Obama Launches Change.gov 1486
mallumax writes "Obama has launched Change.gov. According to the site 'Change.gov provides resources to better understand the transition process and the decisions being made as part of it. It also offers an opportunity to be heard about the challenges our country faces and your ideas for tackling them. The Obama Administration will reflect an essential lesson from the success of the Obama campaign: that people united around a common purpose can achieve great things.' The site is extensive and contains Obama's agenda for economy and education among many others. They first define the problem and then lay out the plan. Everything is in simple English without a trace of Washington-speak. The site also has details about the transition. According to many sources, Obama's transition efforts started months ago. The copyright for the content is held by 'Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501c(4) organization'."
"Propaganda" (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is probably gonna get me marked down from some of Obama's more, ehm, "faithful"--and I'm not excusing anything past politicians have done, in either party, oh no--but this seems too much like propaganda. "Ministry of Change", heh.
It also seems like he's unveiling things he didn't talk about that much:
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nationâ(TM)s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
Mandatory community service? Great, let's send a bunch of unmotivated kids to do stupid work. Hell, that kind of shit would have been a nightmare for me at that age when I had massive social anxiety and was extremely uncomfortable in such situations.
Of course, people will come out of the woodwork to say how because it's something that people "should" do (because helping people IS nice, after all...) that Obama should MAKE you do it. Please, someone explain to me how you justify that leap.
.gov? (Score:3, Insightful)
How the hell did they get a .gov domain considering that they aren't even in power yet? And even if they were, is this the kind of stuff .gov was created for?
It Begins (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not... (Score:1, Insightful)
The change.gov website specifically asks for your ideas [change.gov]. Why not use the opportunity to suggest to them to look into appointing such people as Lawrence Lessig or Bruce Schneier to positions where they can do good? (And of course to give your ideas on all other subjects which you care about.)
Excellent... (Score:3, Insightful)
...now we'll see if we can get him to change his policy on Nuclear Power (a necessity for cleaner power), pay more attention to what the AMA has to say on insurance [voicefortheuninsured.org], convince him not to raise taxes in the middle of an economic crisis*, and plead with him to leave Griffin as head of NASA and keep him properly funded. Anything I'm missing?
While I'm being a little bit snarky, I think it's great that Obama has this outlet to let our voices be heard. I look forward to seeing if he listens. :-)
* The $250,000 bit doesn't matter. What's more concerning is when Bush's existing tax breaks expire. When Hoover raised taxes in 1932, it caused a complete economic collapse of an already precarious situation.
Re:.gov? (Score:2, Insightful)
Good question. I was wondering that myself.
I can't say I'm very fond of this. It looks like they're using .gov to SELL Obama even more to the population. IMO, .gov should be used to government functioning, not "propaganda" (if that's the best term here)
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:3, Insightful)
Mandatory community service?
Sounds a bit like slavery to me.
Re:.gov? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, how dare he inform the public of what is actually happening in one of the most important transitions that can happen in government!
Whether or not it should be .gov is really a technicality IMHO. He is the president-elect, after all.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:3, Insightful)
There are many european countries in which public service is required. This can mean military, fire, police, or others. I think it's a great idea.
I'm interested to see how Obama's plan plays out.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Insightful)
This man is dangerous, this is just more proof that there is truth coming out of his mouth, how can we possibly survive when politicians don't lie every time they open their mouths?
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:1, Insightful)
Mandatory community service? Great, let's send a bunch of unmotivated kids to do stupid work. Hell, that kind of shit would have been a nightmare for me at that age when I had massive social anxiety and was extremely uncomfortable in such situations.
extremely uncomfortable - you poor baby. public presentation made me "extremely" uncomfortable, maybe it shouldn't have been required. Life can be extremely uncomfortable (even for Americans) so suck it up. A little community service would probably be an excellent "real world" learning experience for many kids.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:3, Insightful)
If they cut back our work weeks to something reasonable (maybe a French work week of 30 hours, with 6 weeks paid vacation) then I'll be happy to do community service. As it stands, community service is an insult to an overworked and underpaid workforce.
Or, they could take all of the currently unemployed, who WANT to work, and actually PAY them to do work that needs to be done, such as infrastructure maintenance and improvement.
To be honest, I don't want to serve the current system, I want to change it, there is a big difference.
Re:Why only one "blog"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been a proponent for blogs for our elected offices for a while now. I don't think forums would work this term, though. Given how racist and irrational a large percentage of our population is, it will take about 2 seconds for such a forum for Obama to devolve into uselessness, even with heavy moderation. (And then, once you throw moderation into things, you have to deal with charges that you're biasing the comments.)
From an Obama supporter (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the 'submit your own idea' functionality, I think it's a great move. Even if they ignore most/all of the suggestions, isn't that the same results as not asking for them in the first place? At worst this is a waste of time and at best it's a huge step forward in citizen understanding of and participation in government.
here comes the partisan hacks (Score:5, Insightful)
story summary: obama and team put up website communicating their efforts
take home message, pro obama: all the good i feel about an obama administration is taking effect
take home message, anti obama: all the bad i feel about an obama administration is taking effect
its just a communication tool folks. last i checked, communicating what you actually intend to do is never a bad thing
for those of you who don't like obama, think of it as your enemy telegraphing his punches, allowing you to prepare your rebutal, or providing a convenient record for you to accuse him of not doing what he promised to do. see? its good all around
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:2, Insightful)
It's simply a way to keep everyone distracted while they implment entirely different laws.
I can already see people on slashdot citing this website to refute arguments against pending legislation.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:2, Insightful)
Mandatory community service is, like any other high school degree requirement, just as much bullshit as you want it to be. Do you get paid for taking math classes? Or civics classes? Of course not. It's just a requirement for graduation.
