Dude, I admire your lust for history and strongly recommend you do the museum thing, but I also strongly recommend you don't buy one of these on Ebay unless your wife/parent/whatever is a very permissive soul! This thing is noisy as all hell! Hell a daisy wheel printer makes less noise than a teletype. You probably don't remember those...ok, dot matrix printers were considered an overall noise improvement over teletypes.
Geek points are hardly worth sleeping on the couch for a month. At least for this old bastard.
But maybe that's not what you want. Are you just trolling or something?
Don't mistake zealotry for trolling. I admit they look a lot alike from close up. I'm pretty tired today too so my patience levels are limited.
I don't like that simple pragmatism is so frequently thrown aside because of idealistic differences regarding privacy when we have a bunch of very screwed up people out there that we could be doing a whole hell of a lot for, at least a lot more than we are doing now. It probably wouldn't cost much more than what we spend now.
I'm not much for social programs in general but this is one glaring problem that only the government can adequately fix.
As for being a blowhard, when you are compelled to speak from authority all day, you retain the command voice at all times.
I'm punishing you now for your impudence by removing your enemy flag. That was a stab at humor, incidentally.
This whole idea is based on the assumption that there are millions of people draining the resources of our homeless shelters. Feh, for the buck or two it costs, let them. If they lie their way into a homeless shelter they need the help.
Actually that is not the reason why people care. The reason why they care is that homeless people fall into three distinct categories:
1. Substance abusers 2. People with treatable mental disorders 3. Transient homeless (the hard up people who don't have a roof)
#3 is who we want shelters for. These people tend not to stay homeless forever. Unfortunately those shelters are full of petty thieves, dealers and other riffraff that make them untenable for many. The reason this continues is because #1 and #2 aren't taken off the street and treated.
We want them registered so we can _DO SOMETHING_ about these people finally, rather than just tolerating the societal (and personal) ill in the name of bizarre idealism.
Don't be so damn quick to assign a dollar value to the concern.
1. You can say everyone gets tracked, but the only legal tracking, specifically the tracking you are referring to, is voluntary.
Ever try not filling out your tax return (assuming you actually earned enough to become part of the taxpayers)? I recommend it if you like trouble. Try getting a job without a social security number. Try doing almost anything nowadays without a driver's license. Voluntary, did you say? Hardly so.
2. I don't live in tower, I do live in the city center. That said, I used to live in a very rural area, and I can tell you that the cities do a piss poor job taking care of those who fall through the cracks. You read slashdot, so I assume you are aware of the recent depression in the tech industry. Plenty of the new homeless came from our ranks. I ask you, that being the case, how do you justify your hate?
How is it hate to want to fix a festering sore on the body politic? Furthermore, very few of the recently homeless are technology people. Sheesh- this kind of crap is yet another reason we need tracking. Good actual data on who the hell is on the street.
I don't think you want to find out that most of the people out there are single males with dependency or mental issues who need treatment, not freedom to be vagrants. I really don't think you want to know that for sure, even though you know it's true.
3. You can throw out statistical sampling if you want, but understand that most census numbers from statistical sources. Can you imagine how much it would cost to have everyone fill out the long form? It would also be much less accurate.
Actually most census data is produced via people who fill out their forms. A smaller portion is gathered by actual census employees who penetrate such locations as inner cities to find the people who don't fill out forms, homeless being one of these demographic groups. I _Know_ the census people can't possibly be counting all these people, which is a concession.
The census bureau site (www.census.gov) sucks ass, or i'd do a direct link to the page describing the process for the 2000 census. The short form is enough for demographic and population information, however. Don't throw the long form stuff in my face - only 1 in 6 fill that out and it's pretty big. We don't need that about every homeless guy.
If we're spending money to try and improve the situation of the homeless, making more free mental and medical help available will do a hell of a lot more than a tracking system.
There WAS. The civil liberties advocates did away in effect with the system of state run mental hospitals, at least here in the Northeast, about 25 years ago. So we released all the nutcases to live on sewer grates and in refrigerator boxes.
Real improvement that was. Now the government comes in with an idea to get rid of the dying people in the winter and get rid of the smell of piss on the subways and the same old tired voices are rising up to bitch.
All of these rules apply to everyone, including the homeless... Why should additional rules apply to them?
Two reasons, one a justification and the second is the goal:
1. They have dropped out of society's systems and basically have no legitimate means of being tracked. Therefore, spending on homeless programs is like throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. You have no idea what you are funding.
