Best Presidential Candidate for Nerds? 1140
blast writes "Given the broad field of candidates, I was wondering who the community thinks will make the best President when it comes to representing issues Slashdot readers might care about? Eg: privacy, 'total information awareness', Internet regulation and taxation, net neutrality, copyright/patent reform, the right to read, the right to secure communications, the right to tinker. Who do you think best represents your views? "
What gives you the impression either would be? (Score:5, Interesting)
What would make us happy?
For example net neutrality. Net neutrality pisses off some money pumpers, though, and the general population doesn't care. Will we get it?
For example, no longer blaming computer games for violence. But it's a cheap scapegoat and it makes overcareful and ignorant parents happy, and it's a cheap excuse not to change a thing about education or social issues. Not blaming games cost more money and votes than blaming them.
For example, if the mafiaa didn't get whatever laws they want handed to them. Though, we're the only ones caring, there's a lot of money coming from them, so... see first example.
Do I have to go on?
Face it, as long as we don't ship more geeks into the US from somewhere, we won't get jack from either side of the political spectrum. We don't count.
Bloomberg (Score:4, Interesting)
The Libertarian candidate (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Libertarian candidate (Score:3, Interesting)
Ron Paul - Voted Against Patriot Act! (Score:5, Interesting)
Paul unites opposition to the war and the police state at home across the entire political spectrum...
Brief Overview of Congressman Paul's Record
He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
Re:Ron Paul (Score:3, Interesting)
Cutting taxes, or raising taxes, is not an immediatly good thing.
Here is an idea, figure out what service you will cut, and after cutting them see if the tax revenue is greater then the nations expenses*, then cut taxes.
Doing it any other way cuts road, schools, and emergency services, but leaves pork barrel.
I would prefer a build up of cash first, say a trillion dollars. In a crisis, like Katrina, the money can quickly be allocated and sent to where it needs.
Ron Paul vs. Rudy on the Iraq War (Score:5, Interesting)
But who was right - Rudy or Ron?
Posted: May 18, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
It was the decisive moment of the South Carolina debate.
Hearing Rep. Ron Paul recite the reasons for Arab and Islamic resentment of the United States, including 10 years of bombing and sanctions that brought death to thousands of Iraqis after the Gulf War, Rudy Giuliani broke format and exploded:
"That's really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of 9-11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I have ever heard that before, and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.
"I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us what he really meant by it."
The applause for Rudy's rebuke was thunderous - the sound bite of the night and best moment of Rudy's campaign.
After the debate, on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," came one of those delicious moments on live television. As Michael Steele, GOP spokesman, was saying that Paul should probably be cut out of future debates, the running tally of votes by Fox News viewers was showing Ron Paul, with 30 percent, the winner of the debate.
Brother Hannity seemed startled and perplexed by the votes being text-messaged in the thousands to Fox News saying Paul won, Romney was second, Rudy third and McCain far down the track at 4 percent.
"I would ask the congressman to
A fair question and a crucial question.
When Ron Paul said the 9-11 killers were "over here because we are over there," he was not excusing the mass murderers of 3,000 Americans. He was explaining the roots of hatred out of which the suicide-killers came.
Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden was among the mujahedeen whom we, in the Reagan decade, were aiding when they were fighting to expel the Red Army from Afghanistan. We sent them Stinger missiles, Spanish mortars, sniper rifles. And they helped drive the Russians out.
What Ron Paul was addressing was the question of what turned the allies we aided into haters of the United States. Was it the fact that they discovered we have freedom of speech or separation of church and state? Do they hate us because of who we are? Or do they hate us because of what we do?
Osama bin Laden in his declaration of war in the 1990s said it was U.S. troops on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, U.S. bombing and sanctions of a crushed Iraqi people, and U.S. support of Israel's persecution of the Palestinians that were the reasons he and his mujahedeen were declaring war on us.
Elsewhere, he has mentioned Sykes-Picot, the secret British-French deal that double-crossed the Arabs who had fought for their freedom alongside Lawrence of Arabia and were rewarded with a quarter century of British-French imperial domination and humiliation.
Almost all agree that, horrible as 9-11 was, it was not anarchic terror. It was political terror, done with a political motive and a political objective.
What does Rudy Giuliani think the political motive was for 9-11?
