I used to consider myself an agnostic, until a philosophy professor asked me if I believed that Santa Claus might exist. Since then, I've discovered that I'm a weak friendly atheist. Strong atheism denies the existence of any god, while weak atheism denies the existence of a particular god. Also, unfriendly atheism denies that rational bases for religious belief exist, while friendly atheism admits of possible rational bases for religious belief.
A few years ago, I would have denied that anything existed beyond the physical world. I've since become less dogmatic. Who knows what strange mysteries the universe might hold?
I think it is because the need to replicate the meme overrides the need to be consistent. I used to struggle to make sense of this contradiction myself, until I discovered memetics.
Several recent studies lend support to this observation. From an article at the American Pyschological Association:
We've all seen it: the employee who's convinced she's doing a great job and gets a mediocre performance appraisal, or the student who's sure he's aced an exam and winds up with a D.
The tendency that people have to overrate their abilities fascinates Cornell University social psychologist David Dunning, PhD. "People overestimate themselves," he says, "but more than that, they really seem to believe it. I've been trying to figure out where that certainty of belief comes from."
Dunning is doing that through a series of manipulated studies, mostly with students at Cornell. He's finding that the least competent performers inflate their abilities the most; that the reason for the overinflation seems to be ignorance, not arrogance; and that chronic self-beliefs, however inaccurate, underlie both people's over and underestimations of how well they're doing.
RICO charges? It's only white-collar crime. As historian Howard Zinn noted,
'In 1969, there were 502 convictions for tax fraud. Such cases, called "white-collar crimes," usually involve people with a good deal of money. Of those convicted, 20 percent ended up in jail. The fraud averaged $190,000 per case; their sentences averaged seven months. That same year, for burglary and auto theft (crimes of the poor) 60 percent ended up in prison. The auto thefts averaged $992; the sentences averaged eighteen months. The burglaries averaged $321; the sentences averaged thirty-three months.'
(A People's History of the United States, p. 516)
Stealing money from people's bank accounts is a victimless crime, like punching a stranger in a dark room.
Instead, if the research institute on campus is willing to pay her $500 and all medical expenses to abort the fetus, that makes the abortion option (the unethical one, in my view) much more attractive.
The question is: are campus research institutes paying women to abort their fetuses? If so, that is a perverse incentive, and should be stopped. I claim that many woman, faced with the difficult choice of considering an abortion, will donate the aborted fetus for research purposes. The financial incentive should disappear.
Also, you seem to have made the same mistake that the Anonymous Coward did in my statement about the desireability of abortion. Do you want a tetanus shot? Do you think one should be available in case you are careless around rusty nails? I'm not trying to trivialize abortion; I'm trying to use an innocuous analogy. I believe you would be hard-pressed to find people in this country who would like for the number of tetanus shots given per year to increase. (Well, outside of people who would profit from it directly.) Yet, when you need a tetanus shot, you would like for one to be available.
Abortion is far more serious, but still similar enough for the analogy to hold. I'd like to see the number of abortions performed around the world to decrease. In fact, I'd like it if there weren't ever another abortion. And, like you, I believe that any perverse incentive (like money) that encourages women to have abortions is both counterproductive and morally suspect.
I agree with you that, if there is money to be made on a commercial process that requires live cells from a newly-harvested fetus, money will be offered. I differ from you in that I don't think that this will be the case, based on the unfortunate number of aborted fetus that are already available on a voluntary and non-commercial basis. However, if you should need support in any campaign to remove perverse incentives from abortion, I will help you.
Finally, how representative is your 19-year-old college student of women seeking abortions in general? Is she the 'welfare queen' of the abortion world?
Should people be paid big bucks by research clinics to have abortions? Definitely not.
This reminds me of a South Park episode I saw recently. Cartman was trying to get women to have abortions so that he could get stem cells to help save Kenny (well, that's what he said he was doing.) He was standing in front of the abortion clinic, asking pregnant women who were walking by if they might not abort their pregnancies to help save his friend. One couple says, "Sure, we'll just try to have another baby later on," and the woman goes off to have an abortion.
All joking aside, the fact is that nobody wants abortion. Can I get a show of hands from everybody who would like to see the number of abortions performed in the world increase? Nobody?
The stem cell research industry will not need to pay people to have abortions. 'Oh, look, honey. If you get me pregnant and I have an abortion, we'll get a nice fat check from the research company.'
