In the 2012 U.S. presidential election:
Displaying poll results.42465 total votes.
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Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Zoidberg is smarter than either of the running candidates. I would vote for him.
Re:Missing option (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd probably say that these elections concern most of the world, given the attitude of the U.S concerning the rest of the world.
Voting for Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm possibly voting a straight Dem ticket for the first time ever, because while I'm not really a fan of the Dems, the Republicans are a menace and must be stopped.
Re:Vote (Score:3, Insightful)
But one of them believes the solution is more deregulation! 8-(
Funny how New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is suspending taxes and regulation [wtop.com] to get gas flowing into NYC. The best thing the government can do to get the economy moving is to stay out of it.
Re:Voting for Obama (Score:2, Insightful)
Same here.
I've gone from voting for the lesser of two evils... to actively voting against a party.
Sadly, the moderate Republican party is dead and buried.
Re:Voting for Obama (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry but you are more full of shit then both presidential candidates combined. I will admit that I don't know your town, county, state or congressional representatives so it is completely possible that the republicans in your area are idiots but if so, there is a high probability that so are the democrats. If you believe the dems are better, so be it. It is your choice and you may even be correct but don't do it because you have been exposed to more idiots who associate themselves with the Republican party.
You should be voting for the person you agree with or you think will do a better job, not because a political party scares you or because a particular candidate has an R or D after their name. Now grow some balls and actually make a decision based on facts not some imaginary boogieman.
Re:*sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
Foreign policy: "Yay Israel! I want to use drones, but probably not go to war with Iran." all the way to "Yay Israel! I want to use drones, and probably go to war with Iran." Global gamut from Switzerland to Sudan to North Korea.
Deficits: "Reduce the deficit from 1.4 trillion to 1.2 trillion, repeal Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans." all the way to "Reduce the deficit from 1.4 trillion to 1.1 trillion, cut taxes even further." Global gamut from Greece to Saudi Arabia to China
Religion: "I believe in an invisible man who sent his son to Israel." vs. "I believe in an invisible man who sent his son to America." Global gamut runs from "ha ha, those idiots believe in an invisible man" to "there's a whole bunch of invisible people."
Health care: "Make everybody buy insurance, and keep insurance companies from being dicks. Don't worry I won't cut medicare. Honest!" vs "I don't think insurance companies should be dicks, but it should be up to the states to decide. Don't worry I won't cut medicare. Honest!" compare to "you can't get healthcare unless you know a guy" or "sure, you can get a free boob job!"
Re:Voting for Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in Missouri, which despite being GOP-leaning now is still a bit swingy. Therefore I can't simply vote my conscience (I would rather vote for Jill Stein and possibly some other minor-party candidates) because in such a close state a vote for a non-Dem is effectively a vote for a Republican.
My county in particular is so Republican that several races were decided in the primary.
Re:squeaky wheels (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's that kind of defeatist and fallacious thinking that keeps it that way.
On that note, why isn't Stein listed? It's not like the Libertarians have much, if any, of a lead on the Greens.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes but which side supports balancing the budget during their term? Which side supports auditing the Fed? Which side supports repealing the NDAA? Which side supports repealing the PATRIOT Act? Which side will bring troops home? Which side won't start a war with Iran? Which side will cut unnecessary spending from the government? Which side will stop the war on drugs? Which side will support gay marriage? I think you get where I am going... You talk about 4 general ideas, but when it comes to important real issues, there is no difference.
Sanity. (Score:2, Insightful)
Just like the last election, I find myself voting not for anyone I really want, but against the evil foisted upon us by idiots and religious lunatics.
Re:Missing option (Score:5, Insightful)
spoken like a true american. the u.s. does not have as much influence on the rest of the world as you think. Certainly not europeans.
Yeah, it's a good thing we Americans haven't had to get involved in the petty squabbles you Europeans have had with each other over the past century.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you get where I am going... You talk about 4 general ideas, but when it comes to important real issues, there is no difference.
Actually, no, I don't know where you're going. I think the issues I mentioned are important and real. I also think that there are noteworthy policy differences between the two parties on several of the issues you raised. You may disagree with me about how big the differences are or which way many of those things should go, but to claim that there are no differences is ludicrous.
Re:Vote (Score:3, Insightful)
Deregulation is about the same as letting your dog out of their crate after you have been gone a few hours. They run all over the place like mad fools until they get tired out and settle down. Sometimes they get overexcited and smack into walls or furniture when they do it. Despite the potential for damage, I don't think anyone is arguing that it is better for the dog to live in there.
Same thing goes for an industry that was smacking up against regulations for 50 years. They've gotten so good at smacking up against the rules which artificially held them back that as soon as they are freed from it, they go ape shit.