2. With appropriate funding and metrics, we have a chance of reintegrating these people into society somehow. This is somewhere where government can actually work. It is never going to happen without tracking and hard numbers however. I'm sick of the subways smelling like piss and having people die on sewer grates in the winter, for christ's sake.
The Nazi comparison is bullshit. Everyone gets tracked. Even your grandmother. Her in particular since she's probably on Social Security and Medicare.
I live in a fucking city dude my whole life. I walk past people with their goddamn signs saying "I have AIDS and I am homeless, please give" every day, as well as the drunken losers in the subways pissing on the ground and making the place stink like a...well, sewer. Bit of humor there. I'm sure I have a more close-up view than you do in your goddamn ivory tower.
Your number is a crock of shit even in my view because there is severe undercounting of homeless in Census figures. I am not willing to substitute some kind of bullshit statistical sampling to come up with the number. The warped estimates we get are outrageous. A real number is required, and needs to be kept up to date, just like the tax data, and the list of people on Social Security and Medicare and every other stinking government program.
There is no privileged act involved in walking down the street.
And a cop can't do the same thing if i'm walking down the street? Think again...
All of the actions I describe above can happen on the street as well. In many jurisdictions, public drunkenness is illegal, which is a bonafide justification for a stop while walking down the street.
Hell if the cop is being an ass he could just accuse me of jaywalking or something.
Think hard, you are. The homeless don't have credit reports, and don't file taxes. They don't get pay checks. They don't have an EZPass on their windshields because they have none. They don't have telephones. They don't get junk mail either. They are rarely the target of identity theft.
This just levels the playing field a bit and gives us a useful bit of information.
Funny, the same can be said about people with a home, yet we have been able to go through census and figure out the numbers without tracking them for quite some time.
Every few years you count them. You don't need to keep the equivalent of a criminal record for that.
That's the whole point, they don't have fucking homes. They move around. The leftists want to use statistical sampling techniques to count them in the census because they claim the census people aren't aggressive enough in locating and counting them - no matter what is done.
Track them, unleash the power of technology. Let's get a real number. What are you afraid of? Might be less than you think?
What is this, do thay not have the 4th just because they sleep in a box? What's next, the bill of rights is only for land owners?!? These PEOPLE are CITIZENS, damn it!!!
Umm, ok. When I get stopped by a cop he gets to demand my information and then run it all through their computer system. He can make me get out, walk in a straight line, pat me down, arrest me, whatever. Why should homeless people be different? Where is the 4th amendment violation?
You cannot seriously mean that a cardboard box on the municipality's sidewalk is a legitimate abode in a legal sense. That's just plain moronic.
If you want to gamble and have fun, go to the tropics. The Carribbean is pretty nice for this. The tables are laid back and the minimums are low.
Doing it here in the US is a nightmare. Fighting through old ladies at the slots just to find that the minimums at the tables mean you'll be spending a small fortune for what - harassment by pit bosses if you win too much.
I stay the hell away and AC is only 1.5 hours away...
Hrm. In the sense of the common law, it *is* illegal to bring frivolous cases to court. Tortious interference is illegal, as is trade libel, and so forth. So I wouldn't be so sure about labeling what they are doing "not illegal," if I were you.
The rub is in proving it. The judge is going to have to be really pissed at SCO for that to get anywhere. I was somewhat surprised that Mr. Moglen used that word. It is a very loaded term - one of the worst curses you can utter against another lawyer (they are immune to all the normal ones, you see). It insults their ethics, for one thing.
Not suggesting they didn't deserve it, but we should take that as a sign of disgust and hatred towards SCO that that word escaped him in a moment where he was clearly trying to be as accurate as possible.
coke-using - Hmm, no one had done this before, I think he innovated there. Weed, booze, and prescription downers were the drugs of choice of previous occupants of the Oval Office.
drunk-driving - Teddy Kennedy anyone? I hear Mary Jo Kopechne calling... Also you have to remember that we've only had about 80 years of Presidents who reasonably could have driven drunk. 10 of those years you have Prohibition and 13 of those years were FDR who didn't drive much, legs crippled with polio and all. I'm sure we'd have more than just a two-time presidential hopeful and Senior Senator from Massachusetts by now in the DUI ranks. One thing I can say is that Bush didn't kill anyone while driving drunk.
