41 posts tagged “politics”

My Political Stance

Mar 20, 2009
9 comments

Because there is an online journal that actually publishes a monthly article about my political opinions I try and keep myself informed. I like to examine both sides of an argument before I write an opinion, and while I fully admit I'm no expert, I do make the effort to make comparisons to history whenever possible before wading into the debate.

Lately however I've found it rather difficult to get two sides of the conversation, my more liberal sources are equitable enough, and internationally conservatives are quite willing to have intelligent conversation, but within the USA every Republican I could once have a respectable conversation with has become a screaming four-year-old.

I feel like whenever I start discussing politics with a Republican they suddenly pull out their bible and say:

"Raise your right hand."

"Do you swear to hate every word, deed, associate, and cause of Barack Obama as long as you both shall live so help you God?"

"Do you pledge to uphold the tenants of the Obama haters and spend your every waking deed counteracting the continual advance towards the Obama-Nation of the United States?"

If my answer is not a resounding "I DO!" then I'm blocked out by a wall of juvenile petulance and insults until I end the conversation. I honestly can't count the number of times a conservative has called me "socialist" in the past three weeks. So in an attempt to get past this retarded meeting ritual of determining my political affiliation I will do my best to explain what I'm about here.

I identify with Libertarianism in that I consider personal freedom to be my true-north. Whenever I come across a political conundrum I consider freedom to be the first concern. Freedom for all people to life, liberty and the pursuit happiness. To have this I believe people need the resources to survive, but beyond that they need the room to pursue greatness without undue exploitation. I believe the best way to achieve this is through decentralized governance.

Breaking that down I mean that we as a society have an obligation to make sure that the least of us can survive and should they so wish have the opportunity to advance their station in life. That means providing a bit of food and shelter for the homeless, but beyond that the government's obligation ends. Individuals and private organizations need to take over from there.

I believe that information needs to be available as it possibly can and that people should be able to say what they want to say, love who they want to love and hate who they want to hate as long as they do not impede another's ability to do the same. As far as freedom of information goes, people should of course be able to get compensated for information they have if it has significant value.

Exploitation is a core element of life, however when the conditions exist to the point where a human being is being exploited to the point of being unable to pursue greatness - whether capitalist, socialist, religious, or criminal in nature - those conditions need to be remedied.

By decentralized governance I mean this: Power divided among many. Government. Church. Corporation. Citizens. All separate and individual acting as checks and balances to ensure that one does not get undue influence over another while acting in their own self-interest. Overlap is inevitable, and so is conflict, but these are necessary to maintain the most freedom for everyone. Decentralized governance also means governance over smaller geographic areas, and smaller niches within aspects of culture, capitalism, and church. Smaller niches means more choice and more choice is more freedom.

To apply this to more current issues I believe that public schools should not have any policies or curriculum influenced by religion. If parents want religion integrated into their children's education they can pay for private schooling which should be able to teach whatever it likes as long as basic educational standards are met. However if an individual, state, or municipality wants to fund religiously influenced programs on their own then they should be able to; and again private citizens should be allowed to pay for private schooling that does otherwise.

I believe that the "bail-out plans" being instituted by nearly every government across the globe are what the people are demanding. If you're not one of those people then I'm sure you have a reason but the fact is that these governments were responding to pressure from the people pass these budgets. In America, George W. Bush was responding to that pressure when he urged congress to be swift in bringing this money to bear, and when Obama took over he did exactly the same. Beyond that I'm neither for these budgets or against them because I honestly have no idea how effective they will be at what. Instead I look at how these governments use this money with a keen eye on the long-term. These bail outs are effectively giving governments a fairly free reign to spend a lot of money however they want and as long as their spending is justified as "economic stimulus" it will probably not be questioned. I watch out for that.