Was it because we are good and they are evil? Is it because they hate our freedom? Is it that simple?
Ron Paul says Osama bin Laden is delighted we invaded Iraq.
Does the man not have a point? The United States is now tied down in a bloody guerrilla war in the Middle East and increasingly hated in Arab and Islamic countries where we were once hugely admired as the first and greatest of the anti-colonial nations. Does anyone think that Osama is unhappy with what is happening to us in Iraq?
Of the 10 candidates on stage in South Carolina, Dr. Paul alone opposed the war. He alone voted against the war. Have not the last five years vindicated him, when two-thirds of the nation now agrees with him that the war was a mistake, and journalists and politicians left and right are babbling in co
None of the above: Vote with your feet. (Score:5, Interesting)
> Democrat Stooge [ ]
> Some Wacko Independant [ ]
> None of the above [X]
Or the next best thing. If you can't vote with your dollars, vote with your feet [cic.gc.ca].
"Stephen Harper, or whoever else is Prime Minister of Canada on November 5, 2008 [X]"
Anyone who can scrape together 67 points can get in, and anyone with a Bachelor's degree (which guarantees you'll get the full 16 points for English proficiency, even though your Americanness guarantees you'll get 0 points for French :) and one year's work experience and a job offer -- or one year's work experience and a spouse with a Bachelor's degree -- is going to make the cut.
Canadian income taxes aren't much more than US income taxes. US Federal tax forms don't show the extra 6.2% that's getting taken off for Socialist Insecurity, nor do they take into effect state taxes. The Canadian federal government just turned a $10 billion surplus, and you even get the equivalent of catastrophic health care insurance in exchange for your tax dollars. [canada.com]
Atlas shrugs, eh?
Three Words (Score:2, Interesting)
Applies to the question you've asked (you have opened a ____) the politicians (their brains consist of a ____) and most slashdot readers' egos (A ____ will agree more consistently than this lot). Also the trolls and loudmouths (they take the worms out of the can, dump it on everyone, and then use the can as a megaphone).
I'd vote for the worms.
Bill Richardson (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simple (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still quite the socialist*, but my view of the constitution is originalist. Many federal programs that I think are just fine are, unfortunately, not constitutional. The states should be running these programs as they see fit, not the feds. Realistically, conservatives want Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee having as little say in their lives as possible. Similarly, I want Orrin Hatch and James Inhofe having very little say in my life. The best way to do this is to return power to the states where it rightly belongs.
*I actually identify as a "states' rights liberal" if there is such a thing.
Get some priorities (Score:2, Interesting)
To be blunt, if your biggest concerns are net neutrality, videogames, and the RIAA, I'm glad you are in the minority and you don't count.
slashdot party (Score:5, Interesting)
Greens? (Score:5, Interesting)
****
Nader needs to be kicked out of the party and stuffed into a retirement home. Every time he TOUCHES the nomination, it tanks the entire party's legitimacy. I'm registered Green and I loathe the jerk. He's so far off-base from the core ideals that it would be funny if he didn't manage to self-proclaim himself the party's candidate every damn election. Watch what happens - he'll declare himself the candidate next time around, despite who the people actually vote for.
As for Republican, Ron Paul without a doubt. The powermongering and consolidation of power in D.C. is appalling and needs to stop now before the entire system implodes. Or we turn into a police state like the U.K. We need a massive swing back towards the center and he's the only person who's even entertaining the notion.
As for Democrat, obviously Obama, since he has the least political connections and time in the system(and therefore the least corrupted). He seem pretty level-headed, like with this vote - he said he'd read it before he made his mind up. Gosh - what a novel concept! Reading legislation instead of toting the party line!. Btw, he did vote against it. This should be the litmus test for Democrats, btw - whether they voted to stop the war or not.
Re:Barack Obama. (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing I like about Obama is that unlike most of these other candidates (and I include Ron Paul), he doesn't have to thump his chest about technical friendliness. However, one of the first things he did was to pass legislation to fund the establishment of a website that allows taxpayers to see where all their taxpayer dollars are going. He's said that networking the middle of this country, instead of primarily the coastal regions where property values are insane, is a priority of his. His online and grassroots support base is pretty seriously potent, and most of that was built up with a strong online presence (most of these politicians think that all they have to do is put a few of their ads up on the YouTube, and presto, they'll be huge). Granted, much of that has been facilitated by having saavy people onboard, but it takes one to spot the talent.
