what the fuck do you think about Ralf?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Problem is, without some incredible funding, no third party candidate is going to look any better than Nader.

A  third party candidate will look good when some issue that enough people really and truly care about shows up. Honestly, as much as I'd love to see a third party based off of the likes of Jesse Ventura, I think the most likely third party at this point will be made up of the religious right, after they break with the GOP. If GWB was unable, unwilling or whatever to get them the power/votes/laws/amendments that they wanted... it should now be obvious to them that the GOP has no plans to push their agenda, except during election time for votes.

This really has the potential to scare the crap out of me. Religion has a pretty good handle on human psychology. Religious leaders have charisma, they can whip a crowd into a frenzy and hold that sort of attention regularly. If shit looks really bad, people want religion (cause it gives them someone to blame). Consider, for example, the free market, wild party land once known as Venice. The Venetians, during the Enlightenment, basically kicked the Church in the face and pulled most of their power. However, once the plague showed up, they all turned back to the Church for salvation. If things get bad here... I could totally see something like this happening. Remember, most Americans still consider themselves Christian....

Think about how well Huckabee did. If he had been on a third party ticket, that would have been enough votes for the debates to have been Obama, McCain, Huckabee. Now, if a lot of Baby Boomers felt threatened by Civil Unions, by Evolution in Schools, by secularization... how many Americans could be scared into voting Huckabee? How many 'moderate' Christians might have thought it was ok, because he was a nice Pastor? 

As for the independents (of which I am one), most seem more than willing to decry partisan and two-party, but they are not usually fanatics. Many don't appear to hold strong beliefs on exactly HOW things should go. Sadly, as bad as belief and fanaticism may be for the brain of any given human, it also seems like a major driver for any political party.

[That One Guy]

I've pissed my vote away on Nader since '96. I vote on issues (I'm a bad voter putting substance before surface, I know) and I've agreed with the Green party on most of their platform, more than any other candidate's/party's. Thus, they got my vote. I live in Mass, and that state has gone Dem. since forever, and none of the last few elections have changed that.

Gore and the Dems' problems in 2000 had little to do with Nader, and LOTS to do with Gore - a block of wood would have had more life and charisma in that election. The unconstitutional halting of the counts was an ACTUAL issue.The fact that the Republicans almost definitely kept a large segment of the black voting block away from the polls in FL in 2000 was an issue. Was Nader to "blame"? No more so than any other candidate that got more than 200 votes in FL. He was just a good scapegoat to cover the fact that the Dems didn't even fight the ballot insanity going on in that election since their candidate might have come up short (or not - who knows?).

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

www.votenader.org

I personally think nader is the fucking man, who would pwn any of the so called front runners in a real debate.

[Cramulus]

Was Nader to "blame"? No more so than any other candidate that got more than 200 votes in FL. He was just a good scapegoat to cover the fact that the Dems didn't even fight the ballot insanity going on in that election since their candidate might have come up short (or not - who knows?).

QFT. One of my coworkers at the time was a bigtime Dem - she was the personal assistant to McNulty - one of the NY congressman. She was of the opinion that voting third party was basically pissing your vote away and thereby harming democracy.  Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?

[Daruko]

Like WTF - I thought democracy was about voting for who you want to win?

I think I agree.  Everyone tries to play according to the rules of the game, but those rules are social fictions that should be broken.  The media tells you that Mr. John Independent has no chance, and suddenly... guess what?  No chance.  Get in line cabbages!  Time to vote for who we tell you to vote for! 

Kind of like how gas will start going slowly down in price, and the forecasters predict it's going up, and then Viola!  It goes up.  Another excellent effect of television.

[Iason Ouabache]

Problem is, without some incredible funding, no third party candidate is going to look any better than Nader.

A  third party candidate will look good when some issue that enough people really and truly care about shows up. Honestly, as much as I'd love to see a third party based off of the likes of Jesse Ventura, I think the most likely third party at this point will be made up of the religious right, after they break with the GOP. If GWB was unable, unwilling or whatever to get them the power/votes/laws/amendments that they wanted... it should now be obvious to them that the GOP has no plans to push their agenda, except during election time for votes.

This really has the potential to scare the crap out of me. Religion has a pretty good handle on human psychology. Religious leaders have charisma, they can whip a crowd into a frenzy and hold that sort of attention regularly. If shit looks really bad, people want religion (cause it gives them someone to blame). Consider, for example, the free market, wild party land once known as Venice. The Venetians, during the Enlightenment, basically kicked the Church in the face and pulled most of their power. However, once the plague showed up, they all turned back to the Church for salvation. If things get bad here... I could totally see something like this happening. Remember, most Americans still consider themselves Christian....

Think about how well Huckabee did. If he had been on a third party ticket, that would have been enough votes for the debates to have been Obama, McCain, Huckabee. Now, if a lot of Baby Boomers felt threatened by Civil Unions, by Evolution in Schools, by secularization... how many Americans could be scared into voting Huckabee? How many 'moderate' Christians might have thought it was ok, because he was a nice Pastor? 

As for the independents (of which I am one), most seem more than willing to decry partisan and two-party, but they are not usually fanatics. Many don't appear to hold strong beliefs on exactly HOW things should go. Sadly, as bad as belief and fanaticism may be for the brain of any given human, it also seems like a major driver for any political party.

They've already started to do this with the ironically named Constitution Party.  While they claim a relatively large number of registered voters (more than 350,000 in 2006) they have won exactly 1 election so far. 

I can see them getting some traction in the deep South (a few local positions, maybe one or two congressmen) but I don't see them getting enough power to ever be seen as a threat.  There is no way they could survive as a national party and I can't see them pulling more than 5% in a presidential election.

Even if they did gain power they would run into that pesky little first amendment that guarantees that the US government will remain a secular institution.  One of their planks is to change that pesky little amendment (or reinterpret it through the courts) and there isn't a chance in hell of that happening unless  (like you said) a major disaster hits us and everyone turns to fundamentalism.  But that wouldn't be the beginning of the end for us, it would be the end of the end.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I admire the attempts to rid the US of the broken two-party system. But you can't get that done by supporting a third party. The culture in US politics is such that every third party is immediately dismissed, even if they've won small elections for local government seats. Ultimately, while democracy should be about voting for your candidate, I don't think we really have that luxury in America. More gets done by pushing the lumbering, clumsy system we have in the general direction of your beliefs, although it's still a negligible amount of progress.

But I could be wrong. I do notice that the facts don't exactly fit the assumptions being made by people on all sides of every issue. For example, lots of people claim America's on the fast track to totalitarianism, like that's anything new. The entire USA was practically under Soviet-style Marshall Law during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was only the 16th president and he was actively imprisoning people (and probably worse) for printing the sorts of things that even Bush just ignores.

The general trend in the USA is toward a more progressive society. Even in the face of the "War on Terror," that is borne out by the fact that the Supreme Court keeps rebuking Bush and his fascist detention policies.

Back to the elections. The simple fact is, if you vote for Nader, you're going to help McCain win. That's just how it will go. And, the next President will appoint at least TWO Supreme Court justices. If it's McCain, SCOTUS will be tipped in the Right-Wing direction for at least a generation. Even if McCain himself doesn't want to do that, he will be forced to do it because of politics.

[Reverend Ju Ju Booze]

www.votenader.org

I personally think nader is the fucking man, who would pwn any of the so called front runners in a real debate.

Nader is the reason we have president Bush.

I cannot wait to take a huge shit on his grave.

Bullshit.Gore is the reason you don't have Nader.I'm fucking sick of this "useful vote" shit, for it screwed up my shitty country too many times.
"I'd vote the X candidate,but he's gonna lose anyway, so I'll vote someone else"....Yeah, can you imagine why he's gonna lose?
Maybe because his supporters voted some "centrist"...
This always hit the left, anyway..."C'mon,we'll never have social justice,if somebody tells you either way, he's not SERIOUS"
Then you vote somebody who'll do anything he can to make sure that you'll never get social justice..(like that fuckin' Veltroni, here's a guy a would really shit on)

[Cramulus]

I admire the attempts to rid the US of the broken two-party system. But you can't get that done by supporting a third party. The culture in US politics is such that every third party is immediately dismissed, even if they've won small elections for local government seats. Ultimately, while democracy should be about voting for your candidate, I don't think we really have that luxury in America. More gets done by pushing the lumbering, clumsy system we have in the general direction of your beliefs, although it's still a negligible amount of progress.

Yeah, but though a third party will probably never win, there are numerous points in American history when a third party became a second party. Even the Democrats were on the political "fringe" until they finally knocked out the Federalists.

Voting third party helps those parties get better funding. And adding a third voice to the bichromatic spectrum which is American politics is a better cause (IMHO) than going back and forth on any number of issues.

[wade]

I think the ballot should have a list of issues on it and you vote for the issues you want resolved....  rather then some fucking person you put trust into. 

I would rather have intelligeeant people tackle many issues, and put those issues on the ballot and vote for them... 

One issue could be media and the use of it..what's the purpose of mass media and how should we use it to OUR benefit...

another could be... the role of trans-national corporations and how they affect third world nations...   i mean do they really deserve billion dollar profits?

the role of the working class....   Have people vote on what exactly is the role of the working class...  what is the incentive..  what is the goal?  what will make OUR lives more enjoyable lives...

the role of the...   "white collar"  etc...


I would rather have all of these issues and beyond plastered all over the television without pharmaceutical interuption....   issues like these disscussed and debated by intelligeeeeeaant people...   groups of intelligeaaaaaaant people, who were gathered from all around the "civilized world"....
then put the issues onto a fucking ballot and have people vote for what they find in their best interest... 

I think it is so stupid, so old, so out dated for us to vote for a fucking puppet you want to give supreme power to, do we really need a fucking pharoh these days?...  as if they really deserve to control the united states military....

*shrugs..

fuck another obvious issue to be up on ballot... the role of the fucking military.... so it is clear to us and to the world when the military will and sould be used...  (when certain principles have been crossed it should be used, imo)


I would be a much happier person if the above was going on on the television today.....

am i wrong, completely out of it or am i onto something here?  fuck i hope im not completely nuts because it makes sense to me to do it my way... (my way being a very rough around the edges way, but the general idea at least is where i think society should go)

[Iason Ouabache]

I thought that you were leaving...

[wade]

I thought that you were leaving...

as of tomorrow i wont be posting on this account...

more importantly, am i nuts for thinking what i just stated above?  so far that is my ideal political (democratic) society...

[hooplala]

Go.

[Faust]

basically the military as an entity is an admission of failure by the human race

[The Good Reverend Roger]

basically the military as an entity is an admission of failure by the human race

Bollocks.  The military is the ultimate expression of monkeydom.