Mass ignorance is easy to exploit and sway many opinions based on nothing more than emotions. The fact that the government educated a large potion of the populace doesn't help the issue either! With government schools, people get a government quality education.:-(
So you would replace a government elected by "ignorant" people by one elected by "elite" people?
Wyoming gets the same say as any other state in the union, and New York gets a bonus for having more people. That's why they named the country the United States instead of the United People. Why is it that so hard to understand?
Stop spreading disinformation. According to all major news sources (CNN just did a piece on the Philadelphia story), the votes on the machines in question are from previous elections and have no bearing on the votes for this election. They are just resident in memory.
Other sources are reporting the same now. Apparently the poll watchers mistook the machine's "odometers" for "tripometers". Kinda makes all these paranoid Republican types look quite silly.
Bin Laden was trained and equipped by the USA government. Still think he's the result of not enough meddling?
The US was allied with Italy and Japan during WW1 and the Soviet Union during WW2. War, cold or hot, often makes for strange alliances. And yes, I think he is the result of not enough meddling. If the US had not abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet Union pulled out Bin Laden there would not have been a vacuum for him and the Taliban to fill.
Just got back from voting in a small county just outside Louisville. I arrived before the polls opened at 6am and found there already a unusually long line. Now we do have a marraige amendment on the ballot, but I did overhear some people saying the Presidential election brought them to the polls.
And in conclusion I say that if you do not truly understand the issues, have a good concept of how the government and the world works, and grasp the ideals and principles of what this government was founded on and it's history - then stay the hell out of the voting booth!
Using ignorance as an excuse to disenfranchise voters is an old idea that has been used quite effectively in the past by governments to keep ignorant people out of politics. Thank goodness more enlightened people enacted the 1965 Voting Rights Act:
"This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting."
So you want to give the government another tool it can use to maintain its grip? The idea really is an old one that has been used quite effectively in the past. There are about thirty-million Americans who would have no voice today if such discrimination weren't outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act
"This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting."
I vote to keep it because I've developed an interest in seeing how the EU will solve its own constitutional crisis, particularly in how they end up deciding how much say each of the individual nations will have.
Many people have criticized the US's electoral college so I'm really curious as to see what their solution will be to striking a balance of power between the individual states and the union itself.
Sure, it gives smaller states power, which I have nothing against. But in 2000 a majority of people at the polls said they wanted Gore. And the Electoral College said Bush. How is that not broken?
Okay, here is how it is not broken. Thirty of the United States chose Bush, only twenty chose Gore, and the less than one percent difference in the popular vote was not enough to offset the will of the states.
You have to ask yourself a very serious question: Is it the responsibility of the USA to bring democracy to the middle east?
The responsibility of the USA alone? No. The responsibility of the free world as a whole, yes.
The rest of the world sees differently. It is not our responsibility to tell another nation whether their way of life is correct or not.
Unless it is the US they are telling B-)
Seriously though, you don't think the world would be a better place if the people of all nations could participate in this discussion instead of just us lucky few?
Hell, the US has big problems of their own without fighting wars in other countries.
It is this mentality that has brought the problems to the US in the first place, their constant meddling into the affairs of foreign countries. Hell, Saddam Hussain, Osama bin Laden and their cohorts are PRODUCTS of this meddling.
Didn't you just say above that nobody has any business telling another nation how they should run things B-).
But yeah, sure we have our own big problems, the same as every other country. Our biggest is lack of follow through. Osama bin Laden, et al, could just as well be the results of the US not "meddling" enough instead of too much.
It just seems like if you get rid of the electoral college, (or at least go to proportional voting) suddenly the entire country goes back into play. Domestic policy choices will be made to support a greater number of people.
Supporting the greater number of is not always in the best interest of the nation as a whole, let alone those of minorities.
Beyond that, sometimes it's good to get a point of view that is at a remove from the problem. Marriage counselors aren't necessarily all that smart, but they are fairly effective because they're outside of the problem. Sometimes I think the US citizens and the US government could use some intervention to help us work out our differences:-)
Yes, but few marraige counselors begin a session with "divorce the dolt, then we'll talk".
In case you haven't realized lately, the Internet is a sewer of filthy content. My children can walk outside my door without finding hordes of naked animal-fucking midgets outside and I expect the same of the Internet. Confine the animal-fucking midgets to seedy areas of town.
You know, there are many countries were a person can walk outside and not see a woman without a headscarf, but on the internet there are hordes of them. Should bare headed women also be confined to the "seedy" areas of town?
Bush is getting his 50% approval rating from somewhere, and I don't think it is college campuses.
Bush is getting his 50% rating because the country is literally split down the middle. Far too much time has been spent wasted on trying to change the election system, and far too little spent on trying to change the minds of the electorate.
