Use the Popular Vote, drop the Electorial College, and every vote truly is equal.
True enough. People that favor the electoral college (expectedly they usually come from the small states) always say the point of the Electoral College is to ensure the candidates visit the small towns, not just NYC and California.
But look at the past election, you've got Bush and Kerry going to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida 20 times each, and both camps entirely ignoring Texas, New York, California, Montana, etc. It's an utterly ridiculous system.
As for the point about favoring small rural states, that is bunk. By logic, all the visits to Ohio and Pennsylvania should have been to the big cities, but both Bush and Kerry went to the small towns to energize rural voters. That would happen if the popular vote counted, they'd go to small towns all over because the visibility of a small town in Idaho will carry over to small-town Montana, for instance.
Secondly, why should geographic location be the important factor? It's presumably so candidates will be sure to go to small towns so rural voters aren't left out. By that same logic, should a Muslim be given 3x the voting power as a Christian because otherwise the politicians would ignore Muslim concerns? It's the same logic as a Montana voter having 3x the weight of a Californian voter, where do you draw the line there?
Well, the MSFT trial was going pretty well during Clinton, until Bush was elected, then it pretty much died.
Also, under Clinton we weren't rushing to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage, etc etc.
Anyway, I agree with you that I'm really let down w/ the Democratic Party. With the many MANY bad points they could have ripped Bush new ones with, they really didn't. Kerry pretty much let Bush (through Rove, of course) walk all over him. Kerry basically let Bush define him as a flip-flopper, then as a total 'liberal' too out of touch, etc. Kerry could have easily responsed how ultra-conservative right-wing Bush was, but he never really did it with the same vigor Bush attacked him.
I can only hope that either the Democrats get off their asses and realize the republicans are like sharks w/ friggin lasers and we have to fight back hard, or that a charismatic third-party leader can build enough momentum and funding that it will be a viable choice next time.
I fear for the next four years of this country, with the Supreme Court appointments and the republican majority in all Congress. Bush now doesn't have to appeal to moderates anymore, he can go ultra-conservative and ultra-religious without much worry anymore.
hahaha, the only thing against Geddy Lee is that my friend, who played drums in a pseudo-band from a few years ago was a major Rush fan (She even hooked up with Geddy Lee at some point IIRC), and was always trying to insert weird drum timings at various points in our songs.
Well, actually all that is pretty cool, so I guess there's nothing I have against Geddy Lee;-)
It's cool, he has been updating electoral college maps for the past few months, based on various polls. I've only followed it for the past few weeks, and it's consistently shown Kerry leading. (Tennenbaum only 'came out of the closet' today to acknowledge who he was, it was pretty funny that I actually heard of the guy that ran that site.)
I don't necessarily agree with his polling method. He chooses the most recent poll for each state, instead of either weighing or averaging several polls. For example, his current data uses the most recent polls from Wisconsin and Ohio from a notable poll that disagrees with many other polls highly favoring Kerry. Similarly, New Jersey has been shown by several polls to lead Kerry, but as per his rule he's sticking with a known Republican-oriented polling house. So he set his rules awhile ago and is still sticking to them.
But he has been projecting a notable Kerry win (in electoral votes) for quite some time now, and bases this on his own personal weighing of various polls. His current EV prediction is a Kerry victory of 306 to 218. We'll see how close he comes.
Not necessarily. That's what I did in 2000, I voted for Nader, living in a clearly obviosly Blue state.
But the electon was so close in 2000, and will be this year. If Kerry barely wins, Republicans will claim for 4 years he didn't win the mandate. (Even though Bush didn't win a mandate, and lost the popular vote, but legislated from such an extreme agenda one would assume he won 90% to 10%).
I voted for Kerry this year even though I'm in a Blue state and do like some 3rd parties. Just because I want to give legitimacy to Kerry's administration, if he's elected.
The best way to gain exposure for 3rd parties is in local elections, that's definitely true. We have a green party sign for the city council rep in Baltimore, as well as Kerry/Edwards signs on our lawn.
