From Apple To Xbox, Tech Companies Lean Left 685
Velcroman1 writes "Only a week to election time! How does tech feel about politics? If you guessed liberal, you're right: Big Tech leans left. 'They're dominated by coastal people who tend to be more liberal,' says Jim Taylor, a management consultant who writes about the business of psychology. 'Also, those in Big Tech tend to be educated in the better schools, which lean left. Big Tech skews younger and hipper [and favors] social and environmental issues. Their political values trump financial concerns at the organizational culture level and the missions of many firms, especially those that are new media.' For example, Marissa Mayer, known as 'the face of Google,' gave $30,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2009. In fact, of the top 10 contributions made by Google in 2009, only one — by CEO Eric Schmidt — was to the Republican National Committee. Facebook has donated almost exclusively to Democratic candidates, according to Transparency Data, including $1,000 to California Sen. Barbara Boxer a year ago, and more recently, almost $5,000 to Richard Blumenthal, who is running for senator in Connecticut."
As a hillbilly from a desert island, I have to say (Score:5, Funny)
The revelation that California and the Seattle area, where most of these companies are based, tends to lean left is a complete revelation to me. You see, I have been living under a rock on a desert island for the last hundred years and didn't realize that every state in the Union was not, in fact, like my home state of Alabama. I am shocked to learn that executives from these tech companies live in a place where each public school-day DOESN'T begin with school prayer, a mandatory salute to the Confederate flag, shooting practice, and a discussion of why America would elect a satan-worshiping negro marxist as President. I had always assumed, on my desert island, that America was a homogenous place, and that no region had its own unique political leanings. Now, I know that there are actually areas in the U.S. where it's not okay to beat down anyone publicly admitting to supporting fag rights--where even *calling* someone a fag is considered somewhat offensive (even if they are). I guess I can understand these executives' leftist points of view, considering that they come from a place where it's considered impolite to burn down the houses of non-Christians. Thank you for enlightening me.
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Or they would be if they could stop brutally assaulting people they disagree with just long enough to hear it.
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You see, I have been living under a rock on a desert island for ...
Ah-ha! Your post would have been believable if you had lived on a deserted island.
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It was both.
Re:As a hillbilly from a desert island, I have to (Score:5, Informative)
But the funny thing is, Democrats have been in control of the Alabama legislature for the past 136 years, and were in control of all politics in the state between the time of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement.
These were fairly conservative Democrats, mind you... but they still swing in the liberal direction on many issues.
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In Alabama we still subscribe to the One Drop Rule [wikipedia.org]. Surely at least that basic principle is universally accepted, right?
Re:As a hillbilly from a desert island, I have to (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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it is nice to see that some put their money where they believe, and not just on the bottom line
That depends on what factors influence the bottom line. Under Republican policies, which I've been assured many times are extremely "business friendly," we deregulated banks and finance companies and allowed the lines between them to blur (some of this was supported by President Clinton). Under President Bush we also depopulated the SEC, which was charged with the oversight of these businesses. In other words, we did exactly what banks and financial institutions were asking us to do. And it turns out that d
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I understand you're just being a dick here (what leftwingers do best)
GP is engaging in parody, which is part of the arsenal of weapons available with free speech, something that rightwingers always say is important when defending murderous racism, sexism and homophobia, but get pissy about when used against them.
More obvious stories (Score:2, Insightful)
Next thing you know, they'll be telling us that energy companies leans to the right.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Funny)
Somewhere in America right now there are two college students. One is trying to recruit for the Young Republicans in the art department. The other is trying to recruit for the Young Democrats in the business school. both are wondering why their results have so far been disappointing.
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Exxon donated more to Obama than any other person in office, so that isn't true either, and that tidbit just chafes the leftwing mantra.
Corporations read the tea leaves and buy influence accordingly. (D) and (R) are just prostitutes who peddle influence to the highest bidder.
