The Flow of Consciousness

By this time next week, the initial hullabaloo of the election will be finished and hopefully—barring a Florida-2000-scale mess—the United States electoral college will have chosen a new president for the nation. The people will have spoken, having chosen from the two candidates the media has spoonfed to them since the candidates’ nomination.

On one hand, we have Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois. The Democrat hails from Chicago, where he was a lawyer before finding himself in the Senate in 2000. Opponents have connected him with various unsavory characters throughout his short political career, yet the man overpowers their cries with his charisma and eloquence.

Obama is basically a socialist. His plan to tax the wealthiest Americans more than the poorest is a clear indicator of his desire to redistribute wealth amongst the people, as if his plan for universal healthcare wasn’t socialist enough to prove it. He’s in favor of pulling troops out of Iraq, but, to my knowledge, he plans to keep them in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, and all those other 137 countries where we have bases. He’s in favor of more economic regulation and more Federal meddling in education.

Obama has, however, supported network neutrality and wants to see more transparency in the federal government, but that doesn’t really mean anything. There was a study a while ago (I don’t recall if I blogged about it or just twittered it) which showed that transparency in government does little to reduce the corruption.

Honestly, Obama wants to do good. He’s just not willing to stay within the rights granted to the Federal government in the Constitution. In fact, I’ve not heard Obama say the word “constitution” in all of the debates I’ve watched.

Then, there’s this elderly guy from Arizona by the name of John McCain. He’s the senior senator from the state; a warrior by training. He was a soldier in Vietnam, staying in the Hanoi Hotel for several years. He’ll remind Americans—"my friends," as he calls them—of that every chance he gets, even though it has no bearing on his policies whatsoever. His supporters also tout this at every opportune moment. Annoyingly.

McCain promises to lower taxes, like Obama. The former is lowering them for everyone, especially the $250K+ crowd who already pays more. The latter actually plans to raise them for that crowd, while heavily lowering them for everyone else.

Before having an orgasm because of this tax thing, keep reading.

McCain however wants to tax healthcare benefits. Yes. Insurance. He’ll give you back money from your income taxes, but he’ll turn around and take it all away in insurance taxes.

McCain is a warrior. He fights wars. He wants to keep our foreign presence active for eternity, no matter the cost. Oh, and he makes laws like McCain-Feingold, which he’s almost broken several times.

McCain would give an education credit—a voucher—to every parent who wanted one so that they can send their children to another school if their school is failing. Yes, this means that McCain fully supports No Child Left Behind. That support alone is sufficient to lose him support of any teacher who is in his or her right mind.

Short story: both McCain and Obama’s tax policies suck. McCain’s is better for the rich, Obama’s is better for the poor and middle class. Neither is fair, really. Neither really wants to do anything sensible and new about foreign policy. Both voted in favor of the bailout, so neither has a sufficient grasp on non-Keynesian economics to understand why that was a bad move. Neither acknowledges that the Federal government has screwed up education royally.

Shorter story: Neither McCain nor Obama are fit for the office of President of the United States of America.

I’ll not be voting for either, and I urge you to vote otherwise, too. I prefer to vote for a candidate based on principle, not on fear that another who is worse would win. I vote for a candidate as if I am personally responsible for everything that candidate does, good and bad.

If more people voted like that, we’d have a good president for the first time in a long while and his (or her) name would not be Obama nor McCain.

My predictions: Obama will win. It will be a 8-9 point difference. That is, if the election isn’t stolen. In that case, McCain will win by less than 1 point. Obama would face an assassination attempt before the end of the first year, because some crazy redneck doesn’t like the new black president. It won’t succeed. McCain probably won’t survive the four years, as his health is already arguably declining.

I’d rather have President Biden than President Palin. The latter scares me more than anything, even more than a President Huckabee (at least Huckabee supported the fair tax).

Locally, Jason Altmire will defeat Melissa Hart for the PA 4th Congressional seat by double digits. He’s worlds better and will make for excellent opposition when I potentially run for Congress sometime after 2010, when I turn 25.

I don’t care much for the other races, other than a really local one (Michelle Brooks will defeat Duke Whiting…again in the PA 17th state legislative district). Brooks is pretty cool (met her in July in Erie) and opposes Real ID, so she’s got my vote.

Ron Paul did something today which I think only a few people saw coming, but is not surprising at all.

He essentially recommended that his supporters support one of the third party candidates. That’s Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution party, Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party, Ralph Nader the Independent, and Bob Barr of the Libertarian party.

