HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Winner-take-all elections
Date: 18 Jul 92  14:47:00 EST

There are some interesting ideas floated in the new issue of THE ATLANTIC.  The author favors proportional representation in Congress, in which several congressional districts would be bound together and representation would be based on the percentage of the vote received in each region (superdistrict?)  The way I read this, you might have 9 representatives for one  "super district". Kind of like the Israeli system, except that there would still be direct election of the President.  I don't buy into this, 
because I like the idea of one representative being responsible to me for what he does, although I'm sure the intent is to have several representatives responsive instead of one.  The idea also seems a little too party-responsive rather than individual candidate based.  Still, it's interesting, and worth a look.

Pax,

<<<Tom Cavender>>>

 * Origin: Aether (1:112/2020)
20 
20
From: cedman@714-725-3165.nts.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Subject: Re: Where's all that money? (was: My thoughts on Clinton's character)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Reply-To: cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Date: 23 Jul 92 06:34:17 GMT
Distribution: usa

Michael Barbehenn writes
> Well aren't you forgetting about everything else that
> he's said and that's been discussed here?  There's
> cutting the defense budget,

OK. Once again. The defense budget is huge. But welfare programs, the budget  
deficit or Clintons new spending programs exceed it in size. You could fire  
every single employee of the Pentagon and hold a sale with all that hardware  
and you still wouldn't even close the budget deficit. And you can count on  
someone who wouldn't even cut the Seawolf not do anything anywhere near that.

>                                 cutting excess federal
> jobs,

Really, you mean in the sense in which a layman would understand this  
expression ie. that after the "cutting" of those jobs actually a smaller number  
of people worked for the federal government than before ? If the representative  
of the party of the american state had said that he would fire his supporters  
that would be amazing. If he actually succeeded in doing what those who  
genuinely believed in it didn't, that would be even more amazing.

>              saving people's health care costs,

You mean adding another massive welfare program like socialized health care is  
going to cut the size of the federal government ?

>                                                   charging japan
> and germany for our troops on their soil,

Every candidate has promised that. Maybe Clinton would even succeed in getting  
a few billions here or there, but if he tried charging anything like the full  
cost the German and Japanese governments would very quickly see that it'd be  
much wiser for them to throw all those US troops out and instead employ natives  
and native arms manufacturers in larger national armed forces. That would leave  
the US just with a few hundred thousand new unemployed and a vastly shrunk  
international stature.

>                                                little or no
> capital gains tax on long-term investments,.... 

Well my friends on the left keep telling me that this would just be an enormous  
windfall for the "rich" and would _cost_ a huge amount of money and not save  
anything at all every time that Bush brings up that subject. They couldn't be  
mistaken, could they ?

	Carl Edman
Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:9345 alt.activism:13699 nj.politics:418 alt.rock-n-roll:14330
From: pete@ctdslc.aero.org (Pete Thomas)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.activism,nj.politics,alt.rock-n-roll
Subject: Re: Tipper Gore for Vice Lady! (Was: Clinton's VP list gets shorter
Date: 29 Jul 92 23:47:03 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation; El Segundo, CA

Rick, something that people seem to overlook is that parents--no matter how much
they "abhor" kids music should listen to what their kids are listening to.

In fact, if parents listened with their kids actively in the music they liked,
amazing things might happen!

I do not discourage private groups (like the MPAA) from sponsoring labelling,
etc.  But when governments legislate it, that's where I draw the line.

--Pete
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: The Myth of the Spendthrift Democrat
Date: 21 Jul 1992 15:55:56 GMT
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: gelato.mips.com

In article <1992Jul16.193744.284@uunet!tellab5!odgate>, mike@uunet!tellab5!odgate (Mike J. Kelly) writes:
|> sperry@sdd.hp.com (Rob Sperry) writes:
|> 
|> >Deficit Projections
|> >(in billions of dollars)
|> 
|> >                    1993      1994      1995      1996
|> 
|> >Current deficit*    323.0     268.0     212.0     193.0
|> 
|> >Clinton Plan:
|> >moderate growth     295.7     243.0     174.0     141.0
|> 
|> >Clinton Plan:
|> >strong growth       282.6     207.02    125.54    75.84
|> > 
|> 
|> >*Based on Congressional Budget Office growth assumptions.
|> 
|> gee, that means if all goes well, that Clinton's deficit would be down to just
|> about where the Democrats left it in 1980, before the Reagan-Bush
|> team took charge.  As I recall, the deficit in Carter's last term
|> was somewhere around $70 billion.  It would be a good reelection
|> slogan: in four years, we reversed the damage that the Republicans
|> managed to do in twelve.  

