Internet-Based Political Party Opens Doors 291
AlamedaStone writes "New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Thomas L. Friedman writes (edited for brevity): 'If [...] idiocy by elected officials [...] leaves you wishing that we had more options today [...] not only are you not alone, but help may be on the way. Thanks to a quiet political start-up that is now ready to show its hand, a viable, centrist, third presidential ticket, elected by an Internet convention, is going to emerge in 2012.' Currently it looks like more liberal-inclined individuals are registering, but it would make for a healthier system if more viewpoints were represented."
Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake me when the US voting system actually gives a third party a chance to play any role.
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Wake me up when /. posts a non-NYT ad prompting me to log in.
And when, if talking about a web-based political party, actually gives the hyperlink for it.
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Informative)
As the group explains on its Web site, www.americanselect.org [americanselect.org]: “Americans Elect is the first-ever open nominating process. We’re using the Internet to give every single voter — Democrat, Republican or independent — the power to nominate a presidential ticket in 2012. The people will choose the issues. The people will choose the candidates. And in a secure, online convention next June, the people will make history by putting their choice on the ballot in every state.”
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Wake me up when /. posts a non-NYT ad prompting me to log in.
I don't know if it's a function of my NoScript or ABP, but I never get prompted for a login to NYT as long as I go in the "front door", so to speak.
http://www.nytimes.com/ [nytimes.com]
"A Third Way" is the title, and it's on the right of the page.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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All that the internet has helped raise more money for the same old candidates pushing the same old agenda.
Actually, to be fair, w/o the Internet, Obama would not be president right now.
No, not because McCain would've won, but because w/o the Internet and its organizing power, Hillary Clinton would have likely won the convention, and Obama would have been a footnote. Sure, he had a strong press backing, but so did many other candidates in the field.
Now honestly? Not a democrat here, and I never supported Obama with a dollar or a vote. OTOH, I am rather impressed how a short-tenure (one or two term?) senator mana
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More likely to "be" democrats?
Are you born with an affiliation stamped on your ass?
Besides which, allowing the mildly greater of two evils in while you try and actually change something, that seems like a good idea to me.
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More likely to "be" democrats?
More likely to have voted democrat if the big two had been the only options.
Besides which, allowing the mildly greater of two evils in while you try and actually change something, that seems like a good idea to me.
Good luck with that. By all means get the movement going, but don't actually participate in the elections just yet. Maybe if the movement gathered enough steam, you could push for a more honest election system. Until then, you're basically guaranteeing republican rule for decades to come if you do participate.
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Re:Yawn (Score:4, Interesting)
And vice-versa; Clinton won in 1992 partly due to the (R) vote being split between Bush and Perot. Or, more accurately, more people who would have voted for Bush (or not voted) than people who would have voted for Clinton (or not voted) voted for Perot. Maybe. You see how complicated this is? Without Perot in the 1992 election it's impossible to say what would have happened -- would the Perot voters have stayed home, or voted for Clinton, or Bush? Even a survey at the polling locations couldn't tell for sure.
There have been other elections with "independents" where the vote was split in odd ways, like the 2006 gubernatorial election in Texas, where Rick Perry (the incumbent, on the (R) ticket) was up against Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a (R) who skipped the primaries since she couldn't win them, the (D) candidate Chris Bell, a libertarian candidate, the truly independent and famous (in Texas) Kinky Friedman, and a write-in campaign for someone forgettable. The vote broke down as:
39% Perry (R)
29.8% Bell (D)
18% Strayhon
12.6% Friedman
0.6% Libertarian
Now, whose votes did Kinky Friedman "steal"? And whose did Strayhorn? And what would have happened with an IRV system? And how many elections in the U.S. would be different (in ways good and bad) with an IRV election?
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Wake me when the US voting system actually gives a third party a chance to play any role.
The problem is not the US voting system, but the US voter. I am told frequently that a vote for [insert-third-party-candidate] is really a vote for [first-or-second-party-candidate]. Many US voters vote against a candidate (by voting the other party most likely to defeat said candidate) rather than for a candidate. I decided two presidential elections ago that I would vote *for* the candidate of my choice, rather than against the candidate I liked least. If more voters would follow, we'd see the rise of
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that is a very US-centric view of politics. The US is not the world.
