![Announcements Announcements](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/announcements_64.png)
![Government Government](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/government_64.png)
![Politics Politics](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/politics_64.png)
![News News](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/news_64.png)
![Slashdot.org Slashdot.org](http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/meta_64.png)
Slashdot Goes Political: Announcing politics.slashdot.org 1045
With the US Presidential Election coming up, we've had a lot of story submissions that we would like to post, but they don't fit very well on the Slashdot main page. To address this, we'll be running special political coverage between now and the election in our new Politics subsection of Slashdot. Please submit stories directly to the section for consideration.
As with all sections on Slashdot,
there will be stories available within that section that don't get posted to the main page, so please visit the section if you are interested in more coverage.
We'll do our best to be fair with story selection. We think we can do a good job since the Slashdot editors represent a diverse spectrum of political ideologies. The discussions are up to you guys. Here's hoping the experiment works!
Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
See the South Park episode [pipex.com] on this.
Cartman: I learned somethin' today. This country was founded by some of the smartest thinkers the world has ever seen. And they knew one thing: that a truely great country can go to war, and at the same time, act like it doesn't want to. [a shot of the crowd] You people who are for the war, you need the protesters. Because they make the country look like it's made of sane, caring individuals. And you people who are anti-war, you need these flag-wavers, because, if our whole country was made up of nothing but soft pussy protesters, we'd get taken down in a second. That's why the founding fathers decided we should have both. It's called "having your cake and eating it too."
Randy: He's right. The strength of this country is the ability to do one thing and say another.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:4, Interesting)
He also runs as a Republican, when he is not. Ironic that Kerry speaks about free trade for pharmaceuticals and Bush does not and that Bush wants to increase government intervention with a marriage amendment and Kerry does not. It baffles the mind.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:4, Funny)
Kerry, on the other hand, rents his out as the occasion demands.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:3, Funny)
The Republicans strike me as more likely to be Perl hackers, while the Democrats Pythonistas.
----
How To Love Your Job [blogspot.com]
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are more commonalities between a republican and a democrat than there are differences.
-Adam
I doubt that (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, of course, on civil liberties issues, where Europe's left-fascism makes the police-state folk in the US Justice Department envious: the UK's got CCTVs everywhere, issues "antisocial behavior orders" prohibiting people from (in one instance) making sarcastic comments to their neighbors; France bans movies that criticize its bloody colonial wars [imdb.com], and so on.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense! Slashdot has both kinds of political ideologies, Green AND Libertarian.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lemme guess, you are legally blind aren't you?
I haven't seen much EXCEPT for libertarian drivel, with maybe occasional bit of free market gospel from econo-neo-cons for "balance".
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot just broke one of the 2 rules of peacekeeping conversation, don't talk about religion or politics. They might as well start up religion.slashdot.org and flame on.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
I'd support an intelligent Bush too...
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Funny)
"Bush Sucks."
"Democrats Suck."
"Non-libertarians Suck."
"America Sucks."
"Europe Sucks."
"My Country Isn't In Europe, You American Idiot."
"I'm Not an American, You Elitist Freak."
"I hate the it.slashdot.org color scheme."
"I predict all of the threads in this section will sound like this:"
*beep*
Infinite Loop.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:3, Interesting)
oh, and i hate the it.slashdot.org color scheme.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you lowered your threshold to -1 you would have seen my conservative replies.
Slamming Bush will get your Score to 5:, Interesting but refuting it will get you a score of -1:, Troll.
This is a left-leaning board. It is what it is.
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Funniest. Summary. Ever. (Score:5, Interesting)
Malda-Bates 2004! (Score:4, Interesting)
Rob's platform:
Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything Karma changes should be eliminated due to politically motivated moderation in this section. Some serious damage could occur to someone's account that is diametrically opposed to the rest of the Slashdot mentality.
I have been scouring books, articles, and random conversation for some intelligent and fair discussion about the state of politics today. I doubt that I will find too much "intelligent discussion" and I know we won't find any fairness here on Slashdot but we can always have hope
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3)
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:5, Interesting)
Since then, I've been unable to get mod points.
LK
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:5, Interesting)
It:
1) Pushes you down to -10 karma
2) Removes your 'eligible for moderation' bit
3) Sets your default post score at -1.
Editors can execute the script on people they consider 'abusers', though it's been used in the past to keep the readers quiet about massive editor abuse (see: the post of death, where anyone who responded was moderated to -1, and anyone who moderated them back up was bitchslapped).
By the way: 12 minutes of your time should change your mind [kerryoniraq.com].
