POFO Anything Goes Thread. ((Warning do not enter if you can't handle fire))

[TheWalrus]

I don't know that the 3rd party supporters are as much the hipsters as one might think. I'll always support the candidate that doesn't want to detain American citizens without due process & who wants to legalize pot no matter what party they're from. Neither the current Democratic nor Republican candidates share these views with me.

I don't know how many hipsters there are supporting third party candidates. Just in my own totally unscientific observations there seem to be more of them supporting third parties than either of the two major ones. But that doesn't make them a majority of their supporters or anything. Mostly people are somewhere between don't know and don't care, not realizing those are two sides of the same coin.

Makes you wonder, though... all these young people cynical about the political process. Yet many can't even find major countries on a map or give you the name of their representatives. From what personal experience or knowledge does this cynicism arise? Or is that also all a pose, an easy rationalization to sit lazily back and not give a ****?

Check out Doug Benson's "Doug Loves Movies" podcast, makes for good background noise when I'm working on something else/ driving.

Thanks, I will. Not much of a podcast listener, but I've finally joined the new millennium and gotten a smart phone so I can put podcasts on it when I take walks, which I enjoy.

[rob19]

I don’t think supporting a third party is a cop-out. I think a lot of us care just as much, even though our chances at affecting policy aren’t as good as the current incumbent parties. I'd say a big part of the cynicism comes from people who are fighting these wars/ loved one's affected by those people in the wars. I have a friend in almost every branch of the military, one is currently in Afghanistan & another would be if not for medical reasons. I think a big percentage of the youth see's these as unjust wars, & that certainly doesn't help. I think a big portion of the youth recognizes that 1/2 the prison population is in there for non-violent drug related offenses, & that most of that is young people, & those young people have family and friends who are also affected. I think young people today have access to information in the way that kids even 10, to 20 years ago could never have. Many of them know about things like the NDAA & the unjust droning of civilians. I think people have heard about the Wiki-leaks business, have seen the helicopter footage of soldiers slaughtering civilians. Income disparity is higher than it's ever been. Popular movies like “The Campaign” are satirizing the political election process by pointing out how you can pretty much buy an election. You have the fact that corporations are sort of hedging their bets & funding both candidates so no matter the outcome both candidates can be a captive to their interest's. You have things like lobbying which is out of control. The Federal Reserve has it’s issues. There was that whole Occupy Wallstreet thing over the bailouts. You have the electoral college which is disenfranchising a lot of perspective voters because of the state they live in. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

So when a guy like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson comes along and says, let’s end these wars, let’s stop the drug war, let’s not detain American citizens & therefore avoid a break-down in the fabric of one of our must fundamental rights of our constitution (due-process), who isn’t held captive to corporate interests, who seems like they have a soul, etc and so forth, I think a lot of people gravitate towards that. I guess people rank candidates on priorities, ending the foreign wars, ending the drug wars, protecting due-process, protecting civil liberties, are all more important to me than whether there’s going to be a slight tax increase/decrease. I don’t agree with everything Ron Paul or Gary Johnson want to do, but if they do the aforementioned I think I can live with whatever else that comes with.

/rant

On a sidenote, I just watched Obama on the Daily Show. I thought he did well.

[Tetragrammaton]

He's widely loved, sure. But there's a whole subset of film people who dismiss him as repetitive, psychologically primitive or ridiculous, pandering, chauvinistic and basically uninterested in deeper issues on the scale of Bergman, Tarkovskiy or Kubrick. Basically, it's just "entertainment," but that word used as a pejorative. I'm a film buff as much as I'm a football buff so this is an attitude I run into a lot.

A football fan that knows who Andrei Tarkovsky is? You are my new favorite member.

[CedarPhin]

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[Born to be free]

I dont know what to say, but there is so many people i have yet to kill, Afghanistan see you in 2 week's.

