It also has a copy of our signature on file so they could compare the two.
That's a smart idea. I don't think we have that in Texas, although I could be wrong. Pretty brain dead. We were saying after lunch I could have given my card to anyone and they could have made my vote for me. No ID is required in most circumstances.
Vote early. Vote often. (I vote in every election.)
Since 1996 I have been saying that exact same sentence every election day, but as a joke about election fraud.:)
BTW congrats.... Actually 3 now, we had a little one last November.
Thanks.:) Our little one is on the way. Still working out what programming language to teach him or her first.:)
are you clear about the fact that roads, trash disposal, sewage, regulation of monopolies and corrupt or abusive corporations, protection for quacks & lawyers, not to mention your neighbor are just the beginning of what government does for you?
Yep.
you'd better be prepared to give up MONEY as you know it
Definitely! I'm ready to see competing currencies and let the best one(s) win out. I'm ready to see people pay each other in gold, platinum, electronic accounts, or whatever. I'm ready to see people have to take responsibility themselves to make sure that what they are accepting as payment has value.
not to mention property
Property is a right that everyone is responsible for protecting for themselves. And, of course, people have the right to band together for mutual protection of rights. That's a government. That's what Thomas Jefferson said, and I believe it.
this internet thing
Amazing how thousands of corporate intranets flourish without needing to be part of the Internet. Amazing how the technology can be used to build any number of networks. Amazing how non-connected networks find ways of connecting to each other. Amazing how all this plays out when you don't have an interfering governmental body like ICANN deciding how it should be for everybody.
If you solve the health care problem by putting up your own money to help, you are a noble person. If you solve it by voting money out of other people's pockets, you are a thief. Why is health care more important than the issues those people were going to solve FOR THEMSELVES with their own money? Perhaps in their case an education or retirement (two other problems the government attempts to solve for everybody and fails at) is more important. You "solve" the health care problem (with a "solution" I doubt would truly solve anything) and cause worse problems as a result.
Perhaps people could afford health-care if we weren't stealing through taxation 40% of every dollar people make so that we can "solve" all their problems with government intervention. Robin Hood in this case is an incompetent Quixotic thief who only makes problems worse. Meanwhile, I'm not particularly happy that Teresa Heinz Kerry's federal tax burden last year came out to only 10%. I thought we were supposed to make the rich pay most of this?
The pathetic thing, for me, is that ten years ago conservatives were telling Hillary Clinton she was bonkers for trying to give away these kinds of "freebies," but now that Bush is compromising by unquestioningly assuming that this is the right thing to do, people like you STILL aren't backing him! Bush is far closer to YOUR view on this than mine.
As for decentralization, let me tell you that I am at least as big a believer in decentralization as you are.
I allow for a reasonable peaceful society to exist in this way: all persons have any natural rights that do not interfere with the rights of others. One right is the right to defense of self and property. And, as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, it is the right of people to form governments to secure their rights, arranged in such a way as they deem is most likely to secure their rights.
The right people do not have is to compel others to participate in their system. If seven of us want to get together and run our own communist system, that should be allowed, and we should of course not be allowed to compel anyone else to participate. If we seven want to pool 10% (or 40%) of our income to handle common needs and vote on how those funds should be spent, that's great, but we don't magically get the right to compel anyone else to participate.
In the society I envision, people leave each other alone, and people who do not leave others alone discover that anyone is empowered to defend their rights. In that system, I would probably be a member of a voluntary democracy. In fact, the vast majority of people might choose to be members of the same democracy. But anyone who didn't want to participate would 1) not have to vote (in fact, not get to vote), 2) not be taxed, 3) receive no government services, and 4) be allowed to set up another system if they wanted for other people to voluntarily participate in.
Democracy is a great advance. As Churchill said, it is the worst system of all, except for all the others. But democracy, the fundamental concept, is not perfect. A democracy can vote to steal from its citizens for the benefit of a few. A democracy can vote itself into totalitarianism. Do you realize that we could, with a vote, amend the Constitution to take away women's suffrage, or black freedom? We can vote to do things that are wrong, because we allow the government to possess powers beyond those which its citizens possess. The state is not really "we the people," or else it would only be allowed to do what individual people coming together voluntarily in aggregate can do. The truth is that the state in our democracy is a corporate monarch, with most of the same absolute sovereignty that comes with monarchy.
I want a system where it is asserted that the government "derives its powers from the just consent of the governed." In other words, you and I possess the right to come together and work as one and make decisions through voting or some other method, but we do not possess the right to vote on those decisions for other people. Such a state would have the right to tax, but only those who voluntarily participate. Such a state would have the right to establish a military and courts to defend its participants (citizens) against aggressors within and without. Such a state would be checked not by our "checks and balances/balance of powers" philosophy, which is being demonstrated in America to spiral out of control in the direction of granting the state more and more power, but by other states defending their own citizens and interests.
