Totally off-topic poll

[Stormbinder]

Most recent CNN exit polls show 13% for Bush vs 87% for Kerry and still counting.

Interesting, looks like my theory about some connection between using of internet and voting for democrats could be true. Or maybe it is just Dom2 crowd?

Anyway, it may be too early to tell, we shall see when there will be at least 20-30 votes.

[ May 07, 2004, 03:14: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
Please only those who are USA citizens vote in this pole.

Please no offence to all other players, this restriction is purely due to specific political nature of this poll, otherwise the results will not be meaningfull.

Then you should have made the poll results viewable by non-voters as well.

[Tris]

Yeah - there were voters in Florida Last time around who said "MY vote won't count for anything" as well Norfleet.

I don't vote, as I believe this to be the best way to register my disillusionment with the political parties in this country, who no longer stand for anything other than being elected.

(As evidenced by "New Labour" being composed of the same people as "Old Labour" but with an entirely different manefesto! Either they all changed beliefs overnight, or they want power more than anything they believe in. Either way I don't want to vote for any of them, and believe the Conservatives are no better.

If I was an American I'd vote to remove Bush.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Although Kerry may be a wimp, he is certainly not the embodiment of evil , as G. W. Bush has proven himself to be. Together with Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet and Rice they have now (with the recent knowledge that the atrocities commited by soldiers upon prisoners in Iraq and Cuba are by no means isolated mishaps but sympomatic results of a systematic means-justifies-the-ends utilitarianism and demonization or dehumanization of that which is deemed a foreign threat being the dead giveaway) succeeded in drastically harming America for what will certainly prove to be 50 years or more (not to mention all the other damage to civil liberties, human rights, and other once-upheld American ideals, as well as ecological and economical damage).

...

I don't think the abuse is a result of any policy or rethoric, as far as I can tell these things almost ivariably crop up whenever people are given the amount of power over other people that prison guards do under these circumstances. The failure here is not as much the official rethoric as failing to insure that the proper checks and control mechanisms are in place to stop these sort of things, or so I believe.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
...
allowing at present only 2 nationally funded parties (a non-trivial consequence of which is the fact that should there be one less party (a total of 1 instead of 2) we would have a dictatorship).

If we had five less parties represented in the swedish parlament (a total of 1 instead of 6) Sweden would also be a dictatorship, if we accept your usage of the term.

[tinkthank]

Actually, JO, that is what I believed up until the recent reports that this form of behavior was explicitly *encouraged* by the military intelligence agency and a part of the pentagon. The Tolstoy dictum ("give a man a uniform and a drum and he will turn into a monster") is certainly true, but has been exacerbated under the mistaken idea that this would lead to easier access to gleaning information from potential terrorists about future plans. Really.

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by johan osterman:

quote:

---

Originally posted by tinkthank:
...
allowing at present only 2 nationally funded parties (a non-trivial consequence of which is the fact that should there be one less party (a total of 1 instead of 2) we would have a dictatorship).

If we had five less parties represented in the swedish parlament (a total of 1 instead of 6) Sweden would also be a dictatorship, if we accept your usage of the term.

---

Yes, but you have 6, we only have 2. This is not a mere contingency and it is not a trivial difference.

[Cainehill]

"Tired of choosing the lesser of two evils? Vote Cthulu!"

(Quote from a pin that was massively popular in the ... 80s when I frequented a lot of OrcCons and other gaming conventions.)

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Yes, but you have 6, we only have 2. This is not a mere contingency and it is not a trivial difference.

Who has 2? I know it represents alot of people but if you mean the US then there are (I think) 6 that are nationally recognized, and 4 represented in congress

--
Democrats: give us your money and your problems.
Republicans: keep your money and your problems.
Its easy to understand for us geeks.
Under the Democrats we will be the Federation.
Under the Republicans we will be the Ferrengi.

[tinkthank]

We, meaning US citizens about whom this poll is and the group a member of which I proudly be.

2, meaning those two only who receive official national funding (1$ per tax return, remember), and meaning those two with more than even slightly nominal membership in a house of representation.
I don't know what you mean by "nationally recognized". If you mean not "officially laughed at during dinner parties in Washington" or "will not cause you to get beat up when wearing their party slogans on T-shirt in 80% of all US towns with population under 80.000", then the number may be 3 in toto. Any party can run on a ballot, even (gasp!) in the US (but perhaps we'll change that soon). In other countries whose national ballots I inspect regulary have, usually, anywhere between 20 and 40 parties represented on a ballot, of which 6-8 have more than nominal representation (not representing some splitter group with less than 0.2% representation, like the "Silly Party" or "Gray Haired Panthers" etc. (both of which, incidentally, you can see on all Berlin (Germany) ballots) for the Last 10 years)).