Ron Paul

[FaerieInGrey]

As a Libertarian (I'm really betraying the Obama club in this thread!), I would love for someone who self-labeled himself as one to be elected to office. But I've actually never met an anti-choice Libertarian before. I can theoretically see why one could be both (protecting the rights of the unborn child = protecting rights of individual) but in practice, I've never met a person that sees it that way.

So maybe if some other Libertarian would run and I could spew propaganda for them everywhere, that would be fantastic.

[Teragram]

Yeah, I don't understand the Ron Paul love. I mean, if I was a libertarian, sure. Or even a republican. But I'm not, and it seems like lots of democrats are like, "oooh, ron paul, he's not as awful as the other republicans on a few issues...let's vote for him!" ummm, why? I could just vote for dennis kucinich, I agree with almost everything he has to say, minus the aliens (though, hey, I'm not a hater, who knows?), and they have about the same chance of winning.

Actually, the New York Times made a huge (I think) mistake in their article about her playing the girl card- She, herself, not her staff, not whoever said, "They are beating up on my because I'm winning..." and they said she said, "They are beating up on my because I'm a woman." I was a little horrified. But I don't even think there is anything wrong with pointing out and making sure people are aware of their inherent, petty, silly biases. I think many people, women included, would be shocked to really understand how deep their social conditioning against women in leadership positions go. It's hard for her to do and for it to look good for her if she does it, but it should still probably be done.

[AngharadTy]

Well, the problem with Clinton and her gender card--by which I mainly refer to garnering sympathy by saying politics was an "all-boy's club" (though the whole "They said I said" thing sounds fishy to me; I have problems understanding what people say, though, and rely on closed captioning a lot)--is that she's playing both sides, quite happily. She's presenting herself as a woman capable of holding her own among men, and then at the same time, hiding behind herself as a woman.

I'm not explaining this well, but Dan Savage has done better. However, you might not like that source, considering he writes a sex advice column, and what on earth could such a columnist know about politics. I just think it's a good summary of my feelings on the issue.

Also, for fun, here's Obama on Clinton's gender politics.

[Jazzy]

The advantage of a candidate like this, assuming that he becomes the Republican candidate (which is of course not guaranteed), is that if you're a Democrat in a state where they can't win, at least your state overall didn't vote for someone you couldn't tolerate. My hometown is strongly Conservative in the national elections (weakly right-wing, similar to Democrats) and if I vote there, my vote essentially won't count. However, since the Conservatives have begun to drift towards the centre in order to win votes, their policies aren't nearly so offputting to me as they once were, and I wouldn't be as upset if my town's votes* helped get the Conservatives into power.

*Very basic overview of the political system here: each area, of roughly equal population, elects one MP. The number of MPs belonging to each party gets counted up, and the party with the most MPs puts forward the prime minister who gets to run the country. It's similar to the Electoral College, but as if there were many more states. So you generally avoid the situation where the winning party actually got fewer votes than the next one (see the American election in 2000), but the winning party still does get more seats than their proportion of votes would suggest - 40% of votes, for example, doesn't mean 40% of seats in Parliament, it usually means many more.

And not to derail the thread, but it really, really annoys me when people call immigrants aliens. I know technically it may well be correct, but it's still derogatory.

[Twofold Black]

And not to derail the thread, but it really, really annoys me when people call immigrants aliens. I know technically it may well be correct, but it's still derogatory.

I don't know what offends me more, 'aliens' or 'illegals'. They do exactly the same thing -- reduce immigrants (illegal ones, in the latter case, of course) to non-persons having no other traits.

[Wingsrising]

I've always found "alien" a weird term for a non-citizen who lives in the country, but it is actually the technically correct one (at least in the US). So I don't see that people who are using it are trying to be offensive, just correct. Also, it's a lot shorter than the other available options, such as "non-citizen who is currently residing in this country".

(An "alien" is not necessarily the same thing as an "immigrant." Many non-citizens who live in the US aren't immigrating here, they're just saying here for 5 years to go to grad school or something. And immigrants who beome citizens are at that point no longer "aliens", although they are still "immigrants".)

[Jazzy]

Well, the legislation specifically refers to immigrants, not simply resident aliens - the Mexican border fence isn't to stop people going to university. And just because something is technically correct (which is debatable anyway) doesn't mean people are going to like it.

[Teragram]

May I just say, I, at least, was referring to actual aliens. I mean, in that Dennis said he saw a UFO and he believes in aliens, like, from outer space. Not from other countries...So, yeah. I wasn't trying to refer to the immigration issue or anything, I agree with him about that, too, mostly. Eep.

I don't mind her playing the gender card, as I think it's a legitimate issue. So, no, I don't think the people in that particular debate were attacking her because she was a woman. But do I think that politics is an all-boys club? most definitely. Her point has validity, so why should she be afraid to point that out? Does the system make it harder for her? Probably, yes. If that fact makes more people want to vote for her, that's fine with me. I don't see it as playing both sides-She wants to be seen as just as strong and as capable as a man, and I think it only emphasizes how strong she is to show all of the obstacles in her way, including the fact that politics are sexist. In my view, the inherent inequality in politics is justification enough for using all the cards ya got. If ya got 'em, play 'em.

