^Oh, please. Coming from a guy who's voting for Bob Barr, the rubber stamp Republican who chose to spend his time in Washington attacking pot smokers, gays, oral sex and civil liberties? That makes no sense. It would seem that your major criteria in a candidate is an 'L' to the left of their name.

Obama is the best nominee we've had in decades. If you have a better option, I'm all ears, but I sense you are content to just complain.

And as far as fear goes, both Libertarians and Democrats are using fear of the Bush administration as a campaign strategy, and rightfully so.

bob barr baby!

I would love 3rd parties to be viable, but the fact of the matter is that in our winner takes all system they just aren't. In a parliamentary system like they have in England, the 5-6% of the vote that the greens or libertarians get would mean that they also get 5-6% representation in the government. In America, your vote is in essence a political statement (which is fine and good) but at the end of the day, amounts to nothing more. Other Californians will pick up your slack anyway, so by all means, give your vote to anyone you like.

Beyond that, these tiny parties are disorganized and poorly run, because they just don't have the funding, experience, staff and organizational skills to get their act together. It's not their fault, the system keeps them down. They also often pick candidates based on name recognition rather than ideology. For instance, the libertarians are going with Republican Bob Barr this election, just like the greens went with consumer advocate Nader (rather than an environmentalist) for the last two elections and Democrat Cynthia McKinney this election.

The best strategy, IMO, is to infiltrate one of the 2 parties and co-opt it. That way you can use the infrastructure already in place, rather than have to build it from the ground up. This is happening in the Democratic party right now, which started with the election of Howard Dean to the DNC chair and now the candidacy of Obama. We are seeing a push to get rid of corporate Democrats and make the party into what it should be.

I'd love to see Ron Paul, who was the Howard Dean of this election, become the RNC chair and clean house. I'd love to see both parties live up to their own ideology and send the corporate fluffers home. Wouldn't it be nice if both parties had integrity and could get along?

Lastly, we've heard the 3rd party domino theory (2%, 8%, 20%, etc.) before from the greens, and it is pure fantasy. Third parties get very little brand loyalty. Their popularity is directly linked to the name recognition of their presidential candidate. Bob Barr will do much better than Baderink because everyone knows who he is, just as Nader did well in the last two elections. The greens will do worse this year because Cynthia McKinney does not have the name recognition of Nader. So, it's still a myopic popularity contest, just with smaller guest list.

If you want to be true to your conscience, why not write in Ron Paul? I assume he's the dude you'd like to be President. He's a great guy and there are no questions about his integrity. Why be a chicken little and vote for the 'officially sanctioned' non-libertarian, libertarian, celebrity candidate, rather than vote for the man who inspires you the most?

I'm most likely voting Bob Barr. I roll my eyes at anyone who says I'm throwing away my vote OR that by doing so I'm allowing McCain to win. What a myopic viewpoint those are. In 2004 I decided to make my vote count because I couldn't imagine an America with 4 more years of Bush. Well, we had four more, and I'm happy to report that the bottom of the country did not drop out and Satan did not rape me. Phew! I voted out of fear, and I think that was a myopic cop out on my part.

This time around, I'll let the Chicken Littles rush off and vote for the only two choices anyone seems to believe we have for president. But, what most people fail to realize, if you vote for the party or person you believe in then this year they may only get 8% of the vote, but next election they may get 12% or 20% and so on. Eventually, others will take notice and get the hint that the political pool shouldn't be so shallow.

You didn't answer my question blanky. Are you going to leave President blank? Write in RP? Vote for Bob Barr and his suspiciously timed overnight conversion from neo-con to libertarian? Not vote at all?

(To all who don't know siftculture: I downvoted bf for humorous purposes only.)

I've not seen Obama state that we need to give more support to Georgia. In fact, the charge was made that Obama's response wasn't forceful enough because, as Lieberman put it, it had a "moral ambiguity" as far as placing blame on either country (since Georgia isn't blameless).

