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Geeks, Geek Issues and Voting
David Allen asks: "Along with everybody else, I've been thinking about who to vote for recently. I've been seriously considering Bill Bradley, or even David McReynolds for President. Now the question: It seems to me that what I'm really looking for is a mixture - somebody who will regulate the Internet insofar as they will keep businesses from violating my privacy, but people who will keep out of the internet, so it can remain a free conduit for information exchange. (No silly crypto laws, freedom of speech and such). There's no mistaking that the internet is a big issue for me. Where do many slashdotters fall along this continuum? There doesn't seem to be a candidate who's willing to go to bat for privacy but not muck around in freedom of information areas. Of course you could always just not vote. Is there a candidate that would fit that bill, and somebody who could really make those things happen?
By the way, for slashdotters interested in getting a decent fix on what each candidate thinks, check out the candidate selector which isn't quite as arrogant as it sounds."
...changing nothing about how we see the world? If political/corporate BS comes our way, we just deal with it.
A new year doesn't mean geeks have to change their views about the world. Just let things happen.
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
Does anyone have any info on where the candidates stand on IT issues?
The no vote link should be this
I got a 61 on the Pat Buchanan scale! Other candidates scored higher, but he could be the President that would satisfy all of my deviant homosexual urges.
let's vote for Nobody in the next election and see if Nobody wins. Panarchy - where everybody rules
----------- destroy evil immediately!
Gore is all about the internet, since he invented it during his days as a physicist.
Eric
I shudder when I hear people talk of the Geek Ticket, or the Republican Ticket, or the Democratic Ticket.
I am proud to say that I don't belong to a single political party. Why? Because I make my own decisions. I support the candidate that best fits me, not the candidate with my favorite letter after their name.
I urge all of oyu to engage in some good political discussion and debate, but in the end, make your own choice. Don't let anyone shame you into a choice, and dont be a one-issue voter. Vote for more then just the guy who's best for the Net, because the Net is just a small piece of our world. No one is perfect. Make your choice on the best candidate. And for God's sake, vote. If you don't vote, don't bitch.
Why don't we start our own "Geek" party? Our mascot would obviously be the penguin. I can think of a few open-source programmers who would make pretty good politicians. The ideals held by most open-source people seem to be more ethical than most politicians I've seen. Most modern day politicians just run for personal glory, making issues out of non-issues. I think the "Open Source" candidiate would get things done. Good idea? Bad idea? I just think our current two-party system stinks.
Mike
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
While the Libertarian party continues to prop up scary candidates, the platform of the party is sound -- freedom. They're the only party that hits the positions I like on just about every major issue:
:)
Pro-internet freedom
Pro-reproductive freedom
Pro-gun rights
Anti-Censorship
Pro-religious freedom
Besides, ESR is a big libertarian supporter, and he can do almost no wrong.
http://www.lp.org
--
You know, I've never really given Nader much thought. Small potatoes, wasted vote, could never win, etc.
:)
:)
But I sure as hell ain't voting for Bush, and I'm less and less certain of Gore.
So I took the Presidential Candidate Selector. And, much to my surprise, I found that nobody even came close to my beliefs, save for good ol' Ralph Nader. (Though, to my fright, Orrin Hatch showed up, though way down on the list.
Nader really seems to be right up there on the geek ticket, if my results and those of several fellow geeks are any indicator. Anybody know his beliefs on copyrights, patents, etc?
It's clear that he doesn't think much of Microsoft. That's a hell of a start.
Looking at the president only as a way of changed seems a bit short sighted. If we really want to protect privacy online, but not limit business, we need to also look into the senators and congressmen/women. The president can't make the law. Laws go through congress and then to the president.
LBS
Why is it that its easier to write a huge comment here, but I still can't write the first paragraph of that english st
There's always the Libertarian party's views on regulation of the Internet: absolutely none. Personally, I think this is the best way because once you start regulating somewhere, where is the limit? "Well, it's not a big deal if we just go a *little* further." Look where we are today after a little over two hundred years of this mentality. Keeping out altogether forces the Internet to stay free, no compromises.
E pluribus unum
...don't validate the myth of democracy. Abstain from voting, spoil your ballot, tell the repulocrats and the demicans and the reformation to go and play with themselves all they wan't but we won't settle for democracy.
Every vote cast is a voice politicans can point to as a mandate for the will of the people -- the will of the people which is more important than your freedoms, the will of the people which is more important than your constitution, the will of the people to preserve and protect the status quo.
Don't give them the pleasure. When you vote, you strengthen the democracy, and the democracy will use your vote as justification for crushing you with the will of the people. Don't give them the excuse to continue their tyrrany of the majority.
--G
There is no law anywhere.
I believe that Forbes is probably the closest to a geek that we could get. He atleast talks about the internet and privacy issues. And best of all, he wants a flat tax (for those of us geeks that happen to make a large salary). He even looks like a geek.
I wish i could ask Bradley how he feels about crytpo export laws...oh well. Other than that, Bradley is the man. He doesn't sit on both sides of the fence. When asked if he ever smoked pot he just said "Yup." then asked tom brokaw (or whoever was doing the interview) and he said yes too and they both laughed. it was great. Abortion and same sex marriages too. When asked about it he just says, abortion is a womens right, and of course same sex marriages should be legal. If you haven't already, check him out.
The Ultimate geek ticket? That's easy - Libertarian. Take a gander at www.lp.org. There's a simple test you can take that will determine if you are a libertarian, lefty, righty, or totalitarian. Most people don't know they hold most of the same beliefs as the Libertarians. They only know that they only believe in some of the things their typical republican or democatic representative believe in. Usually, their vote is a compromise, the lesser of two evils. Take a couple minutes to check it out. In general: Less goverment. Individual freedom. Kinda like the original founders wanted it.
I just ran that candidate selector, and none of the candidates scored over 66. The highest was McReynolds. Scary..
Besides, "traditional values"? What the hell is that? Whose "values" are they? Not mine, i'm pretty sure...
That's what I am thinking about.
I think Clinton's plan of having the government invest a portion of Social Security is about the most God-Awful idea I have ever heard of in my life.
Could you imagine the federal government being an influential shareholder in the 500 largest companies in America!?
I would like to see social security either done away with (for individuals under the age of 30 or so), or the ability to invest a portion of that money into (approved) equities... but YOUR ownership, not the governments.
It would be nice to see a candidate come up with a realistic plan of lowering taxes. Definitely estate taxes (the end-all of the small businessman) and capitla gains taxes, but also income taxes. I really do feel we are paying tad more than our forefathers had ever envisioned.
I have not seen one who has come up with such a plan however.
Hell, I'm a people's person. I read Slashdot. I love computers. I have a significantly low tolerance for frivilous lawsuits. And I like Brocolli. Really, I do.
Anyway, our next president should be a geek. Seriously. What typical politician do YOU know of that sympathizes with the geek community? (Al Gore's "Open Source" website DOES NOT COUNT.) And believe me, we know what we're talking about. For example, when DIVX was introduced, I, as well as many many others predicted it's demise, and LOOK! It's gone.
(Hell, we as a community should run. Slashdot for president?)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I wonder what percentage of geeks vote our consciences rather than selecting the lesser of two evils between the Democrats and Republicans. We are certainly independent thinkers the rest of the time. Does that carry over to the voting booth?
Personally, I would like to see the practice of "fusion" legalized and/or instituted in Presidential elections. "Fusion" is the practice whereby multiple political parties can nominate the same candidate. This is a highly useful tool for voters. Here's why:
Third-party candidates have no chance of winning the Presidency; therefore very few people will "waste" their votes on a third-party candidate; therefore... You get the idea. With fusion, a third party can nominate one of the major-party candidates that most closely represents their views. Then when at the polls, one can vote for a third-party ticket without "wasting" one's vote, because the candidate is also a major-party candidate and could win.
For example: Suppose that the Green Party also nominated Al Gore. Then on election day, Gore gets 47% of the vote as a Democrat, and 5% of the vote as a Green. These add up to 52% of the vote, and Gore wins. He also knows that he owes a good chunk of his victory to Greens, and he'd better pay attention to the issues they espouse.
I'd be happier with such a system, though I did vote for Nader in 1996.
From HHGTTG
"Anyone who wanted to be president, shouldn't be allowed to be president"
Presidents, Congressmen, All those bunch should be drafted. It's not a very high paying position so the only advantage to being a president is powah. And we all know powah leads to corruption and sinister stories involving cigars and stained blue dresses.
I hearby draft... um... My parrot.
You are a threat to free speach and must be SILENCED!
Fish! LipHo
What ever happened to the saying "Democracy is not an end in itself but a means of preserving individual liberty". Today voteing is used to uphold majority justified social controls. It's just a waste of time to try and change the system, rather I prefer to bypass it and take advantage of it to get more personal liberties for myself and my non-socialist friends.
In addition, the candidate would probably have to recognise new rules for the Internet - as in, noone owns it, you can't tax what happens there, nor regulate its speech.
In addition, the geek vote would swing to someone who supported schools and universities at the expense of economic junkets and militaries. Whoever courts the geek vote will have to be able to crush a penny til it bleeds, cause low taxes and space exploration go hand in hand in the list of wants. But then again, they're asking for a 3l337 administrator, right?
Someone with the balls of Jesse Ventura, (the lack of "slickness" would also appeal to geek vote), the financial savvy of a Perot, and a "you'll get more taxes out of me when you pry them from my dead fingers" stance would be the perfect blend.
People assume that one of the Big Two parties is going to win anyway, and voting for a third party is a waste of a vote. But what if everyone stood back for a second and voted *not* for the most likely candidate, but for the candidate that seemed most likely to be the right person for the job? What if we voted as individuals, not as a pack? Maybe we'd end up with 40 candidates and none get over 10% of the vote. Maybe we'll need a runoff election every four years. But would that be such a bad thing? Maybe it would give a suitable underdog a shot for once.
Myself, I really like Ralph Nader and the Green Party -- he got my vote in 1996 and he'll get it again this year. But a lot of the hackers I know are Libertarians or Free Marketeers or Socialists or whatever, and that's fine. I'm sure there are great candidates in all these camps, really. Why not give them a shot. "Gee Dubya" is pretty obviously an imbecile and a stuffed shirt for his corporate backers -- do you really want to see him win? Is Al Gore, proud internet innovator, any better? Fuck no he's not. The survey at Select Smart isn't a bad place to find a candidate that comes close to your ideology, whatever it may be. And Project Vote Smart is also a pretty good place to learn more. And don't forget about local elections either -- they're less glamorous, but they have far more impact over your day to day life than the high profile CNN elections. Be an informed and active voter above all else. It's worth it.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Q.? Can a political party exist soley on the Net?
/. Party. I should be elected because:
.com that is annoying and stupid.
I hereby nominate myself as the Offical Canidate of the Geek or
I am a geek - and all geeks are superior to other types of humans.
I run Linux. (Distro is kept secret for fear of alienating geek voters)
I can code C,C++,Pascal,Basic,Visual Basic, HTML and have a rudimentary (very poor) knowledge of Perl.
If elected:
I will destroy Windows - and open the WinNT source.
I will destroy etoys.com amazon.com and any other
I will let DeCSS go to the stars (tell DVD guys to go to hell)
I will make the stupids slaves. (This should attract voters.)
Note: The above presentation assumes that only smart people vote. Sadly (I am in Minnesota USA) that is not the case - our gov is Jesse "The Body" Ventura (an ex-pro wrestler whos iq ranges from 1 to 5). While literacy tests and like should not be reinstituted how about making a geeks vote count for 2.
Yes, I vote... but rarely does the canidate of choice get elected.
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
Before I say who I would love to see run for president on the Geek Ticket, I gotta do a bit of a rant, so skip it if you want.
First of all, I think that the real problem with the current crop of politicians and law makers is that they wouldn't know a SIMM from DIMM if it bit them in the ass. Now I'm not saying they should be techs, but at least have a decent idea of how things working when talking about the web, and computers in general.
Second - I don't care what the intention is, there is NO reason to invade anyones privacy for the sake of trying get a select few criminals. Example - There is no reason to look at everyones hard drive to catch child porn collectors. That would equate to the cops being able to pull you over because you look like a drug dealer/rapist/murder etc. Get the point?
Ok here's my ideal candidate - and I know I'm gonna catch hell for this but:
Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Novell.
Putting aside his career at Sun, let's just look at what he's done for Novell:
Took a company that almost everyone wrote off for dead (their stock was trading at about 7 USD a share in Mid 97)and pulled what could be one of the biggest turn arounds of the decade. He straightened out Ray Norda's mess, got the company out of finacial trouble (today Novell was trading around 33 3/8 USD), but managed to get new products out, redesign company focus, and now (some say) he is ready to grab the Directory war away from MS with NDS. all this in 2 years? I would love to see him run the country.
But I could be nuts.
Where's my prozac?
GIHM -The light at the end of the tunnel is only the oncoming train.
...I think Geeks take themselves way too seriously when they talk of building their own political platform. Geekdom is hardly broad enough to warrant its own ticket.
Here's a geek idea that ought to make waves. Let's see if we can create a Slashdot effect in the primaries. Write in Eric Raymond for President regardless of the party whose primary you are voting in. If every Slashdot reader does it, the press will notice.
Disclaimer: I'm not a US citizen so I can't vote myself, but I do live in the US, and what happens in the US has a big effect on the rest of the world, so I do care about this.
To me, the big issue is simply campaign finance reform. Behind most of the evil legislation that's passed these days, you can see the shadowy hand of corporate lobbying and influence. It's a sickness that is destroying democracy in this country (and elsewhere).
Basing your vote on other issues is futile: it doesn't matter who's the President or what they try to do, as long as corporations have a lock on the legislative process.
So therefore I favour John McCain. Sure, he may have some odious positions on Net censorship and other things, but the fact is he has a track record of trying to deal with the corruption at the core of the political system. It's pointless to hack away at the branches of the tree of evil and ignore the root (apologies to someone-or-another for the quote).
As the campaign unfolds many people may make all kinds of promises for reform, but we all know those promises are worthless. Vote on the track record.
___________________________
Mello like the Yello, but without the fizz.
