Mr Spoiler...Um, I mean Nader, throws his hat in the ring

[Flint]

Someone has to stand up and call the current system out on it's faults. If the worst thing that could happen is that you slightly skew the chances of one shitty candidate versus an almost identical shitty candidate, then the stakes aren't really that high, in reality. A voice of dissent is there to push topics of discussion into the forefront, to force people not to just sweep difficult issues under the rug. It's almost like people don't want to hear about certain things because they've completely given up, and figure "oh well, that's the way it is, that's the way it will always be" ...

[deadbeater]

Um Nader, do you think as president you have a plan to solve: the immigrant problem? Chinese food chain and toy problems? Big oil tankers spilling oil and other toxic waste in the Danube and other waterways? A way to appease the Palestinians without destroying Israel in the process? The broken-down Indian railroads? The broken down American roads? The constant amount of tsunamis swirling through Bangladesh during monsoon season? Guess you can't do much about the tsunamis, but what about the rest?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Flint

If the worst thing that could happen is that you slightly skew the chances of one shitty candidate versus an almost identical shitty candidate, then the stakes aren't really that high, in reality.

See, people say that it's impossible to tell the candidates apart these days, but I don't think that means that they actually are as similar as their pandering-to-mainstream-poll-results would seem to indicate. Can you really say that the end results of, say, Bill Clinton's administration versus George Bush's administration were at all similar? They may sound "almost identical" in campaign speeches, but I think ultimately each candidate would deliver radically different futures for the country. The only problem is we never really know until it's too late who the best choice really was.

[Flint]

There are some things that are the same about any candidate who has a possibility of getting elected, and although they are the least talked-about issues, they are probably some of the most important, as far as shaping our future in the long run, not just cosmetic differences in four-year chunks. Only someone who has no chance of getting elected will be able to broach these subjects. But, like I said, somebody has to.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Flint

Someone has to stand up and call the current system out on it's faults. If the worst thing that could happen is that you slightly skew the chances of one shitty candidate versus an almost identical shitty candidate, then the stakes aren't really that high, in reality. A voice of dissent is there to push topics of discussion into the forefront, to force people not to just sweep difficult issues under the rug. It's almost like people don't want to hear about certain things because they've completely given up, and figure "oh well, that's the way it is, that's the way it will always be" ...

There is a lot of truth to that. Good post.

[Flint]

Thanks.

[Clodfobble]

There are some things that are the same about any candidate who has a possibility of getting elected, and although they are the least talked-about issues, they are probably some of the most important, as far as shaping our future in the long run, not just cosmetic differences in four-year chunks.

Like what?

For example, it's a given that any viable candidate must declare themselves to be a Christian. But there's a huge difference between someone who pays lip service to their "faith" during the campaign, and someone who tries to overturn Roe v. Wade and get intelligent design added to the school curriculum. The candidates in this example are not really the same at all, and the results are hardly cosmetic.

In the most generic of senses, I suppose you could say that anyone electable would have to be willing to indebt themselves to a certain number of lobby groups, but even then, there is such a wide variety to choose from that it is not only possible but likely that the long-term outcomes will be dramatically different.

Seriously, I'd like to know what you consider to be inevitable in the long-run, given our current methods of electing candidates?

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Like what?

Like, selling our government out to the highest corporate bidder. Everybody does it, but nobody talks about it. It's a non-issue in politics, considered the stuff of fringe conspiracy nuts. Everyone plays along, and reinforces the idea in people's heads that "it has to be that way" ...so it takes an un-electable person to say NO IT GODDAMN WELL DOESN'T.