It's a productive system for what it's supposed to produce- an honest count.
How is it an honest count when some party hack invalidates my vote because there was a tiny speck of pencil graphite on the bubble for Bush when the bubble for Kerry was completely filled in? My intentions are quite clear but my vote is still discarded.
(meaning you can trust that the voter properly recorded his or her choice).
As Palm Beach County showed, I don't think you can trust the voter to properly record his or her choice on a manual paper or punchcard ballot. If there is even the slightest thing wrong with it (a little dot in the bubble for Bush when the bubble for Kerry is completely filled in) then some party hack will challange it.
Unless laws are written very carefully, there is potential for fraud here. This was especially the case back in the days of the big political machines, like the Boss Tweed days. If you're allowed to take anyone with you into the booth, what's to stop a mobster from forcing you to take him into the booth with you to make sure you vote for his candidate? Sure, you could refuse at the election place, but then his friend will break your legs later. I assume the NY laws take this into account by only allowing family or election officials. This is much better, but still open to possible attacks. What happens in small towns where you know all the election officials, and you wish to keep your voting preferences private? Maybe we have to be willing to accept that limitation. Maybe not.
Your mobster scenario would already be handled under any number of laws (extortion, bribery, etc). Regardless of who you can take into the polling place with you -- if you are being threatened they could always force you to get an absentee ballot and vote the way they want in front of them. No law is going to prevent that scenario.
Though, in NYS, if you vote absentee, then you can still show up and vote on the machine -- in this scenario the board of elections just disposes of your absentee ballot without counting it. So if you were smart (not many people know this) you could get around being threatened in this way without having your legs broken.
In any case, I still think you'd need such a provision with the elections inspectors. They are sworn to secrecy -- what can you do to offer someone assistance that's better then that? I also don't see a need to change the way NYS does it (anybody but employer or union official) -- but if it was changed then you should still have the option of taking a family member in. I'm sure you'd agree that it's pretty stupid to prevent people from taking their own kids in -- it was always a civics type lesson in my family growing up.
Any system NEEDS a paper trail (or something equivalent that computers can't change and that voters can read) in order to be reliable, secure, and verifiable.
My printed ballot in that scenario would be a bubble type ballot that could quickly be read by OCRs machines but could easily be understood by a human being. Barcodes (as some have purposed) do not meet this requirement. Then if need be you could have three different counts -- the counter on the voting machine, the OCR count and the human being count.
I miss freedom to create new products and services without having to worry about a federal government agency coming along and saying that I have to implement a whole slew of 'standards'
Somebody on/. is going to bitch about 'standards'? Do you really think it would be better if telecommunications providers each had their own standard thus ensuring vendor lock in? Would you really like to see an Office Document type scenario for telecommunications?
Some industries need to be regulated for a reason.
The whole requirement is a deliberate ploy by the POTS services (Qwest/SBC/Verizon) to eliminate the competition from Vonage and other VOIP providers. So, whether they are being uncooperative or not is moot. Do you think you should be forced to pay more (to a company, not the government) to force you to have 911 service on a line that you may not need it for?
Do you think that they should be allowed to sell this product without making a full disclosure of the pros and cons? Because before the FCC stepped into this mess that's exactly what they were doing.
Hell, even if you gave the consumers the option of opting out of E-911 service at least they would be making an informed choice. You can't make such a choice if you don't have all the facts -- and I don't really see Vonage or Time Warner listing all of the disadvantages of their product in any of their promotional literature.
This whole 911 not working because I moved my VoIP device somewhere is a bunch of FUD created by the LECs
And this whole "Vonage is a replacement for your landline" is a complete overstatement by some marketing droid that ignores the key differences between the two services (reliability).
I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to sell their product -- they should just be required to make a full disclosure. Then people can decide for themselves. If you were 75 years old with a heart condition then you might decide that keeping that POTS line (ghetto phone service in my area is $8.61/month) is worth it for emergencies. If you don't know about all of the advantages or disadvantages of a product then how the hell can you make an informed choice?
If I go to a business location and dial 911 (or 9-911 in most cases), I'm not going to be assured that 911 will know where I am because some locations are tied together with OPX (off premise extensions).
And if that business hasn't taken steps to make sure that address information is correctly reported to 911 dispatch then they could be sued by an employee or customer who suffered as a result.
The fact is that this is something that can be fixed. The fact is also that (like Ma Bell) these companies have no motivation to fix it unless the Government forces them to do so. Can you make a compelling case for why it shouldn't be fixed?
I have been considering changing VoIP to Speakeasy since they would prioritize the voice packets from the data packets, and eliminate the slow and choppy sounds when some is downloading something from my servers while I am talking.
Downloading from your servers? That would be outgoing packets from your DSL and you could control that with QoS. The only thing you couldn't easily control is incoming packets -- but unless you are the one doing the major downloading that shouldn't be a problem.
I have really enjoyed Vonage and I hate that the gov't is picking on them, but when you are the "leader" you're going to get the most crap
I really hate when VoIP providers undercut POTS providers without revealing everything about their product. VoIP technology is not as reliable as POTS service. There is no disputing that. Unless you invest in a UPS it won't work if the power goes out (and odds are that if you have a cable modem instead of DSL it won't even work then -- the cable network has repeaters that depend on power), 911 may not work depending on your provider and location, the quality of your service depends on variables beyond a lot of peoples control, etc, etc.
I'm not saying that VoIP isn't an interesting technology that shouldn't be pursued. I'm saying that they should have to be truthful in advertising. I also think that competition is a two way street -- if Time Warner doesn't have to pay franchise fees for selling their VoIP product, then why the fuck should Verizon have to pay franchise fees for trying to sell TV on their lines? Yet this is exactly what some municipalities are trying to do -- extort fees from the telcos offering TV but not the cable providers offering voice.
It's not the 80s anymore people. We can stop hating the phone company now.
IF you're at home, and your VOIP is properly configured with your address, then VOIP 911 is just as good as the POTS.
As good as POTS you say? Do you think that 911 will work when your lovely internet connection goes down and you can't dial out? I haven't yet seen a single VoIP service that comes remotely close to the reliability of a POTS line.
It may be good enough for you but don't pretend it's the same thing.
Nor are the systems that have been purposed as replacements.
Add to this the fact that the gearing systems in lever machines are very complex, and it's infeasible to test each one fully before an election.
And it's feasible to fully test a computerized voting system? As in somebody actually votes a few dozen times on it and records the count? Furthermore, those gearing systems would be pretty tamper evident compared to a line of computer code. The known failure rate is a problem with any system that you use because somewhere along the line something will break. The goal should be to reduce that rate as much as possible.
They are also completely not accessible for people with many common disabilities.
No system will be 100% accessible to everybody. This is why there are provisions in the law allowing you to take a friend or family member into the booth with you. If you want an anonymous vote then you ask the elections inspectors to go in with you -- one from each party goes in (to prevent allegations of electioneering) -- the inspectors are sworn to secrecy in this scenario. I think it's actually a Class A misdemeanor to reveal how somebody voted.
However, it's not just employers and union officials that like to cheat the vote. If you can take anyone in the booth with you, then that person knows how you voted, violating the requirement of anonymity in voting. This opens the door to all kinds of fraud (by either coercion or voting for money, for example).
Granted -- but you aren't required to take somebody in with you. You have the option of doing so. I'm an election inspector -- if you tell me that you don't want this person going in with you then I am going to refuse to let them go in with you. If they refuse to obey my lawful order then I can actually have them arrested.
I think the employer/union rep is a sane enough restriction. If you read them literally some of the state laws I have seen would prohibit you from taking your kids into the booth with you. My parents always took me to vote with them -- it was sort of a civics lesson in our family.
In all, I just want to point out that not every system is perfect, and many laws that prohibit things that you might find silly have some reasoning behind them. The trick is to find the right combination of laws and technologies that make the final tally as close to what the voters wanted as possible.
No system will be 100% perfect. That's probably the big thing we could agree on.
I agree that many locales have screwed up voting laws. And I agree that most current electronic voting systems are horrid right now. However, the fact of the matter is that electronic systems are theoretically able to guarantee enfranchisement to more people, more reliably than any other system. I just don't think that's possible unless a machine has a voter-verifiable paper trail.