AWOL - Clinton "I loathe the military so I can get out of my ROTC duty"
ne'er-do-well - well, this is subjective, isn't it. Andrew Jackson wasn't all that upstanding a guy. For that matter, Lincoln was a bit of a weirdo and a travelling soul.
Let me remind you that the first President who had a disputed election was Thomas Jefferson. Election of 1800, nifty tune they sung back then called "Nigger doodle dandy" (set to the obvious tune) about Jefferson's extramarital sexual exploits with his slaves.
Beside which, you bring up a bunch of old dead issues that don't have traction except in your mind and a tiny bloc of like-minded souls. Getting the other 49.75% of people to vote for Dean or whomever is the hard part.
This is my only reply to the posts from today - keep dreaming.
You're about to learn a lot. Dean is going to get his ass beat like you have never seen someone get trounced. You may never pay attention to politics again after this. He's going to get utterly destroyed in the general election.
Why do you think the DNC is doing a 'dump Dean' campaign? They know this too! McAuliffe and company are not stupid - Machiavellian, certainly, but not stupid.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you, and the rest of the 'Dean can win' cheerleaders weren't around for Dukakis and Mondale and Carter and McGovern and Humphrey - the rogues gallery of lousy/ineffectual candidates the Democrats put out there in their various losing years in the past. We'll be able to add Dean to that list on November 5 2004.
Or am I overestimating the political sophistication of the Joe Sixpack, who simply equates one raghead with another? We've seen that in Australia with the MS Tampa incident, where much of the population seemed to confuse the Taliban with people who, at worst, were trying to get to Australia to get jobs and make money and at least some of which were actually fleeing the friggin' Taliban.
You are overestimating Joe Sixpack and his wife Jane. They'll vote out of fear every time you make them feel scared.
The nuanced position on Iraq, that it was irrelevant, is not going to gain traction with the average person. You have to say Bush lied about something, hence all the noise regarding NBC weapons. Unfortunately they are barking up the wrong tree with that one, but it makes for good press fodder in the boring summer months. Apparently there is some big announcement due in September on this, we'll have to revisit it then to see where things stand.
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.
Sorry, the Slickster is forbidden from ever holding that office again. The strange thing is that this is only the second time in the 55+ years since this was adopted that it has become an issue. Reagan's devotees made some noise about this, very low-key noise, back in 1988.
In retrospect this is a great idea - in most cases we want certain people to _stay_ gone. Imagine an Alzheimers' afflicted President? (some say he was, even then...)
If we're going to lose, let's do it with a candidate we can believe in. Not with Bush Lite.
OK, I can respect the point of view but here is my beef with that.
First, let's frame this: you are basically suggesting a McGovern strategy. Get a left winger who can never get elected into a national campaign and get the message you want out in the most vociferous way possible, even if he loses. Bush wins, I should be happy right?
I'm not.
First, i'm concerned about Bush's coattails. Imagine what kind of Supreme Court justices we'll get with 58 or 59 Republican senators in there? What kind of PATRIOT 2 bills we'll get with 275 or 300 Republican representatives?
Also, remember what happened as a result of the 1972 election? Note also that Nixon was a liberal compared to Bush. Really, on both social and defense issues, Tricky Dick was a real softie. Do you want to play that same game again? Do you want to repeat that particular period of history?
I would prefer a world where Bush is so damaged by a tough election fight that his more aberrant policies are hamstrung by division in Congress.
There are consequences to the strategy that you envision. Bad ones. You need a strong Presidential candidate if you want to prevent this. Dean isn't your man.
Last point, I think someone could beat Bush this time around. I'm not going to waste time outlining some fantasy scenario where it could happen, but I know it can. It needs to get in gear soon, however.
Slashdot Mirror
Or just a lefty. It happens - we deal.
Amazing. A post about guitar strings in a story about a guitar string maker is modded offtopic.
Simply amazing. Do the mods even read the stuff?
Dude, I admire your lust for history and strongly recommend you do the museum thing, but I also strongly recommend you don't buy one of these on Ebay unless your wife/parent/whatever is a very permissive soul! This thing is noisy as all hell! Hell a daisy wheel printer makes less noise than a teletype. You probably don't remember those...ok, dot matrix printers were considered an overall noise improvement over teletypes.
Geek points are hardly worth sleeping on the couch for a month. At least for this old bastard.
But maybe that's not what you want. Are you just trolling or something?