Perhaps you would do very well as an abortion adviser. Any time a woman decides she might want an abortion, we could have her sit down with you and talk. You could determine if the abortion was medically necessary and/or morally acceptable. We could trust that you would make the right decision every time. But, if we were to entrust this power to someone we don't know, how would we know the person wasn't abusing this position of authority? If a group were to audit this person's judgments, how would we ensure that the group was acting appropriately?
Finally, seeing that such centralized decision-making would not work, why don't we leave the decision-making in the hands of the people who are examining abortion as an unfortunate and difficult choice? (That is why supporters are 'pro-choice' and not 'pro-abortion'.)
While it may be true that no particular food has been conclusively proven to affect the risk of cancer, studies repeatedly show that low-fat diets including fruits, vegetables, and grains do promote good health. For instance, a recent study reports that "[d]iets low in fat and rich in fruits and vegetables, as well as exercise, have been shown to reduce the risk of a range of cancers including breast and prostate cancer." (Full story here.)
I can also attest that my LDL cholesterol is significantly lower since I adopted a vegan diet. (A drop from 180 to 120 in less than one year. Remember, anecdotes, like hearsay and conjecture, is a kind of evidence.;)
My comment about the flavor profile of flesh is directed towards people who believe that vegetarian food cannot be tasty and satisfying. I can cook my tofu, tempeh, seitan, or TVP using the same marinades as you do. Therefore, when speaking of the flavor of flesh, I suggest it is either pointless or unfair to speak of marinades.
I do not cook meat in my house, but my cats are always around the kitchen when I am preparing food. They are always excited because my feeding time coincides with their feeding time, and a couple of them are always ready to snatch up any unprotected food. One of my cats will eat almost anything he can fit into his mouth. He especially loves broccoli. He doesn't care for blueberries or water chestnuts, though.
With respect to the taste of meat, I assume you are referring to the Maillard reaction. It is true that the denatured proteins (caused by the introduction of heat) react with the sugars in the meat to introduce flavor.
I'm not sure the parent is a troll as much as he is vague. The animal your meat came from was likely raised on a factory farm. The animal was probably injected with antibiotics to reduce the likelihood of infection resulting from the crowded conditions. The animal was also likely given hormones to encourage growth.
I'm vegan, but I would argue that eating meat is natural (perhaps not ethical or healthy, but natural.) Eating factory farmed animals injected with chemicals is less natural.
therefore we have the innate right to eat what can't outrun us.
Oh, by the way, my friend asked me to tell you that your grandparents were delicious. Your grandfather runs pretty fast for an old guy, but not fast enough.;)
My guess is that you've never seen the guy responsible for removing the cow's intestines try his hardest to keep the cow's shit from spraying over the cow's carcass, from which the meat is pulled. With current line speeds in slaughterhouses, the job is very tough. And, once you've gotten good at it, you've probably outlived your stay at the job.
Eric Schlosser's 'Fast Food Nation' provides a nice description, or you could search for clips on the Web.
I'll pass on the 'cruelty-free meat.' But for the sake of a little mouthful of flesh, I would be depriving myself of my low cholesterol level, and my reduced risk of heart disease, prostate cancer, colon cancer, etc.
Besides, the chief components in the flavor profile of meat are blood and urine. I'm not particularly fond of the taste of either.
From a purely ethical standpoint, though, this 'cruelty-free meat' sounds a hell of a lot better than the factory farm system we've got now. Will it be available in hormone- and antibiotic-free varieties?
(And before anyone tries to point out any inconsistencies between my post and my signature, I should note that I did not become a vegetarian for health reasons; however, I see them as a very nice side effect, and am not prepared to give them up.)
It seems to me that you have generalized a conception of "the liberal response", and want a specific reason why it is that way.
I don't think the original poster wanted any specific reasons at all. The poster was insincere in his or her attempt to determine the rationale that liberal slashdotters apply in coming to conclusions. The poster did not seek dialogue, which may have provided an answer to a question like, 'Why do many Slashdotters question the government's use of technology?'. Instead, the poster attempted to denigrate liberal Slashdotters by asking, 'Why do stupid, liberal Slashdotters constantly seek to undermine the ability of our government to protect us from terrorists?'
