# What would Al Gore do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 20, 2001, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048 "2001-01-20T19:33:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2001, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/41 "2001-01-23T05:44:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aynrandlover \* > > What I say here goes for **tejota** as well, what with “But I don’t think corporations should have the right to political speech” and all. > > Fact1: the wealthy pay most of the income tax. > Fact2: the wealthy, on top of this, would like to contribute money to further a political cause. > Fact3: at least they are doing something besides whining. Facts of which I am well aware. I have no objections to wealthy individuals spending their hard earned :rolleyes: money on political speach. (Provided that they don’t take that money as a tax deduction 😉 ) > [@](#): > > Fact3: Corporations are legal entities and can be sued, taxed, and subject to all manner of laws. > Fact4: All entities subject to laws have an interest in influencing its outcome. But not vote. The Government of China has an interest in the outcome as well. So friggin what. There is _already_ a double standard for persons verses corporations. People don’t get to deduct their expenses from their taxable income for instance. The list of differences is quite large. No particular reason why that shouldn’t include political speach as well. I defy you to demonstrate that allowing corporations (as opposed to the individuals in them) to influence elections has ANY benefit to the country or it’s people. And since that is the essential purpose of government OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE (etc, you know the rest). It is _necessary_ for you to demonstrate exactly that in order to argue that corporations ought to be allow to influence elections. Corporations have no inalienable rights, only people do. Rearden Metals was nothing without Hank Rearden. I think he would agree with me on this one. I’m kind of surprised that you don’t. tj ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Clinton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@Bill\_Clinton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Clinton)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2001, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/42 "2001-01-23T14:02:15Z")
Hmm…good question, but hard to answer. Let’s replace Bush with Gore and see what he would do. ---
**Author:** ![mx-6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mx-6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mx-6)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2001, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/43 "2001-01-23T14:02:27Z")
Hazel:“Just noticed a headline that Bush is seeking to curtail aid for family planning services overseas” Though that sentence sounds pretty, it should really say this: “Bush is refusing to use any more of our taxpayers money to pay for abortions in foreign countries.” I have no problem with people killing their children before they are born. Just pay for it yourself. Since when is it my burden to pay for the irresponsible to have unprotected sex? Buy a damned condom. I shouldn’t have to buy it for you. ---
**Author:** ![mx-6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4da419/32.png) [@mx-6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mx-6)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2001, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/44 "2001-01-23T14:04:41Z")
Wow, what a coincidence!! I posted at the exact same time as Bill Clinton. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2001, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/45 "2001-01-23T14:19:26Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by mx-6_ \* > \*\*Hazel:“Just noticed a headline that Bush is seeking to curtail aid for family planning services overseas” > > Though that sentence sounds pretty, it should really say this: > > “Bush is refusing to use any more of our taxpayers money to pay for abortions in foreign countries.” > > I have no problem with people killing their children before they are born. Just pay for it yourself. Since when is it my burden to pay for the irresponsible to have unprotected sex? Buy a damned condom. I shouldn’t have to buy it for you. \*\* Actually, you are absolutely incorrect. US taxpayer funds do not currently fund international abortions at all. What Bush did was to curtail aid to family planning services overseas **that also provide any services in connection to abortions** which includes, offering the information that abortion is available, assisting with post operative antibiotics etc. “Money from the agency — usually used to sponsor child health services and health education — never goes to fund abortions, only to some programs that offer abortion services, pointed out USAID spokesperson Kim Walz.” Here: [Link](http://www.msnbc.com/news/519677.asp) ---
**Author:** ![SterlingNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SterlingNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SterlingNorth)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2001, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/46 "2001-01-29T12:21:36Z")
Well, as **David B** and **Stoidela** (who seems to be going by as just **Stoid** , now. Is this some conspiracy to confound and confuse me? Why can’t y’all keep your God-given board names? Now I have to relearn everyone’s idenity) pointed, it’s but an exercise in futility. It’s best to figure out how to keep stuff like this from happening again, in four years. Anyway, if I’m going to post here, I might as well offer some fresh analysis. However, I’m incapable of doing that. But apparantly I’m a good gopher. I ran across this interesting, and I believe unique [psycological profile of Albert Gore Jr.](http://www.troikamagazine.com/features/features_algore.html) over at [Trokia Magazine](http://www.troikamagazine.com). Actually, 45 minutes after reading it, I’m still trying to digest it. The author, Bonnie Calcagno labels Al Gore as a “introverted intuitive thinking judging” type personality, as based on the Myers-Briggs personality type scale (which is expanded from Carl Jungs scale). I could already intuit that Al Gore was in introvert, pretending to be an extravert. Extroverts are those who love to be around people, get their fun from group gatherings. They’re your party-goers. Your frat-boys. Your Bill Clintons and George W. Bushes. Introverts tend to prefer solitude and reflection. They content themselves in thinking and reflections. They’re generally uncomfortable with people. What an introvert was doing in politics, I’ll never know. However the article expands on the intro-extroversion classification (This expansion is where I’m getting hung up, I admit. I’m not taking psycology, so I’m just going by what the article says, and