Where I went to school, it was necessary to do 10 hours per year of community service... I did 150. Not through any particularly large expenditure of effort on my part. I think it was 2.5 hours a week one evening a week plus a weekend. There were people out there who put in triple or quadruple that without much trouble- per year.
Moreover, it was one of the rare things at the time that had a chance to put a kid in a position of authority. And that was a really good thing.
We'll build more nuclear power plants (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike claims by McCain, I've never heard Obama say he was against nuclear power. At some point, he might have said he was against some specific form of power plant design or something, but never against the concept. McCain must have lept on that statement and blew it up to make it sound like Obama was against all forms of nuclear power.
In fact, I think the "no more nukes" people have become such a small base that it would be politically safe to revisit nuclear power. Do you know anybody who is really against it? Most people I know are really concerned more about how to dispose of the waste, not really concerned about the power plant itself.
But that all said, if you could develop power sources that are cheaper per megawatt then nuclear power, why bother? From what I understand, wind power is going down in price per megawatt that it is almost competitive with coal!
Re:.gov? (Score:4, Insightful)
The government can not copyright material. All material produced by government is owned by the people collectively. But I'm not entirely sure what you're specifically referring to.
Re:this country (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I do have a problem with it. One of the key force multipliers that the brass has identified is that a voluntary fighting force is many times more effective than a drafted force. One of the key issues in WWI and WWII is that our men were dying without ever firing their weapon.
It's not that they never had an opportunity, but rather that they were not professional soldiers. Being pressed into service with the fairly limited weapons training of the time did not train them to respond on instinct. They thought too much before pulling the trigger, and it got a lot of good men killed.
However, the draft was a necessity for WWI & II. It wasn't until Vietnam that the true horrors of a draft became apparent. How many good men died in a war where we never lost a battle but lost the war? How many vets came back to be spat on, beat up, and otherwise disowned by the American people? How many vets lost limbs or were crippled only to come back and find hatred rather than care?
The draft is an evil thing. Sometimes a necessary evil, but evil none the less. I can only hope that the US will never have to issue a draft again.
Re:Wow a President that plans ahead!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
No it hasn't. Bush & Co. spent years planning their assault on the constitution.
I dont know if it is possible (Score:4, Insightful)
A forum that citizens "talk back" to a presidential blog would be the largest community website on the planet. Could you imagine how many comments a single blog post would get? I bet a single blog post, especially if it was even slightly controversial, could easily generate thousands of comments. How would you design the UI to navigate 5,000 comments? How would you moderate it? How would you even design it? Nobody would interact on such a forum either, it would be one blog post and 5,000 direct replies. No threads, nobody talking to each other, nothing. Just 5,000 comments that all sound the same.
You can already see how this works by visiting the comments pages of any major national newspaper. Nobody reads other comments, and everybody replies directly to the article. You basically get pages of comments all talking to nobody.
Personally, I dont think it is possible to allow comments on a presidential blog. I dont even know if it would be productive. It would just be a mess.
Re:Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
i'm not a big fan of the bipartisan system--personally, i'm a Nader supporter--and i'm not too excited about having a former drug Czar as a VP. but how is this not news for nerds?
the president-elect has launched a website to lay out his plans for government reform (letting us know what we should expect in the coming term) in an accessible online format, and also to solicit thoughts and opinions about policy issues from ordinary citizens. AFAIK, this is the first time any U.S. president has embraced IT and the world wide web to such an extent as a means of engaging the citizenry in public discourse.
i honestly believe that the web is the key to realizing a true participatory democracy on a federal level in a country as big as the U.S., so this is certainly something to take notice of. this may be just the first small step, but at least it's a step in the right direction. along with the THOMAS [loc.gov] system, which gives the public easy access to bills, legislation, and congressional voting records, the web is gradually increasing the level of transparency in government. perhaps in the near future online referendums can be conducted, if not for deferring policy making to the public, then at least to poll public opinion on key issues.
this kind of interactive digital democracy eliminates any ambiguity as to what the general mood of the public is, how the public feels about key issues, and what the will of the people is. it's vital for an online dialog to be opened between political officials and their constituency, especially with the growing gap/disconnect between the political elite and the daily realities of the common man. at least then politicians and can't plead ignorance.
Re:here comes the partisan hacks (Score:3, Insightful)
Prepare to defend your 2nd ammendment rights (Score:5, Insightful)
As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.
Repeal the Tiahrt Amendment- This would be a very bad idea go read up on why the Tiahrt Amendment exists that information should remain unavailable to the public for privacy reasons if nothing else. Also the reasons given there are incorrect at best.
Making guns in this country childproof- Safe storage is a good idea, but I have yet to see a good safe storage law.
Making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent- This is very bad.
I prefer this guy because he is better than the alternative, but I knew this was coming and it concerns me.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Insightful)
So already, refusing to participate in the Obama's Grand Plan is equivilent to cheating on your taxes.
I think I'll reserve my spot at the re-education camp early.
>There is no necessity that such a freedom should exist in a free society
To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary - Che Guevara
I think you two would get along.
Re:Yes We Can - Draft you! (Score:5, Insightful)
And if the draft had been in place, I think this nonsense of a war in Iraq would have never started, and if it did, it would not have lasted this long. The only reason it has lasted this long is that most of the poor stiffs dying for you and me in the sands of Iraq have no career options back home (I am not talking about genuine volunteers, just the poor kids who use military service as a way to get out of the hell hole their otherwise gang and poverty infested lives are.).
In that sense, given how much we are going to need the military (Bush has after all started so many wildfires around the globe), it might not be a very bad idea to re-institute the draft - it will give us the manpower we need, and will keep future chicken hawk oil-thirsty traitors like Cheney from driving this country into wars it does not need to be involved in. It will make participation in our government also that much more personal as a matter. And boost voting percentages even more, making the government even more representative of the people than simply a few shrill interest groups (if you have done any stats, you know what I am talking about).
