What if one candidate were to promise to expand trade negotiations to include video game sales [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/93/14]?
Presidential Bids
- Thread starter TomBeraha
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You have to be a citizen to vote. But I bet they'd appreciate it if you funneled some of your pirate munnies toward their campaign. 
Check out the McCain-Feingold act. It limits, or tries to, the way candidates can accept campaign finance. Pretty good stuff.
Also, I saved a speech by Al Gore [http://waterthread.org/?page_id=192] talking about how votes are pretty much something you can buy in terms of television air time. It's pretty interesting, damning and makes me wish he'd run again, if only because he's shown a smidgeon of honesty about the whole process.
Also, I saved a speech by Al Gore [http://waterthread.org/?page_id=192] talking about how votes are pretty much something you can buy in terms of television air time. It's pretty interesting, damning and makes me wish he'd run again, if only because he's shown a smidgeon of honesty about the whole process.
We have an election here next Sunday. It's for the Mayor of Buenos Aires. There are 3 main candidates with chances (the rest of the country's provinces will have just 2, one of each party when their election time comes however), and the amount of money they're throwing makes perfectly clear that nobody without their financial possibilities stands a chance of competing with their publicity/advertising power. One of them is a business man (linked to several dirty practices in his past), other is our actual president's puppet (and has the ruling party's political support), and the other has been governing the city for the last two years (so he's using the city's money to fix EVERY AVAILABLE street and get the votes).
The other candidates will amount to maybe 5% of the votes that these three fail to get. They had a debate last week, their proposals were completely vacuous, no one said anything concrete, just "we are going to do this" (never HOW they are going to do it) and a poll a couple of weeks ago showed that 60% of the population will decide their vote based on what they see on TV... democracy is the best system by far, but we surely need to fix it.
The other candidates will amount to maybe 5% of the votes that these three fail to get. They had a debate last week, their proposals were completely vacuous, no one said anything concrete, just "we are going to do this" (never HOW they are going to do it) and a poll a couple of weeks ago showed that 60% of the population will decide their vote based on what they see on TV... democracy is the best system by far, but we surely need to fix it.
Joe, the McCain-Feingold Act doesn't do what you think it does. Read it closely and ponder the implications; you're out of step with your own civil libertarianism and vocal politicking in supporting it, I think. It's one of the most restrictive laws on free political speech ever enacted. And it certainly hasn't taken the money out of politics: Post M-F, campaign financing costs more than ever, despite TV advertising being cheaper than in the past, despite Internet advertising being widely available, despite radio and print costing less.
As far as America being further right than the rest of the world, we're certainly further right than much of social democratic Europe and socialist Latin America. Are we really all that further right than Singapore, Japan, or South Korea?
As far as America being further right than the rest of the world, we're certainly further right than much of social democratic Europe and socialist Latin America. Are we really all that further right than Singapore, Japan, or South Korea?
No, America is really not all that further right than the country with 6 million North Korean missiles aimed at it every day, the country that unilaterally harvests thousands of endangered whales every year for "scientific research", or the country where you need a licence to chew bubble gum. Would you want it to be?
I think a good solution to organize campaign financing would be to provide a certain amount of free air time (TV, radio, Internet is probably beyond this kind of control however, although some measures could try to restrict the amount of websites dedicated to each campaign) to each party and candidate (the same amount) when the elections approach. This way money would be removed as a factor from the equation and the amount of time would be the same for everybody. Candidates would probably need to give concrete proposals instead of winning by endless repetition of empty phrases.
Fraser, it's easy to cherry-pick the flaws of a nation and make it sound like a horrible place or an evil state. It's done to America so often ("the nation of gun-packing cowboy racists") that I practically have the mantra memorized.
Why not describe the countries I mentioned as "the country where gaming is the national pastime, the country that gives us anime and Nintendo, or the cleanest country in southeast Asia"? Or let's describe France as "the country with declining population, rampant unemployment and grossly unassimilated religious minority" and make it sound awwful.
The real point is that America is a "right wing" country only when viewed from a Western European lens, and I don't think that Europe sits at the median political spectrum. I could argue that late 20th century / early 21st century Europe is aberrantly left-wing.
Why not describe the countries I mentioned as "the country where gaming is the national pastime, the country that gives us anime and Nintendo, or the cleanest country in southeast Asia"? Or let's describe France as "the country with declining population, rampant unemployment and grossly unassimilated religious minority" and make it sound awwful.