Most other countries have a functioning system of multiple parties that represent multiple viewpoints. The lack of options in the US is due entirely to the dysfunctional system in the US that locks any other choices out of the system by prohibitive costs.
To put it another way: the Dems are Miller, the Repubs are Bud.
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To put it another way: the Dems are Miller, the Repubs are Bud.
As someone smarter than I am put it here on Slashdot a few years ago, "The Republicans are the party of evil and the Democrats are the party of stupid".
My corollary to that is that bi-partisan is when they get together to do something that's both.
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Don't forget that the people that wrote the Constitution knew exactly how Westminster worked and consciously rejected that model.
Well, in this respect they didn't do a very good job then. Two main political parties alternating in power is pretty much how Westminster operates (originally Tories and Whigs, later Conservatives and Liberals - effectively the successor parties to the Tories and Whigs, not an example of one of them being pushed out - now Conservatives and Labour - the single instance of a new party managing to get into power and only by Labour effectively replacing the Liberals as a party of government, not joining them).
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There is. I vote third party whenever I see it and many times, they get a few percentage points of the vote. Throwing my vote away? That's not the way I see it because voting Democrat or Republican is a vote for big money.
Also, I can't tell you how many "Libertarians" I know who end up voting Republican because they're afraid the Democrats would win - which is retarded. For one, here in Georgia at least, a Democrat has very little chance in most districts.
I voted third party for the first time last gubernatorial election, because all Deal and the democratic candidate did was run attack ads against each other. I didn't know any of the candidates platforms, but at least the libertarian candidate didn't spend all his money attacking the others. And I was glad to see my county (Cobb), had some of the highest number of votes for the libertarian candidate than any other county in Georgia.
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I may not be remembering things correctly, but it really seems to me that candidates have really ramped up on the attack ads. I really don't remember the last time I saw a "My name is John Smith and I intend to do x, y, z." I think I would vote for any candidate that ran an ad actually stating his/her views instead of just blasting the opposing person. It makes me feel like even the politicians themselves are saying "I am incompetent but the other guy, he is MORE incompetent.
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And what exactly dd those few percentage points achieve in the American winner takes all system? All you managed to do, was take away votes for the major party that you would otherwise have voted for if only those two existed. So basically, you might as well have voted for the other major party that you want least.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for third parties, more choice, better ideas, etc... But in a system where the local winners are the only ones that count to the grand total, you are better off voting
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Surely that depends on your judgement as to momentum?
What if enough vote for a third party that other folks take notice, and then a few more, a few more, and eventually in a two or three more election cycles it's possible that a third party could mount a decent challenge?
And the whole "take away votes" thing is a fallacy that assumes you are just deviating from the 'proper' behaviour in voting third party. Me, I have objections to that in electoral situations where I can't honestly give my mandate to either
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What if enough vote for a third party that other folks take notice, and then a few more, a few more, and eventually in a two or three more election cycles it's possible that a third party could mount a decent challenge?
The republicans would like nothing better than the situation where all former democratic votes would be split up fifty-fifty between democrats the third party. Of course they might lose a few too, but as long as they lose less than the democrats, they're basically sure of winning.
And the whole "take away votes" thing is a fallacy that assumes you are just deviating from the 'proper' behaviour in voting third party.
This is not about being "proper", it's about the objective result of your action. Basically you're saying "I voted for the right party, along with many thousands of others, so who cares if the worst one won as a direct result, I di
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Run-off voting [wikipedia.org] also deserves a mention in this context and combats the same problem described in the parent. It provides a ranking system for candidates rather than a simple binary approve/disapprove, at a cost of extra complexity that would probably confound the stupid 40% mentioned in the parent.
unfair (Score:2)
Where would we be without movie star politicians?
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That doesn't have anything to do with movie star politics. More that Lady Gaga has supporters, is well liked, seems to know how to make a lot of money and have a positive cash flow and how to generate a flock of followers of all trades and areas, aside maybe the die hard ultraconservatives.
This is by no means in any way "of similar stature" than any previous president I could think of right now.
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You have to be 35 years old to be president. Lady Gaga has 10 years to go before she can be eligible.
