I am! I always vote!
That said, as for candidates and whatnot... well, I think this video sums up how I feel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjrthOPLAKM

lol, that little girl mistakes our current president for a tiny, untrained horse.

bronco: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bronco?s=t

I know plenty of ppl stressing out over the election, and ppl who've erupted in all-out (drunken) fistfights over it.

Ive voted already. absentee ballot. makes things easier, but sometimes I worry whether absentee ballots are even counted or not, much less whether the ones on the proper election day are even counted. or whether the entire system is a scam, and we're only given the illusion of choice. like the outcome is pre-determined. you know what I mean.

I'd vote if I lived in a swing state.

i voted for gore, but it didnt work so i stopped altogether...

Bush vs. Gore?! Sounds like my late-night TV dilemma.

I think Longhairmike was just Longhairmike'd.

I am in utter disbelief that a thread with this title and this author doesn't begin with a bitter lament about the sorry state of our republic.

The guy I want to win isn't gonna win my state and I'm too lazy to attempt to register to vote in a swing state, so I'll be sitting on my ass and watching the tube on election day.

At the very least, should be a decent fight.

(waiting patiently for this thread to flare up in a political holocaust, like past STC threads of yore)

I don't vote if my vote is not going to make a lick of difference.  I've had this attitude since at least high school, and I remember my English teacher giving me a hard time when I declared that it didn't make sense to take the time and energy to be informed on "the issues" (which are really just a set of things that are declared by others to be important) and to vote when statistically it didn't make sense.  The idea of performing a cost-benefit analysis seemed foreign to him.

I may be more compelled to vote if the US political parties had logically consistent beliefs; if there were more than two parties (so that candidates could not use "Don't vote for the other candidate, s/he's a bum!" as a viable campaign strategy); or if there was a chance for having fractional representation in accordance with voting results (as opposed to winner-take-all).  It would also really help if single issues could be legislated instead of massive omnibus bills that involve sixty issues, that very few people who vote on them actually read, and which involve specific handouts to whatever senators had to be wooed to vote for the bill.  I'm also not crazy about the idea that some very large issues which affect millions of people, and for which the popular vote is heavily against, can be passed by a handful of representatives who have their own ideas of how things should be without consulting their constituents.

Yeah, I've been too busy these days to write long diatribes on the state of the US. Still, despite it all, I will vote. Statistically they say your vote means little, but it still means something. Besides, there are a number of independents to choose from. You could you know, vote Lincoln...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_1B0w7Hzc

I'll be voting for Gary Johnson.

But if someone put a gun to my head and said "you must vote for one of the two candidates" I'd choose Obama. Fortunately I have more choices than that (even if it "means" nothing).

Can someone tell me why US has basically only two parties? Also, why people have been so negative about Obama nowadays?

For a good and brief introductory answer:

http://middle.usm.k12.wi.us/faculty/taf … oparty.htm

Also, people are always negative about a president when the economy is not good. Bush Jr. probably got away with a second term because the economy was not quite this bad when he was in office, and we were in a fairly new war after the 9-11 attacks.

Ah, seems that it's tradition mostly. Oh joy. ODd still, multiple parties work just nice, even if there's always one or two favorites to win even in here.

And wasn't the economy going shit when Bush Jr. got into the White House, especially on the second term? Or do I just remember reading stuff wrong. And I've read some stuff of Obama not doing what he promised, and the noticing that congress has thwarted them, thanks to it being majorly republican?

I've grown to dislike Obama because of his healthcare agenda. I agree with a lot of businesses that say it is an example of why they are hiring less (healthcare should be the responsibility of people to get it on their own) and I have experienced first-hand a move to "consumer-driven healthcare"* to save costs. Unfortunately, Obamacare doesn't help me one bit in that regard (there's nothing in it that prevents companies from downgrading their healthcare to utter crap). I also do believe that it is a tax in disguise.