_______
I just wish I could c:\format Internet
Hmmm...free speech and freedom of technology. Those sound like geek-specific issues to me. I would like to think that EVERYONE in this country would be concerned with issues like this. Freedom of speech and technology affect everyone, not just geeks. Hopefully, most of the population of this country are in favor of things like this, and other libertarian-esque ideas. Obviously the corporate interests wouldn't be in favor of this, but they can't vote (at least not with a ballot- money casts a different sort of influence). I think that if more people voted in this country, not just more geeks, our "geek issues" would be even more protected. Geeks are, after all, only a small minority, whatever we would like to think.
But first, we'll have to work on getting Article II Clause 5 of the Constitution ammended so we can have the first non-natural born citizen as President. (What's up with that, anyway? All citizens are equal, but natural born citizens are "more equal"?)
The candidate selector ranked the candidates this way for me...
Score Candidates
62 John S. McCain
60 Ralph Nader
60 Gary L. Bauer
59 John Hagelin
56 Bill Bradley
56 Patrick J. (Pat) Buchanan
56 Albert Gore Jr.
50 Howard Phillips
47 Malcolm (Steve) Forbes Jr.
45 David McReynolds
45 Warren Beatty
43 Orrin Hatch
41 Alan Keyes
40 George W. Bush
34 Harry Browne
22 Donald Trump
I wonder how Ralph and Gary would feel if they knew a ranking existed in which they were equal.
All I can see is that I'm neither a socialist nor a libertarian. I can't begin to guess why Buchanan is so high up the list, as I support both affirmative action and free trade.
Still, the selector seem to cover most of the important issues of the day. Technology issues are covered only indirectly, though.
I don't think there can be an ideal geek ticket. We are all way too different. The Internet "elite" often gets sterotyped into a conservative, quasi-Libertarian type of group - but in the first 4 posts in this subject I saw a socialist and somebody supporting Ralph"corporations are evil" Nader. We all have different beliefs, different backgrounds, and ultimately we all want different things from government. Personally, I want government to leave me alone - to stop regulating every aspect of my behavior and to stop using the police power of government to take about 40% of my gross earnings to redistribute to other parties who have absolutely no claim on my personal output.
I'll be voting Libertaian - probably Harry Browne as he seems to be the leading candidate to win the nomination. You can learn more about Harry at http://www.browne2000.org
I'm 31 and have been voting in Presidential elections since '88. Usually I vote Democrat in federal and state elections, because I prefer most of the stated Democrat policies over Republican. But I'm just disgusted with huge soft money donations, lobbyists writing the bills that our legislators pass (along with another contribution), and the many riders and procedural tricks legislators use to subvert debate in what was supposed to be an open and public legislative forum.
I'd like to support the Reform ticket, but there's no way in hell I'll vote for Pat Buchanan. I'm actually considering joining the Republican party just so I can vote for McCain in the primary, because of his support for the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform legislation... and I think he stands a better chance against Bush than Bradley does against Gore.
Honestly I like both McCain and Bradley more than I like the entrenched Gore and Bush and if either of them wind up in the general election I'll probably vote Democrat or Republican based on this and not party politics.
I am SICK of party politics! The constant fighting between these two behemouths is affecting our democracy/republic in very dangerous ways... I honestly feel very disenfranchised from our political system -- which as a middle class computer geek if I'm the norm then our leaders better wake up. The current duality and conflict between just two parties has turned far too corrupt leaving us citizens holding the bag time and again.
What about a multi party system based on proportional representation like Germany has? I think if we could reform campaign finance and create a system with more than two parties we might gain the citizen's trust in the political system once again. Obviously, the only way for citizens to trust their government is if the government's representatives actually act in the citizen's interests, and that's clearly not happening with our current political system.
The top choice selected for me by the Presidential Selector was the Socialist party candidate. Yeah right. We may agree on a few selected issues, but there's this whole thing called "fundamental system of government." A socialist president just would not work under our current Constitution. The premise is actually kind of silly.
The next choice on the list was somewhere around 20 percentage points lower, and was a virtual tie between Bradley and Gore, I think. The more I hear about Bradley, the more I like him, but I fear he may not have much chance against the VP. And as I live in New York State, I can't vote in the Democratic Primary to help choose between them (only members of a party can vote in their primaries here).
Oh well. I figure it's kind of silly to start making choices when I don't even know who'll be the final candidates!
Powers&8^]
i heard jello is considering running for president under the green party ticket.
I would have said RMS & ESR but they would be too busy arguing over whether to call the country USA or GNU/USA.
Even if we could, those are all quite complex issues, and I'm not comfortable taking one single (strongly support/strongly deny) stance on any of them. Then, there's a certain kind of synergy that introducing 'Net issues brings about. For example, I favor free trade across the 'Net, but do not favor allowing corporations to do anything they want just because they are large and "multinational." Also, tax reform cannot really be taken up without working out how the economy is supposed to function in the post-WWW era: What services will states provide? Come to that, what will comprise the "state?" Will it still be a geographic entity, partially based on ethnic considerations ("nation-state")? "Defense" issues, also, are going to change as our formerly geographic notions of place, trade, etc. are updated... As I expect we will see in the next week, international organizations will be needed to help ordinary Netizens with several fairly new global issues (viruses, trade-related fraud, bandwidth/allocation).
Yeah! Someone who's just like us. Uncharitable, rude, and always craving gratuitous violence for entertainment. Someone who doesn't give a damn about anything if it doesn't have an IPO, and of course someone who laughs when Rwandan babies die.
In short if he's not a hard core South Park fan then he ain't from Generation X and he doesn't get my vote.
I think, whether we have to put up with McCain, Forbes, Gore, or Bradley will be generally okay. The only real threatening candidate is Bush.
In the end though, research the candidates yourself. Don't rely on the superficial mass media reports, but spend some time using the vast resources of the Internet to probe their positions, and reach your own decision. Do vote because our democracy is not a sham unless you believe it is.
I'm writing in Richard M. Stallman. Man, that guy in really radical. I can't wait to see the ESR and RMS debate!
What a poor joke the American political system really is.
-too fucked to drink.
My idea is that on every ballot paper there should be a choice of
__ None of the above.
This would give you the right to answer the idiots who say "yeh, well who did you vote for"
~plur~
The ideal geek ticket would be Al Gore for president, because he invented the Internet. Clearly, he is an uber-geek. If that doesn't convince you of his technological savvy, consider that he also made his campaign website open-source. So he's an innovator and he's an open-source proponent. Maybe he should go on a speaking tour with ESR and Linus.
As for the veep, who cares? Since Gore is obviously Superman/Clark Kent in disguise, we don't need to worry about him dying or anything-just as long as he doesn't get near any kryptonite (or impeachment hearings)...
There is a show (I believe on ABC) that comes on around 4AM eastern time. I happened to be up one day (studying for finals) when it came on. It's called "political interview" or something like that.
Anyway, on this show they have all the presidential candidates. One particular episode they had this old republican POW. I cannot recall his name. He is apparently trying to get some campaign finance reform going. Anyway, he specifically voiced that he would be an opponent of internet taxation and interference with its development. Of course, as with all politicians, I take it with a grain of salt. Then again, he was the ONLY politician Ive ever even heard discuss the issue.
On a funnier note, they had Gore and some other democrat on there the following week, Ive never seen so much mudslinging in my life.
Bow down before me you pitiable worms.
And the worst reason for a Geek Ticket in America...
Anonymous Kev
It is still early enough in the race to consider a meta-view of what this is all about. I suggest the chapter T he Political Marketplace from David Friedman's book Price Theory: An Intermediate Text. I think the average Slashdot reader can handle the math. Friedman gives a lengthy discussion of the undesirability of tariffs. If that doesn't interest you, or you don't like all that math, skip to the section labelled, PUBLIC CHOICE: ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL MARKET about halfway through.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
i would like to see an aibo in the presidency.
the aibo could be specially built by sony, with a presidential petrification cigar.
we all know about the special relationshi p between the aibo and natalie portman! personally, i would much rather see her on the news channels every night for a year than that lard-ass monica lewinsky, who looks like a fat-time charlie with lipstick.
the aibo would, of course, be sensitive to the needs of the open source community. where else has the aibo been given as much exposure as on slashdot... the open source nerve center (special interest)?
the aibo has only a limited set of preprogrammed responses to any given situation... already ideally suited for the presidency.
nobody would dare question the aibo's integrity. it would stand proudly for traditional american values. it would champion truth and justice for all.
with the aibo as president, and maybe rms as minister of propaganda, there would be no stopping the united states! we would lead the world into the dawning of a new golden age among nations!
i go aibo!
thank you.
Forbes made a speech advocating privacy and how he planned to do it, just two weeks ago. There's a transcript available on his web site. You can also search other candidate statements at http://www.vote-smart.org.
Coincidentally , the penguin has already been adopted as the unofficial mascot of the Libertarian party.
> For Americans: it's high time we thought
> about who we want to run the country for the
> next 4 years.
On the contrary -- it's high time we realized that it is not the job of the president or anybody else to "run the country." It's time to reign in the imperial presidency.
> It seems to me that what I'm really looking
> for is a mixture - somebody who will regulate
> the Internet insofar as they will keep
> businesses from violating my privacy, but
> people who will keep out of the internet,
> so it can remain a free conduit for
> information exchange. (No silly crypto laws,
> freedom of speech and such).
I'm sorry, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you grant the feds the power to regulate the Internet to protect your privacy, that same power will be inevitably be used in ways that you didn't anticipate and don't desire, such as squelching free speech.
Better to go with a technological solution for protecting your privacy, rather than an easily-eroded political solution. If you pass privacy laws, you *know* that friends of whomever happens to occupy the White House at the moment will be allowed to bend or break the law. Cryptography gives us all the tools (anonymous digital cash, secure pseudonyms, etc.) that we need to protect our privacy ourselves, without relying on the trustworthiness of the government or any business.
Coincidentally , the penguin has already been adopted as the unofficial mascot of the Libertarian party.
http://www.libertypenguin.com
Hey, if they could write the best operating system in the world, why not have them get in their and debug our political system too? :)
To be prez of the USA, you have to be over 35, born in USA, and lived in USA for a certain amount of time (I think it's 14 years, but that may be the speed..er caffeine... talking). Leaves out a good many hackers and general /. populace (myself included).
Actually, I just checked, and 14 is correct. I'm amazed. Some of my 9th grade civics is still there after all these years!
Eric
I think it should be up to them. I assume you've already adopted a few to show the depth of your belief?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I just wandered through the selector's briefs on all of the candidates, and I was a little shocked when I came across David McReynolds page, read through his views, and then noticed that he's the candidate from the Socialist Party.
Now I knew that the political spectrum in the USA was a little skewed, but after reading his brief, he strikes me as the poster boy of moderate liberals, ie. just left of centre. And in the US, he's a socialist.
That would be really funny if it weren't such a frightening statement about American politics.
[TMB]
Not likely.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the American electoral system (which, unfortunately, includes a great many Americans), here's what happens if nobody gets a majority of the electoral votes (actual popular votes only decide which candidate the electoral votes of a state go to):
Which means, that if no candidate gets a majority of the vote, it goes to the house, the Republicans vote for Bush, the Democrats vote for Gore, and Bush gets elected (which might be the lesser of two evils).
Just my $.02 to clear things up.
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
And this concludes my post. You may now moderate me down per the dogmatic policies.
Not an endorsement. :>
http://internetparty.freeservers.com/
Used to be the 'Internet' party, but they merged with the Constitution party. Go figure.
I prefer most of the politics of the Libertarian party, myself.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Following are my rules for choosing a president:
1. Never been on TV. This is to assure that I haven't been brainwashed by the media.
2. Has a basic understanding of human rights and freewill.
3. Has nothing to gain from being President. This probably precludes anyone who actually wants to be President. If you want to be President, you're probably not qualified.
4. Someone I've actually met. This is for the same basic reasons as rule 1.
Other than that, it's basically a personal preference thing. I think if everyone voted following these rules, we'd be less likely to get someone in office who is going to maintain the status quo and screw us over the first chance they get. When this country was founded, you voted for someone you actually knew, and not someone that was force fed to you by the media. Now whoever gets in is the lesser of the available evils. Sometimes people just vote for someone because they think he is the likely winner, which is the absolute stupidest thing you can do, because maybe THAT'S why he's the likely winner.
Peace, and good luck,
Barleyguy.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
To me it seems strange to presume that all geeks will agree on any set of issues.
Are all geeks pro-choice?
Do geeks want affirmative action to continue?
How about drug controls? More? Less?
OK the majority probably feel that Evolution should be taught, but really how many issues do geeks really agree on? Yes many probably agree on the laws governing the internet. But that's probably not even going to be much of an issue. Maybe we should make it one.
-cpd
Just say no. I don't think they ever had in mind just saying no to government. But I like the idea.
And what, presently, is the population and land area of Switzerland?
It's easier to have direct representation in these circumstances.
as for my own opinions, I have voted in every election here in Toronto since I became eligible:
If ya don't vote, ya don't get the right to bitch.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The selector picked Howard Philips of the US Taxpayers Alliance (oops, now the Constitution Party) for me as #1, and Alan Keyes as #2.
I'm pissed that my #1 choice was the same guy whose organization is related to George Wallace (okay, so that's loosely related..Wallace's American Independent party has a chapter in California that's now a part of the USTA).
Keyes is my #1 choice except he is a hard core creationist and he's unstable on homosexual issues (if homosexuality is a choice then it should be protected as such; why the ban on same sex marriages?).
My point is I lean heavily to the right (pro-life, anti-gun control, low taxes, states' rights over Federal rights), but I have a problem with destroying farmland with concrete jungles, homophobia, religious dogma, and racists.
But then the people who agree with me on stuff like protecting farmland, and on tolerance of different lifestyles, score a zero with me on their views on human life, and the right to self protection, and they all lean towards supporting Socialist governmental models.
None of these losers are acceptable! Throw 'em all back!
The least objectionable member of the DemoPublicans is McCain. He does seem to have a backbone and character; unfortunately, he's for censoring the internet and mandatory filtering.
