Vote Libertarian if it clearly is in a state Bush will win, otherwise vote Bush.
If you're libertarian, by all means vote libertarian if your state is locked up.
The point is that living in a state that's locked for a candidate means you are more free to vote your conscience, whatever that might be, than having to vote defensively to make sure the guy you really don't want is kept out of office.
4 years of Gore will result in the soicalization of medicine(telling you were you have to go to see a doctor, now tell me how thats not infringement on civil liberties?)
How is being told where to go for your doctor by a corporation any less of an infringement of civil liberties? This mantra of "it's socialized medicine, it's socialized medicine" really annoys me, because it's so painfully obvious that the people who repeat it haven't given any thought to it.
If an elected official is in charge of determining where the money for medicine goes and screws people over, guess what--he can be voted out of office! However, with corporate control of health care, your only recource is to switch to another provider (usually limited by which ones your employer will allow, heaven help you if you're unemployed). But all corporate health plans have the same goal--minimize overhead. In other words, determining how little money they can get away with providing. And since in most states HMOs are legally immune from lawsuit, they can get away with giving you very little, even if it kills or cripples you.
There are disadvantages to universal health care, but calling it "Socialized medicine" is just empty rhetoric.
How do you intend to motivate people to produce without the ability to get rich?
If there were no forms of motivation other than profit, would Open Source software exist? Or, for that matter, Free Software? Hell, free-as-in-beer freeware wouldn't even exist.
By eliminating the minimum wage which forces people to be paid more than their labor is worth (by definition -- its worth is what a free market would make it be) you decrease prices to consumers, thus compensating for their reduced pay and stimulating the economy further (as those are paid more than your "minimum wage" would have been are given still more buying power, permitting them to make more purchases, increasing jobs and pay).
Funny how workers in southeast asian sweatshops can't afford the sneakers they make, then.
By eliminating this artificial inflation of costs, this also reduces the flow of jobs out of the country, which you so bemoan.
Import tariffs also do this. I still haven't seen a good argument for why a lack of import tariffs is desirable, other than a vague idea that free markets are just inherently "better", or "Adam Smith said so (never mind the fact that the world has changed quite a bit since Adam Smith was writing, including the creation of corporations and most of the Industrial Revolution)".
America had laissez-faire capitalism at one point. It didn't work. We ended up with unsanitary meat, child labor, excessive hours, and extremely dangerous workplace conditions.
Interestingly enough, I recently read a passage whining about the "blindness" (author's word) of capitalism. Specifically, the author found it unjust that the "appropriate" (uh huh, like we'd take the author's word for it) outcome couldn't be foreseen. In the author's opinion, a just economic system would "lend an eye" (my words) to outcome. Remarkably, this author was blind to the obvious--justice is *supposed* to be blind (visualize the lady with the scale). In other words, capitalism's "blindness" is what *makes* it just.
Your entire opinion is based on a poor choice of wording? Amazing.
Justice is "blind" in the sense of not giving any prejudice to one side or the other before hearing the evidence. But the court still needs to hear evidence, and need to form an opinion based on evidence! If the standards of capitalism were applied to law--that is, not taking a person's situation into account--all courts could be replaced with a coin toss.
Perhaps the writer should have used the term "fair" instead of "just". But you're still reading things into it that aren't there.
Ok, I guess it also scares you when its said "lets police things we don't like". Like having police prevent property theft. BTW taxation has nothing directly to do with getting people to think in a particular way, if we have a lust for power, taxation just reduces the amount of power you can get.
2)Growth actually MUST continue. Go find a biologist and ask him what happens, inevitably, to an organism that does not grow.
The metaphor of economy as organism only goes so far. You could also say the same thing about an ecosystem--but if an ecosystem continues to grow, guess what you have...overpopulation! There's a limit.
He was saying that the notion of economic "growth" is actually a mistake, since it is simply shifting money from one group--the poor--to another group--the rich. It's an oversimplification, sure, but his point holds...that's not growth any more than chewing your fingernails is nutrition.
