174 replies to this topic

[Devils731]

http://www.theatlant...k-obama/262861/

On top of that, we have a precedent for using drone strikes on American Citizens now.

I'm on the fence about both issues, on one hand I'm comfortable using drone strikes on people who are engaging in war or war-like activities against the US, on the other hand, especially in the case of US Citizens who have additional rights owed by the US gov't, when have we made the threshold too easy to use this method? I don't know the answer, we may not even be at the point it is too easy yet. It's an issue I can see both sides of and agree with some of what everyone says.

Edited by Devils731, 26 September 2012 - 10:42 PM.

[devilsadvoc8]

I am really leaning towards Gary Johnson the more I read about both major party candidates.

[Masked Fan]

"other" votes are what sways the election nowadays. It is amazing. The "3rd" parties don't have enough support to knock out a "Big 2", but they absolutely can torpedo one of them by drawing votes away.

[devilsfan26]

"other" votes are what sways the election nowadays. It is amazing. The "3rd" parties don't have enough support to knock out a "Big 2", but they absolutely can torpedo one of them by drawing votes away.

This is such an annoying argument. Why are votes being "taken away" from the major parties? Why are they entitled to all the votes until a third party takes them away? If there were no third parties or write-ins, I wouldn't vote at all. Neither major party is worth my support and nobody on the ballot is entitled to votes just because they are a Democrat or Republican. With the double standard of ballot access laws and media coverage and campaign finance, etc., I would say that Romney and Obama are costing Johnson and Stein the election moreso than the other way around.

Of course not all third party voters would refuse to vote if Obama and Romney were the only two choices, but that is why the fairest election format would be range voting. In range voting you don't have to worry about costing anyone an election because you get to rate each candidate on a scale of 1-10 or 1-100, etc. This allows you to voice your support or opposition for as many candidates as you want, and also measure just how much you support or oppose each candidate. So if you are a conservative for example you would be able to give Johnson a 100, Romney an 80, Stein a 40, and Obama a 1. You can show full support for Johnson, a true conservative, without having to worry about "costing" Romney the election. Same goes for Stein. Of course neither major party is interested in this kind of fairness because it would hurt their chances of perpetuating their stranglehold over this country. You can learn more at www.rangevoting.org, it's pretty interesting to see just how inefficient our voting system is, where you are forced to approve one candidate 100% and completely disapprove all the others.

[ghdi]

"other" votes are what sways the election nowadays. It is amazing. The "3rd" parties don't have enough support to knock out a "Big 2", but they absolutely can torpedo one of them by drawing votes away.

There is some truth to this, but its not an across the board "always" sort of thing. Definitely, Perot in 92 and Nader in 2000 had an effect, but even in that respect its blown out of proportion, at least in respect to Nader. The third parties right now will not draw enough votes away from either of the "big 2" to have an effect this year. It's really a cycle to cycle thing. You gotta look at it state by state since its not a true national election. Its a series of 50 state elections.

Dont get me wrong, I'd love to have viable 3rd (and 4th and 5th and 6th) party candidates that truly have a chance, but it's more that they "can" have an effect rather than they "do". I personally believe that a vote for a candidate that is assuredly going to lose is a wasted vote, but I completely understand the perspective of someone voting for one of those people as its their right. There are too many people not tuned into the process for an outside party to win right now with the rules set up the way they are.

I also would like to see the electoral college done away with. I think its an archaic way to elect someone, espc when someone can win the popular vote, yet still lose.

I would say that Romney and Obama are costing Johnson and Stein the election moreso than the other way around.

I actually agree. The problem is money and the stranglehold on the process that the two major parties have. I would love to see Stein and Johnson allowed to debate. IMO if you get on a percentage of the ballot (say 75%), you should automatically be allowed to debate. I also think Citizens United should be done away with. There should be no anonymous money in politics. The rules as they are set up now are heavily weighted towards the two major parties.

[95Crash]

My hope is that Jesse Ventura runs in 2016. I've never done it, but I would absolutely consider campaigning for that man. 150 years of Republican and Democrat dominance is enough. They won't lose it this year though.