I'm still not totally convinced as to why we need electronic voting machines. But if we _must_ have them then the only system that I would support is one that shows you a printed ballot under glass. If you agree with that ballot then you press "accept" and it goes into a lockbox. Otherwise it gets rejected and disposed of somehow (shredder?) and you get to do it over again. The computer could keep a running tally for the unofficial election night results -- and the election would be official when those paper ballots were tallied up sometime later.
That adds a whole new layer of complexity -- you'd need a paper supply large enough for all the voters in your district, a laser printer, new toner every election to make sure you don't run out, more voter education, etc. And I still think you'd need sane laws about allowing people assistance as they transitioned to the new system. Do you see a problem with the NYS system of two inspectors from each party who are sworn to secrecy? Do you see a problem with being allowed help from a family member if so desired?
Why should you trust the computer, why should you trust people, why should you trust punchcard machines? I would personally place more trust in a well designed system which by definition cannot do something it is not programmed to do than a human which is far more susceptible to mistakes. Computers are based on logic and maths, barring hardware error there is no way they can do something against their program. And even the most rudimentary error checking will deal with hardware issues.
Yes, and there is no way for me as a voter to know that the computer is actually programmed with non-biased error free software. Go look at some of my other posts regarding the mechanical based lever voting machines that New York has used for decades. Tell me exactly what the problem is with them and why they should be replaced with your system?
The whole national ID thing I don't personally see a big problem with other than "OMG BIG BROTHER WILL KNOW EVERYTHING!!!", but it's largely irrelevant to the whole votes thing providing some other system can be found to make sure it really is one man, one vote. Incidentally, carry a cellphone? Much more of a privacy risk than an ID card.
Actually, no I don't have a cell phone. And the ID card would be worse of a risk. I can turn the cell phone off if I want. What happens when a law is passed requiring you to carry your ID card on your person at all times? More to the point why do we even need a national ID card? It's a solution looking for a problem.
Your constitutional issue seems to be the biggest problem, in which case the solution is simple. Votes are counted on a state's own system, the only national bit has to be the ID network so you can't hop across a border and vote again in another state.
And what happens when the power goes out? What happens when a drunk driver hits a telephone poll and your election district is severed from your lovely nation wide grid? Do you turn away voters? Do you have a locally cached copy of the registered voters? What happens if network connectivity isn't restored at the close of the election for you to canvass your votes? More to the point: Why is this all required?
The multi-lateral committee is important - you should be able to find at least one Republican and one Democrat (plus as many independants as care) to observe/do the count. Each box should have a small enough number of ballots to count in less than an hour. Then you wind up having to buy off a *lot* of people to steal an election. Sure you can buy the count at a couple of boxes, but that's way less than you can now.
They already have those committees. And the Democrat or Republican always winds up challenging a vote that goes against him if he can find the slightest bit of reason. How the hell is that a productive system?
I don't know the lever machines in NY. Does every voter get to check that his vote recorded what he claimed? With paper I see my ballot, and I put it in the box: I know it says what I said. With a lever, I can imaging the machine being rigged - I now have to trust the machine provider instead of a multi-partisan counting committee. With paper if I really care I can even sign up to watch the ballot counting (in advance, I should hope, to make enough space available).
No, you don't know that it recorded exactly the way you wanted it to. The machine is setup by at least two people (one from each political party) at the board of elections. Once deployed it is checked by the local election inspectors to make sure that all the counters read zero. Once the voting day is over we (inspectors) canvass the vote -- anybody can watch -- for the unofficial results (phoned in to the board of elections). The machine is then sealed with a numbered seal (tamper evident) and eventually transported back to the board of elections for the official canvass. At least two people (one from each party) record the votes off the machines -- all they do is read counters -- and anybody can watch.
There's no way to vote twice because the inspectors have to manually enable the machine before you can use it. Otherwise it will refuse to operate. You can't invalidate your vote because it will refuse to let you vote for both Bush and Kerry. There's a tactile feedback that is a lot easier for most people to understand then a touchscreen. I could go on all day.
Short of an equipment failure or a bad setup there is simply no way to tamper with that process. Equipment failure is very rare with these machines (they will run without power) and if they break down we have emergency paper ballots. The only part of the process where they could be tampered with is during the initial setup -- and you have systems in place to prevent that from happening.
I would love your concept of paper voting but you can't deny that it's less secure then the method I just outlined above. Human beings get to judge the votes -- in a close election they will start challenging them for any conceivable reason. Or the ballots could simply go "missing". Or they could be stuffed. It would be fairly easy to prove a stuffed ballot box (more votes then voters?) but how would you prove stolen ballots? What happens if somebody goes in to vote and then decides to walk out with his ballot and doesn't put it in?
In any case it's all a moot point. Next year New York joins the cadre of states using electronic voting machines. Why the hell is anything with the word "electronic" in the title automatically assumed to be better? *Sigh*
If there was a single, countrywide ID (Based on something such as your SSN in the US, or your NINo in the UK) augmented by biometrics then the whole 'someone else may use my vote' thing becomes a none issue - if the system to support the ID normally is secure then there is no room for fraud.
Umm, your suggesting a biometric based nationwide ID system for the United States? You aren't from here are you?;) There is no way in hell that Americans would accept a compelled national ID. I wouldn't. God forbid if one ever passed then I would refuse to take part on it and would accept whatever penalties they threw at me.
And before somebody says "drivers license", let me point out that those are controlled by the states (I trust Albany more then Washington), that most states do not require biometrics, and that they aren't required by any leap of faith. In fact in my state you do not even need your license on your person to drive.
The other problems that I see with your suggestion is the fact that it doesn't really address the problem -- why should I trust the computer? Who is going to build your nationwide voting system? Is it even Constitutional (states handle elections)? How much would it cost?
Count your votes at each polling place with a multi-lateral committee. Then the damage of one biassed committee is limited to that ballot box.
And all that ballot box needs is to be in a heavily Republican or Democratic district for it to make a difference. I'll say it again: Human beings can not be trusted to count votes for something they have a stake in.
Centralized vote counting is the root of the corruption in the US voting system. Moving ballot boxes to "counting centers" is wrong - it allows focused corruption. Computer counting is wrong - it allows focused corruption. Distributed counting is *much* harder to coopt.
Yes, I agree. Why do we need stuff that has to be counted? Explain to me the problem with a lever based voting machine. The ones that New York uses are quite tamper evident (nothing is tamper proof). All the Board of Elections does is read the counts off the machine. The machine itself does the counting and unless it was initally setup wrong (in a process that anybody can understand and witness if so desired) then it can not be tampered with.
No no no. When a bank has a major security snafu they hide it, and pretend it never happened.
Yes, perhaps with a "security snafu". Why would they care about that? It's not their information that might have been exposed. But something tells me that if a Diebold ATM accidently gave somebody a few thousand dollars and the bank couldn't track down who it went to that heads would roll. These operations care about nothing but the bottom line.
Of course your security argument is a valid one -- and the reason that I would advocate doing business with credit unions. Some of them are getting to big for my liking and starting to act like banks -- but there are a lot of small community or employer centered credit unions. Look them up and see if you qualify for membership.
Or how about you send each registered voter a voting card, which they hand in at a polling station on election day. They get given a voting paper, go into a booth, mark and seal their paper, then drop it into a black box. Votes are then counted by hand later. Say, that could work
The problem with that is that the votes get counted by a human being and human beings have prejudances. Anybody who tells you that they are 100% impartial is lying.
Care to tell me what exactly is wrong with the lever based voting machines that New York has used for the last 40 years? The voter signs in -- if there are any problems they get challenged by an inspector (very rare) -- they go into the machine, they pull down levers, the votes are counted and that's it.
The way some other states (Florida) do elections dumbfounds me. In NYS you are allowed to take anybody into the poll with you other then your employer or union offical. I watched party hacks challenging 85 year old voters in Florida because they asked their 60 year old children for help. WTF is that nonsense? And ID requirements? Yeah, that isn't a way to screw over poor people who might not have a drivers license or DMV ID -- last time I checked those cost money.
