.
Combining all these effects, voting third party in a non-swing state can have major influences. To use my own state for an example again, if we assume (perhaps questionably) that a large bloc of liberals generally prefer Greens > Democrats > Republicans, and a large bloc of conservatives generally prefer Libertarians > Republicans > Democrats, then if those people all follow this strategy instead of abstaining or voting for "the lesser evil", California could end up with a more notable Green party, Democrats eagerly adopting a lot of Green policies to try to keep the liberal vote, and at least a much larger Libertarian party if not one wholly supplanting the Republican party, and Republicans eagerly adopting a lot of Libertarian policies.
Suddenly you've got something almost resembling a healthy multi-party system, all without anyone ever risking "the greater evil" getting into office. And all this in what's now quite possibly a swing state, so very influential on national politics, and either way having an inevitable run-on effect o
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
The sooner you start thinking like a capitalist the quicker you may become rich also. Here is the cool part, why do you think Bain employees are donating to the Obama campaign? Hint it is not because they like him it is because they are hedging a bet that he gets elected in fact hoping very much that he does. Bain is betting that if Obamacare stands the overhead and regulation makes outsourcing a fantastic business decision.
I happen to agree with Bain and Romney even in a loss situation stands to make millions more. See that is how to think like a capitalist, you turn a loss into a sure win.
Got Code?
With a track record like that, who wouldn't be in favor?*
You do realize that "violent revolution" involves killing people and not music or flowers, right?
*Eye roll
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Too bad nobody mentioned that tonight Democracy Now was hosting an #ExtendTheDebate event....
"It's the Law of the Universe, and I'm the sheriff." Slash-cott 2/10-2/17
"Who the fuck are you and why should we fucking care?"
It's well documented that a vast majority of journalists are registered Democrats
And their bosses -- the people who own the big media empires -- are registered Republicans.
Who do you think has the bigger influence, the boss or the peons who work for him?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
lol.. Your scale is skewed. You are missing the trees for the forest. And yes, I meant that backwards.
Really? It sure sounded like "lunch" when I heard it as a kid. Then again, it was Plucky Duck saying it... it could well have been "lumps".
I will accept the correction.
(And yes. I will take the carrots please.)
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” -- Winston Churchill, Europe Unite
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
And their bosses -- the people who own the big media empires -- are registered Republicans.
Ted Turner owns many media companies, including CNN. He's not a Republcian and has spoke out against them many times, also in favor of Obama.
Really only Fox is owned by someone you could call Republican. The fact is that a vast majority of the entertainment industry (which is what news is now) is made up of people with a heavily liberal slant.
To claim that big business is the domain of Republicans is laughable as anyone who has looked at Obama's donor list now. For a REAL eye-opener, take a peek at some of Obama's biggest donors in 2008:
Goldman Sachs
JPMorgan Chase & Co
Citigroup Inc
Time Warner
Morgan Stanley
Obama has been the best investment the banks ever made.
Who do you think has the bigger influence, the boss or the peons who work for him?
Quite obviously the people that make stories every day for broadcast. You obviously do not know much about media.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except we live in a manipulated media world. Look at the 'Tea Party', they started out as a group wanting budget balance, less spending, more taxes, an end to bailouts. They got hijacked by Karl Rove and now the usual Republican candidates are labelled 'Tea Party Favorites' as a way of saying 'not Bush backers' (even when they are). The actual real Tea Party Candidates, aren't Republican mainstream and got shut out.
Ron Paul should have had a positive effect on the Republicans, instead the party elite, didn't even allow his votes to be read out. They even blanked the microphone at the mention of his name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B39W91O-rUg&feature=related
How can they ever have an effect on politics, if the media is so manipulated their views are never allowed to come out, and fake candidates mouth false views in their name?!
same way England did: civil war.
You don't think that the USA Army would remain in foreign countries very long, once civil war breaks out. It is very wel equipped against its own population. Even if your Amendments spell "Carry your own guns", you will be trampled upon. Just watch the Occupy movement vs the Police. Then bring in the army as well.
Don't get me wrong, I approve of a lot of Gary Johnson's platform, but the idea of eliminating the IRS, income taxes, corporate income taxes...I'm sorry but I think that's insane. Not even Ireland has 0% corporate income tax, and consumption (sorry, "expenditure") taxes are regressive.
I'd love to support Mr. Johnson but I rather like the civilized society that we live in and I know that taxes are the price we pay for such a society.
Indeed, look at the trouble Ireland is in because of low corporate tax rates. This may be an exaggeration, but one of the many, many Irish immigrating to Australia said out of a 700 Euro pay packet, 500 Euro is taken in tax. Now in Oz, 200 EUR a week is below the poverty line here. 700 EUR a week pre tax is still slightly below average in Australia (things are quite expensive here) which is about A$46,000 p/a pre tax which is taxed at 15-16% after factoring in Medicare levy before deductions (A$6497 payable in tax + 1.5% of taxable income as Medicare levy).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The people who make adhesives and sealants sell to more than just the military. So do, believe it or not, the people who make aircraft parts (oh, btw, my grandfather owned a machine shop, my father and uncle spent quite a lot of their young years machining parts for bombers, so I've got quite a bit of family history in this).
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
I agree. The 3rd party candidates never have a chance of winning and its blatantly obvious. They are un-known, with no media exposure and no money to run a real campaign. They're a throw-away vote
I suppose I should add that you're partially right, a massive and sudden downsize in the military would be disastrous, but slow cuts over many years wouldn't be. I believe the military needs to remain strong. I believe we *should* be spending plenty of money on it. It can be a bit less though.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
That reminds me of the story about mice who keep electing cats to their government, as told byTommy Douglas.
Here is a wake up call for you: Very few people take opinions, when written incompetently, seriously. You can either use language as a beautiful, powerful tool, to express your positions in finely controlled strokes from broad to fine, so that your readers don't have to wade through lexical slush... or, you can finger paint poorly assembled words like an addled child. With predictable results among whatever remnants of your audience you have retained.
I would encourage you to put a decent amount of effort into your communications; but of course you can elect to continue to slop your way into obscurity.
Just from all the "fuck politics, I'm going back to being a libertarian" pouting I'm seeing here. Just like right after the 2008 election.
As for the actual DEBATE, anyone catch Romney's comment about Syria important to Iran as their only shipping route to the ocean? Or, how about how he went from "the Arab spring sucked, we shouldn't have done it" to "I agree with deposing Mubarak." He also went back to defending the $5/$2 trillion tax-cut/defense spending hike he DENIED in the 1st debate.
Also notable was Romney getting called out on his Big Flashy Numbers approach to military spending which works fantastic when you're cheerleading for your base, but really poorly when there's someone to challenge you. OMG did you know our Air Force is smaller than it was in 1947???? When we had tens of thousands of prop jobs and 1st generation jets as opposed to a mere hundreds of supersonic modern fighters with state-of-the-art electronics???? Oh noes!!!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Obama has 4 years to implement the policy.
He needs closer to 20 to do it safely. Short version: either he cauterizes the economy's aorta, and watches the country die, or he's blowing smoke to get re-elected.
The Demopublican Party (or Republocratic, if you prefer) has a tremendous, vested interest in people believing the age-old myth that a vote for [anyone other than candidate R] is as good as a vote for [candidate D], and that a vote for [anyone other than candidate D] is as good as a vote for [candidate R]. This has ensured that the "Democratic Party" and the "Republican Party," between the two, decide, and NOT WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, who will be our President, and who will sit in the houses of Congress, and make our laws. They do this for their own greater benefit, and it is not only NOT to the benefit of the people of our nation, it is generally TO OUR DETRIMENT.
I will not presume to tell anyone else FOR WHOM to vote, but I propose as we drag ourselves, tired, beaten insensible by the back-and-forth distraction from what matters that has been the 2012 Presidential campaign, that anyone who reads this, considers the following, and asks his or her friends and family to think about the same, because it's important for the sake of the integrity of our national government, as well as the well-being of the country as a whole, in every sense of the expression, that our leaders be chosen by US, and not those who seek to pull the strings from behind the scenes.
IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE, ALTERNATIVES NOTWITHSTANDING, THAT ROMNEY WOULD MAKE A GOOD PRESIDENT, AND GENUINELY WANT HIM TO BECOME THE NEXT PRESIDENT, VOTE FOR HIM.
IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE, ALTERNATIVES NOTWITHSTANDING, THAT OBAMA SHOULD CONTINUE AS PRESIDENT, AND GENUINELY WANT HIM TO HAVE ANOTHER TERM AS PRESIDENT, THEN VOTE FOR HIM.
IF YOU DON'T THINK EITHER SHOULD BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT, then either DON'T VOTE, or vote for someone else, such as Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, for example, if for no other reason than to let it be known that the so-called Democratic and Republican party is NOT guaranteed a victory just because they're the Democratic and Republican party.