The fact that the post was a first post, that it generated a great many number of responses, and that it directed the nature of the conversation to the poster's own ends suggests a troll. And, with lines like, "Call me crazy, but if the FBI needs 10 minute wiretapping on a WIFI setup to keep my plane from being blown up by a bunch of Islamic radicals, then so be it", the troll is confirmed. Who could possibly disagree? Who among us will suggest that allowing the FBI to prevent radical Muslims from blowing up planes is bad? By suggesting that such people exist, the poster attempts to paint all liberals with the stupid brush. Troll, indeed.
So, two atoms are walking down a road together. One atom says to the other, "Hey, I think I've lost an electron!" The other atom asks, "Are you sure?" The first atom responds, "Yes, I'm positive!"
Political parties are associations of citizens that share a common interest. The purpose of the party is to serve the interests of its members. Thus, serving their own interests is identical to serving our interests.
Political parties are associations of citizens. However, the party leadership is not merely an association of citizens. The leadership comes from a special class of citizens, who have time, money, power, and influence. Their interests are not the interests of the majority of the citizens of this country.
While it is true that a corporation is an association of people, and that a corporation serves the interests of its stockholders, it does not follow that the corporation serves the interests of the people!
The people would probably like the corporation to pay a decent wage to the workers in the community and to protect their local environment. The stockholders want the corporation to make them money.
Problems of funding, media access, and the incumbent's advantage are all much easier to overcome at the local level. Chalk it up to my youthful idealism, but I believe that energy and good ideas are enough to carry a local election.
Have you ever seen "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." It's a fictional tale, but it's frightening nonetheless, because it's entirely believable. The smear campaign that the moneyed interests launch against Mr. Smith have their analogues in the real world.
You think the problem is that the major national parties won't let anybody else participate in the presidential campaign debates. I think the problem is that the third parties have no idea how to get from "Mayor of San Francisco" to "State Senator" or "Governor of California", let alone "President of the United States".
My analysis is not simply that a vast conspiracy exists to prevent competition at the federal level of government. I can agree with your points and still think that the Democrats and Republicans collude to prevent competition.
Show me a party that consistently gets twenty per cent of the vote, and I'll show you a party that consistently fails to convince eighty per cent of the citizens that the party's ideas are worthwhile. Does it seem fair to you to put such a party in power?
I believe you have missed my point entirely. I do not believe that a party that only manages to acquire twenty percent of the vote should run the country. We have a REPRESENTATIVE democracy. Where is my representation in the winner-take-all-system? If twenty percent of the public were to consistently vote for a party, and candidates from that party are rarely or never elected to office, then twenty percent of the people lack representation!!
According to you, it seems that these people should wait and be patient and grow their party. Let's suppose they do that. Let's suppose that the 20% manage to convince another 60% of the population to adopt their agenda. What of the remaining 20%? Now they lack representation! We haven't solved the problem I'm trying to solve, which is making sure that people have representation in government.
My posts have been hinting at a fundamental change in the system, perhaps involving a move to a parliamentary style of government, including less paradoxical vote counting methods. I believe that such changes would increase the number of people represented in this government. I think that is a worthy goal. My overarching point is that the Democrats and the Republicans know that this change would not be good for them, and they'll never let it happen. The party leadership are not a dispassionate and unconcerned group of citizens, and they do not act in the peoples' interest.
True, you did not claim that it was easy. Still, I doubt that public opinion really mattered at all. Bush is hailed as a leader, willing to do unpopular things because he believes they are right and just. His supporters contrast this with Clinton's approach; they accuse Clinton of changing his opinion to suit the current whims of the public.
You can be sure that I want the President to be responsive to the public. I do not vote for politicians so that they can ignore my opinions; I vote for politicians so that they can represent my opinions. (Yes, I know this won't ever happen.)
If the public did not support the invasion in Iraq, and if consent could not be manufactured, the President and his cabinet would still have substituted their judgment for our own. Of course, Clinton would do the same, but at least he would have pretended to do otherwise. (This is still unacceptable, but it's less insulting. And, yes, I was critical of Clinton when he was in office, just as I'm critical of every politician.)
That's right, and we all know how hard it is to get the majority to go along. I remember all the tough questions they asked, their refusal to believe that Saddam was involved in September 11th, their concerns about the ultimate cost of the war. Oh, wait a minute, none of that happened. Instead, the President used Colin Powell's credibility and a few poorly crafted lies to bamboozle everyone. I wonder why nobody noticed...
The only thing I remember about Reagan is his saying, "I don't remember," in relation to the Iran-Contra Scandal. He didn't have to plead the 5th Amendment, like you or I. He just said, "I don't remember."