I believe that America's standing in the international community depends largely on how effectively it can use it's military and I do not believe that giving more power and influence to the UN military is wise (remember the decentralized thing). Having said that, I see that America's military is overextended in it's obligations and unless it lightens those obligations it will not be able to maintain it's station within the global theatre. If America does not have it's military ready to aid it's allies and deploy against it's enemies if needed then countries will not listen to US Diplomats, and if that occurs other nations with their own motives will fill the power vacuum. I'm not one to say whether or not this is good or bad, with George Bush at the helm less US influence was probably better, now that's debatable. However in the United States own self-interest losing it's international influence is not a good thing, so for the time being it would be wise to avoid any new military entanglements. This means being careful not to overly antagonize Russia, North Korea or Iran which all have the military strength to pull the USA into a long battle it can ill-afford.

Finally if Freedom is my north star, than the United States Constitution is my map. In my experience deferring to it rarely steered any government wrong, and when deviated from trouble occurs. Undermining the Constitution has not - in my experience - ever been good, and so I try to consider that first and foremost before I voice an opinion. It was penned by men I consider very wise and in my experience it creates the most ideal conditions for freedom that I know.

I hope that summarizes my political stance. If that makes me a liberal cream-puff, a pinko-socialist, a war-monger, an Obama-lover or even a Libertarian... I'll leave that for you to decide.

Churches = Corporations? Y/N

Mar 4, 2009
3 comments

I've mentioned before that corporations now fill the role that the church did historically, and governments have failed to realize this. Today I'm going to ask what if Religions were considered corporations by our governments. I have some precedents for this but first I'll establish some basic assumptions I'm going on:

• Yes there is a god. Yes he gives a crap about us humans insomuch as a god can.
• As stupid humans we cannot fully understand the nature of god, so we are forced to translate him into concepts we can relate to.
• We stupid humans do not know what comes after death, that unknown is deeply frightening and we seek solace and some sort of reassurance that there is *something* after this life which gives our existence some meaning.
• God knows what’s going on after death, and being the only being we can conceive of to shelter us through that great unknown we humans want to buddy up with god as best we can.

From those basic principles we have the universal reason for religions. They are in-essence peddling a product. That product is a reassurance that there is meaning to life, in return they do a bit of social engineering. They dictate morality and codes of behavior, it’s like a user-agreement really, you want their product you abide by the terms of use. An example of one of the more common of those terms of use is “don’t marry people that have the same parts as you”.

Today many corporations have an equal or greater influence on our daily lives than any religion. These corporations are able to dictate what is right and wrong and in some cases their user agreements influence our daily lives and personal morals just as strongly as religious tenants. An example of this is "don't drive our car without a driver's license and insurance".

Both my examples are policies that benefit a corporation or group of corporations backed by federal law. The interesting part is that in the case of the religious example, the United States government has a constitution deliberately delineating church and state.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."

~ The First Amendment of the United States Constitution

The Corporate Equivalent to that restriction is in Antitrust law, the meat of which amounts to:

"Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony..."

What if governments established precedent to consider both churches and corporations the same thing? If choosing the method one wished to pursue eternal life or nirvana, or reincarnation, or whatever had the same legal significance as choosing whether or not to buy an iphone or a blackberry? But even more than that, what if one's religious beliefs had the same cultural significance as choosing a particular brand of vehicle to drive?

Economic Protectionism

Feb 19, 2009
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Obama is coming up to visit Canada today and of course one of the big topics of conversation will be trade. So I wanted to voice a few thoughts on the matter.

During the primaries there was a short stint where McCain, Clinton and Obama started finger-pointing about who said they'd revise the North American Free Trade Agreement, ultimately no one admitted to saying anything definitive on the subject though I do think a few town-hall meetings in hard-up states brought the issue front and center.

Here's the thing, in the eyes of some out-of-work factory man from Idaho Canadians are just as bad as Mexicans for stealing American work I'm sure. American stores should sell American-made goods because Americans should be working, not buying goods brought in from foreign nations that employ dirty foreigners that aren't American. I get that. But here's my Canadian take.

