I'm still waiting....
Do you really believe thAt only once, electoral voters have voted for an oppessing party member?
No really is that what you're implying?
Bee. this is a talk about the debates noit an english class...grow up!

Back it up there little buckaroo.

Munk was talking about the Electoral College, and here is a complete rundown of "Faithless Electors" throughout.

Now- you can get off your high horse and cut the soapbox speeches.

You come out with these out-of-left-field rants, (nepotism? Hate mongers? Woe Is the day after?) and then say "this is not an English class" when you're called on it and asked to back up what you've said.

That's bullshit.

LFT, Beez is of course right to pull you up on your use of language - using the right words is how we know what people are talking about. If you don't use the right words in the right order then you can't get angry or patronise people who call you on it, or ask you to clarify.

For the study to have an effect in the context you were talking about would mean that the study had an effect on the voters and their choices. Perfectly possible in some studies of course (for example where behavious is altered when the subject realises they are being studied), but not so much in this case. The study was not asking the questions in this case - merely looking at the poll results so it really doesn't apply. The Effect isn't about people changing their minds, it's about what people tell pollsters as opposed to what they intend or are more likely to do in practice.

And when you make sweeping statements about who's scoffing at what, at least try to back it up a little bit, otherwise it doesn't mean anything except for giving you something to say.

Sociologically speaking, the term "effect" is applied to an observed group behaviour, and only occasionally one observed doing a formal study.

And I'll say it again - the more you speak in a manner incomprehensible, to more you'll find people either ignore you or ask for clarification. If I go up to the counter at McDonald's and say, "Prithee, good sir, I shall have your finest six hogsfarthings of sirloin, perchance with a slice of the king's finest, and of grand stature," the counter girl can be excused for not ordering me a quarter pounder with cheese combo, extra-large.

Please, show us the courtesy you would the McDonald's counter girl.

quote:

If I go up to the counter at McDonald's and say, "Prithee, good sir, I shall have your finest six hogsfarthings of sirloin, perchance with a slice of the king's finest, and of grand stature," the counter girl can be excused for not ordering me a quarter pounder with cheese combo, extra-large.


Please, show us the courtesy you would the McDonald's counter girl.

Tea is not something that should be inhaled through the sinuses. *coughs* OMG.

quote:

Sociologically speaking, the term "effect" is applied to an observed group behaviour, and only occasionally one observed doing a formal study.

This is true, but then you say the "effect observed" not the "effect of".

(In the UK there's also the interesting thing that in polls in the elections before '97 people were ashamed to admit to being Conservative )

I've reached the point to where I can't say anything about this election without it being snarky.

I am genuinely really frightened about it, it's like going for a blood test - I wish it would just 'king happen already and then I can panic about a happened thing and not a potential thing

Okay, i really need this off my chest right now.

I've watched the debates, i've read three different newspapers in three different languages. And i'm a *jellybean* if i understand what they mean half the time.

The whateveryoucallit abortion had me blinking at the screen. Abortion -aside from the moral connotations- is legal here, and i have never heard of anyhing like that performed. I know about curretage to speed up a -potentially harmful- miscarriage. I've heard about inducing labour in cases of the foetus having died. But what are they *talking* about.
It took me a few visits to the WE and Silv's blog (bless) to find out i am in fact *not* insane.
The Dutch paper, German paper, and British paper i read, can apparently not *imagine* anyone but Obama winning. So for me to form *any* kind of rounded opinion on the subject, i lean heavily on Munk's post, both about the economy as his positions about the election (bless you!). I am literally surrounded by left-leaning opinions, being inclined towards the left myself, and in consequence i don't always 'get' the republican stance on certain issues. Joe the frelling Plumber being one of them. The ' American Dream' periodically being another. It's not that i don't know what they're *saying*: it's that i don't know what it *means*. It apparantly doesn't mean what i think it means.
Now, LFT, please understand that i have no idea what you're on about.
Palin strikes me as serial-mom. McCain strikes me as a teeth-gritting megalomaniac. Obama says he wants to talk issues, and then mentions going through federal budgets 'line by line' which is... well you'll pardon me, undoable. Him and what army.
So, from the perspective of a well-meaning Europaean, eager to learn: LFT, i respectfully request you clarify what you're saying a little more. I'm depending heavily on theads like these, to make sense of what appears to be a barrage of empty words: about the ' American dream' 'partial birth abortion' and 'litmus tests'.

So, if just for the sake of someone less-inundated in Roe vs Wade, pork-barrels and manic terrorist-yelling housewives: please try to keep your views and sources as clear as possible.
Thanks.

Okay. And secondly, while I'm at it.
Bill O'Reilly. So. Someone explain this to me: raising taxes on hight level incomes, provided it's not a prohibitive tax-raise, could -i grant you- inhibit this "trickle down effect" people are talking about. And lead to less investments.
But, *how* is raising taxes -on a non-prohibitive rate- to spend on social security a -and i quote-
*socialist tenet*!
Let me see.
Socialism, can mean a lot of things. Social democracy is not socialism.

Now me might disagree on the actions that are needed to cope with the current economic situation. And we do. But "Socialist tenet"? What kind of socialism are we talking about here?

This is driving me around the bend. They're flinging about words like: partial birth abortion, Litmus test and socialist tenet.
Break it down.
What i'm getting from this: and the answer to the urgent question about the current state of the economy, is that Omaba prefers a social-democratic program, in the sense that you put extra taxes on higher incomes to pay for relief programs for middle-class and lower-income US-anians (why this emphasis on 'families'?) While Senator McCain wants to cut taxes (outright?) in the hopes it'll lead to more investments and therefore an economic boost.

