Putting the shit back in the horse.

71-1085092892 · Post by **71-1085092892** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 1:46 pm

From here.

In my googling for court documents, I found a bunch of media stories I'd either forgotten or didn't fully pay attention to at the time:

Supreme Court to Democracy: Drop Dead. I wonder if they know we're not a democracy.

No it didn't.

Actually, now that I'm backtracking and looking, I can't find them. One CNN headline that stuck in my mind had a healdine, "Supreme Court says recounts illegal." Again, no it didn't. At the very least, the headline is misleading.)

Edited By GORDON on 1090960290

Post by **TPRJones** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 2:14 pm

I use that Gore thing from time to time, not to show he's an idiot (he isn't, really), but to make fun of the whole thing. I know he didn't meant he "invented" the internet, but his claim is still bullshit. The "internet" was well underway before he was even elected to Congress. He may have done some things that he thinks helped things along, but "created" clearly implies that he is claiming to have been in on the ground floor with helpful legislation, and he most certainly was not.

Post by **Vince** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 4:08 pm

Yeah, the Gore thing never really bothered me because it was all semantics (sp?). Gore claimed more involvement than he had. Two things made the internet what it is today. The original framework which was placed to tie all the skunk-works facilites together (it was a military move, not a "sharing of education" as many of the egg-heads like to state). Then telecommunictions was deregulated by the late, great Ronald Reagan.

I was glad to see Snopes fix their entry concerning the pictures of Kerry and Fonda. There was one or two fakes going around at the time, and one that was legit. Their entry simply said that the pictures were fake. I sent them a letter, and they have since fixed it. I was happy to see that.

It seems the lady that runs the site has a bit of a left leaning (things I've seen written in the past point me that way), but she's more driven by fact than ideology. I respect that.

71-1085092892 · Post by **71-1085092892** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 4:39 pm

Ok, so nobody likes the first paragraph.

Does anyone have anything to add to the 2000 election stuff? If I am inturpreting incorrectly, I'm open to correction. But I'm pretty sure the "Bush stole the election" line is horseshit, as per the evidence I provided.

Post by **TPRJones** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:51 pm

No comment on the second part, other than it looks good to me.

Alhazad · Post by **Alhazad** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 9:37 pm

the legalese is a bit much for my tiny brain

but i got the gist of it

unkbill · Post by **unkbill** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 7:29 am

Does anyone have anything to add to the 2000 election stuff? If I am inturpreting incorrectly, I'm open to correction.

I think the election process in Florida was the bullshit. I first sombitch that tells me my vote didn't count had better have a very good reason for why not. Hanging chads my arse. Fix the damn thing.

Post by **thibodeaux** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:22 am

Unk, think of it as an intelligence test to weed out the people too dumb to vote; I'm know you're smart enough to punch a hole in a piece of paper.

unkbill · Post by **unkbill** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:32 am

Well that is probably true. My thought is it should have never had to come down to any court ruling in the first place. It should have been done right from the git go.

Post by **Vince** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 2:56 pm

GORDON wrote:Ok, so nobody likes the first paragraph.

Does anyone have anything to add to the 2000 election stuff? If I am inturpreting incorrectly, I'm open to correction. But I'm pretty sure the "Bush stole the election" line is horseshit, as per the evidence I provided.

Pretty much nailed it.

Supreme Court did NOT steal the election. They simply stopped the Florida Court from stealing it.

Seems the left had no problem with the Florida court stepping in, but when the SC called an off-sides, they had a hissy.

Edited By Vince on 1089053856

DictionaryDave · Post by **DictionaryDave** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:58 pm

Vince wrote:
GORDON wrote:Ok, so nobody likes the first paragraph.

Does anyone have anything to add to the 2000 election stuff? If I am inturpreting incorrectly, I'm open to correction. But I'm pretty sure the "Bush stole the election" line is horseshit, as per the evidence I provided.

Pretty much nailed it.

Supreme Court did NOT steal the election. They simply stopped the Florida Court from stealing it.

Seems the left had no problem with the Florida court stepping in, but when the SC called an off-sides, they had a hissy.

I think the first paragraph is OK. If for no reason other than to show that people will make up shit or expand and twist what people say.
I think is is very hyprocritical to not use the same standard for those comments or people you don't like and use a different standard for those opinions or people you do like.

Had hissy b/c SC looked at law differently as to intent. Actually it was a matter of interpretation as to how the Florida election law should be applied. Whether to allow the single recount (which they did) as dictated by the law or to make exception because of the problems that had occurred with the ballots, etc. SC just followed a much more as written approach to the law. Bush won by the vote and the Florida law in place at the time supported the result.

mbilderback · Post by **mbilderback** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:59 pm

Had hissy b/c SC looked at law differently as to intent. Actually it was a matter of interpretation as to how the Florida election law should be applied. Whether to allow the single hand recount as dictated by the law or to make exception because of the problems that had occurred with the ballots. SC just followed a much more as written approch to the law.