The real point is that America is a "right wing" country only when viewed from a Western European lens, and I don't think that Europe sits at the median political spectrum. I could argue that late 20th century / early 21st century Europe is aberrantly left-wing.
And what do you guys think about this Ron Paul? Judging from the outside he doesn't seem so bad...
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/02/ron_paul/
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/02/ron_paul/
He's very good at public relations. I mean, he certainly charmed that particular reporter. I like a lot of what he has to say, but it's all about as vague as you can expect from a campaigning politician, and it's not as if I've found nothing to disagree with even in that. I'll see if he survives to the primaries. His name's coming up a lot now, but when the bigger names start their push, it might be too much for him.
Ok, fair call - I am absolutely picking the negatives. But it's not to make the countries look bad; rather to illustrate how right-wing they are (or in South Korea's case, why they have an excellent motivation to be right-wing). Your examples are about good or bad aspects of the country, separate from politics. In fact, Singapore's cleanliness is a direct result of tight government control, and even Nintendo's success is built partly on Japan's loosely-regulated labour market and culture of deference to authority.Archon said:
This is probably not what you meant to imply, but I don't think either political wing is good or bad; they both have their strengths. In my opinion, most places take conservatism too far - which brings us to:
True. It's subjective. My best quick definition would be this:Archon said:
-A centralist is fine with the way things are.
-A left-winger favours an increase in social freedom, economic regulation and scientific progress.
-A right-winger favours an increase in social rules, economic freedom and religious faith.
That way the centre varies depending on the current situation and the scale of reference. If you arrange the world's countries on those axes, I expect the right hand side would feature iron-fist dictatorships, followed by Sharia-ruled states like Iran - basically nowhere you'd want to live - followed by places like Singapore and South Korea, with the United States still a decent way along in that direction.
On the left you'd have France, Scandinavia, parts of South America, and Canada further in.
In the middle... not sure. Perhaps the UK. I'm tempted to say Australia but then I would say that; I live here.
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An unrelated point occurred to me this morning: the USA doesn't really have a name. That is, its name is just a description: the United States of America. "America" doesn't count as a name, because that's just the part of the description that says where these states-that-are-united exist. Despite the US's appropriation of the word, "America" is technically a whole pair of continents, not just that one country.
I can't think of another nation with this lack of a name. Even the UK is "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", and they get to use "Britain", not to mention England (Scotland too, I suppose, and Wales if we're feeling generous).
I think Ron Paul would go over huge with the younger demographic, who may mistakenly think they're voting for artist Sean Paul.TWP said:
Ron Paul is one of the few politicians I respect, mostly due to his adherence to his principles, but I do not share "Mr. No"'s (his nickname, because he votes against nearly all bills in congress on the basis that they exceed the federal governments authority) views of a _very_ limited federal government. Nor do I think many of his more "superficial" supporters would vote for him if they fully understood to what extent his principles (if carried out, which is not very realistic I'll admit) would minimize the federal government.TWP said:
A specific question that's somehow related to the candidates... what do you think of your health system? Would you like it to be more "European/Canadian" style? (welfare state style, the kind that increases taxes to provide a free high quality service), or the kind that I understand you have now?
Well. for the Democrats it's between H. Clinton and Obama. Personally I think Obama is best suited for the job. I don't like Hilary's demeanor, she strikes more as a politician than a leader. Which is what our current president is (Actually he's just a stooge). Obama seems like a person who you can trust to have the people's best interest in mind and tell the entrenched politician's that look after themselves and lobbyists to go, for the lack of a better term, fuck themselves. I am hoping with every piece of me that Obama wins the Democratic nomination, goes on to be our next president and puts our country back on track.
I'm not quite sure I understand the benefit to this. Would you mind expanding on your thoughts? I've actually never heard of this.TomBeraha said:
@dv8withn8: I think to believe that GWB is a "stooge" is to severely underestimate the man. You may completely disagree with what he does (which I do, on most counts), but I believe that he has done exactly as he has pleased, his entire presidency. He gets what he wants, even if its not what you want. In some cases, he acts the fool because it suits his purposes, and in others, he probably lacks tact, or as is theorized, has a mild form of dyslexia. He's no fool. The man is a politician through and through, and I simply have trouble believing he's anyone's puppet.