Johnson sees no difference between Obama and Romney

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woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
7,164
0
0
Creating special laws to protect women has nothing to do with women's rights. But please do continue to point out left-wing lunacy.

Whatever excuse you have for bringing up issues related to women in practically every thread you post in, and ALWAYS 100% OF THE TIME taking a position in opposition to women, fine by me. It's called self-delusion, the notion that other people cannot see what is plainly obvious. If you are unable to attract women IRL and you want to take it out on women in general, that is your personal pathology.
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
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wolf, we're debt slaves. that's what the two big parties have made us and neither has presented an option out of it. instead they keep wanting to push us further and further into it. things are better over all in the world of today than the world of yesteryear, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be better or that we're not currently heading down a path of disaster.
 

nehalem256

Lifer
Apr 13, 2012
15,669
8
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Whatever excuse you have for bringing up issues related to women in practically every thread you post in, and ALWAYS 100% OF THE TIME taking a position in opposition to women, fine by me.

You mean 100% of the time taking a position against special privileges for women. Yeah I wonder why that might be? :rolleyes:

Do you also claim that black people that opposed Jim Crow laws hated white people?
 

dawheat

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2000
3,132
93
91
You mean 100% of the time taking a position against special privileges for women. Yeah I wonder why that might be? :rolleyes:

Do you also claim that black people that opposed Jim Crow laws hated white people?

What special privileges are you so against? Extra maternity leave? I hope you can admit that giving birth is a bit more burdensome on women than men? Or that men can't breast feed?

Is it the anti-violence and anti-rape laws that are targeted to women? It's a fact that men are in general more capable of inflicting injury than women. Similar sources to yours agree that the rate of 'assault' might be the same, but there is a 6 to 1 injury adjusted rate, simply due to the fact that men are generally much stronger.

pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/VB33.pdf

So I don't get your faux outrage - the fact that laws were passed to protect the greater serious victim pool (85%) over the smaller pool doesn't make that law unfair (though I am surprised by the incidence rates and do agree there should be some protections for men).

And serious - anti-rape laws protecting men being on the same importance as anti-rape laws for women? As a guy, I can't even get into an argument about this.
 

Infohawk

Lifer
Jan 12, 2002
17,844
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There are differences between the parties but not enough differences and not enough choices generally.
 

kage69

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
26,971
35,585
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Does this guy ever post in a thread without bringing up his hatred of the fairer sex?

It's disturbing.

I was wondering that myself the other day.

I'm up in the air if it's from a particularly savage (and very public) beating at the hands of a female, or perhaps just a life long string of not-so-subtle rejections over being hung like a light switch?

Who knows.



Concerning the OP, how do you judge a flip flopper like Romney anyway? Which positions count and which don't? Johnson should reveal his insider info, something he must surely have to make such an absurd claim.
 

jman19

Lifer
Nov 3, 2000
11,221
654
126
Then clearly the Republican and Democratic Party are the same since the Democratic party went into the land of political lunacy when they started worshiping the right of pregnant teenagers to make decisions about their body as well as claiming that women are men's equals while at the same time passing and advocating for a host of laws to protect women.

More misogyny from this troll :rolleyes:
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
0
I was wondering that myself the other day.

I'm up in the air if it's from a particularly savage (and very public) beating at the hands of a female, or perhaps just a life long string of not-so-subtle rejections over being hung like a light switch?

Who knows.



Concerning the OP, how do you judge a flip flopper like Romney anyway? Which positions count and which don't? Johnson should reveal his insider info, something he must surely have to make such an absurd claim.

It's more the end result, not the means in which they are the same.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
Of course a third party candidate says the other two parties are too similar, he's trying to justify his candidacy.

There exists a substantial bipartisan agreement on a range of issues, mostly related to national security. About social and domestic economic issues the two parties are in fact much, much different and it should be obvious to even the casual observer how this is the case.

I personally would prefer the libertarian party to the Republican one as a conservative alternative to the Democrats. At least in their current form they are vastly more intellectually honest and coherent. America cannot support a third viable national party however so unless Johnson wants to take over the Republican Party his candidacy is just a lot of hot air.
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
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Of course a third party candidate says the other two parties are too similar, he's trying to justify his candidacy.

There exists a substantial bipartisan agreement on a range of issues, mostly related to national security. About social and domestic economic issues the two parties are in fact much, much different and it should be obvious to even the casual observer how this is the case.

I personally would prefer the libertarian party to the Republican one as a conservative alternative to the Democrats. At least in their current form they are vastly more intellectually honest and coherent. America cannot support a third viable national party however so unless Johnson wants to take over the Republican Party his candidacy is just a lot of hot air.