Don't mistake zealotry for trolling. I admit they look a lot alike from close up. I'm pretty tired today too so my patience levels are limited.
I don't like that simple pragmatism is so frequently thrown aside because of idealistic differences regarding privacy when we have a bunch of very screwed up people out there that we could be doing a whole hell of a lot for, at least a lot more than we are doing now. It probably wouldn't cost much more than what we spend now.
I'm not much for social programs in general but this is one glaring problem that only the government can adequately fix.
As for being a blowhard, when you are compelled to speak from authority all day, you retain the command voice at all times.
I'm punishing you now for your impudence by removing your enemy flag. That was a stab at humor, incidentally.
This whole idea is based on the assumption that there are millions of people draining the resources of our homeless shelters. Feh, for the buck or two it costs, let them. If they lie their way into a homeless shelter they need the help.
Actually that is not the reason why people care. The reason why they care is that homeless people fall into three distinct categories:
1. Substance abusers
2. People with treatable mental disorders
3. Transient homeless (the hard up people who don't have a roof)
#3 is who we want shelters for. These people tend not to stay homeless forever. Unfortunately those shelters are full of petty thieves, dealers and other riffraff that make them untenable for many. The reason this continues is because #1 and #2 aren't taken off the street and treated.
We want them registered so we can _DO SOMETHING_ about these people finally, rather than just tolerating the societal (and personal) ill in the name of bizarre idealism.
Don't be so damn quick to assign a dollar value to the concern.
1. You can say everyone gets tracked, but the only legal tracking, specifically the tracking you are referring to, is voluntary.
Ever try not filling out your tax return (assuming you actually earned enough to become part of the taxpayers)? I recommend it if you like trouble. Try getting a job without a social security number. Try doing almost anything nowadays without a driver's license. Voluntary, did you say? Hardly so.
2. I don't live in tower, I do live in the city center. That said, I used to live in a very rural area, and I can tell you that the cities do a piss poor job taking care of those who fall through the cracks.
You read slashdot, so I assume you are aware of the recent depression in the tech industry. Plenty of the new homeless came from our ranks. I ask you, that being the case, how do you justify your hate?
How is it hate to want to fix a festering sore on the body politic? Furthermore, very few of the recently homeless are technology people. Sheesh- this kind of crap is yet another reason we need tracking. Good actual data on who the hell is on the street.
I don't think you want to find out that most of the people out there are single males with dependency or mental issues who need treatment, not freedom to be vagrants. I really don't think you want to know that for sure, even though you know it's true.
3. You can throw out statistical sampling if you want, but understand that most census numbers from statistical sources. Can you imagine how much it would cost to have everyone fill out the long form? It would also be much less accurate.
Actually most census data is produced via people who fill out their forms. A smaller portion is gathered by actual census employees who penetrate such locations as inner cities to find the people who don't fill out forms, homeless being one of these demographic groups. I _Know_ the census people can't possibly be counting all these people, which is a concession.
The census bureau site (www.census.gov) sucks ass, or i'd do a direct link to the page describing the process for the 2000 census. The short form is enough for demographic and population information, however. Don't throw the long form stuff in my face - only 1 in 6 fill that out and it's pretty big. We don't need that about every homeless guy.
If we're spending money to try and improve the situation of the homeless, making more free mental and medical help available will do a hell of a lot more than a tracking system.
There WAS. The civil liberties advocates did away in effect with the system of state run mental hospitals, at least here in the Northeast, about 25 years ago. So we released all the nutcases to live on sewer grates and in refrigerator boxes.
Real improvement that was. Now the government comes in with an idea to get rid of the dying people in the winter and get rid of the smell of piss on the subways and the same old tired voices are rising up to bitch.
You don't know how many homeless people there are, but you know that the numbers are inflated? That's pretty impressive, dude.
280k is the census number
5 million is the number the most radical homeless advocates say.
Both numbers are bullshit. The truth is in between somewhere. If it's more than 5 million, i'll apologize publically and gladly to them.
All of these rules apply to everyone, including the homeless... Why should additional rules apply to them?
Two reasons, one a justification and the second is the goal:
1. They have dropped out of society's systems and basically have no legitimate means of being tracked. Therefore, spending on homeless programs is like throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. You have no idea what you are funding.
2. With appropriate funding and metrics, we have a chance of reintegrating these people into society somehow. This is somewhere where government can actually work. It is never going to happen without tracking and hard numbers however. I'm sick of the subways smelling like piss and having people die on sewer grates in the winter, for christ's sake.
