2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

I don't think Saudi Arabia (the nation) supports terrorism.

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Scrat wrote:

What would you do about a hypothetical nation which clearly supported terrorism and resisted all lesser efforts to get them to change?

You didn't ask me, but I'd leave it alone and just deal with the terrorism. That's what Germany did during the 70s and 80s, when we had a major problem with communist terrorists sponsored by East Germany. It's not a perfect policy, but it works better than the alternative in my opinion.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

I don't think Saudi Arabia (the nation) supports terrorism.

Okay, how about their government?

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Thomas wrote:

Scrat wrote:
What would you do about a hypothetical nation which clearly supported terrorism and resisted all lesser efforts to get them to change?

You didn't ask me, but I'd leave it alone and just deal with the terrorism. That's what Germany did during the 70s and 80s, when we had a major problem with communist terrorists sponsored by East Germany. It's not a perfect policy, but it works better than the alternative in my opinion.

Where would you draw the line in "dealing with the terrorism"? Do we just clean-up after a bombing and try to track down the perpetrators? Do we try to prevent terrorism? Do we try to cut off funding, find and destroy training camps? What do we do with those who fund or knowingly aid terrorists in any way?

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Scrat wrote:

Okay, how about their government?

That's what I meant by their nation. I think the average Saudi dislikes America and I think any government that replaces the house of Saud would be less moderate.

I think the house of Saud could do more to keep their religious extremists in check but doing more could spell their demise.

Frankly their demise would be bad for the US in terms of oil and terrorism.

The House of Saud is about the friendliest (to the US) Saudi people there are.

But Thomas makes a good point. Fiight the terrorism. By it's nature it's hard to do so but the alternatives aren't any better.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Scrat wrote:

Okay, how about their government?

That's what I meant by their nation. I think the average Saudi dislikes America and I think any government that replaces the house of Saud would be less moderate.

I think the house of Saud could do more to keep their religious extremists in check but doing more could spell their demise.

Frankly their demise would be bad for the US in terms of oil and terrorism.

The House of Saud is about the friendliest (to the US) Saudi people there are.

I believe the House of Saud has done a yeoman's job of convincing their people that Israel and the US are to blame for the problems of the Saudi people. This shell game is what keeps the House of Saud in power, by focusing their citizens discomfort at another target than the government that actually causes their discomfort.

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Yes, and while that contributes to terrorism it's not support for it (as the terrorism often targets them for their corruption).

Similarly our visibility contributes to our being targeted but is not to blame for it.

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Scrat wrote:

I'd also like to have the option of printing a receipt showing my choices if I choose to do so. Those who preferred privacy would not be forced to take a paper copy of their ballot, but those who wanted one could have one.

Of course, these could never, should never be used for the purpose of recounting the votes. In the end, any electronic system can only "spit out the same data as before".

I think you got hold of the wrong side of the stick here.

The option to print a receipt could not just be used to give the voter one to take home, but also to print one out to be kept securely at the voting office, as Fishin' practically pointed out in the other thread. That way, when memory cards with the registration of hundreds of votes on them go missing like they did in Georgia, you can use the print-outs to count the vote with instead. Same when something goes wrong with the voting machine in the course of the day or afterwards. And you do end up with more choice than simply having the machine "spit out the same data as before".

fishin' wrote:

I still don't understand why this isn't done for these systems. Let the person select their prefered language and cast their ballot and then electronically record their vote and print out two receipts. One to be deposited in a receptical at the polling place should a manual recount be needed and a second for them to take with them (if they want to). The paper reciepts could be bar coded and scanned for recounts... (Which I would suggest should be automatic) which would reduce recount times to almost nothing.

In fact, I had actually assumed that that's what the article had in mind when observing that, current way it is:

Quote:

The machines were fitted with thermal printing devices that could theoretically provide a written record of voters' choices, but these were not activated. Consequently, recounts were impossible.

All that apart from the weird arrangement in which the vote count is not conducted by state elections officials, but by a private company - by the company that had sold the state the voting machines in the first place, at that.

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Scrat wrote:

Where would you draw the line in "dealing with the terrorism"? Do we just clean-up after a bombing and try to track down the perpetrators? Do we try to prevent terrorism? Do we try to cut off funding, find and destroy training camps? What do we do with those who fund or knowingly aid terrorists in any way?

Generally speaking, I would draw the line when the cost of preventing terrorism -- measured in loss of civil rights, loss of human lives et cetera -- exceeds the cost of living with it. I don't think I can draw a well-defined line, there is certainly a broad grey zone between the extremes. From the top of my head, I'd draw the line somewhere betwen "try to prevent terrorism" and "try to cut off funding".

I agree that this is a pretty defensive stand. Then again, the death toll from terrorism isn't as terrible as most people think. From memory, diabetes kills more people every month than September 11 did. Nobody declares a "war on sugar". Gun accidents kill about 10,000 Americans every year. While this is a political issue, even the most radical Democrats haven't declared "a war on guns". Traffic accidents -- again from memory -- kill 40-50,000 Americans every year. The cases are not comparable 1:1 because sugar, guns, and traffic have benefits, while terrorism hasn't. But apparently, it isn't even on the radar screen of American politicians to bring back the death tolls to, say, the German level (10 times fewer traffic accidents and 100 times fewer gun accidents for 3.5 times fewer people).

Every person killed by a terrorist is one person too many, just like every person killed by a traffic accident is. The difference is, the person killed by terrorists is likely to make news on national television, while the person killed in a traffic accident isn't. That skews political action into doing too little about mundane lethal risks and too much about terrorism.

I think terrorism is way overhyped compared to other problems.