Yeah, that BBC flash map is pretty cool. One thing I like about it is that you can morph the map from geographically scaled to electorally-scaled. That's because many populous states (eg New Jersey) are tiny on the map, and make it look like Kerry is way behind bush compared to big states with very few people (eg, Montana).
Some other sites have given electorally-scaled maps, but I saw it on the BBC first. I really wish more news networks would show this kind of map because alot of ignorant people just watching the news will get the idea Bush will win in a landslide. I've even heard some people claim after 2000 that they didn't understand how it could have been so close since Bush had way more red on the map than Gore did blue.
because people that listen to Rush all day long will tend to be mindless idiots as well, yet they'll go to vote just as rigorously as a politician.
So where do you draw the line between mindless idiots? Why should someone that listens to Rush all day long be more enfranchised to vote than someone that watches MTV all day long, for instance?
Are you kidding? Bush is a born-again Christian. He strongly believes the reason he won governor and presidency elections is because Jesus wants him to. He has made a big deal about going to various churches every Sunday, both on and off the campain trail.
Secondly, remember at the first Republican primary debate? The candidates were all asked to name their favorite philosopher, Bush said "Jesus" because "he changed my life".
I just personally feel that Kerry will do only a minor shade of gray better than Bush, so I want to spend my vote on Badnarik.
That's just it. I personally feel that Kerry is many many shades of gray/white better than Bush. Although he's certainly not perfect.
But even if I do prefer Cobb (Which I can't say I do since I'm not too familiar with his agenda and policies) over Kerry, to a far greater extent I would prefer a Kerry presidency over another Bush presidency. That's for sure.
So for myself, even if Cobb was the perfect candidate that agreed with 100% of my views, I would much rather push Bush out. Like I said previously, though, most other Republican politicians haven't been as bad as Bush, which is why in most other elections I'd vote 3rd party.
Anyway, as to your point about not being good at public speaking and not wanting the job of president, that's really part of the problem with the whole presidency. The entire media is on you like glue for any slight slip-up, of which Bush and Kerry have had several. IMHO that's why Kerry has been rather dry at the debates, he can't risk saying the wrong thing in front of the cameras. He's supposedly the master debater, but it's easier in college debating to go on stream-of-consciousness rants without worrying about one small messup.
so you think it's worthwhile that a voter from Montana has their vote counted 3x as much as a person from California?
You think it's worthwhile that 48 of the 50 states use a winner-take-all approach for the election?
You think it's worthwhile that even if every citizen in California voted for candidate X, then the 55 electoral college members can actually vote for candidate Y if they so choose?
There are Bush supporters on Slashdot too, and the OP went out of his way to not show any bias or give any indication which way he was leaning.
Yeah, i realized shortly after submitting he didn't say Kerry, but left them blank. I was subconsciously putting myself into the poster's place. Oh well, mea culpa.
The best-funded, best-motivated, most-grassroots third party Presidential candidate of the last 50 years got less than 20 percent of the vote.
Actually, Perot seemed to be pulling way ahead of Bush, and then suddenly withdrew his candidacy out of the blue! There was alot of talk about dirty blackmail going on by the republicans, but nothing official as far as I know. A few weeks before the election Perot went back into the race, but of course lost a significant chunk of his base.
I really think he would have won if he didn't pull out of the race. His withdrawing was really weird, and really smelled fishy.
Don't go lecturing me on how I should use my vote. It's my vote, and I will use it however the fuck I want to.
I never once lectured you on how you should use your vote.
Grandparent poster was debating about voting for 3rd-party idealist candidate and risking helping Bush or voting Kerry who (s)he doesn't fully agree with.
I presented a question to think about, and described what I was doing this election.
Anyway, believe it or not, I agree with you on the issues of election reform. I also despise the 2 party system, but I despise Bush far worse.
Unfortunately, democrats and republicans have way too much power to pass on their own any sort of voting reform legislation, including instant-runoff or the like. The only way such reform MIGHT happen is if Bush wins the popular vote and then loses the electoral vote. That way both Democrats and Republicans would have seen how much that sucks and would have a common obligation to fix the broken Electoral College system.
