In either case, the 3rd party candidate won't generate enough votes to win anything
That's a self fulfilling prophecy. To assert that they are irrelevant is one thing that makes them irrelevant.
You saw the numbers in my last response? If the answer to breaking a 2 party system is '1 vote at a time'... it will be another 200 years before a candidate reaches 2%. I didn't see any exponential trend which would shorten that.
Now, lets say Obama fails miserably. Hell, even though his popularity ratings are around 65%, its only been 3 months. The numbers of people who actually support the stimulus is roughly the equivalent of Wall street and UAW/GM; there is no way Wall street and the UAW/GM equate to 65% of the population. Obama is pissing off people left and right, and in 4 years, there is hope in my mind that we will be done with him -- That leaves the R's, and the I's as the D's will push the incumbent nitwit regime.
The R-party is a disaster with no clear leadership, no cohesive plan, and a Mom from AK (I love Sarah... she's honest from my p-o-v) at the forefront. I sure hope she can pull it off.
The I's haven't been able to gain enough enough votes to win an Electoral vote in 200 years. Maybe Leiberman can make a push... I don't think D-people are too happy about his leaving the D-party though, and I don't really understand how they could support him over the incumbent.
Any votes towards a historical 1% vote-winner is a vote against conservatism no matter how conservative the candidate is and we may as well put out a new sign on the front door that reads, "Welcome to the Peoples Rebublic of America, come get your fair share reward of everyone else's hard work".
The problem is that, though the people yell "love it or leave it" the countries that do it better (and there are lots) are hard to get into.
Everyone knows you are a stupid prick (Le Systeme Moderation tells you so, right?)
Hahaha. ONE libby, tree-hugging mod doesn't exactly make a strong case for that argument. Read: my karma sets +2. The original post is +1: troll.
The only way to wield the voting system for positive change is if enough of us vote for a third party to make a difference. To wit: If enough vote to make a strong showing, more may vote; If enough vote to be heard speaking out about manipulation if the numbers are significantly misreported, then wrongdoing can be exposed.
That crap has been tried for 200+ years, hows that working out so far? Oh? no better than 1% in any given year? Nader did the best in 2004 with ~8 million votes.
A vote is never "against" anyone, and all statements to that effect are lies
I disagree. I don't think the 3rd party (or 4th) ever made a difference. Both the R's and D's have too much in common to "allow" a 3rd to actually win anything important. They (the R and D) control the right issues so any 3rd party candidate either cannot fall on the majority side of voters (and actually WIN an electoral vote) or NOT fall into either R or D. In either case, the 3rd party candidate won't generate enough votes to win anything (and didn't get more than 1% in 2008, or 1% in 2004), or they can't fall into R or D, because those are chosen via primaries where the Indy or 3rd party is effectively eliminated.
stated to keep the 2-party system that's destroying the country.
While I agree with you 100% the 2 party system is a travesty, and is absolutely destroying the faith, honor, and trust of those actually paying attention... the 2 party system is a perpetual motion machine.
Furthering the mess is that the Indy or 3rd parties don't have a primary in which they choose the strongest platform/candidate so they cancel each other out by splitting up the few thousand votes they each get as a candidate or write-in.
Its a win-win for the 2 party system. It's a lose-lose for a 3rd party. Here is a list of all the 3rd party candidates and here is nice table of the election results from 1789-2008 including vote counts for 3rd party candidates (link) for those interested in seeing them.
Now don't go thinking that all of that could be said about a non-white for the first 220 years. there have been non-white candidates before. The difference is the we all knew he was real moonbat and the media wasn't ready to sell it, like they did in 2008 with a relatively unknown candidate whom they could spinspinspin.
You are the 2nd to respond as such. I refreshed my memory with a quick trip down google lane.
And technically, adding soldiers to Afghanistan is the exact opposite of "bringing our troops home"
You are aware that throughout his campaign, he was fairly consistent about the idea that we should be escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, right?
He didn't campaign on the idea that aren't wars we should be fighting, nor on the idea all troops should be home. He *did* focus against the Iraq war, which, as he'd been saying since 2002, he thought was a problematic conflict to begin with.
When Biden and Obama were in opposition for the Presidential candidacy, Biden had stated that Obama was a "johnny come lately" on afghanistan. In addition many had thought that Obama was less than useful in his role as chairman of the subcommittee that oversights NATO and "he has never had a hearing nor has he ever visited Afghanistan". link here
It was after the Democratic Primary that Obama changed his tune, and supported sending "2 combat brigades to finish the work in Pakistan". There are several google links to credible sources that detail in fact, Obama had campaigned (for a period of time) for increasing troop strength in Afghanistan.
I was wrong, in part, and freely admit my mistake in memory and time line. He is still a sleazy politician when the only fact that changed was Biden was not an opponent any longer.
I hope you live in a different country then. If he fails, we'll all have to clean up the mess. I don't like Obama and I didn't vote for Obama, but I don't hope he fails. That's just stupid.
I live in the USA. I don't like him. I didn't vote for him, either. The less he accomplishes, the easier it will be to clean up.
He did run on the platform of less troops in Iraq and more in Afghanistan. Not sure how doing what you said you would do is sleazy.
Yeah? I don't recall a difference between which troops and which war was more important to bring the boys back home from when half of America (52% anyways) was crying in opposition to W and Obama was going to save us all.
You could be right about the platform. I didn't memorize every lie he uttered.
But what if I would have chosen Obama over McCain?
Same end result. A vote for 1 of the 3 (Barr, Paul, or Obama) wasn't a vote necessarily for that candidate, it was absolutely a vote against McCain.
The media twisted the people into thinking that (R) = evil. The (R) didn't do anything to prevent it, either.
In 2012, the (D) will be evil, and the 3rd and 4th parties will be a vote against the (D). There is simply too much outrage over the socialism ( or anti-capitalism, if you wish) that Obama brought to the table, thus far... and it's only been 3 months.
He's actually making some inroads abroad to lessen the "We're america and FUCK YOU!" mantra we used so long...
I'm a fan of the "we're America, FUCK YOU" mentality.
I only wish that our leadership chose to take care of business AT HOME, rather than running around the planet kicking (Reagan, Bush, W), or kissing (Carter, Clinton, Obama) everyone else's ass.
-What do I give a shit about people in Africa who are starving? None. I just threw out 1/3 of my lunch. -What do I give a shit about some Dictators who kill their own people in the Middle East? None. We had our Revolutionary, and Civil wars... let them do it themselves. -What do I give a shit about some oil asshole threatening to turn off the pipe? None. If they ever followed through on it, which they won't, the US would be forced to drill their own. Good thing. -What do I give a shit about human rights in China? None. Seems to me, the more the US depends on China, the worse the conditions get (at least the stories get worse. Maybe we should tell China to fuck off. -What do I give a shit about some eccentric nitwit in N. Korea playing with nukes? None. They will BBQ themselves, soon enough. -What do I care about Global warming and the environment? None. Fuck man, I just printed 1200 copies of "I'm cold NOW!"
A vote for Barr (same for Ron Paul) was an automatic vote against McCain. Considering the Obamanation only won the popular vote by 4% (52-48), you evil third party fuckers are just as much to blame for the current abomination. Probably more so. Stupid Pricks.
He may be yet another sleazy politician, but at least as of today, he hasn't invaded another country based on lies, and gotten over 4200 American soldiers killed
Give him time. He's only had 3 months to screw us all over. We must endure another 3 years and 9 months AND pray there is enough left for a [sleazy or not] conservative to straighten out.
And technically, adding soldiers to Afghanistan is the exact opposite of "bringing our troops home" which only reinforces your sleazy politician comment.
(Though I am very active commenter and normally get decent moderations.)
That's my point. I find value in reading posts from folks who often 'get it'. Being able to associate a name or alias to a post allows the style or history to enhance what people are talking about. Posting AC (with the gazillion others) mixes you in with goatse links.;)
Maybe its just a way to find interesting people or make new friends.
I am not sure if I even want to discuss with the part of the/. that filters out everything not posted by registered users (who are somehow inheritly better people, I guess).
I browse at -1. There are many bright, humorous, and insightful comments at all levels. Although I agree with the mod system, I do not live in a 1, 2, or 3 mistake world. I participate on/. for fun and knowledge. I can very easily ignore/skip the stuff that's not compelling enough.
Point regarding real-name masking taken. In this case, missed by a mile, though. The site has tools and features that I take advantage of and AC posts render them useless. I like reading posts and journal entries written by those I believe have shown humor or intelligence.
