<hijack>My magazine recently interviewed Badnarik for our website. I’m not going to link it or give the name (I’m guessing advertising like that is against the rules, anyhow), but I was surprised to find out how well-spoken he was.</hijack>
Well, he’s repeatedly said during the debates that he would potentially have gone to war, but only after exhausting all diplomatic solutions, building alliances, etc.
Wow, interesting link! Can anybody comment on the reliability of this incredibly abbreviated data? I think I’ll forward it to some undecideds I know. You’re right, quite a difference.
What does all that stuff matter? All that really matters is who you’d like to sit and shoot the shit with over a beer. It’s the only sensible way to choose the leader of the strongest military/economy in the world.
We just had one of these articles written for our college newspaper. Well, op-ed piece anyways. Some sophomore PoliSci douchebag with long, dyed black hair and a distressed look on his face in his staff photo. Pretty much, this kid is me, four years ago (looks and all, though I never did the dyed look… too fake for me). Good thing I outgrew that stupidity.
And before I get jumped on for judging a book by its cover:
I already said, I was the same kid four years ago.
This generic kid, in all of his forms, and on every campus across America, is a douchebag. That’s all there is to it. I was, he is, and all the little punk-rock wannabes who don’t even know who Joey and Johnny were, are, in fact douchebags.
I saw his speech at the LP convention. Before the speech, he was a very long shot. After it, there were enough votes in his favor to knot up the first round of votes. He won in the second round. He hadn’t expected to be nominated at all. Great speaker.
That site seems to have some problems. For example, the “Abortion” issues appear several times. Kerry’s said to favor a tax increase on those making over 100,000 per year, but in the debates, he pledged not to raise taxes except on those making over $200,000 per year.
Another great site for comparing info on the candidates is Issues2000. It’s the most comprehensive site that I’ve found.
You can take a quiz that helps you match up to a presidential candidate.
At the end of the quiz, it lines up all the candidates according to how well their views on the issues match up to yours (it includes the smaller parties as well as some of the candidates that have since dropped out of the race or didn’t win their primary). Then you can click on a link that shows how the candiates would answer the quiz. A nice feature of this part of hte site is that it backs up all of it’s facts with direct citations from voting records, interviews, etc. For those of you who don’t want to take the quiz, here are the answers for:
I also think the people who see no difference between Kerry and Bush are bunch of idiot douchebags at best, scum-sucking morons from beyond at worst. So, I’m objective on this issue. The thing to remember is, you’re not electing just one guy, you’re electing two branches of govnerment in this one – the President and all the staffers who comprise the Executive Branch, and since he will be nominate at least one, probably two or three and possibly as many as four new Supremes, you could reasonably say the Judicial as well.
As for Kerry on the Iraq war – I just gotta believe the guy would have LISTENED when the CIA and the IAEA said Saddam didn’t have WMDs. I think he also would have LISTENED when Pentagon officials said we’d need a LOT more soldiers to take and hold Iraq effectively. I don’t think Bush is a moron, he’s of about average intelligence, but Kerry is a LOT smarter than Bush, and much less prone to wear ideological blinkers. Also, Kerry is demonstrably BRAVER than Bush. He served in combat, Bush ran from it.
Great interview, but I didn’t find him well-spoken at all. In fact, I find him to be a total douchebag.
Relevant instances of douchebaggitude include:
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[li]His conflation of “the Constitution” and “libertarianism.” Sure, the intent of the Framers was probably a smaller government than our current one, but you don’t have to be a socialist to realize that they weren’t libertarians.[/li][li]His opposition to public education. “In Libertopia, the Magic Invisible Pink Free Market Unicorns will solve all of our problems” is simply not the answer to every question that faces society. Sure, I’m socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but it’s just plain nuts to think that taxation for the purpose of ensuring that we have a literate population is “stealing.” Literacy and critical thinking skills are our first defense against tyranny, and as such, they’re as important as military self-defense. And frankly, I don’t cry into my pillow at night that Bill Gates and Ken Lay are being oppressed so poor kids can learn to read and do math (and therefore learn exactly how they’re getting screwed by the aforementioned parties).[/li][li]His Bush-esque “with us or against us” rhetoric: “So you can either live in the United States or live in a communist regime. You can’t have it both ways.” Um, no, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day, and I’m sure all those Bolsheviks in Western Europe agree with me. Look, the idea of reducing the size of the government is a good one. I think we have a lot of unnecessary expenditures on stupid programs. But anyone who pulls his head out of his ass can see that libertarianism without any capacity to compromise is just a really lame form of political masturbation.[/li][li]His stupid parroting of the “lesser of two evils is still evil” line. NEWSFLASH: This may blow some minds, but you don’t have to agree with everything your guy has ever said and done in order to vote for him. Sure, if your candidate wins and stuff he promised that you disagreed with comes into effect, you bear some of the responsibility. But you also did the right thing by making sure your guy’s main opponent, almost all of whose stances you strongly disagree with, didn’t win. Face it, people: life is a game of strategy, and sometimes you have to take the option with less payoff but a much higher chance of actually happening.[/li]
But hey, if Badnarik takes a few votes away from Bush, all is forgiven.
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