In 1996 Perot recieved 19% of the popular vote. But given your attitude, he should have received none.
Firstly, you mean 1992 instead of 1996.
But to the point - do you even remember that year?
Perot had built up alot of momentum during the several months preceding the election. This momentum and publicity indicated he had a shot at winning.
This year no 3rd-party candidate has any appreciable momentum, and thus it's fairly obvious to any realist at this time that they have no chance at winning this time.
You knew in 1992 that Perot had a decent chance going into the election. You know in 2004 there's basically zero chance of any 3rd-party candidate winning.
Voting for 3rd-party candidate tomorrow will neither elect a 3rd-party candidate nor help push Bush out of office. Voting for Kerry will not help elect a 3rd-party candidate, but it WILL help push Bush out of office. I'm voting Kerry (although I did vote Nader in 2000 because of reasons you mention).
Are you willing to accept 4 years of the most liberal democrat in the Senate as President in order to make a statement for your third party candidate?
But that would be a liberal president working in conjunction with a republican House and Senate. History has shown that in such situations with President of the minority party of Congress, legislation most beneficial to the public at large is passed - because the politicians must compromise!!
A Bush re-election would easily allow him to put through the most radical right-wing appointments and legislation. A Kerry election would NOT let him do the same with liberal legislation and appointments.
A Green/Libertarian/Constitution/Socialist vote in 2004 is an investment in 2008 and beyond. It is an investment in true change.
Not at all true, you're not considering the Supreme Court and the 20 to 30 year legacy a Bush re-election would have impact.
Remember that at least one, but quite possibly 3 or 4, Chief Justices will retire in the next 4 years. Voting for green/socialist/etc instead of Kerry in this election is realistically helping put Bush in office. If Bush can appoint of 1/3 of the Supreme Court will have a lasting effect of 20-30 years.
Even if your favorite ideal 3rd-party miraculously manages to win all elections from 2008 to 2028, you've still got the Supreme Court legacy left from a Bush re-election in 2004 to deal with.
That's one of the many reasons I'm not voting 3rd party this year (I did vote Nader in 2000, though). If Kerry is elected, he'll have to fight against a republican house and senate, and thus any court appointments will have to be moderate. Bush, on the other hand, would have full power due to republican majority in all Congress, to put in radical right-wing judges.
Don't listen to the parent's hysteria, there's no reason why one person's vote should be more important than another because they consider themselves more informed (whether it's true or not).
You live in a democracy (well, really a republic), where people have fought long and hard to give you the right to vote. It's not just a right, it should be your civic duty. Please exercise your right to vote, don't refrain from voting just because the parent fears the repercussions of many more people going to the polls than otherwise might go.
If you don't know the issues well, ask yourself if you've enjoyed the decisions of the past 4 years of the government. Namely - war in Iraq/Afghanistan and economy. If you want another four similar years vote Bush. If you want a realistic chance at change, vote Kerry. Otherwise vote someone else.
This attempted suppresion of new voters by the parent is utter crap, there's not watering down of 'informed' voters, parent just fears having more people go to the polls to exercise their right (and duty) as a citizen of the USA.
There's a big difference between being an idealist and being a pragmatist. No candidate will ideally represent all your viewpoints, there will always be differences. So really every person in the USA should vote for themselves, according to your logic.
The big question is to ask yourself "How important is this election? How many issues are at stake that I will regret helping re-elect Bush by voting 3rd party?.
It's way too close to the election for any significant momentum to build up for any 3rd-party candidate. Like someone else said, the best chance to get them elected is to vote for local positions. For example, at my house we have a sign for the green party candidate for Baltimore City Council on our front lawn, and he's gotten alot of exposure lately. We also have Kerry-Edwards signs on our lawn too, because
But definitely realize that nationally if you vote 3rd party you're taking a vote away from Kerry. Yeah, we can argue all day till the cows come home about whether it's a wasted vote or not if you vote for who you really want. But practically and realistically you should realize you are 100% helping re-elect Bush again by doing so. If you don't mind re-electing Bush in order to vote for your ideal candidate, then go ahead and do so.
