The Official US President Election Thread

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by Cirdan

JD- I haven't even seen a real "flower-child" in 35 years. And Hippies??? LOL!!! Maybe in a Cheech & Chong movie. Are you still fighting the Vietnam war perhaps?

No - I'mn not fighting vietnam. it doesn't matter if you are stilll a flower child or not. I'm saying that the democratic party is made up of the hippies of the 60's - such as Hillary and Bill Clinton. it has nothing to do with them currently dressing in those ridiculous flowerr hippie dresses or having flowers in their hair now. It has to do with their view on the world - that if you just think of it as being beautiful and kind and sweet - it will be.

EDIT: Nice clean-up on the last post, btw.

The ONLY reason why I took it out was becuase you had the "" smile - so I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. I will put it back in though if you were serious. I really do NOT care if I get banned if someone accuses me of just sitting confortably in my home supporting this war - as MY BROTHER is on the front lines and my cousin is going over to Iraq.

[Cirdan]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

Redistricting is a state issue. It depends on how the states set it up. The redistricting board in NJ - is made up of equal number of republicans and democrats.

That seems like the way to go. Here in Maryland and Texas et al it is the party that controls the state government the year that the census comes out. Not exactly on the up and up, IMO.

I disagree with the state splitting votes. It's the states voting. I can't say I want to elect Kerry for these issues and elect Bush for these issues and that's what splitting a state vote does.

I'm not sure that is true. It seems to me the college was meant to be bipartisan and over the years has become more like the redistricting issue. I'm surprised as a republican your against it. It seeems to me they would benefit the most. They would get something out of NY and CA at least.

Maybe there could be a limit where 60% is unanimous, etc so large majorities are not counted as splits. It's still up to each state, no matter what.

[Cirdan]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

The ONLY reason why I took it out was becuase you had the "" smile - so I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. I will put it back in though if you were serious. I really do NOT care if I get banned if someone accuses me of just sitting confortably in my home supporting this war - as MY BROTHER is on the front lines and my cousin is going over to Iraq.

No I wasn't serious but I dislike the trivialization of serious political discouse. These are important issues, and as they have some impact on many people's lives, especially those like your brother's, you should return to your former debating style that I remember from a few years ago. We can get screaming vitriol and silly labels on talk tv. I think we can do better.

[Sister Golden Hair]

This thread is temporarily closed, until I can go through it and delete the flames and personal attacks. Closing.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Re-opened. Keep it civil people.

[Insidious Rex]

Hey i go away for a day and a bar fight breaks out in my thread.

Oh and i dont really understand how Hawaii would be a non factor in a close election decided by percentage rather then all or nothing electoral votes. the campaigning of late has been relegated to 3 or 4 midwest states and PA and florida. NOT the 70% of states with less then 7 electoral votes.

[Nurvingiel]

Yeah...erm... anyway I actually typed up a post a while ago that had a error when I posted it, but it was about electronic voting and immigration. I don't feel like typing it out.

But I realized that many electoral systems are probably not based solely on the popular vote. In Canada, we don't have an electoral college, but the country is instead divided into ridings (there are 303 in total). There are about 40 in British Columbia, 4 in Nova Scotia, 120 in Ontario etc. (rough guesses) The Member of Parliment (MP) for each riding is elected by popular vote. The leader of the party that wins the most seats (IOW the party where the most MPs get elected) becomes the Prime Minister, and the party forms the government.
The role of an MP is a lot like that of a Senator, but you could equate the process of electing an MP with gaining an Electoral College vote.
Israel has a system entirely based on popular vote. Each party ranks the members that run in an order of preference, starting with the leader at 1.
So if a party gets 3% of the vote, members 1, 2, and 3 get a seat in the government. Maybe Radagast the Brown could explain that better. This system leads to a lot of minority and/or coalition goverments.
(In Canada, we have a minority government right now, but since it's only a tad less than 50% of the seats, they've so far avoided having to form a coalition. In the USA, you can't have a minority government, but I forget why now [JD you did explain it well though ].)

Anyway, do you think my analogy works?

[Janny]

Originally Posted by Cirdan

So, whose the wimp? Really thick comment, Janny. (I once beat a roomie for using that word on me. Sort of raises my hackles.)

Okay, fair enough. It was a sweeping generalisation (I don't know how many pages ago this was now, btw, but I'll speak for myself.)