I know people bristle when someone suggests they not to vote. Please understand I'm not saying don't go, because there are other people to vote for, and things to vote on, than just the President. But I ask you to consider that if you vote for someone you don't think should be President, you're doing two things. First, you're voting for someone whom you KNOW would not be good for America, as President, and two, you're HELPING TO PERPETUATE THE PARTISAN FREAK SHOW THAT HAS BEEN FOISTED ON US AS A DISTRACTION FROM WHAT MATTERS, while our federal government is nearly paralyzed with bickering, in-fighting, back-biting, and the people we feel compelled to pick ARE IN THE POCKETS OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN PAYING FOR THEIR ADVERTISEMENTS, FUNDING THEIR CAMPAIGNS.
I would liken this to flying a plane. Our representative democratic republic is like a plane, and by voting, we control that plane. If you don't know how to fly, LET GO OF THE STICK, MAN! Let people who know how to fly control where it goes. By all means, exorcise and fight for your right to vote, it is through this mechanism that we have freedom, it is what keeps the government from going completely insane, that they MUST impress us, as voters, to grant them the power they seek.
I ask that you consider voting for a "third party" candidate, even if you know he or she won't win, it's not wasting your vote if because you voted for someone who is NEITHER the Republican or Democratic nominee, the next President only barely wins, because a third-party candidate got almost as many votes as they did, or even manage to come in second, rather than third. If we can pull that off, maybe they will be able to get sufficient funding for the next election, that they'll be able to get their message heard, and we can break this cycle of "two-party" politics. If we don't do this now, next election will be JUST LIKE THIS ONE, A TWO-MAN CONTEST to see which one, of the two that were chosen by the people who control the Democratic and Republican party, gets to be president.
Until we fix this, we're no longe
Democracy is definitely dead and buried in America. That is pretty obvious, looking at these two corporate puppets.
The big question now, is what are the American people going to do to rid themselves of the single party government of the democrat/republican corporate totalitarian regime. If you look at the policy differences between Bush/Obama, their have been virtually none. Healthcare is the only small difference, and a pretty pathetic one at that. Look at civilised countries, in comparison to America. They have all long offered state provisioned healthcare, as a basic human right. The whole political debate in the United States, is framed in fearmongering, totalitarianistic, militaristic, paranoid, right wing, fascist gibberish.
yeah - I tried the music and flowers bit, all it got me was a broken nose and the taste of Ronseal.
I figure the other option isn't too far around the corner.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Romney: Kill 'em all.
Obama: Kill 'em all, politely.
Actually, I said you belong in another group you didn't list. As I see it, you are a buffoon speaking about crap you have little to no understanding about. You are using logical fallacies and lies in order to do it too. If anyone has their head up their ass, it would in fact be you as reality doesn't match your viewpoints.
It's biased and selective with lies peppered through it. Did you actually think you could post it without someone calling you on it? Anyone that thinks that is an accurate representation of either party is delusional. Your escape to it being what the other parties say about each other pulls you from it, but if you didn't know it was untrue, you do not escape being considered an idiot.
You see, in this you have bought into the bullshit. Romney's not any more pro corporation then any other president has been including Obama's policies. The differences is in how the policies attack the problems. Romney's approach is to make the economic environment cheaper and profitable so businesses can work on their own, Obama's is to give rewards to selected businesses through manipulations of the government and government handouts. This is obvious in that big businesses are actually supporting Obama and the democrats. Something that would be completely contrary to what you would expect if Romney was being so much more pro corporation if it was true.
Obama's support for gay marriage wasn't spontaneous at all either. It came timed right near an election and even had Biden who gets away with gaffs all the time because people think he is a senile old man, float the trial balloon out there to test which way he should commit to. The onion actually has a funny piece on his anti, then almost, then full support when the polls say it would help his political ambitions.
As for Obama's health care, the quagmire of it all is that it could have been implemented to much the same degree without any of the BS involved. A simple law that says, not more ceilings on treatment, no more pre-existing condition disqualifications, and insurance companies must offer coverage to individuals at the lowest rate offered to any company or otherwise defined pool of people that the insurance company offers.
Raising the number of doctors available will not decrease costs. This is because there are hidden variables involved that are mainly due to government being involved in healthcare in the first place. Medicaid and medicare pay not the actual charge the hospital gives them, but an average charge for the treatment received. If your local hospital normally charges $50 for a band-aid and the average in your area is $35, medicaid and medicare will pay based on the $35 costs. It's federal law and the country is divided between 4 or 5 areas in which the costs averaging is done and a billing code has been developed to cover this. Also, it is against federal law for the hospital to charge the patient using Medicare or Medicaid the difference in costs- if they want to take the government programs, the payment based averaging has to be accepted as payment in full except in certain limited situations not worth getting into here. So the
Does Mitt Romney have a facial expression that ISN'T a smirk? Just wondering.
Well, there's certainly been a big uproar ... all this over a choice between greed and compassion. Of course I'd choose greed over compassion any day! .. hold on a sec!
The differences I read seemed to be more hope filled opinions then facts. I disagree on many things with the GP, but I don't think your swath of reason is anything persuasive or accurate in reflecting the two candidates. Perhaps this is why he ignored it.
To criticize the Constitution is human. To ammend it is divine. :)
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Ok, say you are a rich person. Would you rather a) live in a fancy house with slums all around where you need an armed guard whenever you have to travel outside of your closed complex, or b) live in a fancy house with decent houses all around you without there being any slums and without having to pay taxes to support people who don't work because the country is wealthy enough that everybody can make a decent living with a reasonable amount of effort?
To understand the mindset of the really wealthy, realize that if it meant that they had a fancier house, they'd choose option (a) above. The ability to be conspicuously much better than the people around you is exceptionally attractive due to the way that primate dominance hierarchies work; absolute wealth matters nowhere near as much as relative wealth.
This is, of course, stupid. True though.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Gary Johnson is not in play, you can ignore this all you want, but you will be ignoring a fact. A vote that does not support Obama is a vote for Facism. You understand this.
Corporatism? Facism? It's all the same. This is why I prefer the term authoritarian. It's not name calling, it's what we call the English language. Words mean things Anonymous Coward.
"Perhaps my only goal is to influence the scope of discussion and open up both 'sides' to the ideas that only Gary Johnson is talking about"
Ok, fine, whatever, so you will then vote correctly and vote Obama no?
The reason for a electoral college is exactly because of your last statement, the average voter is a moron. The founding fathers knew that most of us were/are uneducated idiots that could potentially be misled by a charismatic politician to vote away our freedoms.
The sad thing is that they were true and we have gone a long way to vote away the protections they built into the system. For example, the reason we had a Senate selected by the States was that it gave the states power to keep the Federal Government in check, now instead we have two parts of congress trying to out pander to the public in order to gain votes.
A person's vote should represent their values and opinions, not represent their desire for the other side to lose. If the Republicans and Democrats both put forth candidates that do not agree with your values and opinions, then you are a moron for voting for one of them anyways. You are especially stupid if your only reason for voting is to see the other guy lose, and you deserve the dysfunctional government you have received for buying into the "two-party" BS they are feeding you.
And ran the country into a ditch.
They definitely don't. I have yet to see Obama to give the workers the means of productions. And this is the core of socialism.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
550 goddamn votes in Florida and you'd see what difference not electing Bush the Lesser would have made, kemosabe.
Would we? Here are a couple of views:
The History of the U.S. – If Al Gore Became President
If Al Gore Had Won in 2000
Here are a few of mine:
Al Qaida was attacking United States embassies and the Cole under the Clinton administration.
It seems pretty certain that 9/11 would still have happened.
If 9/11 happens, it's pretty certain a global war against Al Qaida follows, and very likely war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Invasion? Probably.
Economic crashes? Of course. The internet-centric business meltdown is virtually certain to have occurred, and the housing bubble not much less so. The internet-centric business meltdown was the result of trends started in the Clinton administration. The actual wrong-doing for Enron occurred under the Clinton administration. The housing bubble was a result of policies with broad bi-partisan support.
Iraq? That is more of a wildcard. The US policy calling for regime change in Iraq was set under the Clinton administration. It is virtually certain that there would have been conflicts with Iraq, including armed action. Would it have lead to invasion and occupation of Iraq? Somewhere along the line of less likely to no. There almost certainly would have been bombings though, probably a lot more of them to compensate for the lack of ground forces. Saddams army in 2003 was strong enough to hold Iraq against rebellion that wasn't aided externally. It seems pretty certain that either Saddam or one of his sons would still be in power. They might even have thrown off sanctions due to the "Oil for Food" program bribes and the loss of interest in the world community in containing him. Saddam with no sanctions means a Saddam rearming and continuing to support terrorism (no, not Al Qaida). He might ever do it with a vengence. Would Iraqis be better off? Very unlikely. Saddam used the food money to build palaces and buy weapons while the infrastructure crumbled, and people perished. That is from simple neglect. Saddam's government filled Iraq with large numbers of mass graves. Had Saddam's regime not been overthrown, the killing would have continued.