He and the third-party candidates outlined four major issues which must be addressed in this election, and every election. The full declaration is on the Campaign for Liberty web site, but here’s a summary:

Foreign Policy

Pull out of Iraq. Cease war propaganda. Open up trade. Return to non-interventionism.

Privacy

Repeal FISA, PATRIOT, and Military Commissions Acts. Reject presidential signing statements and executive orders. Deny immunity for illegal corporate cooperation with the government.

The National Debt

No increase in the budget. Diminish the debt as a top priority.

The Federal Reserve

Investigate this private organization. Deny corporate bailouts, no matter how large or detrimental it shall be. Punish corporations for fraud and criminal acts.

He also gave an outstanding statistic (emphasis mine):

The system we have today allows a President to be elected by as little as 32% of the American people, with half of those merely voting for the “lesser of two evils”. Therefore, as little as 16% actually vote for a president. No wonder when things go wrong, anger explodes. A recent poll shows that 60% of the American people are not happy with the two major candidates this year.

Later in the day, Paul appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s show with Ralph Nader.

It’s amazing that Blitzer can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that Ron Paul will not vote for McCain or Obama because he does not feel their policies are sound. Blitzer’s stuck in the “if you’re not voting Republican, then you must be a Democrat” mindset which plagues this country.

No, the third-party candidates don’t have a chance of winning this year. That’s not the point. It was fairly easy to see that Obama would be the Democrat candidate and McCain would be the Republican. I forecast this almost a year ago (I wish I could find that damned post). However, they’re not out to win.

They’re out to convince Americans that the two party system is broken, and that there really is little difference policy-wise between Obama and McCain, and that neither would adhere to the oath which they will take in their inauguration:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

McCain and Obama have consistently avoided Constitutional issues and citations, and that’s just part of the reason why neither will see a vote from Ron Paul, or myself for that matter. In fact, Obama didn’t even say the word “Constitution” in one of the debates I blogged. I have yet to hear McCain say anything about the Constitution in any recorded or live capacity.

The key goal of the press conference was to urge the press to open up the dialog between all of the candidates who are on enough state ballots that they could garner the 270 electoral votes necessary to win. Any candidate who meets that requirement should be invited to the debates.

Warning: this article gets a little ranty, but please, bear with me and help improve my thoughts by commenting.

Doc Searls of Linux Journal linked recently in his article Is government open source code we can patch? to an article by Britt Blasser entitled “Oh, if only government went in for an open source make-over…”. The article indirectly cites through a reference to Phil Hughes’ own Our Internet article two articles, FCC: Moving Beyond Network Neutrality and Our Internet!, by Bob Frankston, who Doc Searls recently interviewed for Linux Journal in Beyond Telecom (non-free registration required, subscribers can get it free).

In his article, Searls says:

Democracy is by nature “our government”. The open source twist on that we put it together and can hack improvements to it. Think of elected officials as committers and maintainers and you start go get the idea.

The analogy isn’t perfect, because by nature open source code is purely practical: it has to work. While government often does not. All government is buggy. In the worst cases it crashes outright and is replaced or supplemented by corrupt alternatives.

This analogy is fairly strong. However, commenter Frymaster supplies an addendum which strengthens it:

The US Constitution itself is open source, if you will, and editable. “The Framers” intended that Americans would change it to meet changing times, hence the series of amendments covering key rights like voting, and, most importantly, consuming alcohol. But they set the bar high, requiring super-majorities in both houses of Congress PLUS each of the states.

The Constitution certainly is open source. We’re free to change it, and other countries, fledgling or long-established, are welcome to take our code—our elemental specification of government—and adapt, implement, and utilize it. We’d like to receive contributions back, because they might be worthwhile enough to include in the trunk code. Even if these modifications aren’t strong enough for trunk, they might be strong enough for that government to maintain as a branch.

The Constitution is inherently good. Some might argue that it is outdated, but these folks are in error and their sentiments should be dismissed if they believe that it is irrelevant and should not be followed. The Constitution establishes a rule of law, wherein all citizens of the land give rights to a union of states, called the United States of America. It establishes procedures for updating it through amendments, which require a majority vote not only by two small bodies of people, but a majority vote of the several states, as Frymaster reminds us. This amendment process keeps those two smaller bodies of 535 people from legislating away the rights of their constituents.

I digress.

A government can never truly be open source, at least realistically. There will always be secrets; unpublished code, per say. These secrets are matters of national defense: military operations during a time of declared war, location of the president and vice president so the two are rarely together (for obvious reasons).