There are two reasons deregulation has become a problem:
1) One side thinks that rapid, unplanned deregulation is the solution to all possible problems, when in fact, it is quite likely to cause short term disaster before things get better. And the faster the deregulation, the worse the disaster.
2) Our reaction to problems caused by deregulation is to reward them by bailing them out, and then return them to the cage. This will fail because eventually the regulations will be relaxed again and no one will have learned their lesson. In the meantime, efficiency suffers under the regulatory scheme.
Now, there needs to be some regulation to prevent fraud and predatory practices. However, there are entire divisions of people who are devoted to complying with regulations and interacting with an overgrown, self-perpetuating bureaucracy. That same bureaucracy has become large enough, and powerful enough on it's own that it is virtually the fourth branch of government, completely unelected and impossible to move even with concerted effort.
I joke! I joke! It's all about who you hate less.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is a tough call these days.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vote (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I was more expressing my opinion via an analogy than letting it form my thinking. I was more illustrating another situation where sudden bad behavior after deregulation does not imply constant misbehavior forever more.
Now, of course, you have a point about regulation and over-regulation, and the gradient of the change is probably more telling. If you go from a lot of regulation to a lot less, then you will have bigger outbursts. That doesn't mean that you can't find a way to live with the new situation, and you certainly have a happier dog.
Any regulation will have a confining effect, and if you have a growing dog, just like we want to have a growing economy, a nice fenced in yard that worked for your puppy isn't going to work for your dog. However, you do probably want your dog to eventually grow up, just like you want a growing economy.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, you seem to be under the impression that recorded history began when you were born. The fact is it goes back considerably earlier. Where Regulation exists, it exists for a purpose, unrelated to your birth.
Re:squeaky wheels (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's that kind of defeatist and fallacious thinking that keeps it that way.
On that note, why isn't Stein listed? It's not like the Libertarians have much, if any, of a lead on the Greens.
Because this is Slashdot, and on Slashdot the comments are pretty much evenly divided between techno-Libertarians and people who think techno-libertarians are crazy. Very few of the latter are Green.
So you absolutely need Gary Johnson to be in the poll, but you don't need Jill Stein.
Who will you vote against? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it isn't who you vote for, it is who do you vote against? I seriously feel that a lot of people aren't actually voting FOR a candidate because they like him or her. They vote for the candidate that has the best chance of beating the one they don't want to win.
Some Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
In the off chance that the popular vote is extremely close, votes in a "locked" state can help prevent a favored candidate from winning the EC but not the popular vote, which would prevent them from having a "mandate" with its associated political clout. So it is not 100% wasted.
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm just going to toss this out there, as it's probably interesting to the vast majority of slashdotters:
Who would be better for the engineering industry [element14.com]
Re:Missing option (Score:0, Insightful)
You mean like working for the Nazis early on, and delivering weapons and ammunition to both sides, then riding in when the Nazis were already pretty much defeated, rolling all over things in typical arrogant big-headed American fashion, and declaring victory, "*solely* achieved by the Americans"?
Yeah, you have become masters of in living in delusions. That's why religions, Apple, and your fake "democracy" are so successful. North Korea got nothing on you!
Re:squeaky wheels (Score:4, Insightful)
This electoral college system still doesn't make sense to me.
It ignores a vast majority of the population, and gives way too much power to a few states.
Seriously, the fact that Bush got elected with 500 000 votes less than Al Gore should be a major hint that the system is fucked up.
Re:Vote (Score:0, Insightful)
The Glass-Steagall explanation for the financial crisis is BS. The worst actors were glass-steagall compliant, and some of the best weren't.
Countrywide -- Glass-Steagall compliant.
AIG -- Glass-Steagall compliant
Lehman Bros -- Glass-Steagall compliant
Bear Stearns -- Glass-Steagall compliant
Fannie Mae -- Glass-Steagall compliant
Freddie Mac -- Glass-Stegall compliant
JP Morgan Chase -Not Glass-Steagall compliant -- Sold off all subprime assets in *2005* -- strongest bank throughout the crisis.
Stop talking about things you know NOTHING ABOUT.
Re:squeaky wheels (Score:5, Insightful)
Advantages: The two main parties have to cater to the center mass of people rather than subscribe to fringe viewpoints as if they go too far, the otherside will always win. There is less factionalism, or at least less factions to deal with. Theoretically, the winner does so with a majority and therefore some sort of mandate which gains acceptance and provides for a more stable government.