Liar. (Score:5, Insightful)
So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry's $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023945.php [washingtonmonthly.com]
Sure, you can single out Exxon and Obama in 2008, because that's the exception to the rule you're pretending doesn't exist.
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Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Interesting)
A more accurate statement about tech companies would probably be that at least until recently they were largely apolitical. They gave very little money, compared to their size and other companies, to politicians. It has been increasing, because politicians have been increasingly meddling (for good or for ill). MS is an interesting study in this. Prior to their anti-trust deal they gave only a token amount to either party, now they give quite a bit. Makes sense if you think about it, the government started bothering them, at the behest of their competitors. Now right or wrong on that, it let them know that they needed more influence, and so they set out to get it.
In general though, tech companies seem to donate a hell of a lot less. They just aren't as interested in buying off politicians it seems. Perhaps because they don't need to, perhaps because they are younger companies, I don't know.
Not really a bad thing if you asked me, I think companies out to stay out of politics, but there you go.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:4, Informative)
We also donate more (per employee) to non-profits than any other sector. Dunno about other companies, but Microsoft will match your charitable giving dollar for dollar up to $12K a year, and will match hours volunteered by donating $17 per hour as well.
I'm much happier seeing corporate money going to these programs than lining some politician's pockets. At least charities have rules about how much overhead they're allowed to have.
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Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Informative)
Exxon donated more to Obama than any other person in office, so that isn't true either, and that tidbit just chafes the leftwing mantra.
I can see how some people would be chafed by that tidbit, since it doesn't appear to be true.
I looked.
The best I could find was that Obama received more than McCain [cnn.com] -- not "any other person in office."
Furthermore, those donations were only in the 5 digits, while it looks like Exxon regularly spends $600,000+ in political bribes every year. [exxposeexxon.com] Seems to me that any of their favourite senators could easily rack up triple digit donations over the years - and according to this article [boston.com] which does not name names so is unfortunately a PITA to verify, the top 20 cumulative recipients of Exxon money since 1990 are all republican.
If you have some citations that show otherwise, I am all ears - I'm looking for the truth, not truthiness.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.exxposeexxon.com/ExxonMobil_politics.html [exxposeexxon.com]
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/both_mccain_oba.html [boston.com]
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Actually, it was Exxon employees who donated more to Obama.
Exxon, being a corporation, was forbidden by law from donating to any candidate for public office. The law is still in effect, by the way. Corporate donations to candidates are forbidden by law.
You might want to contact the person who sent you the mass email telling you that Exxon gave more to Obama than any other
Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Insightful)
Not terribly insightful, Exxon is prohibited by law from donating money directly to the candidates or parties but can give unlimited funds to 501(c)4 and 501(c)3 groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or Americans for Prosperity without needing to disclose such contributions
FTFY. HTH. HAND.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Insightful)
In case you have any doubt, remember that it was a Democrat president who signed the DMCA into law, it is Democrats who are pushing for ever stronger copyrights, and that like the Republicans, Democrats continue to push forward an agenda of "corporate interests first," and continue to try to spread that agenda to other countries. As for the media, well, when a left wing group wanted to pay NBC to run an advertisement that encouraged people to spend no money for just one day, as part of a general anti-corporation campaign, NBC refused to air the ad -- despite the fact that the group was willing to pay the same price as every other advertiser -- because the ad ran counter to US economic policy.
Not that any of this should come as a surprise. After all, corporations exist for the purpose of realizing profits, so why would a corporation ever support a political party or movement that works against the system that has allowed corporations to become as big, powerful, and profitable as they are today?
Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Interesting)
>>All corporations lean to the right
Do you mean "the right" in the European sense of the word, or the American sense of the word? To Europeans, all of America is "right wing". If you mean it in the American sense of the world, you should spend some time looking through Open Secrets.org to see how corporations actually give. Goldman Sachs gave nearly a million to Obama, and around two hundred thousand to McCain, for example.
