These are not the people who should be determining what is and is not good for you. A more valid approach would be convening an independent group of experts who would look at sites and give them their stamp of approval. They could also maintain a list of sites they considered quacky.
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Political organizations are always tainted by their quest to increase their funding and power. If you doubt that, a close look at the EPA or the FDA should convince you rather quickly
So this group (WHO) is political and useless, but we should make another group because it would be better? How will this new group of people get funding and stay away from politics if they are rating all the medical information on the web?
You seem to be saying "these guys suck because they were appointed experts by the world" and that the solution is to appoint another group of experts by the world (just without all the bad parts).
No one is going against the first amendment -- the WHO is suggesting that they be given a domain for health information that they consider accurate and reliable. Nowhere do they suggest that they shoud be given the authority to shut down sites they don't like in other domains, or censor anyone. If you want to post health information wihtout the WHO's approval, then don't get a.who domain name, get a.com or whatever.
This is like complaining about consumer reports (or good housekeeping) because they somehow are going to prevent you from being able to buy bad products.
How is the FDA or AMA more "legitimate" than the WHO? The AMA is literally "self-appointed" -- it was made and always run by doctors, it's own members. No outside regulation of the AMA exists. The FDA is a branch of the executive government, so it is clearly "politically appointed".
The WHO was at least set up by international cooperation as a "clearinghouse" for health cooperation and development. Doctors and governments participate in it...
The concern with friendly fire isn't about allied aircraft -- you're correct that we alrady have decent friend-or-foe identification beacons on friendly aircraft to prevent us accidentally downing an allied plane.
The primary concern in frind-or-foe is in ground forces that have no such beacons, nor do they really have any way of carrying such.
The reason we lost so many forces to friendly fire during the Gulf War is that our ground forces were moving so quickly that they were frequently AHEAD of the official friend/foe demarcation. They were pushing so aggresively into Iraqi territory that they were mistaken by allied aircraft as thus being Iraqui forces and fired upon.
In almost every case the mistake was recongnized immediately, but of course once the Hellfire is launched it does little good to realize it was a friendly tank.
As much as we trust in technology the truth remains that we really have no 100% effective way of knowing exactly where friendly and enemy troops are int he heat of battle -- which is why, ultimately, we HAVE to rely on humans to make the call. if an aircraft's IFF is damaged that doesn't excuse our shooting it down, and the same goes for tanks.
Some of the fault belongs in the fact that our armed forces (like moth other government agencies) are decentralized -- the Army doesn't necessarily know exactly what the Air Force is doing, and vice versa. Of course they cooperate, and they are getting much better, but even within the Army you had most of the friendly fire due to simple inability to notify the Army air units that the Army ground units were progressing as quickly as they were. Picking individual tanks out of a skirmish would be an exercise in futility if there was not a human to make the call.
That said, the real advantage to unmanned craft is that they no longer have to keep within the physical constraints of safety for the pilot -- they can pull 15-G turns without a problem, and don't have to be designed to incorporate safety equipment or a feild of view for human eyes. They can be designed to be essentially disposable, perfectly aerodynamic, lighter, highly maneuverable, and with a minimal radar signature...
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Re:Problems with the system
on
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· Score: 2
And you are continuing to forget that rich people ALREADY can contract for my vote; the law just prohibits one particular arbitrary way of doing so.
Um, no -- spending money on advertising to try and persuade you is not "contracting" -- no matter how much money they blitz on you (as evidenced by this campaign where both spent tons of cash) you still don't guarantee anyone at all is going to vote for you.
The number of independently wealthy people spending 10x the amount of their competitors while running for congress rises every year, but they continually get smacked down for trying to "buy their way" into office.
But all of this is beside the point, which is that we as a society have the right, responsability, and ability to restrict voting for obvious reasons.
And it's worth noting that if your argument is simply "well, you can spend a shitload of money on campaigning", the VAST majority of people in the US are against that, as well -- indeed, we're unique in the world that we allow even that. That comes down to a matter of free speech, if it wasn't for our pesky first amendment we WOULD have limitations on that kind of fund-raising and spending. It's only inconsistent in that literally buying a vote could never be cnsidered political speech, but of course advertising (no matter how obnoxious or pricey) is still rightly considered speech.