And yes, I could also be drafted.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Insightful)
Slavery?? like math class? or being forced to read books as homework for English class? Requiring a couple days of community service over the course of 4 years of high-school does as much good for the student as it does for the community (small but potentially significant). At least in this case, the student can pick whatever he wants to do.
Re:Yes We Can - Draft you! (Score:3, Insightful)
The draft is slavery, period. In the case of some wars, like World War II, the evil "good" war, it's hard to argue against it because the U. S. was fighting cartoonish supervillains.
In the case of Vietnam, it caused rioting and nearly led to a revolution because people saw it for what it was.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No NASA (Score:3, Insightful)
Deploy the Cheapest, Cleanest, Fastest Energy Source - Energy Efficiency.
I gather rhetoric rather than science is his key policy.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Insightful)
Washington-speak (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno, this seems like double-talk to me:
The first sentence is contradicted by the second. When you insist on extra conditions as prerequisites to trade agreements, such as good labor and environmental standards, you necessarily increase the cost of trade to whomever you're negotiating with. Thus, the likelihood of trade is decreased. Decreasing trade is the opposite of opening up foreign markets.
This is independent of the question of whether insisting on labor and environmental standards is good.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, sadly now that his dreams of owning a plumbing business have crashed to the ground, he decided to become a political watchdog and "take it to the streets."
by his own doing. It was all his own actions that caused his problems. I am sick of the "I'm entitled" part that most people read into their interpretation of the "american dream"
Work really fricking hard and sacrifice HARD to reach your goals if they are hard to attain. It's what most people that become successful do when they dont have millions laying around.
Damned right - I need a tax increase! (Score:3, Insightful)
Screw this "community service" bullshit. We need paid employees to do these kinds of things. In fact, they should hire private contractors to hire people. Then I can pay for the people to do the work, people to manage those people, a corporate structure to make a prfit off of it, and a whole set of administrative personnel on the governmental side to administer the new contracts.
As it is, I don't pay enough taxes, and am just looking for ways Obama can liberate more money from my bank account. Besides, most children these days already have an empathy for others and a well developed sense of their need to contribute positively to their community. Nearly every teenager I meet marvels at the wisdom of their elders and can't seem to get their parents to stop enticing them to play video games or text to one another all day. Having them do community service would just eat into the quality time they spend with their parents and grandparents, learning fine, small town moral values.
The 100 hours a year in college might seem a bit high - I know it does to me - but on reflection it's like adding a 1 credit class each semester (3 hrs a week for 16 weeks twice a year). Many already do this. The "jump off a bridge" answer doesn't hold much water for me, so I won't cite the several "western" nations which require (up to 2 years?) of service from every citizen. I'm not 100% on board with this, but I generally like the idea. Then again, I'm not in school anymore, so it doesn't affect me as much.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:4, Insightful)
Required service is no different from an income tax - in either case they are taking your time and life and efforts to benefit the government (or, less cynically, society at large).
Which is more beneficial to society - having college students work part time to pay for their bills or work in community service for free? I know at my internship pay in college I could have hired three people at minimum wage to do a service job for me instead, and I did of course pay income tax on that money.
Forced community service generally just means that government is paying people to do things that there's no money in doing. In case they didn't notice, 90% of the scholarships out there strongly encourage community service - don't see why it needs to be made mandatory.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
I had a long hard thought about this.
We have tons of fanatics anyway. So it's better they fanatically follow a reasonable man, that some religious loony.
And then we still have many reasonable people left. It's not as if there were only fanatics.
So in the end, while not perfect, it's at least a very good deal. Better than the old shit by far... :)
Re:Dear Sir (Score:2, Insightful)
You tell me. I don't see anything in the Constitution which forbids the government from giving out college tuition credits for any reason. And the community service for college students isn't mandatory.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The constitution also allowed slavery (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:1, Insightful)
Good for who? The few people that will be targeted with the service? The socialized agenda of Obama that will start indoctrinating the young into getting use to doing work that the government has told them to do?
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, we need more unpaid child-labour in this country!
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama's going to take care of my Mortgage AND Gas! [youtube.com]
These people actually voted and voted in large numbers. A black friend (no he wasn't African American. He was Jamaican) asked me what I thought about the first black president during the time they were showing all the celebrations. All I said is that anyone who voted for him (or against him) simply because of his skin color needs to be deported.
Vote for his policies, senate voting record, anything but race.
Then again I do hope that Obama gets up and gives a speech like Bill Cosby gave to the NAACP [americanrhetoric.com] and this time people actually listen.
But then again I'm racist for thinking any of this, right?
cmon people (Score:5, Insightful)
*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
i grew up rural, and i live urban now. i shot shotguns in the swamp behind the house with my granddaddy, a mile from our nearest neighbor, at gamebird and targets. i understand the need for your own form of protection when the police are half an hour away
now, living in an urban environment, i see the other side of guns. guns are not only tools of virtue. they are frequently tools of mayhem. guns are not always in the hands of those who intend good, nor is there some magic wand which can tell who should or should not have a gun. such that in an urban environment, it makes sense to let the police be armed, and everyone else to have suppressed gun ownership, amongst common people. it simply cuts down on needless death
and, as a side issue: no, arming only the police is not a formula for fascism. in fact, it is those who appeal to visceral force, who appeal to the gun, who are more likely fodder for embryonic fascist movements, not the police. really, read your history. random guys in the country is not a protection from fascism, it is the soil in which fascism grows
back to the larger point: gon control is the approach to guns as it exists in europe. europe is mostly urban. meanwhile, the usa has mostly been rural throughout its history, but is shifting to majority urban in recent years. therefore, it is natural that attitudes towards guns will shift from a rural attitude to an urban attitude, and experience a watershed moment in the coming years against gun ownership
and its simply a rural versus urban dynamic. currently, there are people dying in urban centers for the sake of a rural legal approach to gun ownership. in the future, there will be people dying in rural areas for the sake of an urban approach to gun ownership. its the majority deciding the legal approach. and either rural, or urban folk, suffer for the benefit of the other. for those of you want to keep your guns, urban blood is on your hands. for those of you who wish to curtail guns, rural blood will be on your hands. simple as that really
personally it would be ideal if you could own a gun in the country, but not in the city. but this is nearly impossible to enforce
and finally, the second amendment referred to posses in the countryside against native americans and british and french colonial forces. its completely taken out of historical context in reference to modern gun ownership needs, really folks. i don't know why the second amendment is so depended upon as a some sort of supporter of your right to have guns. are you the minutemen? the second amendment does not support the concept you think it does
Re:Obama (Score:2, Insightful)
.