While nobody should be stupid enough to fall into that joke for too long, no organization should be stupid enough to make jokes with large sums of money.
It is slightly saddening to see such an astute comment written by an AC.
Government is preparing to prop up a fail[ed|ing] business model.
I wonder if Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md. (and complete moron), understands the reason the papers are failing is that newspaper subscriptions are down because there are... zOMFG wait for it... better ways to get news here in the 21st century.
We don't see many people changing wagon wheels, and I haven't heard of any horse-n-buggy bailouts/tax-breaks since the automobile was made popular/affordable, and more convenient.
Let these old, outdated business die with dignity. They served a valuable purpose for many years. Time to move on here, Gov.
It means IBM is back in our datacenter in the midrange area after we spent years getting rid of those expensive, complete shitboxes called servers, AIX pSeries...
I realize IBM is already too big to fail, but do we want to let them add to it
Fuck IBM. They cannot be 'too big to fail' if they continue to ship jobs to india.
Sun being bought by IBM would stifle the marketplace and would exert far too much control.
IBM can't compete in the HPC, or high end computing markets. And yes, Linux SUCKS on a pSeries compared to Solaris 10 on a 9000. Dell, and their pitiful 4 socket max 4u (r905), AMD configuration isn't even in the conversation.
- as one who supports both, native SUN kicks the shit out of IBM all day long.
Sometimes to have a free-ish market we have to think about unpleasant topics like anti-trust.
If this is what it takes to keep Sun from being submergered by IBM, so be it. Sign me up.
Slashdot Mirror
In either case, the 3rd party candidate won't generate enough votes to win anything
That's a self fulfilling prophecy. To assert that they are irrelevant is one thing that makes them irrelevant.
You saw the numbers in my last response? If the answer to breaking a 2 party system is '1 vote at a time'... it will be another 200 years before a candidate reaches 2%. I didn't see any exponential trend which would shorten that.
Now, lets say Obama fails miserably. Hell, even though his popularity ratings are around 65%, its only been 3 months. The numbers of people who actually support the stimulus is roughly the equivalent of Wall street and UAW/GM; there is no way Wall street and the UAW/GM equate to 65% of the population. Obama is pissing off people left and right, and in 4 years, there is hope in my mind that we will be done with him -- That leaves the R's, and the I's as the D's will push the incumbent nitwit regime.
The R-party is a disaster with no clear leadership, no cohesive plan, and a Mom from AK (I love Sarah ... she's honest from my p-o-v) at the forefront. I sure hope she can pull it off.
The I's haven't been able to gain enough enough votes to win an Electoral vote in 200 years. Maybe Leiberman can make a push... I don't think D-people are too happy about his leaving the D-party though, and I don't really understand how they could support him over the incumbent.
Any votes towards a historical 1% vote-winner is a vote against conservatism no matter how conservative the candidate is and we may as well put out a new sign on the front door that reads, "Welcome to the Peoples Rebublic of America, come get your fair share reward of everyone else's hard work".
The problem is that, though the people yell "love it or leave it" the countries that do it better (and there are lots) are hard to get into.
Where are you headed?
Everyone knows you are a stupid prick (Le Systeme Moderation tells you so, right?)
Hahaha. ONE libby, tree-hugging mod doesn't exactly make a strong case for that argument. Read: my karma sets +2. The original post is +1: troll.
The only way to wield the voting system for positive change is if enough of us vote for a third party to make a difference. To wit: If enough vote to make a strong showing, more may vote; If enough vote to be heard speaking out about manipulation if the numbers are significantly misreported, then wrongdoing can be exposed.
That crap has been tried for 200+ years, hows that working out so far? Oh? no better than 1% in any given year? Nader did the best in 2004 with ~8 million votes.
See this for a more reasonable response of mine.
A vote is never "against" anyone, and all statements to that effect are lies
I disagree. I don't think the 3rd party (or 4th) ever made a difference. Both the R's and D's have too much in common to "allow" a 3rd to actually win anything important. They (the R and D) control the right issues so any 3rd party candidate either cannot fall on the majority side of voters (and actually WIN an electoral vote) or NOT fall into either R or D. In either case, the 3rd party candidate won't generate enough votes to win anything (and didn't get more than 1% in 2008, or 1% in 2004), or they can't fall into R or D, because those are chosen via primaries where the Indy or 3rd party is effectively eliminated.
stated to keep the 2-party system that's destroying the country.
