[ExI] we are not alone...

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace



 

>…Trouble is, any third party needs to be in gear extremely fast and get millions upon million of dollars asap if not before.  I would vote for some third party even if i did not like him or her, just to shake things up in DC.

 

>…If Hilary wins we will see some, but not a lot of trouble.  If she wants to be a hawk, well now's the time for Congress to put a stop to president's starting undeclared wars.  If Trump wins, we will see his own party against him - it just might be hilarious!  If he wins we might see the same thing as with Clinton:  putting stops to the power of the president to do things without Congress.  And that's a good thing.  bill w

 

 

Thanks BillW, truer words are seldom spoken, or written.  And soon they may become illegal.  We are being told there is a multi-million dollar PAC called Stop the Smears, aimed at those who would post uncomfortable or unauthorized comments about a political leader to social media.  The article doesn’t actually say, but it is easy enough to imagine both major party candidates with something analogous to this.  I have certainly posted online more than my share of negative comments about both of these, so I am now probably on the target list for both major candidates.

 

Even I recognize the Libertarian party is a longshot under the very best of circumstances.  It requires the masses to think independently, something the masses are not known to do.  As Adrian pointed out, a serious run requires huge piles of money, but the LP doesn’t have that.  But there is something else important.

 

Suppose in one of those really oddball years such as this one, the LP candidate makes a hell of a showing, wins 40% of the popular vote and the two majors each get say 30%, wooohooo!  Ja?  Nein.  The electoral college convenes, then it would logically follow that the LP candidate gets about 40% of those votes, with the other two majors sharing 30%.  Wooohooo?  Nein.  If no candidate gets a majority in the EC, then the states get to choose the president, one vote per state.  States are controlled by either Democrat or Republican governors and senators, almost all of them.  Suppose they would choose a guy who isn’t either party?  I don’t either.

 

So, good chance the LP candidate could win a plurality in both the popular vote and the EC, and still lose the office.

 

Either way:

 

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-trolling-20160506-snap-htmlstory.html

 

And we can be sure Trump probably has something vaguely analogous to this too.  So… libertarians, greens, commies, all #NeverTrump and #NeverHillary, all those wacky little parties no one ever heard of, all are dead.  To even suggest a third way online is likely to retroactively become hate speech (as did the YouTube video in September 2012) or somehow not covered under the first amendment.  We are so dead.

 

spike

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20160510/d54bf0bd/attachment.html>