You may recall that Saddam had to restrain his sons, they were crueler than he was.
How Bad Was Saddam’s Son?
. . . Latif’s first lesson was to learn how to not react in disgust or become sick at Hussein regime cruelty. He was taken to a viewing room holding thousands of videos of torture sessions.
Saddam’s son had learned the same way. “Uday told me whenever he seemed weak or squeamish as a child his father would beat him with an iron bar and then force him to watch videos of prisoners being tortured.”
It worked. “Just wait until I become president,” Uday promised, “I’ll be crueler than my father ever was. You mark my words. You’ll yearn for the days of Saddam
Hussein.”
Now, read this carefully. If there is no US invasion of Iraq, there is not the same opportunity for an Al Qaida supported and led insurgency in Iraq that drew Al Qaida members from around the world to Iraq. That movement generated intelligence and provided opport
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Better educated, yes. Less nationalism, yes. More American, yes. Before you say that is a contradiction, let me explain that our American ancestry, how brief it may be, is written upon empathy, and embodies faith in ourselves, our sisters and brothers, and even our enemies.
Shall I remind you of the introduction? I think many need to be reminded of it.
"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and the Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Read that carefully. Notice the second half of it. How does that fair with modern-day Republicans (whatever fucking hybrid of nationalism and fascism they are)? You see, the wisest and oldest generations alive still have a parent who remembers the days of Lincoln. The *real* Republican party. Hell, you don't have to reach so far back, the Republican party today calls Ronald Reagan a socialist.
Now, let's go back to the very beginning. Let's just go back to the words and thoughts of Thomas Jefferson or to the atheists who founded this country (all you /. kids will get a kick out of that-- grow up). Thomas Jefferson's real issue was poverty. Maybe some historian can chime in, but I will speak from a philosophical point-of-view. Jefferson dared to consider the problem of poverty at a Christ-like level; and it is safe to say he would be both supportive and doubtful of the modern-day social programs we have. However, it wasn't just the politicians but the writers and poets that mattered most in the shaping of the USofA. Take Emerson for instance. Or rather, take the Iroqouis and the great white tree of peace.
It really baffles me how my peers are so detached with what a democracy or a republic is like *in action*. The president is merely to stand for all of us, with all our contradictions and harmonies, and to be a grounded pillar to counter our bickering houses and senates; it is more a position of responsibility than it is of power.
It is so fucking disgusting that social issues, just like Obama had stated as a young senator, are used to "create a wedge" between us. Remember that? That's when I knew he was going to be elected. He was greeted with an undying ovation.
This is a scattered rant in response to a rant, but I'll still post. I leave you with One thing else that is missing is objective journalism. I dare say, it is the primary power we've lost in balancing the government for the people.
You may find ditches preferable to cliffs.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
very well said, RazorSharp.
from a european point of view, that is. I'm quite disillusioned by obama, but he spared me the ridiculous rhetorics and disastrous policies of the bushes. The question not being "better off than 4 years ago" but "better off than with McCain/Palin", I would answer "yes, certainly". Please avoid Romney/Ryan! PLEASE!
And how are the primaries any different? Just like the real elections, they are winner takes all in most states. The difference is only that the candidates all 'lean' in the same way, so electing the guy you have won't make quite so big of a difference.
I dunno, should you? I mean it hasn't stopped the left from inferring that. I see them calling Romney a racist gay basher all the time. They even work misogynist in there too.
Foreign governments who do not necessarily line up with our interests seems to me would carry a lot more weight then Bubba the meth addicted neo nazi who couldn't spell neo-nazi if he wanted to.
But hey, whatever you need to do to justify yourself I guess.
So explain why all these liberal media wont ask Romney the hard questions then. Or that damn liberal media would not ask hard questions to Bush when he was in.
I dont buy the liberal media conspiracy. There is plenty of extreme right wing media out there. Fox news for example.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, to illustrate this difference he is talking about, take ending the Iraq war for instance. Bush created a Status of foreign soldiers agreement with the Iraqi Government signing it before the 2008 elections. The media said little about it as bush effectivly ended the Iraq war. Obama comes into office, changes a detail or two and keeps everything else Bush put into place and he is the hero of the day lauded by all the everyone.
John Stewart did a piece on this. I can't find the complete segment, but he revists the notion to make fun of republicans later too.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-20-2008/mess-o-potamia---iraq-surrenders
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-3-2009/mess-o-potamia---the-iraq-war-is-over
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-24-2011/end-o-potamia
I suggest watching them in order.. even though they aren't complete. The middle one, in its original entity comes right out and says Obama's ending of the Iraq war is just a Bush policy renamed. But Obama gets the credit instead of Bush.
I notice "MOST" slashdot readers haven't said anything about this being a sham, Repubmocrats bickering is a far cry from a political debate with two or more ACTUAL political parties. Repubmocrats constitute one party with two competitive factions. Where is the debate? These "squabbles" amount to a bunch of "look a bird!" to distract "MOST" people from the fact that they've been dragging our country, freedom and Constitutional rights to the outhouse for a century now. There is no debate, the Repubmocrats agree, you are chumps, ripe for harvest.
In short, it doesn't really matter what came out of their mouths, both wings of the party will do exactly the same thing in the end, give or take fullfillment of a few things to appease their fanbase and keep them voting for their team.(a much more concise word than party in this case)
Hey... 1980s called, it wants its ARPAnet back.
Hey, Missouri elected a dead guy for Senator .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG4IX5jBc4Q
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Well, given that a large fraction of GDP growth has gone to the top 1% of income-earners over the last 10 years, while income in the middle class has stagnated, I think it's a lot more than the "fat, slobby, freeloading welfare moms" who have figured out that they are being shafted in this deal. Sure, anybody can succeed, but unless you happen to be in the tiny fraction at the very top of the income scale, most of the economic growth is not for you. Be content you have a minimum-wage job that barely keeps pace with inflation.
There's also the reality that based on years of deficits, the tax cuts that Bush brought in were clearly not affordable. They did not stimulate sufficient growth to offset the reduction in revenue. You don't spend on credit if you don't have the revenue to eventually pay for it. Now that the hole has been dug deeper for years and years, who can afford to pay more to fill it in? The high-income earners who got most of the benefits for the last decade. They are the ones that have had a 10+ year gravy train. It's time to pay up. More precisely, to begin to pay the share that should have been paid all along, because tax cuts of that magnitude were not affordable in the first place. The right way to do it would have been to make the tax cuts and cut spending correspondingly. The latter never happened, because at the time the people in power had the crazy idea that "deficits don't matter". Instead, they decided to make people in future years carry the burden. So, quit your grumbling and pay up.
If Al Gore had been President of the US, the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia would probably still be in effect. That means Europe would lack protection from Iranian ballistic missiles and the US from North Korean missiles. North Korea has nuclear weapons now, and Iran is pursuing them. Both of these countries are following their own agenda.
The leaders of Iran and North Korea are either smart enough to realise that actually using such sabres (as opposed to merely rattling them) would quickly result in their respective countries becoming prime sites for massive car parks.
Or they're not.
(Hint: When one side has 6 nukes, and the other side 6000+, MAD doesn't even begin to enter the picture.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Gary Johnson, being a libertarian, is *even more evil* than Obama. At least with Obamacare millions of Americans who would now suffer a slow and painful death due to lack of insurance will get some treatment. Under a Libertarian government its every man for himself and fuck anyone who cant afford to get sick.
Australia is expensive?
I've found it slightly cheaper to live there (which I did for about 6 years) than in the US, and heaps of heaps cheaper than in Sweden.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
ProTip: If you're going to troll, at least post something intelligible. WTFs aren't really very effective.
Spacious, idealistic craptrap. Unless everyone in the U.S. changes their way of thinknig simultaneously, nothing will ever change anyway.
Wait, what? Consumption taxes are regressive? How retarded of a tax structure would you have to design to make it regressive? If you think about it for more than 5 seconds you can make a consumption tax that is VERY progressive. Not that that is any more fair than a regressive tax.
Hint: When one side has 6 nukes, and the other side 6000+, MAD doesn't even begin to enter the picture
Hint: Time to learn abou EMP.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
A healthy society needs that balance.
And the books need to balance. Unlimited healthcare isn't only not a right, it is impossible. Redistribution is not only the opposite of fairness, it reduces the total wealth.
Your problems won't be fixed by getting rid of the electoral college or some sort of proportional representation in the legislative houses.
You are probably correct about the electoral college, there's only one President, so you can't do much about that. However, a proportional representation system would transform the U.S. from a two-party system into a system with 6 or 7 parties with significant representation in Congress in less than a decade and that's why it won't happen unless millions of American demand it by marching in the streets, and making sure that only politicians who support that reform can be sure of (re-)election.