Anyways, as far as I can tell, Dan Savage article is trying to convince me that Clinton is deliberately using this issue to get votes...which I don't have a problem with. Good luck to her with that.

I'm not even sure I'm going to vote for Hilary, in the primary at least, but I think that ignoring the fact that she is a woman is not equality.

[FaerieInGrey]

"Illegals" definitely bothers me more. I agree that they're both pretty nasty words that make the "human" element invisible. Though I do see, Teragram, that you were referring to actual aliens. Heh.

[Wingsrising]

I do feel compelled the point out that the use of the word "alien" to mean "forign" predates using it to apply to creatures from other planets by at least 600 years according to the OED.

So it's not like the governement refers to non-citizens in the country as "aliens" to imply they're not really human, since governments adopting the use of that term vastly pre-dates its adoption by science-fiction writers (which appears to have happened sometime in the 20th century).

In other words, we started calling people from other planets "aliens" as an analogy to people from other countries, we didn't start calling people from other countries "aliens" as an analogy to people from other planets.

[Phibby]

May I just say, I, at least, was referring to actual aliens. I mean, in that Dennis said he saw a UFO and he believes in aliens, like, from outer space. Not from other countries...So, yeah. I wasn't trying to refer to the immigration issue or anything, I agree with him about that, too, mostly. Eep.

Actually, Shirley MacLaine said he saw a UFO while visiting her then home. Kucinich has neither confirmed nor denied her story (unless he has since I read this article and haven't heard; let me know).

[Jazzy]

For what it's worth, that's precisely my objection to the word. I don't like how people attempt to distance themselves from others based simply on where they've come from; it's not that I'm objecting to comparisons with little green men. It's not calling a spade a spade, either - immigrant, yes, is an accurate description. But alien suggests that the person is strange and irreconcilably different to natives of the country, and I think that's a damaging attitude to take. It has implications beyond its basic dictionary definition of "foreign".

(Teragram: my apologies for misreading your post, I had no idea you might be referring to actual aliens )

[Wingsrising]

But immigrant *isn't* an accurate description. "Immigrant" implies long-term residence in the new country, which isn't true of a large number of of the people in question (who are just in the US for the 2-5 years it takes to get whatever degree they're currently working on, for example, and are then planning to return home permanently.)

So when there are lots of "immigrants" that aren't "aliens" and lots of "aliens" that aren't "immigrants"... well, the terms don't mean at all the same thing. You can't just replace one with the other in a legalistic setting, where having accurate terms matters (and the term "alien" is very rarely used outside of legalistic settings.)

It probably is true that most, people who could accurately be described as "illegal aliens" could also accurately be described as "illegal immigrants" -- though presumably not all of them. But that still doesn't make the words interchangable. Despite what media coverage would have you believe, most US immigration law is concerned with people who come to the country legally (and of course, US tax law doesn't care whether the person is in the country illegally or not). And once again, my experience is that the term "alien" isn't widely used except in the context of legaleese -- usually immigration law or tax law.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I've always found it a rather odd term (largely because of it's modern "little green men" connotations, so if there's a better term I'm all for it.

[Jazzy]

I'm not sure if we're arguing the same issue at all. I don't really mind what you call people who go to university in the States and then go back home, and suchlike, because firstly, they aren't actually the ones who are a political issue at the moment and secondly, they're generally viewed in a positive, or at least neutral, light. The political issue currently is with people who go to another country and intend to stay. And since they intend to stay, they're immigrants even by your definition (or would-be immigrants).

Alien is used frequently enough outside of a legalistic setting for its usage to sit badly with me, I know that much.

[Wingsrising]

I guess I just don't usually hear the term used outside of a legalistic context, like tax forms. Maybe I watch the wrong news shows? Or maybe the term is used more in the UK than the US? Dunno. It's just not a term I'm used to hearing (which is why it always seems funny when I do.)

I find the whole immigration issue especially annoying because I tend to agree with an article published in Slate recently that suggested that the US government actually isn't the least bit fussed about illegal immigration. If they were, they would be cracking down on the companies that employ them. But hiring illegal immigrants is good for companies -- you get people who will work for less pay than citizens and will do jobs that citizens often won't. So the government turns a semi-blind eye to the whole issue.

I would have no problem with that in and of itself, but the fact that they then take an issue they don't actually really care about or want to end and use it to whip the public up into a frenzy? That pisses me off.

I think the issue is that the Republicans seem to have decided that gay marriage is a one-trick pony and that people aren't going be fooled into thinking that gays marrying is more important than wars, the environment, or the tanking economy for two elections in a row. So illegal immigration is their next shiny object to try to use to distract people from the actual issues.