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Reagan was Governor of California for nearly a decade before entering national politics.
of course (Score:2)
Currently it looks like more liberal-inclined individuals are registering
Yes, and I wouldn't expect that to change, any more than I expect AM radio to not be dominated by conservatives.
Granted, this story is written by the guy who was able to bless the world with a unit of time measurement that has since been named after him; Friedman Unit [wikipedia.org] He doesn't exactly have a good track record in predicting future events, much less future political events.
This will work incredibly well (Score:2)
"We have 87 million members in our party, based on people having to do the equivalent of signing a Facebook petition!"
"Great! How many of them are going to vote for our candidate?"
"10. No wait, 11, I forgot our candidate can vote for himself."
Sounds nice, but... (Score:2)
[Emphasis mine]
Re:Sounds nice, but... horrible idea indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
Check where this initiative originates from, indeed, and observe how it follows a pattern. This is something that we are seeing more and more, like in UK with the creation of the Lib Dems. The creation of new parties, so-called centrists but mostly taking votes on the left, ensuring the election of conservatives, or at least of a coalition government dominated by the conservatives.
The usual response to this observation is that the targeted party, here the Democrats, is anywhere but on the left. Well, considering where are the Conservatives in your country, way out to lunch, and considering how they are actively taking hostage and destroying the democratic institutions, I would pay some attention before voting for a third party...
First things first.
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Ah, fascinating sir. Thank you for that bit of insight.
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Yeah, because there has never been a case of centrists skewing the vote left (Perot etc). /SARCASM
The left always acts like shit only happens to them.
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Wait....
Are you trying to say that the creation of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK was created as an attempt to destroy the labour vote? The Lib Dem party is a grand COnservative conspiracy to split the 'left' and let the 'right' in?
You might want to start taking the medication again.
I know a lot of people that vote lib dem because they could not in good conscience vote for the incompetent and useless labour party and it's race to the bottom politics, nor do they think the conservative way is best.
Your
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In following with the usual Slashdot fact checking reaction to anything political, this website seems to at least dig a little more into the people behind the web site and what they are about [irregulartimes.com]. I smell something fishy about this web site...
Geography Problem (Score:2)
This is a neat idea, but it would suffer from a lack of geographic unity.
How exactly will an Internet-based political party handle issues like where to build the school in my neighborhood, how high the bridges should be, or what the penalty should be for selling small quantities of marijuana? Wouldn't joining such a party actually harm my ability to influence the laws that actually affect me on a daily basis?
Also, why is it every new political party seems to charge right for the presidency? Why not state
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How is "the penalty for selling small quantities of marijuana", a local issue, give that it should be universally legal, and yet most governments fail on this point?
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How is "the penalty for selling small quantities of marijuana", a local issue, give that it should be universally legal, and yet most governments fail on this point?
I live in Oregon, where it is perfectly legal to grow and sell the stuff to medically-licensed individuals in small quantities (the sale price can only be to cover costs, however, and not for profit). There is no penalty for doing so here. This is an example of states doing what they feel best for their population, and is actually protected by the US Constitution.
Now in New York OTOH, selling small quantities of marijuana would likely get you a ticket to Rikers Island.
That's why it is currently a 'local' is
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It shouldn't be legal until it is demonstrated to be safe through rigorous research. Things like that are dangerous until proven safe. Same goes for anything else that you put in your body.
As for this regardless of ones viewpoints, this is definitely a federal issue as that's where the current law banning it was passed.
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It shouldn't be legal until it is demonstrated to be safe through rigorous research.
Wait... what? It is irrefutable that pot is not only less toxic than alcohol, it is effectively impossible to die from it. In fact, it's even less toxic and less addictive than coffee, the American drug of choice. I wouldn't dispute that it can have deleterious mid- to long-term effects, but the only correlation of violent crime related to marijuana seems to be drug cartel behavior (and jackbooted Feds, although I suppose that doesn't qualify as "crime" under the literal definition) which would be reduced,
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They seem to be solely after the president, so the local stuff doesn't really matter.
In a lot of places in the US, there aren't Republicans and Democrats running in the most local races anyhow - it's the "North Haverbrook First" and the "North Haverbrook United" parties.
They probably charge for the presidency because it's a big target but it's just one target. One race, one candidate. A lot easier to manage than enough to take Congress. And if they take the presidency it gives them the legitimacy they need
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what the penalty should be for selling small quantities of marijuana?