The softwood lumber dispute where American companies got to disobey NAFTA and void lumber contracts nearly destroyed the economy of my province, it was okay then and no one cares now, now Canada is doing pretty well for it's self supplying the lion's share of Oil, natural gas, water and electricity that America gets from foreign sources, America still needs those things and we supply them cheap because of NAFTA. Revising the trade agreement would mean that we have a serious bargaining chip for the next deal, maybe that chip isn't as big as it was this summer when oil prices were three times what they are now, but we're still shipping a LOT of water to the US and global warming is all too real, so the need for water isn't going away any time soon.

But don't think that Canada is all hunky dory with the fact that we're making good coin shipping off our natural resources. Sure it keeps us working and making money, but we're still paying more for gas than our southern neighbors. Most of our oil is shipped south of the border, refined and then shipped back up here to us. Not a great deal at all considering that Alberta's tar-sands are an oil source 20 to 30 times what exists in ANWAR. We're also worried about the water loss for obvious reasons, and we know all too well that American companies don't give a rat's ass about long-term or balanced relationships. They'll use only the things they need until they don't need them, and then they'll leave us facing the business end of a very cold shoulder. We understand that this is the way America does business, and we live with it, but it does give us pause and look for alternatives and better footing when we do go into business with them. In Canada protection of our resources is therefore becoming a considerably more popular mindset.

This I think means that one should keep a balance mindset when discussing trade, the economy and handing out blame. As friends, Canada and the US collectively have the capability to help each other weather these troubled times, but as rivals standing alone in the face of a cold economic winter could be quite harsh indeed.

(Republican) Change I Could Believe In...

Feb 8, 2009
20 comments

I've been pondering an article for a while. Basically the current political climate makes it pretty necessary for the Republican party to do a bit of revising on it's image. If Obama overspends to insanely and America is still balls-deep in a recession come 4 years, I'm pretty sure a brain-dead chimp with a cross around it's neck leading the GOP could win the election, but if Obama is at all competent then we may be looking at a definite liberal shift in America's politics. Now if Liberal meant "rooted in Liberty" as it did once upon a time then I'd be all for it, but today Liberal is sononomous with socialism where a single government gets more and more control over larger and larger areas.

The problem is that conservatism isn't standing against that socialistic agenda anymore, in many ways they've adopted it and have betrayed their base who are turning to religion because they feel that there's no control of big government any more. This problem is compounded by the fact that people seem to be getting brainwashed to the point of rather than turning to organizations with enough power to act as a counterpoint to unassailable lawmaking they're integrating these organizations further into the government body. The lines between church, business and government are getting increasingly blurred and as they do so power shifts more and more into the hands of the few and voters get less and less control.

I consider myself fairly eclectic politically, but if you're at all familiar with my opinions on this blog you'll know that I prize one thing above all others; Freedom. Without freedom the things we have, or we do mean nothing because they're only things we can have or can do and the joy of possibility is taken from us. The Republican party once stood for freedom, less taxes meant more freedom to do what you want with your money, free-market capitalism meant freedom to sell and buy what you wanted with it. Before that Socialism stood for freedom, freedom from one individual dictating how you get to live.

To me, a real change would be endeavoring to clearly define the separations between business, church and government, and this is something that I believe all Republicans could get behind and such policies would have the potential to convert many Democrats and independents.

Policies that such a shift would include would be such as:

• Removal from religious influence around civil unions. According to Maritime Law, a person is a corporation, and is treated as such under the law, it would be unthinkable for the church to have influence over corporate unions, so why does it have influence over personal ones?

• Less corporate taxation but greater corporate oversight. There is a direct relation between corporate taxation and corporate growth. This means that when a government taxes a corporation more the corporations grow less, and employ fewer people which hurts the populace. However implementing laws that force corporations to spend money to comply with government standards generally doesn't stymie corporate growth, employs more people and protects the people from corporate opportunism.