>>After all, corporations exist for the purpose of realizing profits, so why would a corporation ever support a political party or movement that works against the system that has allowed corporations to become as big, powerful, and profitable as they are today?
Big businesses often trend Democrat because Democrats believe in protectionism, whereas Republicans believe in competition and small businesses. Small businesses represent threats to big businesses, but regulation and red tape (Democrat tools) can impose severe barriers to entry for small businesses. For an insightful lesson, look at the difference in how many big businesses failed in post-war France versus America in the same time period. Off the top of my head, something like 90% of France's large businesses in 1950 were still around in 1980, whereas only 10% of America's were. Competition vs. Protectionism. Too big to fail, and all that.
Contrary to popular perception, the ultra-rich also like Democrats. If you believed the media, you'd think that Republicans were all about giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich. But we pay taxes in two different ways here in America - 1) income tax, and 2) capital gains. A reduction on income tax doesn't make the slightest difference to the ultra-rich, who get most of their money from capital gains. But all you hear about in the media is "Republicans pose tax break for the ultra-rich" and you don't hear anything about how John Kerry reduced capital gains taxes, or how Democrats recently killed the carried interest exemption (one of their 2008 campaign promises) after they had a lot of money thrown at them by lobbyists. Not that tax cuts aren't good things, but the carried interest exemption is just a bone thrown to Goldman Sachs.
It's interesting reading to see how Billionaires actually donate to political causes:
http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations [newsmeat.com]
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,
Empirically, that's really suspect. Agricultural subsidies exist because of Republicans, while free trade is quite popular in highly democratic Washington. Clinton is the one who signed NAFTA and granted China most-favored-nation status. Meanwhile, Republicans tend to be against proper anti-trust enforcement and Democrats tend to be pretty enthusiastic about sm
For Parties In The US, It's Like This... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know it's second nature to tar both major US political parties with the "whores for business", and I've done it myself. However, in the 30 or so years since I started to pay attention to politics, this much has become crystal clear:
Re:More obvious stories (Score:5, Informative)
If American Democrats are "right of center" ... what is Center?
Slightly to the left of most Democrats. A lot of people in the US like to call Obama a socialist. These are people that have never looked at European politics, where you can see real socialists. Take a look at the political compass [politicalcompass.org] and count how many 2008 candidates were left of center.
Re:More obvious stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly nothing in the US. Note that to the outside world, the D and R parties seem indistinguishable.
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Re:More obvious stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, all large corporations lean to the right. Americans wouldn't recognize a real left winger if it blindfolded them, lined them up against a wall, and shot them for crimes against the proletariat.
Tech companies (Score:4, Insightful)
They tend to hire youth, and they are often based out of California. Youth tend to lean liberal, and Calfornia is often seen as the most liberal state. This is a shocking correlation!
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California being the most liberal state doesn't mean that there are NO conservatives there. Not that Arnie is a real conservative anyway...
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That views the options though as one where interfering with business isn't *protecting* your freedom from the private sector.
I don't view the government as large of a threat to my liberty as a corporation like Google.
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I have this crazy idea that I'd prefer less government and less regulation in general. I don't want the government overseeing my bedroom or my wallet.
Your bedroom is up to you, but the contents of your wallet did not get there magically without any connection to anyone else.
Retest (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority in tech I know lean more towards the libertarian side of things. These kind of tests, due to their flaws of being linear, usually fail to capture that. ("Left" comes up more commonly than "right" for many libertarians because of how self-extreming "right" has become lately.)
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And, yes, I see this is based on political contributions. Sadly people buy into the "two party" system and don't even know what they believe in themselves.
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But choosing R means the car stays in the ditch, while the Ds will at least try to get the car out of the ditch.
Re:Retest (Score:5, Insightful)
This idea of left and right is so screwed up that no wonder most young people don't even vote.
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I'd go with at least two dimensions. I can easily see "strong" or "weak" governance ("political freedom" perhaps) axis fit in, as a few people have added.