There are a lot of names for this: anarcho-capitalism, anarchism, libertarianism. It sounds wild the first time you hear it, but the idea has taken several years to grow on me. And now I realize that this is the only way it rightfully can be: no matter what system I think is best, I do not have the right to force anyone else to participate.
And what I say is almost exactly what Thomas Jefferson said. The price of freedom is eternal vigilence. I want a society where people are free and vigilently protect their rights. I want a society where nobody has the capability to compel anybody else to do anything. Period. That means a lot of lifestyles would be lived that I disapprove of. That means a lot of things would be said that I disapprove of. And that is everybody's right, so long as they do not interfere with me.
Just for fun, here's some thinking along the same line, but maybe a bit more
When he was young, my father thought it would be the end of the world if Kennedy defeated Nixon. He did, and it was not. Thankfully, Dad didn't leave the country.
When I was young(er), I thought it would be the end of the world if Clinton defeated Bush. He did, and it was not. I was convinced that would could survive four years, but that we absolutely had to get things right and fix it by electing Dole four years later. Nevertheless, the point was hammered home to me: the world does not end when your political candidate loses. I was upset, but I did not leave the country. Slowly I learned that the Presidency did not affect me directly near as much as my public school system had told me it did.
We got Bush, like I wanted, for four years. In those four years, I've learned a lot, and to be honest I'd really rather have a third party candidate at this point. But in our system of two choices only, I prefer Bush. And at this point in time, it looks like a 50-50 tossup whether we'll get him or not. But I'm not making noises about leaving the country if we lose.
Look, I think Kerry is a complete lunatic. I think he's got things completely backward. I think electing him will lead to diminished international respect, especially in Muslim countries. I sincerely hope and pray that he is not elected. I am an "anybody but Kerry" voter.
But if Kerry wins (and he has a good chance), I'm not going to complain. I'm going to hunker down and spend four more years peacefully attempting to share my views with people. I'm not going to leave the country.
If you lose, I hope you'll feel the same way. Life will continue for both the victors and the losers on November 3rd (or whatever the next day after we finally decide the results is).
America's still a great place to be. George W. Bush is not near the idiot you make him out to be. He has not had near the effect on you in the last four years that you think he has. (He appears to have had a tremendous emotional effect, but I doubt that he has really affected your day to day life.)
I can't believe you can't look at the book. Here in Texas, we sign the book right next to our names to prove we voted. In fact, it's specially designed so that the line to sign on is upside-down relative to your name so that the voting officials can read your name and have you sign without having to turn the book around.
For the first several elections I voted in, I always had to help the official disambiguate my Dad's name from my own in the book, since we have the same name. (The birthdates are pretty radically different, though.:) ) This year Dad and I live in different cities, but I did have the thrill of seeing a second line with my last name, which was promptly signed by my new wife.:)
Bravo! The whole problem with democracy is that we should not have the power to make so many decisions for each other. Democracy is a "one-size-fits-all" solution in a world where we are all shaped differently. I would never dare to claim the rights over other people that our government of "we the people" claims to have over its subjects^Wcitizens.
This is the first election where I have been aware of and understood your point of view. I find it extremely admirable and I commend you. For my part I am still voting but I see your point of view and am longing for the day when the truly important things in life are not subject to a vote, as they should never have been subject to the will of either a sovereign monarchy or a sovereign voting populace. For my part as long as I continue to vote, I will vote for our government to exert less and less authority over you. If I had my way, you could opt out of all of our government, not just voting.
Thank you for holding to your conscience. It is a supreme act of maturity and responsibility to stand up and say, "I do not have the right to make decisions on your behalf, and I will not even try." I hope that you can hold your head up high even if all those around who do not understand you cast stones at you.
and who is acting more cohesively, the Democrats or the Republicans
In other words, you'll be able to check which party most consistently follows the party-line and the party leadership, and which is more open to a broad variety of ideas.
Haven't looked much at the results, yet; I just wanted to point out that the word "cohesive" in that paragraph really stood out in my mind as an attempt to impose a value on the data that perhaps we shouldn't hold to.
In a possibly related story, individuals take cybersecurity lightly
To be honest, maybe it's hard to take seriously because we're busy trying to distort its meaning and importance with silly buzzwords like "cybersecurity." Why does everything have to be "cyber"-this and "cyber"-that? In my mind this doesn't sound any different than putting e- in front of everything and trying to market it during the dot-bomb bubble, and I imagine that it has a similar effect on the public. We've been conditioned since 1998 to ignore anything with e- or cyber- as a prefix. Why are we surpised that people don't take "cybersecurity" seriously, when we show by our vocabulary that we don't, either?
