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Behold! I've created a thread solely for the discussion of politics! Why? Because I've noticed that there've been a number of politically themed threads lately, having to do with the 2012 election and specific legislation like ACTA, SOPA, and PIPA. I thought it might be nice to have a general discussion thread about any issues, news, legislation, etc.

I'll start things off with a recap of the remaining 2012 Republican candidate's resultes so far:

Mitt Romney
- Delegates to Date: 74
- Popular Vote: 1,082,723
- Percentage of Vote: 40.5%
- States Carried: NH, FL, NV

Newt Gingrich
- Delegates to Date: 26
- Popular Vote: 816,984
- Percentage of Vote: 30.9%
- States Carried: SC

Ron Paul
- Delegates to Date: 14
- Popular Vote: 278,439
- Percentage of Vote: 10.5%
- States Carried: None

Rick Santorum
- Delegates to Date: 10
- Popular Vote: 378,606
- Percentage of Vote: 14.3%
- States Carried: IA

Also, this thread isn't solely limited to American politics. If you want to talk about the political happenings in your country, go right ahead!

I live in Sealand!

I'm voting vermin supreme.

I'm voting Twilight Sparkle.

Did you know the owners of The Pirate Bay once tried to buy Sealand?

North Korea FTW.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16893018

Both these articles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16822952

Nuclear Power was a big problem when Japan had a crisis, why not now?

More importantly, why is no one protesting every last little god damn thing for the lulz?

Edit:

This entire thread is going to be me talking to myself, KYM just isn't patient, or smart enough to handle the Republican debates.

Don't worry Sweatie, our comments will only make yours look smarter.
But seriously, the Republican party should be put down. It's modern form is a living insult to the memories of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Republicans party? You mean we lost loyalty to the Ronald Reagan Clone Party?(RRCP.)

Ronald Reagan was a criminal, and a hypocrite. And yet the entire Republican Party's campaign is basically seeing who can pledge allegiance to him the most.

>Implying The Republican Party requires smarts.

No, no I'm not implying that at all, it does not even require basic logic.

>I'm implying KYM can't handle the master debation of the republican party.

What about this?

"The US is working closely with Israel to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, President Barack Obama has said."

"He told NBC he believed Israel had not yet decided how to deal with the issue, amid reports that Israel may strike Iran as early as spring."

""Barack Obama: "We will do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon""

Seriously, can't we just stop messing with Iran? I mean they are China's close allie, and China buys at least 10% of it's oil from them.

China, Russia, and Iran all need to go fuck off.
Though, I wouldn't say that attacking one of them is a good option.

Yeah, a lot of Americans are frustrated with the situation with Iran. The sanctions don't seem to do enough, but attacking them would have a lot of repercussions. There's no quick fix for it.

For those of you who aren't aware of the situation with China and Russia, they both blocked a U.N. resolution that would've taken more serious action against Syria for the number of atrocities they've committed against their own people.

More info here: Anger after Russia, China block U.N. action on Syria

Yeah, Syria is getting bad, amazing how the UN, which was formed to stop this by the end of WW1 is ironically allowing it.

My prediction for this thread: Doc, Sweatie, and Katie post while everybody else fails to keep up

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/201224152439941847.html

"Seed sovereignty includes the farmer's rights to save, breed and exchange seeds, to have access to diverse open source seeds which can be saved – and which are not patented, genetically modified, owned or controlled by emerging seed giants. It is based on reclaiming seeds and biodiversity as commons and public good."

"Monsanto pirates biodiversity and genetic resources from farming communities, as it did in the case of a wheat biopiracy case fought by Navdanya with Greenpeace, and climate resilient crops and brinjal (also known as aubergine or eggplant) varieties for Bt Brinjal. As Monsanto states, "it draws from a collection of germ-plasm that is unparalleled in history" and "mines the diversity in this genetic library to develop elite seeds faster than ever before"."

Companies like this funded SOPA to protect their copyright.
But anyway, genetics shouldn't be patentable. That would be like patenting C++ and then charging everyone who tried to use it.

raises hand

I'm a member of the Republican party.

walks off and waits for extradition from site

walks back in But in all seriousness, I actually am, though I'm not a conservative. And while there are many aspects of the Republican party that I don't agree with, I'm just more inclined to side with them on a general basis than the democratic party.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.

That's the problem with the American party system. You either have to be a Liberal Democrat or a Conservative Republican, and in the eyes of the media, there's no middle ground. This is generally why I stay away from politics, among other reasons.

Regarding the presidential election, I feel like I'm going to vote for Obama in November, just because I don't want any of the idiots on the opposing side in charge of the country.

Or, I would if I could; my eighteenth birthday is two months after the big day.

America should just have a Liberal Party and a Conservative Party, like Canada. Then it would actually be clear what their ideologies were.
Republicans started out as the liberals of their day, but now they appear to be hyper-conservatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%28United_States%29

"Since the 1890s, the Democratic Party has favored liberal positions (the term "liberal" in this sense describes social liberalism, not classical liberalism). In recent exit polls, the Democratic Party has had broad appeal across all socio-ethno-economic demographics.[15][16][17] Historically, the party has favored farmers, laborers, labor unions, and religious and ethnic minorities; it has opposed unregulated business and finance, and favored progressive income taxes. In foreign policy, internationalism (including interventionism) was a dominant theme from 1913 to the mid-1960s. In the 1930s, the party began advocating welfare spending programs targeted at the poor. The party had a fiscally conservative, pro-business wing, typified by Grover Cleveland and Al Smith, and a Southern conservative wing that shrank after President Lyndon B. Johnson supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The major influences for liberalism were labor unions (which peaked in the 1936–1952 era), and the African American wing, which has steadily grown since the 1960s. Since the 1970s, environmentalism has been a major new component.