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I don't vote.
I didn't vote for McCain, because we'd have ended up with crazy crap like federal funding for abstinence only sex education, overt legal battles to maintain Don't Ask Don't Tell when the judiciary has deemed it unconstitutional, and the gutting of major NASA programs. And all this while multinational corporations buy more and more legislation in their favor to protect their "IP."
I didn't vote for Obama and I got the same thing.
I didn't vote for a third party candidate because not voting is just
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What do you think you're doing? They need you to keep voting to preserve the illusion of consent.
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Go ahead, vote for a third party, it might not mean much but it will go into a tally of people who said "fuck you" to the republicrats. If you don't like either candidate for local office make up something for the write in spot.
You might not be able to change the system, you might not be able to make a huge impact, but at the very le
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If you don't vote, you have no right to complain
This is exactly wrong. If you vote, you have no right to complain. By voting you have had your say. By participating you legitimize the contest and are bound by its results. Complaining only makes you a sore loser.
On the other hand, if you realize the contest is entirely unfair to begin with the only logical course of action is to refuse participation. Then you are entirely justified in complaining about the unfairness. It won't do any good of course, bu
Re:Retest (Score:4, Insightful)
But really, saying that you didn't vote then complaining is just as silly as saying you are hungry but you didn't even make an effort to find food.
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If I know voting makes no difference whatsoever, then I know not voting makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
That's cowardly, lazy justification. Do you really want to screw with some political types? Get a thousand people like yourself to show up and turn in blank ballots. Vote "none of the above". It'll never happen, but can you imagine what would happen if 80% of voters said that everyone running sucks and that none of them deserve support?
If that doesn't sway you, consider that you're fulfilling your own prophecy of third-party irrelevance by not voting for them. If everyone who was eligible to vote but didn't
Re:Retest (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't vote for a third party candidate because not voting is just as effective.
That is absolutely not true.
The more people who vote for 3rd parties, the more the two ruling parties have to worry about bringing voters back. One way to bring voters back is to co-opt the most popular policies of the 3rd parties. There are a bunch of other underhanded ways to bring voters back, but incorporating parts of 3rd party platforms is common enough to make it worth while.
You won't vote for a winner, but politics isn't a sport - there's no value to voters for being "on the winning team" - what matters is if the policies you care about get implemented the way you want.
Thanks! From your Republican and Democrat friends (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't vote for a third party candidate because not voting is just as effective.
And the Republicans and Democrats both thank you for continuing to prevent any competition.
I'm always amazed at people who believe the "voting for a 3rd party is like throwing your vote away". Are you really saying that because your particular candidate didn't win, that you wasted your vote?
I had a conversation with a co-worker about our recent vote. I said that I had voted Libertarian (Bob Barr) for president. He laughed and claimed that I wasted my vote. I then asked him who HE had voted for. He then stopped laughing and quietly mumbled, "John McCain". I then proceeded to laugh, as we live in California, and Barr and McCain had roughly the same chances of winning the state (about 0% chance). Was his vote for McCain a "wasted vote", simply because McCain didn't win? Or was his vote OK, since it fell into your acceptable category of being a (R) or a (D)?
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Don't ask don't tell is being repealed, its happening. Just slower than you;d have liked.
http://www.peoplesworld.org/obama-administration-ends-bush-abstinence-only-sex-education-policy/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-05-11-abstinence-only_N.htm
Obama ended abstinence only sex education.
The huge corporate gain was caused through the supreme court anyways. Nothing really has changed in the IP fi
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The Political Compass [politicalcompass.org] website demonstrates this well. I suggest taking the test before reading the rest of the website.
(My result: -9.25, -8.21.)
Re:Retest (Score:5, Insightful)
While the "two dimensional" Nolan chart makes a nice recruiting tool for the Libertarian Party, it's not much more realistic than the two party approach. It completely ignores libertarian socialism [blackened.net] for example -- and since the Libertarians pretty much outright stole their name from this movement, perhaps that's no accident.