Simple, write legislation to ban pornographic sites unless they're in.xxx.
Yes, we'll get the UN to start working on it right away. I mean it's not like the Security Council has enough real life problems to deal with.
If they don't comply then sue them or bring them up on criminal charges like child endangerment.
Like a parent who doesn't restrict their children from playing in the middle of the highway, if you have children and are not restricting what sites they can visit then it you who is endangering them, not the purveyors of porn.
Re:How did they decide?
on
Press freedom
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· Score: 1
That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of bias. It is because the media restrict themselves that they are biased. Requiring the media to give equal time to a wide variety of voices (including dissident voices) would be the legislative solution, not restricting it.
So how does the government decide which voices should be heard and which shouldn't, or do you propose that the media be forced to give time to anybody with a gripe?
Re:How did they decide?
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
Also the study did not address anything about the inherent bias in the media. The fact that the government does not control the media does not mean that we get unbaised coverage of the news. And a lot of times the ownership of the media is not even clear to judge which side they are more baised against. This is as dangerous as govt. controlling the media because people think that the media is free and fair which is not true.
Why should the report address it? The only way to enforce an unbiased media would be to place restrictions on how and what it reports.
The implication of this lawsuit is, of course, that there is some justification in international IP treaties, to make terms of copyright equal from one country to another.
It was trying to make copyright equal that led to the sorry present state of US copyright law in the first place. If every other nation had limited their terms to 28 years and required both registration and display of a copyright symbol on published works things would have been much simpler.
I fail to see how it is a problem. Look at Europe. Most countries in Europe directly elect their president, without consideration about the region where one votes.
A fairer comparison would be the EU with the US, not individual countries. Just how have Europeans decided to protect smaller members from larger ones? Is the President directly elected? How about the MPs?
Oh come on... For the most part, candidates only visit the major cities anyways, beacuse that's where the most people are, which makes it the most efficient use of their time and money.
And you saw that backfire on Gore in 2000. Bush won 30 states in that election to his 20.
Slashdot Mirror
Mass ignorance is easy to exploit and sway many opinions based on nothing more than emotions. The fact that the government educated a large potion of the populace doesn't help the issue either! With government schools, people get a government quality education. :-(
So you would replace a government elected by "ignorant" people by one elected by "elite" people?
Thanks, but no thanks.
Wyoming gets the same say as any other state in the union, and New York gets a bonus for having more people. That's why they named the country the United States instead of the United People. Why is it that so hard to understand?
Every state I've voted in has always had a curtain. Maybe it's a N. Carolina thing?
Stop spreading disinformation. According to all major news sources (CNN just did a piece on the Philadelphia story), the votes on the machines in question are from previous elections and have no bearing on the votes for this election. They are just resident in memory.
Other sources are reporting the same now. Apparently the poll watchers mistook the machine's "odometers" for "tripometers". Kinda makes all these paranoid Republican types look quite silly.
Bin Laden was trained and equipped by the USA government. Still think he's the result of not enough meddling?
The US was allied with Italy and Japan during WW1 and the Soviet Union during WW2. War, cold or hot, often makes for strange alliances. And yes, I think he is the result of not enough meddling. If the US had not abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet Union pulled out Bin Laden there would not have been a vacuum for him and the Taliban to fill.
Just got back from voting in a small county just outside Louisville. I arrived before the polls opened at 6am and found there already a unusually long line. Now we do have a marraige amendment on the ballot, but I did overhear some people saying the Presidential election brought them to the polls.
And in conclusion I say that if you do not truly understand the issues, have a good concept of how the government and the world works, and grasp the ideals and principles of what this government was founded on and it's history - then stay the hell out of the voting booth!
Using ignorance as an excuse to disenfranchise voters is an old idea that has been used quite effectively in the past by governments to keep ignorant people out of politics. Thank goodness more enlightened people enacted the 1965 Voting Rights Act:
"This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting."
So you want to give the government another tool it can use to maintain its grip? The idea really is an old one that has been used quite effectively in the past. There are about thirty-million Americans who would have no voice today if such discrimination weren't outlawed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act
"This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting."
I vote to keep it because I've developed an interest in seeing how the EU will solve its own constitutional crisis, particularly in how they end up deciding how much say each of the individual nations will have.
Many people have criticized the US's electoral college so I'm really curious as to see what their solution will be to striking a balance of power between the individual states and the union itself.
Sure, it gives smaller states power, which I have nothing against. But in 2000 a majority of people at the polls said they wanted Gore. And the Electoral College said Bush. How is that not broken?