I agree he inherited a mess, but he should have waited to try to implement the healthcare overhaul, given the recession that the country was in.

*utter BS, where they blow your deductible skyhigh (mine went from $250 to $1500!) and eliminate co-pays for specialist visits (VERY bad for me), in return for free screenings/basic doctors visits and an over-complicated Health Spending Account system. Out of pocket cost is roughly the same.

Edit: Razakin, economy was booming during the early part of Bush's second term. Stock market was really high throughout 2005 and 2006, peaked sometime in 2007. Then the financial system went to shit mostly because of the subprime mortgage crisis and introduced us to the recession.

Republicans are attacking Obama's claims that he would deliver a 5.4% unemployment rate in his first term. The number, I believe, is 7.8%. But that also does not factor in the amount of people that have fallen out of the workforce, so in reality, is probably higher in terms of raw unemployment numbers. Romney has not attacked Obama nearly hard enough on this.

I don't particularly like either of these guys running the US economy, but I feel like Romney can bridge the gap to a competent president in four years better than Obama can. Romney hurts himself because his tax plan makes no sense and is probably unsustainable.

My vote for the federal election means nothing, but as a public employee the local officials mean a LOT.

Tradition is actually a small reason. Mostly, it's a 2-party system because you become president via the Electoral College (not to be confused with an institution of higher learning). In order to win, you need support, and lots of it. Hence you jump into an established party (Democrat or Republican). Turns out that third party candidates usually hurt one opponent and help another. Example: if a third party candidate is similar to the Democrats, that candidate will "take away" votes from the Democratic runner, and thus a state is more likely to end up going towards the Republican, or vice-versa. This is an inherent problem in the presidential race, and although people have considered ways to address this problem (there are a number of decent measures) nothing has really been implemented as far as I know.

As for Bush Jr. the economy was not in terrible shambles when he took over office. However, he made sure it was in shambles when he left. Also, it is true that Congress has been terrible. Their approval rating is something around 10%, which even with a substantial curve is a failing grade. Hence, I say we vote the bastards out!

Romney hurts himself just be being Romney.  He's not qualified to run for office, he only made it this far because the tea party movement decided to tank Ron Paul.  The sheer audacity of some of the shit he does for publicity astounds me that people are even considering voting for him.

Voting in America is pretty retarded right now and it has nothing to do with the voting system and everything to do with Americans and their sense of entitlement.  People vote for the candidate that best benefits them personally, not the best candidate to run a country, and that in and of itself is a huge problem.

I feel good!

In some respects, Romney strikes me as lacking a conscience, but Obama scares me more in the times when he thinks he's actually helping people.

Or is just the opposite...People believe neither is fit to run the country and they're trying to scavenge what they can out of the results.

I also live in a state where the same party always wins, so my presidential vote means nothing, but I will definitely be voting on the many important local issues that are up this time around.

Just voted! A lot of people think when you vote you just vote for the president, but truth is you vote for a bunch of state representatives as well as various other issues such as state constitutional amendments. Still, if people don't want to vote that is their right. I'm glad this day has come, since now I can stop looking/hearing at non-stop BS advertisements from BS politicians!

one might say there is a lack of party-training

Strangely enough, my state (PA) had a full set of Libertarian candidates running. Sadly the Green party didn't have as many (I think just Jill Stein for president and then one of the state-level offices...)

I ended up voting for nearly all Lib, though I gave props to democratic candidate Kathleen Kane for PA attorney general.

5% of popular vote nets third parties enough legitimacy to not have to spend millions out-of-pocket just to get on the ballot. With the dissatisfaction and disenfranchising going on both sides of what I see as largely the same party (esp on FOREIGN POLICY), I'd love to see lib and/or green get 5%.

Honestly, I find the initiatives in my state (WA) to be more interesting the the presidential campaign. I'll be keeping an eye on the marijuana legalization and gay marriage bills. Not sure I give a damn about whether Obama (ineffectual) or Romney (fake as hell) wins.

ooh, hey, dint there used to be a whole bunch of posts after this?

so many voices cried out at once, and then were silenced!

it's like Alderaan just blew up!