Wishful thinking.  We will still have to pay of the extra debt built up
by all those bloated deficits.  My guess is it would take at least a
Trillion dollars to get back to 1980 deficit and debt levels.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:9378 talk.politics.misc:36659 soc.women:14361 talk.abortion:29608
From: mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,soc.women,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Pro Choice Election Strat
Date: 30 Jul 1992 19:41:00 GMT
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: gelato.mips.com

Conrad Poelman writes:
|> Excerpts from netnews.alt.politics.elections: 29-Jul-92 Re: Pro Choice
|> Election Strat Michael Polen@gelato.mip (1604)
|> 
|> > But you would not be allowed on a jury, because you would not consider
|> > *choosing to apply* the death penalty in a particular case.  So this is
|> > support of the death penalty as long as you don't have to dirty your hands.
|> > I find that inconsistent.  Just as I find Quayle's position on abortion
|> > inconsistent (I'm against it as long as it doesn't dirty my daughters hands).
|> 
|> You are the one being inconsistent here.  I do not "support the death
|> penalty" myself, I personally would never use it, I just don't want to
|> limit other peoples' choices.

But if you were on a jury, you would be limiting the other's choices through
your belief.  But this doesn't matter, because you are avoiding your
responsibility to give every defendant a jury of his/her peers, because
you would not be allowed to sit on a jury in a capital crime.  In essence
you are supporting the death penalty, even making it more prevalent,
by taking yourself out of the decision process.
 
|> > The difference between abortion and the death penalty, is that one is a 
|> > personal decision, unless society interferes, and the other is is a societal
|> > decision.  In the end run, pro-choice is simply the position that says
|> > society should not interfer in personal decisions.  Abortion is only one
|> > of the *choices* under attack.
|> 
|> I find your distinction arbitrary.  Why is it a *societal* decision
|> whether or not criminals can be murdered, but a *personal* decision
|> whether or not unborn children can be murdered?  Why shouldn't society
|> have a say in that, too?
 
Because the definition of whether or not a fetus is alive or not is left
to the beholder.  Some people/religions/societies belive it is, others
do not.  The pro-life movement is trying to tell many citizens that their
religions, their religious leaders, their concept of morality, and their
understanding of god are wrong.  Protection from such intervention was
exactly the reason that the US was settled.  Don't focus on the issue 
(abortion), focus on the action (religious intervention).
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: kgprasan@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Hello There Fella)
Subject: Question for Perot Supporters
Followup-To: alt.politics.elections
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 20:27:50 GMT

	Ross Perot's platform consisted solely of CHANGE.
After a few months he quits and according to him the major 
reason being the election being decided by Congress.
TIME, NewsWeek, US News, NY Times among others say the major
reasons include his temperment, unwillingness to personally 
fund the campaign, slippage in polls and his unwillingness
to make public his economic plan which is being touted by
everybody to be exactly what this country needs.
My question: If Perot could never muster the courage to tell
people what they would have to pay to reduce the defiect, etc.,
why does he still harp on this issue of CHANGE ?
To me his whole campaign finally seems hypocritical when on 
the one hand he speaks of CHANGE and on the other hand he never
could make public his economic plan which would have increased
taxes heavily.

No flames pl. 

Pras.
From: RAJA@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: A clear choice
Date: 26 Jul 92 20:34:38 GMT
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

In article <2A72DAD1.29051@noiro.acs.uci.edu>, cedman@714-725-3165.nts.uci.edu
(Carl Edman) says:
>
>Mark Sablow writes
>    I am amazed at how (almost) anyone will vote for Bush/Quayle this
>November.
>
......)

