How I’d be voting if I were a US citizen
p2pnet news | Politics:- I wouldn’t be able to vote for a president in the USA any more than I can vote for the prime minister of Canada.
These are decisions made within political parties, and as part of that political center that overlaps both parties in the United States and many parties in Canada, I wouldn’t be able to sign up to vote in the primaries.
That said, I agree with Lawrence Lessig when he articulates (in 20 minute and 10 minute videos on his BLOG) that there’s something exciting about Barack Obama (Yes We Can Song).
The issues I am most interested in are not issues where any of the political parties, whether in the United States or in Canada, have a better direction. It all comes down to individual representatives that are elected, so I largely ignore the party banners when deciding who I would vote for.
In Canada I’ve donated money to Charlie Angus twice already, even though I don’t vote in his riding, and have never voted for his party (NDP).
I’ve spent much of the last decade fighting against the Clinton/Gore policies that sparked the current Copyright, Net Neutrality and related technology and economic debates. Everything I’ve heard from the Hillary campaign is that she has the same ties to the incumbent telecom, broadcasting, recording, motion picture and software manufacturing special interests I’ve been fighting against.
Obama is different in that he has even invited people like Lessig to help him on technology law policy. He has endorsed content from the debates should be licensed to allow citizen participation through remixing, something opposed by the Copyright maximalist special interests within the Demorcat party.
As part of the debate about who makes the best Tech President, others like Techcrunch have articulated why it’s harder to analyze the potential candidates for the Republicans. There isn’t as clear a winner or looser when it comes to new economy and technology policy.
Techcrunch endorsed McCain, who even admitted that he was ‘illiterate’ when it comes to computers.
I’ll be excited about the ongoing US presidential election as long as Obama is in the race, but otherwise won’t really care which of the ‘Republicrats’ wins the presidency.
Russell McOrmond – p2pnet contributing editor
[McOrmond is an independent author (software and non-software) who uses modern business models and licensing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Creative Commons). He's also the CLUE policy coordinator.]
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March 12th, 2008 at 8:56 am
No change there. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Want change? Vote in Ron Paul, the only guy who will actually run a constitutional administration.
Not that you can vote, anyway. Don’t hear us talking about how we’d vote in Canadian elections. Of course, that’s because nobody cares about Canadian elections.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Ron Paul is awesome (I donated 10 bucks to him, even though I’m not a Republican), but the guy has failed to get attention from the Republican party (aka the party of mindless sheep). Unless Ron Paul runs independent (or Libertarian), he has no chance of winning. Barrack Obama is the best choice for America.
On the only guy that will run a constitutional administration part, that’s not true. Barrack Obama has promised to run an open-sourced government administration. Barrack Obama is one of the few (Ron Paul being the other) who has hard-pressed the government to release the presidential records, and to end government spy programs.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Ron Paul For President
Ron Paul For President
Ron Paul For President!