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Re: sameers response: Mon, Feb 23, 2004 05:02 AM GMT elibingham Nader is a troll. Re: sameers response: Mon, Feb 23, 2004 09:35 AM GMT viega I think its great that someone is fighting against special interests and for something other than a two-party system. If your favorite candidate doesnt have the m4d sk1llz to win with a third party candidate, then your candidate is too weak and you need to get your party to trade up!
While i am just a dumb foreigner and all, but the whole he stole vote from Gore has to be one of the biggest loads of BS ive heard. If the Dems cant win based on their platforms - dont bitch/whine, its the beauty of free elections. On the other hand, if youre really worried about how things are going to go, dont worry about it. With enough deibold machines in use, the elections can do to the side with the best kungfu.
Mon, Feb 23, 2004 06:26 PM GMT elibingham Have to disagree with drfed and viega there, respectfully of course. My attitude is that our system is all about compromise - since there are so many people that dont agree with you, its better to take half a loaf than to stomp all over everyone elses loaves and then takes your home with you. From what Ive seen Nader voters are driven more by a sense of ideological purity than anything else. This is something only found on the left and has been its achilles heel since the days of Marx cf. Trotsky, and a zillion other lefty movements that splintered over their inability to compromise.
However, i would have to somewhat respectfully disagree with the respectful disagreement. While i do agree with the statement that the system is all about compromise, i do not agree that this is in the job description of the voter. The system is supposed to be one where you cast your vote for the people who best represent your views, and in turn, they represent your views in senate/congress. If I, as a voter, had to compromise my vote, then in essense my vote is meaningless and the electoral system is a complete failure.
Tue, Feb 24, 2004 02:56 AM GMT elibingham Yay the Grand Lake Theater! Having been a fan and customer of theirs for awhile until I moved from Oakland to San Francisco anyway, I can say thats not a photoshop job - they really do put politics in their marquee. They had something amusing after the Florida 2000 mess, something to the effect of every vote really does count.
Tue, Feb 24, 2004 10:26 AM GMT viega The will of the people is communicated to elected officials by the votes that are cast. When a significant number of people vote for Nader, they send a message that there are a large, potentially growing number of people that believe in his platform. I personally did not like him, but the support he garnered certainly had a big impact on the political landscape after that election was over.
Wed, Feb 25, 2004 08:13 PM GMT viega Just like he was going to get to appoint three new Supreme Court judges this term? Our govt has been getting less and less effective, particularly as our two political parties move closer and closer together. The closer they are, the less likely it is that the vox populi will be heard over the voices of the lobbying groups. If were going to have a hope of reclaiming our country from the special interests, then people need to get serious about sending a message that will be heard by voting for third-party candidates. Im ashamed that a country founded on such worthy ideals has turned into something so dysfunctional! Besides, I saw a good analysis long ago that Nader actually HELPED Gore and didnt hurt him. I dont think that its a given that he will split the democratic vote.
Fri, Feb 27, 2004 12:23 AM GMT elibingham Sorry I just thought you guys needed some ROCKIN KISS ARMY PANDAS! Anway, getting back to national politics, I agree with you in some respects but not in others. I do agree that the two major national parties, on a national level, try to market themselves to the lowest common denominator - after all, how else are you supposed to sell a product to 150 million people? Our system is not parliamentary and does not guarantee any kind of representation for extremely non-mainstream ideas, so if you decide to throw your lot in with a third party you are essentially shutting yourself out of the system entirely. Im not saying this is a good thing, but this country has worked that way since they signed the Constitution. I think if you go back and look at history, youll see that the two major parties have always been just about as far apart as they are now, and in many respects they are farther apart than they have been in quite some time. What IS new is this overwhelming feeling from some quarters that somehow we are not being represented by our politicians, and that somehow politics owes us something that we arent getting from it. We could discuss the reasons for that all day but Im sure wed pretty much agree - money, television, etc.
Fri, Feb 27, 2004 01:57 AM GMT viega The KISS army pandas kicked ass. This being a representative democracy, there is very little mandate for the will of the people to be reflected in the things that are passed into law or issued as an executive order. No, extremely non-mainstream ideas are not even close to shut out of the system. It is one of the major things that has driven the two parties far closer together than they have EVER been historically. I think that its a bit absurd to claim the Republicans and the Democrats are farther apart than the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans, etc. In historical retrospect, the agrarian ideals of the early DR party were quite daft, but they hated the Federalist notion of a free market with a banking industry, etc.
In the way data is classified into that chart, the current R and D parties cover primarily the centrist and conservative portions of the x-z axis the back part with a little spillover into liberal and authoritarian. Our conceptions of personal liberty, the y axis, as currently embodied by US laws fall somewhere in the 40 to 60 range, a republic. My guess is that the most common political positions of the major parties in the US covers about 50 of the xz plane and 20 of the y axis, for about 10 of the total volume. Based on past surveys, the US public and third parties are all over the xz plane, and Ive seen people propose things ranging nearly 40 on the y axis, from 40 to 80. If you decide to vote for a major party when it is not what you really believe in, how are you not still shutting yourself out. Some would put forth a more pragmatic approach, which I think is what eli was getting at, that you should choose to try to tip the scales to whichever seems the lesser evil instead of voting idealistically. I dont really see a problem with that, as long as you admit thats what your doing. Obviously, this situation is totally different in a parliamentary system, as was pointed out. Currently, Im pondering if it wouldnt be nice to have the Congress and Presidency split between the parties to force some actual compromising to take place. The site that diagram comes from probably gives away my political leanings.
Re: lesser evil Fri, Feb 27, 2004 08:09 AM GMT mike does anyone besides me think naders just running so he can force his laundry list of issues to be addressed by the main candidates during the election? I think Naders just running to try and push the democrats back to the left instead of the more centrist position they occupy now. Re: lesser evil Fri, Feb 27, 2004 02:43 PM GMT bob Cthulhu in 2004!
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