You don't often see the people in power specifically exercising their Constitutional rights, because they don't need to do so. I'd take preferential treatment and being shielding from prosecution over my crummy Constitutional rights any day.
Mr. Jeb Bush, we found these unauthorized prescription drugs on your daughter, Noelle. She faked a prescription for Xanax, which she probably intended to use in conjunction with Ecstacy.
Ordinarily, we'd throw her in jail on felony possession of controlled substances and evict your family from your public housing. You remember, part of the 'get tough on drugs' approach you've been advocating lately? We thought you might have a better idea, though. What's that? Community service? Sounds great to me.
It will only be worthless if its true purpose was to prevent terrorism. If it is half as effective as keeping an eye on the populace as COINTELPRO, the government will be very happy.
What's a greater danger to this government: 19 terrorists, or 250 million motivated voters?
After all, why should [the two major parties] not do something that benefits them? Should they act to their own detriment, in order to benefit other factions which disagree with their ideals?
Chalk it up to my youthful idealism, but I believe that the political parties in this country should serve our interests and not their own. Since they cannot be trusted to serve our interests, we need to keep a close eye on them and rein in their power.
Your only limiting factors are the energy you bring to the task and the real value of your ideas to the people around you.
That and the amount of money people will bribe you with, er, I mean contribute to your campaign. Oh, and your access to the media so that you may share your message with others. Oh, and the difficulty of unseating an incumbent. But, other than these few things that I came up with off of the top of my head, and the others I could come up with given more time, few barriers exist.
Now, what about the people that support a third party? Do they have real representation? Suppose that twenty percent of the US population supports a third party agenda, at the national, state, and local level. That is, a candidate representing this party consistently receives twenty percent of the vote in every election.
With only twenty percent of the vote, the candidates representing this party will continually lose. In that case, essentially twenty percent of the voting public lack meaningful representation in the government. Does that seem fair?
From an editorial review of "No Debate" at Amazon:
This leads to a tautological situation: they can't debate because they aren't viable and they aren't viable because they're not allowed to debate.
How many different parties participated in the last presidential election? How hard would it be to include these parties in a national debate? How embarassing and difficult would this make the debates for the parties in power? Would it be better for the country, even if it weren't fair? (After all, we're thinking of ways to make the country better, right?)
I think we're getting at the real source of the problem, which is the winner-takes-all system we have adopted. The American vote counting system is among the most paradoxical in the world. Suppose that 40% of the people in the country want Candidate A, while 30% of the people like Candidate B and another 30% of the people like Candidate C. Further, suppose that Candidate B would receive Candidate C's votes, or that Candidate C would receive Candidate B's votes, if either were to drop out of the race. Candidate A wins as long as the votes are split!
Now, how will a third party enter the national political scene? If it's a leftist party, it will give the election to the right. If it's a rightist party, it will give the election to the left. I remember many Republicans pretending to care about getting Nader on the ballot, because they knew it would mean even more trouble for the Democrats.
The bottom line is that it benefits the two major parties to maintain the status quo. I believe it is naive to think that the major parties don't recognize and act on this fact, and I believe it would be fruitful to consider ways of checking this potential abuse of power.
You make very good points. However, I think you're too quick to dismiss the notion of a conspiracy. Granted, a big claim like the existence of a conspiracy to keep third parties down requires a great amount of evidence.
George Farah, the founder and executive director of Open Debates, argues in his book No Debate that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is dominated by Republican and Democratic Party operatives.
I am not a Green Party strategist. I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I'm concerned that our democratic republic is owned and ruled by the rich in their own interests. As useful as your advice might be in advancing the Green agenda, I'm much more interested in discussing the shortcomings of the two-party system and the collusion between the major parties.
No, the ACLU does not only side with pornographers and followers of Wavy Gravy. They also side with the Ku Klux Klan and Rush Limbaugh. In general, the ACLU sides with people who are exercising their civil liberties, and acts against people who are seeking to limit civil liberties.
The founders of the ACLU felt civil liberties were so important that they created an organization to defend them and included the term 'civil liberties' in the organization's name. If the founders of the ACLU had wanted an organization that would parrot the agenda of the State, they would have started a newspaper.;)
Slashdot Mirror
I used to consider myself an agnostic, until a philosophy professor asked me if I believed that Santa Claus might exist. Since then, I've discovered that I'm a weak friendly atheist. Strong atheism denies the existence of any god, while weak atheism denies the existence of a particular god. Also, unfriendly atheism denies that rational bases for religious belief exist, while friendly atheism admits of possible rational bases for religious belief.