Deregulating big business and handing power to corporate plutocracy is not "more freedom in economic matters", it actually lets powerful interests decrease your freedom.
There are at least five big questions in politics:
That's not even counting the one big issue in American politics today: are you part of the reality-based community, or not? More and more, dialog on the conservative side is dominated by out-and-out nutcases: birthers, creationists, climate science deniers, homophobes, et cetera. Sure, on the left you have the occasional truther or Maoist, but they're not generally being promoted as serious candidates for office. The GOP's been leaving rationality behind since the Reagan era.
That being the case, it's no wonder that the tech sector -- generally more educated folks -- leans left. If and when rational conservatives come back into dominance in the GOP, you might see more techies tilt less to the left.
Re:Retest (Score:5, Insightful)
There are far more than two degrees. I tend to want fiscal conservatism in terms of government spending (which does not mean "cut everything", but rather "fund responsibly"), social liberalism in terms of personal freedoms, but increased restriction of corporations, and no deregulation. Put another way, in my view, personal freedom applies to a person acting as a person. As soon as you have the corporate veil protecting you from personal responsibility for your actions, the corporation should cease to have those same rights.
Here are a few of the higher level axes, each of which contains several areas that fall under it.
And those are just some of the many areas that people disagree about. And although many people will have the same leaning about most of the things in each of the larger groups, that still gives you a minimum of four political axes instead of just one or even two.
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And as someone else pointed out above, there are at least two more:
Neither of these is likely to be a hot button political issue at the national level except when somebody does something catastrophically stupid like going into Vietnam or Iraq, but still, they represent distinct differences in opinion. And while we're at it, I might as well add:
That's a particularly interesting one because b
Re:Retest (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, the libertarian party believes in maximizing both economic and personal freedom.
Candidates such as Palin might want to increase economic freedoms in some areas but want to bring the state into many personal issues.
Based on Obama's actions, he has wanted to decrease economic freedom and keep the level of personal freedoms roughly the same.
The green party wants to increase personal freedoms while limiting economic freedoms to better the environment.
Etc.
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Well, no. Measuring employee donations to political candidates by party of candidate is not linear; it can vary in as many directions as there are different political parties (in the US, that's quite a lot.)
The fact tha
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http://www.pa2010.com/2010/08/sestak-seeks-to-keep-green-party-candidate-off-the-ballot/ [pa2010.com]
When we have things like this, it really appears as though it's zero-dimensional. The R and Ds work together very well to make sure they never have any competition that's viewed as legitimate.
Re:Retest (Score:5, Funny)
it can vary in as many directions as there are different political parties (in the US, that's quite a lot.)
Ah yes, the USA. Where the number of thriving political parties is as vast as the number of oceans it touches, and where political philosophies are as varied as the mastodons that roam its plains.
Re:Retest (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think the Democrats are anywhere near communist you are a total nutcase. They are as far to the right as the republicans these days, all of them are a bunch of fucking corporatists.
democrat != left (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously -in the US we have two parties. The far right party, and the psychopathic kill-and-censor-everyone-in-the-name-of-patriotism party.
In practical terms, we have no left. This article is BS.
Re:democrat != left (Score:4, Insightful)
We have not had a true left in this country since the Kennedy assassination. Johnson was a corporate whore, and since him, Democrats have been pro business all the way down. You can not be pro business interests AND pro labor. If you dump labor rights and issues then you are not a left leaning people.... at this point it is a fight between libertarianism values (those are indipendant of left or right leaning) and how responsible we should be with our taxing and spending (more borrowing or less borrowing)
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Plus, there has never been a president that has completely stood up for their beliefs and not been a cooperate (or other special interest) whore.
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Which has nothing to do with left or right. That would be authoritarianism.