Instead of "cybersecurity," how about "computer security," or "personal computer security"? See, it's possible to communicate what you mean in a simple, effective way without fancy buzzwords, and people might even pay more attention. ("You mean my computer might be in danger?")
Google has proved that an automated news site can be run, and run well. Given that, it is inevitable that such a site shall continue to exist.
Now, I hope that Google is able to continue to be the provider. And I hope they find a way to make money from their site... they deserve it.
So I see google continuing to hang on for at least another couple of years, looking for the right business model for Google news. Perhaps having articles like this out in the open will prompt someone (probably from one of the major news sites they spider) to come forward with some kind of idea or deal. Eventually, though, if they do not make money, they will be forced to make a decision: keep Google news up as a gift to the community, as a loss-leader funded by profits from their other services, or else shut it off.
Meanwhile, though, given the fact that Google has demonstrated that an automated news site can be built and run well, it is almost certain that somebody else will try. In fact, I'd take it as a given that ultimately there will be open source software to do the same thing. Oh, of course, it won't work as well at first, but it will improve over time. And since it (probably) won't be tied to a company, perhaps the programmers will find a way to distribute the load so as to make it cost effective: P2P automated news, or a network of mirror sites, or something.
Plain and simply, there is a lot of stuff being done on the web for free. I don't (presently) pay for slashdot; I don't pay to search Google or its news site, I don't pay to read most news stories. I even run a web forum which is, of course, made available to members for free. But our members understand that our site costs money, which is why several of them have offered to help the site out financially. Even if Google News itself is not a viable moneymaker, I can very well see some new implementation of the same idea supported by user donations, like public television (or Wikipedia for that matter).
So to me it is inevitable that some form of high-quality automated news site will continue to exist. Either Google will make Google news profitable, or they will keep it available as a loss-leader, or some other folks will make something similar available funded by their own wealth or donations.
While I've used the argument that he was selected myself (not a Bush supporter), I don't think it's a strong argument because once Gore conceded it was over.
It is also an utterly incorrect argument. The Supreme Court did not consider the issue of "who should receive the electoral votes of Florida," but, instead, "Should an additional recount in Florida be conducted even though the recount procedure under Florida law has already been followed." According to the laws of Florida, Bush received the Florida electoral votes, and according to the Constitution, the legislature of Florida determines the procedure for determining who receives the electoral votes of Florida. The Supreme Court of Florida attempted to step around the laws of Florida, and the Supreme Court said, "No, that's not allowed under the Constitution."
I am not arguing that the process is not flawed. I am arguing that in the end the law as it existed was followed and that the Supreme Court certainly did not "select" (directly) the winner. They just insisted that the law be followed.
I've also put forth my primary suggestion for amending the law. There are 50 states that need to address this, and under the Constitution, each state is free to address the issue as it so chooses.
Now we have the question of the voters who also voted in other states. I would like to see that looked at closer and charges filed.
I agree that charges should be filed against anyone who committed voter fraud.
Thanks for the info. In addition to what you said, you have to at least loosen the standard from "full punches" to "three corners" to get George Bush to win. (By 2 votes, I notice.:) ) Interestingly, the more that standard is loosened, the more margin Bush wins by. I would have expected the other way around.
I see how important the agreement of the observers is. I never trusted the hand recounters; there were just too many crazy stories coming out of there. It bothered me that we talked like a hand recount could be perfectly accurate while a machine recount could not; there are instances when machines are more perfect than humans, and of course instances when humans are more perfect than machines.
I have been arguing (as a Bush supporter) since the election that both sides need to acknowledge that what we had in Florida was a statistical tie. We need to recognize this possibility in our law, and legislate that when the number of votes are within a certain percentage of one another, we must provide for some other method of selection, some method that has a finite and discrete number of votes (such as vote of the legislature). It is impossible to be 100% accurate with a number of votes well beyond one million (this is one good argument in favor of keeping the electoral college). At least if the law specified that when the votes are within a certain percentage the legislature will vote, we would have complete certainty and no cries that the election was illegal. (It was not in this case, either, and the law was indeed followed in the end, but it was a mess.)
Simple. Fahrenheit 9/11 counts as free speech, because it is critical of Bush. But "Swift Vets for Truth" is partisan financing of campaign ads, because it is critical of Kerry. Thus, the corruption in the system should be removed. All SVFT ads should be replaced with clips from F911.
