US Elections 2012 Part I: The Primaries/Caucus

[Ithekro]

435 representatives and 50 senators.
We reelect each representative every two years and senators every 6 year (spaced out to 1/3 are up every two years). So that's what we work with.

Some states have term limits. Many just keep reelecting the same people over and over and over again until they retire or die (how long was Strom Trumond in there again?)

[Vexx]

As long as the Supreme Court misrulings that "$$$==speech" and that "corporations==people" stands... we're f*cked.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Vexx

As long as the Supreme Court misrulings that "$$$==speech" and that "corporations==people" stands... we're f*cked.

If corporation = people then the law should be able to bring a corporation on charges of murder.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

If corporation = people then the law should be able to bring a corporation on charges of murder.

And... it should pay the same tax rates as a "people".

[Xion Valkyrie]

Corporations have all the benefits of 'people' with none of the responsibilities. Once our computers become advanced enough each Corporation will have a central AI that the shareholders will use to dictate the 'direction' of the company because it'll be better at increasing profits than any human could.

We'll be ruled by robot overlords soon.

[Mentar]

I think the major problem of the current US political system is that open bribery of congresspeople is legally sanctioned. It must become illegal for politicians to accept money for themselves, be it from private people or corporations. Otherwise, politicians will merely be puppets dancing on special interest's strings.

Besides, the recent supreme court (another corrupted institution) decision to give corporations "natural people" status along with the right to spend as much money as desired for political activities only makes things worse.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

If corporation = people then the law should be able to bring a corporation on charges of murder.

That won't work because of "favour of public policy" - if we are able to bring a charge of murder on a corporation, we should be able to bring tons of other crimes like instigation, nuisance, fraud, tax dodging....the list is endless.

So that is why the courts don't charge them at all - the crimes are too numerous that the equitable punishment is close to infinity.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

That won't work because of "favour of public policy" - if we are able to bring a charge of murder on a corporation, we should be able to bring tons of other crimes like instigation, nuisance, fraud, tax dodging....the list is endless.

Wait, so does it mean Corporations are allowed to commit fraud, nuisance, and tax dodging?

A crime is a crime. It doesn't matter who does it.

Does that mean if I commit ten thousand crimes all at once, I would be immune from prosecution because there are too many to charge me with? I would be given exemption from the legal system because it is easier?

the crimes are too numerous that the equitable punishment is close to infinity.

Right. So that means I just need to commit enough crimes that I break the upper limit and I would be home free.

[ganbaru]

Romney says would exert U.S. leadership globally
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7945SP20111007
One thing; first you should fix the shit you are doing at home before starting to wanting to lead others.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Romney says would exert U.S. leadership globally
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7945SP20111007
One thing; first you should fix the shit you are doing at home before starting to wanting to lead others.

See variations on "Christian Dominionism". Sure, Romney is a Mormon but he's catering to that faction (which nicely aligns with multi-national corporate interests to crush any local competition, but hey ).

[Ithekro]

Well the LDS is one of the few Christian groups that still encourages the "out breed them" policy. Sure the Catholics still do that to some extent, but it doesn't seem to be pushed in First World countries anymore. It does counter some of the Islamic propaganda of simply out breeding the infidels into extinction.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Well the LDS is one of the few Christian groups that still encourages the "out breed them" policy. Sure the Catholics still do that to some extent, but it doesn't seem to be pushed in First World countries anymore. It does counter some of the Islamic propaganda of simply out breeding the infidels into extinction.

I'm not actually complaining about Romney's religion (I think its irrelevant in relation to his policies) but that he, as a Mormon, is trying to appeal to the evangelical extremes who regard Mormons as a "cult" (pot kettle black yeah).

In other news -- yes, we may have a movement in the OWS that is actually mad at the right people now:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/op...tors.html?_r=3

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

Corporations have all the benefits of 'people' with none of the responsibilities. Once our computers become advanced enough each Corporation will have a central AI that the shareholders will use to dictate the 'direction' of the company because it'll be better at increasing profits than any human could.

We'll be ruled by robot overlords soon.

Eh. Hopefully they'll do a better job of it.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Vexx

In other news -- yes, we may have a movement in the OWS that is actually mad at the right people now:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/op...tors.html?_r=3

There is definitly potential. Unfortunately there is also a potential for catastrophically backfiring. The backfiring would be something like south africanization and more police state. Anyway, I think optimistic... even though the optimism is somewhat strained, because I also believe there is almost no limit in the unscrupulousness of the power elite (those with money + influence).

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Wait, so does it mean Corporations are allowed to commit fraud, nuisance, and tax dodging?

A crime is a crime. It doesn't matter who does it.

If they can buy themselves out, yes. That is the dirty thing about it we can't do anything about unless we stand together.

Of course, they are too busy paying the politicians to divide us along "party lines".

Does that mean if I commit ten thousand crimes all at once, I would be immune from prosecution because there are too many to charge me with? I would be given exemption from the legal system because it is easier?

Right. So that means I just need to commit enough crimes that I break the upper limit and I would be home free.

You can't commit more crimes than a group of people who have committed multiple crimes - when the group gets charged the number of crimes indicted snowballs.

UPDATE

Occupy movement: a collective, vague effort

I have been reading the article AND the comments, and it dawned on me that what these protestors want is something VERY simple : the regulators (anti-trust, tax-dodging, etc) to do their work, with the President and DOJ to back their ass with a large Goldion hammer.

[Ithekro]

So basically they want Teddy Roosevelt.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

On PBS they suggested that the OW movement exist because the Tea Party attacked Washington but protected Wall Street, so OW people decided to do it themselves.

[Vexx]

Reading is good for the mind - an instructive critique of the plutocratic hysterical response to the 99.99%ers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/op...&smid=fb-share

selected extracts:

...
this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.
...
What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.
Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.
This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.
So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

...

Understand that in the plutocratic view, there's no difference between the $700K/yr small business owner (who actually creates the jobs by the way, statistically) and the $30K/yr 3 part-time job no benefits employee. They're both just schmucks to be looted by scam games via finance or unbalanced tax rules. In reality, its the "99.99%ers" getting raped by the "0.01%ers". Sadly, some of the "99.99%ers" stupidly believe they're in the country club when actually they'd be shown the door with a boot to the ass.
When you make 100,000K to 100,000,000K off of finance games, derivatives, etc (no value, no jobs created)... a piddling 700K schmuck looks no different than a 30K peon.

[Xellos-_^]

got this off the NY times Disunion series. A series of article regarding the events leading up to the civil war and of the civil war.

Richard C. Vaughan, an attorney in Lexington, Mo., was overjoyed with Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election. Not because the Republican Lincoln won; indeed, he had supported John Bell, the presidential candidate from the Constitutional Union Party. Rather, his joy came from the Democrats’ resounding defeat. “The prospect of the final overthrow of the Democracy in Missouri as well as everywhere else,” he wrote to a friend, “is to me a source of infinite and irrepressible pleasure in which I know you participate fully.”
Vaughan was, like many politically active Americans at the time (and since), a partisan, who cheered his party’s advances the same way he would cheer a sports team. What’s remarkable, though, was how flippantly he reacted to the obvious consequence of the 1860 election: secession and war. “No matter what sad disaster may follow,” he wrote, “I shall regard it as a less grievous affliction than the continuance of that party in power.” In other words, Vaughan would rather see his neighbors descend into fratricidal civil war than see the Democrats hold onto power.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...irit-on-trial/

150 yrs later and things doesn't seem to have change much.

[Sugetsu]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

UPDATE

Occupy movement: a collective, vague effort

I have been reading the article AND the comments, and it dawned on me that what these protestors want is something VERY simple : the regulators (anti-trust, tax-dodging, etc) to do their work, with the President and DOJ to back their ass with a large Goldion hammer.

What the author of that article doesn't get is that these type of movements are designed to be leaderless, whether it is Occupy Wall street, Occupy freedom plaza, or The Zeitgeist Movement, they share the idea that educated people cannot be controlled. Granting leadership status to an individual will only be counter productive because the collective voice is suppressed and replaced by the voice of an individual who thinks his voice is more valuable than the rest.

In other words, you can become a guide, a coordinator, a moderator but not a leader, because when you become a leader your ego grows out of proportion and ends up being unable to listen to others other than yourself.

Of course, this is a very foreign concept to media people and it will be very hard for them to understand that movements like this work under a different paradigm. I just hope big money and special interests are not able to corrupt them.