How times have changed...

[Nym90]

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

This post was made after the polls had closed and thus wasn't a vote, but was made in the voting booth thread, and it's interesting, especially for those who complained about uneducated Democratic voters in this past election.

I'm here and I'm voting for the republicans...whoever they are.

Those were the days.

[Nym90]

If he's switched from rabid Republican to hardcore liberal in less than a year, he's nothing more than a joke. 

He is and was very partisan.
His actual personal positions don't and didn't really fit that well with either party, and have changed but not by nearly as much.

He's always been a Machiavellian and extreme libertarian (except on foreign policy, where he's an extreme hawk), who used to believe that economic issues were more important than social issues, but now believes social issues to matter more. As a Machiavellian, he basically believes that it is perfectly justified to do or say anything to advance his cause.

It's interesting to me how we were so innocent back then as to count a vote as valid simply because people said "I vote for the GOP ticket". Even though some people didn't know who the party candidates even were, we still had no problem with allowing their votes to stand.

 I would guess we've changed our opinion on that and wouldn't allow someone to merely state which party they would vote for. I long for a return to the innocence of the original system, in which people were welcomed to vote, not driven away.

[Nym90]

Well, me too. But no one listened and now it's probably too late.

It is NEVER too late to effect positive change.

[Nym90]

If he's switched from rabid Republican to hardcore liberal in less than a year, he's nothing more than a joke.

He is and was very partisan.
His actual personal positions don't and didn't really fit that well with either party, and have changed but not by nearly as much.

He's always been a Machiavellian and extreme libertarian (except on foreign policy, where he's an extreme hawk), who used to believe that economic issues were more important than social issues, but now believes social issues to matter more. As a Machiavellian, he basically believes that it is perfectly justified to do or say anything to advance his cause.

It's interesting to me how we were so innocent back then as to count a vote as valid simply because people said "I vote for the GOP ticket". Even though some people didn't know who the party candidates even were, we still had no problem with allowing their votes to stand.

 I would guess we've changed our opinion on that and wouldn't allow someone to merely state which party they would vote for. I long for a return to the innocence of the original system, in which people were welcomed to vote, not driven away.

Stop associating him wth libertarisn. Libertarians don't believe inn Marxist economies, we are either monetarists or austrians.

Well, he doesn't support socialism, he's only said that he would if he wasn't rich. That's where the whole Machiavellian thing kicks in...his views are based pretty much entirely on what he feels will benefit him the most personally.

Since he wants the Democrats to win, however, he may support liberal economic policies if he feels they will increase the party's chance of winning elections, even though he doesn't support the actual policy in question; he's willing to use it as a means to an end.

[Nym90]

Yeah, I didn't really want this to become an Opebo thread. Oh well.

I didn't support allowing a technicality of the law to be used to count Democratic Hawk's vote. I was willing to concede that the law should apply to Senate elections as well as Presidential elections, even though it didn't. I was consistent in my defense of a loose interpretation, while others had a loose interpretation or a tight interpretation (and a questionable one at that) whenever it suited them.

I've been consistent in supporting allowing voters to cast votes, even in cases such as the ones I presented here last February. A lot of people had no problem with it at the time, and did not complain one tiny bit of the obvious voter ignorance displayed in some of those votes. Now, however, it's a crisis that threatens to tear Atlasia apart, apparently....