That is not a local issue but one of essential liberty.
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Depends - what if he replaced the word "marijuana" with "heroin" ?
Personally, I believe that the government has no right at all to ban drugs as a chattel item, but I do believe they have the right to intervene and regulate when the use/manufacture of it interferes with public safety (e.g. driving while under influence, creating a demonstrably toxic chemical environment, etc). OTOH, I can at least recognize that the issues are a lot more subtle than calling the sale/consumption of drugs an essential liberty.
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I can at least recognize that the issues are a lot more subtle than calling the sale/consumption of drugs an essential liberty.
They sure didn't seem to agree with you in 1933 when the 21st Amendment [wikipedia.org] made it into the Constitution. I don't think all drugs should be legal, but one which is demonstrably safer than alcohol (let alone coffee or aspirin) seems like a pretty damn good candidate.
Thomas Friedman = moron (Score:4, Interesting)
It is really difficult to have enough contempt for this man; Glenn Greenwald's "The Tom Friedman Disease" [blogspot.com] is a good example of the kind of half-digested pap he routinely emits. Instead of looking at this gimmick and calling it a gimmick, he pats himself on the back with this unbearably asinine summary:
So, um, Tom, shall we ask a few slightly important questions, such as, how does this party hope to get candidates on the ballot when they aren't even registered as a party in the many states? Politics are nothing like distributing books or drugs. The fact that he glosses over this entirely is why I hold the man in such low esteem.
He is a thirteenth-rate thinker who, for reasons that are entirely unclear, has been drastically wrong about a very great deal and yet continues to hold his position on the New York Times' opinion pages.
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It isn't "just paperwork" or the ballots would look like encyclopedias.
It takes something different from state to state, but typically it's a large number of signatures, or, in those states where political party is tracked for registered voters, possibly a number of real members.
In California, for example, you need 1% of the people who voted in the last gubernatorial election as members, or 10% as signatures.
It's an intriguing idea, but their web site leaves out the very important facts of who is behind it,
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Around here it's just paperwork. We've more or less abolished political parties for all intents and purposes following the Democrats and the GOP throwing out our at large primary system. Ultimately, it's gotten to the point where for state elections the candidates can choose whatever party they like and the voters can continue to vote for whomever they like.
The main issue is one of funding, but that's less about paperwork and more about getting enough votes to get funding.
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No, he is a moron for other reasons.
He has been around for awhile, and is most notably known for his constant claiming that the war in Iraq would be over in 'another six months'... for a period of almost a year and a half. Among many other asinine proclamations, that he then would proceed to announce how awesome he was because his insights would be coming true and 'then you will all see how smart I am'. You go right ahead and google the phrase 'Friedman Unit', and then come back and tell us he is not a mo
Centrist? (Score:4, Informative)
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How about, instead of everyone crying about the leaning of the site, you REGISTER and GIVE your opinion. They are very good at setting the questions in a way that reflects left, right AND center. Its percentages reflect those opinions of those who register.
Right now, this is the best "third option." Do you think you will affect things just by sitting at home and crying like a 3 year old, not doing anything to change what's been going on the past hundred and fifty years, with two sides basically flipping
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I took their full positions survey - dozens of multiple choice questions. After each question they give the answers thus far (percentage who selected for each multiple choice answer.)
If I recall correctly (there doesn't seem to be a way to go back and review it) the people who have done the positions survey definitely want government-run health care, are very concerned about the environment, and think abortion should be legal. They don't necessarily want to make every illegal immigrant a citizen, don't like
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Over 70% of the electorate supported the public option. About 2/3rds are pro-choice. Over 3/4ths support environmental conservation. (I don't the breakdown for immigration, school vouchers or teacher tenure.) But a majority also self-identify as moderate-to-conservative. Go figure.
Re:Centrist? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Over 3/4ths support environmental conservation. But a majority also self-identify as moderate-to-conservative. Go figure.