There will always be an unstable edition of Wikipedia where you can go to read the latest information, with a big caveat lector sign on the front door. But we will also build a stable edition which we will distribute to the entire planet.
Wow; thanks for telling me about the impending review process. I had no idea. That makes Wikipedia even better! (And I was convinced we were doing fine without it.:) )
If it were significant enough to become a national park, it would seem significant enough to be listed in an encyclopedia. Next-to-last time I was at Carlsbad they were telling us about research in newly unsealed chambers in the caverns containing microorganisms that apparently processed raw minerals, all in the absence of light. They were postulating these things could be at the bottom of a radically different food chain.
This most recent time, though, all we did was take pictures.
My grandfather worked for the telephone company 45 years. For a long time, his job involved dealing with customers who came in off the street.
In the days of rotary phones, the dialed number was detected by the amount of time it took the dial to return to the resting position. (Number of pulses sent as it made the trip, actually, I believe.)
So one day this woman comes in complaining that every time she dials a number which she knows is the right number, (in her words) "Some hussy comes on there and tells me there's no such number!" This woman was seriously offended by the (recorded, I think, and probably new in those days) suggestion that she was getting the wrong number, when she simply knew it had to be right.
So my grandfather handed her a phone and offered to let her make the call there in the office. The woman snatches the phone and angrily starts dialing her number -- but she's in such a big snit that every time she turns the dial around, she doesn't wait for it to finish; she grabs the dial and forces it back around to the resting position so she can get on with dialing the next number. I'm sure this technique resulted in an enormous time savings to her, probably adding a full five seconds of free time to her life if she did it for every call she made in forty years, but of course it prevented the phone from properly dialing the number since everything was based on the timing for that dial.
My grandfather started to explain this to the woman, but she was enraged and said, "Are you trying to tell me how to dial a phone?" Well, er, yes, ma'am, amazingly phone company employees probably knew a little bit more than you about how to dial a telephone. Not much more, but enough to know that what you were doing would never work. I think the woman finally got fed up and stormed out.
No libertarian that I've ever heard of has advocated that the government give up its monopoly on deadly force
I've heard that, and I lean that way (while not yet fully embracing it). This is heard more often from the anarcho-capitalist side (anarchists as opposed to minarchists).
At the basic level, most libertarians (anarchist and minarchist) agree that government possesses the right to use deadly force only because it is justly delegated. (As Thomas Jefferson said in the declaration of independence, governments are created to secure rights and derive their powers only through the just consent of the governed.) Thus, they believe that every person possesses the right to use deadly force in self defense (i.e., to keep a person's own rights secure) and the government is authorized to act in behalf of its citizens. Not only does this mean the government does not have the right to indiscriminate use of deadly force, it also means that government does not have a monopoly on it since citizens possess the same right. The second amendment can be taken as a statement of this, and the founders made it clear they expected citizens to rise up in arms against the government they were framing if it ever became tyrannical.
Almost all libertarians would agree with the above. As for the anarchists, many go even further, suggesting that government is an entity which asserts such a monopoly, and that for true reform the government should quit asserting that monopoly. In other words, you could potentially have many competing governments in the same geographic region, each government being the creation of its own citizens solely for the protection of their rights (and potentially being curtailed through force from other governments if it infringes upon the rights of their citizens). Yes, that idea sounds absolutely crazy, but about four years after I heard it, I started to like it and think it might work.
To be honest, the bureaucratic inertia may be a good thing. As Badnarik states in his answers, it will of course be possible to implement all of his agenda at once and, of course, many people are concerned that if it were done it would destabilize everything. So having that counterweight tends to slow down and moderate what he would do: he would be able to get some but not all of his program in, we would see the results, and presumably gain confidence in future libertarian reforms.
Needing to find compromise between a libertarian president and a Republican congress might be one of the best things to ever happen to this country... (And for those of you who want to gripe about Republicans, remember that Republican != that weird "neoconservative" word you made up.)
Someone mentioned earlier that the previous generation could survive with one income. Today many families need two incomes to make ends meet.
Perhaps that is because the government takes away 40% of every paycheck. Speculation that there is a link between these two is making me consider voting for Badnarik instead of Bush.
Slashdot Mirror
It also has a copy of our signature on file so they could compare the two.
That's a smart idea. I don't think we have that in Texas, although I could be wrong. Pretty brain dead. We were saying after lunch I could have given my card to anyone and they could have made my vote for me. No ID is required in most circumstances.
Vote early. Vote often. (I vote in every election.)
Since 1996 I have been saying that exact same sentence every election day, but as a joke about election fraud. :)
BTW congrats. ... Actually 3 now, we had a little one last November.