The brainwashing into voting for "their" party is a symptom of the systems which produced the two party system. To the faithful all of the countries problems are blamed on the "other" party and all it's successes are attributed to "their" party. If there are a half dozen parties that brainwashing won't work nearly as well. There are two many targets and not enough time to reinforce the hatred against each of them.
There are two looming issues that would break the two-party lock. Often people don't vote for third parties because it doesn't advance their interests in shoft-term and second there's a lot of Americans who don't vote. Combine those two factors together and you would have a very unpredictable outcome from the first proportional voting outcome.
However, I would choose a preferential balloting system is addition or instead of a proportional system. That truly allows people to vote their conscience and have their votes flow over to the next-best choice if there first choice (or second, or third, or ...) can't win.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I hope you understand there's another possibility: He begins the work that his successors may eventually complete.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
1) It's probably easier to get rich by exploiting people than it is by helping other people get rich.
2) Probably. In general, most of the people who are rich were simply lucky. Some had the right idea at the right time, people who had the exact same idea before or after them often ended up penniless, but more often they were born into a situation that allowed them to succeed. They had family fortunes and family connections that allowed them to prosper. They are people who got there by hard work and their own skills, but they tend to be millionaires, not billionaires.
That means most of the very rich are more concerned with having more than their peers, they really won't care about you in any significant way until the mob shows up to burn their homes.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Sure, it might cause your least favourite party to win this election, but how big is the difference anyway?
The differences between the candidates. For one thing, taxes, Romney seems likely to lead the right wing to another orgy of tax cuts for the rich, which will eventually need to be paid for by us, the peons. No, the differences are not as big as I'd like, I'd prefer we were debating how much to cut the military budget rather than how much to cut taxes and spending on scientific research, but my ideal candidate wouldn't win anyway. Not in the primaries, certainly not in the general election. Politics is a compromise, and most people in this country are far to the right of me. Pretending that because I don't get my ideal issues there is no difference strikes me as petulant.
if you keep up the strategic voting crap, nothing will ever change.
Right, because the problem liberals in this country have had is that they strategize while their opponents don't. (/s) Being idealistic while the other side plays the game is exactly what lead us to the situation we're in now.
Nothing will ever change...
Stop right there: that's patently untrue. In general and whatever problem you're talking about specifically as well. There are no problems outside of math which only have one solution.
Your anger is thus noted. I'm writing "anonymous coward say fuck you RE the two party system" in my list of people who are angry at me because they disagree with my views. Putting you right under "Angry muslims" in fact.
You're making the mistake of thinking the bosses care about politics. The bosses care about making money. They make money by hiring entertaining on-air peons that sell news.
I think the difference is huge.
But even if you don't think that, it comes down to 2 views on how big changes will come about. My view is that it's more likely to get big changes by fighting hard each election and with a win, the next election will be fought on more reasonable grounds. Another view is that the less reasonable party might win, but that could precipitate a big change all at once as the people are fed up and (hopefully peacefully) revolt.
I like the civilized society we live in too, but when do we actually have to pay for it?
No party will raise taxes enough to pay for the things we like, and neither party will only provide the things we pay for. If a party did, it would never get a vote.
Party on Wayne! Party on Garth!
United States Constitution
Article II - The Executive Branch
Section 1 - The President
"No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
Although the United States Constitution does not define Natural Born Citizen, the framers understood the definition given by Emmerich de Vattel in his book entitledThe Law of Nations. Vattel's definition, from Book I, Chapter 19 of the English translation of 1797 as follows:
"The citizens are the members of the civil society: bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights..."
The French original of 1757 reads as:
"Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays de parents citoyens, ."
Over the history of the United States, findings in four cases with the Supreme Court Of TheUnited States (SCOTUS)have affirmed this definition of Natural Born Citizen. The four United States Supreme Court cases are:
1. The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814).
2. Shank v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)
3. Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875)
4. United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898)
The Constitution of the United States and the findings of SCOTUS in these cases can be found on-line at the following web pages:
The United States Constitution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/12/253/case.html
Shank v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet 242 242
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/28/242/case.html
Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/88/162/case.html
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649
http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/169/649/case.html
The SCOTUS findings in the Venus case clearly quote Vattel when it wrote "The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives or indigenes are those born in the country of parents who are citizens. Society not being able to subsist and to perpetuate itself but by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights."
In Shank v. Dupont, Vattell is paraphrased when the courts stated "for children born in a country, continuing while under age in the family of the father, partake of his national character as a citizen of that country".
In Minor v. Happersett, the court again relied on Vattel when it said "The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens,
Despite congressional approval and a UN resolution, the press still hammered Bush on the legality of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, Obama attacked Libya without congressional consent and kept it up for over 60 days (War Powers Act violation), and when confronted by even his own party in Congress, he basically said "It's legal because I say it is." We didn't hear much uproar in the press over that, even though Candidate Obama had strongly disapproved of such actions.
They also hammered Bush on Guantanamo, but not much for the guy who's kept it running despite promises otherwise.
Still with the whining about the liberal media, eh?
Do you have any facts -- not personal anecdotes or confirmation bias, but facts -- to back up your assertions?
No? Then please STFU.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
How's that? Obama (and Ronmey) prefer to kill foreign suspected criminals instead of apprehending and prosecuting them according to the laws of their country. They both support Israel in such an extent that the only way to deal with the situation reminding to the American Indian Wars in the US, is to deal with the US first. That doesn't sound very leftist sort of behavior.
We would have gotten the guy who was the champion of the government having a backdoor into all of our private encryption, and led the Clinton administration's effort on it. We would have gotten the guy who actually had a fundraiser at the home of the demented, hateful Westboro Baptist clan. We would have gotten the guy who voted on the Gulf War resolution based on whether he would get more podium time in the debate about it.
Criticism of the Constitution isn't taboo. Deciding you don't like it and then just doing whatever the hell you want, and having a court change it on the fly to support it, that's what's taboo.
I fully support amendments to the Constitution to fix some things that are wrong. Unfortunately, one of the things that is wrong was changed by amendment, the direct election of senators.
We could have gotten the guy who'd not lie us into a war and then cut taxes because deficits don't matter, and then use said deficits as an excuse to cut aid to the poor. We might not have even gotten someone whose incompetence would allow the WTC attack to happen, thus no opening for the Patriot Act and its abuses.
Nobody's going to claim that Gore was perfect (aside from people who want to set up a strawman, anyhow) but there's no fucking way he'd be in the same class as Shrub, who is certainly in the bottom five for Worst President Ever.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
How does any of that have anything to do with a single policy in the US being socialist or not and or the people in the US rejecting it.
Here is a hint- absolutely nothing. It's as if you witnessed a school teacher rob a liquor store and are insisting he isn't a criminal and never has done criminal acts because he gave free piano lessens on the weekend.
Yeah - the market will sort it out! Sure some people will die of rat poison but then everyone will know Nutritious food is rat poison! Of course then I could relabel the rat poison bacon bits... As some point we could get people to eat rat poison labelled "rat poison" because nobody will really know what the fuck is in the can!
lol.. Isn't that exactly what happened with the GM bailout? He gave GM to the Employees Union.
Anyways, your definition is unimportant. In the US, the socialist and communist parties created a wish list or reforms they wanted to accomplish before the failed communist revolt and the resulting temporary ban of the Communist party in the US back in 1919. Roosevelt succeeded in getting some of them accomplished and they have been trying to get the rest and some extra modifications put in place since the 1920's. This socialist agenda as it is, became the basis for the US's claims of something being socialist which is accurate in the relevant context.
Socialism in the US is the Socialist party's objectives of taxing people based on their success in order to provide for the unsuccessful through social programs at the whim of government. Your definitions of something at the core does not escape that.
It is difficult and very invasive (I really looked it up). So you want to ban it? I really dont the see the correlation between these two.
And even if so, you should be against invasive surgery, not against third semester abortions. Just in case research bring up better ways to perform third semester abortions.
Or is your argument that it medically unsafe, the chances that the women die are very high (in which case wouldnt the FDA prevent such operations irrespective whether it is for abortion or plastic surgery or whatever?)
Wrong:
Abortion: Romney would NOT outlaw it. He's not running on this at all. He doesn't support Roe V. Wade, but he's shown no interest in overturning it, just like Obama hasn't touched trying to ban assault weapons.
Gay rights: If you mean gay MARRIAGE, Romney wants nothing to do with this topic, politically. Besides, this is going to be resolved by the SCOTUS within a year or two thanks to the DOMA case coming before them, regardless of who is president. On other gay rights, Romney's not a radical preacher. He's a centrist. To say anything otherwise requires proof.
Taxes: Romney is cutting taxes. Obama is raising taxes. Anyone for MORE taxes on a small set of people while allowing almost half of Americans not pay a penny in federal income taxes (many of whom get freebie tax credits for simply not using birth control) needs their head examined. Corporate taxes DO need to be cut, so American companies will start actually paying taxes in the country.
