As far as the "nut" complaint, just Google "Gold Standard".
What exactly is nuts about the gold standard? The fact that the founders supported it, or the fact that we had it up until 1971? Is the gold standard any more 'nuts' than the Petrodollar? If anything the petrodollar is nuts!
He's also protectionist as hell.
Are you kidding? You might as well call him pro war too. I'm not sure if you're unaware of his position, or purposefully misstating it. Paul wants to open up trade with EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, including countries we currently do NOT trade with such as Cuba and Iran. His view is that we shouldn't punish the citizens of Cuba and Iran because we dislike their governments, and that OUR government shouldn't tell us who we can trade with.
Yes, Ron Paul opposes things like NAFTA and CAFTA, but really those are controlled trade, not free trade.
He also stands behind a lot of things that Slashdotters find acceptable that are political suicide in America today (legalize drugs, gay marrage is ok,
His view on both is that the federal government SHOULDN'T be involved, so no he wouldn't be legalizing drugs, or gay marriage. He simply wouldn't be making them illegal on the federal level either, so your state would be left to decide.
How is letting the states decide political suicide?
Should we go on pretending that Alabama has the same culture as Vermont, and have the citizens of both States fighting politically to pass laws to force each other to live by their moral code? Or should we just let the states decide?
privatize Social Security).
Ron Paul would keep all current social security benefits the same as they are now, and wants to make it so the government doesn't tax social security checks like they currently do. You're spreading FUD. Ron Paul does want to let young people 'opt out' of social security if they want.
It's one thing to be against "wasteful government spending", but when it ends up involving people dying on the street (social programs), it's a lot harder to stomach. From a purely economic point of view it is probably better to let the mentally ill and unemployable just die on the street instead of subsidizing them for the rest of their life, but that's not what most people consider acceptable for the first world.
Look at the FUD monster! Jesus, Paul has said multiple times that he would NOT end benefits for people who are currently on them, and the main way he plans to slash our national budget is to end our current foreign policy. Nobody would be starving on the streets, in fact Seniors would have MORE MONEY than they do now since Paul would get rid of the ridiculous tax on social security checks.
One of the things that surprised me as I drilled down into the numbers, is for all of the candidates, most of the funding was done at the individual level rather than PAC money
That is because they are bundling donations. Basically you get a bunch of different people from the same company to all give money to a political candidate, thus evading the $2300 limit on personal donations.
Don't worry, the standard corruption is still there. McCain's top donator in Q3 was blank rome. They're a lobbyist group that represents companies that want to get military or homeland security contracts. Gee, why would the support the uber-pro-war candidate?
He wasn't far behind McCain in Maine.
I think McCain had 21% and Paul had 19%
Yep, and try to find the results where more than 68% of the vote was counted. More importantly, Paul has gotten more delegates from Maine from John McCain which basically means he came in second.
Calling someone a wacko for their religious belief isn't all that tolerant, and isn't really any better than racism. When you add to it Paul's outspoken opposition to religion in politics, that just makes you more of an asshole for calling him wacko for his beliefs.
plus either a lying racist or so atrociously lazy and irresponsible about reading papers before sgning them that it's hard to trust him.
If you read the newsletters, it's obvious he didn't write them, and most signs point back to Lew Rockwell. Ron Paul wasn't 'signing off' on anything, he was a private practice doctor at the time, and licensed his name to be on the news letter and hired an editor (Rockwell). The fact that Rockwell allowed that stuff to get in does make Paul look bad for hiring him, but it's not like Ron Paul was taking time out to read these things. I doubt he even thought he'd be getting back into politics. I guess this sort of stuff happens when you don't spend a lifetime trying to become a politician, like McCain, Romney or Clinton.
A Ron Paul vote is a corporate vote, even if the corporations don't realize it.
You should probably read Confessions of an economic hitman. Ron Paul would be worse than Clinton for corporations. He believes in NO corporate welfare at all.
But he's pro-life. Big show stopper.
He wants the states to decide, like Thompson did. I read a study awhile back, which I can't find again, but it basically stated that almost every state would be pro-choice if Roe v Wade were overturned. The only exceptions were Alabama and Alaska. Really, this is what our founding fathers intended...for the states to be laboratories of democracy, and for local people to decide on social issues.
Enough with the uniformed people calling Ron Paul's supporters names.
Ron Paul has a fanatical support base, at least they contribute money. And they are vocal all over the internet. However, this hasn't translated to him even breaking into the double digits, much less winning ANY of the primaries.