I have to say, although I found much of what was said by various members to be "wrong" and inappropriate, I also strongly disagree in censorship. I think by deleting such posts, it only leads to the same thing happening in the future. Thus, I really think Adam should STOP deleting posts (accept for spam of course).

I agree. Lock a thread if necessary, ban a user if it comes to it, but don't pretend it never happened.

Censoring is a part of freedom of speech. If we take away the rights of the censors, then we might as well get rid of police officers as well. Just like police attempt to arrest people as much as possible, censors do the same with words. Certain behaviors warrant both physical arrests and non-physical censoring. I don't see anything wrong with it, provided the censor is not corrupt. Corrupt censors can cause as much damage as secret police in dictatorships.

too bad that censorship is often the RESULT of corrupt dictatorship, as much as it is a cause of corruption, as well.

it's important for ppl to be honest w/ each other; prohibiting communication disables the trust that ppl could otherwise form between each other.

distrust or mistrust is just another kind of trust - if you distrust someone else, you trust that they'll end up screwing you over in the immediate or distant future. it creates a kind of certainty.

the only kind of true distrust or mistrust you can have is the kind in which you can't tell what the other person is thinking or intending.

and sometimes, as ugly as it is, ppl just need to loudly hash things out between themselves.

Not exactly. If you told everyone you met everything you honestly thought, then you'd be in a lot of trouble. As an example, I'm currently in the process of leaving my job that has essentially been a poisonous situation for many years. Although I'm in a position to tell my former bosses how I feel about them and the way they run the company, it is smarter to not say anything. There is a part of the frontal lobe that controls discretion, and without that discretion, we'd all blurt out our honest thoughts.

My argument is that being dishonest is more important than being honest, due to the fact it provides for greater success in social interactions. People will be more comfortable around you, especially if you use honesty sarcastically (it backfires when they can't detect it). It is a rare situation where direct honesty is appropriate.

in other words, you believe in preserving false peace? false peace doesn't last forever. at one point, someone's gonna wanna tell the truth, and when they've been suppressing it for so long, it's usually explosive when they do.

I think it's important to be honest/vent a little bit at a time.

another example, say there's some racist nut case in your neighborhood who doesn't happen to like the racial background you're from. let's say you're part of the "Purple" race. your neighbor is always bitching about how he doesn't like Purple ppl. it's important for him to be able to vent about that, so you know that he doesn't like you, so you shouldn't trust him, and should probably stay away from him and avoid him.

but when you have political correct types coming around telling him, "hey, you can't say that anymore, that's not cool." you take that outlet away from him, and now he has to find a different outlet for his rage, which, if he can't express his displeasure vocally, he's going to start doing it physically, and he's also going to start doing it secretly where ppl are going to have trouble objecting, like finding and catching Purple ppl in a dark alleyway somewhere (where he can't be monitored), and effing KNIFING (or shooting) them instead of just bitching about how he doesn't like Purple ppl.

it's important to be able to let ppl express their rage, but let them express their rage in non-violent ways.

because, at the end of the day, even if your neighbor doesn't like Purple ppl, what does it matter so long as he's not visiting physical harm upon you?

Im not by any means advocating letting ppl act like assholes just for the sake of being assholes,

but I think it's important to let other ppl be honest w/ you, even if you don't like what they have to say.

not letting ppl speak is bullying, even if what they have to say comes across as bullying, too.

of course, you're also more than welcome to keep to yourself. I tend to keep to myself most times too, and let other ppl speak, and not speak myself unless I really see there's a problem.

really, The First Amendment (free speech) is about being able to speak out against the government - without having your head lopped off your neck - if you think the government's going in the wrong direction. that's why The First Amendment exists.

Even you analogies and allegories are bat shit insane.

And here we go again.