Find me someone who has honor. Find me someone who believes that the Constitution is a limit on government power, not carte blanche for goverment to meddle with whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Find me someone with the guts to say that Social Security is an unworkable Ponzi Scheme. Find me someone who won't turn a blind eye to the corporations imposing externalities on others. Find me someone who won't be busy paying off the people who bought his last election.
OK, so I'm probably dreaming.
For this election, I'll vote for gridlock -- which means that the professional policians will have the least power to screw me. If it looks like the House will revert to the democrats, I'll vote for GW Bush to counterbalance. If the House stays republican, it would be extremely dangerous to let one party control Congress and the Executive (remember all the Crap Clinton got passed in his first two years), so I'll vote for whichever democrat has the best chance of winning.
In the End, I just want to be left alone. The government is not your Mother.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
is probably going for John McCain. Although I disagree on his Internet censorship stance, I believe him to be an honest, upstanding man, who "doesn't suffer fools". What the heck does G.W. Bush really stand for?! He's riding on a carpet of $$$ and the Bush name (I don't think George Sr. was a bad president, just caught in the position at a bad time), but I do not beleive he is as intelligent or as capable as his father. Bradley I can respect... he is also sincere and honest....and a true hippie bleeding-heart liberal to the core! :) As for Gore....well, he's Gore - and he invented the internet!
I hope it comes down to Bradley vs. McCain so for once we might have some politicians who just might, MIGHT a wee bit actually believe in some measure of integrity. In the end I guess I'm just a fiscal conservative and a social libertarian waiting for a suitable candidate (probably will never happen with such partisan politics these days)
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@wm.edu
- How to get our relationship with Sino-Russia back on track. This IMHO is the greatest threat to us not just as a nation, but as a race. Our relationship with Russia has just been going downhill the last few years, and I for one think that we are on the brink of another cold war with both Russia and China.
- How do we get the disenfranchised in our society back on track. Affirmative action as a method of helping those in bad socio-economical conditions is a joke. It doesn't work and it will just fall apart as more and more hispanic immigrants enter into this country. If we don't do something soon, we will have a repeat of the riots we saw earlier this century, but this time with hispanics instead of blacks.
I do think that it's important to have technically knowlegeable people involved with the proccess, and I think it would be great to see people like ESR working close to the government to make sure that their technology policies make sense. But the idea of putting a geek in charge simply because technology is now a big part of our society to be absurd.--
Deepak Saxena
Deepak Saxena
"Computers are useless, they can only give you answers" - Picasso
Miguel's been winning awards left and right. He's a certain victory for us! BTW, is he an American citizen?
If a law is passed, does it not affect everyone? Just because I didn't help in the decision doesn't mean I'm not required to comply.
Personally, I'm pretty moderate (slightly left-leaning), but moderates don't win elections.
:-)
:-) They don't have to compete for the urban New York vote or the Southern California vote. Similarly, uberliberals like Wellstone can get elected if their constituents are fairly liberally-minded people (as is the case with much of the population of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area.)
You're kidding, right?
In this day and age, you almost have to be a moderate to win an election. Consider, as an example, Gary Bauer. Bauer is, by all reasonable observations, a very decent and honorable man. He's an eloquent and passionate speaker. However, he happens to be a hardcore right-winger who would just as soon replace the United States Constitution with the Old Testament. For his positions, Bauer will never, ever be elected President of the United States. The same type of observation can be made about die-hard leftists; I have a very hard time imagining any circumstances where Paul Wellstone (D-MN) would be elected president.
The reason is that there is a difference between regional and national politics. Extreme right-wingers like Bob Barr and Tom DeLay can get elected to Congress because they're not running on the national stage. Their constituents are, for the most part, extreme right-wingers.
But when you're trying to win a national election, you've got to walk a fine line in this day and age. Gone are the days when we have something like a war or a Great Depression motivating the people. These are, for the most part, good times, and people don't want to elect somebody who's going to upset that. For that reason, you are not going to be elected president if you stray too far to the left or to the right.
Look at the front-runners; George W. Bush, despite his claim that he is a "compassionate conservative"; is really a moderate in conservative's clothing. Many right-wing media pundits like to refer to Al Gore and Bill Bradley as rabid liberals, but truthfully, they are far more moderate than some of the more left-leaning members of the Democratic party (i.e., Wellstone.) Bradley is showing a bit of a liberal streak with his proposed health care plan, but that's about it.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Yes, all geeks are pro-choice and they believe in legalizing drugs.
It's a generation X thing.
We are certainly independent thinkers the rest of the time.
Actually, the geek stereotype is one of the most common and well-known stereotypes that there is. The fact that you're at Slashdot and trying to explain what an independent thinker you are shows that you're doing a good job of fitting that stereotype. It's hard to take the group seriously as a bunch of free-thinkers when they're falling all over themselves to act just like everyone else. It's just like the little goth kiddies who think they're so independent, even though they all dress and act alike.
I'm an independent thinker, and I wanna be unique! (Just like everybody else)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I can't characterize my views on foreign policy (for instance) as "Isolationist" or "Interventionist" -- I think it's appropriate to "intervene" in some cases, and not to in others. And I think the type of intervention (or inaction) we consider is important, too. It isn't binary.
But it does make political campaigns easier to run, which is why it has persisted for so long. This is why I'm philosophically opposed to voting for the Big Two -- they have entrenched themselves in this mindset, and even if they put up a candidate I trust, I know the party, not the man, is what we're electing. And every plank in their platform is on one side or the other of this imaginary line.
I do think everyone should make their opinion known somehow -- vote for someone or something. In fact, I've been thinking we should organize a massive write-in campaign of "No Confidence". It might put a new perspective on the next candidate who claims he has a "mandate from the people" with a quarter or less of the American people behind him. :)
phil
The current Slashdot Poll is getting stale anyway. Why not make the 2000 election the next poll. Take the complete list of candidates from the candidate selector and see who we say we'd vote for. CmdrTaco, Hemos, are you listening?
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Fortunately the three major candidates (Bush, Gore and Bradley) all say they support free trade. IMO Bush has the best chance of winning the presidential election. He has raised a lot of money, is widely known and has a good presidential lineage. What more do you need in this age of tv? Thus my vote would be a defensive vote against Bush.
While I like Ralph Nader, he doesn't stand a chance. Fortunately Bill Bradley actually scores fairly high on the issues I care about and I think a president can actually do something about (pro-choice, want anti-hate crime legislation, wants to cut military spending, pro-gun legislation, and voted against a huge package to 'fight drugs' internationally), it's doubtful he'll win the Democratic primary. The VP invariably wins. But I'd vote for him anyway, because maybe he'll win so that Democrats can diassociate themselves entirely from Clinton. Bradley's more charismatic than Gore and has better connections within the Democratic party despite the fact that Gore is VP. And if you examine presidential elections, the sad fact is that the more charismatic (and often taller) candidate usually wins.
If Gore won, I'd vote for him against Bush anyday. Bush is pro-life, pro-military, pro-creationism, and would probably sign a Christian bill to 'protect children from the evils of the Internet'. Unfortunately Gore's too concerned about the impossible task of controlling the import of illegal drugs for my liking (IME another issue that most geeks agree on) and also is wimpy on free trade when it conflicts with the interests of trade unions.
Also I checked out the candidate selector page and I find it ironic that the site is a general selection site which includes such things as how to select your pet's name. I wonder how many folks will actually vote for the president based soley on the site's information.
So if you don't wish to vote, what do you suggest as a viable alternative.
Was it no Sophocles who, when given the opportunity to escape from jail refused, claiming that, even though he didn't feel the law was right, he agreed to live by that law by living in the country.
In other words, if you do not exercise your right to chose, you must live with the consequences.
Before you criticize, you should have a viable alternative, else you are just blowing hot wind.
-A
I had some hopes for Forbes back in 1996, but since then, he's turned into a pawn of the Religious Reich. The rest of the lot, if they notice the Internet at all, spew a lot of tired mantras, a blend of 'encourage e-commerce', 'protect the children', 'protect the consumer', all without any trace of an actual ideology.
As a side comment to the person who asked the question which began this thread, you cannot protect privacy AND free speech. Privacy protection is fundementally a limit on free speech -- you are limiting what person 'a' can communicate to person 'b' about what person 'c' did. More and more, it appears that liberty and privacy are opposed values, and it seems we will need to pick one in the very near future. (After all, even though YOU don't want Bill Gates knowing about you, you want to know what HE is up to, don't you? As the Internet erases the old line between 'public' and 'private' figures (is a well-known Usenet poster a public figure?), the conflict between 'privacy' and 'accountability' grows ever sharper.
We live in interesting times, eh wot?
I want all the presidential candidates to undergo Voight-Kampff testing. I'd be a lot happier about Al Gore if I knew for sure whether or not he was a replicant (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That). Also, given that Voight-Kampff tests for normal human empathic response, it might also prove whether such a thing as a "compassionate conservative" really exists.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
For a political party to be "official" in most U.S. states, it needs to get a certain percentage of votes in a statewide election. For a party to get U.S. matching funds for a presidential campaign, it needs to have gotten a certain percentage of votes in the previous presidential campaign.
Many state Green Parties are vying for official status with this election, and the Association of State Green Parties is working to get matching funds for the next election. So a vote for Ralph Nader is an important step in breaking up the current two party system. (If the Republicans and Democrats even count as different parties.)
-Dave Barker, Green Party member,
http://cr@zyuncledave.com
Once in firm control of the country, I promise to:
- Execute everyone involved with the DVD CCA
- Execute everyone involved with the RIAA
- Find everyone that has ever been on a daytime talk show, and have them deported to the Alaskan Labor Camps
- I'll institute Alaskan Labor Camps
- Locate every member of the KKK and have them either executed (if over 18) or deported to the Alaskan Labor Camps (if under 18)
- Abolish all crypto regulations
- Abolish the Millennium Digital Copyright Act
- Abolish "Business Process" patents
- Abolish genome patents
- Require OSS products in all Federal agencies, where appropriate (yes, there are still places where some proprietary products have the edge)
- "identity theft" will be punishable by deportation to the labor camps. Execution for multiple offenses.
- Ban corporate surveillance of employees during non-work hours.
- . . . and so on . . .
Remember, if you vote for me I'll turn this country into totalitarian dictatorship. You will either be free and informed citizens, or my death-squads will gun you down like a dog.The lowest-common denominator must be exterminated. Trust authority. Trust ME!
Bill Bradley, is that the African-American?
No, but he did play professional basketball... however, that does not make him black.
Anyone else notice how the candidates keep getting taller and taller?
Just because I'm a geek, what does this tell you about my opinions on:
- abortion
- welfare
- homosexuality
- civil rights
- church-state separation
- taxation
- defense spending
- market freedom
- monetary policy
- foreign policy
- immigration
- economic theory
- judicial activism
- gun control
- freedom of expression
or any other important political issue by which I might choose a candidate for high office?Political opinions among the geeks who are my friends and coworkers ranges from radical leftism, to centrist liberalism, to free market libertarianism, to fiscal conservatism, to right wing religious radicalism, all the way to outright apathy. While we may usually agree on what is a good or bad technical issue, it is rare indeed for us to agree about the broader issues that govern our lives and how we cast our votes.
I would as soon vote for a geek-centered candidate as I would vote for a candidate running on a platform emphasizing only their stand on abortion or foreign policy. These may be important issues in an election but they are not the only issues. The same goes for geek/technology issues.
...don't deserve the right to bitch.
The constitution of the U.S. of A. gives you a legal way of making your voice heard - a vote. If you vote, and the election/law doesn't go the way you want, bitch all you want. Hell, you should hear me go on about I-695 or some of the other crap that goes on here in Washington state.
On the other hand, if you didn't vote, you didn't participate in the process, despite being offered a very straightforward way to participate. Therefore, you have no right to complain AT ALL.
InThane
Honestly, Presidential elections don't matter much because Presidents don't really matter that much. They come preselected for establishment qualities (or they wouldn't have got as far as they did) and all of the really important decisions are either unthinkable to such a person or outside the scope of their authority (most /real/ decisions in this country are economic now (unaccountable big business / WTO) /not/ political... thus the Crisis in Democracy).
/BUT/ that's no reason not to vote for him!! If Nader gets enough votes in 2000, that might mean serious *funding* (millions, just like The Business Party (nominally the 'Republicans' and 'Democrats'... but in practice, indistinguishable)) for future third-party campaigns.
That said, Nader would be as different from our past Presidents as a President could be in this country. He's a true outsider. And the truth is it would be a serious upset if he won,
Ralph even getting 5 or 10% of the vote would be an absolutely STAGGERING victory and would really shake things up because it would show that third party candidates really could step in and challenge The Business Party. He's got my vote!
If you're a moderate you can't be yourself. You can't be honest.
I can't stand the leftists and the right wingers, but at least when they get in power I know exactly where I stand with them. You can tame that shrew a lot easier than you can a shrewd moderate who talks out of both sides of their face.
"I am proud to say that I don't belong to a single political party. Why? Because I make my own decisions. I support the candidate that best fits me, not the candidate with my favorite letter after their name."
Makes sense to me. But I didn't really think all that many people really identify themselves with republicans or democrats so strongly that they don't make their own decisions. It's just that the parties tend to fall in a certain spectrum. For example, if you feel strongly about the need to regulate gigantic businesses through legislation, it's pretty bloody unlikely that you're going to vote republican. Similarly, if you want to get rid of welfame and affirmitive action, I would think it would be very rare that the democrats would put somebody up that you'd want to vote for.
I was the guy who submitted the question - hopefully you checked out the David McReynolds link. I've been thinking more and more about voting for him if I see him on the ticket in my state. (Unfortunately, I find myself in Virginia) I agree with his views more than any other candidate, with some small nitpicking exceptions. In general though, I think it's worth voting for him even though I know he can't win, because IMHO (and I know this could draw flame because other people tend to have NSHO's) a vote for a third party candidate is like a protest vote, or equivalent to a "vote of no confidence"
For those of you who have ever heard any spoken word performances by Jello Biafra (yes, that's his name) he suggested something quite interesting - running the election as usual with an extra option - you could vote "No Confidence" on as many candidates as you wanted. And if any candidate had more than X% (where X is determined through the democratic process) of no confidence votes, the election would have to be redone, BARRING that candidate from the "redo" election, because voters had voted him off the ticket.