Ventura thinks the Twin Towers were brought down by the US gov't through painted Thermite on the walls and that HAARP may have caused the tsunami in Japan. Just those alone are pretty outside the main stream and, for me, pretty nutty.

I really like a lot of things Ventura has had to say, such as:

-- being "fiscally conservative and socially liberal
-- gay rights, gay marriage
-- feeling that the two-party system has corrupted government
-- stop nation building and bring a lot of our troops home

Plus he's not afraid to admit when he doesn't know something or hasn't yet formed a definitive opinion on the issue. Some might see that as a negative, but I see it as a positive.

I wish there were more candidates out there voicing similar positions.

As for his 9/11 theories, I could look past them because I think he'd be smart enough not to waste a lot of time delving into it if he saw that it was going to prevent him from handling more urgent matters.

However, he isn't even running this time around, so it's all moot.

[devilsfan26]

I personally believe that a vote for a candidate that is assuredly going to lose is a wasted vote, but I completely understand the perspective of someone voting for one of those people as its their right.

I actually agree. The problem is money and the stranglehold on the process that the two major parties have. I would love to see Stein and Johnson allowed to debate. IMO if you get on a percentage of the ballot (say 75%), you should automatically be allowed to debate. I also think Citizens United should be done away with. There should be no anonymous money in politics. The rules as they are set up now are heavily weighted towards the two major parties.

The only wasted votes are the ones that are cast for someone you don't truly support. Also even though Stein or Johnson most likely won't win, if they get a certain percentage of the vote, I believe their party is automatically on the ballot the next time around, so it is not at all a wasted vote. It actually ends up being more meaningful than a vote cast for Romney in a state that Obama wins because it's actually going to count for something.

And yeah the Commission on Presidential Debates is a partnership between the two major parties so they're obviously going to do whatever they can to keep everybody out except for Romney and Obama. Gary Johnson has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against them though, so we'll see what becomes of it. Meanwhile, the Republicans are still challenging Johnson's ballot access petition signatures in court. They have lost the challenges in I think every state they've challenged in, but they are appealing just to waste the limited time and money the Libertarian Party has. They needed somewhere around 20,000 signatures in Pennsylvania to get on the ballot, and they got nearly 50,000, but the Republicans are still appealing the ruling that enough of the signatures are valid. They know it's bullsh!t but they're just trying to waste the Libertarian Party's resources. The Democrats did the same to Nader in 2004. The major parties are 100% opposed to fair elections, if you support fair elections but vote for either of the two major parties, to me that is a wasted vote.

This is the only debate that matters this year:
http://freeandequal....idential-debate

[95Crash]

This is the only debate that matters this year:
http://freeandequal....idential-debate

I'd be interested in watching that. Thanks for posting.

[Masked Fan]

... actually ends up being more meaningful than a vote cast for Romney in a state that Obama wins because it's actually going to count for something.

That's the part of the electoral college I can't stand. I see using it to keep candidates from ignoring less populated states and blowing off their concerns, but I really don't think it should be used as it is anymore. A states electoral votes should be split proportionally to the popular vote outcome I can NOT stand all of NJ's electorates going to the democrats. I know this may have gotten Al "internet" Gore elected, but whatever is fair is always what you want.

... They needed somewhere around 20,000 signatures in Pennsylvania to get on the ballot, and they got nearly 50,000, but the Republicans are still appealing the ruling that enough of the signatures are valid.

Can't stand this horsesh!t either. I just picture a room full of cigar chewing fat bodies planning how they will "waste the competitions money" by throwing bullsh!t lawsuits at them. I SO want frivolous lawsuits across the boards to be more punishable.

[Cachorro Louco]

Can two parties make a Coalition to run in the office??

[Masked Fan]

Can two parties make a Coalition to run in the office??

Besides there being a chasm between political views and what each party represents, I don't see why not. I'm sure there's some political bs rule preventing it though.
But I could see it being beneficial for a couple of them to team up with the more popular of the two running for pres and the lesser as his vp. At least that'd give em a better chance.