We'll be free of this nonsense when the Supreme Court finally comes to its senses and overturns Roe v. Wade turning the issue of abortion policy back to the state legislatures. Then the Supreme Court can actually go back to being the Supreme Court instead of continuing its service as the National Abortion Policy Committee.
Why do you think it does? Because Democrats and Republicans use the idea as a political football? Political posturing is just that--posturing--and shouldn't be mistaken for facts.
Most of what the Supreme Court does has nothing to do with abortion. That's just the issue that people outside of the court always bring up, because it's one of the most emotional for a lot of people.
What do you think a person does with 80 or 100 million $$. Put it all in a mattress?? Hide it in the backyard??? Nope. They invest it. Their wealth is helping to create jobs all over. And maybe return some equity to them if it was a good bet? If not, still alot of people got to be employed in that start up. This is what makes america great! It can be a win-win situation....
The non-rich generally use their cash to buy products. This money also goes to the companies. If the lower end of the spectrum had more money and the high end less, relative to where they are now, the same amount of money would be in the economy. There would be less investment, but more people would be able to afford more products. I fail to see why an investment in a company is economically more important than the same amount of money received by the company through sales.
Pollution is for people who can't afford air conditioning to worry about.
There's no air conditioner big enough to filter the entire atmosphere. Do you never get out of your house? Or do you wear a gas mask every time you step outdoors?
What you're running up against here is the classic argument between how things should be and how things are.
Yes, we should have a system where fringe candidates can hold some hope of wielding political power. Something like Australia, where you can list your preferred order of candidates. But the fact is we don't. We have a winner-take-all, two party system.
Actually, it's possible to change this. Especially if your state has an initiative system. While the electoral colege is a federal institution, the method of selecting a state's electors is up to the state. So, this can change, by bits and pieces.
So the reality is that if you're voting for Nader, particularly in a swing state, you're helping to give the election to Bush. You're not "making a statment" or "voting your consicence". You're handing the country over to the Republicans.
Remember, the only significant part of the election as far as the Presidency is concerned is the electoral vote. The popular vote is unimportant, except for the fact that it can qualify third parties for federal matching funds. As long as the Green vote doesn't impact the electoral vote significantly, it's hardly "giving the country to the Republicans".
So, it is safer to vote Gore than Nader in a swing state, but in a state that's already locked up, it hardly matters. In that case, vote your conscience, comfortable in the fact that it won't negatively effect your second choice.
California looks to be essentially a lock for Gore, despite Bush's recent efforts, so I'm voting Nader. Gore doesn't need my vote here.
And if you still think that socialism/communism is the right way to organize a society, there are a couple of countries left that haven't collapsed under that insane form of government, and I'm sure they'd be happy to have your contributions as a citizen.
Real democratic socialism has been doing fairly well in Western Europe. It's the so-called "Communist" nations, actually totalitarian autocracies and not really socialist, that have collapsed. Authoritarianism failed, not socialism.
I would like to add that the inclusion of Macrovision and other anti-copying measures in any consumer technology is clearly Unconstitutional and, although it has been done since the late eighties, it needs to be stopped.
Macrovision is the result of an industry consortium, not a law passed by Congress. As such, it can't be unconstitutional because the Constitution only applies to the Federal government. Companies, and private individuals for that matter, aren't bound by the Constitution.
However, laws that make it illegal to circumvent things like Macrovision (the DMCA), do fall under the Constitution's reach, and probably are unconstitutional (we'll see what the Supreme Court decides when it comes up).
But he does know a lot about TAX, THE ECONOMY, and everything else he has an opinion on??
I'm not sure if he knows a lot about everything he has an opinion on. For example, he might like some movies without knowing a lot about film. But on the issues he's running on, yes, he knows a lot about it. He's been involved in these things for a long time.