• A shift towards a non-intrusive foreign policy. Currently the Liberal agenda is to increase the power of the UN to the point where the UN is able to dictate the allowed size of any nation's military. Russia will never agree to that, and neither should the US. Let the UN send peacekeepers to nations and try to fix the world. Republicans need to stand for a military that stands as a third point of power to the growing UN and Russian militaries that exists only to protect the homeland and aide military allies.

These are just some of my hopes for a newer better Republican party, but my thesis on this is still incomplete, I'd like to get some input from the community about this and see what you think, from both sides of the political fence, what changes should the GOP adopt to it's party policy and image?

Finding Sufficient Fury to Post Something Political

Jan 23, 2009
10 comments

These last few weeks I've had a hard time finding something to write about. Obama got in, hasn't been shot at and Bush in his last few weeks as president actually acted like a responsible statesman. As a result it's been rather hard to find a subject to get worked up about enough to actually express my thoughts on it.

Yesterday I found the proper rage to begin this article, so for that I'm thankful.

Obama has signed three executive orders regarding treatment of US detainees. The first is to close Guantanamo bay within the year, the 2nd is for US Army interrogators to adhere to the Army Field Manual which prohibits torture (mostly because it's ineffective), and shut down CIA detention centers around the world, and the third order was to create a task force headed by Gates to bring proper legal justice to the current and future detainees according to American law.

This was an interesting political move, it establishes a precedent that Obama really does intend to adhere to his campaign promise of change and wishes to restore a degree of ethics to the American Foreign Policy, which as a policy rooted in combatting tyranny (ideally) has been quite hypocritical these past few years. It is an order I doubted Obama would actually carry out at all but he has made it his first move in his first week on the job and for that I've developed a greater respect for him. Politically he can coast on this for a while as his advocates will feel vindicated and the skeptics will be appeased for a time, so in the end I believe it was smart politics to gain an initial popularity boost before tackling some of the more mundane presidential duties.

What outrages me in all this is that there are actually Americans who DON'T LIKE IT.

I've heard that it's bad policy to issue an order "without a plan", I've heard "we treat them better then they treat us", I've heard "they'll just recruit American prisoners to their cause in regular prisons" and the piece de resistance "what if they're found innocent?"

Critics of these orders say that this will compromise US national security, that it accomplishes nothing, and is merely a political ploy. With the third statement I agree, this is a political move pure and simple, but a necessary one.

To illustrate my beliefs regarding this torture issue and Guantanamo bay I shall return to something I learned around this time last year about Ron Paul. Paul has been in politics for a good number of years and he's known to have a great deal of integrity, however back in the 70's he was publishing newsletters under his name and some clearly racist comments and suggestions were in them. When the newsletters circulated it was a PR disaster for Paul, he was dubbed a racist and was forced to drop his campaign for president. He did not try to defend or excuse the papers likely because he wanted to maintain his integrity but he could have salvaged his campaign and moved on further if he had carried out the appropriate response. Had he clearly responded to the scandal with "It came out and I FIRED that editor, tried to have the words removed but it was published." Even if there were several months of articles, he needed to spin it as outrage and apology, distance himself from the writing and declare in no uncertain terms that he did not share those opinions. To the bane of Libertarians everywhere he did not do this and he failed in his bid for president.

The Bush Administration's handling of this torture issue mirrors that Ron Paul scandal, when issues of torture and prisoner mistreatment came up, they should have denied them! They should have publicly and officially chastised those who were involved and proclaimed loudly and from the rooftops that THIS. WAS. NOT. RIGHT! But instead they dug themselves in further, which was inconceivable! Politicians have a bad rap as is, but they actually tried to make this despicable, illegal, incondonable, and immoral act LEGAL! Instead of deny deny deny which any common criminal knows how to do, these men got in bed with this disgusting issue and started their own bukkake porn series.

I believe that the allegations of Torture are likely not as widespread as the enemies of the Bush administration (and enemies of America) would claim, but frankly it doesn't matter, it's scandal and scandal must be ended to restore credibility. Even if the remedy is only superficial it rarely matters, Guantanamo has become a symbol of American decadence, and Republican corruption that should have been eliminated at least 2 years ago, not by a new Democratic President, but by the Republican Party it's self! Instead they defended it's use, claiming it was "necessary" despite mounting evidence of it's ineffectiveness, and passed laws condoning it's existence and further damaging their Constitution and reputation.