[ROADRUNNER]

[ROADRUNNER]

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[rob19]

Federal Raids

[TheWalrus]

I don’t think supporting a third party is a cop-out. I think a lot of us care just as much, even though our chances at affecting policy aren’t as good as the current incumbent parties. I'd say a big part of the cynicism comes from people who are fighting these wars/ loved one's affected by those people in the wars. I have a friend in almost every branch of the military, one is currently in Afghanistan & another would be if not for medical reasons. I think a big percentage of the youth see's these as unjust wars, & that certainly doesn't help. I think a big portion of the youth recognizes that 1/2 the prison population is in there for non-violent drug related offenses, & that most of that is young people, & those young people have family and friends who are also affected. I think young people today have access to information in the way that kids even 10, to 20 years ago could never have. Many of them know about things like the NDAA & the unjust droning of civilians. I think people have heard about the Wiki-leaks business, have seen the helicopter footage of soldiers slaughtering civilians. Income disparity is higher than it's ever been. Popular movies like “The Campaign” are satirizing the political election process by pointing out how you can pretty much buy an election. You have the fact that corporations are sort of hedging their bets & funding both candidates so no matter the outcome both candidates can be a captive to their interest's. You have things like lobbying which is out of control. The Federal Reserve has it’s issues. There was that whole Occupy Wallstreet thing over the bailouts. You have the electoral college which is disenfranchising a lot of perspective voters because of the state they live in. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Well, look... like I said, I think there are plenty of reasons to support third party candidates and plenty of reasons for cynicism. Neither is by definition a cop out, but I do think many young people, especially, use them as an excuse to tune out and either not vote, or vote for a third party. I don't give them as much credit as you for having real reasons, or really knowing the issues. Most young people I know (I'm only 30, so maybe I'm still considered young) don't have a good grasp of much of anything outside their own bubble. They don't read, they don't investigate, they don't pay attention. But cynicism? They've got that in spades, because somewhere along the line someone told them the whole thing was a rigged game and they thought, "what a relief, now I don't have to care." Cynicism takes time and experience to build. And all true cynics begin like Miranda in The Tempest beholding a "brave new world, that has such people in it!"

So when a guy like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson comes along and says, let’s end these wars, let’s stop the drug war, let’s not detain American citizens & therefore avoid a break-down in the fabric of one of our must fundamental rights of our constitution (due-process), who isn’t held captive to corporate interests, who seems like they have a soul, etc and so forth, I think a lot of people gravitate towards that. I guess people rank candidates on priorities, ending the foreign wars, ending the drug wars, protecting due-process, protecting civil liberties, are all more important to me than whether there’s going to be a slight tax increase/decrease. I don’t agree with everything Ron Paul or Gary Johnson want to do, but if they do the aforementioned I think I can live with whatever else that comes with.

I would bet serious money 90% of the people living in this country couldn't give even a halfway intelligible answer on what due process is, though.

[rob19]

Legitimate points. I can't speak for anyone else but I'm sure those people exist. I'm 21 so I won't discount my age as a limiting factor in regards to perspective. In five years I'm sure I'll have evolved certain opinions from where they are now, & five years from then I'll sure it'll be the same case. I think the worst is when people become indoctrinated into a certain ideology they can't ever seem to see outside of. I don't understand the argument though that because X amount of people don't know what due process is, or can't point to a country on a map means, we should keep bombing them or locking them in cages without trail.

To me it's not so much any one party, it's about the candidates. I just can't vote for a guy that signs off on the NDAA, albeit "regrettably" or whichever synonym he used. I had such high hopes for Obama, the word decriminalization came out of his mouth once in regards to pot, & now he laughs it off when he's asked about it like he's implying, "let's talk about something serious". I've been really surprised at certain directions he's taken as the president that I wouldn't have thought he would going in. Whether that be the NDAA, or the Bush Tax Cuts, infringing upon state-law in regards to cannabis. Idk, seems like a different guy going in than he is now. Makes me think he either said certain things to get elected, or he was a young idealistic senator who when elected, realized he was more of a figure-head than an actual difference maker.