ETa: Now my opinions on this should be clear. I'm firmly in the 'socialist tenet' box. It's just that i do not understand *how* cutting taxes in the current economic situation can possibly help Joe the Plumber, if his mom gets sick. Or if he gets sick.
And no-one can explain it to me, except apparently mr "Barack-Robin-Hood-Obama" O'Reilly.

The emphasis is on families because that's typically considered the smallest social group you talk about in politics and because they're ultimately the thing that drives both productivity and the economy itself. But, yeah, they should probably just put in the word "citizens."

I disagree when you say that social democracy is not socialism. It is, at least in part, but with the corollary that socialism isn't always a bad idea. If I and four friends are eating from a bucket of chicken and I eat five pieces while they get two each, I'm not a free market proponent, I'm a gluttonous jackass.

So, while I know that CEOs probably ought to make a bit more money than the guys who work on the line at their assembly plant, making it easier for them to make more money with the guys on the line continue to receive the same salary along with the threat of losing their job isn't free market economy, it's gluttonous jackassery.

::nods:: Thank you.
What's been bugging me, is that this entire 'free market' vs 'socialist tenet' discussion, isn't an economic discussion at all. It's a moral discussion.
Whether or not you put the label 'socialist' on any particular system or program apparently isn't a matter of *fact* or of *wording*. It's derogatory and meant to be derogatory.
I don't think social-democracy is social*ist*. I think socialism is an ideology that can lead to a great many systems, many of them wrong. But it's an ideology, and one -at that- which i do not for a second believe senator Obama adheres to.

There's a McCain commercial running almost non-stop and in it he whinges about Obama wanting to "spread the wealth" and the way he says it implies that he thinks "spreading the wealth" equates to spreading the plague.

I hear "spread the wealth" and think, er, yeah, I'll have some please.

Well it's so weird for me: because i'm watching all this stuff. And you know, I live in a country where pot is condoned, abortion is legal, prostitutes have a union. Where 'Patriottism' is nearly a dirty word associated with people who still fail to understand that as the city of Amsterdam is 40% Muslim, that *is* part of our culture. Not somehow outside of it.
I pay about 30% of my salary on what we call social-insurance. Unemployment benefits (which i've never drawn) and for pay when you're too sick to work. There's been a lot of talk about 'streamlining' this benefit system. It's by no means perfect. But it's considered social-justice. This permeates our papers, our politics. Again, most of the papers i read, seem to think Obama is certain to win.
Here, I'm considered to be 'left leaning'. In the USA i would be considered a Socialist.
Not only am i against the war in Iraq, i protested against it.

People are talking about a social-democratic system, very much like the one i live in, as if it were Sodom, Gomorrah and then some. We get worried that our prime-minister (Christian democrat) professes to have a 'moral compass'. While over there the Evangelical lobby seems to have quite a lot of power for a secular state. And it seems very much as if being a "Muslim" equals being a "Fundamentalist" or "Terrorist" or "Criminal".

This is by no means an attack on the States. It clarifies my frustration, and my apparent inability to understand key Republican points on
1) the war in Iraq.
2) Roe vs Wade, abortion, pro-life standpoints
3) Religion
4) Trickle-down system
5) 'The American Dream' i.e. "what's American culture"

I... kinda think I should be living in your country.

electoral voters are a shady bunch. These final word voters only represent two parties. So if you don't believe in either parties savoir you're s.o.l.. When do they hold these elections? Can any american anwser without googling or without search-engine? Does anyone even care how they're elected? Does the media remark on the elected voters?
The electoral voter is part of a social class that is only checked by the respected parties that elect them. And the parties that elect them are close to the fringe line of no public exposure.
If it is your understanding that the electoral voters are on the up and up ...disregard all this. If you are not aware of the electoral voters in the state you live in, well the more you find out the more it sounds like a secret society that is free to run amok in american politics.

My rant was that electoral voters don't always vote for their respected parties thank you for proving me right BEE. !
I commented on the BRADLEY EFFECT because it was a one shot that does not fit into the election process of the presidency.

quote:

Originally posted by luckyfurtrapper:
My rant was that electoral voters don't always vote for their respected parties thank you for proving me right BEE. !

And the gist of my comment, and the list that BeeZee (that's her full name, maybe until you know her a bit better you should use it) provided to you is that the dissenting votes have not swayed an election one way or the other. Until you provide some proof that these electors are not on the "up and up" as you say, and until you prove that as a group, they are plotting to take over american politics and run "amok", you will likely be seen as a conspiracy theorist, and most people on this board will likely ignore you.

quote:

Originally posted by Punkyfins:
Again, most of the papers i read, seem to think Obama is certain to win.

I don't read the papers here regularly enough (it always seems such a waste that I put half the sections straight in the recycling) but certainly even the BBC are assuming Obama will win. I don't think it's intentional - they mention both candidates, but you hear "If Obama becomes president..." far more often than "If McCain..."

quote:

Originally posted by Domitella:
...but you hear "If Obama becomes president..." far more often than "If McCain..."

That's my take too:

"If Obama becomes president, we're all screwed"
"If obama becomes president, we'll all be poor"
"If Obama becomes president, we're moving to Ireland"

That sort of thing.

(dude, I'm punchy as heck today)

If Obama becomes president the world will be a lot more relaxed than if it's the other two! At least he's got brains enough not to do any actual harm.