[devilsfan26]

That's the part of the electoral college I can't stand. I see using it to keep candidates from ignoring less populated states and blowing off their concerns, but I really don't think it should be used as it is anymore. A states electoral votes should be split proportionally to the popular vote outcome I can NOT stand all of NJ's electorates going to the democrats. I know this may have gotten Al "internet" Gore elected, but whatever is fair is always what you want.

Agreed and if we keep on electing Democrats and Republicans it is NEVER going to change. The odds of a third party or independent knocking down all the obstacles and winning the presidency are very small, but at least if the Democrats and Republicans keep missing out on votes to the third parties and independents, they may pick up some parts of their platforms.

[mouse]

it is NEVER going to change.

Unfortunately, while everything you said is valid, I think this is the most accurate part of your statement.

I'm voting Obama, because I'm liberal, because I want to see progress on gay marriage, and no repeal of Roe v. Wade, and I think 4 more years of a Democrat appointing judges helps that (though I'm disgusted that in a system in which legislative, executive, and judicial are supposed to be separate, the highest judicial body is a political appointment by the legislative branch).

I'm sick of the 2 party system, but doubt it ever changes, especially because it breeds apathy. If all the disgusted undecideds/non voters made a statement by showing up and voting for a 3rd party candidate, that would be the biggest landslide ever. If they split between Stein and Johnson those 2 would still destroy Romney and Obama, but it will be a miracle if many of them even turn on the news election day, forget going to the polls.

Finally, I'm disappointed in Obama's first term, like anyone with a brain should be, but I still have some hope he'll get better. I think he ran assuming American politics could change, and found out he was wrong. I hope he has learned to work in the Washington we have rather than trying to create a decent Washington. I also think he was working more toward reelection the past couple years (disgusting, but again, that's the Washington we have), and hope he spends a second term making the decisions he feels are right for the country rather than safe. I was young during the Clinton years, but I remember him doing a lot more good things in his second term, even as he was mired in the Lewinsky crap.

[ATLL765]

http://www.theatlant...k-obama/262861/

That article sucked. The guy has crap reasons for wasting his vote. Gary Johnson? Who the fvck is Gary Johnson and why is anyone pretending he's relevant to this election. The problem with the thought that Johnson might affect the election is that they think, "well, Nader had an effect in 2000". Well, that's because Nader only took away votes from one party's base, the Dems. Johnson, while appealing to some tea party like people, takes from both ends of the political spectrum. He gets the people who like Ron Paul for saying drugs should be legal and admitting our foreign policies make us an empire, but he also gets people who think any gov't is too much gov't, and those people are mostly republicans. For Johnson to matter, he'll have to steal a significantly higher amount of votes from one or the other party, because if he steals from both, it won't make a difference in reality.

So my point is that if your choices are truly only Obama or Romney, who do you think will do the best job while containing more of your ideals than the other guy. Obama wins for me on that, not because I'm in love with him or think he's the beacon of light at the front of the lefty train, but because I think Romney would be that much worse than him. I don't know who Mitt Romney is, I don't know what he thinks, believes or, hell, even if the guy likes apple pie or not. No one knows because Mitt Romney isn't a person, he's a puppet, he can be anything he needs to be, moderate or extreme, whichever is most advantageous at the time, he will be. At least Obama makes me feel like he's a genuine person who's had varying life experiences. With Romney, I just see an image in my head of him eating his caviar laced meal on the top of his ironing board in the dingy basement apartment he and his wife shared in their most difficult time(bleghhhh<--me vomiting).

I don't think our foreign policy has changed much, if at all from Bush II and I don't like Obama for that, I hate the drone strikes that surely create more terrorists than they could ever possible kill and his half assed try at universal healthcare is just plain blah, it's a half way watered down compromise that doesn't really achieve anything except higher profits for the insurance companies. But Obama at least thinks that's the right(ish) direction, Romney wants us to all live in tax free utopia where magic paves roads and whatnot, but that's not reality, we can't all pay only 10-15% taxes, I barely make any money and I pay around 18-20%, about 50% more than Romney did the past two years and one can only assume, even more compared to what he paid previous to that.