The point was as regards to the current political situation: the ones entering into wars are Republicans. The ones supporting the wars, then not, then supporting, then not...

And if we want to point fingers about Woody Wilson, where was the Republican delegation at Versailles?!

[Afterthought]: I said all of that and what you got me on was a misinterpretation (my fault for lack of clarity) of the flippant use of the word 'whimp'? Which we seems to have disagreements on how to spell anyway...

PS: Who is Prime Minister Jeeves?!

PPS: The point as regards to troops is correct and wise. I was however referring to political bravery... in the current climate. Yes kudos to Wilson and FDR. Boy, did you save our behinds... twice...

[jerseydevil]

Silicon Insider: The Myth of the Mistake-Free War
Has the Digital Revolution Led to Expectations of a Perfect World?
Commentary
By MICHAEL S. MALONE

Oct. 28, 2004 -- I knew a man, a friend of my father, who was the gentlest of souls. He spoke softly, usually about inconsequentialities, carried his wife's purse at the store, and spent the afternoons of his retirement listening to classical music.

Being a young man on the make, I barely noticed this gentleman on the rare occasions when we crossed paths at my parents' house. We'd nod and say a few pleasantries — and, since I was hosting a PBS series at the time, he would inevitably ask me to "tell the folks at NPR to play more classical music" — as if I had any contact with the radio network.

Then, one evening, my father took me aside and said, "Have you ever asked Ray what he did in the war?"

I didn't even know Ray was in World War II. He didn't seem the fighting type. So I went over and asked, expecting to get some amusing story about being a supply clerk in Sioux Falls.

I came back a half-hour later, stunned.

A War Hero
It seems that mousy Ray had been in the 101st Airborne Division. He had landed at Normandy, at Arnhem and at Bastogne. On his last combat jump he had tucked up expecting, in the pre-dawn light, to land in a dark pond … only to discover too late that it was a newly paved asphalt lot. He broke most of the major bones in his lower body; and by the time he was out of the hospital the war was ending and most of his compatriots were dead.

Ray was a true American hero. What I thought was meekness was instead the conscious decision of a man who had seen it all, who had nothing to prove, and who understandably wanted to spend the rest of his life in peace and quiet.

Ray is gone now, dying as peacefully as he lived. But one of the stories he told me that evening stuck with me — and I've thought about it often in recent weeks.

If you remember your history, in the pre-dawn hours of June 6, 1944, the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions were flown, in a vast air flotilla, across the English Channel to land just behind the beaches of Normandy. Their mission was to capture key roads and bridges the Nazis might use to reinforce their coastal defenses.

However, just as the planes reached the French coast, they hit a cloud bank, sending scores of planes off course. Hundreds of men hooked their lines, jumped into the night … and were strewn all over the countryside.

Many Mistakes Made
That was just the beginning, because below them, in anticipation of the invasion, the Germans had flooded many of the fields inland from the beach. That was what awaited Ray's squad. As he described it, his sergeant, the first down, landed on the front of a dike. Ray, next, landed on the top. The rest of the squad was carried out into the water where, trapped by their chutes, they drowned.

Three minutes into the war, Ray's squad had been reduced to two and they didn't know where they were or where the enemy was. They were utterly lost in the fog of war.

They weren't alone. What was taking place a couple miles away on the beach was even more chaotic and out of control. On Omaha Beach, the linchpin of the invasion, U.S. troops had landed into a meat-grinder and were pinned down in a situation so desperate that the invasion's field commander, Gen. Omar Bradley, considered calling a retreat. On Utah Beach, the troops had landed nearly a mile from their target — leading Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. to make the fateful command decision to "start the war here."

Of course, we won. But D-Day, one of the most carefully planned military actions in history, was a mess, falling apart (as Ray appreciated more than anybody) almost from the moment it began. Even the rehearsal for Normandy was a debacle, drowning hundreds of men meaninglessly.

Americans of that era seemed to accept a much greater degree of battlefield chaos, human error and command-level blunders than we do today. The much smaller societies that could endure tens of thousands of casualties at Spotsylvania or Okinawa or Choisin Reservoir, now shudders at a fraction of that number in Iraq.

What's changed?

Inflated Expectations
I think, in an odd way, it is the digital revolution. Over the last 50 years we have increasingly captured large regions of the natural, analog world and converted to the digital world. Why? Because once something becomes digital — sound recording, video, information processing, communications, intelligence gathering, surveillance — it becomes subject to the regime of Moore's Law. That is, it gets better and better, fast, in that famous analogy to grains of rice on a chessboard.