And please, your transparent attempts to turn this into a partisan battle are sad, this has nothing to do with Gore or Bush or Clinton. You CAN'T buy or sell a vote, and buying advertising is not the same as buying votes no matter how hard you try to claim it is. Yes, giving someone cigarettes for a vote is illegal, and anyone doing it should be prosecuted for vote buying -- amazing you're no longer arguing that the homeless people are entitled to sell their votes for cigarettes, though. I guess people only should be allowed to sell them if they vote the same way you do?
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Re:Problems with the system
on
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No, it's a limitation in what I can freely decide as an adult to do with my own freedom. Who asked you to protect me?
Who said anything about protecting you? Why would I or society give a damn if you waste your vote? Society is protecting ITSELF against those who would undermine the function of voting -- in other words, when your vote selling means that wealthy people get to vote more frequently than those who cannot afford to buy votes, we as society have had our agreed-upon mechanism of decision-making abused.
My vote is my basic inalienable right, not a "social contract" or privilege.
Okay, please explain how a vote can exist without a society. What does a vote amongst one person signify? The only purpose of voting is as a participation in a society that uses it as a decision-making mechanism.
There are plenty of things you don't get to vote directly on, and several things you vote on directly, others indirectly. You seem to be claiming that your right to vote is inherent by virtue of existing -- we should therefore vote on when anyone gets to take a shit. But we don't because it's pointless. We, as a society, have decided that sometimes we get together and vote on topics, sometimes we don't. When we do get together to vote, we do so within specific rules -- you have to use a ballot (you can't just write "george bush" on a piece of paper and hand it in).
You can't vote unless you're a citizen -- but by your logic, even foreigners should get to vote in US elections, since it is a right by virtue of existence. True RIGHTS are rights of all people, so for example you do not have to be a citizen of the US to have free speech, the right to assemble, or freedom of religion. But you cannot serve on a jury or vote -- because those are SOCIAL actions by which we participate in SOCIETY.
You must have society for the existence of a jury or a vote to mean something, therefore the society has to agree on how that jury and vote may function -- being on a jury does not mean you can convict someone regardless of the law, and having a vote does not mean you can sell it or transfer it. Your right and responsibility to jury duty does NOT mean that you have ultimate authority over guilt or innocence -- you still must abide by the law and if you don't you WILL be removed from the jury and have your verdict overturned. if you do not vote according to the law, your vote WILL be thrown out, as the 27,000 improper ballots in Florida attest.
Don't get me wrong -- I know what you're saying -- it makes me feel weird to say that your vote isn't YOURS, but at the same time, it's not just something that you have to dispose of, it's more of a social responsibility than a posession. Our entire government functions on the presupposition that, regardless of how wealthy or poor you might be, when you come to the ballot box, you have exactly one vote to cast (of course, depending on your state it's worth a different amount:) But you just seem to be ignoring the fact that your vote does not existly solely for your sake -- it is something that affects hundreds of millions of other people.
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Re:Problems with the system
on
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Again, false. You are allowed to contract for your vote, and it's done every day. You just aren't allowed to have a direct transfer of goods in return for a verified vote. It is perfectly kosher, however, to say "I'll vote for you if you'll vote to lift restrictions on encryption", followed by the candidate saying "ok, I'll do that, vote for me." It's even legal to follow that up by showing him your absentee ballot with his name on it, and letting him mail it for you, although that part of the exchange doesn't happen in practice
That is not selling a vote, that is voting based on an issue/campaign promise, etc. That is simply using your vote to achieve a goal that the person you are voting for can achieve while in office. Thats the entire point of voting -- to vote for those who will achieve your goals while in office. And frequently in a tit-for-tat fashion as in congress, you will vote one way on an issue to achieve cooperation on another issue -- essentially acieving a policy comprimise -- another purpose of voting, not a circumvention.
But by direct sale or transfer of a vote, you most definitely circumventing the purpose of voting, which is to represent the policy desires of the people.
I reiterate what I said; if I don't own my vote, and am not free to contract it in any way I choose, I am a slave, not a free man.
