Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

[epsy]

Jill Stein(Green Party) is also doing an AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/z ... sidential/

[Word]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/17 ... ed-states/
http://factcheck.org/2012/09/dependency ... ercenters/

[Word]

not sure if satire or not.

[Jonathan]

I know what to do with that!

[nux]

I know what to do with that!

Buahahahhahahaha

[Phytotron]

"Go Sarah we still love you......one."


Yes, I think probably (weak) satire.


Oh yeah, I'm about a week late on this, but forgot to post it before, in response to the 47% links above. More Daily Show brilliance: Chaos on Bullshit Mountain; first segment. Starts kinda slow but then really takes off.

[compguygene]

It is yet another crappy election where the 2 main presidential candidates can be summed up as crappy version "A" or crappy version "B".

Most of you are gonna really take issue with this, but personally I view Romney and Obama as "Tyranny Brand X" and "Tyranny Brand Y". Personally, I cannot in good conscience vote for either form of Tyranny.

As long as people are too busy fighting about BS, nobody will recognize the dangerous crap that both of these idiots agree on. A short list follows.

1. War with Iran will be necessary (even if the BS argument is the nukes Iran does not have, just like the WMD's we never found in Iraq).

2. The Patriot Act is a good thing, and they will continue to renew it until they can make it permanent.

3. Both campaigns largest source of funding is Wall Street/International Bankers, so no real monetary and financial reform will ever happen.

[Word]

1. After Stuxnet it's pretty clear that Obama already leads a cyberwar against Iran (why would the Russians or China program such a supervirus, and would Israel even have the resources? Now there's a realistic conspiracy theory.). That's better than anything Romney would do, and I remember many articles about deaths and disappearances of Iran's nuclear scientists.

2. The president's contract says that he has to defend the US citizens at all costs, not other countries' inhabitants. I doubt even Romney would call the Patriot Act a "good thing". It's the last resort, and after the trauma of 9/11 it's probably used like never before to avoid a similar event in the future.

3. I know about Goldman Sachs, which donates to both candidates. But what else?


Anyway, here's a long list of actual reasons not to like Obama that includes some of yours:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-blo ... 0249/posts


(but the sum of that is still better than any random crimes Romney would commit)

[compguygene]

If your saying that the USA would be better off with Obama than Romney, I might just agree with you. But not for the reasons that you have stated. Personally, I think that the USA, given the 2 most likely choices, would be better off with Obama to continue as President, but with the Republicans taking the majority in the House and Senate. That kind of divided government ties the hands of both parties to have to work together to do anything at all. At this point, I would prefer the Governement of the USA to be prevented from doing all the damage that it can do. The changes that either the Democrats or Republicans want to enact are just wrong.

As to Romney not backing the Patriot act? For Romney to win, he has to get the Ron Paul supporters on board. However, they didn't even let Paul speak at the Republican Convention. The vast majority of Paul supporters, like myself, will never vote for Romney or Obama, especially because of how the Republicans treated Ron Paul. Here are 2 links worth reading about Romney and the Patriot act.

From 2007, Romney Backs Interrogation, Patriot Act.

From earlier this year "Tea Party" Patriot Act Farce

IMHO, the Republicans have been trying to manipulate the true constitutionalists that are Tea Party members and/or Ron Paul supporters all along. I also think that some people at the top levels of the GOP have known all along that Mitt Romney could not win, but could be a valid candidate to lose to Obama and not lose face.

[Word]

I wouldn't consider the Tea Party true constitutionalists, they're quite selective to say the least.

[Phytotron]

It is yet another crappy election where the 2 main presidential candidates can be summed up as crappy version "A" or crappy version "B". etc etc etc tyranny blah blah

You realize you already said all that in this thread, and another, multiple times? We get it.

As long as people are too busy fighting about BS...

Yeah, BS like conspiracy theories.

...Obama to continue as President, but with the Republicans taking the majority in the House and Senate. That kind of divided government ties the hands of both parties to have to work together to do anything at all.