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:5, Insightful)
It boggles my mind that there are people that base so much of their self-worth on a hidden int on a faraway server.
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:4, Interesting)
Really old, but I happened to be thinking of it earlier today - the Political Compass [politicalcompass.org]. Apparently I'm way off to the left, and down a bit.
Maybe all posters in this new section should take said test so that posters with conflicting views may safely ignore viewpoints that they disagree with. After all, there's a place for partisan publishing [guardian.co.uk] (scroll down a bit...)
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3, Informative)
Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all.
Aren't political questions. There are many questions like this. If anyone would like to take a real political quiz, try The Worlds Smallest Political Quiz [self-gov.org]
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3, Insightful)
If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.
Economic globalization is inevitable. Humanity and "trans-national corporations" aren't an either/or choice as beneficiaries.
That question is just another version of "When did you stop beating your wife?"
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3, Insightful)
I started taking that test and gave up on the 3rd page. Almost every question is phrased as a false dilemma and has an obvious left slant. It is apparerently intended to make you believe you are a liberal.
I had the same reaction. Half those questions are logical fallacies, and the rest are left slafted. But our politicians all speak in logical fallacies so I kept going, and it scored me at 0.0 on the left-right thing and at -5.38 on the authoritarian-liberterian axis. Which is pretty much where I see my
I'd like to think... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's possible I'm just a rosy-glassed optimist, but I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope.
Re:I'd like to think... (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously thinly veiled references to the rosary, cross, and christian 'hope', you sneaky troll.
Oh, wait, this isn't the religion section is it?
Politics?
Well that's essentially the same thing. Flame on!
-Adam
Re:I'd like to think... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who considers what is popular or unpopular? While you may think a one sentence post espousing abortion rights is "popular" I may think of it as flamebait.
Hopefully mods can lay off modding by party/ideology. What may seem popular to you might not be popular at all.
A little bit more on p
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that there will be many otherwise-unremarkable posts which will be moderated up simply because they express a popular point of view forcefully, and, as always, meta-moderators are encouraged to mark lame upmods as Unfair. If a post isn't any more Insightful than average, but gets moderated that way, then rigorous meta-moderation [slashdot.org] will help the system, next time around, give mod points to someone else who deserves them more.
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3, Funny)
Mod deviationist down!
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3, Insightful)
And as you point out Garcia, politics have been part of not
Well finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been asking for this section for a while. News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters doesn't just mean tech stuff. For sure people have been trying to talk politics on many an occasion. Here's hoping this section incorporates significant current events as well. For instance, even slashdot covered the trade center bombings, but at the time they happened politics was a minor concern - disseminating news of the event being the primary one.
While they're at it, they should make a general "Entertainment" section as well to let all you fanboys rant and rave about your favorite series (yay Farscape) without having to subject everyone to things few people care about (boo Firefly). Only the really big shows need to make the front page, but that doesn't mean there aren't other things people want to cover.
Can anyone think of any other sections that should be added? I feel like I'm forgetting one that I thought of before...
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:4, Interesting)
4183 Strike on Iraq by CmdrTaco
3314 Saddam Hussein Arrested by CmdrTaco
3265 Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion by CmdrTaco
3212 What's Keeping You On Windows? by Cliff
3042 An Unbiased Analysis of Gun Crime vs. Gun Control? by Cliff
2764 Windows 2000 & Windows NT 4 Source Code Leaks by CmdrTaco
2722 Pledge of Allegiance Ruled Unconstitutional by michael
2574 Major Strike on Iraq Underway by CmdrTaco
2549 US Starts Attacking Afghanistan by CmdrTaco
2465 U.S. Attack -- More Updates by Hemos
2 of those aren't 'political'
I'm not exactly big on politics, but it looks like a large amount of readers are.
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3, Funny)
Saddam Hussein Arrested by CmdrTaco
Major Strike on Iraq Underway by CmdrTaco
That guy's busy...
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:5, Funny)
Just how CmdrTaco managed to arrest Saddam Hussein I shall never know.
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Politics on Slashdot? Never! (Score:4, Interesting)
If someone trashes the Republicans believe it or not it doesn't necessarily mean they are a Democrat/liberal and vice versa. There are plenty of true conservatives that despise what the Republican party has turned in to and Liberals who despise the Democrats. I imagine you can chalk this up, in the U.S. at least, to a two party system which has tried to con everyone in to thinking there are only two parties and two ways to look at things and if you don't agree with one of those two, in all their current corruption, you are basically adrift in an empty ocean.
Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager was on Charlie Rose on PBS recently. One thing he said I like. In 2008 there is at least a chance people are going to unite on the Internet and back an independent candidate with $300-400 million dollars coming in hundred dollar checks from millions of people and bitch slap the two major parties, a slapping they've come to gloriously deserve, especially after the pathetic candidates they've fielded in the last two presidential elections. The hope is there will be an independent candidate who will actually talk about issues, from a fresh perspective, not regurgatating the entrenched party platforms, and put an end to the campaign of the "six second sound bites of mutual assured destruction".
The first challenge is to find a candidate with the right mix of charisma, judgement and brains. One who can form a common sense platform, on issues that matter, that will appeal to enough people to get elected and not pander to the inflammatory issues that dominate the debate between the two parties.
The second challenge is to get this candidate on the ballot in the face of the two parties unconstitutional onslaught on third party candidates like Nader.
The third challenge is to get this candidate enough credibility in the polls that he/she can't be dismissed as an also run and pushed in to obscurity as the media and the two parties are want to do.
I would vote for John McCain were it not for his recent grovelling at the feet of the Bush administration, people who savaged him in 2000, and his irrational level of support for the invasion of Iraq. I would vote for Dean were it not for his grovelling at the feet of Gore and Kerry along with his penchant for saying dumb things. I'd vote for Nader if he has a chance of getting elected just to see him shake up Washington and big business and see how long it would be before someone in the establishment assassinated him. Wouldn't vote for Perot.
questions that matter. (Score:5, Funny)
Mike
Oh God... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh God... (Score:3, Funny)
OK, but . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-US Elections (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would there be? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Non-US Elections (Score:4, Insightful)
Ack, I hadn't even noticed the logo there, nothing against Americans but as a Canadian I have to say that I already see quite enough of your flag
Now I can see the reasoning behind US-centric stories for the next few months, what with the election and all, but there is certainly a lot else going on in the world, even a story already in the new section on The Australian Prime Minister [slashdot.org]. Also note all the stuff currently going on in the EU relating to patents and IP, China with it's massive population and strict media control, not to mention countless other events going on all over this planet. While the majority of the IP's that hit the front page might be from the US I'm sure anyone who reads the comments can attest to a strongly international presence that shows up. I feel that using a clearly pro-American logo not only incites the "I'm not an American" trolls (seriously do they want to make this a trollfest?) but also causes the perception that the politics being discussed are isolated from the rest of the world and people outside the US can neither affect nor are being affected by it, a perception which is extremely dangerous. Politics is a truly international affair, as a Canadian I can say that I'm much more scared by who might win the US election then by any of the candidates in my own, as well American's should be greatly interested by events all over the Middle East as well as what happens in the EU and China for a variety of reasons. I'm not sure what a good logo would be but clearly an American flag is highly improper for a wide variety of reasons.
Re:Non-US Elections (Score:3, Interesting)
The slashdot community is not only us-based...
Re:Non-US Elections (Score:5, Funny)
Well, yeah, but not exactly like the ones you USAmericans have. In most other countries, those who get more votes, actually win the election...
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps some examples are in order.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
colors (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:colors (Score:3, Insightful)
Flag... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm Canadian You Insensitive Clod!
(just kidding... but seriously what about non-Americans?)
New Moderation Proposals (Score:5, Funny)
+1 Democrat
-1 Republican
-1 Commie Bastard
+1 Capitalist Pig
(Change + with - as seen fit)Re:New Moderation Proposals (Score:5, Funny)
-1 Right Wing Nutjob
-1 Liberal Weenie
-Adam
Re:New Moderation Proposals (Score:4, Funny)
-2 Uses the term "dubbya" as if it gives his point weight
-3 Refers to "you Americans"
-4 Uses statistics without citing source
-5 Thinks college is "The Real World"
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
And I can see all the foriegners complaining that this is too U.S. centric
Re:Great... (Score:3, Informative)
-Adam
Re:Great... (Score:3, Interesting)
at least the color scheme isn't as bad as it.slashdot.org
such nice colors (Score:3, Insightful)
Not having to see the IT color scheme again in my life won't bother me one iota.
Section Colors (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm surprised that the bar in this section aren't:
Red-FadingTo-White-FadingTo-Blue
american flag (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:american flag (Score:3, Funny)
What!? I never knew.
Re:american flag (Score:5, Funny)
As a service to the editors, I fired up gimp, took the graphic and mixed every flag from every country together - what better way to promote a non-centrist discussion?
Unfourtunately, I got this [slashdot.org].
That's only going to cause wars.
Can you fix the filtering first? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pleasey weasey?