In reality it is more like enforced personal responsibility, since those who do not leave it to the rest of us to pay for their medical care. Do you also oppose mandatory Car Insurance?
Re:democrat != left (Score:4, Insightful)
"Buy health insurance or we'll punish you" is pretty leftist. It's lack of freedom
So, in your world, everyone on the "left" desires an end to freedom, and everyone on the "right" desires more freedom, and never the two shall mix. So left vs. right is all about non-freedom vs. freedom, people who hate their country and want to destroy it vs. people who love their country and want to protect it. You sound like a Glenn Beck viewer.
If you think a single person living in the US and involved in politics actually desires to harm this country, then you're a moron and shouldn't be allowed to vote. You've bought into the partisan bullshit and now your vote is a liability. This country needs 3, 4, 5 etc political parties, this 2-boxes bullshit that everyone is supposed to fit into stopped being productive decades ago. The control by the two major parties over the presidential debate committee needs to end.
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>>>apparently you fail to see the fascism that is rampant with those you elect on the right.
You mean the Republicans. Yeah I see it, but it's far far worse on the left (D) of US politics. After all it was the Democrats who met with Insurance Companies, struck a deal to help the companies boost their bottom line, and then passed this "you must buy insurance" law. It doesn't get any more fascist (corporatist) then that. The insurance companies threw a party.
Now the democrats are colluding with Go
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Seriously -in the US we have two parties. The far right party, and the psychopathic kill-and-censor-everyone-in-the-name-of-patriotism party.
Left and right are and always will be, relative. In the non-political sense, my right and your right are only the same if we're facing the same direction. Even then, if you're standing on my right, the area to your right is further to the right than mine.
In political terms, you look at the parties and apparently they're both more conservative than you are, or maybe you're comparing it to other countries where the average voter is more liberal than the average American voter. Still, to say that we have no
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The good news is that she might be a witchcraft-practicing Tea Bagger who will be willingly to do the horizontal bop on an altar to Satan.
Or was that bad news... These are such confusing times.
can you mark an entire article TROLL? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on editors, i know you desperately want to talk about american politics, but isn't that what the poll to the right is for?
Who needs a big stupid flamewar? No one but Ralph Nader leans LEFT in the usa ANYWAYS!
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No one but Ralph Nader leans LEFT in the usa ANYWAYS!
You forgot Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich.
Unfortunately.... (Score:2)
Unfortunately they are unwilling to use their corporate power (i.e. money) to create a media campaign in the way that corporations that lean right do. It's sad that only the right has the courage to anonymously funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into non-profits like Americans for Prosperity that were created for the purpose of supporting Right Wing candidates. According to their tax filings these non-profits have a primary purpose that is not political. Education, I suppose?
But the Supreme Court has
As has been said, reality has a liberal bias. (Score:5, Insightful)
Note I said "liberal", not "progressive", not "Democratic Party", not either libertarian or "Libertarian".
The problem is that too many people confuse "fiscal responsibility" with "conservatism". Fiscal policy is separate from "liberal" and "conservative". I am *EXTREMELY* fiscally 'conservative'. But I'm also *EXTREMELY* liberal.
In fact, one could even argue that fiscal responsibility is, itself, liberal by definition.
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A Europe currently struggling with how to deal with its unintegrated immigrants and with no comfortable resolution in sight begs to differ.
Re:As has been said, reality has a liberal bias. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, just for Muslims. There are plenty of others who don't integrate.
Muslims are disproportionally highly represented among those who don't integrate. So what if there are a few odd other folk? They don't make a difference, just as they never did. But mass immigration into Europe these days is mostly Muslim, and it's the "mass" part that causes problems in conjunction with "non-integration" part. Separately, neither is really a problem.
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Story is Useless (Score:2)
Telling me that only one donation was to the RNC or that so-and-so donated $5,000 to the Democrat is completely and utterly useless. It's a single number without context, people. (Yes, I know it's FOXnews. Doesn't mean Slashdot has to waste space repeating it.)