[devilsfan26]

That article sucked. The guy has crap reasons for wasting his vote. Gary Johnson? Who the fvck is Gary Johnson and why is anyone pretending he's relevant to this election. The problem with the thought that Johnson might affect the election is that they think, "well, Nader had an effect in 2000". Well, that's because Nader only took away votes from one party's base, the Dems. Johnson, while appealing to some tea party like people, takes from both ends of the political spectrum. He gets the people who like Ron Paul for saying drugs should be legal and admitting our foreign policies make us an empire, but he also gets people who think any gov't is too much gov't, and those people are mostly republicans. For Johnson to matter, he'll have to steal a significantly higher amount of votes from one or the other party, because if he steals from both, it won't make a difference in reality.

So my point is that if your choices are truly only Obama or Romney, who do you think will do the best job while containing more of your ideals than the other guy. Obama wins for me on that, not because I'm in love with him or think he's the beacon of light at the front of the lefty train, but because I think Romney would be that much worse than him. I don't know who Mitt Romney is, I don't know what he thinks, believes or, hell, even if the guy likes apple pie or not. No one knows because Mitt Romney isn't a person, he's a puppet, he can be anything he needs to be, moderate or extreme, whichever is most advantageous at the time, he will be. At least Obama makes me feel like he's a genuine person who's had varying life experiences. With Romney, I just see an image in my head of him eating his caviar laced meal on the top of his ironing board in the dingy basement apartment he and his wife shared in their most difficult time(bleghhhh<--me vomiting).

I don't think our foreign policy has changed much, if at all from Bush II and I don't like Obama for that, I hate the drone strikes that surely create more terrorists than they could ever possible kill and his half assed try at universal healthcare is just plain blah, it's a half way watered down compromise that doesn't really achieve anything except higher profits for the insurance companies. But Obama at least thinks that's the right(ish) direction, Romney wants us to all live in tax free utopia where magic paves roads and whatnot, but that's not reality, we can't all pay only 10-15% taxes, I barely make any money and I pay around 18-20%, about 50% more than Romney did the past two years and one can only assume, even more compared to what he paid previous to that.

Thank you for your eloquent response. Gary Johnson is a two-term governor of New Mexico. If you think Nader only took votes from the Democrats then you are just believing whatever the Democrats told you because if you actually did any research you would know that is not the case. Also, these people are not "taking" votes. People are willingly voting for them over any of the others because they are who they want to see as president. Why are the Democrats and Republicans entitled to everybody's vote? If I vote for Johnson, he isn't "taking" my vote away from Romney or Obama. Also the fact that people on both sides of the aisle support Johnson shows how bad the two major parties are at representing their voter bases.

If my choices are only Obama and Romney, that would really suck. I wouldn't even bother voting because both of them are so bad and are practically the same. Luckily they haven't completely taken all third parties and independents off the ballot, at least not yet.

[devilsadvoc8]

That article sucked. The guy has crap reasons for wasting his vote. Gary Johnson? Who the fvck is Gary Johnson and why is anyone pretending he's relevant to this election. The problem with the thought that Johnson might affect the election is that they think, "well, Nader had an effect in 2000". Well, that's because Nader only took away votes from one party's base, the Dems. Johnson, while appealing to some tea party like people, takes from both ends of the political spectrum. He gets the people who like Ron Paul for saying drugs should be legal and admitting our foreign policies make us an empire, but he also gets people who think any gov't is too much gov't, and those people are mostly republicans. For Johnson to matter, he'll have to steal a significantly higher amount of votes from one or the other party, because if he steals from both, it won't make a difference in reality.