I've also seen a lot of statements from the Obama campaign that "there's only one President", referring to a tradition of, well, not trying to undermine the President's authority in the midst of a crisis.

To the larger charge of their policy being the same, I think that's inaccurate -- they're similar in their view that America has a role to play on the world stage, and that our national interests involve places like Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

The way they choose to deal with those challenges differs wildly.

Grampy McSame John McCain wants to forego diplomacy, and move straight into the military response phase with all of those guys (except Pakistan, oddly). Obama thinks diplomacy is in order, with military action being a last resort, not a first resort.

McCain believes in the right of the United States to act with total disregard of the international community, Obama seeks to work within the International community first, while reserving the right for unilateralism as a last resort.

It's true that both have a huge difference from Ron Paul's policy of total non-intervention, but I'm not sold on the concept that America should try to change instantly from it's current level of involvement to Switzerland in one go.

Obama moves us several steps towards Switzerland, McCain moves us closer to a Roman Empire model.

Much as I wish Ron Paul, or Bob Barr, or Ralph Nader, or Cynthia McKinney had a shot at winning, they do not. Either Obama or McCain will be our 44th President.

If you believe in what Paul has to say about foreign policy, Obama's your guy.

"Any effort to punish Americans for consensual activities is oppressive, doomed, and deserving of failure." - Bob Barr

The medical argument is really a red herring. More importantly, we should be free to put whatever we want into our bodies. I have no problem with outlawing driving while intoxicated -- it doesn't matter what the person uses to get intoxicated. It is legal for me to drink in my own home, by the same token it should be legal to smoke marijuana.

This is where we come full circle to our ideological differences. I'm all in favor of alternatives and conservation. I just don't see any valid reasons not to allow oil companies to expand production while that work continues. I've heard all the "it won't make a difference" stuff before as well. The flaw I see in your idea of trivial amounts of oil is that it comes from estimates made many years ago (as in prior to the moratorium in 1981) with outdated equipment. The same organization responsible for this OCS estimate (the MMS) also placed numbers from the Gulf of Mexico at barely 9 billion barrels. That was in 1987, many years *after* they estimated the OCS numbers. Now, with modern technology, that estimate has skyrocketed to upwards of 45 billion barrels. I think that warrants another check.

Also, since you keep bringing up the leases not being used, this is also false. In fact, it doesn't even make any logical sense. After checking around, I think it is safe to assume that the source of your information is once again the MMS (Minerals Management Service). It seems they have a listing of over 7,000 leases out with only just under 2,000 identified as "producing." Well, the devil is once again in the details. The MMS does not classify a lease as active until it produces over 130,000 barrels a day. Since those leases have been purchased, there has been exploratory drilling, developmental plans filed, environmental surveys taken, spill recovery plans filed, and infrastructure is being produced to actually begin getting the oil out of the ground. So, once again, it is a problem with not checking out the details of what is being claimed.

Again, I am all in favor of alternatives being developed. I'm just not in favor of it being artifically forced through government market interference. There really have been no valid reasons not to produce more domestic oil while developing alternatives that I have seen. From what I have seen and heard of it, Bob Barr's energy policy ideas sound like something I can agree with. Unfortunately, no one pays attention to things outside of the two party system.

>> ^nadabu:

First off, that was a wonderful comment, and that's why I always hate the whole abortion debate, because I empathize with the pro-life argument.

I think calling it murder is associating it with the wrong crime. I think it's more like partial suicide, since the baby can't survive without the mother, and I don't think anyone has premeditated the malicious killing of their own child when they're having an abortion.

Attempting suicide is illegal, but it doesn't seem to have stopped people from doing it.

The pro-choice argument isn't about diminishing the life of the baby, it's about trying to keep these partial suicides from turning into full-on suicide, because banning abortions won't stop them from happening, but it will stop them from being done in a fashion that puts the mother at risk.

The other half of the argument, and the half that's gone neglected much of the time is that we do want to reduce the number of abortions, primarily by reducing unwanted pregnancies through sex education, and access to contraceptives.