Medicare: Romney has repeatedly said he will NOT end it. He would offer an alternative. Also, minor tweaks aren't going to keep it solvent.
Budget: (You forgot this one) - $5+ trillion in FOUR YEARS. How many liberal programs could've been funded by just the INTEREST ONLY PAYMENTS we'll be paying in perpetuity because the Obama administration (and Bush's before him) couldn't manage the economy? Again - $5,000,000,000,000+... just four years... I don't care if it's God running for president... That's an epic fiscal failure that will hurt for decades to come.
That is a reasonable argument. I wanted to make if that was what he was making. From his reply, it doesnt seem so.
This is all true.
It's too bad that the unions ruined those hard-fought gains through their own greed and corruption. If they'd been more honest, frugal, and responsible, when the world started competing and the borders opened up, unions would've still had real clout.
Unlimited healthcare isn't only not a right, it is impossible.
Good thing nobody (but you) has suggested the government provide "unlimited healthcare".
Redistribution is not only the opposite of fairness,
Some worked hard for their wealth it, others didn't work for it at all, some who have worked very hard never got anywhere, others have squandered their inherited wealth stupidly and yet still have more wealth than most.
What exactly is so noble and fair about this?
Its absurd to make a fairness argument about wealth redistribution when there is nothing remotely fair about "unredistributed wealth" either.
How is wealth redistribution any more unfair?
it reduces the total wealth.
Care to show the math on that?
A healthy society needs that balance.
And the books need to balance. Unlimited healthcare isn't only not a right, it is impossible. Redistribution is not only the opposite of fairness, it reduces the total wealth.
You might want to tell Europe that. I don't think they know.
Consider that universal health care makes it a lot easier for people to take risks and become entrepreneurs. It's not clear at all that it reduces the total wealth.
I'll throw on my conspiracy theory hat here..
If I were running a major campaign I would use the 3rd party to my advantage..
Secretly fund and promote a 3rd party candidate through shell corporations and anonymous donations that will pull votes from your competition.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
Our current president has an agenda to redistribute the wealth from the smart, capable, entrepeneurs to the fat, slobby, freeloading welfare moms.
Meanwhile the smart capable entrepreneurs have an agenda to redistribute all wealth to themselves. A healthy society needs that balance.
What incentive would I have as an entrepenuer to make this wealth for redistribution when the people it goes to are the antithesis of hardworking entrepreneurs like me? Why would I want that to happen? So I feel like I live in a healthy society? It's nauseating to have to witness what you're describing at Walmart, in line with 6 kids and foodstamps, wearing honey boo boo t-shirts...it's practically inhumane to allow this kind of existence. So why is this a healthy society and why would any brilliant entrepreneurs want to perpetuate this with his own money through wealth distribution?
The bottom tier will always adapt or die, those are the only two choices anyone ever has. But if you cripple you're star players, you're innovators, you're inventors, you're entrepeneurs, by making them take care of honey boo boo because it makes you feel like you live in a healthy society, you're punishing the people who move the country forward.
What happens when the smart, hardworking entrepreneurs get tired of caring around all that fat, sloppy, McDonalds loving weight? Then where's does the healthy society go?
It honestly makes more sense in this country to be the slobby, fat mom...why would anyone put themselves in a position where they passively benefit that filth.
When republicans talk about putting arms into the hands of "rebels" such as Reagan did for Osama bin Laden when the Afghans were battling the Soviets, I get very worried and for good reason. It has a way of coming back to haunt us.
What will Al-Queida operatives use shoulder firing stinger missiles to shoot at besides Syrian warplanes? Chances are good that it will be commercial airliners on routes anywhere in the world. Anyone remember the plot that was foiled in which they planed to blow up US airliners bound from the Philippines or US baracks in Saudi Arabia some years ago?
So... the lesson to take here is that in the 2012 election... I should run a write-in campaign for someone who I liked better than either of the two candidates?
Or is there no suggestion here and you're just being cheeky?
How do you know I'm a Romney supporter? There are more than two parties in the US and I'm not registered repulocrat...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Gore was far from perfect. The encryption thing showed he was an autocrat who didn't want anybody to be able to have privacy from the government in the digital age. That is a scary attitude from the man who would be king.
We had the guy whose incompetence allowed the WTC attack to happen: Bill Clinton. 9/11 was the result of failed intelligence and foreign policy for years prior to it.
I agree Bush might be in the bottom five though, right next to Obama.
Do you honestly think that Romney will be any better? You could pick any president that's ever been and come up with a list of bad things they've done. All presidents are human. They're not perfect. But here, let's supplement your cherry-picked actions by Obama with some of the good things he's done.
WOW, why can't you get over the fact that he is black? No one else cares!! quit shoveing that into conversations where it has no place!! Why are you sooooo raceist that you can't stop talking about how black he is..
The fact is Obama promised to screw the American economy and the American people.. He is succeeding. He is keeping his promises. and he is continuing just what George W did X10. Now that is consistancy you can count on.
So you're saying that one party has an agenda that doesn't help the peons, but will eventually need to be paid for by us, the peons. On the other hand, the other party has a completely different agenda that doesn't help the peons, but will eventually need to be paid for by us, the peons.
You're right, they're completely different!
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Most Americans seem to think that taxes and welfare is what socialism is about. It's not.
Taxes and welfare are, well, taxes and welfare. We have a name for it - welfare state.
cannot come up with a better argument than this: "Well at least he's not Mitt Romney!"
It's the Spoiler Effect that is present in all first-past-the-post systems. You really are throwing your vote away, and the only logical response is to vote for your least-hated candidate. CCPGrey explains it best.
The reason you see most Americans associating social programs with socialism is not only because social programs implies a social political philosophy, but 90% of the social programs claimed in existence was at one time a specific platform goal of the Socialist party in the US. The socialist party USA had a decent following until the Communist party attempted to usurp them in a bid to overthrow the government and instal a Stalin type dictator. The Communist party failed co-opting the socialist party and most were run out of the country, the rest joined the socialist party which made them suspect since the 1920s. This distrust was heightened after WWII when communism fell out of mainstream favor and most Communists joined the socialists parties around the world. With the start of the cold war, we focused on the possibilities of the country being destroyed from the outside in again as what originally could have happened in 1919. This is where the McCarthyism came about and it did actually reveal foreigners attempting to convince Americans to work against the US government. This is also why most of the holdouts firmly against socialism and communism where mostly adults before the fall of the Soviet empire. Those more accepting to socialism seem to be the younger generation who had no direct experience with the threats and history of threats to the US government.
Most Americans do not have a problem with welfare for those who are in need. The problem they have is when those who are capable game the system. I don't think it is all of welfare that they call socialism even though it is specifically a goal of the socialist party when it was big in the US. Er perhaps it is not all of welfare or all of socialism they have a problem with.
To be honest, in the US, it is hard for welfare recipients to get off the system because you need to make so much more then start off pay in order to replace the welfare assistance given that it effectively eliminates a lot of job opportunities.
Did I say anything about Mitt Romney being better? No, I did not, all I said was that Obama supporters seem to run to the "Well he's better than Romney!" angle -- which is, for example, what you opened your post with. I am voting third party; get back to me when your candidate is not throwing his support behind corporate greed and paramilitary police (yes, nice list you have there, but all you are doing is pointing to the little things, when the problems I mentioned are big -- unless you think that teams of heavily armed men attacking and killing unarmed American civilians is nothing to worry about).
Palm trees and 8
...and thus we continue to have politicians who work against our interests. This is sounding like a classic case of the Pareto optimum being different from the Nash equilibrium.
Palm trees and 8
If there is no US invasion of Iraq, there is not the same opportunity for an Al Qaida supported and led insurgency in Iraq that drew Al Qaida members from around the world to Iraq. That movement generated intelligence and provided opportunities to capture many important terrorists and their supporters and donors. If Al Qaida is not in Iraq, there is no opportunity for them to unleash the cruelty that they did in terms of truck bombs in market places, kidnapping, torture, and murder. Since Al Qaida would not have fought in Iraq, it would not have been revealed as the blood thirsty killers of Muslims that they were to the Muslims in Iraq and surrounding countries. If they are not revealed as bloodthirsty killers of Muslims, they don't end up with the enormous loss of support they experienced in the Muslim world due to their mass murder in Iraq.
Jesus, you're an incurable moron.
Australia is expensive?
I've found it slightly cheaper to live there (which I did for about 6 years) than in the US, and heaps of heaps cheaper than in Sweden.
Cheaper than sweden, definitely but...
We are nowhere near cheaper than the US. Average rent is above the A$350 p/w mark. Service is quite expensive (we have a $15 min wage) so eating out at Micky D's costs at least $7, if you want to go to a proper restaurant be prepared to kiss $30 goodbye. Cars are very expensive at the mid to high end. Some BMW's cost 2-3 times what they cost in the US without the LCT (Luxury Car Tax). A BMW 320i costs A$58,000 (just below the LCT) but in the US it costs US$38,000.