As for myself, I voted Nader in 2000 because my state is heavily democratic and I despise the 2 party system. Bush has been way way WAY too radically conservative IMHO, and the USA and the World will be significantly better off by pushing him out of office. Most liberals I know, including many local green-party enthusiasts, are voting Kerry in this election. (Actually, the only exception I personally know of who is voting Green is the aforementioned Green Party candidate for city council). Even though my state is not a swing state, by voting Kerry I am helping to legitimize his election through the popular vote as well.
So basically, if you don't mind Bush getting re-elected this time around then vote 3rd party. In the past republicans haven't been as evil as Bush, and I'd agree with you about going 3rd party to help usher in change. But this time around there's too much at stake for my risking any Bush re-election. Things at stake include : draft, more war, appointing between 1-4 Supreme Court judges, amendment to ban gay marriage, tie Christianity closer to the US government, etc etc.
It really makes me sick to think that a bunch of city-dwelling good for nothing enviromental lawers and their "lock it all up" greenie friends have the power to take away the rights of ordinary Americans like myself who just wants to enjoy what little multipurpose recreational forest land remains.
You're recreational forest land won't last as long as it should if Bush is re-elected. Are you at least aware of Bush's legislation to ease anti-logging resistrictions, and remove ability of public (ie - yourself) to have input on the management of National Forests, etc etc. You say you're from Oregon, so try reading this (you'll probably claim it's an 'extremist greenie' organization, though).
How would you like it if the area around your cabin was slated for logging (for fire prevention of course, not catering to the timber lobby or anything like that)? I bet in that case you'd rather have the Kerry plan go through. Unless the forest was logged by someone else's cabin far away, then Bush's plan would be okay, right?
I for one hope that Bush wins.
Until the lumberjacks decide your property is in a high-risk fire zone and that the trees need to be logged.
It's actually more complicated then that. Many of the polls oversample republicans in their predictions. It doesn't make sense because they sample about 1000 people, but then re-normalize the votes of registered republicans to account for about 5% more than registered democrats. This is fallacious because exit polls from previous elections usually demonstrate number of democrats voting as exceeding number of republicans voting by a few percent.
But don't just take my word for it, look for yourself. You can see the results of many different polls just before the 2000 election here. Remember the popular vote was pretty damn close between Gore/Bush, with Gore getting 48.38% and Bush getting 47.87% nationwide. Notice that almost all the polls shortly before the election favored Bush, several times significantly above the Margin of Error.
Interestingly enough, one of Kerry's advisors - Bob Shrum - has a losing record of 0 for 7 in his presidential campaigns. People in Kerry's campaign have been hoping to "reverse the curse" of Shrum, same as Red Sox fans. See here, for example.
So a few days ago the Boston baseball team broke the curse, and now hopefully Shrum can reverse his curse with a Boston candidate too.
I disagree strongly. People SHOULD vote if they have the opportunity. Can you offer any sensible reason why a vote from an allegedly uninformed person is bad? Democracy shouldn't favor the informed over the uninformed.
Why is a brainwashed person who listens to news from the radical (right/left) more informed than someone that just watches Oprah/MTV and the local news, and otherwise wouldn't care to vote? Yet the radical right/left person will definitely vote for their cause, why is the vote of the Oprah/MTV fan less important?
Shouldn't political education be placed in front of political mobilization?
I actually think that political mobilization will encourage political education.
Many countries (eg Australia) actually fine people for not voting. The point of the campaign is to get people involved with the political system, which is the whole foundation of democracy to begin with.
By going out and voting, whether you do for a major candidate or even if you write-in 'mickey mouse', you get involved with the system. You begin to get some sense of not just the presidential candidates, but of state and city government, and many other proposals which you might not have otherwise known existed.
