Dear Log,
Oh hey great, because there's nothing odd about Ohio, except maybe this thing from 2003:
«The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."»
...and this other spot of bother.
But there's nothing bad about eroding the legitimacy of democracy, is there? I mean, just this once, just to make sure The Right Man got in. I mean, unless foreign papers started saying how the
«fact that a country wealthy enough to regularly send people into space should have such trouble sending someone to the White House every four years with a modicum of democratic legitimacy is pitiful.»
Golly, this is a great way to instruct the world in democracy and proper business practices, what with having a basically unauditable election that's run, at best, like an 18th century parlor game and, at worse, like a Tex-Mex cumfiesta.
But who "could have forseen such irony? Maybe ninety percent of the world or something?"
Cupidity upon stupidity upon inertia.
Also, no fags!!
Re:Enlighten me...
Dom2 on 2004-11-03T13:33:00
Being on TorgoX's wavelength is another thing entirely.:-) But I think he's referring to the point that it's being declared a victory when all the votes haven't been counted yet.
-Dom
Re:Enlighten me...
chromatic on 2004-11-03T17:18:29
Kinda like almost every other state, especially California in 2000 when a million or so absentee ballots went uncounted -- primarily votes from members of the military who often overwhelmingly vote Republican and who could have given Bush enough votes to have won the meaningless popular vote as well?
Someone marked this WONTFIX years ago.
Re:Enlighten me...
TorgoX on 2004-11-03T20:59:45
Fixing is hard! Let's go shopping!Re:Enlighten me...
TorgoX on 2004-11-03T21:14:59
My comma in the title is a serial comma, not an appositive comma. But hey, way to be a dick anyway!Re:Enlighten me...
runrig on 2004-11-03T23:53:41
...people in Ohio voting overwhelmingly for Bush? I know a lead of a hundred-some-odd-thousand votes sounds like a lot, but a 51/49 split is a little too close to 50/50 for me to call it 'overwhelming.'
Re:Enlighten me...
TorgoX on 2004-11-04T01:39:40
Sure, in the merely reality-based community, it's narrow. But all belieeeeevers agree that it's oooverwhelming!No, but that is because you're an idiot
btilly on 2004-11-04T01:17:05
TorgoX's point is straightforward. He doesn't trust the election result because he doesn't trust the election machines from Diebold that were used in the election. So he doesn't think that it is clear that Bush really won.
Which is a fair point. The count in Ohio was fairly narrowly for Bush. The election machines are not trustworthy. Given the margins, it would not have taken a large fix to have stolen the election. Initial exit polls disagreed with the count. The head of Diebold publically promised to deliver Ohio to Bush. None of this inspires faith in the system.
I happen to think that he is wrong. The exit polls have a known margin of error, and the tally was within that margin of error. Furthermore Ohio's polls had given Bush a reasonably consistent lead in Ohio at the end - about the same that he won by in the counting. However note that I believe the result there for reasons that are not because I trust the system (I don't). And I'd like to have a voting system that I have more faith in.
But I'm more dubious about FL, which voted for Bush when Kerry was leading in polls. It was also tied or leading in early exit polls. I'm suspicious because the fallout from the 2000 election demonstrated clearly that ballots spoil there in highly suspicious ways depending on where they are cast. (Various causes were found for that, one of the key ones being that in some precincts a spoiled ballot was immediately rejected and you got to vote again, in others it was silently accepted and you had no idea that you hadn't voted. Blacks got the latter treatment.) The result in 2000 was that if spoilage had been more even, Gore would have had an estimated 200,000 vote margin. Exit polls in FL have trouble not just because of sample size issues, but because there are dirty tricks in play that the exit polls don't account for.
And there were even more dirty tricks there this year. For instance absentee ballots that did not get mailed...
Given the size of the "fix" in past elections, the narrowness of the exit polls, and the size of Bush's official win, Bush could well have won Florida in a fair vote. But there wasn't a fair vote there and I'll always wonder whether Bush could have fairly won the 2004 election.
Looking to the future, I hope that in coming years the people who voted for Bush come to realize the magnitude of how badly he has screwed up. More realistically I hope that his ability to pursue the more radical parts of his agenda will alienate the American public, leading to a lasting backlash against religious extremism that is similar to the backlash against liberalism that was caused by their successes in the 60's and 70's (civil rights, etc).Bloodfeud for oil
TorgoX on 2004-11-04T02:25:54
I hope that in coming years the people who voted for Bush come to realize the magnitude of how badly he has screwed upThen we can "begin the healing", and then get bored with that and quickly move on to some other maniacal Nixon VIIIth. And IXth. And so on, with American politics swinging forever between the only two modes it knows: heavily armed backlash, and damage control.
Good Cop Bad Cop is apparently the name of the game in this country -- and it's a jolly game, full of twists and turns and cloak and dagger! But as games go, it's getting pretty old.
I think the cash will run out eventually, and Americans will have to scale back their bipolarity's reach, if not fervor. The Folk of the US will then go back to torturing and grifting and lynching merely eachother, as befits its role as a northern appendage to Latin America.
Meanwhile, in a pleasant SimEarth, I will construct a country where there is healthy democracy: transparency and accountability in government; a sane electoral systems; a well-educated, cosmopolitan, multilingual, and thoughtful populace with well-justified faith in the elections; thoughtful conversational debate during the periods of candidacy, instead of the current sanctimonious cosplay; oversight by a press governed by higher goals than looking like sexually available TV presenters; an economy on a sounder basis than waste and not-yet-illegal accounting; and there will be pie for all. Such pie!
SimPie.
Eventually may come sooner than you think
btilly on 2004-11-04T16:41:49
Have you ever read Wealth and Democracy? Based on the timing of the collapse of other world powers, Kevin Phillips projects our economic collapse at around 2015 or so.
The various negative commentators on Amazon notwithstanding (I wonder how many of them actually read the book), Kevin Phillips clearly did a lot of research. He has a long track record of spotting political trends well before others do. (Both Nixon and Clinton credited him with the election strategy that brought them the presidency!)
Who will follow America? Right now it looks like either India or China will inherit the throne. Which doesn't bode well for your fantasy.India or China
TorgoX on 2004-11-04T20:53:11
There are many depressing things about the idea of India and China having any reach beyond their own borders. And they have no pie.