Of course, you can get onboard with a libertarian like Ron Paul, and you can put your faith in corporations to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Generally, they're usually focused on skimping and saving cash in order to placate some shareholders, and not so focused on spending more to do something good for the rest of us, but hey, maybe we could all get REAL lucky.
Re:Why NOT to vote for Ron Paul (Score:5, Interesting)
# Voted NO on allowing human embryonic stem cell research. (May 2005)
-- Government should not be funding research.
# Voted NO on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions. (Apr 2005)
-- Government is not constitutionally authorized to restrict such transport.
# Voted NO on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime. (Feb 2004)
-- Federal government is not authorized to make this a crime, this is an area where only states are supposed to have law making power.
# Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother's life. (Oct 2003)
-- The abortion issue is tricky, all libertarians do not agree on this. The logic goes like this: All people own themselves, their life, their person, etc. All people have full control of their property, and nobody may take that away from you unless you are attempting to take it from someone else first. One person's rights ends where another persons begins. Two adults have an exactly equal right to life, and no matter how beneficial it is for one person to harm another person, you may never do so unless you are threatened.
So using the above principle, person a is an unborn baby, and person b is the mother. Person A and person B have equal right to life. But at exactly which moment do all of these rights kick in? When do they start to exist? Conception? Viability? Birth? We know they kick in at some point, because all people have them, and they are inalienable. So where is it? Viability is a moving target. Does it make sense that these rights exist now at 7 months whereas 100 years ago they existed at 8 months?
The above quandary will go away eventually. In 500 years when viability is the same as conception, it will no longer be a moving target, and then we can say that rights begin at conception, I suppose.
But don't say Ron Paul is not for the rights of women. He is for the rights of everybody equally. You only differ in when you think a baby's rights start to exist.
# Voted NO on forbidding human cloning for reproduction & medical research. (Feb 2003)
-- Government is not authorized by the constitution to regulate cloning.
# Voted YES on funding for health providers who don't provide abortion info. (Sep 2002)
-- Government is not supposed to be promoting particular social agendas.
# Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001)
-- Government should not be taking money from hard working taxpayers in the US and sending out to foreign countries. If people wish to do do foreign charity work they should do it themselves. This is not in the purview of government.
Ran outta time, have to run. Hopefully the above will get you started.
# Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000)
# No federal funding of abortion, and pro-life. (Dec 2000)
Voted YES on restricting bankruptcy rules. (Jan 2004)
Voted YES on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on vouchers for private & parochial schools (AKA religious schools)
Voted NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR.
Voted YES on barring website promoting Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
Voted NO on establishing nationwide AMBER alert system for missing kids.
Rated 76% by the Christian Coalition: a pro-family voting record. (Dec 2003)
Voted YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight. (Apr 2006)
Rated 100% by FAIR, indicating a voting record restricting immigration. (Dec 2003)
Voted YES on eliminating the Estate Tax ("death tax"). (Apr 2001)
Re:MY KINGDOM FOR MOD POINTS (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Libertarian candidate (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ron Paul! (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing is that citizenship rights are a form of property. If you allow immigrants that don't maintain the property values, you dilute the value of citizenship.
The US gets 10 Million immigration application each year-and takes less than a million legally. If those immigration rights were auctioned off, they'd go for at least $100K in today's market. The current level of entitlements-that libertarians like Charles Murray agree should be maintained is about $10K/year for each adult citizen. What is that worth long term(remember your kids and grandkids get that too)? I'd argue it is worth at lest $300K.
Re:Simple (Score:5, Interesting)
Liberals are the same way - there are those who want the federal government to stay out of their lives and primarily be involved in regulating businesses, dealing with other countries, etc. Then there are the liberals who want the "mommy society", as a previous poster put it - i.e. the federal government regulating everything that could conceivably be considered harmful in any way.
Major Nerd issue : H-1b (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Get some priorities (Score:3, Interesting)
Video games seem ridiculous at at least frivolous as a "political issue", but the discussion runs far deeper than whether you may see blood in video games or (like it is in Germany already) whether it is replaced by green "coolant liquid" because all the people you kill are supposedly robots, or whether you may play games where you shoot people altogether.