However, most of the goings-on of the government should be open. Obama pushes for “open government.” Ron Paul pushes for less government and, presumably, open government, since there would be far less government to hide!

However, open source projects thrive on the involvement of the people. Our current election system does not encourage responsible voting. Take, for example, Pennsylvania’s primary election results. 90,836 PA Republicans voted for Mike Huckabee, who dropped out of the race March 4, 49 days prior to the election. This is like allowing all of the Linux users in PA, regardless of technical knowledge, vote on the addition of one of three kernel features, and giving them only the name of the feature—no description, background, author, codebase, language, performance evaluation, or source! Even more appropriate would be that the developer of the feature conceded that one of the other two features is more efficient and worthwhile than his own!

I’m not saying that only those in-the-know should be allowed the vote. Mistaking my words for that would be fallacious. I believe that every person deserves the right to vote. I believe that every person has the right to have evidence of their vote. I believe that every person has the right to request vote totals for every level of complexity in the elections system: precinct, county, congressional district, state, and federal.

As versatile and open as the Constitution may be—and yes, I believe that it may need some updating to reinforce personal liberty and states’ rights—the government and governance which exists now cannot be patched.

When working on a project, a developer comes to a point where he or she realizes that there is a major defect in the software. He or she (for sake of my fingers, I’m going to use he henceforth, pardon my faux pas) has two options: patch or rewrite. He knows there are serious bugs, bugs which are inherent in the design of the code, as it has been patched since it was written. These most of these patches were good things, but some introduced more bugs which have yet to be fixed.

Should the developer continue to patch the code? Or should he rewrite it, integrating the features of the old version with more manageable code and lessons learned since it was first written?

If he continues to patch it, he treats the problem, but may not actually fix the problem. The problem might be inherent, or the problem may be caused by a combination of other features.

If he rewrites it, he’ll spend a lot of time redoing work he’s already done, but the result will be a more efficient program with fewer bugs (hopefully) and more manageable, cohesive code base. Of course, this new version will have its bugs, too, but they may be easier to find if the code is more manageable.

What the United States needs is a rewrite. The foundations of our government are solid: the Constitution, capitalism and free market economy, liberty for all. These are like the basic functions that make a program tick, “the algorithm,” per say. There are other parts that work, too. However, the maintainers of our government have diverted our attention from the core of the government, preferring us to view the only the parts it wants us to see, i.e. the bling.

The founders—the original authors of the U.S. base code—have long since gone, and they would be disgusted by the mess that is the program and its code base—the federal government—today. Things aren’t going they way that they would have wanted, and there’s a growing part of the population which seeks to return the these ideas, to a set of ideas not much different in theory from the software philosophy of “do one thing and do it well.” The government is bloated, more bloated than any application to which I might possibly compare it.

The founders outlined in the Constitution—a white paper or base algorithm, if you prefer to keep up the programming analogies—the specific functions of the U.S. government. It outlined a process by which the white paper or algorithm itself could be changed to allow more functions or remove functions which endangered the users and their data. However, rather than use this process, the maintainers simply implement functions or remove functions without regard to the users’ opinions, data, or the fact that the users are supporting the maintainers financially.

A fork is nearly impossible. There is no more undiscovered land on the face of the Earth, and it would be difficult for a state to secede. It would be economically infeasible, as well as diplomatically infeasible. The citizens of the new country would have their rights and their government as the Constitution of the U.S.—and of their new country—defines, but they would not have the resources to be self-sufficient, and things imported would cost more.

Fortunately, our government is not setup like the Linux kernel maintenance group in that The President of the United States is not a benevolent dictator (at least not on paper, haha). There are, however, 50 branches of the U.S. kernel which all have their own quirks and maintainers. Like a few projects, perhaps the Debian project included, the U.S. government does have representatives, people who supposedly represent their constituents in the decision-making process having been chosen by those constituents.

The ears of the maintainer are closed. He doesn’t want hear from the users; the people. However, the representatives’ ears are open, and they must be, by definition. In order to change the course of the program; the United States, we, as users; citizens, must elect representatives who believe as we do and not settle for anyone lesser. These representatives will then make the decisions we would make if we were in their position, leading to a program which is more useful, usable, smaller, and most of all, open.

McCain would rather run against Ron Paul in November, said he on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Wednesday night.

McCain wouldn’t stand a chance if the mainstream media covered Paul like its does Obama and Clinton.