Compared to the vague, imprecise analog world, digital offers the powerful, addictive incentive of continuous, measurable improvement. We see that improvement all around us: personal computers that are twice as powerful this year as last, credit card sized MP3 players that hold 10,000 songs, GPS systems that can place you to within three feet anywhere on the planet. Compare that with the rate of change of the old record players, tape recorders and printed maps.

Lurking behind the digitalization of the world is the dream of perfection, that asymptote toward which Moore's Law races faster than any other process human beings have yet devised. It is the world of Six Sigma manufacturing, and .9999999 percent pure silicon crystals, and clean rooms pure to one part per billion. The effects of all of this near-perfection are delirious: airplanes that almost never fall out of the sky, computers that perform 10 trillion computations flawlessly, cars that can drive four times around the Earth without a tune-up.

Given these growing pools of perfection in our lives, who can be blamed for not starting to expect it everywhere? Why do our appliances ever have to break down? Why can't we devise the perfect diet? Why do we ever have to die?

continued...

[jerseydevil]

Political Perfection Expected?
A dangerous form of this perfectionism has, I think, infected the presidential campaign this year. It regards the war in Iraq. I'm not here to take one side or another about whether the war was justified, only to suggest that the premise of the debate has been dangerously skewed by our perfectionist thinking.

Large parts of modern warfare, especially as practiced by the United States, have been digitalized — from battlefield communications to precision weapons to satellite surveillance — and it is easy to be lulled into the belief that war, too, can be perfected, that it can be made sterile and clean and, most of all, free of any mistakes. But nothing could be more wrong-headed or dangerous. War is still, as Sherman said, "All Hell" — messy, brutal and riddled with the mistakes made in the fog of war.

But you would never know that from this year's campaign. President Bush has been excoriated for not anticipating every contingency in the most complicated of all types of warfare, fighting insurgents. He has been blamed for not fighting this war perfectly, something never demanded of FDR or Ike or Bradley. Every single casualty is a defeat; every truck bomb deepens the quagmire.

By the same token, despite his attempts to dampen expectations, it is apparent that a large portion of Sen. John Kerry's supporters expect him to come up with a perfect solution to the war, whatever that is. Thus, should he be elected next week, anything Kerry does about the war will be seen even by his own supporters as a failure.

We simply cannot live like this. Digital utopianism is as dangerous a delusion as any utopian fantasy of the past, from the City on the Hill to the New Soviet Man. We need to understand that vast regions of human existence will never fall under the regime of Moore's Law — love, faith, death and especially war. Nor would we want them to. Sometimes human imperfection is our last, best hope. Sometimes the entire fate of civilization rests on a lucky coincidence (the dive bombers arriving over the distracted Japanese fleet at Midway) or even a fortuitous blunder (Sickles mis-positioning his troops into the peach orchard at Gettysburg). Human imperfection is still our last redoubt.

And we shouldn't want it any other way.

Need to type - even though there is a quote

[jerseydevil]

For those who are interested, in particular Nurv, here is what our (Plainsboro NJ)
ballot looks like. We receive a sample ballot in the mail which shows us what the "computer whiteboard"
will display, along with instructions. (sorry about the width of it)


As you can see - in addition to voting for Republican and Democratic Parties - I can vote -
Constitution Party, Socialist Party, Socialist Equality Party, Independent, Libertarian Party,
Green Party and Socialist Workers Party. I can also write in anyone I choose - including myself.

Not only do we vote for President, but we are voting for my districts House of Representative (NJ's 12th district).
Sheriff, Board of Chosen Freeholders and Township Committee (who are running unopposed).

Below are the directions. These also appear on the "computer whiteboard".



I don't see how much easier voting can be and if someone can't work this simple mechanism -
most likely they should not be voting.

[Cirdan]

Originally Posted by Janny

The point was as regards to the current political situation: the ones entering into wars are Republicans. The ones supporting the wars, then not, then supporting, then not...

Still a generalization. Many Republicans are unhappy about the mirage of premise regarding the war. Supporting our troops and sending a unified message doesn't lock in and representative to full endorsement of war. At election time the issues must be discussed in a more detailed fashion which shows the subtles of individual points of view.

And if we want to point fingers about Woody Wilson, where was the Republican delegation at Versailles?!