It seemed alright for the first couple of paragraphs, then seemed to go off on a tangent, accusing Gore of being ineffective (which was kind of odd since they actually seemed to agree) and then for some reason bragging about how some people like his website (I suppose it was a half-hearted attempt to appeal to techie voters). I've noticed this about Bush (during the debates especially)...he has a tendency to wander from the topic at hand.
Gore's response wasn't that great either, concentrating more on encryption as being important to commerce rather than personal privacy (I hate to admit it, but Bush was a little better in this regard).
I agree personalized responses would have been nicer, and I'm not sure using excerpts from earlier essays and interviews was a good move, he is on a pretty busy speaking tour that doesn't give him a lot of time for things like this.
Those "evil speculators" absorb a lot of risk and chaos. If you eliminate the speculators, that chaos has to go somewhere, and wherever else it goes, I don't think you'll like where it eventually ends up. Keep the chaos on the speculator - he/she actually wants it.
Not necessarily. Speculators also create quite a bit of chaos by themselves, and can even amplify existing chaotic stock price twinges into major market swings as all of them try to jump on a bandwagon at once. Witness the recent dot-com boom, where companies with no forseeable source of income made huge amounts of money from IPOs--many companies actually treated stock sales as if it was income--which was fueled by a simultaneous boom in day-trader activity (thanks to online day-trading firms like E*Trade, among other factors).
So-called "free trade" encourages maquiladoras and other overseas sweatshops. When all trade tariffs are removed, the race goes to the country with the lowest wages and worst labor laws.
It says he doesn't know a whole lot about encryption. Not surprising, really--not a lot of people do outside of the geek community (beyond the "secret decoder rings" they got in cereal boxes as kids). I bet none of the candidates know much about it. At least he's not going off half-cocked, spewing uninformed opinions about subjects he's unfamiliar with.
Given his position on free speech and IP freedom, I believe he'd make the right decision about it as long as somebody gets him the facts.
I think the fact that he wasn't able to reply or chose not to reply illustrates Nader's biggest shortcoming:
the fact that he's a very one-faceted politician that stands for very little and is not knowledgeable enough in the majority of issues that this group want to discuss, let alone all of the issues that the country wants to discuss and have answers from.
I think it has to do more with the fact that all of his answers here are clipped from earlier essays and interviews. That's what they meant by "a series of position papers".
Well, he's better than Gore on the drug war, IP misuse, and some other issues. But he says nothing about encryption,
I'm actually glad he did so. I don't think he's had much of a chance to do research into the issues there...it's not, after all, an issue a whole lot of people are familiar with--I'd be willing to bet he hasn't heard much about it. I admire his discretion in not making up an opinion off the top of his head on an issue he is unfamiliar with.
they can make the website illegal ( or at least try to, there's that nasty first ammendment thingy)
Hmm...I'm not sure about this. Sure, the textual and artistic content of the webpages are protected under the First, but the service of matching up voters for purposes of trading might not fall under that (not saying it's illegal now, I'm pretty sure it isn't, but that the 1st Amendment might not protect it).
For example, take pyramid scheme chain letters. Please. No, seriously--while technically their contents falls under the First Amendment (it's a written work), they are considered mail fraud and are illegal. It's the scheme itself, not the text, that is illegal.
That way, they're off Panasonic's backs. Macrovision is an old, easily reverse-engineered standard, but it makes the Motion Picture Association of America happy.
Happy, but not satisfied. Or else they would've been content to simply apply macrovision to DVD players rather than adding the CSS/region coding nonsense on top of it.
But then again, Thoman Jefferson said (this is recalled from memory) Anyone who would give up a little freedom for a little bit of order, deserves neither and will loose both.
Hmmm...I thought it was Ben Franklin. Point still holds.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're libertarian, by all means vote libertarian if your state is locked up.
The point is that living in a state that's locked for a candidate means you are more free to vote your conscience, whatever that might be, than having to vote defensively to make sure the guy you really don't want is kept out of office.