Please spare me the Ayn Rand hyperbole -- your vote is not a peiece of property. Your vote is a social contract, and forcing you to use it or not (without sale or transfer) is only a limitation in the influence others may have over you.
Votes DO NOT exist in a vaccuum -- if there was no society the entire concept of voting would be meaningless. Votes are a form of social perticipation, they do not arise "naturally" as a right of man like the ability to speak or move freely. They only have meaning in social groups that have agreed amongst all their members that voting will take place and be respected. therefore the value of the vote is only as great as the respect that all members of that group, and the group collectively place upon it.
You can't see the forest because you believe that your tree is a forest by itself, so you miss all the others...
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Re:Here's what you all seem to be forgetting...
on
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Several of those tiny litle staties are bigger than your tiny little countries, so I'm not sure where this comes from.
And the point he was making is that the states have 100% exclusive control of voting. No question, the US government has absolutely nothing to do with it. If a state decides to vote with glass beads in a fishbowl, while the electors place the official votes by pulling names from a hat -- they can do it. So it would take more than a suggestion to get all 50 states to use the same voting method...
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Re:Problems with the system
on
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· Score: 4
If you can dictate under what terms I can contract my vote, then I don't own it, you own it and are just extending me a privilege to use it.
You're right -- you don't own your vote. And you can't sell it. And no one is extending the privlege to use it -- it is not yours to "use", or to transfer or sell or loan or otherwise dispose of as personal property. It is yours to vote with, or not, as you see fit. But no other choice exists -- you vote, or not.
It's not a car for christ sake, it's the method by which we participate in society, and the underlying principle to this method is that each citizen has exactly ONE vote, no more no less, to be used by themselves and themselves only, no matter how rich or poor they may be.
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Re:Oh, that explains it...
on
ICANN Meetings
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I dunno, they have sunday evening services here...
Okay, this is cool and all -- I mean, really I'm impressed. But, how can I say this...
GET A LIFE!!!!!!
Don't get me wrong, but I think that maybe past a certain point just something being "neat" is not enough. To spend 155 weeks building what is essentially 30 seconds worth of "hey, that's cool" is just downright freakish. Maybe we should encourage slashdot readers to get outside and socialize, or do, essentially ANYTHING more productive than this.
That said, the scenes of the close-up death star with all the big sheets laid out are pretty cool looking, The bumps on the legos look like machinery detail.
With an electoral college, you can get elected (in a 2-way race; the ratios are probably the same for more) with ~31% of the vote while the other guy gets 69% of the vote. Without the electoral college you need over 50%.
Don't forget that another purpose of the electoral college is to trim the number of candidates who ultimately get voted on in the electoral contest. We do require a mojority of the votes to be elected by the college, but rarely are presidents elected with a majority of the popular vote.
So no, you wouldn't have to get 50%+ to win under a popular vote -- you would need still only 30% or so, because the third parties and such chip away pretty significantly, especially in a situation where you're not "wasting" your vote by voting for a third party (in other words, the electoral college winner-takes-all discourages voting for a third party).
if it were purely popular we would have a LOT more third-party candidates, and you'd probably wind up with presidents being elected by 25% of the population, all grouped geographically. You'd get the whole Northeast together to elect a Boston guy who everyone else in the country hates, but their vote would be fractured among multiple parties, and with no electoral system to "recombine" their votes, they would essentially eat their own.
As bad as it is that we discourage third parties with the electoral college, the other side of "pure" democracy is a place like Italy, where you have 30+ political parties, and no one even remotely has a consensus. Pure popular vote isn't all fun and games like most portray it -- I can't think of a single successful government on Earth that uses popular vote that hasn't fragmented badly into numerous factions.
Most places have parliamentary systems where your representatives elect the president. Surprise -- that's a lot like the electoral system, except the electoral system is actually more democratic because we specifically vote the electors for that purpose, as opposed to having it be merely one job of the legislature. We are still, by far, more democratic that any other long-standing government, and we've accomplished that by carefully using the pragmatic aspects of a republic when necessary...
Well, the limitation is why he isn't RUNNING for president, not why he can't ever be president again. Of course he could, but he can't RUN for the office...