Thanks. :) Our little one is on the way. Still working out what programming language to teach him or her first. :)
are you clear about the fact that roads, trash disposal, sewage, regulation of monopolies and corrupt or abusive corporations, protection for quacks & lawyers, not to mention your neighbor are just the beginning of what government does for you?
Yep.
you'd better be prepared to give up MONEY as you know it
Definitely! I'm ready to see competing currencies and let the best one(s) win out. I'm ready to see people pay each other in gold, platinum, electronic accounts, or whatever. I'm ready to see people have to take responsibility themselves to make sure that what they are accepting as payment has value.
not to mention property
Property is a right that everyone is responsible for protecting for themselves. And, of course, people have the right to band together for mutual protection of rights. That's a government. That's what Thomas Jefferson said, and I believe it.
this internet thing
Amazing how thousands of corporate intranets flourish without needing to be part of the Internet. Amazing how the technology can be used to build any number of networks. Amazing how non-connected networks find ways of connecting to each other. Amazing how all this plays out when you don't have an interfering governmental body like ICANN deciding how it should be for everybody.
If you solve the health care problem by putting up your own money to help, you are a noble person. If you solve it by voting money out of other people's pockets, you are a thief. Why is health care more important than the issues those people were going to solve FOR THEMSELVES with their own money? Perhaps in their case an education or retirement (two other problems the government attempts to solve for everybody and fails at) is more important. You "solve" the health care problem (with a "solution" I doubt would truly solve anything) and cause worse problems as a result.
Perhaps people could afford health-care if we weren't stealing through taxation 40% of every dollar people make so that we can "solve" all their problems with government intervention. Robin Hood in this case is an incompetent Quixotic thief who only makes problems worse. Meanwhile, I'm not particularly happy that Teresa Heinz Kerry's federal tax burden last year came out to only 10%. I thought we were supposed to make the rich pay most of this?
The pathetic thing, for me, is that ten years ago conservatives were telling Hillary Clinton she was bonkers for trying to give away these kinds of "freebies," but now that Bush is compromising by unquestioningly assuming that this is the right thing to do, people like you STILL aren't backing him! Bush is far closer to YOUR view on this than mine.
As for decentralization, let me tell you that I am at least as big a believer in decentralization as you are.
I allow for a reasonable peaceful society to exist in this way: all persons have any natural rights that do not interfere with the rights of others. One right is the right to defense of self and property. And, as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, it is the right of people to form governments to secure their rights, arranged in such a way as they deem is most likely to secure their rights.
The right people do not have is to compel others to participate in their system. If seven of us want to get together and run our own communist system, that should be allowed, and we should of course not be allowed to compel anyone else to participate. If we seven want to pool 10% (or 40%) of our income to handle common needs and vote on how those funds should be spent, that's great, but we don't magically get the right to compel anyone else to participate.
In the society I envision, people leave each other alone, and people who do not leave others alone discover that anyone is empowered to defend their rights. In that system, I would probably be a member of a voluntary democracy. In fact, the vast majority of people might choose to be members of the same democracy. But anyone who didn't want to participate would 1) not have to vote (in fact, not get to vote), 2) not be taxed, 3) receive no government services, and 4) be allowed to set up another system if they wanted for other people to voluntarily participate in.
Democracy is a great advance. As Churchill said, it is the worst system of all, except for all the others. But democracy, the fundamental concept, is not perfect. A democracy can vote to steal from its citizens for the benefit of a few. A democracy can vote itself into totalitarianism. Do you realize that we could, with a vote, amend the Constitution to take away women's suffrage, or black freedom? We can vote to do things that are wrong, because we allow the government to possess powers beyond those which its citizens possess. The state is not really "we the people," or else it would only be allowed to do what individual people coming together voluntarily in aggregate can do. The truth is that the state in our democracy is a corporate monarch, with most of the same absolute sovereignty that comes with monarchy.
I want a system where it is asserted that the government "derives its powers from the just consent of the governed." In other words, you and I possess the right to come together and work as one and make decisions through voting or some other method, but we do not possess the right to vote on those decisions for other people. Such a state would have the right to tax, but only those who voluntarily participate. Such a state would have the right to establish a military and courts to defend its participants (citizens) against aggressors within and without. Such a state would be checked not by our "checks and balances/balance of powers" philosophy, which is being demonstrated in America to spiral out of control in the direction of granting the state more and more power, but by other states defending their own citizens and interests.
There are a lot of names for this: anarcho-capitalism, anarchism, libertarianism. It sounds wild the first time you hear it, but the idea has taken several years to grow on me. And now I realize that this is the only way it rightfully can be: no matter what system I think is best, I do not have the right to force anyone else to participate.