Well, first off, I have to say that this idea of 'interpretation of the law' is a crock of shit that lawyers have invented to give themselves careers. Laws are created to define ideas, the reason the specifics are left to jurys and judges is so that they can take it on a case for case basis and assign the spirit of the law. Using the letter of the law is a crock.

The idea of the law was originally to keep people from counting and recounting the ballots just to try and change the outcome. They decided the best way to handle it was to handcount once and use those results. The idea of extending the outcome long enough to count and recount is completely contrary to both the letter and spirit of that law that had been on the books.

Post by **thibodeaux** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 3:32 pm

I didn't have a problem with a re-count. What I had a problem with was:
1) Re-counting just those precints where Gore was likely to pick up more votes. If you want a re-count, re-count the whole state.
2) Trying to divine "voter intent" from a mis-marked ballot, especially "overvotes," where the idiot voted for more than one candidate.

I also hate diots who keep talking about the "popular vote." The popular vote means JACK SQUAT. The President is not elected by the popular vote. The President is elected by the electoral college.

As far as the Constitution is concerned, the state legislatures can pick whoever they want to be electors, and those electors can vote for whoever they want. Theoretically, a state doesn't even have to HAVE a popular election for President.

mbilderback · Post by **mbilderback** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 3:50 pm

thibodeaux wrote:I also hate diots who keep talking about the "popular vote." The popular vote means JACK SQUAT. The President is not elected by the popular vote. The President is elected by the electoral college.

As far as the Constitution is concerned, the state legislatures can pick whoever they want to be electors, and those electors can vote for whoever they want. Theoretically, a state doesn't even have to HAVE a popular election for President.

I don't necessarily think that is the way it should be, however. I feel we have the technology and ability to elect via popular vote now. I remember Gordo talking about how the electoral college was designed to allow each state to have a say in the presidential election. I disagree, I believe the electoral college was a way of allowing for a presidential election on such a grand scale in a reasonable amount of time. If, back in the day (think signing of Constitution era), we waited for every popular vote to be cast and taken to D.C., it would have been time for another election before the votes would be tallied and the winner declared. The electoral process was devised to abstract out the election so that it could be done in a timely manner. Hell, that's why the election has such far reaching dates, to give time for the electoral votes to get to D.C.! It seems to me that with today's technology, there is no reason for the electoral college to exist. We have the popular vote in almost as quickly as we have the electoral vote in, close enough to the actual election time to have the new President fully decided upon before he has to be sworn in. In actuality, the electoral process removes the election from the populace and puts it in the hands of politicians. And personally, I don't trust politicians.

71-1085092892 · Post by **71-1085092892** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 4:15 pm

We have the technology for a nationwide popular vote, when even a single state has problems? (Florida)

mbilderback · Post by **mbilderback** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 4:42 pm

GORDON wrote:We have the technology for a nationwide popular vote, when even a single state has problems? (Florida)

Availibility != Implementation.

We should implement that ability.

Post by **thibodeaux** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 4:47 pm

mbilderback wrote:I disagree, I believe the electoral college was a way of allowing for a presidential election on such a grand scale in a reasonable amount of time.

Well, you're wrong. It is quite obvious, if you actually study what the framers of the Constitution wrote, that they didn't TRUST popular votes.

For example, until 1913, U.S. Senators were not elected by the people of their states. They were appointed by their state legislatures. That's because the Senators weren't supposed to represent the people of the states; they were supposed to represent the states themselves.

The federal government, as conceived, was not intended to deal directly with the people in most cases. It was intended to be a super-government over the states, which were nominally sovereign, independent countries (that's what a "state" is, you know).

mbilderback · Post by **mbilderback** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 4:52 pm

So I guess it boils down to....do you think that correctly implemented you could have a valid popular election? I say you can, and that the Fed gumment has the right to tell the states and counties what polling equipment to use when polling for the Prez. And for cost reasons, they would use the same polls for everything else.

Post by **TheCatt** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 5:01 pm

mbilderback wrote: I disagree, I believe the electoral college was a way of allowing for a presidential election on such a grand scale in a reasonable amount of time. If, back in the day (think signing of Constitution era), we waited for every popular vote to be cast and taken to D.C., it would have been time for another election before the votes would be tallied and the winner declared.

But they do count every popular vote, and always have.

Why would a national popular vote make a difference?

mbilderback · Post by **mbilderback** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 5:08 pm

TheCatt wrote:
mbilderback wrote: I disagree, I believe the electoral college was a way of allowing for a presidential election on such a grand scale in a reasonable amount of time. If, back in the day (think signing of Constitution era), we waited for every popular vote to be cast and taken to D.C., it would have been time for another election before the votes would be tallied and the winner declared.

But they do count every popular vote, and always have.

Why would a national popular vote make a difference?

While I would not have liked the outcome, the previous popular vote was definitively not in Bush's favor. This shows that the electoral college does not follow the will of the people. And as much as we are a republic and not a democracy, picking our leaders should always be at the behest and will of the people and only the people.