First of all, the electoral votes are allocated to states based on population, so, the electoral college system actually makes this sort of domination EASIER - after all, now you only need 51% in the most populous few states (I don't know how many you need, but not many)
You need at least the 14(15?) most populous states to win an alectoral contest. That's more (three times more) than you need in a popular vote.
Most of your arguments point out the flaw in winner-takes-all allocation of electors (you only need 51% of the vote) but the fundamental idea of balancing state powers remains. So complain to your state legislators to change your allocation method to proportional rather than winner-takes-all. This is a matter decided by each state, not the constitution or the federal government.
I think the flaw is winner-takes all, which distorts the popular vote in each state and keeps third parties from ever achieving electors. But the college itself (or any other mechanism like the congress is based on) is a fundamentally sound idea, that you must have a geographically broad appeal throughout the 50 states in order to be a capable and responsive president.
Yeah, because everyone knows that the only people who are "Real" veterans are infantry. Everyone else is a coward, even if their barracks are blown up by a viet cong suicide bomber. Not many viet cong blew up stuff in Texas, though...
That's a diagram of the ballot, with everything lined up perfectly.
In real life, the holes can easily be misaligned with the labels/arrows -- leading to the appearance of two holes by the democratic listing, and the arrow pointing exactly between them. THAT's what people are talking about, not what a diagram looks like...
No, overseas ballots have 10 days to reach florida (they must have been postmarked by the 7th). It may be that US-originating ballots have to be recieved by the 7th, but ones from overseas definitely do not...
Most of the Democrats who were in favor of the electoral system last week are still in favor of it (for example, this guy named Gore who you may have heard of -- still in favor of the electoral college, as well as all his publicly speaking advisors).
that made it even more clear to me that the Electoral College system is totally unfair
Unfair in the sense that 4 populous states (CA, FL, NY, and TX) can't impose their will on the rest of the country, yes. You have to have AT LEAST a dozen states to win under an electoral system, but under a popular system you can basically promise every federal dollar to those four states and the rest fo the country can go to hell...
Wow -- Gore was in Vietnam, carrying a full pack and a rifle. Bush was back home flying on the weekends and snorting coke. I can definitely see why the military guys prefer Bush...
Why do we have the electoral college system?
I think it is outdated for todays needs
It has nothing to do with the idea of "protecting" voters from themselves (despite what the conspiracy theorists would have you believe). We are a union of many individual states, not a country that happens to have subsections.
Our congress and our presidents are all elected by the states, and it's up to each state how to vote. If your state wants to hold a raffle for electoral college positions, there is nothing the federal government can legally do to stop it -- it's up to each state to execute the will of their own populations. This is to balance the power of the states against each other.
As it stands under a popular vote, the 5 largest states could single-handedly dictate to the rest of the states, which is unacceptable for obvious reasons. By using the electoral system (which grants 3 votes to even the smallest states) you ensure that the president has to have at least a three times that many, because it was considered unacceptable by the founding fathers that a president be elected without a significant minority of states voting for them...
Yeah, what's funny about it is that -- as much as people bitch about Clinton in the US -- if he could run again, he'd probably mop the floor with both of these guys...
anyone wanna tell me why Clinton didn't run again.. or did he and just no-one voted for him?
If you're serious (saying you're outside the USA), the reason is that we have a constitutional limit of two terms for the president (made during FDR's 4th term in office!), and Clinton has just served twice in a row...
I must assume you mean arson-related deaths. If a firman is killed in the line of duty, and the fire is arson related, the fireman died as a result of the deliberate actions of an individual. If the person is convicted of arson, they will also be responsible for the charge of wrongful death.
The legality has nothing to do with liking or disliking firemen
No, I mean literally killing a fireman in the line of duty -- shooting him while he's fighting a fire. Its a capital offense, with possible death penalty in many states. But if I get killed at work, you can't get the death penalty because it's just murder.
In other words, the penalty is greater depending on WHO you are killing -- the why doesn't even matter. So if hate crime legislation is just a step on the road to thought crime (because it matters WHO you kill, if they are black or gay, etc) then so is any other "special class" of crime.
So by your logic (that the hate crime laws are just a precursor to thought crime laws), we will eventually outlaw disliking firemen, because they, too, are a special, protected class of victim...
Slashdot Mirror
These are not the people who should be determining what is and is not good for you. A more valid approach would be convening an independent group of experts who would look at sites and give them their stamp of approval. They could also maintain a list of sites they considered quacky.
...
Political organizations are always tainted by their quest to increase their funding and power. If you doubt that, a close look at the EPA or the FDA should convince you rather quickly
So this group (WHO) is political and useless, but we should make another group because it would be better? How will this new group of people get funding and stay away from politics if they are rating all the medical information on the web?
You seem to be saying "these guys suck because they were appointed experts by the world" and that the solution is to appoint another group of experts by the world (just without all the bad parts).
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Geez, overreact much?
.who domain name, get a .com or whatever.
No one is going against the first amendment -- the WHO is suggesting that they be given a domain for health information that they consider accurate and reliable. Nowhere do they suggest that they shoud be given the authority to shut down sites they don't like in other domains, or censor anyone. If you want to post health information wihtout the WHO's approval, then don't get a
This is like complaining about consumer reports (or good housekeeping) because they somehow are going to prevent you from being able to buy bad products.
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How is the FDA or AMA more "legitimate" than the WHO? The AMA is literally "self-appointed" -- it was made and always run by doctors, it's own members. No outside regulation of the AMA exists. The FDA is a branch of the executive government, so it is clearly "politically appointed".
The WHO was at least set up by international cooperation as a "clearinghouse" for health cooperation and development. Doctors and governments participate in it...
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The concern with friendly fire isn't about allied aircraft -- you're correct that we alrady have decent friend-or-foe identification beacons on friendly aircraft to prevent us accidentally downing an allied plane.
The primary concern in frind-or-foe is in ground forces that have no such beacons, nor do they really have any way of carrying such.
The reason we lost so many forces to friendly fire during the Gulf War is that our ground forces were moving so quickly that they were frequently AHEAD of the official friend/foe demarcation. They were pushing so aggresively into Iraqi territory that they were mistaken by allied aircraft as thus being Iraqui forces and fired upon.
In almost every case the mistake was recongnized immediately, but of course once the Hellfire is launched it does little good to realize it was a friendly tank.
As much as we trust in technology the truth remains that we really have no 100% effective way of knowing exactly where friendly and enemy troops are int he heat of battle -- which is why, ultimately, we HAVE to rely on humans to make the call. if an aircraft's IFF is damaged that doesn't excuse our shooting it down, and the same goes for tanks.
Some of the fault belongs in the fact that our armed forces (like moth other government agencies) are decentralized -- the Army doesn't necessarily know exactly what the Air Force is doing, and vice versa. Of course they cooperate, and they are getting much better, but even within the Army you had most of the friendly fire due to simple inability to notify the Army air units that the Army ground units were progressing as quickly as they were. Picking individual tanks out of a skirmish would be an exercise in futility if there was not a human to make the call.
That said, the real advantage to unmanned craft is that they no longer have to keep within the physical constraints of safety for the pilot -- they can pull 15-G turns without a problem, and don't have to be designed to incorporate safety equipment or a feild of view for human eyes. They can be designed to be essentially disposable, perfectly aerodynamic, lighter, highly maneuverable, and with a minimal radar signature...
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And you are continuing to forget that rich people ALREADY can contract for my vote; the law just prohibits one particular arbitrary way of doing so.
Um, no -- spending money on advertising to try and persuade you is not "contracting" -- no matter how much money they blitz on you (as evidenced by this campaign where both spent tons of cash) you still don't guarantee anyone at all is going to vote for you.
The number of independently wealthy people spending 10x the amount of their competitors while running for congress rises every year, but they continually get smacked down for trying to "buy their way" into office.
But all of this is beside the point, which is that we as a society have the right, responsability, and ability to restrict voting for obvious reasons.
And it's worth noting that if your argument is simply "well, you can spend a shitload of money on campaigning", the VAST majority of people in the US are against that, as well -- indeed, we're unique in the world that we allow even that. That comes down to a matter of free speech, if it wasn't for our pesky first amendment we WOULD have limitations on that kind of fund-raising and spending. It's only inconsistent in that literally buying a vote could never be cnsidered political speech, but of course advertising (no matter how obnoxious or pricey) is still rightly considered speech.
And please, your transparent attempts to turn this into a partisan battle are sad, this has nothing to do with Gore or Bush or Clinton. You CAN'T buy or sell a vote, and buying advertising is not the same as buying votes no matter how hard you try to claim it is. Yes, giving someone cigarettes for a vote is illegal, and anyone doing it should be prosecuted for vote buying -- amazing you're no longer arguing that the homeless people are entitled to sell their votes for cigarettes, though. I guess people only should be allowed to sell them if they vote the same way you do?
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No, it's a limitation in what I can freely decide as an adult to do with my own freedom. Who asked you to protect me?
:) But you just seem to be ignoring the fact that your vote does not existly solely for your sake -- it is something that affects hundreds of millions of other people.
Who said anything about protecting you? Why would I or society give a damn if you waste your vote? Society is protecting ITSELF against those who would undermine the function of voting -- in other words, when your vote selling means that wealthy people get to vote more frequently than those who cannot afford to buy votes, we as society have had our agreed-upon mechanism of decision-making abused.
My vote is my basic inalienable right, not a "social contract" or privilege.
Okay, please explain how a vote can exist without a society. What does a vote amongst one person signify? The only purpose of voting is as a participation in a society that uses it as a decision-making mechanism.
There are plenty of things you don't get to vote directly on, and several things you vote on directly, others indirectly. You seem to be claiming that your right to vote is inherent by virtue of existing -- we should therefore vote on when anyone gets to take a shit. But we don't because it's pointless. We, as a society, have decided that sometimes we get together and vote on topics, sometimes we don't. When we do get together to vote, we do so within specific rules -- you have to use a ballot (you can't just write "george bush" on a piece of paper and hand it in).
You can't vote unless you're a citizen -- but by your logic, even foreigners should get to vote in US elections, since it is a right by virtue of existence. True RIGHTS are rights of all people, so for example you do not have to be a citizen of the US to have free speech, the right to assemble, or freedom of religion. But you cannot serve on a jury or vote -- because those are SOCIAL actions by which we participate in SOCIETY.
You must have society for the existence of a jury or a vote to mean something, therefore the society has to agree on how that jury and vote may function -- being on a jury does not mean you can convict someone regardless of the law, and having a vote does not mean you can sell it or transfer it. Your right and responsibility to jury duty does NOT mean that you have ultimate authority over guilt or innocence -- you still must abide by the law and if you don't you WILL be removed from the jury and have your verdict overturned. if you do not vote according to the law, your vote WILL be thrown out, as the 27,000 improper ballots in Florida attest.
Don't get me wrong -- I know what you're saying -- it makes me feel weird to say that your vote isn't YOURS, but at the same time, it's not just something that you have to dispose of, it's more of a social responsibility than a posession. Our entire government functions on the presupposition that, regardless of how wealthy or poor you might be, when you come to the ballot box, you have exactly one vote to cast (of course, depending on your state it's worth a different amount
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Again, false. You are allowed to contract for your vote, and it's done every day. You just aren't allowed to have a direct transfer of goods in return for a verified vote. It is perfectly kosher, however, to say "I'll vote for you if you'll vote to lift restrictions on encryption", followed by the candidate saying "ok, I'll do that, vote for me." It's even legal to follow that up by showing him your absentee ballot with his name on it, and letting him mail it for you, although that part of the exchange doesn't happen in practice
That is not selling a vote, that is voting based on an issue/campaign promise, etc. That is simply using your vote to achieve a goal that the person you are voting for can achieve while in office. Thats the entire point of voting -- to vote for those who will achieve your goals while in office. And frequently in a tit-for-tat fashion as in congress, you will vote one way on an issue to achieve cooperation on another issue -- essentially acieving a policy comprimise -- another purpose of voting, not a circumvention.
But by direct sale or transfer of a vote, you most definitely circumventing the purpose of voting, which is to represent the policy desires of the people.
I reiterate what I said; if I don't own my vote, and am not free to contract it in any way I choose, I am a slave, not a free man.
Please spare me the Ayn Rand hyperbole -- your vote is not a peiece of property. Your vote is a social contract, and forcing you to use it or not (without sale or transfer) is only a limitation in the influence others may have over you.
Votes DO NOT exist in a vaccuum -- if there was no society the entire concept of voting would be meaningless. Votes are a form of social perticipation, they do not arise "naturally" as a right of man like the ability to speak or move freely. They only have meaning in social groups that have agreed amongst all their members that voting will take place and be respected. therefore the value of the vote is only as great as the respect that all members of that group, and the group collectively place upon it.
You can't see the forest because you believe that your tree is a forest by itself, so you miss all the others...
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Several of those tiny litle staties are bigger than your tiny little countries, so I'm not sure where this comes from.
And the point he was making is that the states have 100% exclusive control of voting. No question, the US government has absolutely nothing to do with it. If a state decides to vote with glass beads in a fishbowl, while the electors place the official votes by pulling names from a hat -- they can do it. So it would take more than a suggestion to get all 50 states to use the same voting method...
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If you can dictate under what terms I can contract my vote, then I don't own it, you own it and are just extending me a privilege to use it.
You're right -- you don't own your vote. And you can't sell it. And no one is extending the privlege to use it -- it is not yours to "use", or to transfer or sell or loan or otherwise dispose of as personal property. It is yours to vote with, or not, as you see fit. But no other choice exists -- you vote, or not.
It's not a car for christ sake, it's the method by which we participate in society, and the underlying principle to this method is that each citizen has exactly ONE vote, no more no less, to be used by themselves and themselves only, no matter how rich or poor they may be.
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I dunno, they have sunday evening services here...
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I'm sure you've spent more time on Slashdot that that per week, and for what
karma, of course!!
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Okay, this is cool and all -- I mean, really I'm impressed. But, how can I say this ...
GET A LIFE!!!!!!
Don't get me wrong, but I think that maybe past a certain point just something being "neat" is not enough. To spend 155 weeks building what is essentially 30 seconds worth of "hey, that's cool" is just downright freakish. Maybe we should encourage slashdot readers to get outside and socialize, or do, essentially ANYTHING more productive than this.
That said, the scenes of the close-up death star with all the big sheets laid out are pretty cool looking, The bumps on the legos look like machinery detail.
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With an electoral college, you can get elected (in a 2-way race; the ratios are probably the same for more) with ~31% of the vote while the other guy gets 69% of the vote. Without the electoral college you need over 50%.
Don't forget that another purpose of the electoral college is to trim the number of candidates who ultimately get voted on in the electoral contest. We do require a mojority of the votes to be elected by the college, but rarely are presidents elected with a majority of the popular vote.
So no, you wouldn't have to get 50%+ to win under a popular vote -- you would need still only 30% or so, because the third parties and such chip away pretty significantly, especially in a situation where you're not "wasting" your vote by voting for a third party (in other words, the electoral college winner-takes-all discourages voting for a third party).
if it were purely popular we would have a LOT more third-party candidates, and you'd probably wind up with presidents being elected by 25% of the population, all grouped geographically. You'd get the whole Northeast together to elect a Boston guy who everyone else in the country hates, but their vote would be fractured among multiple parties, and with no electoral system to "recombine" their votes, they would essentially eat their own.
As bad as it is that we discourage third parties with the electoral college, the other side of "pure" democracy is a place like Italy, where you have 30+ political parties, and no one even remotely has a consensus. Pure popular vote isn't all fun and games like most portray it -- I can't think of a single successful government on Earth that uses popular vote that hasn't fragmented badly into numerous factions.
Most places have parliamentary systems where your representatives elect the president. Surprise -- that's a lot like the electoral system, except the electoral system is actually more democratic because we specifically vote the electors for that purpose, as opposed to having it be merely one job of the legislature. We are still, by far, more democratic that any other long-standing government, and we've accomplished that by carefully using the pragmatic aspects of a republic when necessary...
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Well, the limitation is why he isn't RUNNING for president, not why he can't ever be president again. Of course he could, but he can't RUN for the office...