You would have to redo the whole thing though, since if there are two candidates, and one gets 60% no confidence, the guy who actually wins obviously wasn't running against a worthy opponent in the public's view. (i.e. it wasn't so much that he was good, but rather "The lesser of the two evils"
My ~3.2 Pfennigs
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
I went through the candidate selector thingie, too, just for giggles. Very interesting.
It leads me to wonder if a "geek platform" could exist at all. The original commenter said he might be in favor of supporting McReynolds. Now, granted, there weren't many questions that directly related to "geek issues", but on my results McReynolds was #16...dead last with a score of 3 (out of 100 I guess). (If you're curious, Howard Philips, whom I've never heard of, was at the top.)
This leads to believe (albeit scant evidence) that "geek issues" aren't a unifying force in the community. Other things are more important to us. Patent laws and such are rather nebulous. We want to know what the candidate thinks about things that affect us directly and daily. Now if a question regarding privacy was on that quiz, it would be more telling. The average joe would have an opinion, and it's something that geeks tend to be well-informed (and often opinionated) about.
What do you think? What questions would you add to that quiz, to possibly make it more geek-relevant?
Constitutionally Correct
The libertarians typically don't know how to respond to the fact that their cherished platform is the result of good 'ol subsidized DARPA projects.
If you don't want to vote, that's fine. You can just say you'd rather play quake or whatever, that you don't care who wins.
But claiming you won't vote because of the electoral college is a complete cop out.
First, there are other issues of the ballet, that are not decided by the electoral college. These are worth voting on.
Second, not voting is a show of support for the current system, with the duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans. They are currently enjoying the status quo, and will do nothing to change it.
The only way we will ever get rid of the electoral college is to shake things out of this rut, and topple the two parties currently in control.
If you really want to get rid of the electoral college, go out and vote for ANY third party. It won't help overnight, but it will help get us there sooner.
There are three possible types of candidates, only two of which currently exist. The first type is the candidate who has no principles -- he says whatever he has to say to get elected. These are your leading republicans and democrats. The second type is the candidate who has principles, but they are the wrong principles. These are the challengers in the major parties, and all the third party candidates. The third kind, the one that doesn't exist yet, is the kind that has the right principles.
The candidate selector doesn't consider principles; it considers a bunch of issues. For example, I was disappointed that I could only choose between "non-interventionist" and "interventionist" foreign policies. What about "selective intervention?" There are a million varieties of selective intervention, too, depending on your selection criteria. (That's probably why it wasn't an option.) If nation X does action Z, do you intervene? Why? These are the kinds of questions that you have to know the answers to, and the only way to know them is on the basis of principles. (My own policy would be to intervene when the U.S. or its interests are threatened, but not otherwise.)
I am disappointed in all candidates so far. Maybe you should run.
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." ... "Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible." ... "The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers." -Thomas Jefferson
After seeing a re-run of Bob Dole's appearence on Comedy Central from earlier this month, I'm starting to believe that he probably is one of the best men suited for the job. It's a shame that he lost in '96, as he has shown that he still has a keen mind and sharp wit, depsite his age. The fact that he continues to be involved in public service when he is no longer a Senator also makes me belive he cares deeply for the country.
As for issues, well, I'm not sure what his stance is. He comes off as a Republican moderate, from what I've seen. I'm wondering if he could be convinced to get in the ring again. I'm sure he could kick George W.'s ass from Cali to N.Y. and back again.
Of course, if he doesn't run, there's always Cthulhu. An Elder God bent on the subjugation of the human race is preferable to most of the candidates in the race.
--sugarman--
> Although slightly USA-centric, this topic might also be of interest to our non-US readers so that
> they can discuss what they want out of their government in the near future.
Nah, watching US elections - a lengthy big-money spending process which essentially removes a whole crop of politicians from the actual running of the country for nearly a year and then lame ducks an outgoing president for months - just convinces me that no matter how stupid _my_ country's idiotic system of federal election may be, there is a an even more idiotic one right next door.
So, no matter how much we can congratulate ourselves for being citizens of enlightened democratic market driven nations, we must also realise that our systems are still pretty much old, malfunctioning and badly in need of redesign and/or maintenance. After all, does it really matter who wins? Every elected joker seems to screw up sooner or later, probably sooner.
To me, the circus called an American election is just further proof of this sad fact.
-M
What a load of pig-shit.
People with this attitude need to get out of second-year college.
"Tyranny of the Majority" -- Good one, I would much rather be ruled by the minority... most dictators have done an extraordinary job of keeping their people happy.
A multi-party system can only work if there are a limited number of parties. If you doubt that, go look at the parliamentary proceedings of Israel and Taiwan. Three-quarters of their time is spent fighting for tiny scraps of power in a vain attempt to build a government.
Look at Israel -- the whole country is beholden to extremist groups (like Shas) because the gov't is desperate for that little bit of extra voting power that keeps them in office.
Our system isn't perfect, but it IS pretty damn effective compared to many (not all) of the alternatives. At least, it's better than any of the other systems that I've lived under during my life . . .
Ralph Nader Pro gun? I think not. Anyone who supports the Brady bill in any form cannot have a label of "Pro Gun" when the Brady bill is just the first step toward greater gun control. It happened in Australia, Great Britain and now Canada, and you can be sure the same tactics are working in the US as well.
Personally, I got Harry Browne, a libertarian candidate at the top of my list - but unfortunately it gave me some socialist ass as #3 (completely the oppositve on most of my views).
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
Just imagine him singing thefree software song at his inauguration.....
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
Good thing I voted for him in the last election... (now, how many of you out there even realized you had the choice when all you ever heard about was Bill Clinton or Bob Dole?)
... quantum physicist" - just like myself and the man of the century...! And he's also challenging for the Reform party nomination. Then I remembered where I'd heard of the guy - anybody remember the Maharishi International University with the bouncing transcendental meditators? Hagelin was their token physicist, and he'd previously recommended transcendental meditation as the solution to crime in Washington DC (crime was up the day they tried the experiment). More info at
Of course a lot of the items I expressed no particular opinion on - however what I would have preferred would be an option to keep the status quo, without radical change either on one side or the other (for example, affirmative action - I don't want to vote for somebody who vows to never let it be changed, but on the other hand I don't want to vote for a racist either). Be that as it may, here's the scores I came up with:
Ralph Nader: 76
Bill Bradley: 69
John Hagelin: 69
Al Gore: 64
Warren Beatty: 54
John McCain: 48
Howard Phillips: 33
Donald Trump: 32
Pat Buchanan: 29
George W. Bush: 29
Steve Forbes: 27
Gary Bauer: 23
Orrin Hatch: 22
Harry Browne: 15
Alan Keyes: 10
The only surprise there (other than how poorly that moron Bush did) was John Hagelin. I'd heard of him, but couldn't remember where. The Natural Law Party platform does look like one I could support. And he's a "PhD
http://www.politics1.com/nlp.htm.
Hagelin is "director of Maharishi University of Management's Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy". He "follows the teachings of His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi". The institute publishes on the "Maharishi effect". Weird stuff. I don't want to be a religious bigot or anything, but I've got to wonder if there's some undercurrent here we should be concerned about...
Energy: time to change the picture.
Is the 5th party the one on the 31st of December?
Take a look at Math Against Tyranny before you decide to scrape away the electoral college. If you want your vote to matter, you'd better make sure you know why this guy's analysis is flawed before you go to a straight, absolute majority system.
...it sucks!
Seriously, when the founding fathers wrote the Constitution and subsequently the bill of rights, they recognized several factors which could destroy the new nation. One of them was a strong executive branch (i.e. the democracy turns to monarchy). Another was political parties.
The two party system is, as many of us have observed and as even the founders observed, a great danger to our nation.
-Merlyn42The audience doesn't care if it's hard.
68 John Hagelin
:)
61 Harry Browne
55 George W. Bush
50 Bill Bradley
I am embarrased to say I had never heard of Hagelin up until this moment. I like what he advocates though
I will probably vote for ol' Georgey in the end though. I do like Bradley as well (certainly a lot more than Gore).
I don't know if Nader really has studied the "geek issues," but what I do know about his stances on information, I'm sure one can extrapolate. He is a strong advocate of freedom of information. Some time back in the seventies, he founded an organization that was designed as a watchdog group on government snooping into the lives of citizens who had the bad luck of having the wrong political beliefs. In addition, his work as a consummer advocate has been largely about forcing corporations to reveal the potentially dangerous features of their products. Stuff that corporations don't want you to know. Extrapolation: So, I surmise that he would support open source, encryption, and internet privacy. Also, given his opposition to class disparity, I think he would want to see increased opportunity for poor people to have computer access and develop computer skills.
Great Gods of Myopia, I hope you guys don't get your wish for a "Geek President".
So we end up with a president who knows all about the necessity of Free Software (except games), the evils of software patents (except Google), and understands how overvalued and overhyped most tech IPOs are (except VALinux).
Best of all, (s)he will have either no understanding of how US government works or (even better) a complete MISunderstanding. I can't wait -- a president who thinks that the First Amendment prevents your ISP from pulling down your illegal warez and mp3 site.
We'll have a president who responds to terrorist bombings with, "Let's hit 'em back with a DoS attack! We'll 0wn them!"
We'll have a president whose solution to a Social Security shortage is to invest the whole fund in a Linux IPO, then only issue checks to senior citizens who get "The Letter".
We'll have a president who hosts town hall meetings on IRC (#prez?) and has Secret Service agents kick off anyone who gets asks newbie questions.
We'll have a president who vetoes every budget until Congress includes some bitchin' bandwidth for the whitehouse.
We'll have a president who spends all his time at the NSA building playing with the toys ("watch me look down this chick's blouse with a spy satellite!")
Sorry, but I think this is a really pathetic topic. Maybe I'm just a little too aware of the big room with the blue ceiling and people who live happy fulfilled lives without net access.
...can you really tell a SIMM from a DIMM just by sitting on it?
Well, I get Harry Browne with a score of 74 at the top of my list. Figures that a Lib would be on top, although Pat Pukeannon was about 4th...
Howzabout this:
Jon "Maddog" Hall for President!
Campaign motto: "He's NOT insane!"
(big grin)
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
Speaking in support of the non-US people who might be participating in this discussion, I think that current US immigration law is absolutely ridiculous. I have some brilliant friends at school who, simply because of the way the INS works, find it almost impossible to get their foot in the door for work-- even in the tech sector! The US should have its doors wide open to educated immigrants. Anybody who has worked for more than a week in tech realizes that the current US "lead" in technology is in a huge way related to the brilliant people that we import.
Why don't the geeks get behind some relaxation of US immigration law for those pursuing or already having a higher education?
Well, If I were able to vote next year I'd be voting for Harry Browne. He's the Libertarian Party canidate.
As for the best possible presidential canidate I can think of... ESR for president!
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
[As stolen by me from snpp.com]
Homer: America, take a good look at your beloved candidates. They're
nothing but hideous space reptiles. [unmasks them]
[audience gasps in terror]
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about
it? It's a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us.
[murmurs]
Man1: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away.
[Kang and Kodos laugh out loud]
[Ross Perot smashes his "Perot 96" hat]
-- "Treehouse of Horror VII"
The next day, Kodos announces the result: "All hail, President Kang."
The field in front of the Capitol has now become a working ground
where humans are whipped by aliens and used to carry materials.
The Simpsons family is working too, with Homer and the kids carrying
wood, and Marge pushing a wheelbarrow of cinderblocks -- with Maggie
on top.
Marge: I don't understand why we have to build a ray gun to aim at a
planet I never even heard of.
Homer: Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
It should be noted that Buchannan, Hatch, Keyes, Forbes and Bauer are similar to Browne in supporting gun rights. But all of these candidates (except Browne) are too fascist for me. Browne is Libertarian, which I have some issues with, although nowhere nearly as many as with the GOP in general.
Finding God in a Dog
These sites show where the candidates stand on the issues: www.issues2000.org and www.selectsmart.com.
go look at www.the-revolution.org R.U Sirius is their candidate.
"Tyranny of the Majority" -- Good one, I would much rather be ruled by the minority... most dictators have done an extraordinary job of keeping their people happy.
I guess that would explain why people risk death to emigrate from countries where dictators rule. They're happy, only they don't know it. So, the state uses force against them to make them see just how good they really have it.
alanc123@hotmail.comI agree that fusion should be legalized in the U.S. I believe it is currently only legal in New York state (and possibly a smattering of other places).
Of course, speaking as a member of the Green Party of Michigan and follower of third party politics it is highly unlikely the Greens would nominate Al Gore.
Speaking of the Greens, Nader is again the forerunner to receive the Green Party nomination for president. Last time he spent less than $5,000, only one in seven voters even knew he was running, and still came in fourth. This time he has promised to do real campaigning and real fundraising. Help Nader out.
The chances that your vote will affect the outcome of an election are practically zero regardless of who you vote for.
The way to make your vote count is to use it to increase the perceived support base of the candidates and/or party you like best. For the smaller parties, this can lead to improving their reputation, and for the next election, access to government campaign funds and less red tape in getting on ballots.
That's 'Cthulhu'. So obviously, you're an imposter. The Elder Party leadership will be around shortly to rectify the situation. Thank you for your support!
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
This has been compressed somewhat but here goes anyway:
I need politicos to stay away from my freedom (no stupid crypto laws) more than I need them to protect my privacy. I can do that with JunkBuster.
Whose quote is the one about "those who want to trade freedom from security deserve neither"?
Please people, take a real stand:
Don't VOTE!
Assume, for the sake of argument, that you are elected President of the United States. Further assume that you have the power to enact or overturn any piece of legislation and that the Congress will back you up on it. Would you overturn Roe vs. Wade? What sort of effect do you think that would have on the number of abortions performed in the United States?
:-)
I think that any reasonable person would agree that the country would be better off if there were fewer abortions. I mean, nobody runs around saying "Gee, we need more abortions in this country!" But legalized abortion, as it exists now, is only a mechanism. If you remove the mechanism without doing anything to address the problem, another mechanism will spring up in its place.