Reality check the last 3 years. The GOP have been obstructionists. There's nothing about divided government that automatically produces "kumbaya" working together, especially with the current culture of the GOP and their irrational hatred of all things Obama and Democrat. It means gridlock. It means government shutdown. Yeah, that's good for America. Well, maybe if you hate the very concept of government, you believe it is. again.

[The Patriot Act is] the last resort, and after the trauma of 9/11 it's probably used like never before to avoid a similar event in the future.

Er, no, it's used for a lot of other unconstitutional, rights-violating crap that has nothing whatever to do with security against terrorism. It should absolutely be repealed.

...no real monetary and financial reform will ever happen

Listen, I despise the fact that Obama—mainly with the direction of the despicable Rahm Emanuel—brought in Wall Street at the outset, the likes of Geithner, Summers, et al. But you do realize that there has been real financial reform, don't you? Not nearly as far as it needs to go—e.g, bring back Glass-Steagall—but regulation has been put in place. Rmoney and your Tea Party would undo all that in favor of unregulated corporatism. Yes, the Tea Party, too.

Anyway, here's a long list of actual reasons not to like Obama that includes some of yours:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-blo ... 0249/posts

Some legit, some not. But dude, please. Understand the Free Republic is an activist, extreme right-wing website.

And just to counter: What the 'heck' has Obama done so far?

[Lucifer]

The Tea Party needs to go "colonize" their own space and setup the theocracy they want.

[Phytotron]

Pretty much. They've made it clear that they hate about 85% of Americans. They have a completely warped sense of American history and the Constitution—one perverted by revisionist, ahistorical propaganda. Much of it is based on that piece of crap book "The 5,000 Year Leap" that that huckster Glenn Beck has been hawking as part of his idiotic "9/12 Project." Then they have these "Vacation Liberty" camps and schools that are meant to brainwash kids into believing this junk.

They talk all the time about "taking America back." Back from whom and what, to whom and what? Some nostalgic past that never existed. Bitter, ignorant, alternate reality know-nothings.

Is it obvious I have utter contempt for these people? Their beliefs, anyway. Sometimes I just feel pity for the people who've been so bamboozled.

[Phytotron]

I wanted to add this video, didn't think of it the other day. This is one of the better distillations of Glenn Beck—and the broader Tea Party—that I've heard, read, or seen. Donald Duck Meets Glenn Beck in Right Wing Radio Duck

3. Both campaigns largest source of funding is Wall Street/International Bankers, so no real monetary and financial reform will ever happen.

I also wanted to come back to this, because you keep making these kinds of statements, but I haven't noticed any solutions offered on the subject. What's your position on money in politics? From campaign contributions to lobbyists. I don't want platitudes, I'm interested in policy positions.

[compguygene]

Glad that you have asked.

This proposal is the only proposal I have ever seen that might work.

[quote="Salon article from 2007 titled How to fix campaign financing forever for $50]The first part of the Ackerman-Ayres plan calls on the government to give every voter $50 to donate to candidates running for federal office. The second part will sound almost as crazy, until it sounds brilliant: Make all campaign donations secret, so that nobody — especially political candidates — knows where any citizen’s money is going. Anonymous giving means no quid pro quo.

To understand what’s so truly inspired about this proposal, you first have to understand what’s wrong with today’s laws. The current regulations were put in place to counter the abuses uncovered during the Watergate investigation, things like the Committee to Re-elect the President’s maintenance of secret slush funds for dirty tricks. They mainly limit how much money individuals can donate to candidates and how much candidates can spend to win office. In return for abiding by spending limits, politicians get public matching funds — that is, money from the government — to mount their campaigns.

[/quote]

The article goes on to point out the various flaws of this plan. I think that this could be a part of the solution, but there is one other big issue that needs to be addressed that such as the ability of corporate backed Super-PACs to spend unlimited amounts of money on advertising.
For the above proposal to work, you would really need to take the additional step of saying that all elections are to be publicly funded.

By the way, the reason I pointed out the massive funding by Wall Street/International bankers was just to show how beholden to those interests these people are. The solution to that is simply to close the Fed, and have our Treasury issue money, ideally like the Lincoln Greenbacks, or the plan that Kennedy had in place.