Don't make being 1st such a huge milestone in history--this was in fact, expected.
Expected? Clinton was there when the internet was being built. Bush term 1 had no idea how to use it since there was no data! (i.e. 1999-2003 saw a huge effort to get information digitized). And Bush term 2 finally got a sense of what the internet coud do as three tier architectures, and spiral development were well understood, broadband was cheap and the databases were populated with data. And 2/3's the population has tapped the internet in some form.
For Obama to not recognize IT would have been news. Obama embracing IT is not, it was expected. If Bush ran a term 3, would he utilize the Internet the same way? Likely not, but he would likely use the Internet nonetheless.
Really, any president would have tapped the Internet too in their administration in the fashion Obama is managing. It's obvious: information is power and gov't power is through information, the Internet is a natural fit. Remember the eGov initiative [whitehouse.gov]?
Re:Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not think that McCain would of had a website like this. Also, I do not give excuses to Clinton or Bush for not having this. Perhaps if Bush had cared what the people had thought then he wouldn't be so reviled.
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:4, Insightful)
Blacks voted 88% for Kerry, it's not -that- big of a shift, and a lot of it has to do with new voter registrations, as well - new voters were pretty consistently pro-Obama.
Re:Excellent... (Score:5, Insightful)
As brother posters on this thread have pointed out, the real disaster of Hoover was his austerity; the Federal deficit simply isn't as important as getting the economy operating again.
Yes the US $10 trillion, but over the last few months something like $30 trillion in assets has disappeared. The primary issue that must be adressed now is people's faith in investment, that the property they hold in the form of stock and the real estate is as secure in its value as any other appreciating/depreciating asset, and not subject to the vissitudes of manipulators and profiteers.
On what basis do you make that statement? Democrats have been consistent defict hawks for a decade, and have particular credibility since Clinton was able to bring the government into surplus, even given the anemic taxation levels of the 1990s.
That said, it would be a disatser if they made defict reduction a priority before the economy was growing again. So yeah, it'll disappear for a few years, in the way they peopl don't talk about their flu when they've just had their arm cut off.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
You should always vote for the best person.
People with small minds vote based on race. So do your best to put them in the minority.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:4, Insightful)
$4000 for 100 hours? $40 an hour? Really? Seems a bit high to me, but maybe that is the only way they can get people to participate.
Yes, you caught it. If you really want to teach young people that they should be paid for their volunteer work---no one seems to catch the contradiction there---then you do need to pay them a high enough rate.
Seriously, I am surrounded by conscientious people (mostly immigrants) who do solid work for a third of that rate, and have to feed their families.
Internet not gateway to "true democracy" (Score:1, Insightful)
For one, most people have no clue how to use computers. If you were to drive government through the internet then it's safe to say it would be an elite-driven government and would leave out most lower-income families.
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:2, Insightful)
...Funny that one of the indicting questions in that list was "Are you a socialist?" because Obama's leanings are very much Socialist in nature. That's why France and other European countries who run themselves with Socialist government styles (not with, as someone said, "a more modern democracy"), are so very happy to see that "America is finally coming up to speed with the rest of the civilized world."
It's interesting to see how unaware and largely ignorant many of the Americans I've talked to are. They don't understand or recognize the patterns or the ideals that lead to or embody a Socialist government. Even when confronted, they call themselves "anti-socialist" while still embracing all the ideals. They just don't get it.
While Socialism isn't inherently wrong, it has flaws just like every other system we might try to put in place over humans. There is no utopian government. The effectiveness of any system of government depends on who is being governed, how big a population, what their immediate and long term needs and desires are, as well as other situational criteria.
That said, I do not want America specifically to go this route (Socialist). We founded our country on very Libertarian ideals (at least the way the Libertarian party is today). 'Personal responsibility rather than relying on big government', for example. While Libertarianism, like Socialism, isn't perfect, it is what I see as being an American. Being able to trailblaze through adversity, with only my gun and my smarts and my indomitable will - I will perservere and overcome the odds, and make my life a success, make my millions, pass it down to my children, and carve out a portion of history with my own two hands! That, to me, is America. That is why we were such a proud and respected nation. That was our unique calling card.
If America starts to change everything to switch to a more Socialist government...
1) they'll screw it up
2) it will be chaos for decades as we try to adjust
3) it won't ever get it implemented properly or fully enough to be effective because there will be too much resistance
So if they try it, I'm moving to France, Germany, or even Finland, where they implemented it much, much better than we'd have a chance at doing. America's motto was "Land of the Free" and "Land of Opportunity"...we should stick to that. We were good at that. We should, as a country, not pauper the rich to give to the poor, or levy high taxes to implement costly (ineffective) social programs, or enforce mandatory public service.