  This guy is a blithering idiot! I don't want to dignify his inanitiies by try
ing to refute them.

       Rajagopalan "If you voted for Reagan/Bush/Quayle you are in part respons
ible for bringing this great country to its knees"
From: dos@major.panix.com (Dave O'Shea)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Time/CNN poll 18th July
Date: 21 Jul 92 03:12:41 GMT
Organization: Surely you jest

aras@ms.uky.edu (P. I. Arasu) writes:

> Heard it on NPR today, 18th July:
> 
> Bill Clinton 	49%
> George Bush	29%
> Undecided 	22%
> 
> margin of error 4%
> 
> 

Just out of curiosity, I'd love to see what polls looked like for the 
last few campaigns - at various parts of the campaign.

I recall that in 1984, Mondale had a fairly large lead over Reagan 
shortly after the Democratic convention, but it steadily faded as te 
election got closer. Very similar story with '88. I was 17 in '79, so I 
wasn't paying that much attention to the polls. Anybody remember/feel 
like looking it up?

--
55: It's not a good idea - it's just the law.
The country needs them more than ever: Bill 'n' Opus in '92!
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: jimbo@leland.Stanford.EDU (Godfather of Soul)
Subject: More fun facts, was Re: Wealth Distribution
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 07:23:02 GMT

In article <15392@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, fzchen@othello.ucdavis.edu writes:
|> 
|> Those are some interesting figures someone posted on income tax
|> distribution.  However, the proportion of taxes payed by the 
|> wealthy may be misleading.  Real dollar values would be more appropriate.
|> If the total revenue in real dollars paid by the wealthy is more than
|> that paid in 1977 (using a base year for inflation, of course) that
|> would be a real statistic.

I do not see how that would be misleading.  There is a certain portion
of the tax pie that is supported by the top 1%.  The stat was a comparison
of the size of the "piece" in 1977 and 1989.

Here are some more:

Median family income in 1991 dollars
	total:  1977:  $34,570		1990:  $36,916
	white:  1977:  $36,149		1990:  $38,547
	black:  1977:  $20,651		1990:  $22,370

That's an 8.3% increase for blacks and an 6.6% increase for whites.

Education expenditures per pupil, grades K-12, in 1991 dollars
	1977-78:  $3,889			1991-92:  $5,578

Average teacher salary in 1991 dollars
	1977-78:  $30,289			1991-92:  $34,413

Average SAT scores (combined math and verbal)
	1977:  899					1991:  896

It's good to see that throwing money at education is helping.

|> -MeatHead One

James
From: Tom.Cavender@iphase.UUCP (Tom Cavender)
Sender: FredGate@iphase.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Winner-take-all elections
Date: 18 Jul 92  14:47:00 EST

There are some interesting ideas floated in the new issue of THE ATLANTIC.  The author favors proportional representation in Congress, in which several congressional districts would be bound together and representation would be based on the percentage of the vote received in each region (superdistrict?)  The way I read this, you might have 9 representatives for one  "super district". Kind of like the Israeli system, except that there would still be direct election of the President.  I don't buy into this, 
because I like the idea of one representative being responsible to me for what he does, although I'm sure the intent is to have several representatives responsive instead of one.  The idea also seems a little too party-responsive rather than individual candidate based.  Still, it's interesting, and worth a look.

Pax,

<<<Tom Cavender>>>

 * Origin: Aether (1:112/2020)
20 
20 
20 
20 

Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.activism,nj.politics,alt.rock-n-roll
From: srf6200@summa.tamu.edu (Steven R. Fennell)
Subject: Re: Tipper Gore for Vice Lady! (Was: Clinton's VP list gets shorter
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:29:00 GMT

In article <c2lmq1#.adamsr@netcom.com>, adamsr@netcom.com (Rick Adams) writes...
>	Given the extremes to which modern music _is_ going (i.e., music
>videos which glorify the whipping/rape/killing of women, etc.), little doubt
>remains that _something_ will be done to limit access by children in the
>near future.