That said, I always find myself wavering about this topic when it really gets discussed, and I'd really like to find a compromise on it that a) ensures it's rare b) ensures the safety of the mother c) isn't based on religious dogma.

The sci-fi fan in me says the whole thing would become moot if we had a way to transfer the fetus to an artificial womb. That way the former-mother would have the baby gone right away, but it could still be carried to term, and adopted.

Maybe the answer is to pour money into that, I don't know.

Since I can't resist the political angles, I've got to point out that Bob Barr's ex-wife says he consented to her having an abortion while they were still married (and Larry Flynt of all people presented evidence that supported the claim). Also, Bob Barr voted for the Patriot act just a few short years ago when he was a hardline Republican.

If you want Obama to win...vote for him!

I really don't get how pro-choice people can talk like it's all about the woman and her choice, casual or not. I don't care how seriously you thought about killing that person, murder is murder.

I saw my daughter on the ultrasound just 6 weeks after she was conceived. She had arms, legs, hands, heartbeat, brainwaves, and we could see her moving around. Small, but very obviously a human being just halfway through the first trimester. I have seen babies who were born just 5 months after conception and survived, not even through the second trimester yet.

How can people be ok with killing these innocent little kids? I am passionate believer in limited government, but forgive me if i think that it is very much the government's duty to try and prevent murder, especially those innocents who cannot defend themselves. It is especially unconscionable that the federal government actively prevents state governments from stopping these murders and even goes so far as to fund them with taxpayer dollars. Makes me sick.

I want Obama as president because i do not trust McCain and i'm sick of Bush's policies. But i will not vote for him. I'll be voting for Bob Barr, thank you very much.

My comment was directed at rougy's assumptions that hecklers are only ejected by Republicans, not that the video tried to make that point. I'm not defending the guy in this video. It is nice that Obama attempts to talk to some of his hecklers, but really... who cares. If you are a big enough ass to scream at someone while they are giving a speech, I don't think you deserve to be responded to. There are other ways to address your concerns that are more mature.

Also, the video you posted of "weeding out" potential hecklers does not strike me as anything out of the ordinary. They rented a space for the meeting, told people not to enter the building with signs, and the lady did it anyway. She would have been perfectly fine if she stayed on public property with her sign. It is no different than Obama's campaign "weeding out" the Muslim woman from being able to sit behind the podium at his speech in Detroit. At the end of an Obama video that you yourself posted, a heckler has his sign taken away while Obama responds to him.

Since you referred to my "universe of thought" which I think you have pegged incorrectly, I don't like either candidate. They are both status quo. McCain is not a conservative in the traditional sense of small government, and anything he does now is pandering for the Republican votes he knows he won't get. Obama is going to win the election with hollow promises of an undefined change through white guilt votes and appealing to people's stupidity. His policy ideas, as well as McCain's, sound terrible to me. Both candidates are liars and affiliated with suspicous people. Both candidates constantly double talk and make statements inconsistant with their voting records. There are no McCain defenders here, so his screw-ups are all over the place. Any information that tarnishes the Obamessiah is attacked as lies by his blind supporters. With the characters Obama befriends, he would never even be able to acquire a rudimentary security clearance if he were an average citizen applying for federal employment. Both candidates are a shit sandwich. This election I'm either writing someone in or reluctantly voting for the quasi-Libertarian Bob Barr.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11168.html

I think it's time the American public realize that regardless of who they vote for this election they lose. Even going outside the mainstream parties you have Bob Barr and Ralph Nader on the other ends. It's a lose - lose situation. The GOP picked a terrible blinded lose cannon for a candidate, and the DNC picked an idealizng and fantasizing puppet.

>> ^Irishman:
>> ^NetRunner:
Your definition of neocon is about as accurate as me calling Ron Paul an anarchist. They have a couple things they agree on, but they're definitely not one and the same. Pure flamebait, frankly.
Who do you think we should hand Iraq over to?