I quoted the law that prevents such searches unless a crime is suspected.
To insist that there is any legal similarity between the act of criminal investigation and mandatory spying based on economic class is ludicrous.
VAGRANCY is against the law in nearly every jurisdiction you could select.
Doh.
I'm not going to retype the same reply in this thread.
...well, sewer. Bit of humor there. I'm sure I have a more close-up view than you do in your goddamn ivory tower.
Why your arguments don't hold water
The Nazi comparison is bullshit. Everyone gets tracked. Even your grandmother. Her in particular since she's probably on Social Security and Medicare.
I live in a fucking city dude my whole life. I walk past people with their goddamn signs saying "I have AIDS and I am homeless, please give" every day, as well as the drunken losers in the subways pissing on the ground and making the place stink like a
Your number is a crock of shit even in my view because there is severe undercounting of homeless in Census figures. I am not willing to substitute some kind of bullshit statistical sampling to come up with the number. The warped estimates we get are outrageous. A real number is required, and needs to be kept up to date, just like the tax data, and the list of people on Social Security and Medicare and every other stinking government program.
There is no privileged act involved in walking down the street.
And a cop can't do the same thing if i'm walking down the street? Think again...
All of the actions I describe above can happen on the street as well. In many jurisdictions, public drunkenness is illegal, which is a bonafide justification for a stop while walking down the street.
Hell if the cop is being an ass he could just accuse me of jaywalking or something.
And finally, first the "homeless." Then us.
You are already being tracked.
Think hard, you are. The homeless don't have credit reports, and don't file taxes. They don't get pay checks. They don't have an EZPass on their windshields because they have none. They don't have telephones. They don't get junk mail either. They are rarely the target of identity theft.
This just levels the playing field a bit and gives us a useful bit of information.
Funny, the same can be said about people with a home, yet we have been able to go through census and figure out the numbers without tracking them for quite some time.
Every few years you count them. You don't need to keep the equivalent of a criminal record for that.
That's the whole point, they don't have fucking homes. They move around. The leftists want to use statistical sampling techniques to count them in the census because they claim the census people aren't aggressive enough in locating and counting them - no matter what is done.
Track them, unleash the power of technology. Let's get a real number. What are you afraid of? Might be less than you think?
What is this, do thay not have the 4th just because they sleep in a box? What's next, the bill of rights is only for land owners?!? These PEOPLE are CITIZENS, damn it!!!
Umm, ok. When I get stopped by a cop he gets to demand my information and then run it all through their computer system. He can make me get out, walk in a straight line, pat me down, arrest me, whatever. Why should homeless people be different? Where is the 4th amendment violation?
You cannot seriously mean that a cardboard box on the municipality's sidewalk is a legitimate abode in a legal sense. That's just plain moronic.
Yes we do need to track them.
We're tired of getting all those fake, inflated numbers of how many there are. Knowing how many homeless are really out there is a vital statistic.
The bullshit about this has gone on too long. Let's have some real numbers.
If you want to gamble and have fun, go to the tropics. The Carribbean is pretty nice for this. The tables are laid back and the minimums are low.
Doing it here in the US is a nightmare. Fighting through old ladies at the slots just to find that the minimums at the tables mean you'll be spending a small fortune for what - harassment by pit bosses if you win too much.
I stay the hell away and AC is only 1.5 hours away...
Honestly, expecting reliable reporting from the obviously sensationalist Associated Press is pretty optimistic.
I really think the memo came down to 'sex up' their reports, about 2 years ago. I ignore AP articles since I noticed the trend.
Reuters is not quite so bad, but they have other problems...
Uh, you must not have been around back when this started. Otherwise you are a stinking fucking troll.
I won't waste time rebutting you.
Hrm. In the sense of the common law, it *is* illegal to bring frivolous cases to court. Tortious interference is illegal, as is trade libel, and so forth. So I wouldn't be so sure about labeling what they are doing "not illegal," if I were you.
The rub is in proving it. The judge is going to have to be really pissed at SCO for that to get anywhere. I was somewhat surprised that Mr. Moglen used that word. It is a very loaded term - one of the worst curses you can utter against another lawyer (they are immune to all the normal ones, you see). It insults their ethics, for one thing.
