Which party for you?

[CLee]

That's why party platforms are more important than the personal beliefs of a politician.

Thanks for the laugh. But the only platform that is of any importance in an election is the candidate's own platform. That is just the way the American political system works. And frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

[grön]

I'm green (thats what my name means) so I would probely vote for Nader if I lived in Amerika but on the otehr side the FBI would be watching me to so my vote would probably disapere.

[Martin Blank]

Nader isn't the Green Party candidate. David Cobb is. The Green Party refused to entertain Nader as an option because he's seen as such a joke in the US.

[grrrlromeo]

CLee: When push comes to shove, politicans usually break for their party. I don't think we should have to consider which party has the majority in the Senate when wondering if a bill will pass or not. But unfortunately we do.

gron: Winona LaDuke endorsed Kerry if that tells you anything.

Martin: I laugh everytime I fasten my seatbelt.

[Martin Blank]

Party isn't everything for politicians who have principles, and there are some left. John McCain routinely bucks the Republican Party line, and yet he's not only chair of the Senate Commerce Committee (one of the more powerful committees in Congress), but is next in line for the Senate Armed Services Committee (possibly the most powerful committee in Congress), a post he's likely to get if the Republicans maintain control of the Senate. Among other things, he's voted against the marriage amendment, has crossed the aisle to co-sponsor election finance reform legislation, and rails against pork-barrel spending by both major parties.

I have my disagreements with him, but he's overall better than anyone the national parties have so far pushed out in the limelight, precisely because he does what he thinks is right and not what a committee of ideologues tells him to do.

[cyberCrank]

Getting close to time for the Fat Lady to sing

[BartVB]

Yup, and again it's going to be an extremely close call.

The americans really keep amazing me, I guess I'll never learn to understand them. 50M people that vote for a president that:
- wants to limit privacy in order to increase 'national security'
- wants more guns in houses
- lowers taxes for the people with the highest incomes
- who doesn't care about the rest of the world
- who gets the US out of international treaties like Kyoto
- who is religious and bases a lot of his political decisions on religious grounds

One word: scary.

And no, I really don't think that 90% of the people outside the US hate Bush when they don't even know why they hate him. I really don't believe that most americans know why they are voting on a candidate. Well, most of them know one thing ('I vote for Bush because he is against abortion', or 'The bible says that we should support our leader in times or war'). Scary stuff if you ask me

But you're not asking me because it's your great nation and not mine

I used to be pretty pro-america. A lot of cool stuff has come from the US, technologies, literature and even some good movies But my view of the US has changed tremendously in the last 4 years and I'm not exactly alone...

BTW making the US safer by creating a 'homeland security' department is not really effective if you ask me :\ The problem with terrorism is that you can't stop it. One man can blow up a whole building if he wants, nothing you can do about it. Just go to your hardware store, get some artificial furtilizer and some fuel and you can already create quite a bomb. Put all that stuff in a (rental) truck, park it in a garage under a large building, detonate and you're done.

Nothing that Homeland Security can do against that. IMO the US should think about _why_ they are attacked and act on that instead of provoking even more aggression.

[Martin Blank]

Yup, and again it's going to be an extremely close call.

It's looking like it's not going to end up being nearly as close a call as anyone thought. Bush is currently up by about 3.5 million votes, and he's won a pretty clear majority of the electoral votes. That said...

The americans really keep amazing me, I guess I'll never learn to understand them. 50M people that vote for a president that:
- wants to limit privacy in order to increase 'national security'
- wants more guns in houses
- lowers taxes for the people with the highest incomes
- who doesn't care about the rest of the world
- who gets the US out of international treaties like Kyoto
- who is religious and bases a lot of his political decisions on religious grounds

Privacy limits are bad, but I take heart in the courts striking down or limiting provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, and in that Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to extend those parts that had sunset provisions in the original law. A lot of them have been questioning the use of the UPA in non-terrorist investigations, which many of us have been doing from the start.

As for more guns causing more crime, that's a fallacy. Look at Washington, DC. Possession of firearms there is forbidden by law, and the homicide rate there is 44.0 per 100,000, third in cities over 100,000 population behind New Orleans (57.7) and Richmond, VA (46.5). To put things in perspective, New York City has a rate of only 7.37, and Los Angeles has 13.42. The national average is 5.7 homicides per 100,000, and even removing firearms, the rate is about 2.0, which is still higher than the rates in many other nations. When you look more closely, you'll see that the major homicide centers are those that have significant organized crime and/or gang problems. The problem is much more societal than anything else.

Finally, the Kyoto treaty was never, ever going to happen in the US. It was signed by Clinton, but was never submitted to the Senate (which is responsible for actually ratifying treaties and needs a 2/3 vote to do so) because it was never going to pass. It was dead on arrival, because the US refused to be singled out for reductions when major industrial nations like China were given relatively free reign to grow their own emission bases. Even before negotiations began in earnest, the Senate sent a message to Clinton on a 95-0 vote that unless all nations were treated substantially the same, they weren't going to pass it if it were submitted. That's a pretty resounding defeat before the chance at victory even came about.

[olger901]

Bah that damn Warchief Monkey named Bushy Wussy won

[cyberCrank]

** The Fat Lady sang and now sits down **