3rd party Presidential debate airing live on RT America

[FlashKing]

Yes, I am aware that these niche parties may gain a few seats here and there in some minor offices, but these parties are not legitimate threats in a past the post electoral system for major offices. Additionally, I'm really starting to get the feel that you are more of a neoconservative who spurns Romney and the RNC than an actual third party supporter. To begin with most of your issues are conservative caused. I blame both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the Republican party. Barack has gotten out of Iraq, and if you were to read literature on Afghanistan you would realize that the United States can't just leave. The Patriot Act and NDAA are also caused by the George Bush?? I also blame 9/11 on Bush, but that is a different subject. Also, I like taxes, and want the rich to be taxed equally. And if you where to study economics you would realize the importance of Barack's spending since almost all economists credit him with staving off a great depression. You oppose big government, yet want them to interfere with the illegals. What resources are they using up? Also what is wrong with mandatory health-care?? But I digress, I was talking about the benefits on a theoretical level, but I see that you failed to comprehend. Just vote for Barack, it is the right choice.

I'm a Neocon now? Now you're just grasping at straws. I'm so sick of these labels that you liberals and conservatives place on everyone. I am neither of those. party labels don't interest me one bit. It's all about which candidate sticks to the law of the land. Neither major party has and they have broken more promises than care to remember. Obama got us out of Iraq... yeah, how long did that take? Obama promised transparency... another lie. I haven't even brought up Goldman Sachs which have made more money than they ever have under the Obama administration.

What's wrong with mandatory healthcare? How about the fact that it's mandatory? and if you don't pay you get slapped with a severe fine and if you don't or aren't able to pay that fine, you go to prison. Does that sound like a free country to you?

Illegal Immigration: Government isn't using up any resources and are instead spending all our tax dollars creating useless Government agencies like Terrorland Security,FEMA(great job with Katrina) and give all the rest to the military industrial complex. Central Government doesn't need to grow in order to prevent it. We just need better security. We're fighting this BS war on terror and the borders continue to be left unsecured.

Voting for Obama is just about as right a choice as voting for Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Bush, Castro and Chavez(two of those guys praise Obama by the way). Right Choice? HA, DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH!

[420]

There are other candidates, but they don't matter. The system is set up so that they won't win, so it is a big waste of time.

That belief is more powerful and detrimental than the actuality of the situation. Dems/Repubs hope people buy into that mentality so they know they can limit you to two choices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... t=1h18m27s

Awesome, but what don't you understand that you need 50 percent of the vote to win? So if there is a runoff, which is the best you could hope for, they will only take the top 2 parties, always eliminating your candidate. So mechanically, the system has set him up to fail, and your vote to not matter.

No ****, really?

I don't care... I'm doing what I believe is the right thing to do, unlike you.

And please, no need for your condescending Liberal tone.

[mopper8]

The attitudes in this thread display a total ignorance to how to effect political change. Hint: its not by voting for some guaranteed-loser 3rd party candidate who is likely running a vanity campaign, and not at all serious about changing anything in this country. We have plenty of historical models on how to change politics and society. Look at the modern conservative movement, look at the populists in the late 19th century, look at the civil rights movement in the 40s/50s/60s. Those are people who understood how to get things done. By creating a movement outside the party system so strong that the parties had to listen to you, or by creating a movement inside one of the parties so strong that that party had to listen to you.

More/better here

The best way I can explain this is to refer to the literature on the rise of conservatism. A really transformative moment in my political thinking came when reading Lisa McGirr’s Suburban Warriors. In this book about the rise of conservatism in the defense industry suburbs, McGirr shows how conservatives, outraged that the country had moved so far to the left during the New Deal and had not really shifted back right under Eisenhower, started taking over their local political structures. They ran for school board, county commissioner, other local offices. They volunteered at county-level Republican Party HQs. They very quickly controlled the machinery of the Republican Party on the local level. Not too long after that, in 1964, they managed to push Goldwater on the presidential ticket. When he got crushed, the mainstream media crowed that this movement was dead. But the conservatives didn’t care. They kept on organizing. In 1966, their support helped Ronald Reagan become governor of California. And from there, they kept organizing until today, despite being totally crazy on so many issues, they are the Republican Party.