<expecting the wrath of pretty much everyone in this thread>

-- Thomas

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No wrath from here. See this.

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zero wrath from me as I totally agree, terrorism is an immense talking point of little merit.

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Agree totally as well - but, although it is an "immense talking point of little merit" ist is an immense economic point of benefits as well.

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5,000 is the largest amount allowed on that thread - that is less than a 1 in 50,000 chance - hmmmmmmmmmmm.......

I better stay off the highways.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Yes, and while that contributes to terrorism it's not support for it (as the terrorism often targets them for their corruption).

Similarly our visibility contributes to our being targeted but is not to blame for it.

Hmmm... not the most unreasonable comments... :wink:

Perhaps it isn't "support for terrorism", but aren't the Saudi's pretty much teaching their people to hate the west including in their schools? At a minimum we should be backing away from our ties with them.

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essentially the house of Saud (government) plays no role in education and is part of the division of authority the Sauds negoiated in establishing the current government to co-exist with the Mullahs.

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Thanks guys -- and thanks for the pointer to this interesting thread, Craven. I hadn't discovered that one yet.

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nimh wrote:

Scrat wrote:
I'd also like to have the option of printing a receipt showing my choices if I choose to do so. Those who preferred privacy would not be forced to take a paper copy of their ballot, but those who wanted one could have one.

Of course, these could never, should never be used for the purpose of recounting the votes. In the end, any electronic system can only "spit out the same data as before".

I think you got hold of the wrong side of the stick here.

Not at all, I just see a different side to this than you appear to see.

Quote:

The option to print a receipt could not just be used to give the voter one to take home, but also to print one out to be kept securely at the voting office, as Fishin' practically pointed out in the other thread. That way, when memory cards with the registration of hundreds of votes on them go missing like they did in Georgia, you can use the print-outs to count the vote with instead. Same when something goes wrong with the voting machine in the course of the day or afterwards. And you do end up with more choice than simply having the machine "spit out the same data as before".

I would be very wary of doing anything like this. Far from reducing the likelihood of fraud or error, I think this would open the door wide to it.

Imagine... The polls close and the results aren't to the liking of some. They complain and demand a recount, so they open the boxes of printed receipts and begin counting.

Now, what prevents people from fabricating receipts? What keeps people from misreading them? God help us, what if some are smudged, or the printer was running out of ribbon...

How about this scenario... not only is the count lost from memory, but the entire machine is lost to fire; no data and no receipts. But wait! Someone suggests that people be allowed to bring in their receipts if they have them, claiming that some votes is better than none, and muttering about the will of the people.

No thanks. Put the best system you can in place, and let all comers understand that failures are random and everyone has an equal shot at being screwed; which means the system is fair.

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Scrat wrote:

Now, what prevents people from fabricating receipts? What keeps people from misreading them? God help us, what if some are smudged, or the printer was running out of ribbon...

Well, with centuries of experience in counting paper votes, I'm sure you will be able to manage such dangers, in those exceptional cases where memory cards get lost or computers go haywire ...

Scrat wrote:

How about this scenario... not only is the count lost from memory, but the entire machine is lost to fire; no data and no receipts. But wait! Someone suggests that people be allowed to bring in their receipts if they have them, claiming that some votes is better than none, and muttering about the will of the people.

Yeh, no, totally agree, thats not where you'd want to be going. But then thats not what anyone suggested, 's far as I know, either, so its a bit of a straw man.

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Scrat wrote:

Perhaps it isn't "support for terrorism", but aren't the Saudi's pretty much teaching their people to hate the west including in their schools? At a minimum we should be backing away from our ties with them.

See dys's comment, those people have nothing to do with the Saudi government and the two groups only tolerate each other. In addition, if the house of Saud is replaced it will most likely be replaced by those religious fanatics.

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Thomas suggests we should consider the cost of terrorism against the cost of combatting it, and, as well, the harm it does compared to other causes we live with such as diabetes. This is certainly a rational principle, but it is most difficult to apply it in practice.

In the first place terrorism is a politicaL act designed to undermine the confidence of both the people and the government, and to attack its source of political power. Most of the otherwise comparable causes of public harm such as diabetes or automobile accidents do not have this characteristic. (Perhaps a more relevant example would be a few deaths from a highly communicable disease, presenting the possibility of epidemic.)

Secondly the public outrage that results from a given risk, hazard, or damage is well known to be only weakly related to its magnitude in terms of lives or property lost. The average nuclear power plant presents about as much public risk, measured in terms of expected damage,as a major highway intersection, but the public outrage associated with it is much greater, due to such difficult to estimate factors as a very low risk of very great harm; the lack of direct individual consent or participation; and simply the fact that we have long since stopped thinking much about highway accidents. Terrorism by its nature and, as well, by the intent and design of the terrorists is crafted to maximize public outrage.

Clearly in some situations the optimal course is to deal with terrorism in merely a defensive way. Perhaps the German situation a few decades ago which Thomas cited, is a good example. Everyone knew then that political conflict across the then inter-German border had the potential to ignite grievous trouble for everyone. I don't believe this is a generally representative case.

Terrorism can be a powerful political weapon. IRA terrorism exhausted the willingness of the UK to continue its support for a recalcitrant Stormont Government in Northern Ireland, and went a long way towards achieving the political aims of those who practiced it.

The terrorism being practiced by Jihadist Islamists against the U.S. (and many other countries as well) is aimed at capturing the leadership of the Moslem world in a confrontation with both the modernism of the West and the established, and more or less friendly & progressive governments of the Moslem states themselves. The stakes are potentially very high, and the case for a merely defensive posture against it is far from clear and not nearly so tidy as Thomas suggests.

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