Why Americans should support third parties

A recent article in The Columbus Dispatch talks about why Americans should support third parties. Here's an excerpt:

Article II of the Constitution states that if no presidential candidate receives a majority of votes, the House is to select the winner "from the five highest on the list." No one in 1787 envisioned presidential elections with only two candidates. The Framers figured that lots of people would run

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The title of the article highlights a great distinction - support vs. vote for. As you read to the end of the article it is clear that he is not saying you necessarily have to vote for them but having them run is important to our Democracy. Hearing their voices is important to our Democracy. We all can do our part for the country, even if we plan on voting for a major party.

I found this article through a great site that watches the world of third parties non Republican & non Democrats. The simply call themselves Third Party watch.

My thoughts: Whining about Nader

Ever since Nader announced his exploratory committee people have been whining. They've been making unsubstantiated claims about his ego, financing by the Republican party and calling him all sorts of names. I was happy to see many supporters with comments responding to those against Nader but many people are spouting the same responses that land on deaf ears. To reach more people there need to be many different arguments so I thought I would share some. ...

About Nader as a spoiler

Nader was a spoiler
So was George W. Bush, Pat Buchanan, Howard Phillips, Denny Lane, Harry Browne, John Hagelin, Earl Dodge, David McReynolds, James Harris, Monica Moorehead and all the Independent and write in candidates* The difference was that Ralph Nader got 2,883,105 votes as opposed to Pat Buchanan's 449,895. Buchanan, by the way, admits many people probably accidentally voted for him in Florida due to the style of ballots.**

Nader was not a spoiler
By saying Gore was spoiled by Nader's presence in the race assumes that people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore. It also assumes that they would have voted in the election at all.
Every candidate needs to earn their votes. If Gore didn't earn them and Nader did then it went as the voters felt best.

Gore spoiled it for Nader
If you believe people who voted for Nader would have voted for Gore, than it stands to reason that people who voted for Gore would have voted for Nader. People argue that if Nader really believed in what he said he believes in ( I'll humor them, even if they weren't listening ) then he would have gracefully dropped out and let Gore win. I rarely hear people saying that if Al Gore believed so strongly in what he believed in, like not letting a George W. Bush be president, he would have dropped out and told all his supporters to vote for Ralph Nader, because nothing in Nader's history( except Democrats vain hopes ) says he would quit.

About Wasting your vote
“a vote for Ralph Nader is a wasted vote”

You waste your vote when you vote for the major party's mainstream candidates
-Candidates who can count on your unquestioning vote aren't very likely to do much to earn it.
-You vote is your statement to the politicians about the direction you want the country to go in. Do you want it to be a statement of your values or a statement of your ability to follow blindly. Where does following blindly get us?

People have lost their faith in the power of their own vote
- I grew up learning about the importance of voting in elections. It is important to vote, not for the winner, but for who you want to win. Who you want to be President is more important while you are in the voting booth than the person who is higher in the polls. Nearly 50% of the voting-age population do not vote, even in presidential elections***, and that is such a waste. If someone could get half of those people inspired, it would be revolutionary.

People are jealous that other people had the courage to vote for Nader
- Perhaps some people are just jealous that over 2.8 million people had the guts to vote for Ralph Nader( not to mention other non-major candidates ) and they didn't. Deep down they feel this somehow invalidates their political stubborness and right or wrong people hate being invalidated. This psychology is a stretch but it might fit some people.

The Spoiler Issue is a Smokescreen

There are 2 ways that Democrats( as a party ) could have responded
- The way the party did, which was to lay blame on Ralph Nader and thereby relieving themselves of any responsibility for losing the election.
- They could have seen that there is a large part of the population that would like a more progressive candidate. While many constituents are realizing this for themselves the party has shown( in 2004 and now in 2008 ) that they are not listening.

The Democrats are not Republican's - So What!
- This is the vote for the lesser evil argument. Voter's shouldn't be voting for someone because of who they aren't, they should be voting for someone because of who they are. One could state that Ralph Nader isn't George W. Bush, so you should vote for him.

* http://www.politics1.com/p2000a.htm
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan#2000_campaign
*** http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/prespop.htm

Yahoo Maps for Flex 3

Thank goodness. Yahoo has finally ported their map application over to Flex 3 ( AS3 ). This means a lot of great things, starting with speed. They can now get the speed improvements from the display model and other enhancements in the new virtual machine. Second, I can quit going back to klunky AS2 code whenever I have to put together some sort of interactive map. ...

I haven't had a chance to test it out yet but it should work pretty well. If not, I'm sure I can find some workarounds :) I'm looking forward to a more robust mapping API/Component that has less of the wierd bugs that you can only get with the old actionscript virtual machine.

But what will the possible Microsoft buyout do to this?

Flash Player 9.0r115 and Opera for Linux

Recently the flash player got updated to version 9.0r115 in Ubuntu. I already had the debug version of 9.0r115 setup thanks to installing Flex Builder for Linux alpha so I didn't actually need it but downloaded it anyway. This broke flash for Opera since 9.25 doesn't work with the newest flash player( 9.50 beta does but I prefer to work with a stable version on this computer ).

For those of you wondering about the workaround/fix, here it is:
Download the 9.0r48 flash player from Adobe's self service page.

Then follow the instructions on ignoring plugins available here.

Just make sure to use the full path for the 9.0r115 plugin(s) you have available.

Quote of the date

Originally posted by James Madison, fourth President of the United States (1809–1817):

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

... More quotes from James Madison

Such as this one:

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

Friday Humor with Stephen Colbert

The news I'm reading says the writers strike will be over soon. I can honestly say I didn't notice it much, but my kids have me watching very little of my own shows anyway. I do, however, hope they got a majority of what they were asking for. The news will say soon enough. In the mean time, here's some fun Stephen Colbert had with the writers' strike. ...