I import a lot of stuff from Europe, Asia and the US because it's just too expensive to buy locally. Computers, cameras, books, DVD's, games and whitegoods. It's cheaper for me to buy from the US and ship it across the pacific than to buy from local sources (to be fair, it's the distributors that are ripping us off, not the retailers or at least some of the retainers).
OTOH, quality health care is very cheap here.
Living in Oz is great and we do have wages to match the high prices but it isn't cheap.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
What candidates say they're going to do is not very likely to be what they're actually going to accomplish. Romney might say tax cuts for the rich, but you're all so far in debt that it's not like a little more is going to make a big difference, even if he can get away with introducing anything significant.
Everyone voting for the plastic mouthpiece for "their" party, and everyone else choosing whichever of the big two is supposedly closer to their views, leaving actual winners to be decided by statistical fluctuations just leaves you forever trapped in the status quo. Both major parties get closer and closer together to attract the maximum vote, and nothing changes. It's like outbidding the other player by $1 on The Price is Right.
In the midterm US senate election the third party (Libertarian) scraped up 1.14% of the popular vote. That would translate into one (completely ignored) seat if you had proportional voting. The Libertarians (again third party) scraped together 1.16% of the popular vote for the house of representatives, which would give them 5 ignored seats in the house. Meanwhile LOTS of other democracies have representative systems and have thriving third, fourth, fifth, etc. parties.
It seems to be popular to blame your two party system on voting systems, but the numbers don't hold up and examples from the rest of the world don't support that hypothesis either. There's something else about the US that causes the vast majority of you to vote for one of two parties.
You're probably thinking of either mifepristone or methotrexate (likely methotrexate, since it seems to be the more famous). They're certainly much, much better than a late stage surgical abortion, but they're nothing like plan B. Where I live a woman can walk down to a drug store after an accident, ask the pharmacist for plan B, pop two pills (they're basically birth control pills in a different package), and be done. Methotrexate can be in pill form or injected but it's usually given as an outpatient procedure, and you generally take misoprostol a week later, which induces contractions. Various things should be monitored via blood work too.
I completely agree with you, third trimester abortions are nasty things for their invasiveness, physical and psychological effects on the woman, and psychological effects on the rest of society. The funny thing is though, they're illegal in most European countries except in cases of medical emergency, and it's not an issue. They're also not protected by Roe v Wade in the US. Third trimester abortion is really only a boogey man held up by anti-abortion crusaders and some kind of crazy ideal demanded by equally crazy extreme feminists.
This canard about wanting to redistribute from the "Middle Class" to "fat-cats" is one of the oldest lies of leftists.
Since this is Slashdot, let's reach for a car analogy. Namely, the shade-tree mechanic.
One guy, with a basic chest of tools, can do a certain amount of work per day under his shade tree. A couple of brake jobs and an oil change or two is the most he'll do in a typical day. This work might net him $100 in profits on a day, assuming he can stay busy. Keeping a 5-day work-week, that's $500 a week, $26,000/year assuming he's in a climate without extreme heat/cold, or snow or rain, to slow him down. That also doesn't include the cost of wearing out tools, retraining for new tech, etc. And of course, the shade tree doesn't pay for health care, Social Security's employer-share, or a pension.
Now throw in a capitalist. This guy has a garage, full set of tools including dealership-quality diagnostics, hydraulic lift, engine lift, tire mounting station, and so forth. Our intrepid mechanic can now do anything from rebuilding an engine or transmission to high-speed oil changes with the bulk oil filler and waste oil drain. Darkness and heat/cold are no longer obstacles to his work, and the visibility/professionalism of the location allows for steadier work. The shade tree mechanic is now worth $42,830 on average (according to BLS in May 2010).
So yes, the capitalist owning the garage is making money off the shade-tree mechanic. But the garage owner is also assuming all the risk, tax implications, benefits costs, maintenance/upkeep costs and advertising cost. And the mechanic has roughly doubled his income (remember, $26,000 is an impossibly ideal situation) off the capabilities the capitalist brings to the party.
This is what we call a win/win. And it's the part the knee-jerk left-wingers refuse to see. If you can't see how capitalism has lifted our intrepid mechanic out of poverty, you're just willfully blind.
Nah, he's just saying that to get elected. He'll say anything he thinks you want to hear, in order to get elected. Take Obamacare, perfect example. He says he'll repeal it, but he knows the Democrats will cock-block him in the Senate if he tries to do that. He actually likes Obamacare. It's HIS FUCKING HEALTHCARE PLAN! But he knows a lot of people hate the idea that the might be required to act responsibly (many of them while claiming to be Republicans) and so he says that to get elected. He'll get elected, not be able to get the votes to repeal it, throw up his hands and say he tried.
If Romney is elected I predict he'll be a mildly ineffective leader, probably start an unfunded war in Iran, and spent most of his time being blocked by the Democrats in the Senate. If Obama is elected I predict he'll be a mildly ineffective leader, possibly start an unfunded war in Iran and spend most of his time being blocked by the Republicans in the Senate.
That is what scares me about Romney. He seems to want to be president just so he can be president--like he's going down his bucket list: 1) Start a family, check 2) Make hundreds of millions of dollars, check 3) Govern a state, check, 4) Become POTUS _____ .
I know 12 years ago is an eternity to the American electorate, but doesn't anyone remember Bush? He wanted to be president just to be president. He wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps. He got into office by promising to cut taxes, offsetting the revenue losses by "deregulating" and through "free trade." He was going to be the first "CEO president." But when he got into office, he had accomplished his goal: to be president. He wasn't really that interested in policy, so his cabinet just walked all over him. Sure, he liked getting on camera and acting tough, but about half-way through his second term he realized that being a "hands off" president is a great way to ruin your legacy--but it was too late. Six years of rubber-stamping whatever nonsense came out of the swarm of neocons running the White House ruined his presidency and the economy.
Obama struggled with the same thing when he took office, with people like Larry Summers trying to push him around. But Obama wanted to be president to accomplish policy goals, so he pushed back and took control of his cabinet. His biggest mistake was probably focusing too much on pushing legislation--though arguably trying to work with the republicans in Congress was just as big of a mistake.
Romney looks to me just like Bush did in 2000; he wants to be president so badly he will say or do anything to achieve that goal. But I'm afraid that he has no real policy goals--he just wants to live in the White House and bask in his own ego. Can anyone actually name one policy goal that he hasn't changed his mind on at least three times? Even his 20% tax cut was a new invention, meant to pander to dumb voters and rich people. Health care? He's now adamantly opposed to his own health care plan... He has surrounded himself with people from the W administration, who are going to walk all over him if he becomes president because they have actual agendas and long-term policy goals. Romney 2012 is Bush 2000 all over again.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
You are arguing with a Paulian, someone who doesn't even understand the nature or import of currency.
I applaud your efforts, and appreciate your earlier summary. I think you've earned a stiff drink.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
It is not my definition, it is the definition.
Your personal definition, on the other hand, is indeed unimportant, so stop redefining words of a language at your pleasure.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Maybe you shouldn't read this - you might find it distressing to encounter facts contrary to your views.
Bin Laden letters indicate Muslims' growing aversion to al-Qaeda
Iraqi citizens and officials say documents found in al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's home in Pakistan, released a day after the first anniversary of his death, indicate al-Qaeda is losing its safe havens in the Islamic world.
Al-Qaeda's willingness to kill innocent civilians has led to its inability to recruit new fighters and has increased public resentment towards the organisation, they say.
These documents take the form of emails and draft messages dated between September 2006 and April 2011 -- 175 pages of which are written in Arabic -- and show bin Laden was concerned about his organisation's image, worried about the decline of public support for al-Qaeda's operations, and fearful of the safety of his followers. . . .
"It goes without saying that al-Qaeda has suffered huge losses in the past couple of years due to the death of most of its key leaders and the drying up of their funding sources," parliamentarian Shawn Mohammed Taha of parliament's security and defence committee told Mawtani.
"Its heaviest loss, however, has been its inability to recruit fighters as a result of growing public anger within Muslim societies in regard to its terrorist activities. This is made clear through bin Laden's exclusive focus on this aspect in his message," he said. . . . more . . .
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Before the Lights Go Out: A Survey of EMP Preparedness Reveals Significant Shortfalls
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So Obama is a right wing socialist? That's an interesting definition. Granted, the Soviet Union was controlled by xenophobic nationalists who called themselves communists, only to be eventually replaced by xenophobic ultra nationalists.
A socialist country nationalizes its companies and corporations. The US is quite far from that, although it seems that those considerations go out of the window when it comes to the national security or the justice system.