And what I say is almost exactly what Thomas Jefferson said. The price of freedom is eternal vigilence. I want a society where people are free and vigilently protect their rights. I want a society where nobody has the capability to compel anybody else to do anything. Period. That means a lot of lifestyles would be lived that I disapprove of. That means a lot of things would be said that I disapprove of. And that is everybody's right, so long as they do not interfere with me.
Just for fun, here's some thinking along the same line, but maybe a bit more
By all means; if you feel that way, please go.
When he was young, my father thought it would be the end of the world if Kennedy defeated Nixon. He did, and it was not. Thankfully, Dad didn't leave the country.
When I was young(er), I thought it would be the end of the world if Clinton defeated Bush. He did, and it was not. I was convinced that would could survive four years, but that we absolutely had to get things right and fix it by electing Dole four years later. Nevertheless, the point was hammered home to me: the world does not end when your political candidate loses. I was upset, but I did not leave the country. Slowly I learned that the Presidency did not affect me directly near as much as my public school system had told me it did.
We got Bush, like I wanted, for four years. In those four years, I've learned a lot, and to be honest I'd really rather have a third party candidate at this point. But in our system of two choices only, I prefer Bush. And at this point in time, it looks like a 50-50 tossup whether we'll get him or not. But I'm not making noises about leaving the country if we lose.
Look, I think Kerry is a complete lunatic. I think he's got things completely backward. I think electing him will lead to diminished international respect, especially in Muslim countries. I sincerely hope and pray that he is not elected. I am an "anybody but Kerry" voter.
But if Kerry wins (and he has a good chance), I'm not going to complain. I'm going to hunker down and spend four more years peacefully attempting to share my views with people. I'm not going to leave the country.
If you lose, I hope you'll feel the same way. Life will continue for both the victors and the losers on November 3rd (or whatever the next day after we finally decide the results is).
America's still a great place to be. George W. Bush is not near the idiot you make him out to be. He has not had near the effect on you in the last four years that you think he has. (He appears to have had a tremendous emotional effect, but I doubt that he has really affected your day to day life.)
Life goes on.
I can't believe you can't look at the book. Here in Texas, we sign the book right next to our names to prove we voted. In fact, it's specially designed so that the line to sign on is upside-down relative to your name so that the voting officials can read your name and have you sign without having to turn the book around.
For the first several elections I voted in, I always had to help the official disambiguate my Dad's name from my own in the book, since we have the same name. (The birthdates are pretty radically different, though. :) ) This year Dad and I live in different cities, but I did have the thrill of seeing a second line with my last name, which was promptly signed by my new wife. :)
Bravo! The whole problem with democracy is that we should not have the power to make so many decisions for each other. Democracy is a "one-size-fits-all" solution in a world where we are all shaped differently. I would never dare to claim the rights over other people that our government of "we the people" claims to have over its subjects^Wcitizens.
This is the first election where I have been aware of and understood your point of view. I find it extremely admirable and I commend you. For my part I am still voting but I see your point of view and am longing for the day when the truly important things in life are not subject to a vote, as they should never have been subject to the will of either a sovereign monarchy or a sovereign voting populace. For my part as long as I continue to vote, I will vote for our government to exert less and less authority over you. If I had my way, you could opt out of all of our government, not just voting.
Thank you for holding to your conscience. It is a supreme act of maturity and responsibility to stand up and say, "I do not have the right to make decisions on your behalf, and I will not even try." I hope that you can hold your head up high even if all those around who do not understand you cast stones at you.
and who is acting more cohesively, the Democrats or the Republicans
In other words, you'll be able to check which party most consistently follows the party-line and the party leadership, and which is more open to a broad variety of ideas.
Haven't looked much at the results, yet; I just wanted to point out that the word "cohesive" in that paragraph really stood out in my mind as an attempt to impose a value on the data that perhaps we shouldn't hold to.
In a possibly related story, individuals take cybersecurity lightly
To be honest, maybe it's hard to take seriously because we're busy trying to distort its meaning and importance with silly buzzwords like "cybersecurity." Why does everything have to be "cyber"-this and "cyber"-that? In my mind this doesn't sound any different than putting e- in front of everything and trying to market it during the dot-bomb bubble, and I imagine that it has a similar effect on the public. We've been conditioned since 1998 to ignore anything with e- or cyber- as a prefix. Why are we surpised that people don't take "cybersecurity" seriously, when we show by our vocabulary that we don't, either?
Instead of "cybersecurity," how about "computer security," or "personal computer security"? See, it's possible to communicate what you mean in a simple, effective way without fancy buzzwords, and people might even pay more attention. ("You mean my computer might be in danger?")