But that's just my 2 cents, and I know there are plenty of people in America who rabidly disagree. Oh well. Let THEM move to France. France would kick them out, though. Nobody likes a mooch.
Re:Economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to Slashdot - where everyone is an armchair economist.
do you have a better alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
no, what you really have is the desire that you don't have to help the poor at all
why should you care, right?
well, poverty is the breeding ground for ideologies which are antagonistic to freedom. they also breed unorganized threats to your freedom, such as petty crime like theft and robbery
the poor who live near you, tax you, no matter what. in direct and financial ways, or in indirect, existential ways. you can choose the nature of how they tax you (government programs with explicit policies that you have control over as a citizen of a democracy), or choose to have the poor tax you with random criminal acts and ideological movements hostile to the notion of freedom
you are taxed by the poor in your world no matter what. you do not get to choose not to be taxed, because taxes on your freedom will play out in one way or another by the poor. you simply have a choice about the nature in which the poor tax you. government programs that benefit the poor and lift them out of poverty is the best form of taxation, the CHEAPEST form of taxation (financial or otherwise) before you
choose wisely
most of us understand the value of altruism, how it actually helps us out in the end, instinctively. others, like you, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to common sense
Re:Stresstest (Score:4, Insightful)
I see a slightly different version of that paragraph on Obama's site (quoted above) That does not bode at all well. Looks like Obama is firmly on the side of the xxAAs.
Re:Yes We Can - Draft you! (Score:1, Insightful)
One HUGE difference -- the military conscription acts affected ADULT, VOTING CITIZENS. These requirements are targeting minors who have no effective voice in the matter.
That's pretty darn creepy and fascistic IMNSHO.
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the interesting things about political correctness is that even racists do not want to appear racist.
Instead, they are amateur sociologists who only care about the aspects of sociology that justify racial disparity.
They are also amateur historians who only care about Nazi and Confederate history.
There are also the amateur biologists who love to discuss genetic inferiority, and how that observant the 16th century slavers must have been to have cracked the genome 500 years ago...
And now, we have amateur political scientists who specialize in the unfairness of black people getting elected.
<sarcasm>It's amazing that so many of these people are self-taught. </sarcasm>
Re:Yes We Can - Draft you! (Score:1, Insightful)
Are you trying to tell us that the Draft (which existed in fits and starts from WW2 to Vietnam) was unconstitutional ? It may have been a good idea or a bad idea, but I do not think it was unlawful. Why ? Because involuntary national service in wartime does not count (at least to my legally untrained ears) as involuntary servitude or slavery.
(Sorry, don't have my /. password on me.)
I'm willing to say that the draft is unconstitutional. How can you say that it "doesn't count?" If you threaten someone with jail or death if they don't serve you, then by definition you're imposing servitude, and it's involuntary. So as worded, your claim doesn't make sense.
You could instead take the position that in a major war, the situation is so dire that violating the 13th Amendment and the basic principle of liberty is necessary. I don't see any emergency-powers clause allowing that in the Constitution, so I reject that argument too and wait for someone to show me where that obligation to serve comes from. It's also worth distinguishing between a wartime emergency, and Obama & Co.'s plan to order national service just because. No patriotic American should tolerate an attempt to impose forced labor on the theory that the government wants it.
Is Obama's proposal actually forced labor? Hard to say. He does say in some places that the community service is tied to a tax cut (never mind that that'll be eaten by colleges raising their tuition); but I don't see any indication in there that you'll be able to opt out. The way it's phrased so far looks like, "You'll do this whether you like it or not, but I'll at least pay you what I think your time is worth."
most of the poor stiffs dying for you and me in the sands of Iraq have no career options back home...
Really? Sounds like Kerry's 2004 saying about how becoming a soldier is what happens to you if you're lazy in school.
watched the news (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone watch the news and see all the stories of the happy people who say that they are are finally on equal ground? The people saying that now they can be anything they want to be. Why they sudden change of mind? People were not thinking that way before? Those people who were thinking that because they are of a certain race (or not a different one) they are limited to do this small list of jobs are only defeating themselves. Why couldn't they think like that before the election? It is sad, truly sad. Those people were keeping themselves down and not realizing it. All the kids saying that now that can be anything even president, they always had that choice. They, like everyone else, has to work for it. Not everyone is born into huge piles of money and has everything they want handed to them.
Re:Internet not gateway to "true democracy" (Score:2, Insightful)
Unlike the elite-driven corporate government we have today....
Do you honestly believe internet-based polling is less or more prone to corruption?
You want to end corporate-driven governments? Simply ban the flow of money from corporations to government events (such as elections). Moving voting to internet doesn't help at all. If anything it makes things worse.
Re:Yes We Can - Draft you! (Score:1, Insightful)
Because involuntary national service in wartime does not count ... as involuntary servitude or slavery.
How is that anything but a purely arbitrary distinction? How are you redefining "involuntary servitude" and "slavery" such that coerced labor in the military can be classified apart from every other kind of coerced labor?
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:3, Insightful)
You've apparently never seen the folks wearing orange jumpsuits cleaning up trash along the highways, or nearly any celebrity trial that ends in "$CELEBRITY was found guilty and sentenced to 200 hours of community service".
Ah, windfall tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to give American families an immediate $1,000 emergency energy rebate to help families pay rising bills. This relief would be a down payment on the Obama-Biden long-term plan to provide middle-class families with at least $1,000 per year in permanent tax relief.
Because it's so wrong to make "excessive...profits". Speaking of which, who defines "excessive"? Will companies now have to look at ways to reduce their incoming, so that they don't make "too much" money? /that's/ gonna help the economy in the long run. Oh, hey, by the way, who funds the permanent tax relief, since this is only a 'down payment'?
Re:Dear Sir (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything not expressly allowed for our government to do in the constitution is forbidden. That's how it works, not the backwards interpretation people usually try to claim.