For example, if you own a pizza shop near the waterfront, and you go to the polls and learn there's a proposal for the city to borrow/spend $5 million to enhance the waterfront area, that resolution will definitely impact you greatly.
Daniel : Hey - you ever get into fights when you were a kid?
Miyagi : Huh - plenty.
Daniel : Yeah, but it wasn't like the problem I have, right?
Miyagi : Why? Fighting fighting. Same same.
Daniel : Yeah, but you knew karate.
Miyagi : Someone always know more.
Daniel : You mean there were times when you were scared to fight?
Miyagi : Always scare. Miyagi hate fighting.
Daniel : Yeah, but you like karate.
Miyagi : So?
Daniel : So, karate's fighting. You train to fight.
Miyagi : That what you think?
Daniel : [pondering] No.
Miyagi : Then why train?
Daniel : [thinks] So I won't have to fight.
Miyagi : [laughs] Miyagi have hope for you.
GMR is certainly spintronics, polarity of electron spin affects the transport through the multilayer. It doesn't matter if you measure the spin of the electrons used in the resistance measurement, you're _effectively_ reading the spins of the electrons in the two magnetic layers (up to an overall parity), as determined through its giant magnetoresistance.
It seems you are trying to make a semantical argument about this. So don't just take my word for it, see what the Institute of Physics have to say about it as well.
spintronics is one of the quickest technologies to go from lab to marketplace, second only to the transistor.
IC companies have embraced spintronics, your hard-disk read heads now employ GMR, for instance. IBM and other research labs are spending big $$$ to figure out how to make this technology easily fabricateable. This is NOT traditional CMOS, you can only shrink CMOS down so far, this is for moving beyond.
Slashdot Mirror
True enough. People that favor the electoral college (expectedly they usually come from the small states) always say the point of the Electoral College is to ensure the candidates visit the small towns, not just NYC and California.
But look at the past election, you've got Bush and Kerry going to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida 20 times each, and both camps entirely ignoring Texas, New York, California, Montana, etc. It's an utterly ridiculous system.
As for the point about favoring small rural states, that is bunk. By logic, all the visits to Ohio and Pennsylvania should have been to the big cities, but both Bush and Kerry went to the small towns to energize rural voters. That would happen if the popular vote counted, they'd go to small towns all over because the visibility of a small town in Idaho will carry over to small-town Montana, for instance.
Secondly, why should geographic location be the important factor? It's presumably so candidates will be sure to go to small towns so rural voters aren't left out. By that same logic, should a Muslim be given 3x the voting power as a Christian because otherwise the politicians would ignore Muslim concerns? It's the same logic as a Montana voter having 3x the weight of a Californian voter, where do you draw the line there?
Also, under Clinton we weren't rushing to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage, etc etc.
Anyway, I agree with you that I'm really let down w/ the Democratic Party. With the many MANY bad points they could have ripped Bush new ones with, they really didn't. Kerry pretty much let Bush (through Rove, of course) walk all over him. Kerry basically let Bush define him as a flip-flopper, then as a total 'liberal' too out of touch, etc. Kerry could have easily responsed how ultra-conservative right-wing Bush was, but he never really did it with the same vigor Bush attacked him.
I can only hope that either the Democrats get off their asses and realize the republicans are like sharks w/ friggin lasers and we have to fight back hard, or that a charismatic third-party leader can build enough momentum and funding that it will be a viable choice next time.
I fear for the next four years of this country, with the Supreme Court appointments and the republican majority in all Congress. Bush now doesn't have to appeal to moderates anymore, he can go ultra-conservative and ultra-religious without much worry anymore.
hahaha, the only thing against Geddy Lee is that my friend, who played drums in a pseudo-band from a few years ago was a major Rush fan (She even hooked up with Geddy Lee at some point IIRC), and was always trying to insert weird drum timings at various points in our songs.
Well, actually all that is pretty cool, so I guess there's nothing I have against Geddy Lee ;-)
It's cool, he has been updating electoral college maps for the past few months, based on various polls. I've only followed it for the past few weeks, and it's consistently shown Kerry leading. (Tennenbaum only 'came out of the closet' today to acknowledge who he was, it was pretty funny that I actually heard of the guy that ran that site.)