Yes we can support a viable 3rd party, we can support many parties. Stop spouting ignorance like "well we can't do it so fuck it" that's retarded as thinking. Self fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one. If all you're going to add to the conversation is pimping of the status quo, shut up and stop posting please. You add nothing to the debate and simply want to perpetuate debt slavery and shittiness for all.

http://www.necn.com/07/19/12/Jill-S...ng_newengland.html?blockID=743111&feedID=4212

here's Jill Stein with a similar message. I actually try to keep up with all of the candidates that will be on a majority of the ballots, I'm simply posting more Gary Johnson stuff because I happen to agree with him more than Jill Stein or Stewart Alexander.
 
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fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
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Yes we can support a viable 3rd party, we can support many parties. Stop spouting ignorance like "well we can't do it so fuck it" that's retarded as thinking. Self fulfilling prophecy if I ever heard one. If all you're going to add to the conversation is pimping of the status quo, shut up and stop posting please. You add nothing to the debate and simply want to perpetuate debt slavery and shittiness for all.

How many times have I explained this? I do not support only a two party system, but until our method of electing people is changed it is the inescapable logical outcome. What I'm adding to the conversation is reality as opposed to fanciful ranting.

You too can prove this to yourself without any of my help. It's a simple logic game. The vast majority of people have an ordinal preference for political parties. In the case of libertarians it is most likely this:

1.) Libertarian Party
2.) Republican Party
3.) Democratic Party

Now in a two party system you vote for the Republicans, giving you the modestly favorable electoral outcome of 2 over 3. When you vote for the libertarian party however you decrease the vote totals for the Republican Party without appreciably increasing the probability of the Libertarians actually winning. In effect by voting for choice #1, you make choice #3 the most likely to actually occur. In this way by voting for your most favored choice you end up with your least favored choice. People have figured this out, it's called strategic voting. That's why they don't vote for 3rd parties.

Until we alter our system of voting to allow people to vote for third parties without this consequence our system cannot and will not have 3 long term viable parties for national elections. I'm sorry if reality makes you angry. Don't blame the messenger though.
 

berzerker60

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2012
1,233
1
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Yes, and not necessarily the worst solution either. Under the two-party system, the parties evolve dramatically and quickly to adapt and expand their coalitions. The meaning of "Democrat" and "Republican" have almost reversed in just the past half century, for example, while taking in issues that are brand new.

If we look at parliamentary systems like the British model, there are lots of potential parties, but if we have two parties in parliament with 45% of the vote each, then one party with 10%, that 10% gets vastly disproportionately powerful because they decide which party has the majority and can proceed to govern. As such they can extract strong concessions.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
Yes, and not necessarily the worst solution either. Under the two-party system, the parties evolve dramatically and quickly to adapt and expand their coalitions. The meaning of "Democrat" and "Republican" have almost reversed in just the past half century, for example, while taking in issues that are brand new.

If we look at parliamentary systems like the British model, there are lots of potential parties, but if we have two parties in parliament with 45% of the vote each, then one party with 10%, that 10% gets vastly disproportionately powerful because they decide which party has the majority and can proceed to govern. As such they can extract strong concessions.

The UK system is only partially a proportional one and it has its own problems. I generally trend towards a greater number of parties because I think one of the primary purposes of democracy is to reflect the will of the electorate. The more that we can do that, the better.
 

woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
7,164
0
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The UK system is only partially a proportional one and it has its own problems. I generally trend towards a greater number of parties because I think one of the primary purposes of democracy is to reflect the will of the electorate. The more that we can do that, the better.

While I agree with you that more than 2 parties is not viable in this country without structural changes to our electoral system, I am undecided about whether it would be desirable here. The problem with more than 2 parties is that it opens the door for extremist parties to get in by plurality vote, while the majority of sane voters split among several more moderate parties. I think we have been largely successful in this country because we have had a degree of stability in our politics and government over the generations. We tend to change gradually rather than implement major, radical changes over night.

In a proportional system like in Israel for example, we can see that the counter-productive settlement policies are continued because the major parties in power had to make deals with the smaller religious parties to form a coalition.

If an extremist agenda wins the day because it is broadly popular, I do not mind. However, I'm not comfortable with extremists gaining traction through the backdoor, because of the vagaries of proportional representation, or plurality wins all systems.

I wouldn't mind a viable centrist third party here in the US, which presumably would draw away moderates from both the current parties, and would provide voters with a third choice. However, any structural change that would make such a thing possible would open to the door for radical and destabilizing elements.

- wolf
 

woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
7,164
0
0
You mean 100% of the time taking a position against special privileges for women. Yeah I wonder why that might be? :rolleyes:

Do you also claim that black people that opposed Jim Crow laws hated white people?