[snip]

You turn the Democratic Party into what you want it to be by controlling the mechanisms of everyday party life. By becoming a force that must be reckoned with or at least co-opted. By becoming the Populists in the 1880s and 1890s, eventually forcing the Democratic Party off its Cleveland-era support of plutocracy and helping usher in the Progressive Era. By becoming the abolitionists in the 1850s and 1860s, whose constant moral harping gave them power within the Republican Party far outstripping the small number of fanatical followers of William Lloyd Garrison.

[snip]

One-off candidates like Nader accomplish almost nothing except to give people an outlet for their anger at a political system they think has betrayed them. These candidacies are performance art done to make a point, in Nader’s case explicitly to throw the election to Bush.

As for this

I don't care... I'm doing what I believe is the right thing to do, unlike you.

As long as you do this, you will be meaningless in politics. You are disempowering yourself. Because you don't understand that voting isn't some masturbatory exercise, nor is it an expression of individual morality. Its an exercise in collective action. Voting for a vanity candidate like Stein or Johnson betrays an ignorance to this fundamental truth not just about politics, but about power. Nobody with power cares about the people who don't vote, or who vote for 3rd party candidates. They care about the organized movements who can turn out lots and lots and lots of votes. That's how you get power. Not a single one of the politicians in that debate has shown any understanding of that basic truth. Which is why voting for any of them is a waste of your time and your vote.

[mopper8]

What's wrong with mandatory healthcare? How about the fact that it's mandatory? and if you don't pay you get slapped with a severe fine and if you don't or aren't able to pay that fine, you go to prison. Does that sound like a free country to you?

LOL wut? The law explicitly prohibits the IRS from using any of its criminal law enforcement tools to enforce the mandate. And anyone who makes so little that they don't pay federal income taxes also doesn't have to pay the fine or buy insurance. And the fine you do have to pay for not buying insurance is calculated by your adjusted income so as to not be overly onerous. So, you really have no idea what you're talking about.

Beginning in 2014, those who do not comply with the mandate must make a “[s]hared responsibility payment” to the Federal Government. § 5000A(b)(1). That payment, which the Act describes as a “penalty,” is calculated as a percentage of household income, subject to a floor based on a specified dollar amount and a ceiling based on the average annual premium the individual would have to pay for qualifying private health insurance. § 5000A(c). In 2016, for example, the penalty will be 2.5 percent of an individual's household income, but no less than $695 and no more than the average yearly premium for insurance that covers 60 percent of the cost of 10 specified services (e.g., prescription drugs and hospitalization). Ibid.; 42 U.S.C. § 18022. The Act provides that the penalty will be paid to the Internal Revenue Service with an individual's taxes, and “shall be assessed and collected in the same manner” as tax penalties, such as the penalty for claiming too large an income tax refund. 26 U.S.C. § 5000A(g)(1). The Act, however, bars the IRS from using several of its normal enforcement tools, such as criminal prosecutions and levies. § 5000A(g)(2). And some individuals who are subject to the mandate are nonetheless exempt from the penalty—for example, those with income below a certain threshold and members of Indian tribes. § 5000A(e).

Nat'l Fed'n of Indep. Bus. v. Sebelius, 132 S. Ct. 2566, 2580 (2012).

Keep droppin that "knowledge" bro.

Voting for Obama is just about as right a choice as voting for Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Bush, Castro and Chavez

This is offensively, mind-numbingly stupid. I cannot put into words how stupid this is. The three bolded are collectively responsible for the torture and murder of millions of human beings. What has Obama done that's at all comparable? Made you buy health insurance?

[Mundo]

The attitudes in this thread display a total ignorance to how to effect political change. Hint: its not by voting for some guaranteed-loser 3rd party candidate who is likely running a vanity campaign, and not at all serious about changing anything in this country. We have plenty of historical models on how to change politics and society. Look at the modern conservative movement, look at the populists in the late 19th century, look at the civil rights movement in the 40s/50s/60s. Those are people who understood how to get things done. By creating a movement outside the party system so strong that the parties had to listen to you, or by creating a movement inside one of the parties so strong that that party had to listen to you.