Okay, here is how it is not broken. Thirty of the United States chose Bush, only twenty chose Gore, and the less than one percent difference in the popular vote was not enough to offset the will of the states.
That thought ran through my mind when I posted B-)
The three justices considered to be up for replacement are all conservative. What happens when John Kerry becomes elected?
The US stops trying to apply 19th century logic to 21st century technology?
..and six-month civil war,
More like three months unless it's an extremely mild winter. Larger cities like New York and LA couldn't survive much longer than that without food.
You have to ask yourself a very serious question: Is it the responsibility of the USA to bring democracy to the middle east?
The responsibility of the USA alone? No. The responsibility of the free world as a whole, yes.
The rest of the world sees differently. It is not our responsibility to tell another nation whether their way of life is correct or not.
Unless it is the US they are telling B-)
Seriously though, you don't think the world would be a better place if the people of all nations could participate in this discussion instead of just us lucky few?
Hell, the US has big problems of their own without fighting wars in other countries.
It is this mentality that has brought the problems to the US in the first place, their constant meddling into the affairs of foreign countries. Hell, Saddam Hussain, Osama bin Laden and their cohorts are PRODUCTS of this meddling.
Didn't you just say above that nobody has any business telling another nation how they should run things B-).
But yeah, sure we have our own big problems, the same as every other country. Our biggest is lack of follow through. Osama bin Laden, et al, could just as well be the results of the US not "meddling" enough instead of too much.
It just seems like if you get rid of the electoral college, (or at least go to proportional voting) suddenly the entire country goes back into play. Domestic policy choices will be made to support a greater number of people.
Supporting the greater number of is not always in the best interest of the nation as a whole, let alone those of minorities.
Beyond that, sometimes it's good to get a point of view that is at a remove from the problem. Marriage counselors aren't necessarily all that smart, but they are fairly effective because they're outside of the problem. Sometimes I think the US citizens and the US government could use some intervention to help us work out our differences :-)
Yes, but few marraige counselors begin a session with "divorce the dolt, then we'll talk".
In case you haven't realized lately, the Internet is a sewer of filthy content. My children can walk outside my door without finding hordes of naked animal-fucking midgets outside and I expect the same of the Internet. Confine the animal-fucking midgets to seedy areas of town.
You know, there are many countries were a person can walk outside and not see a woman without a headscarf, but on the internet there are hordes of them. Should bare headed women also be confined to the "seedy" areas of town?
So, are you equally upset about that rhetoric or are you only upset when liberals engage in these tactics.
Foaming at the mouth is foaming at the mouth whether it be by a conservative or a liberal. We are supposed to be the ones who think before we act.
Bush is getting his 50% approval rating from somewhere, and I don't think it is college campuses.
Bush is getting his 50% rating because the country is literally split down the middle. Far too much time has been spent wasted on trying to change the election system, and far too little spent on trying to change the minds of the electorate.
Simple, write legislation to ban pornographic sites unless they're in .xxx.
Yes, we'll get the UN to start working on it right away. I mean it's not like the Security Council has enough real life problems to deal with.
If they don't comply then sue them or bring them up on criminal charges like child endangerment.
Like a parent who doesn't restrict their children from playing in the middle of the highway, if you have children and are not restricting what sites they can visit then it you who is endangering them, not the purveyors of porn.
That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of bias. It is because the media restrict themselves that they are biased. Requiring the media to give equal time to a wide variety of voices (including dissident voices) would be the legislative solution, not restricting it.
So how does the government decide which voices should be heard and which shouldn't, or do you propose that the media be forced to give time to anybody with a gripe?
Also the study did not address anything about the inherent bias in the media. The fact that the government does not control the media does not mean that we get unbaised coverage of the news. And a lot of times the ownership of the media is not even clear to judge which side they are more baised against. This is as dangerous as govt. controlling the media because people think that the media is free and fair which is not true.
Why should the report address it? The only way to enforce an unbiased media would be to place restrictions on how and what it reports.
The implication of this lawsuit is, of course, that there is some justification in international IP treaties, to make terms of copyright equal from one country to another.
It was trying to make copyright equal that led to the sorry present state of US copyright law in the first place. If every other nation had limited their terms to 28 years and required both registration and display of a copyright symbol on published works things would have been much simpler.
I fail to see how it is a problem. Look at Europe. Most countries in Europe directly elect their president, without consideration about the region where one votes.
A fairer comparison would be the EU with the US, not individual countries. Just how have Europeans decided to protect smaller members from larger ones? Is the President directly elected? How about the MPs?
Oh come on... For the most part, candidates only visit the major cities anyways, beacuse that's where the most people are, which makes it the most efficient use of their time and money.
And you saw that backfire on Gore in 2000. Bush won 30 states in that election to his 20.