I wish we lived in a country where we didn't have to deal with rape. I wish we lived in a country where we didn't have to deal with incest. Where we didn't have to deal with pregant heroin addicts. Where we didn't have to deal with rampant unsafe, unprotected sex. Where we didn't have to deal with single mothers living in filth and squalor. And on, and on, and on. Yes, I wish we lived in a country like that, but we don't. And it doesn't do anybody a bit of good to pretend that we do.
This is why I'm amused by people like Gary Bauer who sanctimoniously proclaim "If I'm elected president, abortion-on-demand will end!" Beg pardon? How naive can you get? I'll say it again: legalized abortion is only a mechanism, and if you take one mechanism away, another will spring up in its place. All that you've really taken away is the ability of a woman to have access to a safe (albeit unpleasant) medical procedure. If a woman needs the procedure, she'll still be able to get it from some back-alley butcher. Or perhaps a guy that her older brother knows will set her up with some black-market European abortion pill for a couple of Benjamins.
If you want to work to reduce and eventually eliminate abortions, then I say: fine! It's a noble effort. But if you're going to do it, do it right. Work to alleviate the problems that I enumerated above. Stop and ask yourself why women get abortions, and concentrate your efforts on attacking those problems, because if you do that, then abortion becomes superfluous! It would no longer be necessary! But don't say "Hey, I'm going to sign this piece of legislation and that will be it", because I'll tell you what: Women were getting abortions before Roe v. Wade, and if a right-wing president and a right-wing Congress overturns it, they'll still be getting abortions after it, unless you focus on the core problems.
I guess you could call me strongly pro-choice, but strongly anti-abortion.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Here's what issues will win my vote:
Taxes. As a gainfully-employed geek, I make enough money to buy my geek toys and have a nice apartment, but not enough money to buy a house or qualify for all the nifty neato deductions. As a result, the government takes out WAY more of my paycheck than I'm comfortable with.
Then we could all have whoever we wanted, whenever we wanted, however we wanted.
:)
Woohoo!!!
No, I'm the cousin no one talks about
This platform was used by a character in Robert Anton Wilson's "Schroedinger's Cat Trilogy", and now constitutes my minimum standard for candidates. If they won't work for life extension and an economy based on something better than wage slavery and taxation, then i'm ignoring them. In the ideal world, there would be no death or taxes. A true idealist should expect no less from a candidate.
---
120
chars is barely sufficient
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
What about the Naked Dancing Llama? He's been serving the Internet community providing advice since 1995, and he does a decent tango!
What about the Naked Dancing Llama? He's been serving the Internet community providing advice since 1995, and he does a decent tango!
What about the Naked Dancing Llama? He's running for President, and has been serving the Internet community providing advice since 1995, and he does a decent tango!
I didn't ask for uranium mines ripping up the west. But there they are. I didn't ask for "Boy Meets World" reruns, but there they are. I didn't ask for nigger-hating cops, but there they are. If I vote, they're there, if I don't vote - hey! They're still there! I no longer care. I feel no connection to this country or it's political process. I feel no need to justify my complaints by wasting an afternoon at the voting booth, and I'm tired of the 4th grade civics lessons. (i.e. Don't vote-don't complain). You do not get elected in this country unless you are rich, pure and simple. I am not rich, so much like the gated suburbs, country clubs, and other privleged playgrounds, I am most unwelcome in the political arena. People who vote love to speak in cliche about making a difference, making an effort, fufilling a civic duty, etc. When in reality all they accomplish is decieving themselves of their importance. In this respect, it is no different than drugs, religion, or other wastes of time.
If you want to encourage Nader to run, visit the National Committee to Draft Ralph Nader for President web site.
A Sunday strip of "Citizen Dog" a while back has always stuck with me:
Hero puts coins in big vending machine marked "Vote".
Hero makes his selection.
Hero gets no response.
Hero kicks and shakes and cusses. Still nothing.
Hero shrugs and walks away.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
Here's what select smart gave me (I was planning to vote for Bradley anyways):
81 Bill Bradley
69 David McReynolds
62 Ralph Nader
42 Donald Trump
39 John S. McCain
36 Warren Beatty
I'm somewhat between the Green Party, Socialist Party, and Democrats (Libertarians sometimes as well), but Bradley is really my top choice. More federalized education, GOOD health care for all. Ideally I want someone who's against patents, and who thinks Big Business is inherently evil.. and being a big Dune fan wouldn't hurt either.. eh.. I can hope/wish.
-- d'arcy poirot
Alan Keyes is the African American candidate in this race. He's got a PhD from Harvard. He's also anti-abortion and anti-gay-rights, which is enough to eliminate him as a candidate for my vote.
Finding God in a Dog
Libertarians for Life
Ah... it seems abortion is the big issue with which even Libertarians and liberty-minded individuals do not hold 100% concensus. It's definitely a toughy.
After voting for Nader in '96, I could happily lambaste both sides in the Monica debacle, having no responsibility for either.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
You ever seen the movie Bulworth? If not, go see it. Beatty kicks ass.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
. . . the remark is from his Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759. It is found in various forms as early as 1755.
I agree; it's a great quote, and one that should be used more frequently in political discourse.
I think that many potential candidates that people believe in get otherwise eliminated because people don't want to 'waste' there vote. Thus the candidate doesn't get the support they need to win, or to even look competitive, and it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
Thus, to solve this problem, I propose the following- Any non-major candidate that may have decent prospects of winning should propose the following - that each of those who would desire to see him/her win, vote in a pre-election (online or a similar methodology)- If a sufficient number of votes are recieved to suggest a win, or a close race even- then they should be encouraged to vote in the primary for that candidate. If not, then the voters should be encouraged to vote for whom they would have chosen as second best, or alternatively the candidate may suggest whom they would like the votes cast for and why...
Thanks,
LetterRip
gak - you KNOW who is the archtypal 'geek' in the US public mind - GATES! Yes, lets install the mighty snake god in the place he should not be, and initiate the thousand year reign of terror!! Boojum - on remote assignment backing up stuff like there's no tomorrow.
. . . and look, you've got a score of 3! Poor, poor child!
Here, if it'll make you feel better, you can pretend that I've marked you down to -1.
Does that help any?
(. . . whining loser . . .)
Am I the only one who saw Steve Forbes refer to the Linux Operating System as the Loonix Operating System during the New Hamphire Republican Debate a few weeks ago? Not that hes entirely wrong ...
I can't vote, as I'm not yet 18, but I will bitch about any and all stupid things the seriously warped American government does. When I can vote, you can bet it won't be for any politicians. I'll be writing in people I know and trust. Don't vote for the people who present themselves as candidates. Vote for the people you WANT to represent you.
"Remember the words of Joe E. Lewis, who said, 'A friend in need is a pest.'"
Are you sure that's not "Joey Lewis"?
I live in Canada. I went through the quiz and selected the positions that most closely matched the way we have it here (i.e., free health care, tight gun control, few morality laws). Well, my selections for the president were as follows:
89 Ralph Nader
85 David McReynolds
81 Bill Bradley
76 Albert Gore Jr.
Now, I'm not sure who David McReynolds or Bill Bradley are (isn't Bill Bradley a newsperson?) But It seems to me there's no chance the US will every be has good a place to live when 75% of the candidates want to make sure the corporations run things.
BTW, when did "liberal" become a Bad Thing? In Canada, liberal means someone who's open to new ideas (and is the name of the ruling party).
My $0.02.
Not that I'm upset that Perot didn't win. I am, however, VERY pissed that the "major media" effectively prevented the people's real choice from being elected.
I submitted this story yesterday but it was rejected. Here it is roughly as I remember it:
I recommend that slashdot members nominate a representative. Here are a few questions to consider:
I visited the FEC web site today. It gives this description of the committee:
Here's a few useful links:
The New York Times' Story written by Jeri Clausing.
She may be a good contact on the issue.
The FEC site- includes a link to an acrobat file describing the committee and the nominating process.
Nominations are due by January 5. Nominees must be able to attend meetings on
Feb. 4, Feb. 25, March 31, and April 28. The meetings are open to the public. We could see whether C-SPAN will cover them.
--------------
My personal website, openpolitics.com, is offline for the Christmas break.
Well that was interesting? My top 4 choices came up as Phillips, Bush, Keyes, and McCain. All above 80%. I have to say that whoever you vote for, make it someone of Character and Principal. I would rather have someone in there whom I disagree with, but is a person of Character and Principal. The last thing we need is yet another jackass concerned with what is only politically expedient and preserving his own agenda. I think I will take a closer look at Keys and McCain. Remember that Gore is the same Idiot that wrote in his little book a few years ago that the greatest threat to the Earth was the automobile. Please, the number of cars on the roads have increased expotentially the pass 30 years while the percentage that automobile emissions contributes to polution has dramatically dropped.
To Live will be the greatest adventure.
BTW, Nader was so far down the list I didn't even notice his name. So I am very curious as to why so many "geek" posters like the guy so much.
Which leads me to an idea for Rob and the gang... Maybe /. can run a set of polls over a few days with the same questions so we can see how the /. geek voice looks -- then enter the results into the SmartSelector (after all the polls are done) and see how the candidates are ranked accordingly. (Personally I'd have an initial poll which would rate which questions /.'ers found most important, then run the polls in that order. Betcha by the time the polls were done, the whole 'Net media world would be watching for the results. Comments anyone?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Yeah, that's the essence of the Natural Law Party platform. Solving the world's problems through transcendental meditation. Should be called the New Age Party.
The last thing we need is a President who has to consult his crystals before making a decision, IMHO. Official Presidential Astrologers are pointless enough.
---
Oper on the Nightstar
This brings up an issue that has been bugging me for some time.
Why the hell do we still have the electoral college?
100 years ago, or even 50, it was needed for the simple fact that it was too difficult to poll all Americans, but in this day and age with computers, the Internet, and mass communication, there really is no need for it. It is possible to actually poll every American of voting age (via phone, Internet, snail mail, any other electronic communication from the booths, etc), and tally those votes (most likely using lots of computing power). Sure the infrastructure is not there at the moment, but it could be set up by the next presidential elections using today's technologies.
Let every American have his/her say and have it count, instead of having some group try to interpret what your region wants.
-B
Hmmm,
Nader was high on my list but Bradley was #1. Incidentally, he is a former basketball pro and now a Senator (I think).
In Canada I just don't bother to vote anymore. None of the parties represent me or my views.
-M
In areas that are very rich, reps will be elected on how they stand on issues that will affect the income of the (already rich) people in the district (I went to high school in a very rich district - when the rep voted for a tax hike for higher tax brackets, she lost the following election, despite the fact that her opponent was a bona fide idiot). A number of communities will vote for a rep based on his record on a single issue, ignoring all his/her other stances (i.e. jewish community votes for a rep based on his stance regarding the state of Isreal). This type of tunnel vision prevents the government at local and national levels from looking at the "big picture", especially on issues where the richer citizens are asked to shoulder the burden of helping out the lower economic classes. I think judging a candidate in terms of where the stand on geek-issues and non-geek issues is doing the same type of thing. IMHO, you should judge a candidate based on his overall approach, not just specific issues.
Of course, this is all assuming that the candidate will actually do any of the stuff he promises to do - plus, it is assuming that the nation doesn't have more pressing problems like poverty, crime, nuclear missles in the hands of madmen, and a few thousand innocent people to go bomb to justify the military budget
Touch The Puppet Head
Bradley's the way to go. Here's my stance on all the main runners:
Republicans
George W. Bush: Sorry, but I want a canidate who knows what's going on in the world.
Gen. McCain: I'm not one of those guys who are like, "I fought back in "duba'ya duba'ya 2", and had to blow holes through those god damned sons of bitches who tried to take away our freedom...lost a leg, but I worked damned hard to win the war for Uncle Sam!" It's nice that he's a war hero and all, but he's a bit too conservative.
Democrats
Bill Bradley: The way to go. The only problem (and probably downfall) is that he's boring to listen to (which killed Dole as well).
Al Gore: Can you say Clinton wannabe? Watch him during the debates...he dodges a number of the questions, doesn't stand hard on a number of the issues, and uses his looks, charm, and humor to get by.
Other
Pat Buchannan: Get this man out of politics. He's tried and failed ever since the 80's, has the conservatism of the Eisenhower era, and looks like a raisin that sat out too long in the sun.
Steve Forbes: Go ahead, let business take over the government. While we're at it, let's make Bill Gates his running mate, huh?
Lets remember that Bill Clinton (who signed the CDA, supports TV and game ratings and opposes crypto) is a Republican. As is Al Gore, who's wife has been a long time proponent of video game censorship. Hillary Clinton too (who supports unifying all ratings under one government controlled system). Yeah, the Republicans are the only ones who are evil.
Vote Libertarian; they won't win this year, but if they get enough votes, people will notice and might elect them soon. Or vote for Trump, and support the Ventura crowd of the Reform party.
> Liberal - current gov't
> Reform - Western based party, official opposition.
> Conservative - Broken shell of a former gov't, screwed us with free trade and more taxes, yumm.
> NDP - Good old Canadian socialist based part
Party 5: BQ - Bloc Quebecois, the secessionist party. Goal is creation of an ethnically-pure French state out of Quebec and extermination of English within its borders. Yes, this would mean that Canada would lose 25% of its population at the stroke of a pen.
In America, you'd call that "treason", and hang the sonofabitch after blowing him to smithereens in a civil war. In Canada, both the ethnic loons who run Quebec and the moderates both in and outside of Quebec know that Canadians are collectively too spineless to call it treason, precisely because calling it "treason" would imply that military force might have to be used to bring the sonofabitch down.
This results in an interesting dynamic in which both the ethnic nationalist loons and the moderates vote for the nationalist loon party:
This perverse split in the voting population means that there are really two types of people who end up leading the ethnic nationalist parties in Quebec:
Confused yet? It gets better. Until either the Reform or Conservative parties abolishes itself or merges with the other, the Liberals will win every election in Canada with a majority forever. It's not really a 5-party system, it's a 1-party system.
Due to vote-splitting between Reform and Conservative (the two ostensibly right-wing parties in Canada; many "right-wingers" still vote Conservative due to "tradition" despite the party's move to the left in recent years) and first-past-the-post systems, the BQ was actually the second-highest number of seats two elections ago, and became official opposition, edging out Reform by one seat. That's right - the secessionist party came in second place in a federal election. The Reform Party took the position of the official opposition in the last election, but again, only by a handful of seats.
