Earlier quoted context omitted.
George Carlin is (was) a right fool. The whole problem is that people don't have enough control over the government. Not voting only allows those who would have control over you to have more power. Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote.
> Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote. Actually, it's not. The US election process operates under the Electoral College[1], so a state majority vote changes all votes to that majority vote (eg: Democrats win majority in Illinois, so all votes in that state end up voting for Democrats in the presidential election). The disparity between the electoral vote and the popular vote is usuall…
Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
121–130 of 321 posts
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#122The oddest thing about this is that people seem totally fine that corporations control all of their personal data (and use it to develop new revenue streams), but if the government gets that data (that already exists), then there's a serious problem. What?
Echoing honzzz, in the last century governments killed upwards of a quarter billion of their own people. No corporation has any such power.
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#123The oddest thing about this is that people seem totally fine that corporations control all of their personal data (and use it to develop new revenue streams), but if the government gets that data (that already exists), then there's a serious problem. What?
The second oddest thing is that the same people who complain about how the corporations are running the world are for some reason much more incensed about governments getting access to this personal data for actual useful reasons (however minor they're perceived) than they are about corporations accumulating this data to sell to each other and anyone with enough dollars (as clearly mentioned in the privacy policies that no one cares to read).
I mean, if corporations are really running the world then we should be more worried about them, I would think.
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#124Is the headline trying to mislead? A) Phone records are not wiretaps. B) They weren't warrantless. However, secret warrants can be misused, and gathering data on domestic calls needs further scrutiny than this collection of every call.
No, it's not, you're apparently just not fully aware of what's going on. They don't only have access to phone records ; they also have access to our communications, and they have had that access for at least the last 6 years without a warrant, not even one from a FISA court.
It's not like these programs just got setup without approval. I'm sure they have secret rulings from FISA to justify all this stuff (not that a secret ruling makes anything legal, but hey). The problem with secret courts is obvious.
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#125"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up,…
Carlin was a great comedian and I'm a big fan but I'm not about to agree with this simply because the late great George Carlin said it. This is totally backwards and you have to do some mental gymnastics to believe it. In the end, this is what it is, a joke. If you don't vote you have done nothing to even try to elect someone who you, in good faith, believe will do what you deem the right thing. Yeah, politicians are…
> Those in power want you not to vote.
If that's the case, the amount of resources candidates spend trying to get people to vote is peculiar.
> If you don't vote, you're still entitled to complain but I personally won't take you as seriously because you haven't tried to affect change.
The only way I could even begin to see any validity to your point is if an election were a tie or decided by a single vote.
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
George Carlin is (was) a right fool. The whole problem is that people don't have enough control over the government. Not voting only allows those who would have control over you to have more power. Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote.
> Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote. Actually, it's not. The US election process operates under the Electoral College[1], so a state majority vote changes all votes to that majority vote (eg: Democrats win majority in Illinois, so all votes in that state end up voting for Democrats in the presidential election). The disparity between the electoral vote and the popular vote is usuall…
For that matter, why even bring up the electoral college? Even if the president were elected by a majority vote, the odds of the election being a tie or decided by a single vote is incredibly small—almost certainly too small to be able to rationally justify the time spent researching candidates or even traveling to the polling location.
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently more than half of the voting population of the US. And most of the media. A ton of bloggers. Maybe Europe.
Or they made what they thought was the best choice among the only two viable choices. The biggest problem in the US, maybe the world, is that we don't have instant run-off voting to allow competition in federal gov't. We're trapped by this one oversight of the Founding Fathers.
Or they made what they thought was the best choice among the only two viable choices.
This is a wrong methodology. If you don't accept them - don't make such choice at all. There were other alternatives, but the current voting system prevents anything from competing with the two dominant parties.
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#128"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up,…
George Carlin is (was) a right fool. The whole problem is that people don't have enough control over the government. Not voting only allows those who would have control over you to have more power. Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote.
Is it the case that people don't have enough control over the government? As far as I can tell, we have exactly the government we want, or at least exactly the government you might expect to get in a compromise between rural middle America, suburbanites, christian conservatives, and urban yuppies.
The people who strongly oppose the security measures taken after 9/11 are in the minority. They were part of Obama's coalition, but were almost certainly outnumbered by teachers or blue collar factory workers. I bet if you polled the public, "NSA surveillance" wouldn't rank among the top 3 concerns of even a sizeable minority of the people.
So when the government engages in legal (at the edge of legality, to be sure, but at least colorably legal), and the people don't strongly oppose the measures, why do we treat it as some sort of failure of democracy?
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#129"I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don't vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain,' but where's the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up,…
Carlin was a great comedian and I'm a big fan but I'm not about to agree with this simply because the late great George Carlin said it. This is totally backwards and you have to do some mental gymnastics to believe it. In the end, this is what it is, a joke. If you don't vote you have done nothing to even try to elect someone who you, in good faith, believe will do what you deem the right thing. Yeah, politicians are…
It's presented as a joke, but his real opinion is in there. George Carlin didn't vote in presidential elections.
Re: Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me (2008)
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
George Carlin is (was) a right fool. The whole problem is that people don't have enough control over the government. Not voting only allows those who would have control over you to have more power. Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote.
> Even a protest vote or a third party vote is worth more than no vote. Actually, it's not. The US election process operates under the Electoral College[1], so a state majority vote changes all votes to that majority vote (eg: Democrats win majority in Illinois, so all votes in that state end up voting for Democrats in the presidential election). The disparity between the electoral vote and the popular vote is usuall…
I will chime in with how it is too. Since there are such tight margins in the popular vote, and large percentage participation gaps, when people vote a protest candidate it has the effect of 'pulling' votes from one of the two mainstream candidates. Ross Perot in the 1992 and 1996 Elections was credited or accused of changing the outcome of the election by taking votes away from Bush (the elder).
The result were more Perot like ideas being pushed into both parties to prevent that from happening.
Protest voting, even in rigged elections like Putin's election in Russia, are very effective political action.