A few years ago, I would have denied that anything existed beyond the physical world. I've since become less dogmatic. Who knows what strange mysteries the universe might hold?
Man vegans are even more weird than I initially thought.
;)
Man, non-vegans are even bigger generalizers than I initially thought.
I think it is because the need to replicate the meme overrides the need to be consistent. I used to struggle to make sense of this contradiction myself, until I discovered memetics.
We've all seen it: the employee who's convinced she's doing a great job and gets a mediocre performance appraisal, or the student who's sure he's aced an exam and winds up with a D.
The tendency that people have to overrate their abilities fascinates Cornell University social psychologist David Dunning, PhD. "People overestimate themselves," he says, "but more than that, they really seem to believe it. I've been trying to figure out where that certainty of belief comes from."
Dunning is doing that through a series of manipulated studies, mostly with students at Cornell. He's finding that the least competent performers inflate their abilities the most; that the reason for the overinflation seems to be ignorance, not arrogance; and that chronic self-beliefs, however inaccurate, underlie both people's over and underestimations of how well they're doing.
RICO charges? It's only white-collar crime. As historian Howard Zinn noted,
'In 1969, there were 502 convictions for tax fraud. Such cases, called "white-collar crimes," usually involve people with a good deal of money. Of those convicted, 20 percent ended up in jail. The fraud averaged $190,000 per case; their sentences averaged seven months. That same year, for burglary and auto theft (crimes of the poor) 60 percent ended up in prison. The auto thefts averaged $992; the sentences averaged eighteen months. The burglaries averaged $321; the sentences averaged thirty-three months.'
(A People's History of the United States, p. 516)
Stealing money from people's bank accounts is a victimless crime, like punching a stranger in a dark room.
Instead, if the research institute on campus is willing to pay her $500 and all medical expenses to abort the fetus, that makes the abortion option (the unethical one, in my view) much more attractive.
The question is: are campus research institutes paying women to abort their fetuses? If so, that is a perverse incentive, and should be stopped. I claim that many woman, faced with the difficult choice of considering an abortion, will donate the aborted fetus for research purposes. The financial incentive should disappear.
Also, you seem to have made the same mistake that the Anonymous Coward did in my statement about the desireability of abortion. Do you want a tetanus shot? Do you think one should be available in case you are careless around rusty nails? I'm not trying to trivialize abortion; I'm trying to use an innocuous analogy. I believe you would be hard-pressed to find people in this country who would like for the number of tetanus shots given per year to increase. (Well, outside of people who would profit from it directly.) Yet, when you need a tetanus shot, you would like for one to be available.
Abortion is far more serious, but still similar enough for the analogy to hold. I'd like to see the number of abortions performed around the world to decrease. In fact, I'd like it if there weren't ever another abortion. And, like you, I believe that any perverse incentive (like money) that encourages women to have abortions is both counterproductive and morally suspect.
I agree with you that, if there is money to be made on a commercial process that requires live cells from a newly-harvested fetus, money will be offered. I differ from you in that I don't think that this will be the case, based on the unfortunate number of aborted fetus that are already available on a voluntary and non-commercial basis. However, if you should need support in any campaign to remove perverse incentives from abortion, I will help you.
Finally, how representative is your 19-year-old college student of women seeking abortions in general? Is she the 'welfare queen' of the abortion world?
Should people be paid big bucks by research clinics to have abortions? Definitely not.
This reminds me of a South Park episode I saw recently. Cartman was trying to get women to have abortions so that he could get stem cells to help save Kenny (well, that's what he said he was doing.) He was standing in front of the abortion clinic, asking pregnant women who were walking by if they might not abort their pregnancies to help save his friend. One couple says, "Sure, we'll just try to have another baby later on," and the woman goes off to have an abortion.
All joking aside, the fact is that nobody wants abortion. Can I get a show of hands from everybody who would like to see the number of abortions performed in the world increase? Nobody?
The stem cell research industry will not need to pay people to have abortions. 'Oh, look, honey. If you get me pregnant and I have an abortion, we'll get a nice fat check from the research company.'