How is being told where to go for your doctor by a corporation any less of an infringement of civil liberties? This mantra of "it's socialized medicine, it's socialized medicine" really annoys me, because it's so painfully obvious that the people who repeat it haven't given any thought to it.
If an elected official is in charge of determining where the money for medicine goes and screws people over, guess what--he can be voted out of office! However, with corporate control of health care, your only recource is to switch to another provider (usually limited by which ones your employer will allow, heaven help you if you're unemployed). But all corporate health plans have the same goal--minimize overhead. In other words, determining how little money they can get away with providing. And since in most states HMOs are legally immune from lawsuit, they can get away with giving you very little, even if it kills or cripples you.
There are disadvantages to universal health care, but calling it "Socialized medicine" is just empty rhetoric.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
If there were no forms of motivation other than profit, would Open Source software exist? Or, for that matter, Free Software? Hell, free-as-in-beer freeware wouldn't even exist.
Funny how workers in southeast asian sweatshops can't afford the sneakers they make, then.
Import tariffs also do this. I still haven't seen a good argument for why a lack of import tariffs is desirable, other than a vague idea that free markets are just inherently "better", or "Adam Smith said so (never mind the fact that the world has changed quite a bit since Adam Smith was writing, including the creation of corporations and most of the Industrial Revolution)".
America had laissez-faire capitalism at one point. It didn't work. We ended up with unsanitary meat, child labor, excessive hours, and extremely dangerous workplace conditions.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Your entire opinion is based on a poor choice of wording? Amazing.
Justice is "blind" in the sense of not giving any prejudice to one side or the other before hearing the evidence. But the court still needs to hear evidence, and need to form an opinion based on evidence! If the standards of capitalism were applied to law--that is, not taking a person's situation into account--all courts could be replaced with a coin toss.
Perhaps the writer should have used the term "fair" instead of "just". But you're still reading things into it that aren't there.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Somebody mod that up!
---
Zardoz has spoken!
The metaphor of economy as organism only goes so far. You could also say the same thing about an ecosystem--but if an ecosystem continues to grow, guess what you have...overpopulation! There's a limit.
He was saying that the notion of economic "growth" is actually a mistake, since it is simply shifting money from one group--the poor--to another group--the rich. It's an oversimplification, sure, but his point holds...that's not growth any more than chewing your fingernails is nutrition.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Why do you think it does? Because Democrats and Republicans use the idea as a political football? Political posturing is just that--posturing--and shouldn't be mistaken for facts.
Most of what the Supreme Court does has nothing to do with abortion. That's just the issue that people outside of the court always bring up, because it's one of the most emotional for a lot of people.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
The non-rich generally use their cash to buy products. This money also goes to the companies. If the lower end of the spectrum had more money and the high end less, relative to where they are now, the same amount of money would be in the economy. There would be less investment, but more people would be able to afford more products. I fail to see why an investment in a company is economically more important than the same amount of money received by the company through sales.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
There's no air conditioner big enough to filter the entire atmosphere. Do you never get out of your house? Or do you wear a gas mask every time you step outdoors?
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Actually, it's possible to change this. Especially if your state has an initiative system. While the electoral colege is a federal institution, the method of selecting a state's electors is up to the state. So, this can change, by bits and pieces.
Remember, the only significant part of the election as far as the Presidency is concerned is the electoral vote. The popular vote is unimportant, except for the fact that it can qualify third parties for federal matching funds. As long as the Green vote doesn't impact the electoral vote significantly, it's hardly "giving the country to the Republicans".
So, it is safer to vote Gore than Nader in a swing state, but in a state that's already locked up, it hardly matters. In that case, vote your conscience, comfortable in the fact that it won't negatively effect your second choice.
California looks to be essentially a lock for Gore, despite Bush's recent efforts, so I'm voting Nader. Gore doesn't need my vote here.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
No, he's saying that there are business processes that don't cause sickness and death. Maybe you should look into them.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Real democratic socialism has been doing fairly well in Western Europe. It's the so-called "Communist" nations, actually totalitarian autocracies and not really socialist, that have collapsed. Authoritarianism failed, not socialism.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Macrovision is the result of an industry consortium, not a law passed by Congress. As such, it can't be unconstitutional because the Constitution only applies to the Federal government. Companies, and private individuals for that matter, aren't bound by the Constitution.