Your analogy with "Jim Crow laws" is not a good one. In any event, you are a chauvinist not because of the stance you take on a particular issue, but rather because you obsess over all issues related to women, and obsessed in a negative way. If, for example, someone constantly brings up Muslims or Jews, and always in a matter that is oppositional to those groups, you might conclude that this person is a bigot even if his stance on each issue is theoretically defensible on non-bigoted grounds. Particularly in the case where the person constantly finds reasons to raise the issues in threads having nothing to do with it. In your case, doesn't seem to matter what the thread topic is, if it's a Nehalem post, there's an excellent chance it will somehow be about women and how supposedly over-privileged they are.

- wolf
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
While I agree with you that more than 2 parties is not viable in this country without structural changes to our electoral system, I am undecided about whether it would be desirable here. The problem with more than 2 parties is that it opens the door for extremist parties to get in by plurality vote, while the majority of sane voters split among several more moderate parties. I think we have been largely successful in this country because we have had a degree of stability in our politics and government over the generations. We tend to change gradually rather than implement major, radical changes over night.

In a proportional system like in Israel for example, we can see that the counter-productive settlement policies are continued because the major parties in power had to make deals with the smaller religious parties to form a coalition.

If an extremist agenda wins the day because it is broadly popular, I do not mind. However, I'm not comfortable with extremists gaining traction through the backdoor, because of the vagaries of proportional representation, or plurality wins all systems.

I wouldn't mind a viable centrist third party here in the US, which presumably would draw away moderates from both the current parties, and would provide voters with a third choice. However, any structural change that would make such a thing possible would open to the door for radical and destabilizing elements.

- wolf

Well the system I have generally advocated here, instant runoff, would basically eliminate the fringe party problem. In such a system it is not the person with a plurality that wins, it is that each person chooses their top say, 5 candidates. You tally all the first choice votes and then the person with the least support gets kicked out. Then you take all of that person's supporters' second choice votes, and so on and so forth until one candidate has 51% of the vote. This would allow people to state their true electoral preferences without being worried about electing someone horrible.

I do agree with your critique that small parties might wield outsized influence in a closely split electorate. To be honest I have no idea if such a thing is likely in America because I don't think we actually have a good way to poll third party preferences due to low voter information.
 

woolfe9999

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2005
7,164
0
0
Well the system I have generally advocated here, instant runoff, would basically eliminate the fringe party problem. In such a system it is not the person with a plurality that wins, it is that each person chooses their top say, 5 candidates. You tally all the first choice votes and then the person with the least support gets kicked out. Then you take all of that person's supporters' second choice votes, and so on and so forth until one candidate has 51% of the vote. This would allow people to state their true electoral preferences without being worried about electing someone horrible.

I do agree with your critique that small parties might wield outsized influence in a closely split electorate. To be honest I have no idea if such a thing is likely in America because I don't think we actually have a good way to poll third party preferences due to low voter information.

I do like that idea and agree with it. However, I think there is too much emphasis on our 2 party system as being the problem with our politics. It isn't. We've gotten by and been extremely successful with a 2 party system for 230 odd years now. What is different now is essentially 2 related things: the increasing role of money in our politics, and the role of the media. And by media, I mean first, the largely non-partisan MSM with its tendency to over-simplify, sensationalize and distort everything, and the partisan media (largely conservative but some liberal as well), with its tendency to ideologically polarize the electorate instead of just providing the facts. The internet as a source of confirmation bias has not helped matters either.

- wolf
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
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eskimospy, your logic is flawed because you assume people give a shit about political parties. People give a shit about issues and events and people. Political parties hijack those messages and advertise themselves in their place. Self fulfilling prophecy your dumbass just keeps perpetuating it. Please stop posting in my threads as you don't add anything except wanting to keep the status quo. Maybe you should do a little reading on what George Washington and others had to say about political parties.

PS it's funny to read your guys fears about more parties being that people with thoughts or ideas differing from yours getting "power" waaah fucking thought police.
 

Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
12,007
572
126
If this is true, then our best bet is to produce gridlock. No 3rd party will ever have a realistic chance.
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
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Wolf you also assume we got by "just fine" with 2 parties for so many asinine reasons. You forget the internet or ease of access didn't exist. Major problems and peoples doubts of the two parties started jumping up significantly as ease of communication and education came out. It's around the same time these assholes started grabbing for more and more power. So ya we did "just fine" with two parties because they've done an excellent job of cock blocking any others.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
eskimospy, your logic is flawed because you assume people give a shit about political parties. People give a shit about issues and events and people. Political parties hijack those messages and advertise themselves in their place. Self fulfilling prophecy your dumbass just keeps perpetuating it. Please stop posting in my threads as you don't add anything except wanting to keep the status quo. Maybe you should do a little reading on what George Washington and others had to say about political parties.