Perhaps you would do very well as an abortion adviser. Any time a woman decides she might want an abortion, we could have her sit down with you and talk. You could determine if the abortion was medically necessary and/or morally acceptable. We could trust that you would make the right decision every time. But, if we were to entrust this power to someone we don't know, how would we know the person wasn't abusing this position of authority? If a group were to audit this person's judgments, how would we ensure that the group was acting appropriately?
Finally, seeing that such centralized decision-making would not work, why don't we leave the decision-making in the hands of the people who are examining abortion as an unfortunate and difficult choice? (That is why supporters are 'pro-choice' and not 'pro-abortion'.)
While it may be true that no particular food has been conclusively proven to affect the risk of cancer, studies repeatedly show that low-fat diets including fruits, vegetables, and grains do promote good health. For instance, a recent study reports that "[d]iets low in fat and rich in fruits and vegetables, as well as exercise, have been shown to reduce the risk of a range of cancers including breast and prostate cancer." (Full story here.)
;)
I can also attest that my LDL cholesterol is significantly lower since I adopted a vegan diet. (A drop from 180 to 120 in less than one year. Remember, anecdotes, like hearsay and conjecture, is a kind of evidence.
My comment about the flavor profile of flesh is directed towards people who believe that vegetarian food cannot be tasty and satisfying. I can cook my tofu, tempeh, seitan, or TVP using the same marinades as you do. Therefore, when speaking of the flavor of flesh, I suggest it is either pointless or unfair to speak of marinades.
I do not cook meat in my house, but my cats are always around the kitchen when I am preparing food. They are always excited because my feeding time coincides with their feeding time, and a couple of them are always ready to snatch up any unprotected food. One of my cats will eat almost anything he can fit into his mouth. He especially loves broccoli. He doesn't care for blueberries or water chestnuts, though.
With respect to the taste of meat, I assume you are referring to the Maillard reaction. It is true that the denatured proteins (caused by the introduction of heat) react with the sugars in the meat to introduce flavor.
I'm not sure the parent is a troll as much as he is vague. The animal your meat came from was likely raised on a factory farm. The animal was probably injected with antibiotics to reduce the likelihood of infection resulting from the crowded conditions. The animal was also likely given hormones to encourage growth.
;)
I'm vegan, but I would argue that eating meat is natural (perhaps not ethical or healthy, but natural.) Eating factory farmed animals injected with chemicals is less natural.
therefore we have the innate right to eat what can't outrun us.
Oh, by the way, my friend asked me to tell you that your grandparents were delicious. Your grandfather runs pretty fast for an old guy, but not fast enough.
My guess is that you've never seen the guy responsible for removing the cow's intestines try his hardest to keep the cow's shit from spraying over the cow's carcass, from which the meat is pulled. With current line speeds in slaughterhouses, the job is very tough. And, once you've gotten good at it, you've probably outlived your stay at the job.
Eric Schlosser's 'Fast Food Nation' provides a nice description, or you could search for clips on the Web.
I'll pass on the 'cruelty-free meat.' But for the sake of a little mouthful of flesh, I would be depriving myself of my low cholesterol level, and my reduced risk of heart disease, prostate cancer, colon cancer, etc.
Besides, the chief components in the flavor profile of meat are blood and urine. I'm not particularly fond of the taste of either.
From a purely ethical standpoint, though, this 'cruelty-free meat' sounds a hell of a lot better than the factory farm system we've got now. Will it be available in hormone- and antibiotic-free varieties?
(And before anyone tries to point out any inconsistencies between my post and my signature, I should note that I did not become a vegetarian for health reasons; however, I see them as a very nice side effect, and am not prepared to give them up.)
Thanks!
It seems to me that you have generalized a conception of "the liberal response", and want a specific reason why it is that way.
I don't think the original poster wanted any specific reasons at all. The poster was insincere in his or her attempt to determine the rationale that liberal slashdotters apply in coming to conclusions. The poster did not seek dialogue, which may have provided an answer to a question like, 'Why do many Slashdotters question the government's use of technology?'. Instead, the poster attempted to denigrate liberal Slashdotters by asking, 'Why do stupid, liberal Slashdotters constantly seek to undermine the ability of our government to protect us from terrorists?'
The fact that the post was a first post, that it generated a great many number of responses, and that it directed the nature of the conversation to the poster's own ends suggests a troll. And, with lines like, "Call me crazy, but if the FBI needs 10 minute wiretapping on a WIFI setup to keep my plane from being blown up by a bunch of Islamic radicals, then so be it", the troll is confirmed. Who could possibly disagree? Who among us will suggest that allowing the FBI to prevent radical Muslims from blowing up planes is bad? By suggesting that such people exist, the poster attempts to paint all liberals with the stupid brush. Troll, indeed.