Well, the Euro allies were out for revenge and Wilson was dying so the 13 points were doomed....

PS: Who is Prime Minister Jeeves?!

Oh, that's a perjorative I heard applied to Tony Blair. I like him but it is a bit funny to think about.

PPS: The point as regards to troops is correct and wise. I was however referring to political bravery... in the current climate. Yes kudos to Wilson and FDR. Boy, did you save our behinds... twice...

Thanks to guys like my uncles (dad was too young to make it overseas in time).
The old saying regarding this: There is a thin line between bravery and stupidity.

And to paraphase Cliton's apology to Japan: Sorry for the nuking but you asked for it.

[Cirdan]

I think evaluating the war on a day-to-day basis has cut both ways. Declaring victory too early and getting jittery about daily events. Looking at the effort as a whole, it is too early to say failure of success. The article JD posted could also be critical of the Rumsfeld doctrine of a high tech precision, low casualty philosophy that has failed to have the effect he predicted.

FDR took as much time as possible to prepare for our inevitable entry into the war. Ike understood that overwhelming firepower required boots on the ground to see it through.

It is absurd to believe we can run a trouble-free war with low casualties on both sides when large areas and populations are involved. That is what were we lead to believe would be the case in Iraq. The "hard work" line came out only after things started going sour.

Wars are always messy, chaotic, and destructive. That's why the should not be viewed as some sort of shoot 'em up video game where no one will really get hurt and there is a happy ending with hugs and handshakes all around. The "Shock and Awe" now is how badly done the planning was for this effort.

That's what happens when politicians set the agenda for the war.

[inked]

The shock and awe part for me is that any body had any expectation that this would be over when the opposition army was wiped out. Wouldn't happen in America either. But, what can you expect from people who thought the worst thing about 9/11 was the disruption of cell phone communication?

Nothing worthwhile doing is easy or done quickly.

Everyone has forgotten the video war of the first week and thought we'd just stroll out after a day at Chucky Cheese's, from the sound of it.

So, if Kerry's elected we just pull up and leave, huh? I doubt it. It'll be highly entertaining to hear his reasons for staying, but I do not believe I'll have to endure that!!!

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by Cirdan

I think evaluating the war on a day-to-day basis has cut both ways. Declaring victory too early and getting jittery about daily events. Looking at the effort as a whole, it is too early to say failure of success. The article JD posted could also be critical of the Rumsfeld doctrine of a high tech precision, low casualty philosophy that has failed to have the effect he predicted.

Bush declared the end to major comment. For the most part - major combat had ended - now we are dealing with insurgents - not armies.

The high tech precision part did work on the army part of the war - not on the peace part. For one thing - where the hell are our drones - why aren't they patrolling Fallujah? The insurgents must move sometime.

It is absurd to believe we can run a trouble-free war with low casualties on both sides when large areas and populations are involved. That is what were we lead to believe would be the case in Iraq. The "hard work" line came out only after things started going sour.

The thing is - that is how most wars are initially perdicted as. Most have been declared as quick and easy - even the Revolution was thought that it would be over in a matter of a year.

Wars are always messy, chaotic, and destructive. That's why the should not be viewed as some sort of shoot 'em up video game where no one will really get hurt and there is a happy ending with hugs and handshakes all around. The "Shock and Awe" now is how badly done the planning was for this effort.

They are always messy and chaotic - but it's the civilian who has created the unrealistic expectation that they won't be. And if a single military personnel gets killed, or civilian - that is too much in todays age.

That's what happens when politicians set the agenda for the war.

I don't think it has much to do with politicians agenda - as much it has to do with people's expectations. Even if a politician said - well we expect 100,000 civilians dead, thousands of soldiers dead, it to be a hard grueling fight - people will look at it and not support it - no matter how important it is.

In terms of other wars - including Vietnam that people like to compare Iraq to - the amount of injured and killed military personnel and civilians is a drop in the bucket. I'm not saying that each life isn't important, but people have come to expect zero casualities and that is simply unrealistic.

[inked]

Janny,

Thanks for the PM to help me locate your comments. I lost them in the fog of computer verbal warfare!

"How on earth can you take lessons from the past from fighting Hitler to use in the modern world? Shall we make pals with Russia to get them to open up a second front in our war against Terrorland? No. Because the terrorists don't all happen to be in one place."

Thucydides again!

