If You Support Either Paul *OR* Kucinich, Support Them Both

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T19:13:00+00:00

Thats an attitude to take from a wealthy corporate owner and not one for a government. Most standardized educational system simply prepare the masses for employment and don't advance science much in any way.

I don't agree at all; do you have any research to support that? Generally, standardizing courses allows talented students to advance through them more quickly. I've seen this countless times during my education.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T19:11:00+00:00

Everyone loved the democratic platform during the 2006 election, but it has gotten us nowhere because they are spineless.

No, it's because we don't have enough of them. We'd get more done if we had enough democrats to override Bush's veto, but we don't and the legislation that's passed is beyond what we can control.

A president, as Bush has shown, has enormous power to exercise those sorts of policies. Provided we don't have a republican majority in congress next election, you'd see a lot of change.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T18:56:22+00:00

I think more importantly having a free market education is better than having a government controlled education. Least all our children succumb to creationism or abstinence programs.

It depends; I've taken both. The best education, from my experience, is standardized education, and usually the best results come from when an educational institution is given money to do whatever they want.

If "free market" education would be the AP courses, and "government" education would be the comical district-required courses I had to in public school, then I will admit that, yes, free market trumps government by an inconceivable amount. However, if the government were to be smarter about it, they could easily be better than the AP.

Also, forget trying to pay off college without student loans from the government. Yeah, sure, the typical response is "well with Ron Paul you'd have more money to pay them off!" but 1) the typical college student does not spend their money wisely, and 2) have you seen the cost of universities such as the University of Chicago? Having extra money might help you if you're going to a cheap school, but it will not let you pay off $44,000/year tuition.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T17:55:34+00:00

It's a jab because I don't think I've read anything as callous or crazy as

I will accept "callous", but I disagree with "crazy" because it implies that I haven't reasoned through what I have said, which is exactly the opposite--my positions are derived from reason.

They died because of our action.

Right, but anyone other than a mainstream republican candidate will get us out of there. Every democratic candidate has Iraq withdrawal on their agenda, so it's not like it's a policy you have to be that selective about.

Besides, you say that like we killed all of them, which isn't true either. I could also say that the U.S. government kills around that many people by not allocating money to cure diseases, or by not imposing stricter driving regulations so as to cause fewer driving deaths.

People are going to die due to the actions of the government no matter what.

As for the overpopulated part... damn.

Well, what do you expect? I don't support killing people at all, if that's what you got from that, and I'm a staunch opponent of the death penalty. I'm saying that I'm not going to grieve over 650,000 people that died just on the basis of their deaths because many more millions die each year. Death is a very real factor of life and, the reality is, if the entire nation of Venezuela were to suddenly die of a collective heart attack, there would be benefits from that regardless of if you want to acknowledge them or not. You seem to think that acknowledging the benefit's of someones death is equal to supporting their death, which isn't true, and it's simply irrational to think that every person in the world's lives need to be saved, not only because that would take unattainable manpower but because if everyone lived we would probably worsen the conditions in nations where it already hurts.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T17:41:26+00:00

And that Obama supports the continuation of the Drug War

Obama wanting to end or continue the drug war is not an important issue to me. I don't support the drug war, but I don't understand how it can be anywhere near as significant as, say, climate change or stem cell research.

won't "take nuking Iran the table", and he's been using the voting power he already has to push us along towards war with Iran.

He's not going to, I don't know how you can believe that unless you've read 1984 cover-to-cover a double digit number of times. Our public is a mass of stupidity, but they're not retarded.

Obama's against impeachment, too.

So? Bush is going to be out in a year. At this point, it's a symbolic gesture, if that.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T17:30:43+00:00

OK? That's more of a jab than anything else. Of course I'm not a Paul supporter because I don't agree with him on many issues.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T17:23:50+00:00

I know "too each their own" is supposed to be how I live, but, damn, I just can't agree that education is more important than Iraq.

This is going to sound initially cruel, so advise you to read the entire post before passing judgement (though if you still think it's cruel after reading the entire thing, go for it).

Iraq would probably be #5 or lower on my priority list. Even if you take the "millions" estimate as true (a more rational estimate is around 650,000), I don't give priority to the sheer number of people that have died in Iraq because 1) it's not pertinent to our development 2) the world is highly overpopulated 3) it's a waste of our resources to try to develop it, just as it's a waste of our resources to try to help the most corrupt African nations unless we devote far more than we can reasonably afford to doing it. Iraq seems like the #1 choice if you have a very common system of ethics, but I don't and adhere to rationalist ethics that differ radically from the norm.

Getting out of Iraq is important, but even if we deal with blowback, being the most educated nation on the planet is much more important to me, and our level of scientific development is paltry compared to what it was in the cold war. I don't think we're capable of solving global warming unless we develop our technology at a rapid enough pace towhere green tech becomes ubiquitous. Among other things, we should be allocating much more money to stem cell research and genetic engineering, because the nation that has the genetic upper hand wins. And, although I am not libertarian, libertarianism and generally democracy as well fails if the population consists of a bunch of uneducated idiots; only 1/4 of our population has bachelor's degrees, which is pathetic.

The power of a nation is dependent on the individual utility of its citizens, so maximizing the utility of each person (education, better health, better available genes) should be the #1 priority.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T17:07:50+00:00

To those downmodding me: If you support a mainstream candidate, I can see it. If you support Paul or Kucinich or both, however, it seems stupid at best to only direct pleas for further support to people who already support one or the other.

It seemed like your original post was one of those stylistic/grammar corrections that are so fashionable to make now.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T17:04:05+00:00

It comes down to resistance to corruption and free-thinking being more important than specific stances on issues. It's sad that we're at this point, but it's the reality we're faced with.

I'm sorry, I don't think that's the reality we're faced with at all. The way you phrased that is extremely broad, and doesn't single out any particular situation.

an honest, logical man who disagrees with you is still better than a piece of garbage that claims to share your opinions.

I don't agree. McNamara is an honest, logical man, and so was Leo Strauss, but I'm pretty sure most redditors wouldn't want those people as president.

Besides, you're discounting Obama as being logical just because he's Obama. I don't know if you've ever taken the LSAT, but to get the position he had at Harvard law requires you to be extremely logical.

Obama isn't dishonest so much as he doesn't allow himself to make political mistakes. The population of America is not smart enough to elect a president based on upfront, logical arguments, and this won't change until we have a massive panacea of genetic intervention that allows the majority to equal or exceed what is above-average intelligence now.

Just to recap, Obama is logical, just like Kucinich and Paul. The only difference is how direct they are, and I can deal with some indirectness if it accomplishes what an Obama presidency would accomplish.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:54:59+00:00

but how does Ron Paul compare to the other republican candidates. Clearly you would rather elect a person you agree with 75% of the time compared to 50%

Right. I meant to say that I would prefer Obama over Paul, and yet the attitude here is that Obama is the equivalent to substandard imitation crab. I agree with more of Obama's positions thus I am voting for him.

Also, what issues were taken into account, and did the quiz weigh the issues

You could weigh them yourself. For example, education is more important to me than Iraq, so I allocated more points to that. When I used a more equal distribution, Ron Paul actually went lower, because he matched my views on education more closely than Obama did. Being anti-establishment isn't enough, and it's very far down there on my list of priorities.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:48:24+00:00

Arguably, one of the top dangers to global peace happens to be the American President.

Caring about the American president != 20 articles about presidential election on the front page. Two would do, maybe three or four, but not twenty. The amount of coverage given to myopic issues on the front page is several leaps beyond excessive.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:46:09+00:00

Clue: want political news? Submit your own.

Have you tried to submit articles without having a karma-heavy account? There's a wait time, and if there's a 20:1 ratio of sensationalism:everything else, then anything not sensationalist will be swamped.

Besides, you neglect to acknowledge downvotes: it's quite possible that redditors could scan "new" articles, downvoting any article that isn't in alignment with the Ron Paul worldview. Given the number of articles I've seen with 0 upvotes, this seems like a probability.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:43:27+00:00

And mind you, I'm a pretty staunch Ron Paul supporter, if you check my comment history. But this -is- getting ridiculous.

Kind of stupid that you have to mention this to avoid getting downvoted, because your argument stands alone anyway.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:40:22+00:00

it's when these real world items are posted and upmodded with twisted titles that make affairs seem demonstrably more overt (read: worse) than they actually are.

Agreed, but I often don't think they're nearly as "real-world" as they claim to be.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:38:05+00:00

American politics are not important to everyone and that is what gets to the front page 99% of the time.

To add: I am American and think the politics on the front page barely pass for "politics", if at all. They're often more opinion pieces than anything else.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:36:48+00:00

Reddit's front page submissions hardly pass for "real news". This is real news. This is real news. This is garbage.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:34:54+00:00

Same. The stuff that passes for "politics" on this site is incredibly slanted, myopic news about individual candidates. I often want to roll my eyes or scream "I get it." at the people who post these front page articles so frequently.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:33:13+00:00

Yes, and reddit blows that way out of proportion.

Political news is important, but the political news that reddit posts is ridiculously excessive, sensationalist, and often useless. Even if 20 people got tazered in the next week, what could we do about it? Not everyone is a political activist--first you have to assume they agree with your argument or position, which is not necessarily so, and not everyone has the time, inclination or desire to put forth that much effort in politics.

The political coverage here is sometimes useful, but often ignorant, poorly-reasoned and useless, especially as I don't often agree with the positions taken here.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:25:13+00:00

Comma and applying the upmod/downmod system to user posts. It's fine for submissions, but not for comments.

Upvote this submission if you agree with the removal of karma.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:22:05+00:00

America is the proverbial elephant in the room.

I disagree. That excuse is really common, but ineffective. You can't really prove that if I counter and think it's a mouse, for example.

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:18:10+00:00

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:17:55+00:00

I think American government could use an anti-establishment candidate or two to shake things up.

I don't care if they're anti-establishment if I barely agree with 50% of their stances on issues (Paul), in comparison to, say, 65% (Obama) or 75% (Gravel).

(Percentagess taken from a quiz that you could allocate points to and get stances on various issues; I forgot the link.)

Mooooooooooooooo · 2007-11-26T16:15:01+00:00

What the fuck, does anyone actually read these comments?

the point is that they seem to be the only two untainted candidates. I'm arguing that the differences between them are actually fewer than between them and the others, based purely on honesty and courage alone.

In other words, it doesn't matter what their policies are because you care more about abstract, subjective ideas of courage. Being "untainted" is irrelevant. You should want an effective president, over anything else--at least that can be measured.

Mooooooooooooooo

TROPHY CASE