The issue is whether the First Amendment has higher priority than some virtual feeling of "security". Whether the people or the state are responsible for what they think and what they may do. Whether you decide what information you want to see or your country decides what's "good for you". And ultimately whether the government has the right to dictate to you how you should raise your kids and what information is appropriate for your kids.
It's similar with the other two issues. Whether they are the most important ones or not is moot, all the privacy and freedom of speech issues are important. I wouldn't want to give it some kind of artificial ranking.
Re:To the contrary, (Score:2, Interesting)
He completely ignored that the proper test is whether you think your vote is worst, not whether you think it is best. A vote cast in relatively enlightened ignorance is better than no vote at all.
Re:Why NOT to vote for Ron Paul (Score:3, Interesting)
-- See the above commentary on when those inalienable rights kick in...
# No federal funding of abortion, and pro-life. (Dec 2000)
-- Government is not supposed to be promoting particular social agendas
Voted YES on restricting bankruptcy rules. (Jan 2004)
-- Bankruptcy was originally intended to be privilege that would be exercised responsibly by the citizens. Unfortunately however, enough of us proved to be irresponsible enough to ruin it for the rest of us who might need it at some point in our lives for legitimate reasons. The specifics of the bill in question are debatable, but pretty much everyone agreed that *some* type of reform was needed to reign in the freeloaders.
Voted YES on protecting the Pledge of Allegiance. (Sep 2004)
-- In the words of Justice Rehnquist,
"To give the parent of such a child a sort of 'heckler's veto' over a patriotic ceremony willingly participated in by other students, simply because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the descriptive phrase 'under God,' is an unwarranted extension of the establishment clause, an extension which would have the unfortunate effect of prohibiting a commendable patriotic observance"
Voted YES on vouchers for private & parochial schools (AKA religious schools)
-- As Milton Friedman said, "Nobody spends somebody else's money as wisely or frugally as he spends his own." It is well known that us Libertarians have long supported the school voucher program as the best solution to the problems of our public school system. Here in California we should be getting air-conditioned business park type campuses with community college professors for the amount of money that we are spending, but instead we get poorly motivated and less skilled teachers (there are a few diamonds in the rough, but they are the exception not the rule), peeling paint, and leaking roofs. Who cares more about the quality of education that our children receive? The parents or the teachers union (don't strain your brain answering that one)?
Voted NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR.
-- Oil is the lifeblood of our economy and we need whatever domestic supplies that we can get desperately. I like environment quality too, but I am not willing to pay *anything* in order to get it.
Voted YES on barring website promoting Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
-- See the above commentary on government not promoting a social agenda
Voted NO on establishing nationwide AMBER alert system for missing kids.
-- See above commentary on limited Federal government powers to legislate...these types of laws are left up to the states.
Rated 76% by the Christian Coalition: a pro-family voting record. (Dec 2003)
-- It doesn't matter what *other* people think about a candidate when it comes time to vote, but what *you* think. Voting against somebody simply because you perceive it as harming a group which you do not like (especially if you have no other reason for voting that way) is probably irresponsible.
Voted YES on continuing intelligence gathering without civil oversight. (Apr 2006)
-- That is a tough one, very tough indeed. You may take some comfort from the fact that intelligence gathering by the CIA is not intended to build a case against a US citizen that would stand up in court. The CIA doesn't care about prosecuting people, only about gathering...well intelligence to assist us in general foreign policy decisions and to protect us against hostile foreign governments and their intelligence gathering activities.
Rated 100% by FAIR, indicating a voting record restricting immigration. (Dec 2003)
-- See above comment about thinking for yourself...but with regard to immigration it boils down to this, "Uncontrolled immigration into a welfare state cannot be allowed without bankrupting the state." So you either cut all of t
Re:Simple (Score:1, Interesting)
Pardon a little Marxism, but the the states with the worst policies still have great policies for the ruling class. If you think people voting with their feet meant any thing to deep south white supremacists from 1890-1970, well, sorry, that's not how it went down.
Re:Simple (Score:3, Interesting)
But if you don't like that type of culture...move. I did.
I believe in States' Rights, Nullification, and all those other crazy* Jeffersonian philosophies.