In the midterm US senate election the third party (Libertarian) scraped up 1.14% of the popular vote. That would translate into one (completely ignored) seat if you had proportional voting. The Libertarians (again third party) scraped together 1.16% of the popular vote for the house of representatives, which would give them 5 ignored seats in the house
Those numbers would likely change under a proportional representation system. With the rankorous politics in the U.S. and the nearly even split between the Democrats and the Republicans and the virtual certainty that no other party can win, many voters will be discouraged from voting for a third party that can never achieve even a minor victory. Especially when voting for a third party would generally hurt the chances of your most preferred of the major parties from winning.
Meanwhile LOTS of other democracies have representative systems and have thriving third, fourth, fifth, etc. parties.
The second line in Wikipedia's First past the post voting article says:
You're arguing against Duverger's Law when you argue that the voting system isn't a major determinant in the number of parties in a system. While it's true that there are a few examples of countries with first-past-the-post voting that haven't fallen into a two-party system like the United Kingdom, Canada and India, the majority of countries with first-past-the-post do have two party systems. It might be more effective to question what is unusual about the UK, Canada and India rather than what is unusual about the U.S.
It seems to be popular to blame your two party system on voting systems, but the numbers don't hold up and examples from the rest of the world don't support that hypothesis either. There's something else about the US that causes the vast majority of you to vote for one of two parties.
It's certainly true that the voting system isn't the only reason, but it is a major reason. It discourages third parties and the major parties like it that way.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
You should read your links:
"Duverger himself did not regard his principle as absolute."
"The converse of Duverger's Law is not always valid"
"In recent years some researchers have modified Duverger's Law by suggesting that electoral systems are an effect of party systems rather than a cause."
"It has been shown that changes from a plurality system to a proportional system are typically preceded by the emergence of more than two effective parties, and are typically not followed by a substantial increase in the effective number of parties."
The mechanics of elections probably do affect the style of politics that emerges, but not to the degree you seem to think. Third parties don't go from 1% to 30% because you change the style of voting. It's also interesting to note that of the two countries most like the US that use direct representation, the UK and Canada, both are "exceptions" with multiple parties. Looking at some others, picking at random... Barbados currently has two major parties, but has had competitive third parties when needed, Jamaica is dominated by two parties and Morocco currently has a bunch of competitive parties. It looks like Duverger's "law" is more of a theoretical tendency with a bunch of caveats.
I fyou haven't already, you might also want to read the entry on theMicromega rule and FPTP Criticism.
It's possible that I'm overestimating the effect a proportional and/or preferential balloting system would have, however, I'm more interested in allowing people to vote their conscience than in changing who they vote for. I don't like the spoiler effect that voting for third parties has under first-past-the-post.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It doesn't matter if people think in the terms of the 'lesser of two evils' or not. The average voter is a moron. It doesn't matter what they think. Statement votes to third party candidates will do nothing to better this country. Voting for Obama does.
Typical elitist left wing bullshit. You whine about Romney's 47% comment, yet you believe the average voter is a moron!?!
That wasn't the problem. As you note, the government is basically doing what Romney did at Bain, venture capital. Staples employs 90,000 employees today after Romney's successful VC investment. Bain under Romney and his successors also made some unsuccessful investments, attempts to revive hurting companies that ultimately failed, and others that had to have jobs shipped overseas to become profitable (in the Obama campaign example, that was under management of a major Obama campaign bundler).
In fact, supporters of Bush/Republicans shouldn't even complain about the program since it was initiated under Bush. It had various checks and balances in place for the beancounters to make sure the government wouldn't get ripped off, or make obviously bad investments. Hopefully these checks would also stop the corruption commonly found when government is giving money to businesses.
The problem with Solyndra is the crony capitalism and corruption involved. Under Bush, when Solyndra applied for the program, the beancounters said they didn't think it was a good investment and it stalled until the end of his term. But with some big Obama supporters behind Solyndra lobbying the new administration, and with the new administration wanting to publicize the green energy platform, they pushed the deal through over the objections of the beancounters. These beancounters actually predicted the month that Solyndra would run out of money, and the administration's answer was to hand out dollars. Insiders reported that Solyndra had been blowing money like a dotcom, buying luxurious trappings, buying expensive equipment that just sat there (later to be sold for pennies on the dollar). The administration didn't care.
That is not the way you run VC, or at least not how any competent businessman who remembers the dotcom bust would. I cannot see Romney running a program like this that way, since it is counter to his very nature. In fact, instead of complaining about the program, Romney should be pointing out the Obama administration's corruption in running it, green tax dollars going to Obama-friendly 1%ers instead of into actual green technology.
Remember Obama saying 97% of small businesses wouldn't be hit by tax raises, which would of course hit the employees? That implies just the few rich get hit, right inline with his class warfare strategy. Remember the reply? Those 3% that would be hit account for 50% of small business employees.
CEO Obama wants to literally squeeze more money out of these small businesses, and hide the fact of how many employees would be affected.
Lets do a word game and hopefully you will find your complete failures and we can move on.
If a policy is socialist, does calling it socialist get barred unless everything else is socialist? No. Ok so lets move on.
If someone is trying to implement a socialist policy, does the fact that not everything they do or want to do bar the the policy from being called socialist? NO, ok so lets move on.
If a policy is socialist and we are not bared from calling it a socialist policy, then we are not bared from calling the person trying to implement it as socialist.
So here is what I suggest to you. Stop insisting it is all or nothing or you will look silly. The US is quite far from being a socialist county by your definition largely because we recognize the policies and call it what it is. When we see the policy, we reject the policy and the person because of what it is and what they are trying to implement. You demanding that we wait until the take over and everything is matching your dictionary references before using the word socialist simple has no place in US politics.
Irishmen exaggerate - I know this because I am one. Low corporation tax has little to do with any of Irelands troubles and those tax rates are a gross exaggeration. Low corporation tax is one of the few things keeping jobs in the country. Google is probably a better resource for accurate information than some bloke you had a chat with at the pub.
MY definition is the one being accepted and used by 80% or better of the political spectrum in the US. It actually is the one that is important despite you closing your eyes to reality and demanding otherwise.
It is only the idiots who insist that we ignore history and the political workings of a country in order to worm a definition in that is counter to the accepted use and definition of that country for the last 80 years or better.
Except: the PPCA does nothing to guarantee you care. It does nothing to stop your insurance from dramatically increasing in cost. It does nothing to reign in drug prices.
What it does do is give the insurance industry, which was on an unsustainable business model (shareholders demanding blood from a stone), hundreds of billions in new revenue from tens of millions of consumers now forced to buy their junk products.
There were twice as many Democrats in Florida that voted for Bush than the total number of Nader voters, and five times that number of Democrats didn't vote on election day.
So, given the fact that there's no mathematical difference between a Nader voter and a non-voter, and that a Dem vote going for Bush was twice as bad for Gore's percentages as a vote going to Nader, who's really at fault again for the 2000 election?
Which Gore did actually win. A statewide press recount showed that Gore would have earned more votes than Bush, which means we had a stolen presidential election.
The cliffs that Republicans created with Republican policies? Sure, if you want to go there. Obama is of course doing his part to add to that cliff - by continuing Republican policies like tax cuts for the rich, bank bailouts, and spending over a trillion a year on the war/surveillance machine.
As opposed to the guy who's administration started planning mass warrantless wiretapping before 911 even happened. And there was that whole torture thing.
You mean, they had a fundraiser for Gore, before protesting his father's funeral and screaming "your dad's in hell".
There you go again, parading around teabagger urban legend as if it were fact. Now, tell us, again, why you hate Dan Rather.
Do you keep your head up there for the warmth or because it's a comfortable position for you? Clinton failed to get Bin Laddin, but he tried. Bush's response to multiple point-blank warnings that Al Queda was determined to strike the U.S., that they wanted to do so soon, and that they might use hijacked planes as weapons...."now you've covered your ass". Just who do you think you're kidding here, sophist?
Bitch please. There's no way Gore would have responded to point-blank warnings from intelligence officials that Al Queda was determined to attack the United States, that they would do it soon, and that they might use hijacked planes as weapons, with a "now you've covered your ass" and then done nothing.
Don't insult our intelligence as well as your own with such crap.
You mean like the fact that the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laddin if the United States bothered to offer evidence that what we were saying about Bin Laddin was true, Mr. Pot?
Except: one of the prime factors in the housing bubble wasn't just repealing Glass-Steagall, but the 2006 Bankruptcy "Reform" law that made it harder for people to discharge debt in bankruptcy. Which meant that banks started running around handing out money to anyone with a pulse, because they knew they would have an easier time collecting. Which was passed in 2006 by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President.
Because talking about regime change is the same thing as you know, actually doing it. Based on total lies that were obvious at the time, to boot.
You're hand waving. There was massive support from Iranians in the wake of the 911 attacks. Al Queda was always a super-extremist group amongst Muslims. But you know what a decade of torture, illegal wars and drone bombings of weddings as done for us? Turned moderate Muslims against us. They still done like Al Queda, but they have even less reason to like a nation that feels it has the right to slaughter anyone it doesn't like on a whim, on a regular basis.