In NYS now you are required to give your social security number or drivers license number at the time you register. The State verifies your information against the SSA or DMV database. If you can't provide that information then and only then do you get flagged for ID. And after you have showed it once then you never need to show it again. What's the problem here? There isn't much room for fraud -- in most of the districts the elections inspectors know most of the voters. And we have the right to challenge anything suspicious.
How the hell can other states fuck this up so badly?
Hell, aside from that, ATMs can depend on a well-connected private backbone network, with company owned lines and premise equipment.
Well connected? The last time I checked most ATMs at grocery/convinance stores used dialup to connect. Bank owned ATMs may or may not have a leased line (the ones my credit union uses do).
So how exactly is a hybrid network of 56k leased lines and dialup connections any better connected then most residential homes? Because it's a private network instead of the internet? Are you making that argument for security (probably moot because it's encrypted anyway) or reliability (explain why dialup to private network is more reliable then dialup to ISP -- they both have the same point of failure)?
Diebold is culpable for aquiring them - after a technology assessment - and continuing in this fashion. Possibly with the intent of enabling fraudulent vote recording and tabulation. Certainly Diebold "stonewalls", misrepresents and obfuscates every attempt to legitimately investigate their capability, practice and compliance.
I don't know if I'd make that leap as much as I detest them. This seems to me like the typical corporate nonsense of trying to put out a shoddy protect for a Government contract. That's what a lot of the leaked internal memos read like.... "Oh, just turn on the BIOS tests, since they want to see a screen where our protect does a self test" I have a hard time buying that they could rig them to purposefully record inaccurate votes and keep it a secret. There's got to be one Democrat/Liberal working on the code. Ditto for a Republican/Conservative if they were trying to rig it for the Dems.
Mind you, that doesn't make it any better then if they were trying to rig elections. I've worked as an elections inspector in NY (this was the last year of our lever based machines) and I do not see why we even need electronic voting machines -- paper trail or not.
But I don't worry about their ATMs!
I don't worry about their ATMs because if they made a shoddy product and sold it to a large bank then eventually that bank would find out. At the very least they would no longer do business with them -- perhaps they would even wind up suing Diebold for selling defective products. Unfortunately where voting machines are concerned, Government contracts are concerned -- with all of the politics, backstabbing and ineffective bureaucracy that goes along with them.
So supervise your child damn it. Don't expect others to do it for you, and then call yourself liberal.
When the hell did I say that isn't what I'm doing? Go to my user page and read every single comment I've posted to this discussion. Have I once said that I'm in favor of Governmental or Regulatory intervention in this issue? I think not!
My whole point all along is that people need to supervise their children and not expect the Government to do it for them. My other point is that people have legitimate concerns about pornography and it's stupid to dismiss them outright.
How am I supposed to know that the form target is https? Am I supposed to analyze the page source code before I click "buy" with my credit card number? Your browser might warn you, and give you a chance to opt-out, if a form submission leaves https mode, but the other way around you can only know, practically speaking, after it's too late.
Am I the only one who wouldn't have cared even if the form wasn't https? Do you really think that one packet containing your credit card number (out of millions going to Wal Mart and trillions on the backbone links) is going to be intercepted in route? And even if it was -- so what? Even if somebody charges stuff you aren't on the hook for it -- as long as you report it promptly when you get your statement.
If you are that paranoid then how the hell could you read out your credit card number over the phone? At least tell me you didn't use a cordless phone.
Shrinking the federal government to increase state government responsibility? Now you sound like an old-school Republican... geeze!!
Actually with Dubya in office I can kind of understand what people in the South felt like when Democrats were in office. A few years ago John Ashcroft even tried to tell our Attorney General that he had to pursue the death pentalty in a state murder trial. WTF? Ever hear of seperation of powers? Of course Elliot Spitzer being the guy that he is basically told him to go fsck himself:)
I'm almost to the point of saying that if the red states want to trash their science classrooms and have prayer in schools then all the power to them. Give it a generation or so and then let's see where the center of the American economy would be. Of course a lot of what Democrats "forced" on the South really needed to happen (Civil Rights Act) -- but I can still see why it pissed them off so much now that the shoe is on the other foot.
What I find funny is how the Republicans were always in favor of States Rights until they took over the Federal Government. Friggen hypocrits:)
ha ha ha.... I am just messing with ya, but in all seriousness I'm glad there are still people who consider themselves liberal these days that do not have these idiot whack-job psuedo-intellectual attitudes about things. In other words there are still intelligent liberals around.
Hey, I'm as proud to call myself liberal as you are (presumably?) to call yourself a libertarian. I don't think the word "liberal" deserves the stigma that most conversatives would apply to it. But then I guess the Republicans are better then we are at using buzzwords to scare people. "Death tax", "partial birth abortion", "tax and spend", "terrorism", etc, etc. I wonder if they could win an election with real debates focused on real issues?
Heck, as a libertarian I'd assume that you are even more disgusted with Bush then I am. Most libertarians would agree that the first (only?) role of the Feds is the collective defense. Given the ignored warning signs and the loss of life on 9/11 I'd say they completely failed in that task.
Perhaps you are really libertarian and don't know it.
Umm, not really. I admire the libertarian party stance on personal freedoms and freedom of speech but I take serious issue with their economic policy. On your quick little quiz I scored a firm liberal -- 90% personal and 20% economic.
I've often thought about supporting the libertarian party on a Federal level. Part of me thinks that a lot of what the Feds do could be replaced by the states. Picture getting rid of all Federal Taxes and funding the military with tariffs/excise/custom taxes. The States could have their own programs for Medicare/social security/etc.
In theory that would make Government more responsive (I'd rather pay more taxes to Albany then Washington). Of course some of the obvious problems would be the blue state brain drain -- most everybody wants their kids raised in a blue state (better education) but once they finish with school they move to a red state (lower taxes) -- at least until they have kids. It could also put a bigger burden on the more progressive states if retirees started flocking to them.
Of course those problems are hardly insurmountable either. But I'm now way off topic. I tip my hat to the libertarians on a lot of issues -- but I don't find much in agreement with their economic ideas.
No, actually you're not. I'm not either, but I'd say I'm more liberal since I don't believe in shielding kids from the truth.
I don't believe in shielding them from the truth either. I just question if most porn you'd find on the internet is the "truth" about sex. In any case when any kids that I have reach the age where they are going to start asking questions then I would much rather have them come to my wife or I to ask them then to look for the answer in internet porn.
Let's be real. Your typical porno exists for one reason. It's not educational, for most people it's not an accurate depiction of sex. What's the statistic? The average porn movie in a hotel is watched for 8 minutes?
Note that I'm not saying that it should be censored. I'm just saying that as a parent I wouldn't necessarily allow my child uncontrolled and limitless access to it. In fact you can expand that beyond porn and say that most people wouldn't allow their children uncontroled access to the internet. Or R-rated movies. Of course as the child ages then they should be exposed to more of the real world.
Yes, well, if it hadn't been for that ridiculous "loving sex" thing you tossed steaming on the floor, I would have.:-)
My point was that most pornography bears little resemblance to actual real world sex. The "loving sex" comment was not the best way to explain that point but I still think the point itself is valid. I've had my fair share of non-relationship sexual encounters (for lack of a better term?) and I don't think many of them would have made a good porno movie;)
Personally, I find sex intriguing and often beautiful. I have a huge amount of fun with it, and I appreciate that others enjoy it in their own ways, whatever those are.
Indeed. As do I. But I still don't see what it really had to do with my original point. *shrug* I can honestly state that I find sex intriguing and often beautiful. I can't say the same about pornography. Pornography is not sex.
Sexuality isn't "hard core" behavior, it is natural, inevitable, and frankly beautiful and interesting. Hiding it from kids (while letting them watch murder, assault, theft, teaching them entirely unsubstantiated tripe about mythological entities and events) is simple prudery, in my view.
Exactly. And that proves my point about why I choose not to allow my kids limitless access to porn. Sexuality isn't "hard core" -- but a lot of porn is. I really don't see this as an unreasonable view. And I also agree with you about violence being harmful. In fact, I would rather have my kid watch a tasteful sex scene in a movie then a violence scene.
Was there something else in that scene that had you motivated to talk to your child? Multiple participants, perhaps?
