Slashdot Mirror
Ralph Nader Moderates One Last 3rd-Party Debate for 2012
Late Tuesday, both the 2012 U.S. election (the popular vote at least) and the 2012 campaign season should be over. Tonight, though, whatever your ability or plans to vote are (see the current poll for a peek at what other readers claim about their intentions), you've got the chance to see one more presidential debate, to be moderated by Ralph Nader, and featuring third-party presidential contenders Gary Johnson (Libertarian), Jill Stein (Green), Virgil Goode (Constitution) and Rock Anderson (Justice). Yes, the same ones featured in another debate a few weeks back. (We promise, this is the last debate of this go-round.) If you're voting (or would, if you could) for other than the Democratic or Republican parties' candidates this year, what drives that decision?
Won't the election be over on Tuesday?
If you're voting (or would, if you could) for other than the Democratic or Republican parties' candidates this year, what drives that decision?
Easy: Romney wants to control your bedroom (marriage, abortion, etc), and Obama wants to control your bank account. Not to mention in the debates they both have either lied out of their asses or refused to provide real answers/details to any policy question.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I am Greek - in my country (birthplace of Democracy... but you know that!), and in our last elections few months ago, we had about 35 parties to choose from, and from them there are 7 in the parliament (there is a 3% minimum of total votes requirement for geting there), and from those 7 parties 3 of them are forming the goverment... and still, for many citizens there is not a party that fully represents them.
I believe that you have a much better Democracy in the USA than ours, but thats because you are better quality citizens - you should really check this multiple parties thing... it will make your Democracy even more better.
Obama wants the top tax bracket to go up 3%. That's it. It was higher under Reagan.
Maybe not this election, but if candidates see that X% of voters want $IdeologyOfThirdParty, they'll start pushing that way more, because that few percent could be what wins them the election. So it still has influence, just more long-term.
(There's also that federal funding given to any presidential campaign whose party earned over 5% of the vote in the last election. So once a party reaches that threshold, it could jump up rather quickly.)
I'm voting Gary Johnson (L) because I'm impressed with his accomplishments and agree with his philosophy.
End the wars, legalize and tax drugs, practice fiscal responsibility.
He's a self-made millionaire businessman who also has an excellent record as a 2-term governor. He was praised by both Republicans and Democrats alike for being able to work with all parties and get the job done.
His bio and record speak for themselves:
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/about
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/record
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
For the nth fucking time, Gary Johnson was a Republican when he was governor. He became the Libertarian Party candidate because he lost the Republican presidential primary.
In case anyone missed the 4-way debate moderated by Larry King in Chicago on 2012-10-23:
https://kat.ph/torrents/20121023-full-third-party-presidential-debate-yt-avi-t6769764/
All of the presidential candidates' social/economic ideologies are graphed here. [Note the proximity of the two corporate parties' candidates.]
Please—especially if you live in an uncontested state—vote for the best candidate, not the second-least-worst candidate; our country (and especially our civil liberties) have taken just about all the "lesser evil" that can be withstood.
This quiz can help you determine which candidate best matches your own ideology.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
I, too, have no plans to vote for either Obama or Romney. I think a vote should only be cast for someone you're confident is a good choice for running the country. Neither one of these people have shown they deserve the title of President, IMO.
I really dislike that "vote for the lesser of two evils" concept. People have been doing that for a long time now, and that's largely how we got to the mess we're in today!
It seems to me that the current system has a razor sharp focus on ensuring everything quickly comes down to only 2 remaining viable candidates, at all costs. If a 3rd. party shows promise, the media or members of one of the two established parties pull out all the stops to discredit him or her. They want politics to run just like our sports teams ... only 2 teams on the field fighting it out to see who wins. No matter how many teams play each other in a season, it has to come down to only two in the end, to declare someone the winner.
Until this changes, the American people really aren't able to vote for the type of government they want. They're only able to pick from two people pre-selected for them by the elite (meaning those with enough money and influence to boil the choices down to the final two they want to see you pick from). And sure, you CAN vote for a 3rd. party candidate (and I almost always do so). But we all know it's currently nothing more than a small display of contempt for the status quo system. I really doubt any sane person voting for, say, Gary Johnson, believes he really has a decent shot at winning.
Still, that's fine with me. You don't earn a prize for having voted for the guy who winds up winning.
I like Romney for requiring OpenDocument format (ODF) when he was governor of Mass.
Um, you lost me here, why would a greedy venture capitalist give a flying fuck about open-source software? I just did a google search and found nothing relating to WTF you just said, or are you just a Romney-troll in disguise? In that case, you still aren't changing my vote, the O's are in for FOUR MORE YEARS bitch.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20060313100529485&mode=print
Next time, try using a search engine instead of a fucking ad engine, dipshit.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
I found reams of the same information via Google too.
I like Obama for ending the war in Iraq
you mean for sticking to Dubya's plan because he was forced to, mostly because Iraq simply refused when they were offered to extend the deal? They even dared to demand they could prosecute troops committing crimes, which are immune to the local law enforcement.
And there is that huge so called embassy for 5500 people, full of mercenaries. That pulling out is in name only.
Kudos for voting third party. Me too.
However, I feel obliged to correct a misconception about Obama. He did not "end the war in Iraq" --- he merely failed to extend it. In the months leading up to the expiration of SOFA, scheduled for Dec 2011, the Obama administration lobbied Iraq for an extension in order to keeps thousands, maybe up to 20,000 troops in Iraq. SOFA was a prerequisite for that because it forbids Iraq from prosecuting soldiers in Iraq, for crimes committed while they are in Iraq. Had Obama been successful at extending SOFA, Obama would not now be claiming to have "ended the war in Iraq" because it would still be going on. I mean, it still is, just with mercenaries and such, but it is perhaps a worthy semantic distinction. I just hate to see people give credit to Obama though, when all he did was "fail to extend," which is totally different from "intending to end."
Citations: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/10/23/obamas-revisionist-history-on-ending-the-iraq-war-a-lesson-from-the-3rd-presidential-debate/
and this from within the above:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704889404576277240145258616.html
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Keep in mind that Obama took 55% of the popular vote in 2008, but with a 62% turnout, only about 34% of eligible citizens supported him enough to go vote for him. The two major parties simply do not represent majorities in this country.
Exactly - and a large percentage of those that voted for him did not identify themselves as D's - they were "Independents". As of 2010, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 29% as Republicans, and 38% as independents (http://www.gallup.com/poll/145463/Democratic-Party-Drops-2010-Tying-Year-Low.aspx). So no party has even close to a majority of voters, and independents are the largest portion.
The interesting thing is that independent voters continue to allow R's and D's to make all national elections referendums almost exclusively about their own candidates. The most successful independent or 3rd party candidates in the past 100 years were Ross Perot (18.9% in 1992), and Teddy Roosevelt (27% as a Progressive in 1912).
That's because you mispelled it. Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party.
Barack Obama's most redeeming quality is he doesn't sincerely believe in magic hats or underwear. There are clips of Romney speaking about Mormonism on Youtube and the guy is anything but rational. The needle on the beady-eyed-crazy-cult-meter goes right up to Tom Cruise levels.