Americans individually do this, by choosing to join them or not to join them.
"Having other parties doesn't do a whole lot of good if they don't have any way of getting their message out to the public."
They do. I see plenty of material from the fringe parties during campaigns, perhaps in excess of the proportion of support for them. The problem is less than "we can't be heard" than it is that these fringe parties try to appeal to 3% of Americans instead of 73% of Americans.
"but we certainly need to do _something_ to change the current situation"
What, then? Laws to force people to join parties they do not like? Laws to force people to pay through taxes for parties they do not like, but the government likes?
I just read about them. They are one of these "astroturfed" interest groups formed mainly to censor those they do not like, such as the Sinclair Group. They are making the false accusation that the Sinclair Group is "abusing the airwaves" by expressing opinions that Media Matters does not like, and they are pushing for the government to censor the Sinclair Group.
Whatever happened to tolerance for opposing views? Why must groups like this work so hard to get the government to censor those they do not like?
I am not a fan of the Sinclair Group, but I believe in the First Amendment, and that expressing political opinion on the airwaves is a Good Thing (tm) and is not "abuse".
"Basically what I meant was that they shouldn't be able to use ANY money except what was given to them for their campaign with each candidate being given the same amount."
It is so easy to think of loopholes around this. Even then, I never imagined that the "527's" would prove McCain-Feingold to be nothing at all.
OK, let's say I have these restrictions. I'm Ross Perot, for example. Instead of campaigning, I fly around the country educating people about civic affairs. It is not a campaign, no it is not! hehe. I'm getting around the restriction.
"How many of the existing taxes are voluntary?"
The Supreme Court has at times rightly ruled that forcing people to pay for the campaigns of politicians they do not like violates rights.
"I certainly don't approve of my money being used to build bombs. Do you?"
"To provide for the national defense" is part of Federal spending from the conception: "To pay for the political campaigns of government-approved candidates running for office" - well, that is more USSR than anything.
"Again, that would benefit the rich. How would you or I go up against an Edwards, Bush, Kerry for a Senate/House seat?"
Of course it would. The parent is actually demanding that the government give large sums of money to people like this who are already rich. His exact quote: "Every candidate running for a particular office should be allotted an equal amount of money that would be gathered from the public, most likely via taxes"
"Because they've already passed laws involving political speech that violate the 1st amendment in the name of "fairness" in political campaign"
I'm still waiting for someone to show me where in the Constitution it says that freedom of the press is only allowed if what is being said it considered to be "fair" by the government. (the backers of the "Fairness Doctrine", which censors broadcast media that the government does not like, seem to think so). They must have a different Constitution. Any idea where I can get a copy of it?
"Limits on how much money can be contributed to a person's campaign is something we desperately need"
Why? So only the Perot's who are already super rich can run?
"Every candidate running for a particular office should be allotted an equal amount of money that would be gathered from the public, most likely via taxes"
Only if these taxes were voluntary. Why should a Green be forced to give money to the Buchanan campaign and vice-versa? That violates basic political rights. Let each person choose.
"At least then we might get a somewhat fair election"
One in which the government thinks its fair, anyway: because now it runs the process.
"Oh, and they should all get equal time on any sort of public debate."
That should be left entirely up to the organization holding the debate.
"Giving extremist political groups more room to shout their message for money is another thing we all think is "a bad thing(tm)" right?"
It is not about "giving", but it is about allowing others to express their opinions, despite our opinion that they are "extremist". Censoring? Now that is a "Bad Thing".
"I disagree with the supreme court ruling that says $ = speech"
$ is often speech, especially when we are talking about laws (McCain-Feingold) which cut off money as a means toward censoring political speech.
It is a good start. First, the Internet. Next, make sure that all other media are free of the FEC censoring someone for expressing a view about a political candidate or issue.
"What about those of us who use Mozilla's Composer to throw up project pages from time to time?"
That explains something. I always thought that the Mozilla mascot was breathing fire in that splash screen. Now I know better: he's ralphing a really huge ravioli dinner.
The UN is often vetoed by the US, true As for the funding, the UN is overfunded if anything. The lavish lifestyles they give their leaders and the ways they waste their money on enriching the already rich shows that they have more than enough right now.
"That's the whole point of Archy, using your keyboard is a lot faster than fussing around with a mouse. Therefore my analogy is sound."
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Mature UI's that have had to muster the "real world" of being tested against users take this into account. They offer a mix of mouse and keyboard. They also take into account user preferences: some users want to do things differently than other users. Archy even has a principle against this: they want to straightjacket the users into doing it just one way.
"Step away from the mouse" might be good advice for some users, but not for all. A UI must take into account these different preferences.
"pah-lease, it's more like people complaining that they have to learn how to use an accelerator, a steering wheel and blinkers all at the same time when they're used to just peddling."
The analogy would work better if the car in question was a lot slower than the bicycle.
"They're the same idiots who keep propagating partisian myths like the "Al Gore invented the Internet" lie."
No myth: Al Gore actually claimed to have invented the Internet during a CNN interview. (exact words: "I took the initiative in creating the Internet"). It was merely a misstatement during an interview. It is rather clear that Gore did not intend to lie about his accomplishment, so the word "lie" is not the best to use.