I don't necessarily agree with his polling method. He chooses the most recent poll for each state, instead of either weighing or averaging several polls. For example, his current data uses the most recent polls from Wisconsin and Ohio from a notable poll that disagrees with many other polls highly favoring Kerry. Similarly, New Jersey has been shown by several polls to lead Kerry, but as per his rule he's sticking with a known Republican-oriented polling house. So he set his rules awhile ago and is still sticking to them.
But he has been projecting a notable Kerry win (in electoral votes) for quite some time now, and bases this on his own personal weighing of various polls. His current EV prediction is a Kerry victory of 306 to 218. We'll see how close he comes.
But the electon was so close in 2000, and will be this year. If Kerry barely wins, Republicans will claim for 4 years he didn't win the mandate. (Even though Bush didn't win a mandate, and lost the popular vote, but legislated from such an extreme agenda one would assume he won 90% to 10%).
I voted for Kerry this year even though I'm in a Blue state and do like some 3rd parties. Just because I want to give legitimacy to Kerry's administration, if he's elected.
The best way to gain exposure for 3rd parties is in local elections, that's definitely true. We have a green party sign for the city council rep in Baltimore, as well as Kerry/Edwards signs on our lawn.
Some other sites have given electorally-scaled maps, but I saw it on the BBC first. I really wish more news networks would show this kind of map because alot of ignorant people just watching the news will get the idea Bush will win in a landslide. I've even heard some people claim after 2000 that they didn't understand how it could have been so close since Bush had way more red on the map than Gore did blue.
So where do you draw the line between mindless idiots? Why should someone that listens to Rush all day long be more enfranchised to vote than someone that watches MTV all day long, for instance?
Secondly, remember at the first Republican primary debate? The candidates were all asked to name their favorite philosopher, Bush said "Jesus" because "he changed my life".
Have you seen The Jesus Factor?
Nice Reaganism.
I just personally feel that Kerry will do only a minor shade of gray better than Bush, so I want to spend my vote on Badnarik.
That's just it. I personally feel that Kerry is many many shades of gray/white better than Bush. Although he's certainly not perfect.
But even if I do prefer Cobb (Which I can't say I do since I'm not too familiar with his agenda and policies) over Kerry, to a far greater extent I would prefer a Kerry presidency over another Bush presidency. That's for sure.
So for myself, even if Cobb was the perfect candidate that agreed with 100% of my views, I would much rather push Bush out. Like I said previously, though, most other Republican politicians haven't been as bad as Bush, which is why in most other elections I'd vote 3rd party.
Anyway, as to your point about not being good at public speaking and not wanting the job of president, that's really part of the problem with the whole presidency. The entire media is on you like glue for any slight slip-up, of which Bush and Kerry have had several. IMHO that's why Kerry has been rather dry at the debates, he can't risk saying the wrong thing in front of the cameras. He's supposedly the master debater, but it's easier in college debating to go on stream-of-consciousness rants without worrying about one small messup.
You think it's worthwhile that 48 of the 50 states use a winner-take-all approach for the election?
You think it's worthwhile that even if every citizen in California voted for candidate X, then the 55 electoral college members can actually vote for candidate Y if they so choose?
Yeah, i realized shortly after submitting he didn't say Kerry, but left them blank. I was subconsciously putting myself into the poster's place. Oh well, mea culpa.
Actually, Perot seemed to be pulling way ahead of Bush, and then suddenly withdrew his candidacy out of the blue! There was alot of talk about dirty blackmail going on by the republicans, but nothing official as far as I know. A few weeks before the election Perot went back into the race, but of course lost a significant chunk of his base.
I really think he would have won if he didn't pull out of the race. His withdrawing was really weird, and really smelled fishy.
I never once lectured you on how you should use your vote. Grandparent poster was debating about voting for 3rd-party idealist candidate and risking helping Bush or voting Kerry who (s)he doesn't fully agree with. I presented a question to think about, and described what I was doing this election.