So, two atoms are walking down a road together. One atom says to the other, "Hey, I think I've lost an electron!" The other atom asks, "Are you sure?" The first atom responds, "Yes, I'm positive!"
Political parties are associations of citizens that share a common interest. The purpose of the party is to serve the interests of its members. Thus, serving their own interests is identical to serving our interests.
Political parties are associations of citizens. However, the party leadership is not merely an association of citizens. The leadership comes from a special class of citizens, who have time, money, power, and influence. Their interests are not the interests of the majority of the citizens of this country.
While it is true that a corporation is an association of people, and that a corporation serves the interests of its stockholders, it does not follow that the corporation serves the interests of the people!
The people would probably like the corporation to pay a decent wage to the workers in the community and to protect their local environment. The stockholders want the corporation to make them money.
Problems of funding, media access, and the incumbent's advantage are all much easier to overcome at the local level. Chalk it up to my youthful idealism, but I believe that energy and good ideas are enough to carry a local election.
Have you ever seen "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." It's a fictional tale, but it's frightening nonetheless, because it's entirely believable. The smear campaign that the moneyed interests launch against Mr. Smith have their analogues in the real world.
You think the problem is that the major national parties won't let anybody else participate in the presidential campaign debates. I think the problem is that the third parties have no idea how to get from "Mayor of San Francisco" to "State Senator" or "Governor of California", let alone "President of the United States".
My analysis is not simply that a vast conspiracy exists to prevent competition at the federal level of government. I can agree with your points and still think that the Democrats and Republicans collude to prevent competition.
Show me a party that consistently gets twenty per cent of the vote, and I'll show you a party that consistently fails to convince eighty per cent of the citizens that the party's ideas are worthwhile. Does it seem fair to you to put such a party in power?
I believe you have missed my point entirely. I do not believe that a party that only manages to acquire twenty percent of the vote should run the country. We have a REPRESENTATIVE democracy. Where is my representation in the winner-take-all-system? If twenty percent of the public were to consistently vote for a party, and candidates from that party are rarely or never elected to office, then twenty percent of the people lack representation!!
According to you, it seems that these people should wait and be patient and grow their party. Let's suppose they do that. Let's suppose that the 20% manage to convince another 60% of the population to adopt their agenda. What of the remaining 20%? Now they lack representation! We haven't solved the problem I'm trying to solve, which is making sure that people have representation in government.
My posts have been hinting at a fundamental change in the system, perhaps involving a move to a parliamentary style of government, including less paradoxical vote counting methods. I believe that such changes would increase the number of people represented in this government. I think that is a worthy goal. My overarching point is that the Democrats and the Republicans know that this change would not be good for them, and they'll never let it happen. The party leadership are not a dispassionate and unconcerned group of citizens, and they do not act in the peoples' interest.
True, you did not claim that it was easy. Still, I doubt that public opinion really mattered at all. Bush is hailed as a leader, willing to do unpopular things because he believes they are right and just. His supporters contrast this with Clinton's approach; they accuse Clinton of changing his opinion to suit the current whims of the public.
You can be sure that I want the President to be responsive to the public. I do not vote for politicians so that they can ignore my opinions; I vote for politicians so that they can represent my opinions. (Yes, I know this won't ever happen.)
If the public did not support the invasion in Iraq, and if consent could not be manufactured, the President and his cabinet would still have substituted their judgment for our own. Of course, Clinton would do the same, but at least he would have pretended to do otherwise. (This is still unacceptable, but it's less insulting. And, yes, I was critical of Clinton when he was in office, just as I'm critical of every politician.)
That's right, and we all know how hard it is to get the majority to go along. I remember all the tough questions they asked, their refusal to believe that Saddam was involved in September 11th, their concerns about the ultimate cost of the war. Oh, wait a minute, none of that happened. Instead, the President used Colin Powell's credibility and a few poorly crafted lies to bamboozle everyone. I wonder why nobody noticed...
The only thing I remember about Reagan is his saying, "I don't remember," in relation to the Iran-Contra Scandal. He didn't have to plead the 5th Amendment, like you or I. He just said, "I don't remember."