What you call an advantage is what I'd call the system's biggest disadvantage. The whole political spectrum is compressed down to a one-dimensional line and the only voters they fight for are the narrow section in the center, most "mainstream" democrats and republicans aren't relevant because they'll never switch sides and voting for anyone else or not voting only weakens "their" side. They can grumble and moan but you know in the end they'll tow the party line because it's better than the other guy winning. And there's no cooperation between the sides unless they're both looking to screw you.
In our system there's currently seven parties in parliament, two left, three center (left/right-leaning perhaps) and two right and for the most part they do find a majority after the election, like currently both left parties and one center party is in a coalition, it's not really more fancy than each senator wanting their pork. And it obviously matters if the voting distribution is 5% vs 30 % or 15% vs 20%, so each vote matters as you shift from "light red" to "dark red" even though it'll probably still be a red government and the same for blue. That means you have to work for all your voters, because otherwise they're fleeing in all directions.
The other big point is cooperation, with smaller parties you don't need to have the leftmost liberal Democrat working with the rightmost tea party Republican. Very often you can find a majority center-left, center-right or moderate left-moderate right, the US system is extremely adversarial. Anything one side comes up with, the other side must absolutely hate and totally try to sabotage in every way possible, even by cheap techniques like filibustering. And why not? They don't ever need to cooperate neither now nor later, no reason not to burn bridges. And if you ever get control over both the House and Senate, ram 'em good.
Re:Vote (Score:1, Insightful)
But should a large cumbersome federal govt be making those decisions or should good neighbors handle these decisions on their own? Conservatives don't want less rules in general, they just want to change where the rules are made and enforced. You don't call the FBI when a neighbors dog is in your yard, you call the neighbor, if it continues you call the local dog catcher, then maybe the local sheriff. If my neighbors dog is just "visiting" my dog I may not care, but if there is a federal law against dogs leaving their own yard, a passerby could call the law and royally piss of both of us. Local almost always works better, with the exception of monetary policy, defense, and international commerce/trade, but even these do not need overarching and cumbersome regulation.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a completely illogical analogy. You can't compare the richest people in the world (who have the freedom to do much more than we could in 50 lifetimes because of it) with some dog that's been locked in a cage.
And you're basing your reasons on absolutely no scientific data, with the assumption that the downsides of deregulation are somehow only "temporary," with no explanation as to how it would only be temporary. And if that's the case, why has Monsanto gotten away with terrorizing smaller farmers for decades? Why do oil companies continue to cause natural disasters like the Gulf and Alaska spills (and those are just in the US) or Shell's constant leaks on the west coast of Africa?
And what makes you think efficiency "suffers" because of regulation? Regulation is one of the things that keeps monopolies from forming, and last I checked, monopolies aren't good in terms of efficiency. Regulation is also the reason banks can't charge you astronomically high interest rates on simple loans, and can instead only charge you outrageously high interest rates, which is also an improvement in terms of efficiency. Regulation also INDIRECTLY helps with efficiency by, say, not letting companies dump chemical byproducts close to water supplies and poisoning every other company's employees.
Why does /. reward these kinds of posts?
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
That's right, the correct answer is Johnson. Honestly, it is baffling to me to grasp why Romney is actually still getting votes when Johnson is clearly the better conservative candidate.
Yeah, he supports a number of things that old-world conservatives don't support (ie gay marriage), but if you're still floating around this planet in this day and age and you are genuinely against gay marriage, you might as well give up.. you've lost this battle.
It's pretty clear to me that Romney doesn't stand a chance in hell at winning this. Johnson has so much greater appeal to more people (once they actually hear his platform), it seems to me the Republicans are intentionally throwing this election.
The only people I know personally who have mentioned their support of Romney are doing so simply because it is an anti-Obama vote. Not one of them can speak about the man and his graceful oration abilities, or his distinct knack for tact. I'm not hearing anyone say "I am voting for Romney because he's going to make my life better", all I hear is "Obama has put this country on the road to bankruptcy, we need to get rid of him".
D and R are so incredibly polarized these days that it makes it nigh impossible to have a civil discussion about politics. This is exactly how each party likes it. They love this polarization, because it help keep either of the two in power. So long as half of us can hate the other half in unison, we will continue to support the group who is "Anti-Those-Guys".
As long as the goal is to simply cause the other team to lose, we will not have any candidates prepared to lead us and make us winners. We will be mired in argument, insulting threats, silly cartoons, and obnoxious Fecebook pictures.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
which side supports balancing the budget during their term?
Obama's.
Which side supports auditing the Fed?
Neither. Why?
Which side supports repealing the NDAA?
Obama. He was forced to sign it by a veto-proof majority.
Which side supports repealing the PATRIOT Act?
Neither.
Which side will bring troops home?
Obama is already in process of doing it.