However, laws that make it illegal to circumvent things like Macrovision (the DMCA), do fall under the Constitution's reach, and probably are unconstitutional (we'll see what the Supreme Court decides when it comes up).
---
Zardoz has spoken!
I'm not sure if he knows a lot about everything he has an opinion on. For example, he might like some movies without knowing a lot about film. But on the issues he's running on, yes, he knows a lot about it. He's been involved in these things for a long time.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Not in person, no. But on the radio, yes, I have.
I actually think this might be true. Part of why I'm voting for him.
Yes it should. But politicians ignore that guideline far too often. I'm glad Nader doesn't.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
It seemed alright for the first couple of paragraphs, then seemed to go off on a tangent, accusing Gore of being ineffective (which was kind of odd since they actually seemed to agree) and then for some reason bragging about how some people like his website (I suppose it was a half-hearted attempt to appeal to techie voters). I've noticed this about Bush (during the debates especially)...he has a tendency to wander from the topic at hand.
Gore's response wasn't that great either, concentrating more on encryption as being important to commerce rather than personal privacy (I hate to admit it, but Bush was a little better in this regard).
Neither was particularly impressive.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
I agree personalized responses would have been nicer, and I'm not sure using excerpts from earlier essays and interviews was a good move, he is on a pretty busy speaking tour that doesn't give him a lot of time for things like this.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
While I disagree with Wiley pretty often, I have to say that that is one funny cartoon, and true.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Not necessarily. Speculators also create quite a bit of chaos by themselves, and can even amplify existing chaotic stock price twinges into major market swings as all of them try to jump on a bandwagon at once. Witness the recent dot-com boom, where companies with no forseeable source of income made huge amounts of money from IPOs--many companies actually treated stock sales as if it was income--which was fueled by a simultaneous boom in day-trader activity (thanks to online day-trading firms like E*Trade, among other factors).
---
Zardoz has spoken!
So-called "free trade" encourages maquiladoras and other overseas sweatshops. When all trade tariffs are removed, the race goes to the country with the lowest wages and worst labor laws.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
It says he doesn't know a whole lot about encryption. Not surprising, really--not a lot of people do outside of the geek community (beyond the "secret decoder rings" they got in cereal boxes as kids). I bet none of the candidates know much about it. At least he's not going off half-cocked, spewing uninformed opinions about subjects he's unfamiliar with.
Given his position on free speech and IP freedom, I believe he'd make the right decision about it as long as somebody gets him the facts.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
I think it has to do more with the fact that all of his answers here are clipped from earlier essays and interviews. That's what they meant by "a series of position papers".
---
Zardoz has spoken!
I'm actually glad he did so. I don't think he's had much of a chance to do research into the issues there...it's not, after all, an issue a whole lot of people are familiar with--I'd be willing to bet he hasn't heard much about it. I admire his discretion in not making up an opinion off the top of his head on an issue he is unfamiliar with.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Hmm...I'm not sure about this. Sure, the textual and artistic content of the webpages are protected under the First, but the service of matching up voters for purposes of trading might not fall under that (not saying it's illegal now, I'm pretty sure it isn't, but that the 1st Amendment might not protect it).
For example, take pyramid scheme chain letters. Please. No, seriously--while technically their contents falls under the First Amendment (it's a written work), they are considered mail fraud and are illegal. It's the scheme itself, not the text, that is illegal.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
My TV doesn't have video out, unfortunately. Thanks, though.
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Happy, but not satisfied. Or else they would've been content to simply apply macrovision to DVD players rather than adding the CSS/region coding nonsense on top of it.
Hmmm...I thought it was Ben Franklin. Point still holds.
---
Zardoz has spoken!