Ron Paul has broken double digits in many states, and finished 2nd more than once. You don't know what you're talking about.
He has as much chance of getting the nomination as I have. And I'm not running.
Nonsense, not even 10% of the vote has been counted yet. I bet you thought Rudy had a chance, yet Paul got more votes than him.
I do think he has some good ideas, and some that are crazy. But I am really sick of the Ronulans spamming internet forums and polls. A lot of us are annoyed by you, and this actually harms your candidate.
That is ok, we're annoyed by you too. Maybe you can go read about Ron Paul, or the primary process, and get somewhat informed before you go off whining about people who believe in something.
McCain negatives:
Was part of the savings and loans scandle
Top contributor to his campaign in Q3 was a lobbying company for firms that get homeland security/military contracts.
Hates the base he's trying to get to vote for him, a third party conservative would likely tank his candidacy.
Romney negatives:
Nobody cares enough about him to fund his campaign other than himself.
Claims to be a great business exec, but likely much of his success was based on who his father was
Presidential candidate that most people would like to punch in the face.
As someone who's never voted for a democrat before, I really hope Obama wins the democratic nomination, at least then I won't feel as bad when the Republicans lose the general election.
The discussion about Ron Paul on the internet is very interesting. It seems Ron Paul fans are not fans of Occam's Razor, as many seem to think there's some massive conspiracy keeping Ron Paul away from the public discussion, when there's a far simpler explanation - he's not going to win - he's not even going to get close to being chosen, so any discussion about this losing horse is wasted effort. Normal "what about Ron Paul??!?!??" service resumed in 3, 2, 1...
Really though, there is a conspiracy or a desire not to talk about Ron Paul. The news networks ignored him and covered candidates like Tancredo when Ron Paul was way ahead of him in support and fundraising. Hell, they covered Rudy quite a bit, but in the end Paul finished with more votes than Rudy did and Rudy had to drop out.
In addition the Republican party has gone out of its way to make sure Ron Paul does not win a primary. Without getting into accusations of vote fraud in NH, what happened in the Louisiana Republican primary was a joke. Basically supporters of the other candidates realized that Ron Paul was going to win, so they made a 'unity/uncommitted' ballot with a picture of Reagan on it and voted for that. The Republican establishment will do just about anything to prevent Ron Paul from having any type of voice in the party. It's nothing new, political parties do kneecap people that aren't part of the establishment, the Republicans did the same thing to Buchanan in the 90's.
Add in the bias of Fox News not even REPORTING Ron Paul's second place finish in Nevada, and of course people are going to think 'conspiracy'. It's not paranoia when everyone really IS out to get your candidate.
At the end of the day, Ron Paul is unlikely to win the Republican nomination. However the way the Republican party has chosen to play this is really going to hurt them. They could have been reasonable, counted the votes, and gave Ron Paul a speaking role at the convention. They literally have thousands of young voters saying "We believe in small limited government and the constitution, and we want to be part of your party" and the message they're getting back is "This party isn't about small government anymore, it's about an aggressive foreign policy. You are not welcome.".
That is going to damage the party for some time to come. Between shifts in demographics, and this change in ideology the Republican party of Reagan will not exist in 20 years. They are simply going to be a 'light' version of the democrats that are a bit more pro-war and pro-corporate welfare.
Ron Paul is still in the race, but has very few delegates. Barring unprecedented performance on Super Duper Tuesday he's got less of a shot than Romney, McCain, or Huckabee. That doesn't mean that he doesn't warrant discussion, though.
It's silly to talk about who has a 'chance or not' before super Tueday, because not even 10% of the delegates have been awarded.
Also, I think people don't realize that many states may have a caucus/primary, but the delegates aren't bound to vote for who wins that primary. So conceivably, if enough well organized delegates wanted to pull off a coup they could....
Well, the only one who understands economics and business is Romney. Since technology companies and their employees are what makes "technology" happen, Romney is the best.
While I have a lot of respect for businessmen who build their own empires, Romney had quite a headstart since his father was a millionaire and had plenty of connections Mitt could take advantage of.
So, Mitt's 'understanding" of economics is basically 'have a rich, politically connected daddy'.
The others primarily think that business (including the technology business) exists to produce goods and wealth for them to tax so they can redistribute it to politically-connected unproductive folks.