You don't often see the people in power specifically exercising their Constitutional rights, because they don't need to do so. I'd take preferential treatment and being shielding from prosecution over my crummy Constitutional rights any day.
Mr. Jeb Bush, we found these unauthorized prescription drugs on your daughter, Noelle. She faked a prescription for Xanax, which she probably intended to use in conjunction with Ecstacy.
Ordinarily, we'd throw her in jail on felony possession of controlled substances and evict your family from your public housing. You remember, part of the 'get tough on drugs' approach you've been advocating lately? We thought you might have a better idea, though. What's that? Community service? Sounds great to me.
It will only be worthless if its true purpose was to prevent terrorism. If it is half as effective as keeping an eye on the populace as COINTELPRO, the government will be very happy.
What's a greater danger to this government: 19 terrorists, or 250 million motivated voters?
(You know, it's almost impossible to approximate Zell's pronunciation of that word in print. How many syllables are in there, anyway??)
;)
I think it should be four syllables, just like Jesus' name (Ja-HEE-a-sus).
After all, why should [the two major parties] not do something that benefits them? Should they act to their own detriment, in order to benefit other factions which disagree with their ideals?
Chalk it up to my youthful idealism, but I believe that the political parties in this country should serve our interests and not their own. Since they cannot be trusted to serve our interests, we need to keep a close eye on them and rein in their power.
Your only limiting factors are the energy you bring to the task and the real value of your ideas to the people around you.
That and the amount of money people will bribe you with, er, I mean contribute to your campaign. Oh, and your access to the media so that you may share your message with others. Oh, and the difficulty of unseating an incumbent. But, other than these few things that I came up with off of the top of my head, and the others I could come up with given more time, few barriers exist.
Now, what about the people that support a third party? Do they have real representation? Suppose that twenty percent of the US population supports a third party agenda, at the national, state, and local level. That is, a candidate representing this party consistently receives twenty percent of the vote in every election.
With only twenty percent of the vote, the candidates representing this party will continually lose. In that case, essentially twenty percent of the voting public lack meaningful representation in the government. Does that seem fair?
From an editorial review of "No Debate" at Amazon:
This leads to a tautological situation: they can't debate because they aren't viable and they aren't viable because they're not allowed to debate.
How many different parties participated in the last presidential election? How hard would it be to include these parties in a national debate? How embarassing and difficult would this make the debates for the parties in power? Would it be better for the country, even if it weren't fair? (After all, we're thinking of ways to make the country better, right?)
I think we're getting at the real source of the problem, which is the winner-takes-all system we have adopted. The American vote counting system is among the most paradoxical in the world. Suppose that 40% of the people in the country want Candidate A, while 30% of the people like Candidate B and another 30% of the people like Candidate C. Further, suppose that Candidate B would receive Candidate C's votes, or that Candidate C would receive Candidate B's votes, if either were to drop out of the race. Candidate A wins as long as the votes are split!
Now, how will a third party enter the national political scene? If it's a leftist party, it will give the election to the right. If it's a rightist party, it will give the election to the left. I remember many Republicans pretending to care about getting Nader on the ballot, because they knew it would mean even more trouble for the Democrats.
The bottom line is that it benefits the two major parties to maintain the status quo. I believe it is naive to think that the major parties don't recognize and act on this fact, and I believe it would be fruitful to consider ways of checking this potential abuse of power.
You make very good points. However, I think you're too quick to dismiss the notion of a conspiracy. Granted, a big claim like the existence of a conspiracy to keep third parties down requires a great amount of evidence.
George Farah, the founder and executive director of Open Debates, argues in his book No Debate that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is dominated by Republican and Democratic Party operatives.
I am not a Green Party strategist. I am a citizen of the United States of America, and I'm concerned that our democratic republic is owned and ruled by the rich in their own interests. As useful as your advice might be in advancing the Green agenda, I'm much more interested in discussing the shortcomings of the two-party system and the collusion between the major parties.
No, the ACLU does not only side with pornographers and followers of Wavy Gravy. They also side with the Ku Klux Klan and Rush Limbaugh. In general, the ACLU sides with people who are exercising their civil liberties, and acts against people who are seeking to limit civil liberties.
;)
The founders of the ACLU felt civil liberties were so important that they created an organization to defend them and included the term 'civil liberties' in the organization's name. If the founders of the ACLU had wanted an organization that would parrot the agenda of the State, they would have started a newspaper.