America's treatment of this issue up til now has clearly done more harm to their national security than good. It would be pure silliness for any suicide bomber training indoctrination to fail to mention the "American Torture Camps" that would await them instead of the 40 virgins should they fail in their sacred mission. It's basic psychology. Imagine instead of a scenario where Obama unleashes the Press Corps to witness the "turnaround" of American Military Detention Centers, and making them the most courteous and professional outfits in the world. If every enemy combatant knew without a doubt that if captured they would be treated properly respectfully and had a real chance of being able to go home to their families if they cooperated, what would happen? Think about it.

I am not a blind adoring follower of Obama's, I see the cult of personality surrounding him currently as a very dangerous thing, and I certainly have my misgivings. I fear for elements of the American constitution under his administration, and I'm not at all optimistic for the American federal budget. When Obama missteps or betrays my values then I will be one of the first to cry out against those actions, however in this case he did something that can only be praised.

So you Republicans who are criticizing this move, in my opinion the only thing you should be mad about is the fact that you didn't do it first.

Dangerous Business in Canadian Politics

Dec 11, 2008
5 comments

In an earlier post I mentioned that Canada's government is in shambles, I'd like to quantify that a bit more, though I probably won't have a proper article about it until after Christmas. What's going on is this, Canada isn't quite a democracy, it's actually a constitutional monarchy (not an official title but that's what it amounts to). Basically we're allowed to self govern until we've proven for whatever reason that we can't do so. Then a representative of the Queen steps in and makes the decisions for us. The Governor General's position is often largely ceremonial, they usually find causes to get behind and maintain "etiquette" in parliament. However, in situations like right now the Governor General has the opportunity to fire our elected Prime Minister and put in someone else. In this case that someone else would be a Liberal Party leader who's incompetence has his own party voting him out leaving him in power for 5 more months.

Canadian politics isn't like American politics. American's only have two parties which are just basically frameworks for a set of political values. In the US it's the candidate who gets voted in and sets up the executive branch, even if that candidate doesn't necessarily toe the party line in it's entirety. The only reason there aren't dozens of parties being voted into Congress is because the Corporations in the US prefer having a unified entity to pay off. Some people might think that it's a "two party system" but really it's just the powers that be like it that way.

In canada the executive branch and the legislative branch are the same, and there are more parties to contend with. (There's a Marijuana Party in Canada if you'll believe that.) Some don't have seats in the Cabinet but right now there are 4 parties who do, the Conservatives, the Liberals, the New Democrats (NDP), and the Bloc Quebecois. There is a Green Party as well who didn't win any seats but snapped up almost 7% of the vote in October. The Libs and Conservatives are roughly the equivalent of America's GOP and Democrats, with the NDP being a group of more progressive liberals strongly opposed to any sort of Canadian military action (or funding in many cases), and who generally work to ramp up government spending by bloating the bureaucracy. (Yes, I admit, I'm biased against the NDP, my Province had a New Democrat gov for 8 years and it was disgusting.) The bloc are separatists, meaning the 3rd largest Political entity in Canada's political system doesn't want to be a part of the country.

The thing is, because the executive branch and legislative branch are the same, and because there are so many parties there isn't a lot of deviation from a given party line amongst the Members of Parliament (MPs). This means that functional governments here are almost always majority governments. However for the past decade we Canadians have not been in accord, three consecutive Liberal governments through the 90's and into this millennium created a corrupt political party, and after some sponsorship scandals we elected a Conservative government into power for the first time in my lifetime. For 3 years that conservative government governed as a minority, outnumbered by the Liberals, the small NDP and the Bloc, then just after Liberal party leader unveiled a Carbon tax wealth redistribution program that would have crippled the Canadian Oil and Gas industry, the only healthy industry left in Canada the Conservatives smelled blood in the wind and called an election early, even though two years earlier they'd passed a mandate to prevent voters from having to put up with that sort of opportunistic politicking.

So the Conservatives came away from October's election with a slightly strengthened minority, and they got cocky. No stimulus plan for the Economy, no Automaker bailout, and the final straw was a political gamble to pull funding from the parties in an attempt to strike a deathblow to them. This backfired, and in the face of these audacious maneuvers the three parties making up the majority of the seats sat down and formed a Coalition with the intent of passing a no-confidence vote against the conservatives and kicking them out of power.

What this means is that despite what Canadians might have voted for we will now have a government aligned with a group who want to separate for the country. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been promised to the NDP and Bloc in exchange for their backing the coalition, and you can bet that a good portion of that money is going to Quebec to fund their goodbye party. Despite the validity of their claim to the seat of power these three parties are going to destroy the country if this no confidence vote goes through. Here's how:

a) Canadians will have no confidence in their democracy anymore.

b) Quebec's separation will be funded with federal taxpayer money.

c) The Western Provinces, having been a disenfranchised Conservative stronghold for over 3 decades will be furious as the first move a new Coalition government will be to kneecap their finances by redistributing tax revenues away from them (see: Quebec separation) and passing legislation to inhibit the oil and gas industry. This will result in a strong backing for a western separatist agenda.

In a nutshell Canada faces a democratic crisis that will either force my country to hold another election 6 months after the last one, or be forced to endure an unelected administration with sympathies for a group of rebels. (No, offense to Quebec, but that's what it amounts to.)

The worst part about all this is that I don't have a solution, other than things need to change. We need to look over our constitution and decide if we want to be a democracy in name only, a bunch of small nations with our bums planted firmly against the wall as the USA hands out wigs and lipstick, or a first world nation, strong and secure.

Matching Mudflaps

Nov 18, 2008
33 comments

If you're a regular reader of my blog, by now you're likely aware of California's gay marriage ban, tempers are flaring, opinions are mounting, and once again I feel it has become incumbent of me to save America from it's citizens.

The crux of the debate is this, homosexuals feel that their not being allowed to marry is discrimination and folks belonging to various religious groups feel that marriage is a sacred act and thus should be subject to their rules. Now smarter people than I have made points that marriage might not be so sacred, but that argument leads to problems. Marriage is steeped in fairly universal traditions and rituals, a ring, a white dress, a kiss, some glass tapping, the details vary but they're ritual, and every ritual is sacred to someone. To say that rituals are not necessarily sacred opens up a can of worms that no one here wants to go fishing with and marriage is obviously a ritual, so therefore it's not up for contention that those who say 'marriage is a sacred act' have a valid point.

However, divorce is not so sacred. Divorce is the right of all married Americans given to them by law, and it is exercised by a great many of them. In 2005 over half of the marriages performed resulted in a divorce, there is no ritual to a divorce, no religious pomp and circumstance, simply legal proceedings.

Gays and lesbians have been denied the right to divorce by the California government, and while the constitution does not list divorce as one of the inalienable rights and freedoms granted to all it's citizens, it does say that people are allowed to be secure in their own persons free from discrimination as long as they break no laws.

Homosexual acts are not a crime in America, being homosexual is not illegal, so why are gays not free to lose half like everyone else? This is State sanctioned discrimination based on religious bias which violates several of the core principles the United States Constitution was founded upon. These days the constitution seems like more of a pirates code of vague "guidelines" than the foundation for the laws of a great nation, but I still take it seriously and believe it should be adhered to, and when push comes to shove I believe the American people are with me in that belief. Therefore, if this gay divorce ban is to hold and be constitutional, homosexuality needs to be outlawed.

As long as Americans are not willing to make homosexuality illegal, this gay divorce ban is outright unconstitutional discrimination and gays have an obligation to protest it, which puts everyone who doesn't really care for the homosexual lifestyle in a tough spot because they are the ones who pushed for this ban. Their actions are only stirring the pot and bringing the thing they abhor out and in their faces, whereas if they could swallow their pride and compromise the whole issue would just go away and they wouldn't be confronted by it. But there are principles at stake here.

The solution is in the etymology. Marriage is a word that carries a lot of meaning, like Christmas; it has religious significance even though it is used to refer sometimes to acts that are not religious in nature. The answer is in creating a new word. In the case of Christmas, the Jews say "Hanukah" and the Atheists say "Ski Trip".

Thus, the solution to this entire issue is so simple that the fact that no one has implemented it means that I deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. Instead of using the term "marriage" when referring to a gay or lesbian civil union, it should henceforth be called "Matching Mudflaps".

The (dis)Quiet of A Disgruntled Political Junkie

Oct 30, 2008
4 comments

I've not said much lately. As the election nears and furor on both sides reaches it's crescendo I sit quietly, frustrated.

The debates were shit. I was beyond disappointed in the stump speeches everyone recited in leu of real honest-to-god political standpoints.

"Failed economic policies of the last 8 years." If I drank a thimble full of fucking-close-to-water American Beer every time I heard that line I'd have to be carted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning before any one of them ended. The truly sad element of it all is that Clinton led the deregulation charge for the banks back in the 90's.

What annoys me now more than anything is just how damn corrupt the American political system is. Unabashedly so. When I started studying American politics I couldn't understand why there were only two parties? It seemed like such a poor way of doing things to only offer two choices in something like running a country. However now I know better, there are not just two parties, there are not just two presidential candidates. Can you name them all?

I can. (But only with the assistance of Wikipedia.)

Democratic Party

Presidential Candidate: Barack Obama

Vice Presidential Candidate: Joe Biden

Republican Party

Presidential Candidate: John McCain

Vice Presidential Candidate: Sarah Palin

Constitution Party

Presidential Candidate: Chuck Baldwin

Vice Presidential Candidate: Darrell Castle

Libertarian Party

Presidential Candidate: Bob Barr

Vice Presidential Candidate: Wayne Allyn Root

Green Party

Presidential Candidate: Cynthia McKinney

Vice Presidential Candidate: Rosa Clemente

Reform Party

Presidential Candidate: Ted Weill (He will only appear on the ballot in Mississippi)

And then we have Ralph Nader running as an independent with Matt Gonzalez running as his VP.

I know what you're saying, you're all thinking 'silly Toe Knee and his pie eyed idealism... those aren't real Presidential Candidates, they're just zones on a ballot that exist for us not to use them, otherwise we could all vote by using the ballot as a dart board.'

That's the predominant opinion, that voting for another party is literally "throwing away your vote". And really I can't argue, because what's the point in voting for a person who 95% percent of the country likely doesn't know exists?

Why are the other candidates not invited to the presidential debates?

Because the GOP and the democrats PAY the media to hold the debates, and that payment guarantees exclusivity. There is nothing in the American Constitution about political parties. The founding fathers didn't want them. They wanted free-minded men and women to lead America.

With that sort of unobstructed corruption and bias in the federal election, the fundamental piece of American Democracy, is it any wonder why people don't have any faith in politicians?

Equal Rights for the Sexes - Giving Men the Right to Abort

Oct 11, 2008
37 comments

With the American election coming up quickly there are a lot of issues that are on people's minds, abortion is one of them. Interestingly nothing is mentioned about Abortion in the Constitution one way or the other so technically it should be a State governed issue. Abortion is a touchy subject that I've waded into with care only a few times, it often enflames tempers and in many ways arguments coming from both sides are valid because ultimately one's stance is dependent on one's personal morality. To clarify my position on the matter currently I am personally Pro Life, but Politically Pro Choice when it comes to abortion. I would offer aid and assistance to a young struggling potential mother without judgement and help her explore all avenues that would allow the baby to live, but I would never ever ever support any sort of government intervention which amounts to politicians saying they know better what's going on in some girl's life better than she does.

However as they exist abortion laws are unbalanced, they are completely and utterly sexist and allow unscrupulous women to enslave a fellow human being for up to 18 years. This is a horrible injustice, it laughs in the face of equal rights, and harkens back to the days of slavery. It can be exploited by immoral and lazy people and can often enough ruin someone's life.

Why are men not given the right to choose whether or not they can abort? If women can then men should be able to as well.

The thing is, I'm not joking. Men should be legally allowed to abort a fetus as well. No I'm not saying they should be able to force a woman to kill her unborn child, that would be barbaric, I'm talking about allowing a man the legal right to sever all ties and responsibility to a child in the same timeframe that a mother would be allowed to choose to abort. This legal precedent would completely sever ties between the man and his offspring and cannot be changed or undone, once he has given up his rights to fatherhood they are gone for good.

The flip side of this amendment would be what if the father wants to keep the baby but the mother wishes to abort. Legally this is much more touchy because if not handled correctly it amounts to making women brood mares (also barbaric), however in such a matter I believe that a man wishing to care for his own child sans the mother should offer up payment for the mother's surrogacy as carrying the baby for 9 months is a service she would be providing. Women wishing to keep their babies would not be legally bound to pay for the sperm donation unless an agreement was arranged before conception. Of course after the baby is born, the mother would legally sever all ties and responsibility for the child and the baby would be relinquished into the permanent care of the father.

These amendments are extremely logical and in fact I cannot understand why they have not been enacted or even suggested as law yet. In a country which claims that all are given equal rights no matter race, creed, or gender this situation is inexcusable and needs to be remedied right away.

As when any new law is suggested there of course should be input from the people, so I now gladly turn over these suggestions for broader scrutiny and suggestion. The concepts here were originally brought to light by my good friend Ian Cognito to give credit where credit is due, and as such I'm granting him the privilege of getting all the flame comments while I'll just take the constructive criticism and praise. I'm selfless like that. Flamer's please oblige.

Top Contributors to the Presidential Candidates

Oct 9, 2008
2 comments

A couple of neat lists from Opensecrets.org.

I thought it might be interesting to see the lists of the top campaign contributions for both candidates. It paints an interesting picture.

Top Contributors

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Because of contribution limits, organizations that bundle together many individual contributions are often among the top donors to presidential candidates. These contributions can come from the organization's members or employees (and their families). The organization may support one candidate, or hedge its bets by supporting multiple candidates. Groups with national networks of donors - like EMILY's List and Club for Growth - make for particularly big bundlers.

BARACK OBAMA
Goldman Sachs

$739,521

University of California

$697,506

Harvard University

$501,489

Citigroup Inc

$492,548

Google Inc

$487,355

JPMorgan Chase & Co

$475,112

National Amusements Inc

$432,169

Microsoft Corp

$429,656

UBS AG

$419,550

Lehman Brothers

$391,774

Wilmerhale Llp

$383,024

Time Warner

$375,063

Sidley Austin LLP

$370,916

Skadden, Arps et al

$360,409

Stanford University

$341,399

Morgan Stanley

$341,380

Latham & Watkins

$328,879

Jones Day

$309,960

University of Chicago

$294,237

General Electric

$290,584

JOHN MCCAIN
Merrill Lynch

$349,170

Citigroup Inc

$287,801

Morgan Stanley

$249,377

Goldman Sachs

$220,045

JPMorgan Chase & Co

$206,392

AT&T Inc

$183,663

Credit Suisse Group

$175,503

PricewaterhouseCoopers

$163,670

Blank Rome LLP

$153,426

US Government

$152,118

US Army

$150,470

Wachovia Corp

$147,456

Greenberg Traurig LLP

$145,737

UBS AG

$141,365

Bank of America

$133,975

FedEx Corp

$121,904

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher

$120,246

US Dept of Defense

$118,125

Lehman Brothers

$115,707

Bear Stearns

$108,000