I just threw out that example as an obvious tasteless scene that most people would not want their child exposed to. It was purely hypothetical. I wouldn't be overly worried if I found a few pictures of women or a relatively normal sex video in my kids possession. I would be worried and feel a talk was in order if I discovered the aforementioned scene. Again, I think this is a perfectly reasonable view to take.
Well, inasmuch as your point(s) were poorly made, and I tore them apart for you, perhaps you were simply trying to recover the appearance of knowing what you're talking about. What do you think?:-)
I don't think they were that poorly made, but I'm rather partial in that judgment;) In any case I don't think my views are extreme to either end.
It's hard to say. Who knows what Gore would have done in the aftermath of 9/11. Would we be in exactly the position we are now? No, probably not. Would we be in a somewhat similar position? Possibly. Congress as a whole passed the USAPATRIOT act. Congress as a whole was very much behind invading Iraq in the early days.
Gore probably wouldn't have been too busy planning the invasion of Iraq to focus on Afghanistan. The Patriot Act is an iffy one. There's no way in hell that we'd be in Iraq though. Congress can't force the President to invade another country. The Congress "as a whole" was only behind it because Dubya is in office and the Republicans do everything he asks and the Democrats at the time were quite spineless. I seem to recall a Republican Congress lambasting Clinton when he went into Kosovo. Which was more justified? Kosovo (with NATO support) to stop a genocide and possible European War or Iraq? Even if you thought he had WMDs (a lot of people did) I still find it hard to justify that war (umm... hello.... North Korea anyone???).
(and if you think Afghanistan wouldn't have turned into a quagmire you have only to look at the Soviet experience there)
There's a bit of difference between the Soviets invading to impose their own form of Government (highly unpopular with the people) and the United States invading in a response to a direct attack on our soil with the stated goal of overthrowing a massively unpopular regime. We will probably be there for years fighting what's left of the Taliban and Al Quada but it's not a quagmire by any means. I could go further and point out that with Gore (or for that matter, anybody who wasn't a neo-con) in office Afghanistan would have been the focus instead of Iraq. From almost before the towers came down there were people in the administration planning an invasion of Iraq. WTF??? That's like FDR invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor because we had prior bad dealings with them.
Do you honestly believe that those things are a function of Democrat vs Republican principles, rather than Bush as an individual being morally corrupt?
Yes I do. Bush is morally corrupt. So is the entire Congressional Republican leadership. I don't see them standing up to him so they are just as bad in my book. My biggest gripe with the Democrats isn't that they are similar to the Republicans -- it's that they are too spineless to really stand up to the Republicans because they are too busy listening to pollsters and pundits telling them that they have to run from the center to win. I don't see Bush running from the center. And if we are going to lose then I'd rather see us lose fighting for our values.
These kinds of things could have happened on either party's watch.
You keep saying "could have" not "would have". Can you honestly tell me that we wouldn't be at least a little bit better off if Gore had won in 2000? I won't even say Kerry because by 2004 things were already fucked up pretty good (WTF can anybody do with Iraq now?). When you consider all the things that Bush has done I think you can understand the frustration I have when people lump the Democrats in with the Republicans and state that they will never vote for a major party candidate.
Likewise, it's not fair to blame Nadar for Gore losing, but damn it -- couldn't he have thought about the cause? He's still too thick headed to even admit that there is no way in hell that a Gore administration would have been as bad as this.
I think the liberal handbook says you're supposed to talk with your son or daughter about sex. That way, your child's first impression won't be unrealistic.
Exactly. That's what I'm advocating. Say what you will about porn (good, bad, evil, indifferent) but I hardly think that it gives a realistic impression of sex. Espically teenage sex. I've seen a fair amount of porn in my day but I have yet to see a porno that accuratly shows all of the fumbles and problems the first time people have sex;) It's too bad too -- it would probably be rather amusing.
In any case I highly doubt that many people scream "PLEASE POP MY CHERRY AND CUM ON MY FACE" the first time they have sex;)
But there's a difference between talking about an issue, and actually doing something about it.
I don't know. I'd say that based on the amount of laws relating to abortion that are turned down by the courts that the Republicans are trying to do something about abortion. I'd also point out that they rammed their economic policy through Congress several years ago.
I'm just pointing out that voting for either of the major parties will produce effectively the same result
So, you really think that with Al Gore in office we would currently be occuiping Iraq? Do you think with him in office that the Republican tax cut agenda would have passed? Or how about the D&X abortion ban? Do you really think any of those policy agendas would even have made it to the Oval Office for a signature if the Democrats were in control of Congress?
I claim that those are a smokescreen, because none of them turn into legislation, nor are they likely to any time soon.
And I just pointed out a whole shitload that did turn into legislation. And it's not all about legislation either. Look at the cronies that Bush appointed to the various Federal agencies (Brown comes to mind). Look at the Executive Orders he has issued withdrawing support from doctors who advocate abortion overseas. Look at the tacit support for torture. Don't you dare tell me that all of those would have happened with a Democrat in office.
By all means begrudge the DNC/RNC for the areas that they do work together at the expense of the average man. The Bankruptcy "Reform" bill comes to mind. Or the utter lack of action on illegal immgration -- Republicans won't offend big business and Democrats are afraid of being called racists by the likes of Karl Rove.
What does "love" have to do with it? Are you suggesting that all sexual behavior should involve love? I mean, if that's how you want to behave, why then I think that's how you should behave, but where do you get the idea that your prerequisite of love is something that should be enforced on the rest of humanity?
And where did you get the idea that your concept of sex just for fun should be enforced on the rest of humanity (mainly, other peoples children)? And how do you draw the conclusion that I'm forcing my viewpoints on the rest of humanity? Did you see me say that I support these laws? Did you see me say that I think pornography is immoral?
Who died and left you arbiter of sexual correctness? The fact is, plenty of sexual behavior, mutually consenting, goes on that is just for the fun of it, and this has always been the case. If you want to teach your kid that "love" is required (thereby biasing him in such a way that he's going to have a heck of a lot less fun than my kids, for instance) that's certainly your right as a parent.
Oh, give me a fricking break! In case you didn't notice I largely agree with you. You won't find me preaching the value of abstinence or waiting until marriage. That would certainly be a bit hypocritical of me (yes, AC, this is your cue to reply and say/.'ers can't have sex so I must be lying;)
Your position does seem a bit extreme though. I make the perfectly reasonable suggestion that it probably isn't a good thing for teenagers to learn about sex from pornography and you jump all over me and accuse me of being "the arbiter of sexual correctness". It probably isn't a good thing for somebody who is sexually inexperienced (as all teenagers are) to be exposed to limitless amounts of hardcore tasteless pornography. And before you accuse me of being a prude I think that most people would agree that most pornography is quite tasteless. If nothing else it will cloud their expectations of what sex should be or is like.
As a parent, it seems to me that your duty is to educate the kid(s) about what the risks are, what the preventative actions for those risks are, and they'll be able to draw decent conclusions from that information.
Indeed. And I would much rather educate my kid without the help of the porn business, thank you very much. There's a reason why you need to be 18 to enter an adult store. There's also a perfectly valid reason for parents not wanting limitless amounts of internet smut (some of which is beyond disgusting) being viewed by their kids.
Some is, some isn't, but the key thing that kills your idea is that it varies by viewer, not by production. Personally, I make it a point to try lots of things I see in porn. My sweetheart encourages this behavior, it has benefited her in the obvious manner many times. We own plenty of toys, films, and in fact, we run a pretty cool online store that in its own humble way, encourages people to enjoy themselves.
And I would maintain that most people would not be open to trying some of the things depicted in a lot of pornography. And this is all besides the point! I never said that you or I didn't have the right to buy porn. I never even said that I supported laws against porn no matter how well intended. I only suggested that it might not be a good thing to expose sexually immature people to hard core pornography. You obviously represent the other extreme of this argument so I don't really know why I'm wasting my time debating this with you.
Unprotected sex in a movie is, you might want to point out, acting of an unprotected sex scene between individuals who are tested (weekly, I think, but at least monthly) for STDs, and you should probably be able to point out that the adult film community has an excellent record of avoiding STDs because of this testing and certification.
That's nice. Again, why is it even relevant to the point that I was trying to make?
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It's a productive system for what it's supposed to produce- an honest count.