Finally, unlike the US system, where individual representatives from both parties bring bills foward, sometimes jointly, the Canadian system offers no chance to cross party lines. Representatives who vote in any way other than how they're told to vote by their party leaders are harshly penalized. Parliamentary debate and voting in Canada, particularly when the governming party has more than 50% of the seats, is a wholly symbolic affair; the results are always known in advance. The governing party's laws always pass. No legislation from the opposition ever passes.
Seat-wise, the split of the PC/Reform vote and the "black hole" of Quebec, where the BQ dominates, ensures that the governing Liberals will likely win majority governments from this point forward.
It's been called, rather accurately, a parliamentary dictatorship; we elect a dictator whose term of office is limited to five years by the constitution. Within those limits, a Canadian Prime Minister in a majority government wields absolute power; no opposition party can topple him, no opposition legislation can be passed, and all of his government's legislation gets passed.
Until the creation of the Bloc Quebecois and Reform parties, Canada lived in a three-party system, and for the most part, the voters at least had a say in which party's leader became dictator for the next five years.
After the creation of the BQ and Reform, the dynamics of the vote-splitting and regional parties have reduced a 3-party system into a 1-party system. You can vote any way you like in Canada, but it's guaranteed that the Liberal party will win the election.
OK, that was Canada. Now on to the US.
Ponder this before you blindly advocate multi-party politics in the States. Do you want two left-wing parties splitting their votes against the Republicans? Do you want two right-wing parties splitting their vote against the Democrats?
Ask yourself - who'd win the most electoral college votes in a hypothetical three-way race between D-Gore, The Smash-The-WTO-And-Capitalism Party, and R-Bush? Or D-Gore, The-Kill-All-Druggies-And-Non-Christians Party, and R-Bush?
Perhaps there's room for a Libertarian party in this -- on the grounds that the Libertarian position is ostensibly neither right-wing nor left-wing, and likely to siphon votes from socialist-libertarian Democrats fed up with big welfare programs and racial quotas, and free-market-libertarian Republicans fed up with wacko fundamentalists.
Just being a third party isn't enough. Before you support a third party, make sure it's the kind of third party - one whose success won't unintentionally elevate your most-hated opposition to the position of dictator-for-life due to vote-splitting.
As a compassionate conservative, George W. Bush offers the best hope of replacing Clinton-Gore's disgrace with rational, common-sense leadership.
Not to plug any certain political party but from what I have seen Orin Hatch should be at the top of the geek ballot. At the recent Republican debate in Ames, Iowa a few weeks ago the question was asked "Sen. Hatch, why do go around beating up on poor companies like Microsoft. Isn't this a free trade society?" Orwin answered the question straight forward with no bull giving a very good description of M$ preditory tactics. Any of you that are registered Republicans I hope you vote for him in the primarys and get your friends to. Orin doesn't have the money that Bush or Forbes does, but he shure is a geek at heart and knows what the US needs to keep it at the top of the information economy.
Well, since we Canadjuns inherited a British-style parliamentary system, we have the lovely stupidity called "First past the post."
Remember Mulroney's majority government? He got 2/3 of the seats in parliament with 43% of the vote.
Remember Bob Rae in Ontario? His majority was won with 38%.
On the other hand there's Israel, where the system is proportional representation. Nobody ever wins a majority and fractious coalitions are the norm. Often these coalitions have to kowtow to extremist elements in order to gain their support.
So which is better, a non-representative first past the post that results in unpopular majorities or fractional coalitions and proportional representation?
Maybe the US two party system is another way: avoid the fractures by limiting voters' choices?
They all seem flawed to me.
-M
The last presidental election I voted for Clinton. Better of the two evils, IMHO. No flames please.
Since that time I've opened my eyes quite a bit politically and can say that my leanings are strongly Libertarian. I only differ from the Libertarian Philosphy on a few issues relating to business. IE, Libertarianism says that what the US Government is doing with M$ is wrong. In my head, I agree, but considering how it, and other businesses do, well, business, I do see the need for some loose, high-level checks against such power. We don't give absolute power to government, we shouldn't give absolute power to business, either.
So this year I'm hitting the polls with that philisophical backing in mind. Do these candidates come close to the political philisophy that I hold. Not just single issues but the thought process from which the stands on those issues is derived. Because of that requirement the Rebublocrats won't be getting my vote. They have no philosphy backing their stands on issues.
Be that as it may, get out there and vote. If the majority really did rule we wouldn't have a government at all since the majority didn't vote. And vote for the people and issues that you want, even if there is a good chance they will lose. Good numbers this year means press the next year. More press the next year means more numbers that year. Which, in turn, gives more press.
Sometimes you gotta lose a few to win.
-- Grey d'Miyu, not just another pretty color.
My top four (in case you care for some reason) were:
John S. McCain -- Republican
Albert (Al) Gore Jr. -- Democrat
John Hagelin -- Natural Law Party
Ralph Nader -- Green Party
I now have their websites and have been doing introductory research on all of them. I guess it is odd that I got four different parties between scores of 57 and 62 though...
One last suggestion. We might want to contact SelectSmart.com and tell them to add an internet freedom category... Unfortunately, I cannot think of how they would phrase it.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
Clinton is a moderate Republican, or would have been 20 years ago. This entire country is becoming more and more conservative, and there's no end in sight. If the Republicans get both the executive and legislative branches, prepare for prayer in public schools, bans on certain methods of freedom of expression (e.g. flag burning), paranoid defense spending on projects that will never get anywhere, a weakened DoJ, etc. Maybe if we're really lucky they'll even start a cold war with China. The entire political system has been corrupted by money, and although everyone claims they want something done about this, it'll probably end up like the Clinton heath care plan that the insurance companies killed off with millions of dollars worth of advertising. I can see the ads now: "Do you want your freedom to express your political opinion limited? [Blah, blah, no mention of who really benefits from soft money] Paid for by Americans for Free Expression [read: some group set up by the major corporate interests]".
I find Libertarians just as scary, however. The best guy who actually has a shot now is Bradley, IMO.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
> I think, whether we have to put up with McCain, Forbes, Gore, or Bradley will be generally okay The only real threatening candidate is Bush. ----- What a load of crap. This is typical rhetoric of a flaming Democrat who is trying to act neutral or above it all. You know Bush will beat the pants off the liberal zeroes that the Democrats are pushing these days. Gore? A flat out liar - and this Mr. Internationl has really show good judgement with Russia! Bradley? At least he's honest - he wants government to be more involved in BIG projects - he says it himself. If you want that fine, vote for him.
If your point was to suggest doing research and voting why throw in the dig on Bush without any substantiation of your position?
Vote Bush and the rest of the republican crew and you'll get a lot of idiots but at least your taxes will go down.
Xandis - Xandis
BTW, Clinton is releasing his White House memoirs. He's calling them "The Johnson Years."
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Not only is he the creator of the internet, he is also a fan of opensource!
U T4LK3D M3 1NT0 1T. 1"LL RUN 4 PR3$1D3NT!!!!!!1
:wq
B1FF'$ PL4TF0RM:
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:WQ
------ ------ ------
ALL HA1L B1FF, TH3 M05T 31337 D00D!!!!!1
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:WQ
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------ ------ -
your not just some kind of idiot, your the worst kind...
..a test to catogorize me, that way my views will be known, and I won't need to make my own decision. Libertarianism is a farce.
Doesn't match the rest of your platform.
Imperial might always rests on covert surviellance.
perhaps you dont understand,Harry Brown is against
abortion.BUT abortion is a social issue.The Gov.has no business making legislation of social
mores.The Fed.truthfully has few tasks,which basicly amount to regulating interstate commerce,
collecting tarrifs(not income taxes)and a few
other HARMLESS odd jobs.Anything beyond their
constitutionally enumerated duties is an ABUSE OF
POWER and is how we got into this mess to begin with.Remember the power flows from the people to
the gov.,NOT visa versa.Communities and their standards are the highest power.Following that are
county and finally state.Remember its easier to
move from a town or state whos standards are different than yours than to another country.
Guess thats why Thomas Paine called it "COMMON SENSE".Ironic that it is that along with our
historical memory that is sadly lacking on a national level.http://www.lp.org. check it out.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You could phrase it by using catch phrases for both of the main sides, thus "should the internet remain uncontrolled?" or "should gov't regulate porn/indecency on the internet?" for the anti-freedom stance.
HEMOS IN 2000!!!!!!!!11
I think I'm going to have to vote for Browne as well. I took that survey:
85 Harry Browne
[snip]
51 George W. Bush
[snip]
46 Donald Trump
[snip]
23 Albert Gore Jr.
9 Warren Beatty
I consider myself Libertarian, but I was still suprised to see how closely I agreed with Browne's views.
I've kinda been torn between voting Libertarian to try to get somebody cool into office and voting Republican to make sure no more Democrats get into office. I think I'm going to have to go with the Libertarian candidate though.
Well, if anyone, not Bush.
Bush is a governor-backed governor. As you know, governors are "losing" a lot of sales tax to ebusiness. Of all the candidates, Bush was the most reluctant to maintain that the tax ban be pushed back a bit more (note - note indefinately).
It also appears Bush might be the most of inept of the candidates about technology (my own impression there). Al Gore seems semi-clueful...but I personally don't agree with all his views. Bill Bradley seems a bit more open-minded, and all encompassing. His views involve querying all possibilities, and then coming to a consensus, instead of thinking "My idea is Hot Shit - agree with me!" I have no idea about McCain, but of all the Republicans he seems to least dangerous and most approachable.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Privacy regulation is almost a contadiction in terms itself. No doubt the majority would favor some sort of regulation, majorities being made of people and people tending to be cautious. A pro-regulation bunch is highly unlikely to respect the risk-taking and innovation that are the web's gifts to us all.
You can't get there from here.
I must say, I've grown weary of our entire political system. We don't need politics anymore, we need realy freaking leaders. Since I first reached voting age, I've *never* been offered a candidate worth voting for. I'm always forced to vote *against* the more evil of those candidates presented.
We are in dire need as a country of a return to rugged individualism. A hand up, not a hand out. And by golly if we're gonna move forward we need someone who is actually tech savvy (insttead of well coached on how to look like an ass trying to be like Gore.)
Heh. I wonder how Gore and Buchanan would feel, knowing they got the same score on your list!
---
Oper on the Nightstar
I looked at this before, and while it is a useful tool, it's important to keep in mind that the wording of the questions may not exactly be the best possible.
For example, the school vouchers program is not a "separation of church and state" issue. The phrase doesn't even appear in the Constitution anyway. "School choice" is not really a good description either.
The "moral issues" question is particularly insidious. My views on these issues are not based on some arbitrary code of "morality." Rather, I view them as common sense positions. Moreover, I don't think the issues listed under this heading can even be grouped together. Some people may not like prayer in public schools, but who can honestly argue against "promoting teen-age sexual abstinence?"
One person's "trade controls" are another's "job protection."
It's all in the wording.
--
Abortion issues: Personally against, but it's not the government's job to legislate it. Pro-choice.
Affirmative Action: Support minimalist programs out of necessity. I believe they are necessary, though, in general, a poor solution. I wish I could think of a better one....
Campaign finance: Strongly support reform. Make getting on ballots easier, publicly funded campaigns. No private contributions.
Crime: Legalize drugs, more emphasis on education, prevention, community involvement, less emphasis on putting everyone away.
Defense Spending: I would be more inclined to increase spending than decrease, but most likely it would not change much. I oppose most interventionist policies. I would put Israel on warning that they have 50 years to solve their problems, and after that the US would no longer give any support, and that would be the end of US military involvement in the Middle East. I favor treating other nations with respect and as equal partners rather than squeezing as much out of them as we can just because we can. Note: I'm fully aware that if elected I'm only president for at most 8 years, so I can't really put Israel on a realistic 50 year plan, but that seems to me to be the most fair an equable way of disentangling ourselves from that mess.
Drug Policy: Legalize it. Less money spent, less victim-less criminals taking up jail space, fewer police officers killed, fewer crimes against our rights (right now police can invade your home and keep it, and you'd never get it back, even if you were wholly innocent). Take a more realistic attitude about the whole thing. Probably start just by legalizing marijuana.
Homosexual Issues: Support Homosexual marriages, but I'm not sure what the government has to do with it. Why do we have to pass laws supporting people rights? It's supposed to be the other way around. Start cracking down on those who are taking away rights.
Education: Support vouchers. For any and all educational activities a parent wants to send their child to - public school, private school, religious school, trade school, apprenticeship.
Environment: Support protecting the environment in general.
Evolution: This is an issue??? Please. See my education stance above.
Foreign Policy: non-interventionist - at least militarily. Less monetary aid, but more trading freedom, no protectionist tariffs.
Gun Control: Support right to bear arms, just don't bring them to my house.
Health Care: Vouchers for health care just like education. Everyone gets some minimum amount to spend as they like on the insurance policy of their choice, sort of like how most employers work. But the government provides it to everyone, for life.
Moral Issues: Not the government's concern.
Social Security: Good idea, extremely dumb implementation. Support individual forced retirement savings. Not guaranteed pension. Not a "pay-as-you-go" plan. Your money is your money. The tricky thing is bridging from the present system to this new system. Probably requires using the "surpluss" (that really isn't) and some extra monies, but in the long run, it's worth it. Personally, I'm dreading paying for the baby boomers starting 15 years from now....
Tax Policy: Flat tax with a very large standard deduction (like $30,000 or something). The government needs to collect money to do it's work. It's work is stuff we've already talked about, not encouraging people to buy houses, or have children, or get education... So, remove all deductions, and just tax personal income, nothing else. Remove all corporate taxes (since my government isn't providing corporations with any special services, they shouldn't have to pay), capitol gains, inheritance, tolls, etc. The most efficient means of collecting taxes is determining how much you need and have the people send it in as they earn it.
Trade: Absolutely 100% free trade. Starting with us.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
His idea was to add a choice to the ballot which basically said "none of the above". If that choice got more votes than any of the candidates than the race had to be held again and none of the people who ran last time could run again. Personally I thought it was a great idea.