So my point is that if your choices are truly only Obama or Romney, who do you think will do the best job while containing more of your ideals than the other guy. Obama wins for me on that, not because I'm in love with him or think he's the beacon of light at the front of the lefty train, but because I think Romney would be that much worse than him. I don't know who Mitt Romney is, I don't know what he thinks, believes or, hell, even if the guy likes apple pie or not. No one knows because Mitt Romney isn't a person, he's a puppet, he can be anything he needs to be, moderate or extreme, whichever is most advantageous at the time, he will be. At least Obama makes me feel like he's a genuine person who's had varying life experiences. With Romney, I just see an image in my head of him eating his caviar laced meal on the top of his ironing board in the dingy basement apartment he and his wife shared in their most difficult time(bleghhhh<--me vomiting).

I don't think our foreign policy has changed much, if at all from Bush II and I don't like Obama for that, I hate the drone strikes that surely create more terrorists than they could ever possible kill and his half assed try at universal healthcare is just plain blah, it's a half way watered down compromise that doesn't really achieve anything except higher profits for the insurance companies. But Obama at least thinks that's the right(ish) direction, Romney wants us to all live in tax free utopia where magic paves roads and whatnot, but that's not reality, we can't all pay only 10-15% taxes, I barely make any money and I pay around 18-20%, about 50% more than Romney did the past two years and one can only assume, even more compared to what he paid previous to that.

Romney wants us to live in tax free utopia? Wow. Why assume lower rates in previous years or are you just making up assumptions to fit your view?

Do you know why Romney's effective tax rate is lower than yours? Have you looked into it? I have. I even reviewed his 2011 return. Romney's 8 figure income is primarily investment income, interest income and capital gains, which is favored under current tax law. Your income (I am making an assumption here, pls correct me if I am wrong) is probably mostly wage income as is mine. Romney actually had $0 in wages in 2011. My understanding of why investment income has a favored tax status when compared to wage income is that presumably you earn the money first through wages, then invest it and then are taxed on the income again. So after the money was given to you as compensation for your hard work, if invested, it is taxed twice before you get it (I am not even taking into account corporate taxes), hence the lower rate. On an absolute basis Romney's paid income tax is many multiples of what you paid (not to mention the amount he gave to "charity" which I'll assume is also many multiples of what you gave). The whole attack on Romney's tax return is a big non-issue. I hate the US tax code but having investment income taxed at a lower rate than wage income makes sense to me. Sure we can argue the absolute tax rates till we are blue in the face but the point is, their relationship to each other makes sense.

As for wasting a vote, actually that article is one that has pretty much cemented my view to vote for GJ not Romney nor Obama. Somewhere, sometime, we as a people need to express our displeasure with the two parties and their comical platforms and groupthink. I choose to make my stand now. Hopefully, more and more people will join me and the two goliaths will have to take notice of those that are unhappy with their rigid extremist platforms.

Edited by devilsadvoc8, 02 October 2012 - 12:33 PM.

[Daniel]

Romney wants us to live in tax free utopia? Wow. Why assume lower rates in previous years or are you just making up assumptions to fit your view?

Do you know why Romney's effective tax rate is lower than yours? Have you looked into it? I have. I even reviewed his 2011 return. Romney's 8 figure income is primarily investment income, interest income and capital gains, which is favored under current tax law. Your income (I am making an assumption here, pls correct me if I am wrong) is probably mostly wage income as is mine. Romney actually had $0 in wages in 2011. My understanding of why investment income has a favored tax status when compared to wage income is that presumably you earn the money first through wages, then invest it and then are taxed on the income again. So after the money was given to you as compensation for your hard work, if invested, it is taxed twice before you get it (I am not even taking into account corporate taxes), hence the lower rate. On an absolute basis Romney's paid income tax is many multiples of what you paid (not to mention the amount he gave to "charity" which I'll assume is also many multiples of what you gave). The whole attack on Romney's tax return is a big non-issue. I hate the US tax code but having investment income taxed at a lower rate than wage income makes sense to me. Sure we can argue the absolute tax rates till we are blue in the face but the point is, their relationship to each other makes sense.

As for wasting a vote, actually that article is one that has pretty much cemented my view to vote for GJ not Romney nor Obama. Somewhere, sometime, we as a people need to express our displeasure with the two parties and their comical platforms and groupthink. I choose to make my stand now. Hopefully, more and more people will join me and the two goliaths will have to take notice of those that are unhappy with their rigid extremist platforms.

Romney also lowered his tax burden by making sizable charitable donations.

Focusing on Romney's or Warren Buffett's effective tax rate is really a sideshow. Fact is, if you want to fund a generous welfare state you need to increase the tax base. That's what they do in Europe with very high sales tax/VAT, which is regressive.

[squishyx]

My understanding of why investment income has a favored tax status when compared to wage income is that presumably you earn the money first through wages, then invest it and then are taxed on the income again. So after the money was given to you as compensation for your hard work, if invested, it is taxed twice before you get it (I am not even taking into account corporate taxes), hence the lower rate. On an absolute basis Romney's paid income tax is many multiples of what you paid (not to mention the amount he gave to "charity" which I'll assume is also many multiples of what you gave). The whole attack on Romney's tax return is a big non-issue. I hate the US tax code but having investment income taxed at a lower rate than wage income makes sense to me. Sure we can argue the absolute tax rates till we are blue in the face but the point is, their relationship to each other makes sense.

I've heard this before and it's bullsh!t. Income is income, it shouldn't doesn't matter if you are using money that was once taxed to make it. My saving's account doesn't get taxed at a lesser rate even though it's "taxed" money. When I go to the store and buy something I can't opt to pay a lower sales tax because I'm using after tax dollars.

The reason for the low tax rate of long term investments is to encourage people to do it rather then just sit on it.

I agree that Romney's federal income tax is a non issue to his candidacy, I don't expect someone to pay more in taxes then they technically owe, and I don't hold it against him. But it does highlight a problem (if you should see it that way) where the very rich have revenue streams taxed at lower rates. A simplified tax code would solve this problem, even a 20% flat tax (with a simple average 30k deduction) could possibly work.

Fact is, if you want to fund a generous welfare state you need to increase the tax base. That's what they do in Europe with very high sales tax/VAT, which is regressive.

Yes, but you don't necessarily need a very high national sales tax. You could just revert to the tax structure we had under Clinton. I am not suggestion that is the be all end all fix, but it's start to a balanced budget.

[Daniel]

Yes, but you don't necessarily need a very high national sales tax. You could just revert to the tax structure we had under Clinton. I am not suggestion that is the be all end all fix, but it's start to a balanced budget.

The tax structure, even during the Bush years, is not a whole lot different than it was in the Clinton years, with the exception of the estate tax, which could be the most destructive class warfare tax ever devised (but that's a different issue). Also, there were balanced budgets in the Clinton years because of a booming economy, which probably had very little or nothing to do with the tax code, at least as compared to his predecessor and successor. And that's without having to come anywhere close to the welfare states that exist in Europe.

[squishyx]

The tax structure, even during the Bush years, is not a whole lot different than it was in the Clinton years, with the exception of the estate tax, which could be the most destructive class warfare tax ever devised (but that's a different issue). Also, there were balanced budgets in the Clinton years because of a booming economy, which probably had very little or nothing to do with the tax code, at least as compared to his predecessor and successor. And that's without having to come anywhere close to the welfare states that exist in Europe.

I thought I qualified the statement that returning to Clinton era tax rates was not the end all fix pretty well, it's just the start. I think it's hard to argue that the structure isn't a lot different when you look at revenues in terms of GDP

http://3.bp.blogspot...Tax Revenue.jpg

Yes, some of that is due to the recession where people have less money to be taxed, but that's the harder problem to solve. The other part of why revenues are so low are from massive tax cuts from Bush and Obama. For a long time we had really high tax rates, and we started cutting them and realized that people just invested that money back into the system and we prospered, so we kept doing it. It appears we have hit a saturation point where we have cut taxes too low to be getting a equal gain. I think it's pretty reasonable to return to the last "save point" and and go from there.