Anyway, believe it or not, I agree with you on the issues of election reform. I also despise the 2 party system, but I despise Bush far worse.
Unfortunately, democrats and republicans have way too much power to pass on their own any sort of voting reform legislation, including instant-runoff or the like. The only way such reform MIGHT happen is if Bush wins the popular vote and then loses the electoral vote. That way both Democrats and Republicans would have seen how much that sucks and would have a common obligation to fix the broken Electoral College system.
Firstly, you mean 1992 instead of 1996.
But to the point - do you even remember that year? Perot had built up alot of momentum during the several months preceding the election. This momentum and publicity indicated he had a shot at winning.
This year no 3rd-party candidate has any appreciable momentum, and thus it's fairly obvious to any realist at this time that they have no chance at winning this time.
You knew in 1992 that Perot had a decent chance going into the election. You know in 2004 there's basically zero chance of any 3rd-party candidate winning.
Voting for 3rd-party candidate tomorrow will neither elect a 3rd-party candidate nor help push Bush out of office. Voting for Kerry will not help elect a 3rd-party candidate, but it WILL help push Bush out of office. I'm voting Kerry (although I did vote Nader in 2000 because of reasons you mention).
But that would be a liberal president working in conjunction with a republican House and Senate. History has shown that in such situations with President of the minority party of Congress, legislation most beneficial to the public at large is passed - because the politicians must compromise!!
A Bush re-election would easily allow him to put through the most radical right-wing appointments and legislation. A Kerry election would NOT let him do the same with liberal legislation and appointments.
Not at all true, you're not considering the Supreme Court and the 20 to 30 year legacy a Bush re-election would have impact.
Remember that at least one, but quite possibly 3 or 4, Chief Justices will retire in the next 4 years. Voting for green/socialist/etc instead of Kerry in this election is realistically helping put Bush in office. If Bush can appoint of 1/3 of the Supreme Court will have a lasting effect of 20-30 years.
Even if your favorite ideal 3rd-party miraculously manages to win all elections from 2008 to 2028, you've still got the Supreme Court legacy left from a Bush re-election in 2004 to deal with.
That's one of the many reasons I'm not voting 3rd party this year (I did vote Nader in 2000, though). If Kerry is elected, he'll have to fight against a republican house and senate, and thus any court appointments will have to be moderate. Bush, on the other hand, would have full power due to republican majority in all Congress, to put in radical right-wing judges.
For the sake of the future I'm voting Kerry.
You live in a democracy (well, really a republic), where people have fought long and hard to give you the right to vote. It's not just a right, it should be your civic duty. Please exercise your right to vote, don't refrain from voting just because the parent fears the repercussions of many more people going to the polls than otherwise might go.
If you don't know the issues well, ask yourself if you've enjoyed the decisions of the past 4 years of the government. Namely - war in Iraq/Afghanistan and economy. If you want another four similar years vote Bush. If you want a realistic chance at change, vote Kerry. Otherwise vote someone else.
This attempted suppresion of new voters by the parent is utter crap, there's not watering down of 'informed' voters, parent just fears having more people go to the polls to exercise their right (and duty) as a citizen of the USA.
The big question is to ask yourself "How important is this election? How many issues are at stake that I will regret helping re-elect Bush by voting 3rd party?.
It's way too close to the election for any significant momentum to build up for any 3rd-party candidate. Like someone else said, the best chance to get them elected is to vote for local positions. For example, at my house we have a sign for the green party candidate for Baltimore City Council on our front lawn, and he's gotten alot of exposure lately. We also have Kerry-Edwards signs on our lawn too, because
But definitely realize that nationally if you vote 3rd party you're taking a vote away from Kerry. Yeah, we can argue all day till the cows come home about whether it's a wasted vote or not if you vote for who you really want. But practically and realistically you should realize you are 100% helping re-elect Bush again by doing so. If you don't mind re-electing Bush in order to vote for your ideal candidate, then go ahead and do so.