I doubt McCain feels that way, I know Paul doesn't. I'm not sure about Huckabee. As for income redistribution going to those who are politically connected, that isn't all that true, would you say the people who receive welfare are politically connected?
Of cros they do! Evey night heavn with the ladeis you can have too if you purchaise soft Cililiaolois!!! Only 49c a pill!
Hmm. If Microsoft buys Yahoo!, they can name it Ya-soft? Not only will they have another search engine, but they'll have a built in name to corner the hip-hop viagra market! It could be the FUBU of flaccid penis medicine. Boy, that Ballmer is brilliant.
But WoW is one of the first MMOGs I've paid to play where I actually felt I was really getting my money's worth.
What do you pay for a subscription? $15 a month? Now figure out how much time you play WoW a week. 20 hours maybe if you're 'casual'. Now pretend you had a minimum wage job in those hours. You're probably paying $415 a month in opportunity cost.
Personally, when I have a 2Ghz Dual core 64Bit system with 4GB of RAM on my desktop, I want it to be _slightly_ more responsive than the 8Mhz 8086 system with 640 KB I started my PC experience on.
I've noticed the same thing over time. My main computer now is a duel processor intel iMac with 2GB of memory which I boot Win XP on. Windows XP and whatever programs I use when I'm actually in windows (Photoshop, Flash, etc) don't really run any faster than they did when I was using the older versions (ie, photoshop 4) on my p450 with 1GB of memory in 1998. At some point, shouldn't things run a lot smoother?
But hey, it does in fact have odd threads that go back to the weirdest events of the Bush administration - and before
That is the interesting part, if you drag Marc Rich in, you basically have a conspiracy that dates back to the Clinton years. Kinda makes you wonder about this whole Bush, Clinton, Bush Clinton thing.
The interesting thing is raiding...the old money sink is no longer needed to get the best gear. This probably lead to people having extra gold. That and way too much free time.
Make sure that the supply of invincibility stars and 1-up mushrooms doesn't fall into the wrong hands...
I'm more worried that this brings the two most inefficient forces in the world closer together...video game developers and congress. It's only a matter of time until Duke Nuke'em forever becomes a pork barrel project. You think the bridge to nowhere was bad? Pffft.
Do you also support his racism or (at best) his support for racist organizations?
Usually I don't reply to AC's, but I'll make an exception since this tripe is floating around the internet and the MSM lately.
Ron Paul is not racist. He has never made any racist comments in public. Secondly he does not support any racist organizations. If you're talking about the newsletters that were sent out in his name, it's become obvious they were written by Lew Rockwell. Anyone who's ever read Ron Paul's writings before realized it wasn't him anyway, as the writing style was not his own. Paul's biggest weakness right now is he won't throw his friend Lew Rockwell under the bus, while Rockwell's reluctance to take responsibility is doing incredible damage to the campaign.
I could throw out the fact that two democratic candidates are connected to racists, or at best race baiters, but I'm not into guilt by association.
This is a fairly huge problem in the US. People are so afraid to be disagreed with, they boycott anything that mildly upsets them. Maybe if people wouldn't shut out dissenting opinions so goddamned often, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in as a country right now.
I don't mind dissenting opinions. A dissenting opinion is 'libertarianism fails because of xyz'. Saying 'supporters of XYZ are loons/terrorists/etc' isn't dissenting opinion, it is the slander of a group of people you disagree with politically.
The article doesn't even mention Romney's unusually high numbers when optical scanners counted the vote. Oh, and I support Ron Paul, so arstechnica has called me loopy because of my political beliefs. Looks like there is one more location I won't be going for any kind of news in the future!
I find it interesting to note as an impartial observer that Romney appears to have gained an even larger advantage via machine voting than did Clinton.
Don't just look at Romney, look at McCain, who lost 2%.
It's not just the person who gets the extra points via the optical counting, you have to look at their nearest competitor as well.
Huckabee and Paul both dropped 2%, while Rudy gained.5%.
Slashdot Mirror
Of all the candidates, this was the one I least expected generalizations and "typical response" muck. Oh well... at least they responded... I guess...
One of his staff responded...On Super Tuesday. I doubt it was the best time to call the candidate to get in depth responses.
As far as the "nut" complaint, just Google "Gold Standard".
What exactly is nuts about the gold standard? The fact that the founders supported it, or the fact that we had it up until 1971? Is the gold standard any more 'nuts' than the Petrodollar? If anything the petrodollar is nuts!