The fact is, that's not how it works, nor how it has ever worked in our government, nor the interpretation the courts have ruled. This has nothing to do with college tuition; it's just the excuse libertarian wackaloons use to claim that everything the government does is illegal. Well, good luck with that. But constitutional law disagrees with you.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:4, Insightful)
It gives you great insight into the workings of someone's mind when they think requiring this amount of community service is akin to slavery, both in their inability to understand the role of school in society as well as of the significance of real slavery.
The school system isn't making kids stamp license plates or cut down trees or fill reactor rods here, this is community service chosen by the youth in school. They may decide to help out at a boys & girls club of some form, or do some reading to seniors at a hospital, or whatever tickles their fancy.
I think a lot of previous generations would be better off if they had more exposure to being engaged in this way.
Re:Ah, windfall tax (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:5, Insightful)
I think of ancient Greece, which can hardly be considered a culture that discriminated against homosexuality, yet I know of no movement for gay marriage in ancient Greece. "Marriage" is a word that has meaning in our culture for a long time, having "gay marriage" is not giving equal rights, it is a radical redefining something that is considered one of the basic building blocks of society.
Everyone who opposes anything like this is labelled "homophobic" though. It's an attempt to eliminate discussion. "Islamaphobic" works the same way. Perhaps you would disagree with my position on adoption or gay marriage (neither of which I have given here because it isn't my point), but do you think it is possible that gay lobby groups could have a bad idea and that opposition to that idea could potentially be "sensible" rather than "homophobic".
Bend Over and Spread the Wealth (Score:1, Insightful)
Windfall Profits Tax for Oil Companies-
Yes the power of marxist socialism, in one fell swooop the "spread the wealth" brilliance has many facets but the most obvious, set the bar to "not exceed" a specified level of productivity. Does this result in prosperity or a temporary euphoria as checks end up in mailoxes? Too bad they wont be enough to offset the cost of Everything since its all tied to oil in some way.
Prediction- Gallon of Gas 8.25 a gallon this time next year as domestic oil companies scale back production further eroding the meager 40% we derive domestically and ultimately result in sending not just 700 billion to US hating oil nations, but 1.4 trillion by 2010.
Obama is apparently not out to only bankrupt coal, he has his sights on the blood of the economic engine oil and those who do the work, everyday americans
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:4, Insightful)
"Homophobic" is newspeak. Does it ever occur to you that people who oppose adoption by gays, for example, may do so on the basis of principles they hold and not irrational fear?
Does it ever occur to you that some people's principles are what cause/create irrational fear? Or that people's irrational fears morph their principles?
Looks competent (Score:4, Insightful)
They've:
There's hope yet :)
Re:Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
How could Clinton have had this? The internet was not publicly available in 92 when he made his transition, and there was no HTML, or similar technology, that would have made a page usable by the general public.
Tut! (Score:3, Insightful)
Where have you been? Our dear and glorious leader Eric Raymond has redefined hacker politics [catb.org], and we're now all moderate-to-neoconservative. Some of us reject left-right politics altogether [ibiblio.org], like Eric. And Dr. Breen.
If you thought there was whining aplenty [slashdot.org] about how there are no conservatives here before the election, you haven't seen anything yet. Soon enough, the vast majority of comments will be complaints modded +5 about how no one's left who's brave enough to stand up against the liberal menace, and if so, they're invariably modded down.
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:5, Insightful)
Allowing gays to marry does not "get rid" of marriage.
Furthermore, it was not until the revolutionary period that Marriage was predominantly about love. Prior to then it was purely political. To say that marriage hasn't changed for all of human civilization is flat out wrong.
Or do you still believe it should be illegal for blacks and whites to intermarry? Or for anyone to become divorced and remarry?
Whoa! (Score:4, Insightful)
you are saying ignorance about computers means you are low-income? Bush was hardly low-income, and ignorant as hell. And just what did the tubes guy make a year? You sir, are the elitist prick.
Re:Get over it. (Score:3, Insightful)
So you chose your community service. Am I free to choose mine as well? Who's standards must it meet? Maybe I spend 20 hours a week taking care of my sick grandma. Is that sufficient, or must I pick additional chores from a nationally approved list? How about those of us with small children; if the baby is crying from 2-5AM, may I be allowed to arrive late to the soup kitchen?
I'm glad you volunteered to do scouting. That's a worthwhile cause and I applaud you for it. Still, even though I'm not a scout leader, I promise you I spend a whole awful lot of time doing stuff that's way more important to me and my family than anything you'd have me signed up for. You pick your service and I'll pick mine.
Re:Mmm, conservatism! (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish these people would stop calling themselves conservative. I have a better name for them.
Criminals.
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, it does occur to me and it does happen. That doesn't negate my point that not necessarily everyone who disagrees with a homosexual lobby group can be accurately called homophobic even if they are wrong, yet they are routinely labelled as such.
Personally, I'm not against gay marriage as such, I'm against government interference in private relationships. I wouldn't have marriage controlled or determined by the state at all. In that case, people who wanted to enter into a contract regarding shared property rights, sexual exclusivity etc could do so. If they want to call that marriage, they could do so. If someone else doesn't want to acknowledge that, they don't have to, not being a party to the contract.
Note that I've been given a troll mod for making a case for reasoned argument rather than politically correct labelling of people. It demonstrates my point nicely.
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:2, Insightful)
Marriage (and the expectation of procreation) between siblings poses a danger to society because of obvious genetic problems, which is why it was taboo for as long as people were capable of realizing this problem. Parent/child marriages, beyond this, have the problem that almost any instance would indicate abuse, which is within the governments ability to stop.