Where did the OTHER NINE donations go? The RNC is only one part of the Republican political machine to which one can donate: there are candidates and PACs, for example.
How large were they by comparison? One donation of $10,000 is surely more signi
Want to get money out of federal politics? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Want to get money out of federal politics? (Score:4, Insightful)
Want to get money and influence peddling out of the hands of feds?
Yeah - and put it right back into the hands of corrupt state and local business owners where it belongs. If I were going to waste my time on Constitutional Amendments that wouldn't pass, I think I'd either go with requirements for proportional voting or public financing of campaigns. Both would have a better impact on elections.
False premise (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see, smarter, better educated = more liberal (Score:4, Insightful)
People complain that our universities, urban elite, etc. 'lean left'. Now let's see, the smarter and better educated you are, the more liberal you are. What does that suggest to you?
It suggests to me that we have too many ignoramuses, who lack the education and experience to learn to deal with different kinds of people, to understand how progress is made, and to be informed or to deal with complicated policy issues like global warming. And those ignoramuses are called "conservatives".
Reality Has a Well Known Liberal Bias (Score:3, Insightful)
This "psychologist" can't see that people at these companies are more liberal than average simply because they're smart. Not just any kind of smart, but the kind of smart that knows how to communicate with lots of other people, even if just in the abstract, technologically, not just with their hillbilly brother-cousins. Which is why they leave those hillbilly hollows to go places where companies like Apple and Microsoft can function. Back in hillbillyland they'd be burned as witches, or worse as homosexuals.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." - Stephen Colbert
Re:Reality Has a Well Known Liberal Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reality Has a Well Known Liberal Bias (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, Doc Ruby. So predictably chiming in with a post that unselfconciously promotes every liberal stereotype: cocooned, arrogant, angry, insulting, intolerant, etc.
It's a good thing everyone knows liberals are so inherently good. Otherwise readers might think you're a grade-A jerk.
- A fan
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me if you were so smart, you'd lend some of that prodigious mental firepower to persuading others to come around to your point of view, rather than alienating them with poisonous invective and crude sexual epithets.
Good luck with your strategy.
- AJ
Re:Reality Has a Well Known Liberal Bias (Score:4, Funny)
No, I'm not condescending. You Republicans are just stupid. So "correct" looks "condescending" to you.
You are a parody of yourself.
neglect to mention certain high profile people? (Score:3, Interesting)
then there's amazon.com (Score:4, Interesting)
"Conservatives are not neccessarily stupid... (Score:3, Insightful)
Note, I'm "Right Wing" by international standards, the USA's main two parties are Right, and Ultra Right, why can you not simply have Centre Left and Centre Right like the rest of the world? And also colour them correctly, Red is for "left wing", Blue for "right wing"! You know, like, "The Reds are invading..."?
Things America needs to change reason #42 the Metric System....
Re:Moderate/Conservatives are the quiet majority (Score:5, Interesting)
What the US really needs is more political parties so people could accurately state their belief system, because I don't think hardly anyone is truly a republican or democrat.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The US has two major political parties, but also has a very open primary system. In Canada, we have three major political parties, but their internal politics are far less transparent.
So while we have more choice on election day, I think ultimately you yanks get a lot more diversity of opinion and choice, if you care enough to participate in the primaries. Just look at the current battle within the Republican party between the old guard and the tea-partiers; you never see that kind of thing in public in mos
Re:Moderate/Conservatives are the quiet majority (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Americans need *no* political party. They should legislate and govern on a per issue bases. It's the fact that we have "big politco's" that I think is the problem.
You see, I've come to believe that many Americans simply pick a party based on one or two beliefs they hold most strongly and then vote for that party, regardless of all the other beliefs they may or may not agree with.
An example: An LGBT person probably supports LGBT rights. This might, in fact, be the one issue they really care about. Because of this they might vote Democratic because they're known for supporting popular LGBT "gay" rights like marriage. This can be in spite of the fact that they might not support any other issues the party supports.