Senator McCain is pushing for a lift on the federal gas tax for the summer, says CNN. It would start on Memorial Day and end on Labor Day, and drop the price of gas by 18.4 cents. According to CNN, the average consumer would save approximately $2.35 per fill-up and approximately $30 during the course of the summer.

Senator Obama argues that that has limited impact on consumers. Drivers would “have a little money left over, maybe to buy a better meal, maybe to buy something for their kids,” McCain argued. Apparently, McCain hasn’t been out to eat in a while. $30 will barely buy a meal for a family of four at McDonalds, let alone a nicer place.

However, the lift on the tax snowballs: a moratorium on the gas tax for that duration would cost the government $10 billion in federal highway maintenance funds.

Personally, I’d save approximately $2.00 per fill-up. However, for 60 days following the receipt of my BP gas card, I’ll be saving 10% when I fuel at BP, and those stations are common in the Pittsburgh area. Plus, BP doesn’t buy middle-eastern oil.

Rather than advocating empty, if not detrimental gestures, McCain should start examining his foreign policy, monetary policy, and basic economic theories.

Additionally, the article reminds readers of McCain’s proposal for a $5,000 tax credit for families to purchase health insurance. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates the cost of such a thing to be $12,000 per year for the Mom, Dad, Sister, and Brother. Again, McCain is not sufficiently taking all things into account. What will replace the $5,000 each family could potentially receive? More business taxes? A higher tax rate for everyone? Couldn’t this technically be considered to be socialized healthcare?

Wow, McCain sounds like is a stereotypical Democrat.

I’ve been analyzing the results of the primary for the past few days in order to get a better idea of the meaning of the results. 99.51% of precincts in PA have reported as of this writing.

I did some canvassing at the Wilmington Township precinct, trying to get folks to vote for Carrie Duffield, the only Ron Paul-supporting delegate who got on the ballot for the 4th Congressional District. I’m pretty sure that most of the Republicans to whom I spoke voted for her—all 20 of them. However, Carrie didn’t get enough votes to get the delegate spot. It was a valiant try, though. Steven O’Conner from the 12th got fourth place, but there’s only three spots there. He missed it by 50 votes.

A few other Ron Paul delegates from western Pennsylvania did get enough votes: Robert Tamburo in the 14th and Chris Detar from the 18th.

On the presidential race, McCain got 576,333 votes, or 72.8%, Huckabee, who has been out of the race since March 4, got 90,035, or 11.4%, and Ron Paul got 125,843, or 15.9%. It’s appalling and nearly insulting that 90,000 Pennsylvanians voted so irresponsibly. Many of Huckabee’s policies were similar to Paul’s, so I’m sure that much of that 11.4% could have gone to Paul.

Locally, the Lawrence County numbers were disappointing. McCain had 74%, Huckabee 14%, and Paul 12%. Statewide, though, the numbers were better. Berks County had the best Ron Paul showing, scoring 26% of the vote. Crawford County had 23%, and Lancaster County had 22%. Allegheny County, home of Ron Paul’s native Pittsburgh, managed 16% to Huckabee’s 9% and McCain’s 75%.

I must remind my readers that the presidential race on the PA ballot doesn’t mean anything. It’s a glorified straw poll, really. PA Republicans directly elect their delegates. Unfortunately, the candidate whom a delegate supports is not listed on the ballot, so supporters of the candidate/delegate must inform voters for whom to vote as they are entering the precinct.

However, it is somewhat indictative of the public opinion of the candidate. Some may see that McCain had approximately 73 percent of the vote. However, I, and John Nichols of The Nation see it that McCain lost 27% of the PA vote. This is further proof that a large part of the Republican party does not support the gentleman—and I use the term only as an honorific—from Arizona.

Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times had another analysis of McCain’s less-than-commanding showing indicating “displeasure” with the party’s candidate, but his analysis was not as quote-worthy as some of the comments to the post. One user said, “130,000. Ron Paul got one hundred and thirty thousand votes, despite the media blackout. The revolution is real, people.” In response to the McCain campaign’s comment on the results, another user said, “So what the McCain Campaign is really saying, is that they would rather concentrate on trying to get votes from registered Democrats and Independants than fixing the issues that have fragmented and tarnished the Republican party. There’s some strait talk for ya.”

I agree. McCain is a RINO: Republican in name only. It is unfortunate and disappointing that the majority of the Republican party seems to be following him. Perhaps the complement of that contingent—the part that wants Real Change in Washington—will recognize this and remain steadfast, refusing to support someone who does not believe as they do.