Your post is nonsensical. Nothing I wrote had anything to do with the goodness of political parties (or the lack thereof). I only described how our systems work. If you want to introduce more political parties you need to change the underlying system. What's funny is I'm trying to tell you a better way to accomplish what you want but you're too stupid to see it.
 

nehalem256

Lifer
Apr 13, 2012
15,669
8
0
Your analogy with "Jim Crow laws" is not a good one. In any event, you are a chauvinist not because of the stance you take on a particular issue, but rather because you obsess over all issues related to women, and obsessed in a negative way. If, for example, someone constantly brings up Muslims or Jews, and always in a matter that is oppositional to those groups, you might conclude that this person is a bigot even if his stance on each issue is theoretically defensible on non-bigoted grounds. Particularly in the case where the person constantly finds reasons to raise the issues in threads having nothing to do with it. In your case, doesn't seem to matter what the thread topic is, if it's a Nehalem post, there's an excellent chance it will somehow be about women and how supposedly over-privileged they are.

- wolf

Except for the fact that the Democratic party is not passing laws to give special privileges to Muslims or Jews. Which is why the "Jim Crow law" analogy is much better, since it does involve laws granted special privileges to one group of people.
 

bfdd

Lifer
Feb 3, 2007
13,312
1
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Your post is nonsensical. Nothing I wrote had anything to do with the goodness of political parties (or the lack thereof). I only described how our systems work. If you want to introduce more political parties you need to change the underlying system. What's funny is I'm trying to tell you a better way to accomplish what you want but you're too stupid to see it.

Your whole premise started off with people picking political parties based on the fact they are political parties. Not to mention your argument is to turn a 2 party system in to a 3 party system. I don't want only 3 parties any more than I only want 2. In fact I would love to see parties rise and fall, die and be reborn etc etc. These huge monolithic entities in which is used by the majority, especially those in control/power and those who control the media, to define political stances or ideals need to go away.
 

KlokWyze

Diamond Member
Sep 7, 2006
4,451
9
81
www.dogsonacid.com
I agree as well. Much as people want to complain about obstructionists in Congress, the Democrats controlled both houses and the presidency for two years and only managed to pass a watered-down health care bill that definitely doesn't deserve the title of "overhaul" that it has somehow managed to receive.

Under Bush, there was obviously no hope of meaningful financial regulation or reform, nor was there any hope that the bankers most responsible for the economic crisis would ever answer for their crimes. Under Obama, nothing at all has changed, and it WON'T change. Same with Romney. Whoever is president will never enact any sort of financial reform and banks will just continue having a field day.

Honestly, I can't see any difference in the candidates except for their stance on social issues, which are really none of their business in the first place. Obama is more attractive to me in that way but it really just feels like I'm being pandered to. I mean, as much as I agree that same-sex marriage should be legal, it doesn't directly affect me, nor is it nearly as important as the economy. And since neither party is serious about actually fixing the economy, there's really no way to decide between the two.

It has be a major overhaul or it's meaningless. The issue is that we never really got hit hard enough by the last financial melt down. We just prolonged having to actually deal with it. Kick the can down the road. Now, I have to say that I vehemently disagree with giving tax-break-advantage to the wealthy and extremely wealthy. It's offensive and it just plain doesn't work positively for the whole system. It's truly odd that the GOP embraces this as one of it's defining issues, especially now. Truly bizarre. Perhaps they should choose Palin again and get this over with. :D

On the social issues the GOP is a train-wreck. Good luck with that.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,406
136
Your whole premise started off with people picking political parties based on the fact they are political parties. Not to mention your argument is to turn a 2 party system in to a 3 party system. I don't want only 3 parties any more than I only want 2. In fact I would love to see parties rise and fall, die and be reborn etc etc. These huge monolithic entities in which is used by the majority, especially those in control/power and those who control the media, to define political stances or ideals need to go away.

Did you read anything I wrote?

I never advocated for 3 parties any more than 2. I used 3 as an example because it was sufficient to prove my point. My premise was most certainly not people picking parties because they are parties, parties just serve as a good template for an example because they aren't personally specific. You can change 'party' to 'person, place, or thing to vote for' for all I care.

If you want those things to go away then maybe you should start listening to me. Impotent ranting combined with a hope that people will suddenly stop voting for these parties is a complete waste of time. The problem is not with the parties, it is with the fundamental structure of our system. That's what you have to change.

No, instead you'd rather call me a dumbass and a tool of the establishment. Ridiculous.