[zzzeek]

the alternative was mccain/palin. In the primaries, Hillary was the alternative. Second time around it was Romney. None of these candidates would have had any substantive differences on these particular issues and on almost every other issue would have been far worse. Single issue voting is just as naive as believing rhetoric at face value.

we absolutely need to protest Obama's actions in this area but as far as voting differently at the presidential level, unless we can radically change our voting system to realistically support 3rd party candidates, presidential politics isn't going to change much.

[mikeash]

Even with a changed voting system, I don't think it's going to change much.

The reality is that the average American is frightened of terrorism and wants the government to protect them. The average American believes in "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." The average American is still in a Cold War mindset and thinks that we need a massive military and intelligence apparatus to avoid being invaded and conquered.

The conversation in the tech community has centered around the system and the process, making the implicit assumption that the American public generally agrees with us that these acts are bad, and they're being foisted upon us without our consent by an out-of-control government. The reality, as far as I can tell, is that the American public does not generally agree with the tech community on these issues, and that we've ended up with these massive spying and anti-terror programs because that is the government the American public wants.

I firmly believe that our efforts should be directed toward convincing the public at large of our positions. If accomplished, the government will follow. The system is not (yet) that broken.

[richardjordan]

So I think this is actually not true. The average American isn't really frightened of terrorism. They don't pay attention and just want decisions made by someone else. They are comfortable when those decisions are framed in simplistic Manichaean terms because it demands little thought.

[mikeash]

I think we may be in agreement. I don't think Americans are deeply frightened of terrorism in the sense that it keeps them awake at night, causes them to be unable to carry out daily activities, etc. However, I think they buy into the narrative pushed by media and government that terrorism is a significant threat and one that we should be concerned about. This is not really the fault of media and government, however, because it ends up as a feedback loop. Government and media amplify the fears of the populace, which then feeds back into the public as a whole. I think that breaking the public away from paying attention to the "This common household product could be killing you, details at 11!" style of TV news is key.

[crusso]

Of that entire group you just mentioned, the most divisive class warfare big government statist was Obama.

At least if McCain had been elected then we would have had opposition party contention between the executive and legislative branches.

At least with a Republican in office, the media would have been more likely to do its job by asking tougher questions and analyzing rather than fawning and adulating.

Before all that, though, maybe people should get involved earlier in the process and not let the media, the party leaders, and Saturday Night Live pick their candidates for them?

[zzzeek]

right, because when we had republicans like Bush/Cheney in office, everything went far better than they are now. Feel free to be a Republican just as I feel free to be a Democrat, but that's not really relevant to this issue. The majority of Obama's support on these issues comes from Republicans.

[crusso]

Since I never voted for any Bush, your straw man does not apply. I'm not advocating being a Republican. I'm advocating being independent and making strategic decisions about candidates based upon core principles - rather than being a jersey-wearing die-hard fan of a political party.

That said, I do think that having a Republican administration take the blame for the current scandals (IRS, NSA, AP, Benghazi) would have been a good thing.

If we extrapolate the level of anal probing that went on as a result of the Valerie Plame outing to the above scandals, the media wouldn't let any of them go until something more meaningful happened in congress, in the courts, or in voting booths.

As it is, these scandals are all disappearing from the MSM's coverage. Maybe they can do another multi-month coverage of George Zimmerman-like trials to take our minds off of important things.

[zzzeek]

I'm not a "fan" of the democrats, as I said, if we had a viable multi-party system I'd much more often be voting green, with democrats as my second choice, so that a losing green vote isn't a winning republican vote. But as it stands, there is no way to vote for a "first and second choice".

Also, as we went to war in Iraq because the MSM, including the new york times, as well as congress, went along with the republicans, so you can't generalize that a certain combination of R/D leads to the most checks and balances via the government or the media. The democrats in congress rubber stamped a whole set of republican policies - the democrats are a terrible opposition party since they offer so little of it. Checks and balances are essentially working terribly (we currently have 100% obstruction for almost all issues, then for this one we have too little) and no R/D pattern will fix that, only changes to the rules including voting (compulsory, allow second choices) and campaign finance (there should be almost no finance in campaigns) will change that.

[cdash]

Not really, there is a small minority of democrats and a small minority of republicans that don't support him on these issues and all the rest do on both sides.

[saraid216]

Our current voting system is a conservative wet dream. It's designed so that you're voting against every other party, so you're not trying to advance a platform, but rather trying to prevent the onset of a worse one.

It's not our voting system that needs to be radically changed. It's the extent to which we rely on representatives to hold power for us. It's the 21st century; why don't we have tools to collaboratively write legislation?

[omarali]

These videos show what is wrong with our voting system and give a better alternative http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE