just remember, you are more intelligent than 90% (give or take a bit) of the rest of the U.S. -- most sheeple will fill those things out...accurately..and wouldn't know how to use junkbusters if their lives depended on it.
Jeez, I think I woke up on the cynical side of the bed this morning.
yeah, it's katz, the columnist slashdotters love to hate, but there's something of a lack of people out there willing to defend teenagers who are productive and positive (at least as much as any of us are) but who are different.
So agreed! I have similar-but-different problems (I'm dyslexic, and my *particular* [this is not the same for all dyslexics] issues are helped by flipping around font sizes, background and foreground colours and page layout -- generally, given the choice, I'll take white-on-black text based anything with reasonable layout...unfortunetly, slashdot's text-only options are not reasonable, so....)
I think the solution to the problem is to keep things customiseable -- originally, the point of html was to mark up text in such a way that the browser (and by extension, the user) could decide how to display it -- but this model has been largely discarded by web 'designers' (not all of them, but apparently the majority of those designing commercial sites, at least) who want as much control over how the web sites look to the end user as those same companies have over their TV ads (for example -- other advertising is similar) -- sure, they can't control whether or not you have a color or black and white TV, but they'll do their damndest to over ride your font settings (you can do some magic with X windows to help this in netscape, at least -- email me privately if you want those details, I'll have to go look them up again) color settings, etc etc. Some sites (extreme hardware comes to mind!) have their pages written such that if I bring the font to something I can read, all the letters overlap. This sucks. Of course, all this woudln't be a problem if designers designed with lynx in mind (not necessarily because it still wouldn't do that in netscape, but if I could navigate their sites with lynx I wouldn't be trying to make it readable with netscape instead).
That is, of course, just *one* area in which customization is definetly the way to go. I'm not sure how applicable this is to games (or desktop publishing, or a number of other things) it's merely the thing I've thought about the most, since it's the one area that I have to deal with more-or-less every day (I'm a unix sysadmin) that I cannot just default to the easier (for me) text interfaces. I do recognize that for a lot of people graphic interfaces are easier, but there is no one size fits all solution -- both because of individual preferences and actual physical and/or perceptual limitations. I just cannot really authoritatively comment on all of them (i.e. I can read text [formatted correctly] but graphics are generally useless to me, I have auditory processing problems that make using a screen reader completely useless -- if I ever go blind, it'll be a braille terminal for me:) -- but from what I've seen, most people who need non-visual input prefer screen readers to braille terminals) so the only things I can really say for sure is that *everyone* needs to be able to choose what works for them, and the only 100% intuitive interface is the nipple:)
Really, I think that customization (either of the underlying environment..i.e. X windows, or at the applications level) is the way to go. This is one of the reasons I like unix (all the really important stuff is text based, but you can write graphical widgets to interface with it if you like -- it's very modular) and open source (because in theory I can tinker with it until it works for me..in practice this is limited by my programming ability [which is really low right now, but something I want to get back into] but this is a limit I can overcome, unlike, say, getting closed source source to tinker with:P )
So is there a project out there dealing with user interface issues for people who don't have 'normal' perception (not just severely visually impaired people -- I'm aware of the blinux project, and think it's great and needed, but it's more specialized than what I'm thinking about, but also less-severely visually impaired folks, dyslexic folks and anyone else who thinks regular user interfaces don't work for them) within the open source community -- it strikes me that open source software would be the easiest to work with, both because the source is available and because the folks who write it are generally more available than the programmers and management at j. random software house.
> They won't have to if we go to a popular vote
> system
It's possible to win in the electoral system without winning votes in states where farmers are in the majority (in fact, if gore gets florida he may have, in practice, done that)
The thing is, with an electoral system candidates are encouraged to campaign to high population centers in high population states. With a popular system at least one of those is migitated (the other, trying to appeal to the most voters, is inherant in any one-and-only-one winner race, which is not a problem changing the EC can solve)
> This problem wcould be solved with a
> proportional electoral system
This is true, and there are a few suggested ones that I (personally) would find to be acceptable compromises.
> Except that the line-item veto has been declared
> unconstitutional due to the illegal delegation
> of power from the legislative to the executive
True (though I never quite understood that one, as it doesn't preclude line-item vetoes being overridden by a 2/3rds vote in congress, just as other vetoes are), but it would take just as much effort to make that constitutional as to abolish (or substantially change) the electoral system -- a constitutional amendment
> This is a good thing as it forces candidates to
> gravitate toward the center.
This is an argument I've seen before, and honestly it would make more sense if there was such a thing as a center on *all* issues combined
instead what happens is that we have two candidates who fiscally are very alike (their plans differ in the details, and while those details significantly effect certain individuals, the overall net effect is the same -- fairness in taxation is still a dream (and I'm not too hard to please in this one, either -- a flat tax with a reasonable cost-of-living exception, or a progressive tax where there weren't a billion loopholes for folks and corporations with lots of money to get out of paying it -- either would make me happy), corporate welfare is still a reality, etc etc), but in terms of the two major issues that many people choose their vote on (sad but true) gun control and abortion, they are diametrically opposed -- dems for nearly all abortion, for nearly all gun control -- reps against both. Rather than any party taking a reasonable, centrist view on these two major issues (want to stop gun deaths: start by educating kids -- eddie eagle is a good thing, but if handgun control inc wants to come up with something similar but not 'tainted' by the NRA that's fine by me; work on stopping violence -- not just gun violence -- ending the war on drugs would help this, actually punishing people for real crimes would help this [in several states the mandatory drug sentence minimums are higher than those for several violent crimes..this is sad] etc etc -- for abortion: sex ed does work, make birth control more available, end the ridiculous adoption system and put something reasonable in it's place and quit penalizing single parents)
Other than that: both candidates are for the death penalty (though gore seemed more likely to look into unfair uses of it than bush, who seems to be in denial) neither is particularly good abotu the environment (gore used to be, but his current record isn't making me think this anymore) etc etc
Instead of being pushed toward some mythical center, both seem to be pro-business *to the exclusion of the rights of individuals* and on the issues on which many people vote are actually quite polarized.
> I don't think I'd want a president with a 20%
> mandate.
It wouldn't happen that way with the president -- that's a winner take all race, and requires a 50%+1 vote
It could happen in house of reps races, assuming that a state had more than one rep and all reps were elected proportionally rather than by district -- which, btw, could give your farmers (and any other largish minority that lives in a state but does not necessarily all reside in the same district) more representation nationally -- if farmers made up 20% of a state, and the state had five reps, then there's a good chance one of them could be 'the farmer's rep' (all of this, of course, is very simplified, but I don't have time to go find a state and do statistical analysis on it's population and voting habits..and I certainly don't have time today to do this for all fifty states!)
Proportional representation only works if you have multiple winners. To use proportional representation to choose the executive branch of the U.S. would require there to be multiple presidents. While there's probably a defendable proposition in there, I haven't previously thought about it, and I'm not going to try to come up with one on the fly, here:)
> Things do not tilt too far in either direction
One could argue that in many cases things have tilted very far away from representation of the majority of people and towards representation of corporations and the few people at the top of them.
> which is wishful thinking (in the sense of being
> totally false).
Not really. Many nadar voters are not die-hard green members but raising protest votes instead. How many centrist voters would be lost of Gore would show some backbone and support traditional supporters of the democratic party (like unions) and consider real evironmental issues (like he did at one point)
Actually, they would have gained a lot of the nadar voters, without losing centrist voters, if they'd nominated bradley instead...but I digress.
> If the Electoral College goes away, the
> candidates will pander to the large population
> centers.
As you said, they already do this to a certain extent. Because the presendential race is a winner-take-all one person race this is inherently a problem. I don't think an argument can be made that the president should represent farmers (or any other minority population) *over* the majority. Also, the large farming states are not necessarily small population states (i.e. California is a very large farming state, and has a large populace as well) -- individuals who are in the minority get *less* say with the current electoral system because their votes essentially get cancled when the majority takes their state -- only in states where the majority of the people are otherwise a minority is this not true, and in the case of farmers, that would require that state to have a low human-to-land population, therefore it would likely also have fewer electoral votes. It would take doing statistical analysis that I don't have time for to prove or disprove that the EC gives minority populations (i.e. farmers) more power, but at first glance I doubt it.
> more radical factions of the ruling coalition
> can force concessions to their radical agenda
Granted -- this already happens in the U.S. to a certain extant -- and while I can easily see that there would be differences in the concessions, I'm not sure that they would be significantly more negative for the citizens of the U.S. Line item veto and not allowing unrelated items to be voted on at the same time (i.e. the CDA in whatever bill it was squished into) would go a long way in helping this in either our current system or this hypothetical one.
>This happens in Isreal, for example
Isreal is probably a bad country to point to in terms of how a specific type of government would work in the U.S. It has some very specific problems of it's own that aren't applicable here.
Also, the current system (winner-takes-all) in practice leads to a two party system. If the only way to win is to get 50%+1 of the votes (as is the case for senate, house and everything but the pres, basically) then it only makes sense for smaller interests (who might have 10 or 20 or 40% of the vote) to team up with others -- whereas with a multi-winner system you might win with 30 or 40% of the vote (or even 20 or ten, depending on how many candidates there are for how many positions, and how the votes come out)
> Women being a minority in government has
> absolutey nothing to do with women having the
> power to elect whomever they wish.
Assuming whomever they wish is on the ballot (yes, third parties can get on the ballot, but getting more than just local seats is unlikely -- and writeins are nice in theory, but I don't know of any national election where a write in candidate has won). This is less of an issue with women, as a bloc (though I'm not entirely positive of this -- an argument could be made that were there more candidates that effectively represented women, more women would vote based on that, rather than voting for the least evil, but without seeing it in practice, it's a bit hard to prove) than it is for poor and middle class voters. Can you really argue that the majority of poor and middle class voters were happy with their choices this year? Judging from the news and from talking with others I don't think that argument will hold up very well. Whether they vote as a bloc isn't so much the question as whether they are currently represented. Judging from what I see, Americans don't generally feel like they are represented at the national level.
Would a multi-winner system help this? I think so -- first, it would allow people to proportionally represented at a much finer grained level than is now possible (i.e. say you're in a state, and your state has ten reps in the house -- so you have ten districts in your state -- and 20% of the state x way on an issue, 30% feels y way and 50% feels z way -- if these people were evenly distributed and the election were held on just this issue, then you'd get 10 reps for z -- proportionally however, you'd get 2 for x, 3 for y and 5 for z -- obviously, this is way oversimplified, as house reps shouldn't be elected on one issue and distributions don't tend to be *that* even, but this is illustration:) ) and allow for more viable candidates, meaning more diversity to choose from (rather than the pro-corporate rich white guy from tennesee or the pro-corporate rich white guy from texas or maybe the well-off but not so rich white guys from those other two parties that are pretty much protest votes as no one actually thinks they are gonna be president -- though I'll grant that that's not an election that would be affected by this, I doubt you'd recognize it if I tried for the local reps here -- but the amount of choice in house of rep elections is not much better). Second, it would break the hegemony of the current two party system (that is a direct result of a winner take all system) resulting in more parties and more choices for people to choose from.
Especially since, while there are small differences between the two parties, there is a fair amount of truth that the two parties resemble eachother -- much more so than, say, the greens and the libertarians, or the libertarians and the reform (etc)
> But getting more candidates in the debate would
> go a long way to at least giving information to
> voters
> Every Gore or Bush vote could become meaningless
> because of a couple thousand people in Florida.
BS.
Yes, the primary purpose of your vote is to figure out which white dude is gonna be the head of state for the next four years
however -- votes also show what the country is thinking -- every vote for nader *ought* to tell the dems to move their asses back to the left -- every vote for gore ought to tell the republicans-in-charge (not the rank and file, as they seem to know this) to get the hell out of the religious right's pants!
However, if the condom breaks (or if the guy refuses to wear the condom and insists on sex anyway -- this is generally known as rape if the woman protests) and someone gets pregnant, it won't be you.
And you'll never be in the position of not having enough money to go to canada or mexico or a more liberal state within 2 months. And then pay for an abortion on top of that.
> There are many other very important issues out
> there, which the republicans and democrats have
> sold us out on.
> Nope. You'll kill the elective power of small
> states, as has been explained many, many times.
And this is a bad thing? All of us are affected by the president -- not the states, and not just people in small states.
> Nope. Coalition governments are bad (tyranny of
> the minority).
A. I'm not sure what tyranny of the minority is. Presumably bills etc would still require half the votes to win and 2/3rds to override veto.
B. as if we don't have tyranny of the minority already (most of the U.S. is middle class or poor, most of the elected officials are well to do. Women make a slight majority of the population, yet are a clear minority in government. Non-whites are not proportionally represented either, though they aren't a majority yet, they will likely be in the next fifty years or so, and this is what I can think of off the top of my head)
> Yes, we need campaign finance reform. I don't
> know if a spending cap is the answer, but
> something should be done.
Agreed, though I also don't know what. I've seen several people rant about 'soft money' ads inparticular -- people and groups who use their own money to endorse a particular candidate without that candidate endorsing their ad -- I don't see a way to control that without evilly stripping the first admendment -- but there are certainly things that could be done with the official campaigns that would help.
Considering that hundreds, if not thousands of teenagers are held accountable as adults for crimes they have committed (or allegedly committed) in this country already, I'm not sure that the argument that children are held to be less accountable for their actions than adults is an airtight argument. It has merit, but overall more people under 18 are being charged as adults than ten years ago, or twenty years ago, and as far as I can tell, the system is moving towards charging more juveniles as adults than charging fewer juveniles as adults or staying the same.
Certainly, juveniles charged as adults are being held accountable as adults without ever having been given the right to vote.
Considering that juvenile offenders that are prosecuted as juveniles do not get the guarantees of a jury trial and other rights granted to adult defendants I'm not sure that that the 'juvenile justice system' gives juvenile defendants any advantages over adult defendants and does give them clear disadvantages.
Considering that juveniles may legally be detained without trial in both detention centers and psychiatric institutions in many states, it's clear that adults are not held as accountable in their dealings with juveniles as they are in their dealings with other adults.
I think an argument could be made that an average ten year old is definetly capable of understanding that stabbing someone is wrong, and can kill them, and death is permanant. This cannot be said of a two or three year old. However, there are adults who do not understand these things either (because of insanity or mental slowness or chemical usage etc) and we do not unilaterally prevent them from voting. When they do stab someone there are already provisions in our laws and customs for them, I see no real barriers to extending those provisions to cover children who cannot yet understand (or even may never understand) why stabbing someone (or stealing, or whatever) is wrong. And deciding whether or not a child was capable of understanding that should be done on a case by case basis, just as deciding whether an adult was not able to understand the consequences of their actions (say, because of temporary insanity) is done on a case by case basis.
I do believe that children should have separate detention centers and psych wards and such, but that's more an issue of practicality and protecting them from bigger (physically) predators, just as women have separate prisons but do not have a separate justice system.
So how do military members (and their families) who are from florida but not stationed there vote?
After all, it can't be assumed that they can have their absentee ballots sent to their mommy's house.
And as far as cops and law goes, I have to carry several pages worth of California vehical code around with me to occasionally thwack the local constabulatory, who haven't the foggiest notion what a moped is or what is legal to do with it. Cops, in my experience (and not just with mopeds) often do not have a really good idea of what actually is legal and not (beyond the obvious duh stuff)
Only really on the issue of how much power the government should have
since until we have a green or libertarian majorities (or at least much more significant minorities than we do now) it doesn't really matter -- just having a vote that disrupts the dem-rep hegemony is more important than whether they are voting for or against many issues (corporate welfare, abortion, etc) because of green reasons (hate corporations, feminism) or libertarian reasons (get the government out of business/personal lives)
At the point at which third parties become viable alternatives (I'm hoping that an influx of third parties -- any third parties, will help dismantle the policies that make it hard for third parties to gain foothold in the U.S. though I'm not holding my breath) then libertarian ideals vs green ideals will matter more
but honestly, people who follow either philosophy will come up with viable policies, and better policies than what the dems and reps come up with now
(yes there are differences, but either approach is more positive than what we have now, basically)
Out of curiosity then, how do they deal with military service folks (and their families) who are from florida yet are stationed elsewhere (in the U.S. or overseas)
I believe (could be wrong, as it's been a few years since it's mattered to me) that florida (and every state) must allow service people who were legally residents of florida before enlistment to continue paying taxes there and vote there (by absentee ballot, if necessary)
Anyway, this all smells a bit fishy/oversimplified to me -- I have a hard time believing that if I go to disneyworld for two weeks I automagically become a florida resident -- I'd check how they define residence again. And see what exceptions they have (military and out-of-state student exceptions esspecially)
not digital, but if you think ahead by about a month you can get an absentee ballot -- write out a request, address an envelope, put a stamp on it, mail it -- voila...no line
something to think about next year, perhaps
(personally I don't trust non-geeks to have enough of a security clue to do digital voting yet -- I'm not sure I trust the current system, but I do trust it more than I'd trust a website at this point -- not because the tools to secure it aren't there [they are] but because I don't trust local gov't to have nearly enough clues to actually use them appropriately)
bah, I think anyone who is physically capable of indicating thier choice of candidate should be able to vote -- even 2 and 3 year olds
yeah, sure, most kids will probably vote for whomever their parents vote for (of course, coming from a family where my mom reliably voted democrat and my dad reliably voted republican I suspect this might be more complicated for some kids:P )
But I'd hazard to say that most *adults* in this country vote on equally spurious grounds -- growing up, most adults I knew voted republican or democrat, rather than candidate by candidate -- in fact, the first time I voted (in virginia) the ballot actually had an option to fill in one box to vote all dem or all rep. Many adults that I talk to are ignorant about most issues (I respect people who look at the facts and come to different conclusions than I do, I have a hard time respecting people who don't bother looking for facts and/or spout spurious facts [kids are more likely to be killed by gunfire in school than graduate college sort of things -- yes, someone said that to me recently] )
In otherwords, there would probably be no real difference in the results of the actual election, but kids would learn from day one that they are citizens with responsibilities and a voice (however small)
this is true (for most of us -- my friends who work for the gov't get today *and* friday off, the bastards), however, in most states your employer is *required* to give you time off to vote if you cannot otherwise vote...
Also, I believe it is now federally mandated that voter registration cards be available at all DMVs (or whereever you get driver's licenses in your state) -- btw, which state does your friend live in (I'm curious)
you can also (as others mentioned) think ahead next year and request a mail-in ballot.
2. this is so true. I voted third party for *most* of the races I could vote for today for that reason (the only ones in which I voted for a rep or dem [yup, I voted for one of each] were close races where I thought there was a significant difference between the two candidates) But even then I know it's a protest vote, only slightly more useful than writing in mickey mouse
I'm gonna add a third complaint, though
3. It's effing *hard* to get straight information about any of the candidates (except perhaps the presidential candidates -- but even there most of the data is so clouded by spin and politics that I'm not sure what to trust -- everyone is claiming the media is biased against them, for instance) -- and the difficulty increases as you get more local (except for some very local candidates -- I finally decided that if all I could find about you was two pieces of paper -- one from the booklet put out by the city and the one you put on my door/mailed to me that both are mostly useless in ascertaining your actual positions, even if you otherwise sounded good to me, you didn't want to be on the city council/whatever bad enough -- how hard is it to get one of your supporters to make you a web page, really! Some local candidates were great about this, though -- one showed up in person on my doorstep last month and several had homepages and/or email addresses)
the underground paper I ran in high school is listed in my school and psych (yeah, I'm one of those who got institutionalized as a teen for being different. oops) records as the *only* behavior problem I had
I didn't find this out until after I left college, but you can bet that was on every application I filled out. Every interview I went to I got asked about it, and no one at the colleges seemed to think it was a bad thing.
It might also be a good way to weed out the really oppressive schools.
I assume you only did this a few moves into the game -- because the first few moves *must* be guessing (since faced with a field of unknowns, or mostly unknowns and one '1' block, one doesn't have enough data to make even an educated guess)
actually, I have a CD that includes Monty Python doing the galaxy song -- it also has 'Sit on my face', the philosopher's drinking song, everyone's favorite 'The lumberjack song', 'eric the half-a-bee' and a bunch of others...unfortunetly, it's at home, so I don't know what it's called, but yes, they did do the galaxy song.
Slashdot Mirror
just remember, you are more intelligent than 90% (give or take a bit) of the rest of the U.S. -- most sheeple will fill those things out...accurately..and wouldn't know how to use junkbusters if their lives depended on it.
Jeez, I think I woke up on the cynical side of the bed this morning.
You know, being an ex-capitol hill resident, I think I have to agree.
hey, beats the hell out of cutting funds to the busses and opening up the HOV lanes for more of those damnable SUVs
why are there so many SUVs in capitol hill anyway?
(I escaped last spring..I miss seattle though...even the damn yuppie ford expiditions trying to mow me down behind my apartment building)
you do realize that .ch is switzerland, and not china, right?
yeah, it's katz, the columnist slashdotters love to hate, but there's something of a lack of people out there willing to defend teenagers who are productive and positive (at least as much as any of us are) but who are different.
I'm glad to see this, at least.
or at least reasonably pleasant tasting
they do wonderful things with flavored lubes these days....
So agreed! I have similar-but-different problems (I'm dyslexic, and my *particular* [this is not the same for all dyslexics] issues are helped by flipping around font sizes, background and foreground colours and page layout -- generally, given the choice, I'll take white-on-black text based anything with reasonable layout...unfortunetly, slashdot's text-only options are not reasonable, so....)
:) -- but from what I've seen, most people who need non-visual input prefer screen readers to braille terminals) so the only things I can really say for sure is that *everyone* needs to be able to choose what works for them, and the only 100% intuitive interface is the nipple :)
:P )
I think the solution to the problem is to keep things customiseable -- originally, the point of html was to mark up text in such a way that the browser (and by extension, the user) could decide how to display it -- but this model has been largely discarded by web 'designers' (not all of them, but apparently the majority of those designing commercial sites, at least) who want as much control over how the web sites look to the end user as those same companies have over their TV ads (for example -- other advertising is similar) -- sure, they can't control whether or not you have a color or black and white TV, but they'll do their damndest to over ride your font settings (you can do some magic with X windows to help this in netscape, at least -- email me privately if you want those details, I'll have to go look them up again) color settings, etc etc. Some sites (extreme hardware comes to mind!) have their pages written such that if I bring the font to something I can read, all the letters overlap. This sucks. Of course, all this woudln't be a problem if designers designed with lynx in mind (not necessarily because it still wouldn't do that in netscape, but if I could navigate their sites with lynx I wouldn't be trying to make it readable with netscape instead).
That is, of course, just *one* area in which customization is definetly the way to go. I'm not sure how applicable this is to games (or desktop publishing, or a number of other things) it's merely the thing I've thought about the most, since it's the one area that I have to deal with more-or-less every day (I'm a unix sysadmin) that I cannot just default to the easier (for me) text interfaces. I do recognize that for a lot of people graphic interfaces are easier, but there is no one size fits all solution -- both because of individual preferences and actual physical and/or perceptual limitations. I just cannot really authoritatively comment on all of them (i.e. I can read text [formatted correctly] but graphics are generally useless to me, I have auditory processing problems that make using a screen reader completely useless -- if I ever go blind, it'll be a braille terminal for me
Really, I think that customization (either of the underlying environment..i.e. X windows, or at the applications level) is the way to go. This is one of the reasons I like unix (all the really important stuff is text based, but you can write graphical widgets to interface with it if you like -- it's very modular) and open source (because in theory I can tinker with it until it works for me..in practice this is limited by my programming ability [which is really low right now, but something I want to get back into] but this is a limit I can overcome, unlike, say, getting closed source source to tinker with
So is there a project out there dealing with user interface issues for people who don't have 'normal' perception (not just severely visually impaired people -- I'm aware of the blinux project, and think it's great and needed, but it's more specialized than what I'm thinking about, but also less-severely visually impaired folks, dyslexic folks and anyone else who thinks regular user interfaces don't work for them) within the open source community -- it strikes me that open source software would be the easiest to work with, both because the source is available and because the folks who write it are generally more available than the programmers and management at j. random software house.
> They won't have to if we go to a popular vote
:)
> system
It's possible to win in the electoral system without winning votes in states where farmers are in the majority (in fact, if gore gets florida he may have, in practice, done that)
The thing is, with an electoral system candidates are encouraged to campaign to high population centers in high population states. With a popular system at least one of those is migitated (the other, trying to appeal to the most voters, is inherant in any one-and-only-one winner race, which is not a problem changing the EC can solve)
> This problem wcould be solved with a
> proportional electoral system
This is true, and there are a few suggested ones that I (personally) would find to be acceptable compromises.
> Except that the line-item veto has been declared
> unconstitutional due to the illegal delegation
> of power from the legislative to the executive
True (though I never quite understood that one, as it doesn't preclude line-item vetoes being overridden by a 2/3rds vote in congress, just as other vetoes are), but it would take just as much effort to make that constitutional as to abolish (or substantially change) the electoral system -- a constitutional amendment
> This is a good thing as it forces candidates to
> gravitate toward the center.
This is an argument I've seen before, and honestly it would make more sense if there was such a thing as a center on *all* issues combined
instead what happens is that we have two candidates who fiscally are very alike (their plans differ in the details, and while those details significantly effect certain individuals, the overall net effect is the same -- fairness in taxation is still a dream (and I'm not too hard to please in this one, either -- a flat tax with a reasonable cost-of-living exception, or a progressive tax where there weren't a billion loopholes for folks and corporations with lots of money to get out of paying it -- either would make me happy), corporate welfare is still a reality, etc etc), but in terms of the two major issues that many people choose their vote on (sad but true) gun control and abortion, they are diametrically opposed -- dems for nearly all abortion, for nearly all gun control -- reps against both. Rather than any party taking a reasonable, centrist view on these two major issues (want to stop gun deaths: start by educating kids -- eddie eagle is a good thing, but if handgun control inc wants to come up with something similar but not 'tainted' by the NRA that's fine by me; work on stopping violence -- not just gun violence -- ending the war on drugs would help this, actually punishing people for real crimes would help this [in several states the mandatory drug sentence minimums are higher than those for several violent crimes..this is sad] etc etc -- for abortion: sex ed does work, make birth control more available, end the ridiculous adoption system and put something reasonable in it's place and quit penalizing single parents)
Other than that: both candidates are for the death penalty (though gore seemed more likely to look into unfair uses of it than bush, who seems to be in denial) neither is particularly good abotu the environment (gore used to be, but his current record isn't making me think this anymore) etc etc
Instead of being pushed toward some mythical center, both seem to be pro-business *to the exclusion of the rights of individuals* and on the issues on which many people vote are actually quite polarized.
> I don't think I'd want a president with a 20%
> mandate.
It wouldn't happen that way with the president -- that's a winner take all race, and requires a 50%+1 vote
It could happen in house of reps races, assuming that a state had more than one rep and all reps were elected proportionally rather than by district -- which, btw, could give your farmers (and any other largish minority that lives in a state but does not necessarily all reside in the same district) more representation nationally -- if farmers made up 20% of a state, and the state had five reps, then there's a good chance one of them could be 'the farmer's rep' (all of this, of course, is very simplified, but I don't have time to go find a state and do statistical analysis on it's population and voting habits..and I certainly don't have time today to do this for all fifty states!)
Proportional representation only works if you have multiple winners. To use proportional representation to choose the executive branch of the U.S. would require there to be multiple presidents. While there's probably a defendable proposition in there, I haven't previously thought about it, and I'm not going to try to come up with one on the fly, here
> Things do not tilt too far in either direction
One could argue that in many cases things have tilted very far away from representation of the majority of people and towards representation of corporations and the few people at the top of them.
> which is wishful thinking (in the sense of being
> totally false).
Not really. Many nadar voters are not die-hard green members but raising protest votes instead. How many centrist voters would be lost of Gore would show some backbone and support traditional supporters of the democratic party (like unions) and consider real evironmental issues (like he did at one point)
Actually, they would have gained a lot of the nadar voters, without losing centrist voters, if they'd nominated bradley instead...but I digress.
> If the Electoral College goes away, the
:) ) and allow for more viable candidates, meaning more diversity to choose from (rather than the pro-corporate rich white guy from tennesee or the pro-corporate rich white guy from texas or maybe the well-off but not so rich white guys from those other two parties that are pretty much protest votes as no one actually thinks they are gonna be president -- though I'll grant that that's not an election that would be affected by this, I doubt you'd recognize it if I tried for the local reps here -- but the amount of choice in house of rep elections is not much better). Second, it would break the hegemony of the current two party system (that is a direct result of a winner take all system) resulting in more parties and more choices for people to choose from.
> candidates will pander to the large population
> centers.
As you said, they already do this to a certain extent. Because the presendential race is a winner-take-all one person race this is inherently a problem. I don't think an argument can be made that the president should represent farmers (or any other minority population) *over* the majority. Also, the large farming states are not necessarily small population states (i.e. California is a very large farming state, and has a large populace as well) -- individuals who are in the minority get *less* say with the current electoral system because their votes essentially get cancled when the majority takes their state -- only in states where the majority of the people are otherwise a minority is this not true, and in the case of farmers, that would require that state to have a low human-to-land population, therefore it would likely also have fewer electoral votes. It would take doing statistical analysis that I don't have time for to prove or disprove that the EC gives minority populations (i.e. farmers) more power, but at first glance I doubt it.
> more radical factions of the ruling coalition
> can force concessions to their radical agenda
Granted -- this already happens in the U.S. to a certain extant -- and while I can easily see that there would be differences in the concessions, I'm not sure that they would be significantly more negative for the citizens of the U.S. Line item veto and not allowing unrelated items to be voted on at the same time (i.e. the CDA in whatever bill it was squished into) would go a long way in helping this in either our current system or this hypothetical one.
>This happens in Isreal, for example
Isreal is probably a bad country to point to in terms of how a specific type of government would work in the U.S. It has some very specific problems of it's own that aren't applicable here.
Also, the current system (winner-takes-all) in practice leads to a two party system. If the only way to win is to get 50%+1 of the votes (as is the case for senate, house and everything but the pres, basically) then it only makes sense for smaller interests (who might have 10 or 20 or 40% of the vote) to team up with others -- whereas with a multi-winner system you might win with 30 or 40% of the vote (or even 20 or ten, depending on how many candidates there are for how many positions, and how the votes come out)
> Women being a minority in government has
> absolutey nothing to do with women having the
> power to elect whomever they wish.
Assuming whomever they wish is on the ballot (yes, third parties can get on the ballot, but getting more than just local seats is unlikely -- and writeins are nice in theory, but I don't know of any national election where a write in candidate has won). This is less of an issue with women, as a bloc (though I'm not entirely positive of this -- an argument could be made that were there more candidates that effectively represented women, more women would vote based on that, rather than voting for the least evil, but without seeing it in practice, it's a bit hard to prove) than it is for poor and middle class voters. Can you really argue that the majority of poor and middle class voters were happy with their choices this year? Judging from the news and from talking with others I don't think that argument will hold up very well. Whether they vote as a bloc isn't so much the question as whether they are currently represented. Judging from what I see, Americans don't generally feel like they are represented at the national level.