my intuition.) OK, they say there are two things that you don’t want to seen being made – sausage and legislature. I’d like to add to that list, me trying to compose and synthisize thoughts simultaneously. So, if you have a weak stomach, or a high regard for logic, I suggest for you to stop reading my post now, and go check out “F-Troop”. Al Gore is an “introverted intuitive thinking judging” personality. Its polar opposite would be “extroverted sensing feeling perceiving”. What does that mean? Hell if I know. I guess that’s Bill Clinton. I’ve not been given definitions that I can hang my hat on OK, **intuiting** is supposedly the opposite of **sensing**. They say sensing is using the facts and verifiable to, um, sense the world. So does that make Al Gore a mind reader? “Um I don’t know why, but Florida’s giving me a pit in my stomach. What do you think, Joe?” However that gives him cover. He didn’t mean to deceive, with the little inconsequential misstatements, he tended to make. He doesn’t notice the things around him. > [@](#): > > Marie-Louise Von Franz writes in the book, Lectures On Jung’s Typology, “The introverted intuitive is often so completely unaware of outer facts that his reports have to be treated with the greatest care. Though he does not lie consciously he can tell the most appalling untruths, simply because he does not notice what is under his nose.” This comes from his “weakness in observing facts and their lack of concentration on external sensation.” So Al Gore gets his facts wrong when he tells the story about his dog’s arthritis medication. Gore said he went with James Lee Witt during the Texas wildfires - he went, but not with Witt. We remember things we focus our attention on, inferior sensing is not good with details… And it is worse when they are under stress - worse in a debate where the stakes are high. Introverts often only know what they really think on a topic after reflecting on it. **Thinking/Feeling**. I guess that is whether or not you reach a decision based on your reasoning of the facts, versus reaching a decision on what you feel is right, or your emotions. I guess it’s the action function of sensing/intuition respectively. > [@](#): > > Al Gore doesn’t seem to make decisions on the basis of extraverted feeling. As a senator he seemed able to ignore the viewpoint of others, to be independent, crossing over party lines to > vote with the opposition even on heated issues like the Gulf War. He seems to make decisions on the basis of thinking rather than feeling. **Judging/Perceiving**. I can’t make hay of how this is binary or on a single scale of degree. I tried, but I’m sorry. I’m missing something. She says judgers organize the minunate, while perceivers are more spontaneous. I guess I’ll need to sleep on this. There’s not much to quote on this in the article. I checked out [Skeptic’s Dictionary](http://skepdic.com/myersb.html) on this, and of course they’re skeptical of the whole thing. > [@](#): > > Psychological tests such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® seem to be little more than sophisticated parlor games. They will be validated by their seemingly good fit with the data, in the same way that astrologers and biorhythmists find predictive patterns fitting their readings and charts, i.e., by confirmation bias and the ambiguity of basic terms and the Byzantine complexity that ultimately allows any kind of behavior to fit any personality type. OK, so I’m slightly less impressed the article than when I first read it, but I’m not done wrestling with Myers-Briggs. I’m going for a second opinion after I sleep on it. Though I agree with the final statement. Al Gore was probably more misunderstood. He was trying to be a person that he wasn’t during a campaign, and he wasn’t comfortable with the ritual degregation. ---
**Author:** ![SterlingNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@SterlingNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SterlingNorth)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2001, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/47 "2001-01-29T12:44:53Z")
Oh, and why I posted that above… Until I turned myself skepical to Briggs-Myer, I thought it could be used to attempt to determine what Gore’s policy in the alternate universe where they counted and he won instead of “Quincy[sup]1[/sup]”. * * * [sub]1. John Quincy Adams, the other presidential son, was also elevated to the office by a disputed election. He loss the popular vote to the man who’d beat him four years later. Which makes it all the more strange the fact that Bush the elder and younger have adopted ‘Quincy’ as the the nickname for the new president.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2001, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048/48 "2001-01-30T01:59:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tejota \* > But not vote. The Government of China has an interest in the outcome as well. So friggin what. > > There is _already_ a double standard for persons verses corporations. People don’t get to deduct their expenses from their taxable income for instance. So frigging what? Ouch. Seeing as we have trade relations with China we can’t just _frigging_ ignore them. As well, since we want corporations to continue to grow, develop, and produce they, as political entities, need to do something. The double standard isn’t as double as it is different. People get to deduct all sorts of other things, like children, head of household, interest on school loans and mortgages… > [@](#): > > I defy you to demonstrate that allowing corporations (as opposed to the individuals in them) to influence elections has ANY benefit to the country or it’s people. Well, since the existence of corporations and the jobs and money they create help society in almost incaculable ways, perhaps I can’t demonstrate it in numbers. > [@](#): > > It is _necessary_ for you to demonstrate exactly that in order to argue that corporations ought to be allow to influence elections. Corporations have no inalienable rights, only people do. Really? Corporations are private property, and as such if we consider them as seperate from their owners they do have, in that context, rights. Interesting that you feel an entity should be subject to laws and pay taxs and yet have no say in government. Corporations may be sued and can themselves sue. They can purchase property. They pay taxes. When considered, corporations are like people who can’t vote. > [@](#): > > Rearden Metals was nothing without Hank Rearden. I agree. But that doesn’t mean all of Rearden’s interests were the interests of Rearden Steel. If/when Hank voted, he had to vote for two things: himself, AND his company. Luckily his character was created so that those views (most likely) corresponded on a one-to-one basis. But most people aren’t such monotonic functions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-al-gore-do/51048.md?page=2)