I'd rather see the whole system stripped down to "the issues"(tm) and not "the party". Of course, there's also the fact that Representatives simply don't Represent anymore. Instead, they get elected and then vote THEIR beliefs (which often include their belief to keep their job by voting how the party wants them to vote so they can fund their next re-election campaign with all the bull-shit and spin that includes). That leads to simply trying to vote for someone who's "most likely to vote how I would vote" and that's too bad.
And this isn't to excuse the voters either. Very few people actually speak up and call/write their Reps. Though, that's not to say if they do, they'll listen. There's been some cases where it's been clear that Reps. are Rep-ing and we'll see them with a new job in a few weeks. (I won't say they'll be unemployed because ex-congress-people end up becoming consultants / lobbyists for special interests because they know how things work and who to talk to, so they'll still be making boat loads of money).
Of course, the whole thing is far more complex than just that, but that's just my recent thoughts.
Things have just gotten too "sporty" in terms of politics. It's like you have to support your "team" no matter what, and you can't agree the other team has some good ideas, simply because it's the other team. This shit isn't suppose to be a fucking competition. We're all suppose to be on the same team here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Liberal (Score:5, Insightful)
Our "leftists" could not even manage a public option for insurance coverage so that takes your first point right out, and our right-wingers support jailing people for victimless crimes so there goes the other.
A false equivalence of companies and employees (Score:2)
Because corporations cannot contribute to political candidates (though they can expend independently to support or oppose them), and because employees can and these donations are required to be publicly disclosed, its a fairly common (but, as you point out) misleading method to describe the political leaning of a corporation by the aggregated contributions of its employees.
For any business, since they exist to serve the interest of their owners not, except where this is the same thing (as in labor coops), t
Re:Big Tech employees (Score:5, Insightful)
Big Corp wants nothing to do with capitalism or free markets.
Big Corp wants Big Government around to regulate their competitors out of existence and bail them out when they get into trouble.
A few months of actual free market capitalism would destroy most of the big corporations.
Note that, rhetoric to the contrary, neither major party has done anything to shrink the government in at least the last quarter century.
Re:Big Tech employees (Score:4, Interesting)
Except Bill Clinton. (Assuming we use number of federal employees as the yardstick)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, that claim of Clinton's is just another statistical mirage (of the kind both parties engage in).
First, when you talk about "federal employees" most people think of civil servants. But their ranks GREW during the 90s. The "shrinkage" was almost entirely due to downsizing the military.
The numbers also don't count contractors, jobs funded with federal grants, etc.
Depressing details here:
http://www.govexec.com/features/0199/0199s1.htm [govexec.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All you've pointed out here is that there are different yardsticks for measuring the size of government.
One could just as easily define the size of government as the number of volumes in the Library of Congress, or the total mass of all elected officials.
Number of people who get a paycheck directly from the US Treasury is as decent a measure as any other. Which means military cuts indeed reduce the size of the government.
If you'd prefer another yardstick, feel free to propose one.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Only if they received a liberal education.
A proper education would inform them that he's actually a communist muslim who was born in Nigeria, and wants to take over the world.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except when Republicans controlled the Congress and the White House, these donations also strongly favored the Democrats, if not by as much.
Re:Left is right and right is right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do Europeans get to set the standard on who's right and who's left? Because from here, it seems all Europeans are just ultra-liberal. How is our viewpoint more wrong than theirs? Seems rather chauvinist.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If Google is earning that money from investments overseas and spending it overseas, then there really is no problem.
The problem is companies that pretend to do that, but are really expatriating domestic profits, or failing to repatriate revenues on domestic products.
Change the rule to allow taxation on foreign investment, and you will simply kill multinational corporations in America. They'll all split into subsidiaries of a foreign holding company. There will be a Google America and a Google Everywhere E