Hmmm, and to what videos are you referring?  I must admit I haven't seen 
any that so patently glorify the abuse of women.  Most deal with women as 
objects of sex, not violence (unless you're dealing with social conscious 
subjects such as wife or child abuse.)  Lyrically, you could say that such 
groups as 2 Live Crew deal in these subjects, but most rock/pop groups 
avoid these glorifications of violence (except, perhaps, warfare.)

==========================================================================
 \ Steven Fennell - Graduate Student \ "She asked for my love, and I gave \
  \ srf6200@zeus.tamu.edu - Texas A&M \  her a dangerous mind." - D. Bowie \
   ==========================================================================
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.perot
From: rnewman@athena.mit.edu (Ron Newman)
Subject: Re: the wasted vote theory
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 20:30:28 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.161643.26260@nntpd2.cxo.dec.com> m_henderson@csc32.enet.dec.com (Marty Henderson) writes:
>Wasted or not - I'm voting for Perot (It has been announced that he will
>still be on the ballot in Colorado). The average American is very ignorant
>about how our government works. For example - when I start talking about
>how the NSC (National Security Csomething) should be uprooted completely
>because they hold tons of power AND they are not elected OR appointed - they
>just "continue" from admin to admin and cause major problems for the prez -
>my cube neighbor just laughs and calls me "paranoid". That person has no
>clue and is very representative of the U.S. population in general.

Sorry to say this, but if you don't even know the correct name of the
government agency you're complaining about, you aren't very convincing
when complaining about "ignorance" and "cluelessness" in others.



--
Ron Newman		rnewman@bbn.com
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: MLC PR: LP has over 500 candidates
Reply-To: hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: DESY ZEUS Central Data Acquisition
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 09:37:23 GMT

Subject: Re: MLC PR: LP has over 500 candidates

In other words, join the Libertarian party, where everyone gets to be a
candidate!


Phill
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.activism,nj.politics,alt.rock-n-roll
From: sunder@altair.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Supreme Court qualifications
Date: 23 Jul 1992 16:35:02 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: altair.crhc.uiuc.edu

In article <saurav.711906006@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, saurav@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Saurav Chatterjee) writes:
|> koumis@husc4.harvard.edu (Anthony Koumis) writes:
|> 
|> >BUt he[Thomas] was clearly unqualified.  The ABA gave him the lowest rating 
|> >of any Supremem Court nominee in 50 years, lower than Bork. 
|> 
|> Whatever people thought of Bork, no one ever said he was unqualified.
|> Bork was probably one of the most qualified people to be nominated
|> for the Supreme Court. Its just that he was too far to the right for
|> most people, and besides, the current nomination process has proven
|> that people with distinguished careers cannot be nominated because
|> they will certainly offend some people. Hence a blank slate
|> who says he never discussed Roe v. Wade is best.

Damn right. An intellectually shallow approach, but the only effective
way, unless the candidate is a liberal like Laurence Tribe.

|> I really don't understand why blacks push to have a black on the
|> Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas gives all blacks a bad name (
|> shows the world that he is the best). Also, blacks want representation
|> because they want someone who will identify with their problems.
|> I just don't think that Thomas identifies with them, and besides
|> Thomas has shown to be a toady of Anthony Scalia. It seems like
|> Souter and Kennedy are much better for the black community than
|> Thomas.

The Court is NOT a representative body, and should NOT be one. A Judge is
appointed to fairly and rationally interpret the Constitution and the laws
of the land, NOT to display "sensitivity" or any other form of moral
exhibitionism. There are places for that -- called Congress and
the state legislatures. The appointment of a black to the court should only
be a symbolic statement, NOT intended so that he/she will bring a black
(or white or green or yellow or multi-hued) "viewpoint" to the court.
It is for that reason that all the Administration-fostered hoopla about
Clarence Thomas's background and rise from poverty should have been 
treated as so much crap and irrelevant to his confirmation [Howard
Metzenbaum, rarely ever right on ANYTHING, was right on this one].