Would a multi-winner system help this? I think so -- first, it would allow people to proportionally represented at a much finer grained level than is now possible (i.e. say you're in a state, and your state has ten reps in the house -- so you have ten districts in your state -- and 20% of the state x way on an issue, 30% feels y way and 50% feels z way -- if these people were evenly distributed and the election were held on just this issue, then you'd get 10 reps for z -- proportionally however, you'd get 2 for x, 3 for y and 5 for z -- obviously, this is way oversimplified, as house reps shouldn't be elected on one issue and distributions don't tend to be *that* even, but this is illustration
Especially since, while there are small differences between the two parties, there is a fair amount of truth that the two parties resemble eachother -- much more so than, say, the greens and the libertarians, or the libertarians and the reform (etc)
> But getting more candidates in the debate would
> go a long way to at least giving information to
> voters
Most definetly agreed!
> Every Gore or Bush vote could become meaningless
:)
> because of a couple thousand people in Florida.
BS.
Yes, the primary purpose of your vote is to figure out which white dude is gonna be the head of state for the next four years
however -- votes also show what the country is thinking -- every vote for nader *ought* to tell the dems to move their asses back to the left -- every vote for gore ought to tell the republicans-in-charge (not the rank and file, as they seem to know this) to get the hell out of the religious right's pants!
etc
> Use a condom. Or go to Canada. DUH.
However, if the condom breaks (or if the guy refuses to wear the condom and insists on sex anyway -- this is generally known as rape if the woman protests) and someone gets pregnant, it won't be you.
And you'll never be in the position of not having enough money to go to canada or mexico or a more liberal state within 2 months. And then pay for an abortion on top of that.
> There are many other very important issues out
> there, which the republicans and democrats have
> sold us out on.
agreed.
> Nope. You'll kill the elective power of small
> states, as has been explained many, many times.
And this is a bad thing? All of us are affected by the president -- not the states, and not just people in small states.
> Nope. Coalition governments are bad (tyranny of
> the minority).
A. I'm not sure what tyranny of the minority is. Presumably bills etc would still require half the votes to win and 2/3rds to override veto.
B. as if we don't have tyranny of the minority already (most of the U.S. is middle class or poor, most of the elected officials are well to do. Women make a slight majority of the population, yet are a clear minority in government. Non-whites are not proportionally represented either, though they aren't a majority yet, they will likely be in the next fifty years or so, and this is what I can think of off the top of my head)
> Yes, we need campaign finance reform. I don't
> know if a spending cap is the answer, but
> something should be done.
Agreed, though I also don't know what. I've seen several people rant about 'soft money' ads inparticular -- people and groups who use their own money to endorse a particular candidate without that candidate endorsing their ad -- I don't see a way to control that without evilly stripping the first admendment -- but there are certainly things that could be done with the official campaigns that would help.
has anyone noticed that abcnews is reporting that bush won florida, but excite (and apparently npr) are reporting that gore did?
Perhaps abcnews is jumping the gun?
(didn't a newspaper do that earlier this century, necessitating a whole extra run to correct for this?)
Considering that hundreds, if not thousands of teenagers are held accountable as adults for crimes they have committed (or allegedly committed) in this country already, I'm not sure that the argument that children are held to be less accountable for their actions than adults is an airtight argument. It has merit, but overall more people under 18 are being charged as adults than ten years ago, or twenty years ago, and as far as I can tell, the system is moving towards charging more juveniles as adults than charging fewer juveniles as adults or staying the same.
Certainly, juveniles charged as adults are being held accountable as adults without ever having been given the right to vote.
Considering that juvenile offenders that are prosecuted as juveniles do not get the guarantees of a jury trial and other rights granted to adult defendants I'm not sure that that the 'juvenile justice system' gives juvenile defendants any advantages over adult defendants and does give them clear disadvantages.
Considering that juveniles may legally be detained without trial in both detention centers and psychiatric institutions in many states, it's clear that adults are not held as accountable in their dealings with juveniles as they are in their dealings with other adults.
I think an argument could be made that an average ten year old is definetly capable of understanding that stabbing someone is wrong, and can kill them, and death is permanant. This cannot be said of a two or three year old. However, there are adults who do not understand these things either (because of insanity or mental slowness or chemical usage etc) and we do not unilaterally prevent them from voting. When they do stab someone there are already provisions in our laws and customs for them, I see no real barriers to extending those provisions to cover children who cannot yet understand (or even may never understand) why stabbing someone (or stealing, or whatever) is wrong. And deciding whether or not a child was capable of understanding that should be done on a case by case basis, just as deciding whether an adult was not able to understand the consequences of their actions (say, because of temporary insanity) is done on a case by case basis.
I do believe that children should have separate detention centers and psych wards and such, but that's more an issue of practicality and protecting them from bigger (physically) predators, just as women have separate prisons but do not have a separate justice system.
So how do military members (and their families) who are from florida but not stationed there vote?
After all, it can't be assumed that they can have their absentee ballots sent to their mommy's house.
And as far as cops and law goes, I have to carry several pages worth of California vehical code around with me to occasionally thwack the local constabulatory, who haven't the foggiest notion what a moped is or what is legal to do with it. Cops, in my experience (and not just with mopeds) often do not have a really good idea of what actually is legal and not (beyond the obvious duh stuff)
I got the number of the woman manning (erm, womanning?) the table where they look at your card and check you off and such.