He's also protectionist as hell.
Are you kidding? You might as well call him pro war too. I'm not sure if you're unaware of his position, or purposefully misstating it. Paul wants to open up trade with EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, including countries we currently do NOT trade with such as Cuba and Iran. His view is that we shouldn't punish the citizens of Cuba and Iran because we dislike their governments, and that OUR government shouldn't tell us who we can trade with.
Yes, Ron Paul opposes things like NAFTA and CAFTA, but really those are controlled trade, not free trade.
He also stands behind a lot of things that Slashdotters find acceptable that are political suicide in America today (legalize drugs, gay marrage is ok,
His view on both is that the federal government SHOULDN'T be involved, so no he wouldn't be legalizing drugs, or gay marriage. He simply wouldn't be making them illegal on the federal level either, so your state would be left to decide.
How is letting the states decide political suicide?
Should we go on pretending that Alabama has the same culture as Vermont, and have the citizens of both States fighting politically to pass laws to force each other to live by their moral code? Or should we just let the states decide?
privatize Social Security).
Ron Paul would keep all current social security benefits the same as they are now, and wants to make it so the government doesn't tax social security checks like they currently do. You're spreading FUD. Ron Paul does want to let young people 'opt out' of social security if they want.
It's one thing to be against "wasteful government spending", but when it ends up involving people dying on the street (social programs), it's a lot harder to stomach. From a purely economic point of view it is probably better to let the mentally ill and unemployable just die on the street instead of subsidizing them for the rest of their life, but that's not what most people consider acceptable for the first world.
Look at the FUD monster! Jesus, Paul has said multiple times that he would NOT end benefits for people who are currently on them, and the main way he plans to slash our national budget is to end our current foreign policy. Nobody would be starving on the streets, in fact Seniors would have MORE MONEY than they do now since Paul would get rid of the ridiculous tax on social security checks.
One of the things that surprised me as I drilled down into the numbers, is for all of the candidates, most of the funding was done at the individual level rather than PAC money
That is because they are bundling donations. Basically you get a bunch of different people from the same company to all give money to a political candidate, thus evading the $2300 limit on personal donations.
Don't worry, the standard corruption is still there. McCain's top donator in Q3 was blank rome. They're a lobbyist group that represents companies that want to get military or homeland security contracts. Gee, why would the support the uber-pro-war candidate?
He wasn't far behind McCain in Maine. I think McCain had 21% and Paul had 19%
Yep, and try to find the results where more than 68% of the vote was counted. More importantly, Paul has gotten more delegates from Maine from John McCain which basically means he came in second.
he's also a creationist wacko,
Calling someone a wacko for their religious belief isn't all that tolerant, and isn't really any better than racism. When you add to it Paul's outspoken opposition to religion in politics, that just makes you more of an asshole for calling him wacko for his beliefs.
plus either a lying racist or so atrociously lazy and irresponsible about reading papers before sgning them that it's hard to trust him.
If you read the newsletters, it's obvious he didn't write them, and most signs point back to Lew Rockwell. Ron Paul wasn't 'signing off' on anything, he was a private practice doctor at the time, and licensed his name to be on the news letter and hired an editor (Rockwell). The fact that Rockwell allowed that stuff to get in does make Paul look bad for hiring him, but it's not like Ron Paul was taking time out to read these things. I doubt he even thought he'd be getting back into politics. I guess this sort of stuff happens when you don't spend a lifetime trying to become a politician, like McCain, Romney or Clinton.
A Ron Paul vote is a corporate vote, even if the corporations don't realize it.
You should probably read Confessions of an economic hitman. Ron Paul would be worse than Clinton for corporations. He believes in NO corporate welfare at all.
But he's pro-life. Big show stopper.
He wants the states to decide, like Thompson did. I read a study awhile back, which I can't find again, but it basically stated that almost every state would be pro-choice if Roe v Wade were overturned. The only exceptions were Alabama and Alaska. Really, this is what our founding fathers intended...for the states to be laboratories of democracy, and for local people to decide on social issues.
ENOUGH with the Ronulans...
Enough with the uniformed people calling Ron Paul's supporters names.
Ron Paul has a fanatical support base, at least they contribute money. And they are vocal all over the internet. However, this hasn't translated to him even breaking into the double digits, much less winning ANY of the primaries.
Ron Paul has broken double digits in many states, and finished 2nd more than once. You don't know what you're talking about.