Personally I think Nader has a ton of great ideas, something the American political scene is sorely lacking. However, I really don't believe that the Green Party's socialism is nessecarily(sp?) the best way to go, I would tend to believe that capitalism is actually better, and humane actually. However, I believe strongly in having an open mind, if I hear enough good ideas, I may vote for Nader. For one, I vigoruously support more public transportation, and I think Nader is the only candidate who blindly opposes just building more roads.
To all the people that mistakenlt thought that my earlier post was serious.... see subject.
I am not that much of an idiot to run for public office (from what I hear it is not alot of fun to be pres.)
However if you choose to take my candicy seriously... post name and e-mail. Will send you address where you can send me $$$ for campaign... certain canidates job is running for pres...
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
Gore or Perot in the oval office is a very chilling thought indeed. By the way, potato! I want someone pro freedom of speach, anti gun ban, who gives minors more rights than they currently have, mainly restrictions on searches and questioning. Those morons badger students, and perform searches that would be illegal if they were adults. I also want a canidate who would ban so called "Profiling" software because it's a form of persecution. This would cause massive amounts of lawsuits if the people involved weren't minors. I would also like for admin not to be able to lie to students legally. It happened to me once, it could happen elsewhere. In general, an end to all the Orwellian crap that takes place in schools.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
#1: Steve Forbes looks and acts like a geek.
#2: Forbes Magazine put Linus on its cover before any of the other business mags did. (A clear sign of cluefullness.)
#3: He's anti-Internet-regulation and taxation and pro-crypto.
#4: His Flat Tax plan ($13K personal deduction, $5K dependent deductions, 17% of income above those deductions) would a) stop us from having to buy TurboTax every year, b) eliminate half of what the corrupting lobbyists are buying (tax breaks), c) by replacing the mortgage deduction with the 5-figure personal deduction it ends the massive discrimination against renters, and d) it's overall a massive improvement over the status quo.
#5: He favors letting younger workers swich from the Socialist Security system (that confiscates 1.5 months per year of our labor into a doomed system that wouldn't pay squat even if it worked as advertised) into individual-owned accounts (very similar to Chile's system, some restrictions on asset class weighting, guaranteed minimum payouts for the poor). Not the total phaseout I'd like, but probably the best we can do.
#6: He favors nuking death taxes and capital gains taxes (lethal to family farms/businesses and discriminatory against geeks, respectively).
#7: Very cluefull on foreign policy, in large part because he's met a hefty chunk of the world's leaders.
#8: Being able to read his past editorials in his mag is very reassuring. He really has been saying all this stuff all along.
SelectSmart gave me this list:
83 Harry Browne
73 Orrin Hatch
68 George W. Bush
67 Alan Keyes
62 Malcolm (Steve) Forbes Jr.
59 Howard Phillips
58 Gary L. Bauer
58 Patrick J. (Pat) Buchanan
55 John Hagelin
49 John S. McCain
27 Bill Bradley
26 Donald Trump
20 Albert Gore Jr.
19 David McReynolds
16 Ralph Nader
9 Warren Beatty
Well, okay, they may have a point with the Libertarian candidate, but I disqualified Hatch for his cluelessness on technological issues (watch the debates), and Bush is a moderate of the type that lost the last two elections. Keyes is my #1 choice for Veep, and also very tech-cluefull. You should have heard his very-pro-space-exploration minispeech during one of the presidential debates.
Mr. Engler has been suggested as a possible VC candidate several times.
President of the Viet Cong? How weird.
(sorry, Iv'e been drinking again)
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
damn is it just me or is everyone blind? no matter what u have to say in defense or in agreement with anyone, the fact is democrats want a poor, mexican country with more taxes for people on welfare and to read every e-mail u send- duh??..... how about another regan and lets all live in another healthy country again?? thanks
Hell, I'd even vote for lp, but not nobody.
You can't vote for an account with no password. I mean, come on.
-jpeg
The big question is, who is the top man? Ofcourse, if this were to happen, the US would become the richest country in the world, buy out all the other countries, then release their constitutions back to the people. Chaos is good.
Honestly, people complain about the "two-party" system, but that's not the problem America has. We can get third-party (and in many cases, fourth-party, fifth-party, etc.) candidates on the ticket, but people, even if they prefer the underdog to one of the major party candidates, still don't vote for him. Why?
.3245 votes to each candidate, so they could rank them by preference... but stupid people would think that was too complicated, and stupid people have a vast majority vote no matter what system you use to count them...
Because except for the "protest vote" value, it doesn't pay to vote for a candidate that doesn't have a good chance of winning. Whine all you want about how you're not "throwing your vote away", but this is a real problem.
Hypothetical election: If McCain (who's my favorite of the current candidates, BTW), Gore, and the Perfect Libertarian Geek candidate are on the ballot in the presidential election, I'm probably still going to vote for McCain, lest the Perfect Geek siphon off enough Republican votes to cause Gore to win. If 30% of the voters preferences run "McCain,Geek,Gore", 30% run "Geek,McCain,Gore", and 40% run "Gore,McCain,Geek", then if everybody voted for the candidate they liked best then you'd end up with *more* people unhappy with the election results.
There's an essay in _A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper_ (great book, worth buying or borrowing; sorry I forget the author) about the quirks of voter preferences in multi-candidate elections - in it the author presents a hypothetical election with 5 candidates, and 5 fair-sounding ways (including the plurality vote) of determining a winner.. except that a different candidate would be chosen the winner by each method.
People have talked about "None of the above" votes and other different systems that would force a new election... but we shouldn't *have* to have election after election to choose between the same group of candidates. And besides, while "None of the above" might help in cases where neither party puts up a good candidate, it does nothing for cases where a third party candidate is marginalized because of a close race between the major parties.
What I'd like to see, personally, is an election system where each voter can vote "Yes" or "No" for each candidate, and the candidate with the largest majority of "Yes" votes wins. (Or a new election is held if no candidate gets a majority). That way, if no party puts up a good candidate, then a new election must be held. If a good third party candidate is running in a race where the two leading parties are close in votes, then voters can safely vote for *both* the underdog and their favorite of the leading candidates, giving the third party entry a chance without risking "throwing their vote away". We wouldn't have to worry about the Greens "stealing Democrat votes" or the Libertarians "stealing Republican votes" anymore, and nobody would ever be "throwing their vote away". And if people were really fed up with all the candidates, they could vote "No" to all of them and get a new batch.
Of course, since such a system:
a. Is change, and therefore "scaaarry"
b. Is threatening to both the entrenched parties
it'll never happen.
And of course, what I'd *really* like to see is the ability for people to give 0 votes, 1 vote, or
Yeah, it's kind of a problem with the whole political party system. If you vote for the third party, you could end up causing your first and second choice pick to lose because everyone with political views similar to yours were split between the two candidates, allowing a minority candidate (minority being less than 50%) to win. This is pretty much what happenned in 1992. From my guess, a lot of Perot supporters were generally Conservatives.
;)
However that's all off topic. I agree with the above poster who said he doesnt think we should be looking at the "geek ticket". For one, I don't think any of the candidates could effectively represent the geek community. Many of the so called geek-community's issues don't even get recognized in debates. When is the last time you saw a presidential debate over patent laws? Yeah, I don't remember either.
Honestly, I don't know who I will vote for. I might go ahead and waste my vote on a third party if I like him enough. I'll probably get disowned by my parents for not voting republican though.
JLG for president! That would make my nipples hard. =)
I was a campaign manager in two elections for the state house. Most of the so called reform is one group trying to prevent it's opponents from making contributions. The real problem is the Goverment has assumed too much power. Most contributions are made because someone wants to use the goverment as a club to beat someone over the head OR because someone is trying to keep from getting beat over the head. Limit the power of the Goverment and you will find the contributions drying up.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Hahahahahaha. Would staying at the top of the "information economy" include eliminating free speech? You probably haven't heard of the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999 (Senate bill S.1428), sponsored by -- you guessed it -- Orrin Hatch.
Basically, its your typcial ignorant anti-drug hysteria, tougher on penalties and all that, but the buggers managed to sneak in this interesting bit in section 9, "CRIMINAL PROHIBITION ON DISTRIBUTION OF CERTAIN INFORMATION RELATING TO THE MANUFACTURE OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES."
Namely,
Mmm... usually canditates are more subtle about how much they want to rid themselves of that nuisance, the Bill of Rights. Well, he just made my decision easier.
Actually, since I'm moving to California, I'm pretty happy that I also get to vote against Diane Feinstein, the major cosponsor of this bill (among her other crimes).
...that Demosplatt and Repugnican are NOT, nor have they ever been, the only options. If enough people can turn away from their lemming-like rush to the mainstream parties, there might actually be some decent change.
but the fact of the matter is this A)Whether you like it or not, if you don't vote, you're acquiescing. B) If you're under 18...you can bitch...but watch what you say - i knew all too many minors who swore up and down they were going to "rock the vote" come their 18th birthday. Unfortunately, much like the majority of our politicians, when the time came to act on those declarations, there was something more important to do. and finally C) as far as 50% of the vote is concerned, this is a pipe dream. In the last presidential election, americans managed to scrape together a 47% voter turnout. so, we can infer that basically less than a quarter of the 300 odd million people we have living in the united states (minus citizens under 18 and non-citizens) picked our last president.
... what's the opposite of progress??
One final thought. one of the largest problems in the united states is the misconception of how the voting process works. Most people don't vote because they feel that their vote "doesn't count." I could spend my time giving you all the same old rigamarue about how a vote is a choice, etc. etc. but instead i will impart the misinformed with this wisdom: The President of the United States of America is NOT chosen by the public. He or She is chosen by the Electoral College - the states citizens vote, the electoral college votes for the president for them (This is why Colorado gets 3 votes, New York gets something like 10, etc. etc.) Then those electoral votes are tallied to pic the president. If i remember correctly it's something like 250 votes in total. Think about it this way. If 47% of the registered voters in my state, Colorado, turned out to vote - that's something like 1 million people, and let's say that it was 50/50 between two equally crappy candidates. that means that my vote is going in with only 500,000 people, not 300 million like most people believe. All of the sudden - my vote starts to look like it might make a little more of a difference. Just a thought.
If "pro" is the opposite of "con"
-FluX
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Anyone remember the Simpsons halloween episode where Kang and Kodos, the slobbering space aliens, disguised themselves as Bill Clinton and Bob Dole so that they could take over the world?
The debate:
Kang as Dole:
Abortions for all.
[crowd boos]
Very well, no abortions for anyone.
[crowd boos]
Hmm... Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.
[crowd cheers and waves miniature flags]
Kodos as Clinton:
My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball, but
tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward, upward not forward,
and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
I think this sums up the US presidential elections quite well. Most people don't know jack about the issues and the media is only interested in sound bites. An uninformed electorate is an worthless electorate. We get the "leaders" that we deserve.
So in 2000, please vote Kang or Kodos, it doesn't matter, either way your planet is DOOMED!!!!
Jesse is the ultimate geek candidate, IMHO. He's hands-off, minimalistic, arrow-straight honest, and will get the government the hell out of where it doesn't belong. He's already hinted that if there were enough support, he would run. Not only that, he's the only man out there with enough grass-roots name recognition AND a decent platform.
IMHO.
long time, no see dude .. how's your brother? still using his vic-20??
The United States, like the UK uses Single Member Districts. The US adds winner-take-all presidential elections to this as well. This sort of setup promotes two kinds of parties:
- The Big etablished ones (Democrats and Rpublicans).
- Parties with strong support in specific localities.
Even the second type of party will not win the Presidency, but only stand a chance in Congress. Could a party replace the Democrats or Republicans? Perhaps, but that is unlikely. In that case the replaced party would die, and we'd be back to two.Look at the UK. Back in the 80s the Liberal party sprang out of nowhere to challenge Conservative and Labour. They garnered vote tallys near 30%, but by the way the system worked, they were left with about 10% of the seats in Parliament. Now they are slowly faiding away with fewer and fewer seats each election.
Why is this? Because parties with weak support that isn't locally tied (eg. the UK's Welsh and Scottish national parties) CAN'T win! The electoral system screws them over --- even in Congress. Thus they get ditched by the voters who like to vote for a candidate with a prayer of winning.
If you want multiple parties, you have to switch to a Continental European-style Proportional Representation system.
Early this year I came to the realization that it is basically impossible for me find a candidate who will be someone I can support 100%. Every candidate has some kind of stance that I find objectionable. And this isn't even small stuff either, these are big issues. Let me explain....
I'm pro-life. But pro-life across the board. For me this means no abortion, and no death penalty. Either I can vote Democrat and vote for a candidate against the death penalty and for abortion, or I can vote Republican and vote for a candidate for the death penalty and against abortion. I can't get a candidate against both!
This was only a specific example, so don't jump on me for being off-topic. What does /. think about this? Is there a way for each voter to vote his/her conscience, and if not, what is that voter to do?
The floor is open, please discuss!
What we need is a vote per candidate. Acceptable/Not Acceptable. Under this system, the best candidate (not just who the public happens to sway with for fear of 'throwing their vote away') gets elected in a more-than-two way race. And, it's also possible to throw out an election if people get up and go to the polls and every candidate gets more Not Acceptable than Acceptable votes. But, I don't think that should bar them from any future election. The system worked once, it can work again and continue to give them no-confidence results.
Start Running Better Polls
FUCK THE VOTING! LIVE IN HAPPY ANARCHY! HARHARHAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Advocates for Self Government have posted this quiz on their website. There's only 10 questions. But think seriously about them before answering. It'll help you be more certain when it's time to pull the lever.
Remember that local elections are as, or more important than the Presidential election. Vote wisely. It's your duty!
[FULL DISCLOSURE]
I am a county chairman of the third largest national party, so you may find my views biased. I hope you do .
That makes sense in the short run. However, the only way you can get change is to vote where your real convictions lie and thereby put the movement on the radar screens of the media and the general public. If you are dissatisfied with the candidates offered, that is.
Internet freedom I can easily understand, no sense declaring fredom of speech when the written word is stiffled across a new medium, right.
Gun rights I can see, they're guarenteed in the Constitution and in an cold world they seem to be a cold necessary.
Anti-censorship falls with freedom of speech as does religous freedom and so should obviously be protected.