How is it an honest count when some party hack invalidates my vote because there was a tiny speck of pencil graphite on the bubble for Bush when the bubble for Kerry was completely filled in? My intentions are quite clear but my vote is still discarded.
That's my fear with pure paper ballots.
(meaning you can trust that the voter properly recorded his or her choice).
As Palm Beach County showed, I don't think you can trust the voter to properly record his or her choice on a manual paper or punchcard ballot. If there is even the slightest thing wrong with it (a little dot in the bubble for Bush when the bubble for Kerry is completely filled in) then some party hack will challange it.
Unless laws are written very carefully, there is potential for fraud here. This was especially the case back in the days of the big political machines, like the Boss Tweed days. If you're allowed to take anyone with you into the booth, what's to stop a mobster from forcing you to take him into the booth with you to make sure you vote for his candidate? Sure, you could refuse at the election place, but then his friend will break your legs later. I assume the NY laws take this into account by only allowing family or election officials. This is much better, but still open to possible attacks. What happens in small towns where you know all the election officials, and you wish to keep your voting preferences private? Maybe we have to be willing to accept that limitation. Maybe not.
Your mobster scenario would already be handled under any number of laws (extortion, bribery, etc). Regardless of who you can take into the polling place with you -- if you are being threatened they could always force you to get an absentee ballot and vote the way they want in front of them. No law is going to prevent that scenario.
Though, in NYS, if you vote absentee, then you can still show up and vote on the machine -- in this scenario the board of elections just disposes of your absentee ballot without counting it. So if you were smart (not many people know this) you could get around being threatened in this way without having your legs broken.
In any case, I still think you'd need such a provision with the elections inspectors. They are sworn to secrecy -- what can you do to offer someone assistance that's better then that? I also don't see a need to change the way NYS does it (anybody but employer or union official) -- but if it was changed then you should still have the option of taking a family member in. I'm sure you'd agree that it's pretty stupid to prevent people from taking their own kids in -- it was always a civics type lesson in my family growing up.
Any system NEEDS a paper trail (or something equivalent that computers can't change and that voters can read) in order to be reliable, secure, and verifiable.
My printed ballot in that scenario would be a bubble type ballot that could quickly be read by OCRs machines but could easily be understood by a human being. Barcodes (as some have purposed) do not meet this requirement. Then if need be you could have three different counts -- the counter on the voting machine, the OCR count and the human being count.
I miss freedom to create new products and services without having to worry about a federal government agency coming along and saying that I have to implement a whole slew of 'standards'
Somebody on /. is going to bitch about 'standards'? Do you really think it would be better if telecommunications providers each had their own standard thus ensuring vendor lock in? Would you really like to see an Office Document type scenario for telecommunications?
Some industries need to be regulated for a reason.
The whole requirement is a deliberate ploy by the POTS services (Qwest/SBC/Verizon) to eliminate the competition from Vonage and other VOIP providers. So, whether they are being uncooperative or not is moot. Do you think you should be forced to pay more (to a company, not the government) to force you to have 911 service on a line that you may not need it for?
Do you think that they should be allowed to sell this product without making a full disclosure of the pros and cons? Because before the FCC stepped into this mess that's exactly what they were doing.
Hell, even if you gave the consumers the option of opting out of E-911 service at least they would be making an informed choice. You can't make such a choice if you don't have all the facts -- and I don't really see Vonage or Time Warner listing all of the disadvantages of their product in any of their promotional literature.
This whole 911 not working because I moved my VoIP device somewhere is a bunch of FUD created by the LECs
And this whole "Vonage is a replacement for your landline" is a complete overstatement by some marketing droid that ignores the key differences between the two services (reliability).
I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to sell their product -- they should just be required to make a full disclosure. Then people can decide for themselves. If you were 75 years old with a heart condition then you might decide that keeping that POTS line (ghetto phone service in my area is $8.61/month) is worth it for emergencies. If you don't know about all of the advantages or disadvantages of a product then how the hell can you make an informed choice?
If I go to a business location and dial 911 (or 9-911 in most cases), I'm not going to be assured that 911 will know where I am because some locations are tied together with OPX (off premise extensions).
And if that business hasn't taken steps to make sure that address information is correctly reported to 911 dispatch then they could be sued by an employee or customer who suffered as a result.
The fact is that this is something that can be fixed. The fact is also that (like Ma Bell) these companies have no motivation to fix it unless the Government forces them to do so. Can you make a compelling case for why it shouldn't be fixed?
I have been considering changing VoIP to Speakeasy since they would prioritize the voice packets from the data packets, and eliminate the slow and choppy sounds when some is downloading something from my servers while I am talking.
Downloading from your servers? That would be outgoing packets from your DSL and you could control that with QoS. The only thing you couldn't easily control is incoming packets -- but unless you are the one doing the major downloading that shouldn't be a problem.
I have really enjoyed Vonage and I hate that the gov't is picking on them, but when you are the "leader" you're going to get the most crap
I really hate when VoIP providers undercut POTS providers without revealing everything about their product. VoIP technology is not as reliable as POTS service. There is no disputing that. Unless you invest in a UPS it won't work if the power goes out (and odds are that if you have a cable modem instead of DSL it won't even work then -- the cable network has repeaters that depend on power), 911 may not work depending on your provider and location, the quality of your service depends on variables beyond a lot of peoples control, etc, etc.
I'm not saying that VoIP isn't an interesting technology that shouldn't be pursued. I'm saying that they should have to be truthful in advertising. I also think that competition is a two way street -- if Time Warner doesn't have to pay franchise fees for selling their VoIP product, then why the fuck should Verizon have to pay franchise fees for trying to sell TV on their lines? Yet this is exactly what some municipalities are trying to do -- extort fees from the telcos offering TV but not the cable providers offering voice.
It's not the 80s anymore people. We can stop hating the phone company now.
IF you're at home, and your VOIP is properly configured with your address, then VOIP 911 is just as good as the POTS.
As good as POTS you say? Do you think that 911 will work when your lovely internet connection goes down and you can't dial out? I haven't yet seen a single VoIP service that comes remotely close to the reliability of a POTS line.
It may be good enough for you but don't pretend it's the same thing.
Lever-based machines are not verifiable.
Nor are the systems that have been purposed as replacements.
Add to this the fact that the gearing systems in lever machines are very complex, and it's infeasible to test each one fully before an election.
And it's feasible to fully test a computerized voting system? As in somebody actually votes a few dozen times on it and records the count? Furthermore, those gearing systems would be pretty tamper evident compared to a line of computer code. The known failure rate is a problem with any system that you use because somewhere along the line something will break. The goal should be to reduce that rate as much as possible.
They are also completely not accessible for people with many common disabilities.
No system will be 100% accessible to everybody. This is why there are provisions in the law allowing you to take a friend or family member into the booth with you. If you want an anonymous vote then you ask the elections inspectors to go in with you -- one from each party goes in (to prevent allegations of electioneering) -- the inspectors are sworn to secrecy in this scenario. I think it's actually a Class A misdemeanor to reveal how somebody voted.
However, it's not just employers and union officials that like to cheat the vote. If you can take anyone in the booth with you, then that person knows how you voted, violating the requirement of anonymity in voting. This opens the door to all kinds of fraud (by either coercion or voting for money, for example).
Granted -- but you aren't required to take somebody in with you. You have the option of doing so. I'm an election inspector -- if you tell me that you don't want this person going in with you then I am going to refuse to let them go in with you. If they refuse to obey my lawful order then I can actually have them arrested.
I think the employer/union rep is a sane enough restriction. If you read them literally some of the state laws I have seen would prohibit you from taking your kids into the booth with you. My parents always took me to vote with them -- it was sort of a civics lesson in our family.
In all, I just want to point out that not every system is perfect, and many laws that prohibit things that you might find silly have some reasoning behind them. The trick is to find the right combination of laws and technologies that make the final tally as close to what the voters wanted as possible.
No system will be 100% perfect. That's probably the big thing we could agree on.
I agree that many locales have screwed up voting laws. And I agree that most current electronic voting systems are horrid right now. However, the fact of the matter is that electronic systems are theoretically able to guarantee enfranchisement to more people, more reliably than any other system. I just don't think that's possible unless a machine has a voter-verifiable paper trail.