No really.
Turns out she lives across the street from me (I didn't know this)
I guess I'll just have to have her over for tea or something.
Only really on the issue of how much power the government should have
since until we have a green or libertarian majorities (or at least much more significant minorities than we do now) it doesn't really matter -- just having a vote that disrupts the dem-rep hegemony is more important than whether they are voting for or against many issues (corporate welfare, abortion, etc) because of green reasons (hate corporations, feminism) or libertarian reasons (get the government out of business/personal lives)
At the point at which third parties become viable alternatives (I'm hoping that an influx of third parties -- any third parties, will help dismantle the policies that make it hard for third parties to gain foothold in the U.S. though I'm not holding my breath) then libertarian ideals vs green ideals will matter more
but honestly, people who follow either philosophy will come up with viable policies, and better policies than what the dems and reps come up with now
(yes there are differences, but either approach is more positive than what we have now, basically)
Out of curiosity then, how do they deal with military service folks (and their families) who are from florida yet are stationed elsewhere (in the U.S. or overseas)
I believe (could be wrong, as it's been a few years since it's mattered to me) that florida (and every state) must allow service people who were legally residents of florida before enlistment to continue paying taxes there and vote there (by absentee ballot, if necessary)
Anyway, this all smells a bit fishy/oversimplified to me -- I have a hard time believing that if I go to disneyworld for two weeks I automagically become a florida resident -- I'd check how they define residence again. And see what exceptions they have (military and out-of-state student exceptions esspecially)
not digital, but if you think ahead by about a month you can get an absentee ballot -- write out a request, address an envelope, put a stamp on it, mail it -- voila...no line
something to think about next year, perhaps
(personally I don't trust non-geeks to have enough of a security clue to do digital voting yet -- I'm not sure I trust the current system, but I do trust it more than I'd trust a website at this point -- not because the tools to secure it aren't there [they are] but because I don't trust local gov't to have nearly enough clues to actually use them appropriately)
bah, I think anyone who is physically capable of indicating thier choice of candidate should be able to vote -- even 2 and 3 year olds
:P )
yeah, sure, most kids will probably vote for whomever their parents vote for (of course, coming from a family where my mom reliably voted democrat and my dad reliably voted republican I suspect this might be more complicated for some kids
But I'd hazard to say that most *adults* in this country vote on equally spurious grounds -- growing up, most adults I knew voted republican or democrat, rather than candidate by candidate -- in fact, the first time I voted (in virginia) the ballot actually had an option to fill in one box to vote all dem or all rep. Many adults that I talk to are ignorant about most issues (I respect people who look at the facts and come to different conclusions than I do, I have a hard time respecting people who don't bother looking for facts and/or spout spurious facts [kids are more likely to be killed by gunfire in school than graduate college sort of things -- yes, someone said that to me recently] )
In otherwords, there would probably be no real difference in the results of the actual election, but kids would learn from day one that they are citizens with responsibilities and a voice (however small)
> Election day is not a holiday here
this is true (for most of us -- my friends who work for the gov't get today *and* friday off, the bastards), however, in most states your employer is *required* to give you time off to vote if you cannot otherwise vote...
Also, I believe it is now federally mandated that voter registration cards be available at all DMVs (or whereever you get driver's licenses in your state) -- btw, which state does your friend live in (I'm curious)
you can also (as others mentioned) think ahead next year and request a mail-in ballot.
2. this is so true. I voted third party for *most* of the races I could vote for today for that reason (the only ones in which I voted for a rep or dem [yup, I voted for one of each] were close races where I thought there was a significant difference between the two candidates) But even then I know it's a protest vote, only slightly more useful than writing in mickey mouse
I'm gonna add a third complaint, though
3. It's effing *hard* to get straight information about any of the candidates (except perhaps the presidential candidates -- but even there most of the data is so clouded by spin and politics that I'm not sure what to trust -- everyone is claiming the media is biased against them, for instance) -- and the difficulty increases as you get more local (except for some very local candidates -- I finally decided that if all I could find about you was two pieces of paper -- one from the booklet put out by the city and the one you put on my door/mailed to me that both are mostly useless in ascertaining your actual positions, even if you otherwise sounded good to me, you didn't want to be on the city council/whatever bad enough -- how hard is it to get one of your supporters to make you a web page, really! Some local candidates were great about this, though -- one showed up in person on my doorstep last month and several had homepages and/or email addresses)
hear hear
the underground paper I ran in high school is listed in my school and psych (yeah, I'm one of those who got institutionalized as a teen for being different. oops) records as the *only* behavior problem I had
I didn't find this out until after I left college, but you can bet that was on every application I filled out. Every interview I went to I got asked about it, and no one at the colleges seemed to think it was a bad thing.
It might also be a good way to weed out the really oppressive schools.
I assume you only did this a few moves into the game -- because the first few moves *must* be guessing (since faced with a field of unknowns, or mostly unknowns and one '1' block, one doesn't have enough data to make even an educated guess)
actually, I have a CD that includes Monty Python doing the galaxy song -- it also has 'Sit on my face', the philosopher's drinking song, everyone's favorite 'The lumberjack song', 'eric the half-a-bee' and a bunch of others...unfortunetly, it's at home, so I don't know what it's called, but yes, they did do the galaxy song.