If you ask "Do you want to conserve or destroy the environment?" then very few people will go for "destroy". The question is when it comes to concrete things like are you willing to support measures that'll be a public expense and implicitly lead to higher taxes, lead to higher prices on certain goods, ban environmentally harmful products even though this leads to lower quality or worse products or reduce your own consumption and environmental footprint. Most people will accept some small sacrifices and say
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The truth appears much worse. Here's an article at Capitol Weekly about this group: http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?xid=znc6uo0z1a56ld [capitolweekly.net]. Of note:
Why be secretive? I went to the official website and looked at the "about" page trying to see who the founders were and what political positions they might have taken in
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The real Internet Party, liquid democracy,in Spain (Score:3, Interesting)
Full disclosure: I work in the Agora Ciudadana [agoraciudadana.org] Voting System.
In Spain we have created a "tool" political party which doesn't have and will never have any any ideals called Partido de Internet [partidodeinternet.es]. The idea behind it is that its elected representatives will always vote in the representative chambers proportionally to what the people previously voted via Internet, with support for vote delegation so that you don't need to vote in all votings (6600 only in spanish congress per year or about one per hour). This is what is called liquid democracy [democracialiquida.org] = direct democracy + delegation. Using this together With legislative initiative, the people can execute 100% their legislative power through this liquid democracy setting.
The vote will be secret and secure, we will use our electronic national identity cards for authentication (hey, they are good for some things =), and the votings will be universally verifiable, we're using elgamal encryption based anonymization mixnets via Verificatum [verificatum.org]. The software is not finished yet, mind you. We're in contact with security researchers to make it as secure as possible, the secret of the vote is subject to a set of athorities in charge of the votings, who create a combined ElGamal encryption key for the votations. There's a good overview in a well known spanish security web site, Security by Default [securitybydefault.com], but unfortunately it's in spanish, maybe you can read it translated with Google Translate.
I'll tell the people in PDI (Partido de Internet) contact with this other USA party, because AFAIK spanish Internet Party was the first such as a party in the world. It'll be nice if the idea spreads out through all the world. Will it work? I don't know, but we'll never know we don't try.
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These guys already lost my trust (Score:2)
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Another PROBLEM party! (Score:3, Interesting)
This will turn out to be just another problem party.
Go and read George Washington's farewell address. He predicted the civil war and basically said that everyone should consider that they are Americans first and stop dividing themselves according to geography and party lines.
How about instead, we create a law that legally prevents the formation of any political party of any kind. Lets make people actually have to learn about who they are voting for instead of just looking for the D or the R on the ballot. At the rate things are going, we will probably choose the better candidate on accident than we ever will intentionally!
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I (I'm sure a lot of people) have considered this too, but I didn't see a way to outlaw political parties without outlawing the right to assemble, free speech, etc. Do you have any ideas?
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You can't outlaw parties, but you don't have to offer them official recognition either. Why are parties listed on ballots?
Re:Another PROBLEM party! (Score:4, Informative)
In fact that's exactly what Nebraska does. The parties are not shown on the ballots. They even have a unicamerial legislature. They've got it figured out.
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How about instead, we create a law that legally prevents the formation of any political party of any kind.
You'd have to completely gut the first amendment. You'd also have to outlaw caucuses within Congress.
And who would be your most enthusiastic supporters, as have been with all political "reforms"? The major parties. Because they'd write the rules, and they'd write them so that business as usual would continue with a new set of hats.
You want people to think? You're going to have to come up with a message that will make them think. And right now, you can't. Just try it. You will run afoul of the FEC, and they
Political Party (Score:2)
Fix the system first (Score:2)
Our current system will not ever have more than 2 viable parties. We have a winner take all system that will never result in a proportional representation of the views of the populous.
The best we can do with a third party is weaken an existing one temporarily, or replace it entirely. But everything will still end up with two parties with a huge swath of the population having nobody in congress coming close to sharing their views.
We would need a fresh constitution based on proportional representation in a
Follow the money (Score:2)
The last effort I remember seeing like this was the genesis of the Tea Party and we discovered later it was funded by the Koch family through FreedomWorks (they are no longer aligned).
I'm looking over their site, not seeing any information on where the money comes from. I like the idea, but I'm vaguely concerned this is an effort to split the Democrats vote.
We need something like this, even at the risk of aiding the scumbag Republicans.
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Who's no longer aligned? Tea Party / Kochs? Kochs / Freedomworks? Tea Party / Kochs? What makes you think that any of them aren't still "aligned" (mutually coordinated)?
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What makes you think that any of them aren't still "aligned" (mutually coordinated)?
Both organizations have indicated they no longer are affiliated with one another. There were rumors there were divisions over priorities. Still loosely aligned, certainly. Mutually coordinated, likely only to the extent they're getting talking points and messaging from the same core group.
Hoping (Score:2)
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Our country was founded on the backs of colonial empires who wanted the resources of the new world and weren't afraid to take them from the natives.
Poisoning The Well (Score:2)
The questions they ask and the available answers are fucking bullshit.
When you think about America’s energy needs, which of the following solutions come closest to your opinion?
Conservative Teabagger Friedman Party (Score:2)
Friedman's already got his "third party": the "Tea Party" that's not a party. It's just the most extreme Republicans - still voting Republican.
Now he's demanding a new third (not really) party also be Republican.
Thomas Friedman is the guy who spent the first 5+ years of the Iraq Jr War seeing victory "within the next 6 months", for all those years, until he just stopped begging for it. He's never right about anything except the obvious. Why listen to him?
By which they mean: (Score:2)
"Internet-based political party can only find jobs as doormen"
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When polled on individual issues, about 60% of the electorate tends to support the "liberal" position. But when asked about their political orientation, about half claim to be moderates, while the other half splits about 30/20 between conservatives and liberals. So a solid majority tends to self identify as conservative-leaning moderates, despite holding "liberal" views on most issues.
My point is that the people registering on the site may "look" more liberal simply because they answer the individual issue
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Re:liberal (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is, politics is more than one dimensional. It is even more than two dimensional.
In fact, it is (at least) fully cartesian: The X axis is one's desire/tolerance for state control over individuals in general (order vs individualism), the Y axis is one's fiscal ideological inclination (spending/taxation tolerance), and the Z axis is one's social ideological inclination (charity vs non-involvement).
Most folks only think in one-dimensional left-right terms, which is IMHO stupid and dangerous.
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about 60% of the electorate tends to support the "liberal" position
I'd love to see that poll. I think self-identification is a lot more accurate: there are more conservatives than liberals, although there are roughly equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, because the Democratic party contains numerous conservative groups (in the past, these were often blue-collar whites, but today the most notable such group is black Americans).
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Not really, I take it you haven't been paying attention lately. We had nearly 30 years of conservative economic policy over which time we've had several bubbles and the working class has lost more and more ground to the rich.
You'd have to be some sort of a grade A moron to suggest that the conservatives know anything about economics when the solution to our current economic woes is more of the same policies that got us here in the first place.
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Great, someone who knows something about economics! While you're here, please explain how the supply-side economics policies of every administration elected since Reagan have improved the standard of living for the average American. I'm particularly interested in the growth of Real Wages.
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Would you call the progressive tax policies in place from the 30's through the seventies looting? Or are you saying there's a viable political force in the U.S. that advocates literal looting? Just asking, because I think the average American was doing pretty good until we started making the wage earners pay for *everything*.
Also, Bastiat would clearly be against all the tax breaks and subsidies reserved for the wealthy. I don't think conservatives would like him.
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You Teabaggers read too much corporate anarchist porn, and don't do enough thinking about what its characters actually do in real life. The class war has been victorious for the upper classes forever, with sporadic rollbacks over time favoring balance towards the middle class. All of which the Teabaggers are burning down, to their own peril - except for the rich people who fund and equip them.
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I'd settle for being able to vote "Yes" or "No" (or abstain) on each candidate.
Subract all of a candidates "No" votes from their "Yes" votes. The candidate who has the largest total above zero wins.
If none of them net above zero, you hold another election, but none of them are eligible to run again.
That way you can vote for Carter *and* Anderson or GHW Bush *and* Perot or Gore *and* Nader or GW Bush *and* Pat Buchanan, and not feel that you "threw away" your vote for Anderson or Perot or Buchanan or Nader.
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Have you ever been on a jury? Only because the jury is governed rigorously by laws and an authority in the judge, with both sides of an accusation defended by a professional with interests conflicting with the other's, and an actual person at stake who can go to media with their story, does the drafting of random people from the community work at all.
But the "none of the above" vote is important. AFAIK it's already part of every ballot: just don't answer that question. But what should change is that those "