Google has proved that an automated news site can be run, and run well. Given that, it is inevitable that such a site shall continue to exist.
Now, I hope that Google is able to continue to be the provider. And I hope they find a way to make money from their site ... they deserve it.
So I see google continuing to hang on for at least another couple of years, looking for the right business model for Google news. Perhaps having articles like this out in the open will prompt someone (probably from one of the major news sites they spider) to come forward with some kind of idea or deal. Eventually, though, if they do not make money, they will be forced to make a decision: keep Google news up as a gift to the community, as a loss-leader funded by profits from their other services, or else shut it off.
Meanwhile, though, given the fact that Google has demonstrated that an automated news site can be built and run well, it is almost certain that somebody else will try. In fact, I'd take it as a given that ultimately there will be open source software to do the same thing. Oh, of course, it won't work as well at first, but it will improve over time. And since it (probably) won't be tied to a company, perhaps the programmers will find a way to distribute the load so as to make it cost effective: P2P automated news, or a network of mirror sites, or something.
Plain and simply, there is a lot of stuff being done on the web for free. I don't (presently) pay for slashdot; I don't pay to search Google or its news site, I don't pay to read most news stories. I even run a web forum which is, of course, made available to members for free. But our members understand that our site costs money, which is why several of them have offered to help the site out financially. Even if Google News itself is not a viable moneymaker, I can very well see some new implementation of the same idea supported by user donations, like public television (or Wikipedia for that matter).
So to me it is inevitable that some form of high-quality automated news site will continue to exist. Either Google will make Google news profitable, or they will keep it available as a loss-leader, or some other folks will make something similar available funded by their own wealth or donations.
While I've used the argument that he was selected myself (not a Bush supporter), I don't think it's a strong argument because once Gore conceded it was over.
It is also an utterly incorrect argument. The Supreme Court did not consider the issue of "who should receive the electoral votes of Florida," but, instead, "Should an additional recount in Florida be conducted even though the recount procedure under Florida law has already been followed." According to the laws of Florida, Bush received the Florida electoral votes, and according to the Constitution, the legislature of Florida determines the procedure for determining who receives the electoral votes of Florida. The Supreme Court of Florida attempted to step around the laws of Florida, and the Supreme Court said, "No, that's not allowed under the Constitution."
I am not arguing that the process is not flawed. I am arguing that in the end the law as it existed was followed and that the Supreme Court certainly did not "select" (directly) the winner. They just insisted that the law be followed.
I've also put forth my primary suggestion for amending the law. There are 50 states that need to address this, and under the Constitution, each state is free to address the issue as it so chooses.
Now we have the question of the voters who also voted in other states. I would like to see that looked at closer and charges filed.
I agree that charges should be filed against anyone who committed voter fraud.
Thanks for the info. In addition to what you said, you have to at least loosen the standard from "full punches" to "three corners" to get George Bush to win. (By 2 votes, I notice. :) ) Interestingly, the more that standard is loosened, the more margin Bush wins by. I would have expected the other way around.
I see how important the agreement of the observers is. I never trusted the hand recounters; there were just too many crazy stories coming out of there. It bothered me that we talked like a hand recount could be perfectly accurate while a machine recount could not; there are instances when machines are more perfect than humans, and of course instances when humans are more perfect than machines.
I have been arguing (as a Bush supporter) since the election that both sides need to acknowledge that what we had in Florida was a statistical tie. We need to recognize this possibility in our law, and legislate that when the number of votes are within a certain percentage of one another, we must provide for some other method of selection, some method that has a finite and discrete number of votes (such as vote of the legislature). It is impossible to be 100% accurate with a number of votes well beyond one million (this is one good argument in favor of keeping the electoral college). At least if the law specified that when the votes are within a certain percentage the legislature will vote, we would have complete certainty and no cries that the election was illegal. (It was not in this case, either, and the law was indeed followed in the end, but it was a mess.)
Simple. Fahrenheit 9/11 counts as free speech, because it is critical of Bush. But "Swift Vets for Truth" is partisan financing of campaign ads, because it is critical of Kerry. Thus, the corruption in the system should be removed. All SVFT ads should be replaced with clips from F911.
"Amendment" is spelled "amendment," not "ammendment." The pervasiveness of this misspelling puzzles me.
Hmm. I do like Bush, and no matter how I put the settings on that, it seems to say Gore got the most votes. What settings did you use?
It'd be nice if Slashdot could actually interview him and Kerry. Maybe they could even host an online debate.