He has as much chance of getting the nomination as I have. And I'm not running.
Nonsense, not even 10% of the vote has been counted yet. I bet you thought Rudy had a chance, yet Paul got more votes than him.
I do think he has some good ideas, and some that are crazy. But I am really sick of the Ronulans spamming internet forums and polls. A lot of us are annoyed by you, and this actually harms your candidate.
That is ok, we're annoyed by you too. Maybe you can go read about Ron Paul, or the primary process, and get somewhat informed before you go off whining about people who believe in something.
McCain negatives:
Was part of the savings and loans scandle
Top contributor to his campaign in Q3 was a lobbying company for firms that get homeland security/military contracts.
Hates the base he's trying to get to vote for him, a third party conservative would likely tank his candidacy.
Romney negatives:
Nobody cares enough about him to fund his campaign other than himself.
Claims to be a great business exec, but likely much of his success was based on who his father was
Presidential candidate that most people would like to punch in the face.
As someone who's never voted for a democrat before, I really hope Obama wins the democratic nomination, at least then I won't feel as bad when the Republicans lose the general election.
The discussion about Ron Paul on the internet is very interesting. It seems Ron Paul fans are not fans of Occam's Razor, as many seem to think there's some massive conspiracy keeping Ron Paul away from the public discussion, when there's a far simpler explanation - he's not going to win - he's not even going to get close to being chosen, so any discussion about this losing horse is wasted effort. Normal "what about Ron Paul??!?!??" service resumed in 3, 2, 1...
Really though, there is a conspiracy or a desire not to talk about Ron Paul. The news networks ignored him and covered candidates like Tancredo when Ron Paul was way ahead of him in support and fundraising. Hell, they covered Rudy quite a bit, but in the end Paul finished with more votes than Rudy did and Rudy had to drop out.
In addition the Republican party has gone out of its way to make sure Ron Paul does not win a primary. Without getting into accusations of vote fraud in NH, what happened in the Louisiana Republican primary was a joke. Basically supporters of the other candidates realized that Ron Paul was going to win, so they made a 'unity/uncommitted' ballot with a picture of Reagan on it and voted for that. The Republican establishment will do just about anything to prevent Ron Paul from having any type of voice in the party. It's nothing new, political parties do kneecap people that aren't part of the establishment, the Republicans did the same thing to Buchanan in the 90's.
Add in the bias of Fox News not even REPORTING Ron Paul's second place finish in Nevada, and of course people are going to think 'conspiracy'. It's not paranoia when everyone really IS out to get your candidate.
At the end of the day, Ron Paul is unlikely to win the Republican nomination. However the way the Republican party has chosen to play this is really going to hurt them. They could have been reasonable, counted the votes, and gave Ron Paul a speaking role at the convention. They literally have thousands of young voters saying "We believe in small limited government and the constitution, and we want to be part of your party" and the message they're getting back is "This party isn't about small government anymore, it's about an aggressive foreign policy. You are not welcome.".
That is going to damage the party for some time to come. Between shifts in demographics, and this change in ideology the Republican party of Reagan will not exist in 20 years. They are simply going to be a 'light' version of the democrats that are a bit more pro-war and pro-corporate welfare.
Ron Paul is still in the race, but has very few delegates. Barring unprecedented performance on Super Duper Tuesday he's got less of a shot than Romney, McCain, or Huckabee. That doesn't mean that he doesn't warrant discussion, though.
It's silly to talk about who has a 'chance or not' before super Tueday, because not even 10% of the delegates have been awarded.
Also, I think people don't realize that many states may have a caucus/primary, but the delegates aren't bound to vote for who wins that primary. So conceivably, if enough well organized delegates wanted to pull off a coup they could....
Well, the only one who understands economics and business is Romney. Since technology companies and their employees are what makes "technology" happen, Romney is the best.
While I have a lot of respect for businessmen who build their own empires, Romney had quite a headstart since his father was a millionaire and had plenty of connections Mitt could take advantage of.
So, Mitt's 'understanding" of economics is basically 'have a rich, politically connected daddy'.
The others primarily think that business (including the technology business) exists to produce goods and wealth for them to tax so they can redistribute it to politically-connected unproductive folks.
I doubt McCain feels that way, I know Paul doesn't. I'm not sure about Huckabee. As for income redistribution going to those who are politically connected, that isn't all that true, would you say the people who receive welfare are politically connected?