Not suggesting they didn't deserve it, but we should take that as a sign of disgust and hatred towards SCO that that word escaped him in a moment where he was clearly trying to be as accurate as possible.
coke-using - Hmm, no one had done this before, I think he innovated there. Weed, booze, and prescription downers were the drugs of choice of previous occupants of the Oval Office.
drunk-driving - Teddy Kennedy anyone? I hear Mary Jo Kopechne calling... Also you have to remember that we've only had about 80 years of Presidents who reasonably could have driven drunk. 10 of those years you have Prohibition and 13 of those years were FDR who didn't drive much, legs crippled with polio and all. I'm sure we'd have more than just a two-time presidential hopeful and Senior Senator from Massachusetts by now in the DUI ranks. One thing I can say is that Bush didn't kill anyone while driving drunk.
AWOL - Clinton "I loathe the military so I can get out of my ROTC duty"
ne'er-do-well - well, this is subjective, isn't it. Andrew Jackson wasn't all that upstanding a guy. For that matter, Lincoln was a bit of a weirdo and a travelling soul.
Let me remind you that the first President who had a disputed election was Thomas Jefferson. Election of 1800, nifty tune they sung back then called "Nigger doodle dandy" (set to the obvious tune) about Jefferson's extramarital sexual exploits with his slaves.
Beside which, you bring up a bunch of old dead issues that don't have traction except in your mind and a tiny bloc of like-minded souls. Getting the other 49.75% of people to vote for Dean or whomever is the hard part.
This is my only reply to the posts from today - keep dreaming.
You're about to learn a lot. Dean is going to get his ass beat like you have never seen someone get trounced. You may never pay attention to politics again after this. He's going to get utterly destroyed in the general election.
Why do you think the DNC is doing a 'dump Dean' campaign? They know this too! McAuliffe and company are not stupid - Machiavellian, certainly, but not stupid.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you, and the rest of the 'Dean can win' cheerleaders weren't around for Dukakis and Mondale and Carter and McGovern and Humphrey - the rogues gallery of lousy/ineffectual candidates the Democrats put out there in their various losing years in the past. We'll be able to add Dean to that list on November 5 2004.
Or am I overestimating the political sophistication of the Joe Sixpack, who simply equates one raghead with another? We've seen that in Australia with the MS Tampa incident, where much of the population seemed to confuse the Taliban with people who, at worst, were trying to get to Australia to get jobs and make money and at least some of which were actually fleeing the friggin' Taliban.
You are overestimating Joe Sixpack and his wife Jane. They'll vote out of fear every time you make them feel scared.
The nuanced position on Iraq, that it was irrelevant, is not going to gain traction with the average person. You have to say Bush lied about something, hence all the noise regarding NBC weapons. Unfortunately they are barking up the wrong tree with that one, but it makes for good press fodder in the boring summer months. Apparently there is some big announcement due in September on this, we'll have to revisit it then to see where things stand.
Amendment XXII
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.
Sorry, the Slickster is forbidden from ever holding that office again. The strange thing is that this is only the second time in the 55+ years since this was adopted that it has become an issue. Reagan's devotees made some noise about this, very low-key noise, back in 1988.
In retrospect this is a great idea - in most cases we want certain people to _stay_ gone. Imagine an Alzheimers' afflicted President? (some say he was, even then...)
If we're going to lose, let's do it with a candidate we can believe in. Not with Bush Lite.
OK, I can respect the point of view but here is my beef with that.
First, let's frame this: you are basically suggesting a McGovern strategy. Get a left winger who can never get elected into a national campaign and get the message you want out in the most vociferous way possible, even if he loses. Bush wins, I should be happy right?
I'm not.
First, i'm concerned about Bush's coattails. Imagine what kind of Supreme Court justices we'll get with 58 or 59 Republican senators in there? What kind of PATRIOT 2 bills we'll get with 275 or 300 Republican representatives?
Also, remember what happened as a result of the 1972 election? Note also that Nixon was a liberal compared to Bush. Really, on both social and defense issues, Tricky Dick was a real softie. Do you want to play that same game again? Do you want to repeat that particular period of history?
I would prefer a world where Bush is so damaged by a tough election fight that his more aberrant policies are hamstrung by division in Congress.
There are consequences to the strategy that you envision. Bad ones. You need a strong Presidential candidate if you want to prevent this. Dean isn't your man.
Last point, I think someone could beat Bush this time around. I'm not going to waste time outlining some fantasy scenario where it could happen, but I know it can. It needs to get in gear soon, however.