Some of the pictures appear to still be available (although it might be my cache): http://photos1.blogger.com/img/195/911/1024/IMG_07 81.jpg
(You have to cut and paste the URL, as links directly to images won't work because they check the referrer.)
There will always be an unstable edition of Wikipedia where you can go to read the latest information, with a big caveat lector sign on the front door. But we will also build a stable edition which we will distribute to the entire planet.
Wow; thanks for telling me about the impending review process. I had no idea. That makes Wikipedia even better! (And I was convinced we were doing fine without it. :) )
See you round the 'pedia!
If it were significant enough to become a national park, it would seem significant enough to be listed in an encyclopedia. Next-to-last time I was at Carlsbad they were telling us about research in newly unsealed chambers in the caverns containing microorganisms that apparently processed raw minerals, all in the absence of light. They were postulating these things could be at the bottom of a radically different food chain.
This most recent time, though, all we did was take pictures.
True story
My grandfather worked for the telephone company 45 years. For a long time, his job involved dealing with customers who came in off the street.
In the days of rotary phones, the dialed number was detected by the amount of time it took the dial to return to the resting position. (Number of pulses sent as it made the trip, actually, I believe.)
So one day this woman comes in complaining that every time she dials a number which she knows is the right number, (in her words) "Some hussy comes on there and tells me there's no such number!" This woman was seriously offended by the (recorded, I think, and probably new in those days) suggestion that she was getting the wrong number, when she simply knew it had to be right.
So my grandfather handed her a phone and offered to let her make the call there in the office. The woman snatches the phone and angrily starts dialing her number -- but she's in such a big snit that every time she turns the dial around, she doesn't wait for it to finish; she grabs the dial and forces it back around to the resting position so she can get on with dialing the next number. I'm sure this technique resulted in an enormous time savings to her, probably adding a full five seconds of free time to her life if she did it for every call she made in forty years, but of course it prevented the phone from properly dialing the number since everything was based on the timing for that dial.
My grandfather started to explain this to the woman, but she was enraged and said, "Are you trying to tell me how to dial a phone?" Well, er, yes, ma'am, amazingly phone company employees probably knew a little bit more than you about how to dial a telephone. Not much more, but enough to know that what you were doing would never work. I think the woman finally got fed up and stormed out.
People are amazing.
You might like this, if you haven't read it already.
No libertarian that I've ever heard of has advocated that the government give up its monopoly on deadly force
I've heard that, and I lean that way (while not yet fully embracing it). This is heard more often from the anarcho-capitalist side (anarchists as opposed to minarchists).
At the basic level, most libertarians (anarchist and minarchist) agree that government possesses the right to use deadly force only because it is justly delegated. (As Thomas Jefferson said in the declaration of independence, governments are created to secure rights and derive their powers only through the just consent of the governed.) Thus, they believe that every person possesses the right to use deadly force in self defense (i.e., to keep a person's own rights secure) and the government is authorized to act in behalf of its citizens. Not only does this mean the government does not have the right to indiscriminate use of deadly force, it also means that government does not have a monopoly on it since citizens possess the same right. The second amendment can be taken as a statement of this, and the founders made it clear they expected citizens to rise up in arms against the government they were framing if it ever became tyrannical.
Almost all libertarians would agree with the above. As for the anarchists, many go even further, suggesting that government is an entity which asserts such a monopoly, and that for true reform the government should quit asserting that monopoly. In other words, you could potentially have many competing governments in the same geographic region, each government being the creation of its own citizens solely for the protection of their rights (and potentially being curtailed through force from other governments if it infringes upon the rights of their citizens). Yes, that idea sounds absolutely crazy, but about four years after I heard it, I started to like it and think it might work.
See the Political Compass [f2s.com] for a visual representation of where Michael Badnarik actually stands
... on somebody's subjective scale that we made up. Why don't I just listen to the candidates instead and vote for whoever agrees with me?
To be honest, the bureaucratic inertia may be a good thing. As Badnarik states in his answers, it will of course be possible to implement all of his agenda at once and, of course, many people are concerned that if it were done it would destabilize everything. So having that counterweight tends to slow down and moderate what he would do: he would be able to get some but not all of his program in, we would see the results, and presumably gain confidence in future libertarian reforms.
Needing to find compromise between a libertarian president and a Republican congress might be one of the best things to ever happen to this country... (And for those of you who want to gripe about Republicans, remember that Republican != that weird "neoconservative" word you made up.)
Someone mentioned earlier that the previous generation could survive with one income. Today many families need two incomes to make ends meet.
Perhaps that is because the government takes away 40% of every paycheck. Speculation that there is a link between these two is making me consider voting for Badnarik instead of Bush.