Of cros they do! Evey night heavn with the ladeis you can have too if you purchaise soft Cililiaolois!!! Only 49c a pill!
Hmm. If Microsoft buys Yahoo!, they can name it Ya-soft? Not only will they have another search engine, but they'll have a built in name to corner the hip-hop viagra market! It could be the FUBU of flaccid penis medicine. Boy, that Ballmer is brilliant.
Are you kidding? A Silverlight-only, ActiveX-only-upload Flickr would absolutely *rock*! I can't think of a better way to gain marketshare.
The real key would be to make it IE 7 only. That way people would only experience Flickr with a top notch browser, thus enhancing the Flickr brand!
The government's job is to protect the common good, which includes keeping children safe from predators.
In a rational society, that is the parents job, not the governments.
Jack Bauer calls for a 'Less Painful Torture'.
Didn't Bill make his fortune by being opportunistic and ruthless in business?
Yeah, it's kinda like Hitler calling for a kinder, gentler genocide. Ok, well not exactly, but this story was ripe to be Godwined.
But WoW is one of the first MMOGs I've paid to play where I actually felt I was really getting my money's worth.
What do you pay for a subscription? $15 a month? Now figure out how much time you play WoW a week. 20 hours maybe if you're 'casual'. Now pretend you had a minimum wage job in those hours. You're probably paying $415 a month in opportunity cost.
Personally, when I have a 2Ghz Dual core 64Bit system with 4GB of RAM on my desktop, I want it to be _slightly_ more responsive than the 8Mhz 8086 system with 640 KB I started my PC experience on.
I've noticed the same thing over time. My main computer now is a duel processor intel iMac with 2GB of memory which I boot Win XP on. Windows XP and whatever programs I use when I'm actually in windows (Photoshop, Flash, etc) don't really run any faster than they did when I was using the older versions (ie, photoshop 4) on my p450 with 1GB of memory in 1998. At some point, shouldn't things run a lot smoother?
But hey, it does in fact have odd threads that go back to the weirdest events of the Bush administration - and before
That is the interesting part, if you drag Marc Rich in, you basically have a conspiracy that dates back to the Clinton years. Kinda makes you wonder about this whole Bush, Clinton, Bush Clinton thing.
The interesting thing is raiding...the old money sink is no longer needed to get the best gear. This probably lead to people having extra gold. That and way too much free time.
Make sure that the supply of invincibility stars and 1-up mushrooms doesn't fall into the wrong hands...
I'm more worried that this brings the two most inefficient forces in the world closer together...video game developers and congress. It's only a matter of time until Duke Nuke'em forever becomes a pork barrel project. You think the bridge to nowhere was bad? Pffft.
Do you also support his racism or (at best) his support for racist organizations?
Usually I don't reply to AC's, but I'll make an exception since this tripe is floating around the internet and the MSM lately.
Ron Paul is not racist. He has never made any racist comments in public. Secondly he does not support any racist organizations. If you're talking about the newsletters that were sent out in his name, it's become obvious they were written by Lew Rockwell. Anyone who's ever read Ron Paul's writings before realized it wasn't him anyway, as the writing style was not his own. Paul's biggest weakness right now is he won't throw his friend Lew Rockwell under the bus, while Rockwell's reluctance to take responsibility is doing incredible damage to the campaign.
I could throw out the fact that two democratic candidates are connected to racists, or at best race baiters, but I'm not into guilt by association.
This is a fairly huge problem in the US. People are so afraid to be disagreed with, they boycott anything that mildly upsets them. Maybe if people wouldn't shut out dissenting opinions so goddamned often, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in as a country right now.
I don't mind dissenting opinions. A dissenting opinion is 'libertarianism fails because of xyz'. Saying 'supporters of XYZ are loons/terrorists/etc' isn't dissenting opinion, it is the slander of a group of people you disagree with politically.
The article doesn't even mention Romney's unusually high numbers when optical scanners counted the vote. Oh, and I support Ron Paul, so arstechnica has called me loopy because of my political beliefs. Looks like there is one more location I won't be going for any kind of news in the future!
I find it interesting to note as an impartial observer that Romney appears to have gained an even larger advantage via machine voting than did Clinton.
.5%.
Don't just look at Romney, look at McCain, who lost 2%.
It's not just the person who gets the extra points via the optical counting, you have to look at their nearest competitor as well.
Huckabee and Paul both dropped 2%, while Rudy gained