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First of all, the electoral votes are allocated to states based on population, so, the electoral college system actually makes this sort of domination EASIER - after all, now you only need 51% in the most populous few states (I don't know how many you need, but not many)
You need at least the 14(15?) most populous states to win an alectoral contest. That's more (three times more) than you need in a popular vote.
Most of your arguments point out the flaw in winner-takes-all allocation of electors (you only need 51% of the vote) but the fundamental idea of balancing state powers remains. So complain to your state legislators to change your allocation method to proportional rather than winner-takes-all. This is a matter decided by each state, not the constitution or the federal government.
I think the flaw is winner-takes all, which distorts the popular vote in each state and keeps third parties from ever achieving electors. But the college itself (or any other mechanism like the congress is based on) is a fundamentally sound idea, that you must have a geographically broad appeal throughout the 50 states in order to be a capable and responsive president.
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Yeah, because everyone knows that the only people who are "Real" veterans are infantry. Everyone else is a coward, even if their barracks are blown up by a viet cong suicide bomber. Not many viet cong blew up stuff in Texas, though...
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That's a diagram of the ballot, with everything lined up perfectly.
In real life, the holes can easily be misaligned with the labels/arrows -- leading to the appearance of two holes by the democratic listing, and the arrow pointing exactly between them. THAT's what people are talking about, not what a diagram looks like...
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No, overseas ballots have 10 days to reach florida (they must have been postmarked by the 7th). It may be that US-originating ballots have to be recieved by the 7th, but ones from overseas definitely do not...
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Most of the Democrats who were in favor of the electoral system last week are still in favor of it (for example, this guy named Gore who you may have heard of -- still in favor of the electoral college, as well as all his publicly speaking advisors).
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that made it even more clear to me that the Electoral College system is totally unfair
Unfair in the sense that 4 populous states (CA, FL, NY, and TX) can't impose their will on the rest of the country, yes. You have to have AT LEAST a dozen states to win under an electoral system, but under a popular system you can basically promise every federal dollar to those four states and the rest fo the country can go to hell...
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Wow -- Gore was in Vietnam, carrying a full pack and a rifle. Bush was back home flying on the weekends and snorting coke. I can definitely see why the military guys prefer Bush...
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Why do we have the electoral college system?
I think it is outdated for todays needs
It has nothing to do with the idea of "protecting" voters from themselves (despite what the conspiracy theorists would have you believe). We are a union of many individual states, not a country that happens to have subsections.
Our congress and our presidents are all elected by the states, and it's up to each state how to vote. If your state wants to hold a raffle for electoral college positions, there is nothing the federal government can legally do to stop it -- it's up to each state to execute the will of their own populations. This is to balance the power of the states against each other.
As it stands under a popular vote, the 5 largest states could single-handedly dictate to the rest of the states, which is unacceptable for obvious reasons. By using the electoral system (which grants 3 votes to even the smallest states) you ensure that the president has to have at least a three times that many, because it was considered unacceptable by the founding fathers that a president be elected without a significant minority of states voting for them...
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Yeah, what's funny about it is that -- as much as people bitch about Clinton in the US -- if he could run again, he'd probably mop the floor with both of these guys...
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anyone wanna tell me why Clinton didn't run again.. or did he and just no-one voted for him?
If you're serious (saying you're outside the USA), the reason is that we have a constitutional limit of two terms for the president (made during FDR's 4th term in office!), and Clinton has just served twice in a row...
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I must assume you mean arson-related deaths. If a firman is killed in the line of duty, and the fire is arson related, the fireman died as a result of the deliberate actions of an individual. If the person is convicted of arson, they will also be responsible for the charge of wrongful death.
The legality has nothing to do with liking or disliking firemen
No, I mean literally killing a fireman in the line of duty -- shooting him while he's fighting a fire. Its a capital offense, with possible death penalty in many states. But if I get killed at work, you can't get the death penalty because it's just murder.
In other words, the penalty is greater depending on WHO you are killing -- the why doesn't even matter. So if hate crime legislation is just a step on the road to thought crime (because it matters WHO you kill, if they are black or gay, etc) then so is any other "special class" of crime.
So by your logic (that the hate crime laws are just a precursor to thought crime laws), we will eventually outlaw disliking firemen, because they, too, are a special, protected class of victim...
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