However, the banning of gay marriage is entirely a cultural concern, with people blocking it because they see it as uncomfortable, or they don't want their children to see it, or they say it reduces the meaning of their marriage. I'm pretty sure people made the exact same arguments regarding interracial marriage years ago.
And yes, it is society deciding what behaviors are acceptable, through the government. However, this does not mean that it is not homophobic or bigoted... its simply bigotry that a majority of society has decided is acceptable. Its ridiculous to imply that just because the majority of society decides something is acceptable or unacceptable means that its automatically proper and correct. Society has made a number of bad decisions in the past: segregation and slavery, the feudal system and the treatment of the Jews since the diaspora are a few that come to mind. Based on your views I would imagine you are pro-life (I am as well, for what difference it makes). Based on your argument, society has decided that abortion is good and acceptable, and that you should accept it.
It seems to me that one of the things the law and the governemnt are supposed to do is to protect the rights of the minority from the majority; the opposite of this is tyranny of the majority, which you seem to be advocating, and what the founding fathers meant to avoid in framing our government.
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not seeing how expanding the practice == "throwing it out".
I'm unaware of any procreative requirement for marriage. Those people don't generally have a problem with people getting married who are infertile due to age or illness, or who simply don't want children. I also fail to see how allowing homosexual couples to marry interferes with heterosexual couples carrying on as they always have.
Since there's no rational argument to support those positions, it kind of does mean that. Some of them reacting to a "yuck" factor. They think that homosexual behavior is gross, and they think that they will somehow prevent it by stigmatizing it. Others believe that their chosen religion forbids it and that they should act to stop others from doing it, regardless of whether the homosexuals in question are part of their religious group or not. The weird part is, nobody is expecting them, the gay-marriage opponents, to actually engage in this behavior, they're fixating on something other people do that they don't ever have to take part in themselves.
I strongly disagree. I've yet to hear any valid reasons to be against gay marriage. If you don't want to marry someone of the same sex, don't. But why stick your nose into someone else's personal life where you're not welcome or wanted?
Further, a nearly %50 divorce rate does not suggest that marriage works "extremely well". Really, a 50-50 success rate? You may as well say flipping a coin works "extremely well" as a method of predicting the future.
Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
such that in an urban environment, it makes sense to let the police be armed, and everyone else to have suppressed gun ownership, amongst common people. it simply cuts down on needless death
Of course, there are no numbers which support your opinion. Here are a few facts about CCW permit holders [wikipedia.org]: "Permit holders are a remarkably law-abiding subclass of the population. Florida, which has issued over 1,346,000 permits in twenty years, has revoked only 165 for a "crime after licensure involving a firearm," and fewer than 4,200 permits for any reason."
for those of you want to keep your guns, urban blood is on your hands. for those of you who wish to curtail guns, rural blood will be on your hands. simple as that really
What a load of crap. The "urban blood" is caused 90%+ of the time by drug-related violence. It is the "war on drugs" and accompanying gang-related activity that is the root of the issue. If you took away guns, they'd just be stabbing each other instead. If you really want to cut down on the crime, legalize drugs and do something about the 75%+ illegitimacy rate in the inner city. Oh wait, that'd be racist.
Here in the Baltimore metro area, where it's impossible for law-abiding citizens to obtain CCW thanks to our asshole legislature (unless of course, you have celebrity status or are already the victim of violent crime), and as a result the criminals are emboldened to prey on the law-abiding because they know they won't get shot. These thugs don't give two shits about any new gun law you'd pass -- they don't follow any of them now! As the saying correctly states, if having guns is criminal, only criminals will have guns.
are you the minutemen? the second amendment does not support the concept you think it does
Yes, it does. See Iraq, where recently a group of determined citizens armed with small arms and improvised explosives made life miserable for their occupiers. The right of citizens to bear arms is fundamentally important to keep the government's power over the people in check. You may trust the friendly government not to fuck with you, but I've seen too many abuses of government power in this country to ever reward them with relinquishment of a constitutional right.
Re:"Propaganda" (Score:3, Insightful)
Back when I was in school, the principal was a notorious mumbler, so this was a continuing problem.
As for the principle in question: Some people believe doing some sort of community service work is a useful part of ones education. They believe it is important to helping the young learn to be well rounded and integrated members of society. You're welcome to disagree, and think it's a stupid waste of time.
But if you think it's a scam to get cheap labor, you're crazy. For what it costs to coordinate and supervise 40 teenagers each doing an hours work, you can hire a couple adults as full time employees and get five times as much done.
Re:Ah, windfall tax (Score:3, Insightful)
And you know what? People adapted. They drove less. They adapted so that maybe it was good enought o heat their homes to 68 instead of 72 in the winter. As a result, they bought less gas and oil -- and drop in demand is bringing gas/oil prices back down. No government intervention or theft of corporate funds by the government required.
It's easy to point a finger and say "Ooh, big bad oil companies making Too Much Money". But if the government can draw an arbitrary line in the sand and say "This much is too much", then they can easily move that line tomorrow.
Re:Want to know where white privilege comes from? (Score:1, Insightful)
A black man, statistically speaking, is TEN FUCKING TIMES more likely to commit a violent crime than a white man.
No. He is more likely to be caught and prosecuted (or plead guilty) and imprisoned.
The rates of violent crime aren't much different, but the rates of enforcement are sharply different.
Re:Anti-White Racism in the Afro Community (Score:3, Insightful)
I voted for Obama because I felt he was a better choice to lead the nation. A well-spoken and intelligent man who also shown on occassion to be shrewd politician.
That's why it bother me the level of celebration from some of the people (all white) I know that we finally have a black president. What does it matter if he's black? I didn't vote for or against him because of it, I don't feel better or worse about our future because of it. Tokenizing his win as finally filling some obviously unfilled niche is a disservice to his qualifications if that was the basis of anyones choice.