* Crazy to people raised in the post-Lincoln, centralized USA.
Re:Simple (Score:5, Interesting)
The constitution says, in article 1, section 8, paragraph 3, (emphasis mine):
It does not say:
The supreme court has ruled that "among" essentially means "within" because (ready?) anything that happens "within" could have happened "among."
Seriously. Look it up.
Re:Simple (Score:2, Interesting)
Right on. As a libertarian, I'm not offended at all if you call me a 'conservative.' It's probably because I'm more likely to vote Republican than Dem if I had to choose between the two. But libertarians really are liberals! Though in today's society, we call them 'classical liberals' because liberal means something different today. Classical liberal ideas like those of Locke and Jefferson are most manifested in the Libertarian party today, I think.
All depends on your perspective again. People ask me if I'm conservative or liberal...I'd say "Both and neither!"
Re:Meh, you could do worse, I suppose (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as 99% of our tax money goes federal, this will continue indefinitely.
You should be the next President (Score:3, Interesting)
On the topic of the media, you should be your own media, and you should stop whining about the things you can't really control. Sure, the media is awful, the media is trollish, the media is biased, etc. Now give it up already... There is enough technology within your reach that you have the ability to control the kind of information and images that end up reaching you. And sure, you won't be able to affect your neighbors -- by controlling the kind of media *they* watch, but that's ok -- if your neighbors are the types that don't listen to you -- chances are you won't be able to control the kinds of things they watch anyway.
Focus on the things you can control, and forget the rest. For instance get rid of your TV, or a less drastic option would be to get yourself a Tivo (or a Linux MythTV). It's a world of difference to be able to choose the kind of programs you watch, than to let the program directors and the schedule for the day make those decisions for you. Subscribe to the publications you actually want to read, instead of only reading the ones that appear in the newspaper dispensers in your area. And use the internet to find the kinds of the articles that you really want to read -- but can't get elsewhere. Again, I don't care what you do, just be proactive about it. You can set up your computer to automatically download podcasts. You can set your computer to automatically print out a couple articles every morning before you wake up. You can set up filters to email (or sms) you every time a politician votes on an issue you care about. And if you need your local news, you can usually find a quality blog or two that only blog about local issues in your area. In the end, you're in complete control of the kind of information that you allow to enter your mind.
And if all else fails, because no advice is perfect and no two situations identical, be prepared to move away -- we're not all destined to remain in the area/region we were born into -- just give yourself an escape valve.
Re:Tarring the Dems with the misdeeds of the Repub (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, I think we need more choices. A choice between two parties doesn't adequately represent the range of views in the American electorate. Paul certainly looks more credible than any third-party candidate in recent memory. Unfortunately, the sort of government Paul wants is a radical return to a prewar ideal that may be impossible to achieve, given the fact that government is the largest employer in the United States.
Which is why we should enact my law. It's a two-tiered election system.
Problem: Right now your options are to hold your nose when you go into the voting booth and vote for the crook or the idiot. But hey, you pick the lesser of two evils, and you have to vote for him, cause if you vote for Nader or Perot, you're going to lose the election to the crook (or idiot).
Solution: Run off elections. Open a general election to candidates from ANY political party, and people will be able to truly vote their conscience. Your hot button is the environment? Vote for the green party. Your big thing is free trade? Vote libertarian. Your one plank is abortion? Vote for the evangelical. Then, we take the top two plurality winners and run them off in a national election.
~Wx
Re:Simple (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Simple (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simple (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason much 'intra-state' commerce isn't really 'intra-state' is that although one face of it takes place in a given state, that face would be impossible without huge quantities of national commerce which are regulated explicitly under the commerce clause. If your restaurant services travelers on the interstate, you not only participate in the national economy by serving out-of-state guests, but you surely get almost all of your goods by way of the external economy, not local growers. You are only facially a part of the state economy--in reality, you're engaging in massive amounts of interstate commerce!
You may not like it that commerce has become integrated across states since..oh, 1789. But it has, and it's unacceptable for the residents of one state to be able to perpetrate their laws, fair or otherwise, on those of another. That's what happens in an inter-state economy, and that's why the commerce clause has broadened. Not because of some potential for trade elsewhere. Your post is a distortion.