While I agree with you 100% the 2 party system is a travesty, and is absolutely destroying the faith, honor, and trust of those actually paying attention ... the 2 party system is a perpetual motion machine.
Furthering the mess is that the Indy or 3rd parties don't have a primary in which they choose the strongest platform/candidate so they cancel each other out by splitting up the few thousand votes they each get as a candidate or write-in.
Its a win-win for the 2 party system. It's a lose-lose for a 3rd party. Here is a list of all the 3rd party candidates and here is nice table of the election results from 1789-2008 including vote counts for 3rd party candidates (link) for those interested in seeing them.
Now don't go thinking that all of that could be said about a non-white for the first 220 years. there have been non-white candidates before. The difference is the we all knew he was real moonbat and the media wasn't ready to sell it, like they did in 2008 with a relatively unknown candidate whom they could spinspinspin.
Picky picky. :P
Thanks for the link. Honest.
You are the 2nd to respond as such. I refreshed my memory with a quick trip down google lane.
And technically, adding soldiers to Afghanistan is the exact opposite of "bringing our troops home"
You are aware that throughout his campaign, he was fairly consistent about the idea that we should be escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, right?
He didn't campaign on the idea that aren't wars we should be fighting, nor on the idea all troops should be home. He *did* focus against the Iraq war, which, as he'd been saying since 2002, he thought was a problematic conflict to begin with.
When Biden and Obama were in opposition for the Presidential candidacy, Biden had stated that Obama was a "johnny come lately" on afghanistan. In addition many had thought that Obama was less than useful in his role as chairman of the subcommittee that oversights NATO and "he has never had a hearing nor has he ever visited Afghanistan". link here
It was after the Democratic Primary that Obama changed his tune, and supported sending "2 combat brigades to finish the work in Pakistan". There are several google links to credible sources that detail in fact, Obama had campaigned (for a period of time) for increasing troop strength in Afghanistan.
I was wrong, in part, and freely admit my mistake in memory and time line. He is still a sleazy politician when the only fact that changed was Biden was not an opponent any longer.
I hope he fails.
I hope you live in a different country then. If he fails, we'll all have to clean up the mess. I don't like Obama and I didn't vote for Obama, but I don't hope he fails. That's just stupid.
I live in the USA. I don't like him. I didn't vote for him, either. The less he accomplishes, the easier it will be to clean up.
He did run on the platform of less troops in Iraq and more in Afghanistan. Not sure how doing what you said you would do is sleazy.
Yeah? I don't recall a difference between which troops and which war was more important to bring the boys back home from when half of America (52% anyways) was crying in opposition to W and Obama was going to save us all.
You could be right about the platform. I didn't memorize every lie he uttered.
But what if I would have chosen Obama over McCain?
Same end result. A vote for 1 of the 3 (Barr, Paul, or Obama) wasn't a vote necessarily for that candidate, it was absolutely a vote against McCain.
The media twisted the people into thinking that (R) = evil. The (R) didn't do anything to prevent it, either.
In 2012, the (D) will be evil, and the 3rd and 4th parties will be a vote against the (D). There is simply too much outrage over the socialism ( or anti-capitalism, if you wish) that Obama brought to the table, thus far ... and it's only been 3 months.
He's actually making some inroads abroad to lessen the "We're america and FUCK YOU!" mantra we used so long...
I'm a fan of the "we're America, FUCK YOU" mentality.
I only wish that our leadership chose to take care of business AT HOME, rather than running around the planet kicking (Reagan, Bush, W), or kissing (Carter, Clinton, Obama) everyone else's ass.
-What do I give a shit about people in Africa who are starving? None. I just threw out 1/3 of my lunch. ... let them do it themselves.
-What do I give a shit about some Dictators who kill their own people in the Middle East? None. We had our Revolutionary, and Civil wars
-What do I give a shit about some oil asshole threatening to turn off the pipe? None. If they ever followed through on it, which they won't, the US would be forced to drill their own. Good thing.
-What do I give a shit about human rights in China? None. Seems to me, the more the US depends on China, the worse the conditions get (at least the stories get worse. Maybe we should tell China to fuck off.