Hitler was a great terrorist. He had the backing of the German people due to the postWWI errors of the then allies. He was still a terrorist. he just happened to have the foremost mechanized army in the European states and he employed it. Terrorism on a massive scale. Ask the Poles.

After Breslan and the murder of hundreds by terrorists shouting "ALLAH is great" I don't imagine it would be out of line to ask Russian assistance. If it isn't already available.

The more nations we have pursuing and doing something about terrorists, the better. No nation is immune. Aid workers being kidnapped and executed... you'd think the frinkin' bloody terrorists would have the miniscule number of brains cells to figure out they are alienating the world, but NNOOOOO! Get a few more countries pounding after their insignificant little murderous impulses, especially ones with a more Islamic mode of justice in practice so they can reap as they sow and get a little Allah don't like you reception, they'd go away.

I must confess that your reference to the modern world perturbs me. WWII remains the most mechanized world conflict involving every landmass and ocean on the planet by the most number of nations. Do you allege it wasn't modern on chronological snobbery alone. It was also the only war to utilize the most advanced weapons known (nuclear). Virtually every major advance, including the means of our communication, came about as a result of that conflict. WE should certainly be doing a disservice to those who fought the aggressors if we ignore the fact that they resisted international terrorism on a grand scale. And WE should not ignore the fact that these pigheaded and hearted terrorists would do the same had they the armies, air forces, and navies to accomplish it. As it is, they are looking for innocents to murder and the more the better. Why stope at beheadings when you can get biological weapons or dirty nukes?

9/11 is a constant reminder of what can happen. That prior terorist acts were essentially ignored was the fault of the 2 term Democrat Clinton and the deprivation of funds for the same by that sitting President and the currently running then military reductionist, FBI / CIA / NIA de-funder John Kerry.

You used the word wimp earlier. It applies to Kerry's documented position(s) during the prior terrorist acts and subsequent behavior.

Bush = Churchill
Kerry = Chamberlain
terrorists = Hitler

Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it.

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by inked

Bush = Churchill
Kerry = Chamberlain
terrorists = Hitler

Exactly - and the scary thing about that was that Churchill was fired at first and ridiculed as a warmongering nutcase.

[jerseydevil]

After watching the 2000 Election hearings on C-SPAN where the news media had to go before Congress and explain how they screwed up so badly in their reporting - I feel that we should eliminate election night coverage all together. My personal feeling is that the election announcement should be made from the House of Representatives (who actually "counts" the official electoral college votes). Each state can have a representive stand up and declare how many votes they have and who they go to. it would eliminate the damn exit polling - it would elimnate this crap with "popular vote", and it also eliminates the media from announcing the eastern state results before the west even has a chance to finish voting.. It's the way it was MEANT to be.

[Nurvingiel]

We have the same problem in British Columbia (the furthest west, and 4 and a half hours behind the eastern most provinces).

They're done counting the votes in the east before our polls close. Since most of the population lives in the east, the government is pretty much decided by the time they start counting our votes. That makes some British Columbians feel like their vote doesn't count. (But your vote always counts!)

Our election night coverage is really good though.

They could at least wait until everyone is done. How rude, it's like serving yourself desert before other people are done the main course.

I think putting the popular vote is okay because it's interesting. However, it leads some people to think that popular vote actually decides who wins (it does not in either Canada or the USA), and that when a government (or President) wins with a bit less than the popular vote, they feel like someone made a mistake. This is obviously wrong, so maybe the significance of the popular vote (which is not very much) should be explained when they tally it. It's a good indicator of who's going to win, and it's the best you can do before the election, but it doesn't actually determine the outcome.

There's a move here to have more proportional representation.

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I think putting the popular vote is okay because it's interesting. However, it leads some people to think that popular vote actually decides who wins (it does not in either Canada or the USA), and that when a government (or President) wins with a bit less than the popular vote, they feel like someone made a mistake. This is obviously wrong, so maybe the significance of the popular vote (which is not very much) should be explained when they tally it. It's a good indicator of who's going to win, and it's the best you can do before the election, but it doesn't actually determine the outcome.

There's a move here to have more proportional representation.

Well you see - in the US - election night is NOT actually the day the president is elected. I'm saying we don't announce ANYTHING at all on November 2nd. It is not until after the electors meet to vote - those votes THEN go to the House of Representatives, where they are "counted". I think it's in mid-December when the House makes the official count. That is what should be televised - the OFFICIAL House of Representatives count.