I'm still not totally convinced as to why we need electronic voting machines. But if we _must_ have them then the only system that I would support is one that shows you a printed ballot under glass. If you agree with that ballot then you press "accept" and it goes into a lockbox. Otherwise it gets rejected and disposed of somehow (shredder?) and you get to do it over again. The computer could keep a running tally for the unofficial election night results -- and the election would be official when those paper ballots were tallied up sometime later.
That adds a whole new layer of complexity -- you'd need a paper supply large enough for all the voters in your district, a laser printer, new toner every election to make sure you don't run out, more voter education, etc. And I still think you'd need sane laws about allowing people assistance as they transitioned to the new system. Do you see a problem with the NYS system of two inspectors from each party who are sworn to secrecy? Do you see a problem with being allowed help from a family member if so desired?
Why should you trust the computer, why should you trust people, why should you trust punchcard machines? I would personally place more trust in a well designed system which by definition cannot do something it is not programmed to do than a human which is far more susceptible to mistakes. Computers are based on logic and maths, barring hardware error there is no way they can do something against their program. And even the most rudimentary error checking will deal with hardware issues.
Yes, and there is no way for me as a voter to know that the computer is actually programmed with non-biased error free software. Go look at some of my other posts regarding the mechanical based lever voting machines that New York has used for decades. Tell me exactly what the problem is with them and why they should be replaced with your system?
The whole national ID thing I don't personally see a big problem with other than "OMG BIG BROTHER WILL KNOW EVERYTHING!!!", but it's largely irrelevant to the whole votes thing providing some other system can be found to make sure it really is one man, one vote. Incidentally, carry a cellphone? Much more of a privacy risk than an ID card.
Actually, no I don't have a cell phone. And the ID card would be worse of a risk. I can turn the cell phone off if I want. What happens when a law is passed requiring you to carry your ID card on your person at all times? More to the point why do we even need a national ID card? It's a solution looking for a problem.
Your constitutional issue seems to be the biggest problem, in which case the solution is simple. Votes are counted on a state's own system, the only national bit has to be the ID network so you can't hop across a border and vote again in another state.
And what happens when the power goes out? What happens when a drunk driver hits a telephone poll and your election district is severed from your lovely nation wide grid? Do you turn away voters? Do you have a locally cached copy of the registered voters? What happens if network connectivity isn't restored at the close of the election for you to canvass your votes? More to the point: Why is this all required?
The multi-lateral committee is important - you should be able to find at least one Republican and one Democrat (plus as many independants as care) to observe/do the count. Each box should have a small enough number of ballots to count in less than an hour. Then you wind up having to buy off a *lot* of people to steal an election. Sure you can buy the count at a couple of boxes, but that's way less than you can now.
They already have those committees. And the Democrat or Republican always winds up challenging a vote that goes against him if he can find the slightest bit of reason. How the hell is that a productive system?
I don't know the lever machines in NY. Does every voter get to check that his vote recorded what he claimed? With paper I see my ballot, and I put it in the box: I know it says what I said. With a lever, I can imaging the machine being rigged - I now have to trust the machine provider instead of a multi-partisan counting committee. With paper if I really care I can even sign up to watch the ballot counting (in advance, I should hope, to make enough space available).
No, you don't know that it recorded exactly the way you wanted it to. The machine is setup by at least two people (one from each political party) at the board of elections. Once deployed it is checked by the local election inspectors to make sure that all the counters read zero. Once the voting day is over we (inspectors) canvass the vote -- anybody can watch -- for the unofficial results (phoned in to the board of elections). The machine is then sealed with a numbered seal (tamper evident) and eventually transported back to the board of elections for the official canvass. At least two people (one from each party) record the votes off the machines -- all they do is read counters -- and anybody can watch.
There's no way to vote twice because the inspectors have to manually enable the machine before you can use it. Otherwise it will refuse to operate. You can't invalidate your vote because it will refuse to let you vote for both Bush and Kerry. There's a tactile feedback that is a lot easier for most people to understand then a touchscreen. I could go on all day.
Short of an equipment failure or a bad setup there is simply no way to tamper with that process. Equipment failure is very rare with these machines (they will run without power) and if they break down we have emergency paper ballots. The only part of the process where they could be tampered with is during the initial setup -- and you have systems in place to prevent that from happening.
I would love your concept of paper voting but you can't deny that it's less secure then the method I just outlined above. Human beings get to judge the votes -- in a close election they will start challenging them for any conceivable reason. Or the ballots could simply go "missing". Or they could be stuffed. It would be fairly easy to prove a stuffed ballot box (more votes then voters?) but how would you prove stolen ballots? What happens if somebody goes in to vote and then decides to walk out with his ballot and doesn't put it in?
In any case it's all a moot point. Next year New York joins the cadre of states using electronic voting machines. Why the hell is anything with the word "electronic" in the title automatically assumed to be better? *Sigh*
If there was a single, countrywide ID (Based on something such as your SSN in the US, or your NINo in the UK) augmented by biometrics then the whole 'someone else may use my vote' thing becomes a none issue - if the system to support the ID normally is secure then there is no room for fraud.
Umm, your suggesting a biometric based nationwide ID system for the United States? You aren't from here are you? ;) There is no way in hell that Americans would accept a compelled national ID. I wouldn't. God forbid if one ever passed then I would refuse to take part on it and would accept whatever penalties they threw at me.
And before somebody says "drivers license", let me point out that those are controlled by the states (I trust Albany more then Washington), that most states do not require biometrics, and that they aren't required by any leap of faith. In fact in my state you do not even need your license on your person to drive.
The other problems that I see with your suggestion is the fact that it doesn't really address the problem -- why should I trust the computer? Who is going to build your nationwide voting system? Is it even Constitutional (states handle elections)? How much would it cost?
Count your votes at each polling place with a multi-lateral committee. Then the damage of one biassed committee is limited to that ballot box.
And all that ballot box needs is to be in a heavily Republican or Democratic district for it to make a difference. I'll say it again: Human beings can not be trusted to count votes for something they have a stake in.
Centralized vote counting is the root of the corruption in the US voting system. Moving ballot boxes to "counting centers" is wrong - it allows focused corruption. Computer counting is wrong - it allows focused corruption. Distributed counting is *much* harder to coopt.
Yes, I agree. Why do we need stuff that has to be counted? Explain to me the problem with a lever based voting machine. The ones that New York uses are quite tamper evident (nothing is tamper proof). All the Board of Elections does is read the counts off the machine. The machine itself does the counting and unless it was initally setup wrong (in a process that anybody can understand and witness if so desired) then it can not be tampered with.
What's the friggen problem with that?
No no no. When a bank has a major security snafu they hide it, and pretend it never happened.
Yes, perhaps with a "security snafu". Why would they care about that? It's not their information that might have been exposed. But something tells me that if a Diebold ATM accidently gave somebody a few thousand dollars and the bank couldn't track down who it went to that heads would roll. These operations care about nothing but the bottom line.
Of course your security argument is a valid one -- and the reason that I would advocate doing business with credit unions. Some of them are getting to big for my liking and starting to act like banks -- but there are a lot of small community or employer centered credit unions. Look them up and see if you qualify for membership.
Or how about you send each registered voter a voting card, which they hand in at a polling station on election day. They get given a voting paper, go into a booth, mark and seal their paper, then drop it into a black box. Votes are then counted by hand later. Say, that could work
The problem with that is that the votes get counted by a human being and human beings have prejudances. Anybody who tells you that they are 100% impartial is lying.
Care to tell me what exactly is wrong with the lever based voting machines that New York has used for the last 40 years? The voter signs in -- if there are any problems they get challenged by an inspector (very rare) -- they go into the machine, they pull down levers, the votes are counted and that's it.
The way some other states (Florida) do elections dumbfounds me. In NYS you are allowed to take anybody into the poll with you other then your employer or union offical. I watched party hacks challenging 85 year old voters in Florida because they asked their 60 year old children for help. WTF is that nonsense? And ID requirements? Yeah, that isn't a way to screw over poor people who might not have a drivers license or DMV ID -- last time I checked those cost money.