But to my knowledge, there is little debate about denying the right of people to reproduce! I've heard that with very controlling governments such as China there are issues of reproductive rights, such that if a couple exceeds a set number of allowed children with a new pregnancy, the child in womb is snuffed out ("aborted") forcibly to enforce the limit.
But in any case, such subjects (religion, guns, and "fetus cleasing") are not really geek issues and I think most would agree with my saying they have no place being mentioned here at all, so let's stick to what we all appreciate, tech!
Well said. It concerns me that just because I support Free Software, many might expect me to agree with ESR (for example) on issues of extreme libertarianism and gun control.
--
Cthulhu for President! Why settle for the lesser evil?
http://www.cthulhu.org/
This might be rather long, but let me know what you think. This all came from a report I did years ago in college, so don't quote me on the figures please. Its all from memory.
:)
Way back when, an area would select a person to represent them in our country's government. Back then, they HAD to come up with a predetermined set of beliefs because they would leave the area and represent them in the government with very little contact with their home territory. Each of these people would represent ~50,000 people. It is a very simple system, but our country is not simple anymore and it has to change.
Why do we have to pick a person based on what THEY believe? Does anyone actually ever find a candidate that fits them perfectly? I sure havn't. I am for abortion and against gun control. Where does that leave me? We shouldn't have to pick the lesser of the two evils.
Why can't the person we send to congress vote the way WE want him to, not they way THEY want to vote.
Why do we even have to send him to congress anyway?
Does anyone feel that their salaries are warranted?
How would you like to be able to vote yourself a raise?
Does anyone still use ANYTHING made that long ago?
Since when can 1 person represent 500,000 people or more?
Here's my suggestion: Our technology today allows many of us to work from home. Why can't they? There is no longer a need to be in DC anymore. Security issues aside, voting can easilly be done electronically. This would allow more time spent in the district addressing local issues.
Representatives should do what the name suggests: Represent us. Regardless of their personal feelings on a subject, they vote based on how the majority of voters in the area want them to vote on the current issue. They get 1 vote just like any other person. The people vote on issues through the internet or by phone. It would simply be like reading the paper in the morning. Pull up the page, login, and vote. The Rep will then take the results and put the vote in for that district.
The salary for this person would be the average salary for the district and a set amount of money would be given for staff and supplies.
Increase the amount of representatives every few years to allow for no more than 30,000 people per district.
Why would this be better? I'll tell you
**Come home good son - Moving the Rep back home rather than DC is obvious. Being in the district will allow for the Rep to talk to the people. Communication is good.
**Representing us - if the Rep votes on how WE want them to and not based on an election of THEIR beliefs, SO MANY CONGRESSIONAL PROBLEMS DISAPPEAR. First, results on issues would better represent (there's that word again) the people. This would totally eliminate the party system. How can an entire country be represented by two parties? They could vote totally against your district's beliefs on a lesser issue because everyone elected them for their beliefs on a larger issue. Not to mention all the pressure they get from other reps, lobbiests, big business, etc. This would eliminate all of this. The only way to get to your Rep is through you! How would you like some of those $$$ donations that our elected officials get? Well you just might. If the power company cuts its rates in half, you might vote in their favor next time.
**Electronic Voting - Again security aside (Just use linux!). Just about everyone has access to some sort of technology that can be used to vote on issues. The internet, phones, ATMs, etc. With districts only 30k people in size, a trip to the Rep's office would take only a few minutes. It is not that far fetched.
**Who wants to work for $18k/yr - By eliminating that huge salary and corporate donations, you might just get people in the jobs who actually want to help. With the reduced workload of constant arguing in congress, travelling back and forth, and wishywashy lunch meetings, there would be no reason why they couldnt hold another full time job. All they need to do is collect voting results and record their districts vote. For some of the poorer areas, the people may join together to vote on issues that help their community, not the Rep's pocketbook.
I could go on forever. This system was developed for a much smaller country and was not set to handle what we now deal with. Partisan voting is ruining our country. People are going in to politics for the power and money, not for the people. It's just going to get out of hand. I know that this doesn't solve every problem but its a start. I know that SOMETIMES the rep might have to vote on something that has to do with national security or something that is time sensitive.
Until something like this gets implemented in my area, I'm not voting. I won't vote for someone else's beliefs, but I would vote for everyone else's.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a nice consistant stereotype for geeks, such that we all had the same political views? I've seen posts on slashdot from sysadmins whom I would call idiots for what they were saying, were it not that I knew better.
Anyway, Ralph Nader is the only sane person in politics these days. If you feel the need to vote, you might as well throw him a bone. I dunno, it seems lately like the whole voting thing amounts to which hand you're going to use to hold the gun you shoot yourself in the face with.
'Nuff said.
Well, the 1st amendment gives everyone the right to bitch. However, you could argue that it is ridiculous to first refuse to participate in the process under which decisions are made, and then complain about them later. If you don't like the major party candidates, vote for someone else! There are lots of candidates for president out there if you bother to look. Heck, there's even one for people who are into transcendental meditation.
I was listening to several candidates debate on NPR while driving home from work one day and suddenly I realized that they were speaking in a code that I had not been notified of. Using phrases like "leaving children behind".
Every time this was mentioned a loud cheer went up from the audience. THEY knew what these codes meant. Why didn't I?
Simple: Because the polititians were talking to THEM and not to ME. Because I am not a member of a large enough special interest group to bother caring about.
I turned off the radio. It's rude to listen in on somebody else's private conversation.
No, I don't vote.
David McReynolds sounds like a nice guy, but he will never get off the ground in a country so focused in self-agrandisement as the good ol' U.S. of A.!
Come on, the "American Dream" is supposed to be "make the best of your own capabilities", nowhere does it say "and give a helping hand to your fellow man". (Which is a pitty, actually)
If you *are* going to vote in a third-party candidate, choose one that won't be laughed off the ballots...
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Yes, I know I ramble and my spelling isn't quite up to scratch. If you wish to complain,
- Harry S Truman's re-election. The Republican party thought that their candidate was a shoe-in (easy winner), and was very much the candidate of the "elites". The Democratic party machinery (which put Truman in the Vice Presidency in '44, only to have FDR die on them) didn't support Truman very well either. So Truman hops on a train and proceeds to get out the vote of "the ones who didn't matter" to the elites, and wins the Presidency. (IMHO one of our best Presidents, by the way.)
- IIRC, John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election in a margin narrower than any other election this century. IIRC the margin was so narrow that if a few thousand voters in the City of Chicago had voted the other way, or even not voted, Nixon would have been President in 1960, not 1968. Now then, I have heard that the Daley political machine may have had an undue (essentially controlling) influence on much of the vote, but if a large number of people had not cast their votes one by one for Kennedy throughout the rest of the State of Illinois, Chicago wouldn't have mattered.
So, as flawed as the system may be, votes count. Especially in shaping the local and state judiciaries and legislatures, which is where the future national leaders come from.That's why they call it participatory democracy. And BTW, the U.S. isn't actually a democracy, it's a republic with democratically elected officials.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
This country was founded on the principle that people are stupid and need to be protected. True, back when Madison, Jefferson and Washington were framing our government, average people were less likely to be educated than today, and were more likely to be out of touch with what is going on in the rest of the world than we are. Because of things like CNN, we are better informed, but the fact still remains that most people don't really know what's going on.
Surely you went to high school. Perhaps you were in "advanced" or "gifted" classes, but remember those people who were in your gym class, and gave birth to 2 kids before graduating, and dropped out to boot. The majority of people in this country are like that!
I consider myself highly intelligent and well versed in many subjects, but I wouldn't dream of trying to mess with many of the issues that the government has to deal with every day. They have staffs to research issues for them, because noone is an expert on everything. PAC's and Interest Groups have great control because presumably they know more than the representative. But in the end, it is up to the representative to determine what is best for us.
Also, someone has to have a bigger picture in mind. One day a tax reform with the goal of aiding businesses may occur, and then the next the vote swings differently and huge pentalties are given to these same businesses in another way. Whereas the likelihood of such gridlock happening with the current system is much less. Each of us has our own issues that are important, but there are means for our voices to be heard. I've written my congressmen on multiple occasions and always have gotten a polite response, and often an explanation for his actions. I don't agree with him on many issues, but I don't expect to.
Take for instance encryption, something very near and dear to most of us. Suppose for a moment that the US really is the only country to have a certain type of encryption. Suppose again that there is a foreign government that has very weak encryption only and they are keeping secrets from us that may be extrememly hazardous (Khazikstan for example, with nuclear capabilities and weak government). Is it more important for you to be able to communicate with your friend in sweeden using the most secure method available, or for you and your family to be able to sleep in peace knowing that the US can keep a close eye on Khazikstan?
Nothing is clear cut. I put faith in my representatives to do the best job they can of keeping my best interests in mind, and if they vote "the wrong way" on some issue, it is not the end of the world. So I pay more in taxes than is fair. As long as I can vote them out of office, and know how they vote on issues, I am content.
-nosilA
This is kind of a pet peeve with me.
The problem with third party candidates in this country is that our system assumes that the relationship of candidate preference is transitive when applied over the electorate. Mathematically, this is not the case, that is to say, it is not the case that if A > B and B > C then A > C. This is like the rock/scissors/paper game. It is quite possible that 2/3 of the electorate prefer A to B, 2/3 prefer B to C, and 2/3 prefer C to A.
This leads to "strategic voting", where you vote atainst your own preferences to avoid a worse outcome. If it comes down to Gore/Bush, I'll vote for Gore though perhaps Nader would be a better choice.
If you took the political theory of Declaration of Independence seriously, you would choose the candidate that the most people would assent to be governed by. That is to say, I should be able to vote for Nader, and also for Gore (or Bradley) if I would find it acceptable to be governed by either. When you added up each candidate's votes, you would get a count of how many people find him acceptable for the job.
The relationship of being acceptable to more people is transitive. This mathematical advantage also has important practical advantages. It would empower third party candidates, who would no longer be caught in a catch 22 phenomenon of unelectability. It would eliminate the need of candidates to pander to political extremes. It would prevent extremist political factions from gaining disproportinate power by their ability to make or break coalitions (like the religious right here, or to a greater degree in Israel). However no minorities would be come irrelevant due to tactical considerations (e.g. I can count the Christian right out because the Buchannan has a lock on them).
This kind of assent based voting would substantially increase the degree of political equality in this country. However it would go against a catch phrase that is used as a stand in for equality: "one man, one vote." Ironically, one man, one vote emphatically does not ensure political equality. This kind of voting system would be a simple cure for many of the political problems of this country; unfortunately, the current parties are in power because of the existing system's deficiencies.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
More and more conservative? Hardly. On nearly every issue, the Republicans are caving in to the liberals. Gun control, social programs, taxes, spending; to quote Harry Browne, "the government just keeps getting bigger."
True, Republicans are also bad. They support school prayer, bans on flag burning and the like. So what? That isn't my point. My point is that the Democrats are also evil. I'm not saying that either the Democrats or Republicans are good. I'm saying that the Democrats are just as evil as the Republicans, and that only the Libertarians have consistently fought against big government and stood up for our freedom
We complain incessently about the lack of good leadership in this country. And we complain about the fact that there are only two "registered" parties. Who do you think controls these things? The people? Maybe. But not really. For now, elected officials make the decisions. Why? We let them. Yes, we have a democratic system. (Federal really, but that's another posting.) Unless we are willing to make change, by DEMANDING change, en masse, nothing will ever happen. You can complain all you like. Until people actually take a stand. Stand up for what you believe in. It's the only way to make a difference. And if you want a president who will effectively help all interest groups (not likely, but a nice dream), you have to find her/him and VOTE for that person.
if you don't like the system, change it.
Well, I can't think of anyone else who'd tend to do a better job and is at least a *little* bit known.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
There is *a* political party trying to do exactly that: the Green Party (at least in Michigan) That's a slightly dated link, but the page has a list of links to all sorts of cool and useful places as well as actual resolutions that can serve as models. We've now (12/30/99) gotten more than *fifty* cities and counties in the state to pass resolutions calling for the return of low-power radio. When the FCC was asking for public comments on this, we flooded them with comments. We've had many local bands hold concerts where they talked to their audiences about this.
But we need every geek's help. Write your Congressperson, write the FCC, write your local paper! This is an obvious libertarian issue as well. The airwaves belong to the people as a natural resource -- not the corporations. It's worth doing. Join us!
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
It's probably too late to contribute meaningfully to this discussion, but I ought to try anyway.
As I learned in my Business Law class this semester, it's only thanks to Ralph Nader that we even have a legal right to privacy.
Back in the 1960s, Nader wrote a book about a General Motors car (the Corvair?) called Unsafe at Any Speed. He really ticked off General Motors, and they tried everything to discredit him...tapping his phone, going through his mail, even hiring a prostitute to sleep with him.
Nader sued over this, alledging invasion of privacy. He won, and that court case is what set the precedent for the court-sanctioned right to privacy in this country. You certainly won't find a right to privacy specifically delineated anywhere in the Constitution; before that case, it simply didn't exist.
Given that I'm repeating hearsay, I may not have my facts 100% right, but I'm sure they're close enough.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
It should be up to the woman? Since when? Why shouldn't it be up to the father? Both?
What it boils down to in this context is that no particular "she" should have more "rights" AKA opportunities, AKA choices than any particular "he".
IOW, if she should have the choice to abort (here "abort" means dumping parental responsibilities whether that means killing the kid or signing a contract with an adoption agency doesn't really matter), then so should he. As it stands, once the man decides to plug his pecker into her, he's screwed himself, completely. He doesn't even have the option of keeping the child if she doesn't want it. Though if she wants the kid, he does get to keep all the responsibilities whether he wants the kid or not. She can opt out at anytime, before or even after birth.
The man gets to sit there and grieve over his lost child or pay medical bills and child support for a kid he doesn't want.
The situation is definitely not consistent with principles.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
...that so many fail to see. Of all the "rights" that are documentented here and there, the most important ones, the original ones, are the ones that protect the individual FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
The government has never been, and as far as I can see never will be, very good at protecting anything but itself.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
If you can't vote for an account with no password, then why are you voting for daemon?