More/better here

The best way I can explain this is to refer to the literature on the rise of conservatism. A really transformative moment in my political thinking came when reading Lisa McGirr’s Suburban Warriors. In this book about the rise of conservatism in the defense industry suburbs, McGirr shows how conservatives, outraged that the country had moved so far to the left during the New Deal and had not really shifted back right under Eisenhower, started taking over their local political structures. They ran for school board, county commissioner, other local offices. They volunteered at county-level Republican Party HQs. They very quickly controlled the machinery of the Republican Party on the local level. Not too long after that, in 1964, they managed to push Goldwater on the presidential ticket. When he got crushed, the mainstream media crowed that this movement was dead. But the conservatives didn’t care. They kept on organizing. In 1966, their support helped Ronald Reagan become governor of California. And from there, they kept organizing until today, despite being totally crazy on so many issues, they are the Republican Party.

[snip]

You turn the Democratic Party into what you want it to be by controlling the mechanisms of everyday party life. By becoming a force that must be reckoned with or at least co-opted. By becoming the Populists in the 1880s and 1890s, eventually forcing the Democratic Party off its Cleveland-era support of plutocracy and helping usher in the Progressive Era. By becoming the abolitionists in the 1850s and 1860s, whose constant moral harping gave them power within the Republican Party far outstripping the small number of fanatical followers of William Lloyd Garrison.

[snip]

One-off candidates like Nader accomplish almost nothing except to give people an outlet for their anger at a political system they think has betrayed them. These candidacies are performance art done to make a point, in Nader’s case explicitly to throw the election to Bush.

As for this

I don't care... I'm doing what I believe is the right thing to do, unlike you.

As long as you do this, you will be meaningless in politics. You are disempowering yourself. Because you don't understand that voting isn't some masturbatory exercise, nor is it an expression of individual morality. Its an exercise in collective action. Voting for a vanity candidate like Stein or Johnson betrays an ignorance to this fundamental truth not just about politics, but about power. Nobody with power cares about the people who don't vote, or who vote for 3rd party candidates. They care about the organized movements who can turn out lots and lots and lots of votes. That's how you get power. Not a single one of the politicians in that debate has shown any understanding of that basic truth. Which is why voting for any of them is a waste of your time and your vote.

You beat me to it mopper, congrats. Great post. Why vote for a vanity candidate, and not receive any benefits, when one can influence a major political party? You may not get every thing that you want, but that is definitely better than not receiving anything. Politics isn't about getting everything you want, it is compromise. Do I want to vote a Social-Democrat into office? Yes, of course. But do I realize that doing so would disenfranchise myself. Do I want to vote for Jill Stein? Yes, I side with her on most issues. I also realize that the Green Party is a niche party that isn't really fit to be a governing party. The reality is that I would not be any different than a felon if I voted for the Social-Dem since I have not gained any political power. I realize that my strength arises from aligning myself with a major party. But I guess the real issue is whether the tangible gains made my voting for a major party are enough to override the intangible benefits made by voting for a third party in this electoral system. I say no since intangible benefits have never helped anyone.

[FlashKing]

Voting for Obama is just about as right a choice as voting for Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Bush, Castro and Chavez

This is offensively, mind-numbingly stupid. I cannot put into words how stupid this is. The three bolded are collectively responsible for the torture and murder of millions of human beings. What has Obama done that's at all comparable? Made you buy health insurance?

-The war in Iraq which went on several more years after Bush left. What's the death toll since he took office again?
-Gitmo(facility for torture). Has he shut is down?
-NDAA: detain suspected terrorist indefinitely(domestically) without trial or due process


Just because the death toll is not nearly as high doesn't make Obama any less of a monster. But hey, as long as it's in the name of freedom, it's perfectly okay. I love how casual you are about healthcare like forcing Americans to buy it is no big deal. Clearly, I am not the one suffering for mind-numbingly stupidity.