Teabagger drivel that ignores two critical things:
1. Constructing high speed rail, wind & solar power would create millions of new jobs
2. Saving energy means saving money
Even if you're a teabagger douchebag with a Hummer with a confederate flag on the back window, you want the economy to move to green energy, because it means cheaper fuel for your dumb redneck ass.
Obama is arming the rebels already.
There you go again.
Where, on Planet Wingnutia? I don't know on what planet the ownership of GM was turned over to the union, but on this planet Obama made the company go through bankruptcy, voided union contracts, and forced newer workers - who didn't crash the economy - to accept massive cuts in compensation as a condition for receiving a bailout.
Conditions that were not enforced on the bankrupt banks after the financial crisis. The bankers - who did crash the economy - not only got to keep their salaries, not only continued to be rewarded with astronomical bonuses, but had the value of their bank stock re-inflated with trillions of dollars in interest-free loans backed by the taxpayer.
There is indeed an "ism" you're looking for here, but it's not "socialism".
Why do you trot out with such easily verifiable claims that always turn our to be wrong on your part? The employee unions (United and Canadian) got more then 17% of the new GM shares after bankruptcy and it was funded by the federal government's infusion of money into their VEBA funds. This is undeniable.
The rest of your rubbish is some rant you seem to think belongs in the argument but has absolutely no relevance whatsoever at all. Are you that fucking deranged that you have to go looking for a fight by invading another discussion and injecting crap not even relevent?
Don't worry, I've read it. Note that the first two headline criticisms of first past the post voting (which is a loaded name) are that strategic voting is a bad thing (which is what I'm arguing) and Duverger's "law", which we've already discussed.
The idea that not using first past the post discourages strategic voting is ill considered. Only one person or party can be in charge. Suppose the US suddenly abolished the electoral college (which I agree is kind of silly) in this election. What changes? Virtually nothing, except that now every state is a swing state and none of the strategic voters feel safe voting their conscience. What about voting in rounds? That's better... you might feel secure voting for a third party candidate in the first round, but there's still a huge incentive to vote for the first or second in the second round.
How about if you elect the legislative houses based on direct proportion of the vote (or one of the various multiple tallying systems? If the most important thing to you is that the other guys don't get majority control you're still best off voting for (or giving all your votes to) the second (or first) place party, not a third party. Third parties "steal" votes, no matter what system you're using.
The real problem is party discipline. Do things to severely weaken it. The greatest advantage of representative legislatures is that you're electing someone to represent you. A person. Someone from your community, who you can actually know, if you want to. Someone who lives in (if your laws are written correctly) and is directly responsible to your community. Voters should vote for whichever person they feel would best represent them, and the elected representative should be free to vote to best represent his constituents, regardless of party affiliation. Some campaign finance law reform would probably be an excellent place to start, and weakening executive power a good followup. You could even do something as simple as make it illegal to mention party affiliation in ads.
This just in:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20008687
Basically, an overwhelming majority of people in the following countries prefer Obama over Romney (in order of decreasing percentage of Obama supporters):
France
Australia
Kenya
Nigeria
Canada
Panama
UK
Brazil
Germany
Indonesia
South Korea
Spain
Mexico
Peru
India
Poland
Turkey
Japan
Malasya
China
Or basically, every country polled by the BBC (most of them being good allies of the US) except... Pakistan. My point being that from an international perspective, the Republicans simply don't have a serious agenda and everyone sees Romney as a potential troublemaker. Whether you're asking "The Chinese" or Putin or a teacher in the Germany or an engineer in France or a nurse in South Korea doesn't matter, mostly everybody prefers Obama (notable exceptions being 15% of the Pakistanis and a small half of the US). The only thing your post proves is that "mostly everybody" includes people *not* in their right mind. What fallacy is that again? Timothy McVeigh was a white American Christian so all white American Christians are terrorists?
Whatever, your original post is a fallacious anti-Obama troll and you didn't answer my question as to why exactly you're so afraid of invoking Godwin's law (other than the obvious explanation that you were knowingly trolling and hence expecting emotional responses).
At least, I'm answering your question in my other post: all these people endorse Obama because that's simply the default option from an international vantage point; the Republican option is not a serious one.
You think the guy who wanted a backdoor into all of our encryption would have been any better? He's a champion of the government micromanaging people and businesses under the auspices of environment. He belives in a government with broad powers over its people.
And he attended. How nice. This would still be news had it been a Republican politician.
The Tea Party wasn't around back then. It's not an urban legend, only Gore supporters give him the benefit of the doubt.
I don't hate him, but he doesn't have any credibility as a journalist after trying to push forged documents as real in order to derail a political campaign.
Clinton had several chances to get Bin Laden after active planning for 9/11 started in 1998, after the successful embassy bombings that gave Clinton serious warnings of the terrorism directed against us. He took none of them. Bush did screw up, but his were only the final few in a long series of screw-ups that allowed 9/11 to happen.
The idea that not using first past the post discourages strategic voting is ill considered. Only one person or party can be in charge.
This is true for Presidential elections and party leadership, however, it is not actually true for the houses of government. Americans may not be familiar with this, but it is possible to run a successful government with no one person on group in charge. It's called a minority government, they can be ineffectual, but I doubt anyone is going to claim that the current U.S. government is a paragon of effectiveness.
Suppose the US suddenly abolished the electoral college (which I agree is kind of silly) in this election. What changes? Virtually nothing,
except that now every state is a swing state and none of the strategic voters feel safe voting their conscience.
I agree with you there, except I think that abolishing the electoral college (or at leas the winner-takes-all nature of the electoral college in most states) would change the way presidential elections are run. Currently presidential candidates focus most of their efforts on less than a dozen states that are likely to change their electoral college vote because of a few percentage points in popular support.
What about voting in rounds? That's better... you might feel secure voting for a third party candidate in the first round, but there's still a huge incentive to vote for the first or second in the second round.
I think voting in rounds is expensive and still has problems because order of elimination can determine the victor. Preferential balloting is essentially the same thing, but you vote all the rounds at once and assuming you're using a Condorcet of similar procedure, order of elimination doesn't matter and therefore can't change the end result. You can put the major two parties as far back on the ballot as you want, and if you're vote can't elect your first choice it will be passed to you second choice and so on until either it helps elect someone or you run out preferences.
How about if you elect the legislative houses based on direct proportion of the vote (or one of the various multiple tallying systems? If the most important thing to you is that the other guys don't get majority control you're still best off voting for (or giving all your votes to) the second (or first) place party, not a third party. Third parties "steal" votes, no matter what system you're using.
In a proportional system, there's much less "vote stealing". Only the votes between the minimum needed to elect the number of representatives elected and the number actually received are "stolen" from a major party, and again if you are using a preferential system then those votes could flow over to the voters' other preferred parties.
Additionally a proportional system would make control of the state legislatures a lower priority for both parties, currently state legislature control effectively determines federal congressional seats through gerrymandering. Estimates are that the victorious party in more than 90% of congressional seats are predetermined before the election starts (which is why people are often advised to vote in the primaries where the result is less likely to be pre-determined).
The real problem is party discipline. Do things to severely weaken it. The greatest advantage of representative legislatures is that you're electing someone to represent you. A person. Someone from your community, who you can actually know, if you want to. Someone who lives in (if your laws are written correctly) and is directly responsible to your community. Voters should vote for whichever person they feel would best represent them, and the elected representative should be free to vote to best represent his constituents, regardless of party affiliation.
That is the advantage of representative systems, and one of the reasons I like them. Although I'
Fanatically anti-fanatical
You demanding that we wait until the take over and everything is matching your dictionary references before using the word socialist simple has no place in US politics.
Same way you call everything nazi or communist from the first disagreement on public policy? Moderates have apparently no place in the US politics.
Actually, the Libertarians are having a strong effect on the Republican party. You'll notice that Ron Paul debated on the stage with the other Republican candidates, and got a strong response. The effect is usually sneered at as "The Tea Party". But if you look at any candidate labeled as a Tea Party candidate, you'll see a strong libertarian streak.
Furthermore, it's worth noting that, just before the Civil War, the Republicans WERE the 3rd party. The bad thing about a 2-party system is that, no matter who the 3rd-party is, if they get strong they eventually become one of the 2. The good thing about a 2-party system is that some fringe group (like the Greens or Austria's Freedom Party) can't hold the coalition government model hostage in order to advance their narrowly-supported agenda.
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I beg to differ. In Canada we have had more collation parties than ever. The result was cleaner government, more open debate and good resolution about issues, and a great benefit to our population.
Currently we have a majority Conservative government, and instead of bringing out individual bills about important issues, they package them in an omnibus bill of 2-3 thousand pages, and want a vote of yes/no. Since they are the majority, it became mute, and democracy is badly endangered, if not lost.
So, if republicans or democrats become the majority in a two house system, the majority party does not have to do other than produce omnibus bills and screw the minority party.
You get faster results with more serious problems with government by a two party system.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada