Presidental Election
It's because of the electoral college system that poor people's votes often don't mean a great deal.
The poorest have to live in urban states, much of America's middle-class live in rural states where they have disproportionate number of electoral college votes to their population.
Bush has not been very Conservative; increasing spending whilst cutting taxes is what caused the deficeit; the economy was already on a downturn before 9/11. America was not the only country to lose money because of 9/11, yet America fared the worst in a way that didn't fit it's economic strength.
On the subject of Kerry being a flip-flopper: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... uoque.html
On the subject of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice and their positions in government: this has not automatically made large parts of America drop it's infamous racism.
I think Tali is beggining to get the idea that I am responding to his post.
Except for serious medical issues, or just outright? Do you know how many women have died in Africa because of Bush giving aid only on the condition that it is spent on anti-abortion and abstinence-only programmes?
Who needs social justice, enviromental consideration and safeguards against Plutocratic coups when you can have lower taxes?
Typicaly, Liberal governments are forced to place heavy taxes on most people because Conservatives do anything to stop them taxing huge business.
What has Bush done for Autistics too? Under the No Child Left Behind scheme, parents have encountered no end of buerocracy in trying to secure services. The scheme has given education authority in America unpreccidented leverage to wiggle out of providing adequete education to Autistic children. Because of the curbs on disability allowences, Autistic adults in America have had to struggle, unless they are institutionalised.
Only in George Bush's Texas, when he was govenor, could a mentally ill man be force-fed drugs so that in govenor Bush's eyes, he was sane enough to be executed.
Here in Britain, 5% of the prison population are Autistic. We are a Liberal country, far more Left-wing than the US. How many Autistics do you think are on death-row there, often for reasons they can't understand.?
[quote="Lucas"]Who needs social justice, enviromental consideration and safeguards against Plutocratic coups when you can have lower taxes?quote]
yesssss, lucas!! !
anyway, can anyone tell me why why Colin Powell is "Coe-lin" and not "Col-lin" Other than the obvious, of course (which may be a Brit joke only).
i am reminded of "'ello, Colin! How's it goin', Colin?" etc., which may have been Mel Smith and Ghryff Rhys Jones (perhaps someone could remind me....).
V
Tom_FL_MA
Deinonychus
Joined: 4 Jul 2004
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 304
Location: Central Florida; originally southeastern Massachusetts
Actually, as I understand the electoral college system, being a throwback to colonial days, favors people who own more land instead of areas that have greater population density.
That was the explination I got in in my political science class, Thursday November 9th, 2000.
If you look at the red/blue map from the 2000 election, the overwhelming majority of the country was red with most of the blue being on the west and east coasts.
Of course, if the much feared electoral college tie occurs that has been talked about, then our votes won't even count since the members of congress will decide the presidency.
_________________
I live my life to prove wrong those who said I couldn't make it in life...
Tom_FL_MA
Deinonychus
Joined: 4 Jul 2004
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 304
Location: Central Florida; originally southeastern Massachusetts
If there is an electoral college tie of 269 to 269, taking the election to the House of Representatives for President and Senate for Vice President... our votes still count becuase it will only get to the tie because those registered voters who took part in the election process.
Last edited by Tom_FL_MA on 02 Nov 2004, 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Another thing is that there is bound to be a big arguement starting tomorrow about who won.
America is trying to export it's version of democracy to the rest of the world, does the world want it?
France is actually the best democracy; a pure popular vote, only one electoral college.
Actualy Lucas, Libya's system is argually better; they get to vote on just about everything right down to village level, when deciding to put in a new well or whatever.
As far as I'm conserned, Winston might just as well have said; "it may be better than all those others systems, but it's still an awful form of government!"
Here in wisconsin, as I see things right now (at 11:30pm CST), The electoral college tie that I elluded to tuesday afternoon seems more and more likely to happen as each state falls for the canidates.
Bush will most likely win Ohio, and will win Alaska, Kerry will take the remaning states that are still up in the air, bringing both bush and kerry to 269 electoral votes! This is how I see it...
This scenario is all too likely to happen...
_________________
I live my life to prove wrong those who said I couldn't make it in life...
The need for a uniform voting system in all fifty states is quite clear. Having electronic voting, paper ballots and other different methods of casting your vote, there is little wonder confusion and chaos reign. One of the tasks confronting the new Congress should be to fix up the mess with voting procedures. I doubt that anything will happen in that area, as I think the U.S. Congress don't have the willpower to do anything about it.
Do you want to know how it will get worse for us?
The mainstream press (and just about every prominent conservative in the country) has virtually ignored what should be one of this election year's top stories: the fact that President George W. Bush wants to have every American citizen, beginning with all school age children, examined by psychiatrists. However, a couple of notable personalities, Lew Rockwell and Howard Phillips, are attempting to alert the American people to this diabolical plan.
In his Issues and Strategy Bulletin (HPISB#750-September 30, 2004), Phillips quotes Rockwell as saying, "The New Freedom Initiative is a plan to screen the entire U.S. population for mental illness and to provide a cradle-to-grave continuum of services for those identified as either mentally ill or at risk of becoming so. Under the plan, schools would become hubs of the screening process, not only for children, but for their parents and teachers. There are even components aimed at senior citizens, pregnant women, and new mothers.
"In April 2002, President Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to conduct a 'comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system.' The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003, chief among them being that schools are in a 'key position' to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at educational facilities."
This Draconian federal program began in Texas while G.W. Bush was Governor. It was called the Texas Medication Algorithm Project as an alliance between the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. Now that Bush is President, he has begun implementing the program at the national level.
Phillips also quotes Rockwell as noting that one pharmaceutical company that is set to reap a potential financial windfall from the Bush universal mental health screening plan is the Eli Lilly Company by saying, "Eli Lilly has multiple ties to the Bush administration. George Bush, Sr., was a member of Lilly's board of directors. Lilly made $1.6 million in political contributions in 2000, 82 percent of which went to George W. Bush and the Republican Party. President Bush appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to a seat on the Homeland Security Council."
A key component of the implementation of Bush's universal mental health screening plan was to pass Ted Kennedy's No Child Left Behind federal education bill, because one of the principle features of the NCLB bill is to "remove the emotional, behavioral, and academic barriers that interfere with student success in school."
Using the NCLB bill, Bush's plan seeks not only to assess youngsters, but "to expand school mental health programs and evaluate parents." This involves "psychotherapy and drugs" and "social and emotional check-ups." What this means is that "parents are supposed to be surreptitiously assessed for mental 'illness' every time they walk into their physician's office."
For anyone with even a modicum of history knowledge, this smacks eerily similar to Joseph Stalin's "psychiatric hospitals" in the former Soviet Union. This has also been a favored tactic of Chinese Communists. Under those regimes, anyone not agreeing with the political despots in power were determined to be "mentally ill" and sent off to "hospitals" for "treatment."
It is hard to imagine a more sinister and potentially dangerous plan than President Bush's universal mental health screening plan now being implemented. If Bush is reelected, this plan will certainly become accepted policy throughout the United States. This will result in pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly reaping billions of dollars in profits and the American people being subjected to unimaginable abridgements of privacy rights and personal freedoms!
I submit that it is not America's school children who need a psychiatrist, it is the people who would elect any president who dares to implement such a Machiavellian plan!
A large number of Americans believe universal healthcare is a staple of Communism. Do they actually know what Communism is, or do they just conjour up images of Soviets getting up to immoral things?
When it's America doing it, it's national security. Anybody else, it's Communism.
Bush won, big surprise. He had perfect timing as well. He gets to choose the next chief justice and with the success of the Marriage ban, we all know who is gonna be next.
National mental health tests can be a good thing but not by the method above. The reports by the psychiatrists will feed more info to big drug companies so they know who they can sell it to and what price.
The reason why many teachers and individuals do not know what syndrome little johnny has is because it is NONE OF THIER BUSINESS (AKA private). These tests are an invasion of privacy.
How many people here are willing to tell others that they have Aspergers syndrome?
Besides, there are many Aspergers or Autism cases where people have a higher intelligence then others. I heard many republicans make the statement that we are less then others because of Survival of the fittest.
I disagree that a disability makes you weak compared to other "strong" beings. For everything that doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. If you want to look at people that fail in evolution, look at http://www.darwinawards.com/