In NYS now you are required to give your social security number or drivers license number at the time you register. The State verifies your information against the SSA or DMV database. If you can't provide that information then and only then do you get flagged for ID. And after you have showed it once then you never need to show it again. What's the problem here? There isn't much room for fraud -- in most of the districts the elections inspectors know most of the voters. And we have the right to challenge anything suspicious.
How the hell can other states fuck this up so badly?
Hell, aside from that, ATMs can depend on a well-connected private backbone network, with company owned lines and premise equipment.
Well connected? The last time I checked most ATMs at grocery/convinance stores used dialup to connect. Bank owned ATMs may or may not have a leased line (the ones my credit union uses do).
So how exactly is a hybrid network of 56k leased lines and dialup connections any better connected then most residential homes? Because it's a private network instead of the internet? Are you making that argument for security (probably moot because it's encrypted anyway) or reliability (explain why dialup to private network is more reliable then dialup to ISP -- they both have the same point of failure)?
Diebold is culpable for aquiring them - after a technology assessment - and continuing in this fashion. Possibly with the intent of enabling fraudulent vote recording and tabulation. Certainly Diebold "stonewalls", misrepresents and obfuscates every attempt to legitimately investigate their capability, practice and compliance.
I don't know if I'd make that leap as much as I detest them. This seems to me like the typical corporate nonsense of trying to put out a shoddy protect for a Government contract. That's what a lot of the leaked internal memos read like.... "Oh, just turn on the BIOS tests, since they want to see a screen where our protect does a self test" I have a hard time buying that they could rig them to purposefully record inaccurate votes and keep it a secret. There's got to be one Democrat/Liberal working on the code. Ditto for a Republican/Conservative if they were trying to rig it for the Dems.
Mind you, that doesn't make it any better then if they were trying to rig elections. I've worked as an elections inspector in NY (this was the last year of our lever based machines) and I do not see why we even need electronic voting machines -- paper trail or not.
But I don't worry about their ATMs!
I don't worry about their ATMs because if they made a shoddy product and sold it to a large bank then eventually that bank would find out. At the very least they would no longer do business with them -- perhaps they would even wind up suing Diebold for selling defective products. Unfortunately where voting machines are concerned, Government contracts are concerned -- with all of the politics, backstabbing and ineffective bureaucracy that goes along with them.
So supervise your child damn it. Don't expect others to do it for you, and then call yourself liberal.
When the hell did I say that isn't what I'm doing? Go to my user page and read every single comment I've posted to this discussion. Have I once said that I'm in favor of Governmental or Regulatory intervention in this issue? I think not!
My whole point all along is that people need to supervise their children and not expect the Government to do it for them. My other point is that people have legitimate concerns about pornography and it's stupid to dismiss them outright.
Oey vey!
How am I supposed to know that the form target is https? Am I supposed to analyze the page source code before I click "buy" with my credit card number? Your browser might warn you, and give you a chance to opt-out, if a form submission leaves https mode, but the other way around you can only know, practically speaking, after it's too late.
Am I the only one who wouldn't have cared even if the form wasn't https? Do you really think that one packet containing your credit card number (out of millions going to Wal Mart and trillions on the backbone links) is going to be intercepted in route? And even if it was -- so what? Even if somebody charges stuff you aren't on the hook for it -- as long as you report it promptly when you get your statement.
If you are that paranoid then how the hell could you read out your credit card number over the phone? At least tell me you didn't use a cordless phone.
Shrinking the federal government to increase state government responsibility? Now you sound like an old-school Republican... geeze!!
Actually with Dubya in office I can kind of understand what people in the South felt like when Democrats were in office. A few years ago John Ashcroft even tried to tell our Attorney General that he had to pursue the death pentalty in a state murder trial. WTF? Ever hear of seperation of powers? Of course Elliot Spitzer being the guy that he is basically told him to go fsck himself :)
I'm almost to the point of saying that if the red states want to trash their science classrooms and have prayer in schools then all the power to them. Give it a generation or so and then let's see where the center of the American economy would be. Of course a lot of what Democrats "forced" on the South really needed to happen (Civil Rights Act) -- but I can still see why it pissed them off so much now that the shoe is on the other foot.
What I find funny is how the Republicans were always in favor of States Rights until they took over the Federal Government. Friggen hypocrits :)
ha ha ha.... I am just messing with ya, but in all seriousness I'm glad there are still people who consider themselves liberal these days that do not have these idiot whack-job psuedo-intellectual attitudes about things. In other words there are still intelligent liberals around.
Hey, I'm as proud to call myself liberal as you are (presumably?) to call yourself a libertarian. I don't think the word "liberal" deserves the stigma that most conversatives would apply to it. But then I guess the Republicans are better then we are at using buzzwords to scare people. "Death tax", "partial birth abortion", "tax and spend", "terrorism", etc, etc. I wonder if they could win an election with real debates focused on real issues?
Heck, as a libertarian I'd assume that you are even more disgusted with Bush then I am. Most libertarians would agree that the first (only?) role of the Feds is the collective defense. Given the ignored warning signs and the loss of life on 9/11 I'd say they completely failed in that task.
Nice talking with ya :)
Perhaps you are really libertarian and don't know it.
Umm, not really. I admire the libertarian party stance on personal freedoms and freedom of speech but I take serious issue with their economic policy. On your quick little quiz I scored a firm liberal -- 90% personal and 20% economic.
I've often thought about supporting the libertarian party on a Federal level. Part of me thinks that a lot of what the Feds do could be replaced by the states. Picture getting rid of all Federal Taxes and funding the military with tariffs/excise/custom taxes. The States could have their own programs for Medicare/social security/etc.
In theory that would make Government more responsive (I'd rather pay more taxes to Albany then Washington). Of course some of the obvious problems would be the blue state brain drain -- most everybody wants their kids raised in a blue state (better education) but once they finish with school they move to a red state (lower taxes) -- at least until they have kids. It could also put a bigger burden on the more progressive states if retirees started flocking to them.
Of course those problems are hardly insurmountable either. But I'm now way off topic. I tip my hat to the libertarians on a lot of issues -- but I don't find much in agreement with their economic ideas.
No, actually you're not. I'm not either, but I'd say I'm more liberal since I don't believe in shielding kids from the truth.
I don't believe in shielding them from the truth either. I just question if most porn you'd find on the internet is the "truth" about sex. In any case when any kids that I have reach the age where they are going to start asking questions then I would much rather have them come to my wife or I to ask them then to look for the answer in internet porn.
Let's be real. Your typical porno exists for one reason. It's not educational, for most people it's not an accurate depiction of sex. What's the statistic? The average porn movie in a hotel is watched for 8 minutes?
Note that I'm not saying that it should be censored. I'm just saying that as a parent I wouldn't necessarily allow my child uncontrolled and limitless access to it. In fact you can expand that beyond porn and say that most people wouldn't allow their children uncontroled access to the internet. Or R-rated movies. Of course as the child ages then they should be exposed to more of the real world.
Yes, well, if it hadn't been for that ridiculous "loving sex" thing you tossed steaming on the floor, I would have. :-)
My point was that most pornography bears little resemblance to actual real world sex. The "loving sex" comment was not the best way to explain that point but I still think the point itself is valid. I've had my fair share of non-relationship sexual encounters (for lack of a better term?) and I don't think many of them would have made a good porno movie ;)
Personally, I find sex intriguing and often beautiful. I have a huge amount of fun with it, and I appreciate that others enjoy it in their own ways, whatever those are.
Indeed. As do I. But I still don't see what it really had to do with my original point. *shrug* I can honestly state that I find sex intriguing and often beautiful. I can't say the same about pornography. Pornography is not sex.
Sexuality isn't "hard core" behavior, it is natural, inevitable, and frankly beautiful and interesting. Hiding it from kids (while letting them watch murder, assault, theft, teaching them entirely unsubstantiated tripe about mythological entities and events) is simple prudery, in my view.
Exactly. And that proves my point about why I choose not to allow my kids limitless access to porn. Sexuality isn't "hard core" -- but a lot of porn is. I really don't see this as an unreasonable view. And I also agree with you about violence being harmful. In fact, I would rather have my kid watch a tasteful sex scene in a movie then a violence scene.
Was there something else in that scene that had you motivated to talk to your child? Multiple participants, perhaps?