Of course the morning headline the next day on CNN was an expose that the poor blacks of Atlanta feel like they finally have a shot in life. Hint: they don't have any more or less of a shot than they did before because Barack Obama isn't a successful black man, he's a success in general. How much of one has been under debate for a while due to the cloud surrounding his academic career, but the point is he's accomplished more than most people of any race will thus far and making it about race cheapens everyone.
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:4, Insightful)
> "Homophobic" is newspeak. Does it ever occur to you that people who oppose adoption by gays, for example, may do so on the basis of principles they hold and not irrational fear?
No, I don't think fear is the biggest factor here. Your post makes it perfectly clear that you people are striving to deny equal rights to members of society that are different, out of principle. You define yourself by conjuring up an in-group that is on a perpetual mission to prevent the emergence of other social structures, acting as though the mere existence of alternative lifestyles is a threat to your way of life. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume this is all religiously motivated.
It's not fear, it's a combination of hate and the desire to impose authoritarian values on others in an effort to hide your own deficiencies. Maybe there is also the thought that, by making the lives of others more miserabe, you won't feel so bad about your own anymore.
> I think of ancient Greece, which can hardly be considered a culture that discriminated against homosexuality, yet I know of no movement for gay marriage in ancient Greece.
We are not ancient Greece, and that's a good thing. While ancient greek culture was certainly a milestone that represented the best knowledge about how to build a free society at the time, I'm very glad that we have evolved much further from those days. Being in a civil union with a life partner is not merely a commercially driven endeavor to procreate anymore, it is a concept based on the modern notion that two people are bound together by love.
My opinion? Maybe it's not the government's place to define or grant the status of "marriage" at all. Maybe legally, there should instead be just one concept of "civil unions", defined to be any partnership of two people who want to spend their lives together. Let the churches have that word, "marriage" and do whatever they want with it.
On a personal note, I have many homosexual friends, but even if I did not, it would still make me deeply ashamed to see that people still refuse to stand up for the rights of others. Many seem to think not having a personal stake in something makes it OK to look the other way when human beings are treated with contempt and their rights are called into question. But we need to recognize that we have to keep fighting, not only for our own personal freedoms but also for the freedoms of every single person who is treated wrongly. And that includes not letting people like you get away with pseudo-reasonable arguments of intolerance and inequality.
I recognize the right of my friends to express their lifestyle by entering into a recognized union, and I know it should make no damn difference what gender they happen to have.
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:4, Insightful)
I horribly disagree with everything you said, up to your last point. Why the fuck does the government give marriage licenses in the first place? Everyone who wants to marry should be given a civil union, and then do whatever ceremony they want for their marriage. If the Catholic Church doesn't allow gay marriages, well you're fucked if you are a gay Catholic because it is their right under religious freedom.
The whole concept of government marriage licenses is bad.
Re:African Americans are overwhelmingly homophobic (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it ever occur to you that people who oppose adoption by gays, for example, may do so on the basis of principles they hold and not irrational fear?
No.
"Marriage" is a word that has meaning in our culture for a long time
"Marriage" is also a legal institution that confers legal rights and responsibilities, it affects things from your taxes to hospital visitation rights. Yes, this is an equal rights issue. Don't be dense.
it is a radical redefining something that is considered one of the basic building blocks of society.
Here we agree completely, and I further say "It's about damn time." Our grandchildren will be taught about this struggle in forty years and be ashamed of us.
Everyone who opposes anything like this is labelled "homophobic" though. It's an attempt to eliminate discussion. "Islamaphobic" works the same way.
Actually, I tend to use the phrase "ignorant bigot."
Perhaps you would disagree with my position on adoption or gay marriage (neither of which I have given here because it isn't my point), but do you think it is possible that gay lobby groups could have a bad idea and that opposition to that idea could potentially be "sensible" rather than "homophobic".
No, but certainly not because I haven't listened to their arguments ad nauseum. I've heard it all, I've heard that children will be taught analingus in elementary school, I've heard about how those pernicious gays recruit innocent young boys, I've heard about "TEH FAMILY! TEH FAMILY!" If you, on the other hand, have something that doesn't sound like the same old tired Religious Reich nonsense, if you want to talk some fucking sense, by all means entertain me.
Re:html change (Score:4, Insightful)
Apparently, you have no clue how web development works. Some of your criticism is valid, but some of it is plain inane.
1) Single pixel gifs and google-analytics are how people on a budget track website usage. You want to roll your own code - pay for it.
2) IE6 and IE7 is so different that it requires different CSS. We're hoping that people abandon IE6 ASAP so that we don't have to support that abomination anymore.
3) Commented out banner rotation is the quick way to deal with requests that say "Put this in now! But it's only temporary, so be ready to roll it back at a moments notice."
4) Lorem ipsum is the standard placeholder anytime anyone does any design work. Why? Because it is guaranteed public domain.
5) 20 errors in HTML validation? That's it? You might work flawlessly, but sometimes, flawless is what keeps you from putting out a working site on time.
6) Nothing on the page that could have been done better in HTML 3.1? Of course. Now you go develop it. Test it. Roll it out, and make sure it is easy to update in the future.
Yeah, the site ain't perfect. But it seems to me that you never developed a site that had to come in on budget and on time. The flaws you pointed out are nothing more than what is done every day in web development shops around the world. You want to fix it? I'm sure the site would love to employ a perfectionist know-it-all with zero work experience.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why only one "blog"? (Score:1, Insightful)
That would be a recipe for disaster. Just scan through the comments on ANY political video on Youtube. It will make you sad. Very sad. (At least it SHOULD make you very sad).
Obama's site is not the place for that kind of nonsense. The entire rest of the web is available for the armchair politicians to argue and debate.
Re:watched the news (Score:1, Insightful)