Re:Can you fix the filtering first? (Score:3, Insightful)
Disable Flamebait? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, moderation will work here (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't care if
And about time (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll also second the post that suggested that this forum should look at politics everywhere, not just the US. There is a lot to be learned by looking at the ways that other jurisdictions handle things like Digital rights, wiretapping, and freedom of speech.
That said, I expect that I'll choose not to subscribe to the politics forum, and I doubt very much that political baiting will disappear from other parts of our beloved slashdot.
All stories? (Score:4, Interesting)
For real
Clicking on each and every section to watch for missing stories is a bit lame, no?
Feel ready to own one or many Tux Stickers [ptaff.ca]?
Re:All stories? (Score:5, Informative)
-Adam
Little observation (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm thinking here of many political themes which are quite represented on
Bias Test (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bias Test (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but slant in which direction? I've seen people stating, as if it were a self-evident fact, that the majority of the /. readership is heavily left leaning, while other people are equally convinced that it's right/libertarian leaning.
You obviously think the perceived slant is so pronounced that you don't even have to specify which way it leans (or falls over, as the case may be)
Well hell (Score:3, Funny)
The editors of Pravda would have been proud.
Good! (Score:3, Insightful)
It had gotten to the point where I avoided even looking at some Slashdot topics I suspected might lend themselves to degrading into political rants. That sorely broke my heart.
I'm glad you guys are helping out. I know that there are no promises but I'm happy that, at least, my chances of reading about Bill Clinton's use of cigars while learning about a new ReiserFS enhancement or George Bush's "lies, lies, lies" while hearing feedback about a Linux roll-out somewhere are reduced.
You can make that political forum lean as far left or as far right as you like because there's no damn way I'm going to even take a peek.
--Richard
PS: Yeah, I know that technology is
intertwined with politics but you
know what I mean. Less is better and
you just do what you can.
Whew just in time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's look at the news stories so far...
Hackers Take Aim at Republicans [slashdot.org]
Bikes Against Bush Creator Busted [slashdot.org]
I think it's a good idea to have this channel, but I would really like to see both parties represented. With the occasional third and fourth party representation, cause the hippies and the anarchists should have a voice too.
I have a concern with the flag (Score:4, Insightful)
Shouldn't slashdot be better than that? If one party decides to use (overuse) the American flag then the slashdot logo will look like it talks only about that party.
PS: In my observation most parties who use the patriotism argument are the ones which care least about the people. In France for example the one party who claimed the French flag as a symbol for it's own party is the most racist and biggoted party.
Re:I have a concern with the flag (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I have a concern with the flag (Score:3, Insightful)
But I always considered Slashdot a little more geographically neutral than this. I think a politics section is the best thing to happen on
The US election IS the most important political thing (to me) right now, but not to everyone.
Invite the Candidates (Score:3, Insightful)
I picked my pollitical party (Score:3, Funny)
Politics makes more than strange bedfellows. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a well established fact that people seek out information which confirms their current opinion and actively screen out information which challenges it. Look at a programmer struggling with a bug or a user with a user interface and you can see it. Politics takes this natural human cognitive strategy and infuses it with emotion, value judgements and ego identification. This means that while in most situations people will eventually begin to take new information into account, in politics this practically never happens. The more we are confronted with truths that challenge our political positions, the more strongly we warp our sense of reality to suit our predjudices.
Any reasonable person from another planet would immediately come to some obvious conclusions:
On the economy, Bush got smacked down by an overdue correction in the business cycle and 9/11. His tax cuts probably gave the economy a short term stimulus. However, the long term effects of his policies are debatable.
Kerry has a realtively normal legislative career. He sometimes votes for one version of a bill and against another one, or for a particular thing by itself but against it when it's lumped with a bunch of other things he doesn't like. However, his career as a legislator is rather undistinguished.
Mr. Impartial Observer would also label Michael Moore a propagandist, and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth a bunch of vile political hatchetmen.
External validation feels good, but it is not intellectually honest. If the moderation system could be tweaked to encourage people to reevaluate their positions and look at the truth, it would be a great acccomplishment.
Re:Slashdot is not for politics (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Slashdot is not for politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because politics can be boring doesn't mean they don't matter. Get off your swivel-chair and go register then excersize your right to VOTE. Maybe if all of the US slashdot readers did the same, we wouldn't have HALF the legal problems we do now and our country wouldn't be so bass-ackwards.
Re:Slashdot is not for politics (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot has become much more political in since 9/11, especially in the last year. I'm glad that there will be a politics section for me to post in, and ma