A couple of things they agree on. Like policy, and policy.
Obama is flying around the planet making speeches about fighting extremism, Iranian nukes, terrorists hiding in caves plotting to take over America, this is the same exact stuff we've had for 20 years now.
What is wrong with people's heads who can't see this. It's plain daylight stuff folks, the stuff Obama has been saying should really be scaring the shit out of people.
Wrong president America, wrong president. Europe and the rest of the world will NEVER forgive America for electing this man.


MrFisk actually preemptively gave much of my answer, which is that neocons and Democrats are in absolute opposition on domestic policy.

With foreign policy, Neocons are now in favor of a form of imperialism -- drum up casus belli, invade, substitute the old government with a new friendly one, and incidentally get some sort of contract to a material resource (like oil). That's why we invaded Iraq for WMDs that weren't there, while North Korea's nuclear test was met with mere diplomacy. It's why the same gambit is being run in Iran.

Obama just wants us to focus on just fighting to keep the Taliban from re-taking Afghanistan, and working with Pakistan to root out the Al Qaeda camps. Every other foreign policy issue out there, he wants to use diplomacy to solve, though he says he won't shy away from the use of military if necessary (to avoid appearing weak before the ravenous American populace).

As jwray said, all Obama does here is acknowledge that there is some threat, and in fact this is actually a clip of the very speech where he got attacked by McCain for downplaying Iran's threat, because he said it was less threatening than the Soviet Union.

McCain sings "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran", makes a joke about killing Iranians with cigarettes, and clearly says there will be more wars.

As much as I wish third party candidates had a shot of being President, they simply do not. One of these two will be President.

Between the two, which worries Europe more, the candidate who occasionally talks about potential threats against a backdrop of talking about the need for diplomacy, or the one who cavalierly uses the language of fear every time a camera is stuck in his face, and attacks his opponent for wanting to talk to the leaders of other nations?

I think Europe will be able to forgive us for electing Obama over McCain.

If you're hoping for Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, or even Ron Paul, as much as I wish they had a fair chance of winning, they simply will not.

>> ^my15minutes:
and it's not that fiscal conservatives are heartless, necessarily. most would simply want charity to be left in private hands, and can present equally sound reasons and priorities for it.

I agree, I don't think conservative citizens are heartless (for the most part), I just think the leadership of the Republican party is completely heartless -- and that people for some reason wind up backing a party that fights efforts to control carbon emissions, fights efforts to improve education, fights efforts to improve health care, and wants us to "compete" with third world nations for the lowest common wage.


for starters, it's more efficient. if you give directly to a charity, the state doesn't have to take a cut, to maintain their staff and expenses. so when i give to a charity, one of the first things i check is the percentage of all donations that is necessary for the upkeep of the charity itself.
http://charityreports.bbb.org/public/All.aspx?bureauID=9999#H
American Red Cross - Programs: 95% Fund Raising: 2% Administrative: 3%
promote!


Private organizations aren't always better: Medicare has similarly low overhead (3%), while Aetna has overhead costs approaching 25%.

For things like feeding, educating, and providing care for the less fortunate, why do we have to make it voluntary? Don't we have a collective responsibility to help?

I understand the intellectual arguments from conservatives, but they're usually based on an automatic assumption that private organizations are always better for every purpose, and that just isn't the case.

There's also an ethical calculus at work behind it that seems foreign to me. To me, paying more taxes to improve education, provide better health care, and fund research into alternative energy sounds like a great idea that will end up benefiting everyone. To conservatives, it's stealing their hard-earned cash to give to "people who didn't earn it".

The higher minded make into a conversation about whether we can trust the government to use our money for things like education, and not booze, hookers, and wars in Iraq, but that's a whole different problem -- one we can fix with ballot boxes, or failing that, torches and pitchforks.

...but I'm ranting again. Thanks for the promote.

>> ^quantumushroom:
McCain is electable if the only other choice is a marxist.


There's always Bob Barr, or Ron Paul, if Marxists aren't your thing.

PS: Good luck with the "Obama is a Marxist" tripe, I'm sure repeating it constantly won't make you look like a shallow idiot with no grasp of history or politics.