Also, McCain has not yet released his medical records. I find such a release neither unconstitutional nor unreasonable, especially given McCain’s age. He’d be the oldest president at the time of his election, should that occur. I can’t help but shudder when I think of such a thing.

I haven’t heard the delegate counts yet for the Republicans. The Democrats overwhelmingly chose Clinton in the popular vote, but she only gained 10 delegates (83 to Obama’s 73, according to CNN’s PA results). She got 55% of the vote, winning all but a handful of counties.

I will continue to support liberty forever. Ron Paul is our current philosophical leader, and when he is no longer able to be the leader, someone will rise to take his place. Liberty cannot die.

Need I say more?

Graph courtesy of the National Taxpayers’ Union. Information courtesy of FortBendNow.com.

I wish I could say that I wrote this, because it’s a fantastic overview of McCain’s FEC debacle caused by his own McCain-Feingold act. Colleen Smith wrote it, and if someone can find where this has been publicly posted, I’ll link to it. I’ve added a few things for clarification and edited for brevity.

Presidential candidate [McCain] (yes, candidate, not nominee) has a bumpy road concerning economics.

First, he admits not knowing economics very well (1) (2).

Then, he states that he knows economics very well (3) (4).

Apparently, the first statement holds true as he has now broken his own law and he will no longer have enough delegates to be the Republican nominee (5).

Chairman of the commission David Mason, however, warned McCain last month that his withdrawal request had not yet been granted. McCain has two problems with this issue:

1. If the FEC allows Mccain to withdraw from FED matching funds he will be revoked from many delegates in states that he was able to be on the ballot without the required number of signatures therefore he will lose any delegates for him in those states.
2. If the FEC doesn’t release him from matching funds he will be capped at 50 million dollars and will kill his run for president because he will not have the money to compete.

The problem is even more complicated than this. McCain used the matching funds eligibility to avoid having to collect signatures to qualify for ballot access in several states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Those state wins must be voided according to most experts on the issue. That means he does not have the necessary delegates. Ironic that it was his law (McCain-Feingold) that got him in this mess.

McCain broke the law.

Please sign the petition and take action to remove his delegates. UPDATE: Digg the petition, too.

The delegates in these states need to file the motion at their conventions for McCain to be revoked of all his delegates in those states for failure to comply with election ballot state law requirements.

Perhaps John McCain should consult with the ranking member of the House Finance Services Committee? If there is one person specifically expert enough to iron out John McCain’s financial blunders and to provide insight as to how to repair our nations economic problems it is the ranking member of the House Finance Services Committee.

McCain wants additional war spending and am interest rate of zero.

Where are we headed?

What can be done to soften the impact of the looming crisis?

And then there’s the irony of Petition Online’s advertising system.

Saberwolf of the Pittco Forums pointed out an interesting table on the Presidential issues in a Hillary or Obama thread.

It lists several issues and is very understandable. I might do a more in-depth post on it later today or this week.

Perhaps I placed too much faith in the Internet community. Perhaps I placed too much faith in people, hoping that they would read a document that takes no longer than 15 minutes to read—time well-spent, considering most people probably posted ye olde “tl;dr” or some other remark, or simply deleted the post, as the folks on the xkcd forums did. I guess I have a little more clout at Notebook Forums and StrafeRight.

Maybe I’m simply losing faith in America. People would rather spend 15 minutes watching five stupid YouTube videos than read—perhaps for the first time—the document that gives them the rights they so enjoy. No, I didn’t come to this realization now. I’ve known this for years. Post the Constitution Day could pretty much be considered a test of that.

Maybe I didn’t reach the audience I thought would care. I managed 12 diggs, a purple rating on Slashdot Firehose, and a single vote on Newsvine (my vote).

The US election system has become a farce. The media picks the two people who vie for president, because the media is entangled in government.

The only candidate worthy of my vote is Ron Paul. He is the only candidate—from either party—who has repeatedly stated that he promises to follow the Constitution. No other candidate has made such a promise.

That is, unless one considers an oath of office for congress to be a promise. McCain violated that promise Feb. 12 when he voted in favor of S. 2248, the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 (I wrote a letter yesterday to Senators Specter and Casey regarding it). Neither Clinton nor Obama voted, and Huckabee is not a senator (nor is Ron Paul). I can guarantee that, if present, Paul will vote against it when it comes to the House.

I already pointed out that the Democrat candidates didn’t reference the Constitution at all during a debate. McCain regularly violates the Constitution (look at his voting record!). At least Huckabee wants to amend the Constitution in order to push his evangelical agenda.

Maybe I’ll just march on Washington.