Which side won't start a war with Iran?
Probably Obama. Romney probably isn't really interested in war, as well.
Which side will cut unnecessary spending from the government?
Obama has already shrunk the size of government (at state level, in particular).
Which side will stop the war on drugs?
Neither.
Which side will support gay marriage?
My bet is on Obama. At least he stopped the DADT nonsense.
I think you get where I am going
Yes, there is a meaningful difference between choices. Not as much as many would like, but difference there is.
Re:Why Vote Conservative When... (Score:5, Insightful)
...return the colonies to their rightful owner.
Too late for that, most of them were exterminated during the colonization.
Re:Behold the effects of propaganda (Score:2, Insightful)
If only I could mod you up to 6.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
If we could trust corporations to keep our rivers from catching fire, keep the economy from collapsing, sterilize their products from meningitis, collude and monopolize markets, then we wouldn't need regulations.
Unfortunately, many corporations put profits above everything else, so we need to confine them and reduce those profits to better our society and protect the members.
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
If Glass-Stegall was never passed, these banks would have dabbled in bad behavior when they were much SMALLER and less likely to tank the entire US economy. By 2007 they would have been far wiser than they were when the shit hit the fan.
The biggest problem is not the deregulated banks, but the bailouts that kept bad banks in business. There were plenty of banks that didn't need a bailout. Instead of thinning the herd, and allowing the bad banks to fail and declare bankruptcy, we bailed them out with taxpayer dollars, and set them up to fail again, because no one learned their damn lesson. We had a great opportunity to get rid of all the bad banks, and instead we saved them, so they can tank the economy in the future.
Then stupid shit like Dodd-Frank passes that has ALL sorts of riders on it bought by lobbyists. Read about the Durbin amendment. That piece of legislation was practically written by the credit card companies.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
The only difference is the rate at which we lose our freedoms, the rate at which we are impoverished by higher taxes and inflation, the rate at which we start more wars, etc. The bottom line is a vote for either Romney or Obama are both a vote for bigger government, greater government spending, and m ore freedoms taken from us. It doesn't matter which one is president, either way we all lose.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL. Have you ever stopped to question if your recession isn't caused by excessive government?
Re:Up? (Score:5, Insightful)
My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball; but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!
Re:Either? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's attitudes like that which keep the completely fubar'd two-party system in place.
The only way to truly waste a vote is to vote for a candidate you don't really believe in. While I agree that they don't "speak to ones individuality" since by their nature votes aren't public knowledge (however if you shout from the hills who you voted for... then it speaks to your individuality, but the action of voting itself does not), I disagree that it's not "[making] a statement". If a third party gets a significant amount of the popular vote it does make a statement. What happens afterwards is another question. In 1992 Independent Candidate Ross Perot was included in the Presidential Debates and ended up taking 18.9% of the popular vote Nationwide (though still failing to win any actual electoral votes). The result of this was a rule change by the Commission on Presidential Debates to effectively exclude 3rd Party Candidates from all future debates (remember the Commission isa non-profit run by the DNC and the RNC and is not actually a Government run organization). Sounds more like the Major Parties were running scared; if Perot could win nearly 19% of the popular vote then a Third Party or Independent could potentially start winning electoral votes or maybe even an election after a few election cycles, so they had to fix things in their favor before it all got out of hand.
Re:Either? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have time for a longer reply, but for what it's worth, the way Ron Paul and his supporters are treated within the Republican party disgusts me. Still, I admire Paul for sticking it out and trying to change the party from within. The second he leaves the party, he loses any political clout he ever would hope to enjoy. My sincere hope is that at some point, the Libertarians and Ron Paul supporters, who I believe to be extremely similar politically, can get together and suppress all of the religious nutcases who have stolen the party. Because if that doesn't happen, I honestly think that sometime within the next 20-30 years, the Republican party will effectively be dead except in local elections. As a Democrat that doesn't bother me too much, but as an American, I don't like the idea of one party having unfettered control over the system.
And yes, I do (for the most part) believe in Barack Obama as a candidate. I'm not just voting for the lesser of two evils; I honestly believe that he has made significant strides in making the country a better place. I honestly believe that he could have done even better--and thus we could all be even better off--had Republicans worked with him instead of stating from day one that their top political objective is to get him out of office. Still, given what he had to work with, I think he had made some amazing accomplishments and that history will judge him as one of our best presidents.
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
If you mean that finantial industry that only exists because it is protected by the government, yes, that's part of what I'm talking about.
There was no deregulation. Deregulation would open the door for concurrent entities to assume that same function, and would srink your banks into a sane size. What happened is that the regulation changed, in a way that increased the relevance of the government sponsoring.