What you presented was actually an editorial from an extremist group. It was not news, it was not fact. It was opinion. Do you have anything to present that is not wing-nut opinion using as a "Straw Man" the Sinclair bogeyman?
Also, regardless of whether Sinclair is snakes or not, it cannot possibly engage in " continued misuse of public airwaves" by "broadcast[ing] one-sided, politically charged programming without a counterpoint." Such broadcasts are part of free speech, and are an excellent use of the airwaves. There is a First Amendment. Get used to it. No-where does the First Amendment allow for censoring someone because their view is "one sided". "Media Matters" comes across as an extremist group that wants to censor others for expressing opinions they do not like. Even worse is "SinclairAction", a group dedicated to censoring opponents' views.
I know little of this Sinclair group, but you are setting them up in a sympathetic way by saying that they "missues" airwaves merely by freely expressing political opinion. It is impossible to missuse the public airwaves by presenting opinion. Period.. What Sinclair is doing is proper use, and must not be censored.
I am not defending Sinclair because they are conservative. Instead, I am defending them because someone wants them censored, and is blatantly lying about them on www.sinclairaction.com. That makes me defend just about anyone.
Whatever happened to the idea of tolerance of opposing views? Why must someone set up astroturf action sites like www.sinclairaction.com dedicated to promoting censorship?
"So this is, as it stands now, the crappiest parts of Emacs and the crappiest parts of a Wiki stirred together. In the future they hope to bolt on the crappiest parts of MapQuest"
1. Mangle Emacs and Wiki together
2. Name it after a cartoon cockroach
3. Talk as if the Mac never existed: "You need to calculate the product of two numbers while you're typing a document, but you don't want to have to launch a calculator program in order to do so"
4. Add MapQuest
5. To complete the business model, revive "Flooz" to make money from it.
6. Profit!!!
"So let me get this straight: it requires special hardware to navigate properly and fails to follow conventions that have been around since electric typewriters themselves, and you're telling me that I am the one that doesn't get it?"
Give it up. It is like arguing with the idiot who commutes to work on a pogo stick who keeps insisting "but it IS better than your bicycle!!!". Part of the reason this analogy is so apt is that you will hardly find anyone using Archy ever, and hardly find anyone using a pogo stick.
"The main benefit of Archy over Emacs is that it has been engineered with ease of use in mind, not just ease to extend."
Ease of use? Only partially. Some of their "principles" defy ease of use (forced automatic saving which takes word processing back to the BETTER MAKE SURE YOU WANT TO HIT THAT KEY days of the manual typewriter, only one way to do things which can go against user preferences.)
For end users? Except for every web user who plays online games, uses Slashdot, participates in blogs, uses online non-AOL chatrooms, purchases anything online, uses eBay, or does banking online.
Other than that, the web is read-only for everyone!
Slashdot Mirror
How is that relevant? Companies never say a word. However, individuals in these companies do talk, and they also have 1st Amendment rights.
Look at Ol Jugears and his predecessors, especially the ones of much older days who had a lot of power. All they had to do was be born in a palace.
Americans individually do this, by choosing to join them or not to join them.
"Having other parties doesn't do a whole lot of good if they don't have any way of getting their message out to the public."
They do. I see plenty of material from the fringe parties during campaigns, perhaps in excess of the proportion of support for them. The problem is less than "we can't be heard" than it is that these fringe parties try to appeal to 3% of Americans instead of 73% of Americans.
"but we certainly need to do _something_ to change the current situation"
What, then? Laws to force people to join parties they do not like? Laws to force people to pay through taxes for parties they do not like, but the government likes?
I just read about them. They are one of these "astroturfed" interest groups formed mainly to censor those they do not like, such as the Sinclair Group. They are making the false accusation that the Sinclair Group is "abusing the airwaves" by expressing opinions that Media Matters does not like, and they are pushing for the government to censor the Sinclair Group.
Whatever happened to tolerance for opposing views? Why must groups like this work so hard to get the government to censor those they do not like?
I am not a fan of the Sinclair Group, but I believe in the First Amendment, and that expressing political opinion on the airwaves is a Good Thing (tm) and is not "abuse".
It is so easy to think of loopholes around this. Even then, I never imagined that the "527's" would prove McCain-Feingold to be nothing at all.
OK, let's say I have these restrictions. I'm Ross Perot, for example. Instead of campaigning, I fly around the country educating people about civic affairs. It is not a campaign, no it is not! hehe. I'm getting around the restriction.
"How many of the existing taxes are voluntary?"
The Supreme Court has at times rightly ruled that forcing people to pay for the campaigns of politicians they do not like violates rights.
"I certainly don't approve of my money being used to build bombs. Do you?"
"To provide for the national defense" is part of Federal spending from the conception: "To pay for the political campaigns of government-approved candidates running for office" - well, that is more USSR than anything.
"This two party BS is ridiculous and insulting."
Then form a better party.
