[yummyfajitas]

Obama selected Joe "I wrote the Patriot Act" Biden as his VP. This is the same Joe Biden who tried to ban Turing machines because they could be used to encrypt files that the government would be unable to crack.

Plenty of people knew this, but voted for Obama anyway.

For many people, "the government is violating privacy rights" is not a genuine policy position. It's just a club to beat their political opponents with.

[lutorm]

"Plenty of people knew this, but voted for Obama anyway."

In all fairness, given the range of options offered for American voters, I'd also have gone with Obama even if I didn't agree on everything.

[sophacles]

This is not how US politcs works. If you agree with a side on some points and disagree with others you are ostracized by all groups. It is stupid, but unfortunately the US is a place where (for example) you are pro-death penalty and anti-abortion or pro-abortion and anti-death penalty. If you are pro both or anti both, almost everyone hates you.

[cgranade]

You almost had a point here, but your unfortunate choice of terms demonstrates a lot of what's wrong with US politics. Rather than referring to the pro-choice movement as such, you've adopted a label, pro-abortion, that is simply misleading. Here we have a debate over women's reproductive health rights, and it gets reduced to misleading soundbites like "pro-abortion."

In the same way, I think much of what is being protested in this thread comes from the false dichotomy between "pro-security" and "anti-security" that ignores how important the ideals of personal rights are to the debate. US politics is well-characterized by a practiced reduction of complex political issues to misleading soundbites.

[bradbeattie]

Just goes to highlight why electoral reform is important. When we start talking about more expressive ballots (i.e. expressing more than just a tactical first preference), your options aren't nearly as limited.

[guelo]

I have no idea where you got this info but it is not true. I'm not a big Biden fan but he did not have anything to do with crafting the Patriot Act. Here, go to the Wikipedia article and do a search for Biden, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_USA_PATRIOT_Act , you'll come up empty. You will find names like Specter, Leahy, Sarbanes, Lott, Hatch, Daschel, etc. Biden did vote for it, but so did 98 of his useless colleagues. Russ Feingold was the only true patriot in the senate.

[yummyfajitas]

Joe Biden disagrees with you:

"When I was chairman in '94 I introduced a major antiterrorism bill--back then,...I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up [the Patriot act] was my bill." - Joe Biden

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/rhetorical-question

[mjgoins]

Can you provide a link or citation for the thing about the Turing machines? Sounds interesting.

[danudey]

Whatever you may think about Joe Biden, I can guarantee you he's a better VP than Sarah 'Drill baby drill' Palin (who now, ironically, has a TV series on Discovery where she talks about the natural beauty of Alaska that she kept trying to destroy).

[tjic]

> I can guarantee you he's a better VP than Sarah 'Drill baby drill' Palin

Thanks. Your extensive footnoting and logical arguments definitely convinced me of your point of view.

[hzzn]

(The comment I am about to make is not supported by a link to a paper published by a widely respected, peer-reviewed scientific journal. You can safely assume that it contains nothing but falsehood and moderate accordintly.)

It's possible that the purpose of the comment was merely to express an opinion, and that the commenter had no intention of persuading you, or anyone else, of anything.

[yters]

Right, cuz that's what we're about here at HN, just expressing opinions. We don't care about which opinions are right or wrong, we just want people to be able to express themselves and have a positive self image.

[jacquesm]

I'm happy he just said what he meant, instead of all the 'extensive footnoting' that sometimes goes on here. Footnotes do not make your arguments more solid, on the web you can find articles to link to support just about any position.

The logical arguments are nice though.

[cgranade]

No extensive footnoting is needed for saying that the sky is blue. The evidence of Palin's incompetence is easily available to anyone with an actual interest.

[mortenjorck]

Whatever you may think about implementing an entire e-commerce site in full-screen Flash and flat XML files, I can guarantee you it's a better solution than implementing an entire e-commerce site in a hybrid Java and ActiveX environment with an Access 97 backend.

[cgranade]

Yes, and if your "ballot" had only had those two options, I would hope that you choose the former, as horrendous as it is. What's really objectionable, though, is that the political system in the US effectively presents you with a narrow set of unpalatable options.

[jacquesm]

An audience of voters that has been given two options, one of which is a disaster on wheels will choose the lesser of two evils. America needs a serious third party contender.