-What do I give a shit about some eccentric nitwit in N. Korea playing with nukes? None. They will BBQ themselves, soon enough.
-What do I care about Global warming and the environment? None. Fuck man, I just printed 1200 copies of "I'm cold NOW!"
A vote for Barr (same for Ron Paul) was an automatic vote against McCain. Considering the Obamanation only won the popular vote by 4% (52-48), you evil third party fuckers are just as much to blame for the current abomination. Probably more so. Stupid Pricks.
I'm with Rush. I hope he fails.
He may be yet another sleazy politician, but at least as of today, he hasn't invaded another country based on lies, and gotten over 4200 American soldiers killed
Give him time. He's only had 3 months to screw us all over. We must endure another 3 years and 9 months AND pray there is enough left for a [sleazy or not] conservative to straighten out.
And technically, adding soldiers to Afghanistan is the exact opposite of "bringing our troops home" which only reinforces your sleazy politician comment.
(Though I am very active commenter and normally get decent moderations.)
That's my point. I find value in reading posts from folks who often 'get it'. Being able to associate a name or alias to a post allows the style or history to enhance what people are talking about. Posting AC (with the gazillion others) mixes you in with goatse links. ;)
Maybe its just a way to find interesting people or make new friends.
I am not sure if I even want to discuss with the part of the /. that filters out everything not posted by registered users (who are somehow inheritly better people, I guess).
I browse at -1. There are many bright, humorous, and insightful comments at all levels. Although I agree with the mod system, I do not live in a 1, 2, or 3 mistake world. I participate on /. for fun and knowledge. I can very easily ignore/skip the stuff that's not compelling enough.
Point regarding real-name masking taken. In this case, missed by a mile, though. The site has tools and features that I take advantage of and AC posts render them useless. I like reading posts and journal entries written by those I believe have shown humor or intelligence.
Fair enough?
While nobody should be stupid enough to fall into that joke for too long, no organization should be stupid enough to make jokes with large sums of money.
It is slightly saddening to see such an astute comment written by an AC.
Comon folks, mod points aren't THAT cool.
LOL. We all made a secret room with ammo, health, shield and double damage. And we didn't tell our friends about the editors.
My .wad was a battleship. I'm fairly certain the file is long gone by now. :/
Without all these corporate bastards and government authoritah wannabes.
Government is preparing to prop up a fail[ed|ing] business model.
I wonder if Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md. (and complete moron), understands the reason the papers are failing is that newspaper subscriptions are down because there are ... zOMFG wait for it ... better ways to get news here in the 21st century.
We don't see many people changing wagon wheels, and I haven't heard of any horse-n-buggy bailouts/tax-breaks since the automobile was made popular/affordable, and more convenient.
Let these old, outdated business die with dignity. They served a valuable purpose for many years. Time to move on here, Gov.
... would be so boring if they knew where the fish were.
It means IBM is back in our datacenter in the midrange area after we spent years getting rid of those expensive, complete shitboxes called servers, AIX pSeries...
FTFY. ;)
I realize IBM is already too big to fail, but do we want to let them add to it
Fuck IBM. They cannot be 'too big to fail' if they continue to ship jobs to india.
Sun being bought by IBM would stifle the marketplace and would exert far too much control.
IBM can't compete in the HPC, or high end computing markets. And yes, Linux SUCKS on a pSeries compared to Solaris 10 on a 9000. Dell, and their pitiful 4 socket max 4u (r905), AMD configuration isn't even in the conversation.
- as one who supports both, native SUN kicks the shit out of IBM all day long.
Sometimes to have a free-ish market we have to think about unpleasant topics like anti-trust.
If this is what it takes to keep Sun from being submergered by IBM, so be it. Sign me up.
I think we're about to have a pissed off Linux community if so.
When, exactly, is the linux community NOT pissed off about something?
and no executive is going to wantonly commit federal fraud.
Wow. Thats a naive, and highly innacurate opinion.
Maybe the RIAA HQ is an Indian burial ground?
Well, then...
Theyyyyyyyyyyyyyy're baaaaaaaack!
There will never be a point in voting Libertarian.
1) The candidate won't win.
2) You'll only peel votes from a Republican.
3) Some of them are scarier than the devils we know.
In Obama America, hopes changes You!