Of course it would. The parent is actually demanding that the government give large sums of money to people like this who are already rich. His exact quote: "Every candidate running for a particular office should be allotted an equal amount of money that would be gathered from the public, most likely via taxes"
Talk about one of the worst wastes of money ever!
I'm still waiting for someone to show me where in the Constitution it says that freedom of the press is only allowed if what is being said it considered to be "fair" by the government. (the backers of the "Fairness Doctrine", which censors broadcast media that the government does not like, seem to think so). They must have a different Constitution. Any idea where I can get a copy of it?
Why? So only the Perot's who are already super rich can run?
"Every candidate running for a particular office should be allotted an equal amount of money that would be gathered from the public, most likely via taxes"
Only if these taxes were voluntary. Why should a Green be forced to give money to the Buchanan campaign and vice-versa? That violates basic political rights. Let each person choose.
"At least then we might get a somewhat fair election"
One in which the government thinks its fair, anyway: because now it runs the process.
"Oh, and they should all get equal time on any sort of public debate."
That should be left entirely up to the organization holding the debate.
It is not about "giving", but it is about allowing others to express their opinions, despite our opinion that they are "extremist". Censoring? Now that is a "Bad Thing".
"I disagree with the supreme court ruling that says $ = speech"
$ is often speech, especially when we are talking about laws (McCain-Feingold) which cut off money as a means toward censoring political speech.
It is a good start. First, the Internet. Next, make sure that all other media are free of the FEC censoring someone for expressing a view about a political candidate or issue.
Arrrr! They be only 9 pixels wide, and be made of 3 colors, but arrr, these NES buccaneers have me shaking in me sea-boots!
Sorry, I am not completely up on my UI objectivism. Time to attempt to read those old Ayn Rand masterpieces "The Fountainmouse" and "Linus Shrugged".
That explains something. I always thought that the Mozilla mascot was breathing fire in that splash screen. Now I know better: he's ralphing a really huge ravioli dinner.
The UN is often vetoed by the US, true As for the funding, the UN is overfunded if anything. The lavish lifestyles they give their leaders and the ways they waste their money on enriching the already rich shows that they have more than enough right now.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Mature UI's that have had to muster the "real world" of being tested against users take this into account. They offer a mix of mouse and keyboard. They also take into account user preferences: some users want to do things differently than other users. Archy even has a principle against this: they want to straightjacket the users into doing it just one way.
"Step away from the mouse" might be good advice for some users, but not for all. A UI must take into account these different preferences.
The analogy would work better if the car in question was a lot slower than the bicycle.
No myth: Al Gore actually claimed to have invented the Internet during a CNN interview. (exact words: "I took the initiative in creating the Internet"). It was merely a misstatement during an interview. It is rather clear that Gore did not intend to lie about his accomplishment, so the word "lie" is not the best to use.
Also, regardless of whether Sinclair is snakes or not, it cannot possibly engage in " continued misuse of public airwaves" by "broadcast[ing] one-sided, politically charged programming without a counterpoint." Such broadcasts are part of free speech, and are an excellent use of the airwaves. There is a First Amendment. Get used to it. No-where does the First Amendment allow for censoring someone because their view is "one sided". "Media Matters" comes across as an extremist group that wants to censor others for expressing opinions they do not like. Even worse is "SinclairAction", a group dedicated to censoring opponents' views.
I know little of this Sinclair group, but you are setting them up in a sympathetic way by saying that they "missues" airwaves merely by freely expressing political opinion. It is impossible to missuse the public airwaves by presenting opinion. Period.. What Sinclair is doing is proper use, and must not be censored.
I am not defending Sinclair because they are conservative. Instead, I am defending them because someone wants them censored, and is blatantly lying about them on www.sinclairaction.com. That makes me defend just about anyone.
Whatever happened to the idea of tolerance of opposing views? Why must someone set up astroturf action sites like www.sinclairaction.com dedicated to promoting censorship?
You might be onto something if you replaced the word "back" with "ahead".
I don't think any minks were slaughtered to create it, were there? Perhaps the "humane" claim is the only one of its wild boasts that really is true.
1. Mangle Emacs and Wiki together
2. Name it after a cartoon cockroach
3. Talk as if the Mac never existed: "You need to calculate the product of two numbers while you're typing a document, but you don't want to have to launch a calculator program in order to do so"
4. Add MapQuest
5. To complete the business model, revive "Flooz" to make money from it.
6. Profit!!!
No real human could possibly say what he did. I think "TuringTest" as failed the turing test.
Give it up. It is like arguing with the idiot who commutes to work on a pogo stick who keeps insisting "but it IS better than your bicycle!!!". Part of the reason this analogy is so apt is that you will hardly find anyone using Archy ever, and hardly find anyone using a pogo stick.
Ease of use? Only partially. Some of their "principles" defy ease of use (forced automatic saving which takes word processing back to the BETTER MAKE SURE YOU WANT TO HIT THAT KEY days of the manual typewriter, only one way to do things which can go against user preferences.)
For end users? Except for every web user who plays online games, uses Slashdot, participates in blogs, uses online non-AOL chatrooms, purchases anything online, uses eBay, or does banking online.
Other than that, the web is read-only for everyone!