"In recent decades, the party has adopted a centrist economic and socially progressive agenda, with the voter base having shifted considerably. Today, Democrats advocate more social freedoms, affirmative action, balanced budget, and a free enterprise system tempered by government intervention (mixed economy). The economic policy adopted by the modern Democratic Party, including the former Clinton administration, has been referred to as the "Third Way".[18] The party believes that government should play a role in alleviating poverty and social injustice and use a system of progressive taxation.

The Democratic Party, once dominant in the Southeastern United States, is now strongest in the Northeast (Mid-Atlantic and New England), Great Lakes region, and the Pacific Coast (including Hawaii). The Democrats are also very strong in major cities."

TL:DR Not sure if 100% correct, still I'm sure it gets the point across, democrats are liberal, and dislike government involvement.

I wish there was a socialist party.

I should stop being such a serious fag.

HAPPY 2012!

The Democrats were pro-slavery back in the day.
Not sure how liberal that was.

It was pretty liberal when everyone in the North was using machines I bet!

Up north we didn't need machines. We did it all by hand, using the muscles we gained from walking uphill in every direction while carrying bales of hay during constant blizzard conditions.

Well, there is always this.

I think America would be much better off with a multiparty system. If Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose (Progressive) Party were still around, they'd have my vote in a second. Everyone's always concerned about voting between the lesser of two evils. If Americans had more faith in the electability of a third party candidate, it could work. But we look at individuals like Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, Ross Perot, and Ron Paul and call them "vote stealers" because they take away support from the other two parties. If people could vote for candidates that they actually, whole-heartedly supported, we could have better representation in Washington, instead of funneling everyone's beliefs into two sides.

Doc for President 2012.

One of these days the anonymous collective is gonna elect a president.

So should I run as a republican or a democrat?

Bull Moose, motherfucker.

Do it, Doc. Channel your inner Roosevelt.

We need a liberal party that wants to kick peoples asses, and loves guns.

FOR AMERICA

Looks like Santorum is about to take the lead with 4 caucus wins.
http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results/2012/gop-primary/mn
http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results/2012/gop-primary/co
http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results/2012/gop-primary/mo

When I say 4, I'm counting Iowa

What would be the best way to motivate people to vote in better representatives?

The Minnesota primary does not have any delegates at stake.

I still can't believe people in Colorado are still voting for Herman Cain and Rick Perry.

Turns out none of them do. They'll have to do it over later.

I'm waiting for Ron Paul to run as an independent, split the conservative/libertarian vote, and allow the democrats to win.
I'd laugh, and then weep tears of pure unadulterated rage.

What do you think of this site?

It should be broadcasted on public television.

Luis, Neimifan Is A Robot Racist wrote:

My prediction for this thread: Doc, Sweatie, and Katie post while everybody else fails to keep up

Keeping up with politics either makes me depressed or enraged. Wait did I say either/or? I think I meant both/and.

Teh Brawler wrote:

I’m a member of the Republican party.

Contrary to what some people seem to express, there's nothing wrong with that. I get a lot of flack from people in the fairly conservative area in which I live over being a registered Democrat, but we have to deal with politics in whatever manner we feel is right, not whatever manner our culture tells us to.

Fridge Logic wrote:

Regarding the presidential election, I feel like I’m going to vote for Obama in November, just because I don’t want any of the idiots on the opposing side in charge of the country.

I really think that despite the raw hatred most conservatives in this country seem to have for Obama, the GOP hasn't got a solid candidate to go up against him this year, and he's going to get four more years easily.

Sweatie Killer wrote:

I wish there was a socialist party.

There is, they just don't get any votes outside of Vermont.

Doc wrote:

I think America would be much better off with a multiparty system.

I do too, but we've largely been trained to ignore any but the two most prominent parties for whatever reason. Nonetheless, third parties can and do break through from time to time. People forget that Lincoln was essentially a third-party candidate, as he was the first Republican President. Also, despite the whinings by many today concerning Presidents elected without a majority of the popular vote, Lincoln had slightly less than 40%, but of course instead of two major candidates in that race, there were four.

Personally, as a mathematician, what I'd like to see in this country is not doing away with the Electoral College in favor of straight popular vote, but doing away with plurality voting in favor of approval voting or instant-runoff voting, both of which give third-party candidates a reasonable chance.

I find this collected into a single graphic to be interesting:

[photo:247297]

Although one might need this for context:

[photo:247298]

Sorry, I just had to edit this post to add a link to this hilarious article. You might want to check out Bachmann's profile for further laughs.

The ones for Fox News guys are the best.

Interesting graphic found on Tumblr.

Who in particular? Sean Hannity's was pretty dull, and I don't know the FoxNews crew, so I'm not sure where to look.

Just search under pundits