As for myself, I voted Nader in 2000 because my state is heavily democratic and I despise the 2 party system. Bush has been way way WAY too radically conservative IMHO, and the USA and the World will be significantly better off by pushing him out of office. Most liberals I know, including many local green-party enthusiasts, are voting Kerry in this election. (Actually, the only exception I personally know of who is voting Green is the aforementioned Green Party candidate for city council). Even though my state is not a swing state, by voting Kerry I am helping to legitimize his election through the popular vote as well.
So basically, if you don't mind Bush getting re-elected this time around then vote 3rd party. In the past republicans haven't been as evil as Bush, and I'd agree with you about going 3rd party to help usher in change. But this time around there's too much at stake for my risking any Bush re-election. Things at stake include : draft, more war, appointing between 1-4 Supreme Court judges, amendment to ban gay marriage, tie Christianity closer to the US government, etc etc.
You're recreational forest land won't last as long as it should if Bush is re-elected. Are you at least aware of Bush's legislation to ease anti-logging resistrictions, and remove ability of public (ie - yourself) to have input on the management of National Forests, etc etc. You say you're from Oregon, so try reading this (you'll probably claim it's an 'extremist greenie' organization, though).
How would you like it if the area around your cabin was slated for logging (for fire prevention of course, not catering to the timber lobby or anything like that)? I bet in that case you'd rather have the Kerry plan go through. Unless the forest was logged by someone else's cabin far away, then Bush's plan would be okay, right?
I for one hope that Bush wins.
Until the lumberjacks decide your property is in a high-risk fire zone and that the trees need to be logged.
But don't just take my word for it, look for yourself. You can see the results of many different polls just before the 2000 election here. Remember the popular vote was pretty damn close between Gore/Bush, with Gore getting 48.38% and Bush getting 47.87% nationwide. Notice that almost all the polls shortly before the election favored Bush, several times significantly above the Margin of Error.
So a few days ago the Boston baseball team broke the curse, and now hopefully Shrum can reverse his curse with a Boston candidate too.
Why is a brainwashed person who listens to news from the radical (right/left) more informed than someone that just watches Oprah/MTV and the local news, and otherwise wouldn't care to vote? Yet the radical right/left person will definitely vote for their cause, why is the vote of the Oprah/MTV fan less important?
Shouldn't political education be placed in front of political mobilization?
I actually think that political mobilization will encourage political education.
Many countries (eg Australia) actually fine people for not voting. The point of the campaign is to get people involved with the political system, which is the whole foundation of democracy to begin with.
By going out and voting, whether you do for a major candidate or even if you write-in 'mickey mouse', you get involved with the system. You begin to get some sense of not just the presidential candidates, but of state and city government, and many other proposals which you might not have otherwise known existed.
For example, if you own a pizza shop near the waterfront, and you go to the polls and learn there's a proposal for the city to borrow/spend $5 million to enhance the waterfront area, that resolution will definitely impact you greatly.
Daniel : Hey - you ever get into fights when you were a kid?
Miyagi : Huh - plenty.
Daniel : Yeah, but it wasn't like the problem I have, right?
Miyagi : Why? Fighting fighting. Same same.
Daniel : Yeah, but you knew karate.
Miyagi : Someone always know more.
Daniel : You mean there were times when you were scared to fight?
Miyagi : Always scare. Miyagi hate fighting.
Daniel : Yeah, but you like karate.
Miyagi : So?
Daniel : So, karate's fighting. You train to fight.
Miyagi : That what you think?
Daniel : [pondering] No.
Miyagi : Then why train?
Daniel : [thinks] So I won't have to fight.
Miyagi : [laughs] Miyagi have hope for you.
It seems you are trying to make a semantical argument about this. So don't just take my word for it, see what the Institute of Physics have to say about it as well.
IC companies have embraced spintronics, your hard-disk read heads now employ GMR, for instance. IBM and other research labs are spending big $$$ to figure out how to make this technology easily fabricateable. This is NOT traditional CMOS, you can only shrink CMOS down so far, this is for moving beyond.