This next one has a great payoff at the end of a montage of Stephen's stance on unions:jester:

I'm A Flex Developer Community Champion

When I returned to work from my lunch trip to the gym there was a rather non-descript package waiting at my desk for me. As I opened it up I realized it was from Adobe, welcoming me to the Flex Developer Community Champion team. Nerdy me got very excited. ...

A few months back I was taking part in one of Adobe's Flex E-Seminars. At the end of the seminar a slide kept being shown talking about the Developer Community Champion program. I contacted Suzanne Nguyen at Adobe to find out more and was pointed to the registration/application page for the program. After signing up I received an automated response and then nothing, until today.

Inside the box was what I will henceforth refer to as the kit ( above ). The kit contains the Programming Flex 2 book by Chafic Kazoun & Joey Lott, 2 Total Training DVD ROMs for Flex, a medal and some wierd toy that I'm sure my kids will love. Like other people who have receive the kit, I already had the book. However, the copy I currently have is actually property of Provis Media Group so I will probably keep this one at home for a reference. The DVD ROMs should be good, especially the one on advanced viaual programming. That's an area I have not put much work into yet.

What does this mean? Well according to Adobe my role as a Champion entails the following:
Provide Code Samples
Create Technical Articles
Create Components
Developer Code Camp
Friday Flex Forums
On Demand Webinars
E-Seminars
Host Local “Flex Jams”
Blogs
Speak at Events

When I first signed up my Flex articles occurred more often. Now that this has begun, I will be writing some more to start holding up my end of the bargain. As other things come up I will post them here.

NPR talks third parties

I hate the term third party, it lumps all the parties that are not Republicans or Democrats in one group. However, it is a term people understand until we make a choice as American's to support more than one party two parties. None the less, NPR had a piece about what is happening outside of the "major" parties.

In this piece they talk about Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader and Michael Bloomberg. They also talk about the possibility of Ron Paul running as a 3rd party candidate.

Glad that's over

Super Tuesday is done, and I'm glad it's over. I just checked out CNN.com and was a little disgusted. I looked at the results and there was something glaringly obvious on the Democratic side. Edwards, Biden and Richardson - who have all dropped out of the race - showed up in the results but Mike Gravel - who is still running - was nowhere to be seen. Whether this is an issue of people not voting for him enough to show in the polls or that CNN has a problem with the candidate doesn't matter. Both are disgusting. ...

I understand that Mike Gravel has not been very visible lately. You would have to make an effort to look for him. Is he not trying hard enough? Are his supporters beaten down too much to make it happen? Is it the corporate interests keeping him away from the spotlight?

While I have done my best to remain diligent in this Presidential race, I am now making a change as of today. There is no reason for me to follow the Democrats or Republicans any more. I've never really liked the Republican party candidates. The Democrats hold very little interest for me any more. The largest reason, is because you already get enough information about them from the mainstream media. What do they need my help for?

What does this mean? I'm not going to cover or post full video of either the Democratic or Republican events. Perhaps I will post bits that include some people talking about lesser talked about subject. For instance Fair Tax. Three candidates from those parties are talking about that Gravel, Paul and Huckabee yet we hear so little about it. How about complete withdrawal from Iraq? Two candidates from those parties are talking about that( Gravel, Paul ). What about Mike Gravel's National initiative? It is probably the best progressive and truly new idea to come out of the democratic party since I can remember.

For the most part I am going to focus on what you don't see, or maybe you missed because you only had one chance to see it. I'm going to focus on the Green Party. I am going to focus on Ralph Nader. I am going to focus on Mike Gravel. I am going to focus on Cynthia McKinney. I am going to focus on non-presidential election issues.

My posts and my vote are a statement that I get to make. I am now going to focus on making statements with my political posts.

Lost in Super Mardi Gras

Today is Super Tuesday. Today is Mardi Gras. But lost in the buildup to super mardi gras was any mention of what is going on in third parties. Since I am now a Green Party( currently unrecognized by my state ) member, I will point you in the direction of a couple of news bits about the Green Party. One bit is about Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and the other is in relation to whether or not Ralph Nader will run for President. ...

First, Cynthia McKinney was interviewed on Democracy Now! and spoke about many different aspects of her campaign and the Green Party. She was interviewed the day after the Super Bowl and told of the work she was doing to form a support committee for the voters of Latin America. Many of these countries have produced change by the power of the ballot and deserve our support. She also discusses her reasoning behind moving from the Democratic party to the Green Party. Following that discussion they talk about the two front running Democratic Candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In the end, though they move onto our next subject - Ralph Nader's possible run for the presidency and whether or not Cynthia Mckinney thinks it is a positive.( Hint: She like many voices in the political system ).

In the Cynthia McKinney interview they discussed how in the previous week Ralph Nader had announced he was setting up an exploratory committee for a Presidential run in 2008. So I did a search and found the interview with Ralph Nader after his announcement. For the most part it did two thing. The interview allowed Nader to mention his website for the committee( naderexplore08.org ) and explain part of his decision process for running.

I have been reading a lot about and by Ralph Nader as of late and this is big news. Ralph Nader is a voice for people to remember that they have power in this government. Ralph want to be out there, reminding people of this. If he gets elected along the way, we all could be better for it.

In the interest of complete journalism I am posting the full Democracy Now! videos that have both these interviews.

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Democracy Now! with Cynthia McKinney interview

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Democracy Now! with Ralph Nader interview