I just threw out that example as an obvious tasteless scene that most people would not want their child exposed to. It was purely hypothetical. I wouldn't be overly worried if I found a few pictures of women or a relatively normal sex video in my kids possession. I would be worried and feel a talk was in order if I discovered the aforementioned scene. Again, I think this is a perfectly reasonable view to take.
Well, inasmuch as your point(s) were poorly made, and I tore them apart for you, perhaps you were simply trying to recover the appearance of knowing what you're talking about. What do you think? :-)
I don't think they were that poorly made, but I'm rather partial in that judgment ;) In any case I don't think my views are extreme to either end.
It's hard to say. Who knows what Gore would have done in the aftermath of 9/11. Would we be in exactly the position we are now? No, probably not. Would we be in a somewhat similar position? Possibly. Congress as a whole passed the USAPATRIOT act. Congress as a whole was very much behind invading Iraq in the early days.
Gore probably wouldn't have been too busy planning the invasion of Iraq to focus on Afghanistan. The Patriot Act is an iffy one. There's no way in hell that we'd be in Iraq though. Congress can't force the President to invade another country. The Congress "as a whole" was only behind it because Dubya is in office and the Republicans do everything he asks and the Democrats at the time were quite spineless. I seem to recall a Republican Congress lambasting Clinton when he went into Kosovo. Which was more justified? Kosovo (with NATO support) to stop a genocide and possible European War or Iraq? Even if you thought he had WMDs (a lot of people did) I still find it hard to justify that war (umm... hello.... North Korea anyone???).
(and if you think Afghanistan wouldn't have turned into a quagmire you have only to look at the Soviet experience there)
There's a bit of difference between the Soviets invading to impose their own form of Government (highly unpopular with the people) and the United States invading in a response to a direct attack on our soil with the stated goal of overthrowing a massively unpopular regime. We will probably be there for years fighting what's left of the Taliban and Al Quada but it's not a quagmire by any means. I could go further and point out that with Gore (or for that matter, anybody who wasn't a neo-con) in office Afghanistan would have been the focus instead of Iraq. From almost before the towers came down there were people in the administration planning an invasion of Iraq. WTF??? That's like FDR invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor because we had prior bad dealings with them.
Do you honestly believe that those things are a function of Democrat vs Republican principles, rather than Bush as an individual being morally corrupt?
Yes I do. Bush is morally corrupt. So is the entire Congressional Republican leadership. I don't see them standing up to him so they are just as bad in my book. My biggest gripe with the Democrats isn't that they are similar to the Republicans -- it's that they are too spineless to really stand up to the Republicans because they are too busy listening to pollsters and pundits telling them that they have to run from the center to win. I don't see Bush running from the center. And if we are going to lose then I'd rather see us lose fighting for our values.
These kinds of things could have happened on either party's watch.
You keep saying "could have" not "would have". Can you honestly tell me that we wouldn't be at least a little bit better off if Gore had won in 2000? I won't even say Kerry because by 2004 things were already fucked up pretty good (WTF can anybody do with Iraq now?). When you consider all the things that Bush has done I think you can understand the frustration I have when people lump the Democrats in with the Republicans and state that they will never vote for a major party candidate.
Likewise, it's not fair to blame Nadar for Gore losing, but damn it -- couldn't he have thought about the cause? He's still too thick headed to even admit that there is no way in hell that a Gore administration would have been as bad as this.
*Sigh*
I think the liberal handbook says you're supposed to talk with your son or daughter about sex. That way, your child's first impression won't be unrealistic.
Exactly. That's what I'm advocating. Say what you will about porn (good, bad, evil, indifferent) but I hardly think that it gives a realistic impression of sex. Espically teenage sex. I've seen a fair amount of porn in my day but I have yet to see a porno that accuratly shows all of the fumbles and problems the first time people have sex ;) It's too bad too -- it would probably be rather amusing.
In any case I highly doubt that many people scream "PLEASE POP MY CHERRY AND CUM ON MY FACE" the first time they have sex ;)
But there's a difference between talking about an issue, and actually doing something about it.
I don't know. I'd say that based on the amount of laws relating to abortion that are turned down by the courts that the Republicans are trying to do something about abortion. I'd also point out that they rammed their economic policy through Congress several years ago.
I'm just pointing out that voting for either of the major parties will produce effectively the same result
So, you really think that with Al Gore in office we would currently be occuiping Iraq? Do you think with him in office that the Republican tax cut agenda would have passed? Or how about the D&X abortion ban? Do you really think any of those policy agendas would even have made it to the Oval Office for a signature if the Democrats were in control of Congress?
I claim that those are a smokescreen, because none of them turn into legislation, nor are they likely to any time soon.
And I just pointed out a whole shitload that did turn into legislation. And it's not all about legislation either. Look at the cronies that Bush appointed to the various Federal agencies (Brown comes to mind). Look at the Executive Orders he has issued withdrawing support from doctors who advocate abortion overseas. Look at the tacit support for torture. Don't you dare tell me that all of those would have happened with a Democrat in office.
By all means begrudge the DNC/RNC for the areas that they do work together at the expense of the average man. The Bankruptcy "Reform" bill comes to mind. Or the utter lack of action on illegal immgration -- Republicans won't offend big business and Democrats are afraid of being called racists by the likes of Karl Rove.
What does "love" have to do with it? Are you suggesting that all sexual behavior should involve love? I mean, if that's how you want to behave, why then I think that's how you should behave, but where do you get the idea that your prerequisite of love is something that should be enforced on the rest of humanity?
And where did you get the idea that your concept of sex just for fun should be enforced on the rest of humanity (mainly, other peoples children)? And how do you draw the conclusion that I'm forcing my viewpoints on the rest of humanity? Did you see me say that I support these laws? Did you see me say that I think pornography is immoral?
Who died and left you arbiter of sexual correctness? The fact is, plenty of sexual behavior, mutually consenting, goes on that is just for the fun of it, and this has always been the case. If you want to teach your kid that "love" is required (thereby biasing him in such a way that he's going to have a heck of a lot less fun than my kids, for instance) that's certainly your right as a parent.
Oh, give me a fricking break! In case you didn't notice I largely agree with you. You won't find me preaching the value of abstinence or waiting until marriage. That would certainly be a bit hypocritical of me (yes, AC, this is your cue to reply and say /.'ers can't have sex so I must be lying ;)
Your position does seem a bit extreme though. I make the perfectly reasonable suggestion that it probably isn't a good thing for teenagers to learn about sex from pornography and you jump all over me and accuse me of being "the arbiter of sexual correctness". It probably isn't a good thing for somebody who is sexually inexperienced (as all teenagers are) to be exposed to limitless amounts of hardcore tasteless pornography. And before you accuse me of being a prude I think that most people would agree that most pornography is quite tasteless. If nothing else it will cloud their expectations of what sex should be or is like.
As a parent, it seems to me that your duty is to educate the kid(s) about what the risks are, what the preventative actions for those risks are, and they'll be able to draw decent conclusions from that information.
Indeed. And I would much rather educate my kid without the help of the porn business, thank you very much. There's a reason why you need to be 18 to enter an adult store. There's also a perfectly valid reason for parents not wanting limitless amounts of internet smut (some of which is beyond disgusting) being viewed by their kids.
Some is, some isn't, but the key thing that kills your idea is that it varies by viewer, not by production. Personally, I make it a point to try lots of things I see in porn. My sweetheart encourages this behavior, it has benefited her in the obvious manner many times. We own plenty of toys, films, and in fact, we run a pretty cool online store that in its own humble way, encourages people to enjoy themselves.
And I would maintain that most people would not be open to trying some of the things depicted in a lot of pornography. And this is all besides the point! I never said that you or I didn't have the right to buy porn. I never even said that I supported laws against porn no matter how well intended. I only suggested that it might not be a good thing to expose sexually immature people to hard core pornography. You obviously represent the other extreme of this argument so I don't really know why I'm wasting my time debating this with you.
Unprotected sex in a movie is, you might want to point out, acting of an unprotected sex scene between individuals who are tested (weekly, I think, but at least monthly) for STDs, and you should probably be able to point out that the adult film community has an excellent record of avoiding STDs because of this testing and certification.
That's nice. Again, why is it even relevant to the point that I was trying to make?