|> 							Saurav Chatterjee

-- 
Srinivas Sunder                                         sunder@crhc.uiuc.edu

If my employer shares these opinions, he deserves them.
********************************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.activism,nj.politics,alt.rock-n-roll
From: dos@major.panix.com (Dave O'Shea)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: 'Splain this pleez
Date: 21 Jul 92 03:34:28 GMT
Organization: Surely you jest

pcl@engr.uark.edu (Peter Laws) writes:

> 
> 	I wish someone would explain this to me:  How can the Dems be held
> solely responsible for our $4,000,000,000,000.00 debt, when they have
> not had a veto-proof majority at any time in the last 12 years?  (that
> I can remember).  
> 	Mr. Bushe could have vetoed any of the unbalanced budgets that he
> submitted, but chose not to.  

It's called a bipartisan compromise; The democrats get what they want, 
the republicans get their piece, and the taxpayer gets screwed.

--
55: It's not a good idea - it's just the law.
The country needs them more than ever: Bill 'n' Opus in '92!
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,talk.abortion,soc.women
From: rray@lookout.it.uswc.uswest.com (Randy J. Ray)
Subject: Re: New conflicts overseas and the election
Keywords: Iraq, Yugoslavia, election
Organization: US WEST Communications, Inc. -- Denver, CO
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 17:48:06 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.130005.3890@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>, pat@jaameri.gsfc.nasa.gov (patrick m. ryan) writes:
> 
> 	Just to get the ball rolling, here's what I think:
> As a Clinton supporter, I do worry that Bush might time such
> an attack as to try to appear more "presidential" and evoke
> memories of the Gulf conflict.  In the broader view, however,
> I don't think that it will affect his stature that much.  The
> faltering economy and 10M people out of work are much more
> important.  I think an attack at this point would get a lot
> of people wondering why we didn't finish the job right the
> first time.
> 

The philosophy of "why didn't we do the job right the first time" is a common
error. The UN's goal was to liberate Kuwait, not occupy Iraq. That was 
accomplished. In the case of both Iraq's resistance and Yugoslavia's conflicts,
I don't see that acting on the orders of the UN would be harmful. Everybody
wants the US to be part of the world community, right up to the time we
actually have to DO something, then all of a sudden we're sticking our noses
where they don't belong. A vote for the Democratic candidate is to encourage
isolationism in a time when a lot of overseas markets are on the verge of
opening. And until the Dems realise that we have to export products in order
to maintain our economy, they will probably continue to wrap themselves in
the cloak of "being American == buying American" and ignore that even if we
stopped importing completely, we would still need to export to fuel the
economy. The Dems will not do this. QED, I feel compelled to vote Republican.
Domestic policy is very important, yes. But not to the exclusion of foreign
policy. We need someone who is at least trying to balance the two.

Randy
-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Randy J. Ray -- U S WEST IT/CSD         rray@{lookout,uswat}.it.uswc.uswest.com
I'd rather talk religion with Charles Manson than discuss ethics with Congress.
     -me                                                   Phone: (303)595-2852
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:8843 alt.politics.perot:1006 talk.politics.misc:35203
From: psg+@pitt.edu (Paul S Galvanek)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.perot,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: More Bush-it
Date: 22 Jul 92 12:51:18 GMT
Followup-To: alt.politics.elections
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Jul22.002517.17869@cs.tulane.edu> tcws@convex1.tcs.tulane.edu (Bill Sirinek) writes:
>
>Tell that to the moron who just posted his lengthy speech about keeping the
>republican president, and wiping out the dems from the house....
>
>He obviously doesnt understand that the leader we have now isnt going to do
>us any good, we need change, we need Bill Clinton.
>

Change huh?  Let's see Democrats have controled Congress for the last 40 years,
we've had Kennedy, Johnson and Carter in the same time and your definition of 
change is Bill Clinton.

I hope you don't CHANGE your clothes they way you want to CHANGE your governmentotherwise your underware must have the stench of 40 years of rot.

CHANGE HA!

PSG
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush