HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sunder@altair.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Lets not blame Reagan for everything....
Date: 14 Sep 92 15:43:35 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
NNTP-Posting-Host: altair.crhc.uiuc.edu

In article <1992Sep13.234308.21142@news.columbia.edu>, egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
|> In article <exuptr.533.716420718@exu.ericsson.se> exuptr@exu.ericsson.se (exuptr@exu.ericsson.se) writes:
|> >In article <1992Sep12.171711.25763@news.cs.brandeis.edu> bis@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Bis) writes:
|> >
|> >>The Cuban Missile Crisis only served to show just how stable the Cold
|> >>War was.  The nuclear deterrent was SO strong that the Soviets backed
|> >>down even though it meant an MONUMENTAL political defeat.
|> >
|> >Yeah, stable.  What would have happened had we not spotted the missiles?
|> 
|> Er, probably not a whole lot.  The US had overwhelming nuclear
|> superiority at that point (the Kennedy "Missile Gap" was fable and
|> fantasy, remember?), and arguably could have won a nuclear war in
|> 1962.  If you feel that the Soviets would have fired missiles at the

True, very true. Barry Goldwater, in his 1978 auto bio (_With No Apologies_)
also makes some points about how the Cuban missile crisis was really a failure 
for US foreign policy, given that Kennedy actually had to agree to some 
missile withdrawals from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets keeping them out
of Cuba. He also makes some pretty stinging remarks about Robert MacNamara
blaming him for deciding that parity with the Soviets was enough, over
superiority, which the hawks wanted.


-- 
Srinivas Sunder                                         sunder@crhc.uiuc.edu

If my employer shares these views, I'd be most surprised.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.flame
From: rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue)
Subject: Re: Email Copy of REPUBLICAN PLATFORM to me
Organization: insert anything here
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 16:56:09 GMT

bis@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Bis) writes:
>exuptr@exu.ericsson.se (exuptr@exu.ericsson.se) writes:
>>rdonahue@spdcc.com (Bob Donahue) writes:

>>>BBC, hoping to see GHWB crash and
>>>burn in November.

>>Probably will.  Just hope the democrats don't crash and burn our economy :-)


	"Our"?  Since when is Sweden expecting to annex itself to
the US?
>
>Too late.  Ronnie already did that.  Yes, any clueless people who
>might be reading this, RONNIE destroyed the economy, NOT George Bush!
>Does this mean Bush is free of fault?  Of course not.  What did he do?
>Well...nothing.  :)
>

BBC
From: sunder@altair.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: New Newsweek Poll
Date: 13 Sep 1992 21:35:59 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 <1904tdINNlec@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu>, sunder@altair.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder) writes:
|> In article <1992Sep13.155755.25329@wuecl.wustl.edu>, gl1@cec2.wustl.edu (Greg Lyon) writes:
|> |>     According to the results of a new Newsweek poll which I heard about on
|> |> the radio last night, Clinton has widened his lead over Bush to a 15 point
|> |> margin, up five points from the previous poll.  The actual numbers were
|> |> 53-38.
|> 
|> Was the poll of "registered voters" or of "likely voters." The latter have
|> tended to show a 5-pt lead over the past few days, and the former about 10-15
|> pts. over the past week.


To answer my own question, and for anyone else who is interested, the poll
surveyed people identified as "likely voters" according to a UPI News report
that I saw on ClariNet. That spells BAD NEWS for Bush, since until now he
was only 5 points behind in those polls. The poll surveyed 750 likely voters
and found 9% undecided. But the poll also found soft support for both candidates
with only a few states solidly behind either Bill Clinton or George Bush.

But then, the same report also said that California was a must-win
state since it has 47 electoral votes (the correct figure is 54, right?). So,
take it with a leetle pinch of NaCl.


-- 
Srinivas Sunder                                         sunder@crhc.uiuc.edu

If my employer shares these views, I'd be most surprised.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken)
Subject:  The Electoral Applause Meter
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:32:33 GMT

In <1992Sep15.113954.22713@cbnews.cb.att.com> jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp) writes:


>After watching Larry King's town meeting in Wichita last Sunday, I wonder
>about Kansas. There were thousands of people assembled in a domed arena,
>and I doubt that the crowd was totally "stacked" with partisans one way
>or the other. Anyway, the crowd was definitely pro-Clinton. They talked
>about economic issues primarily (gee, no mention of "draft status"). King's
>panel had one die-hard supply-sider Congresswoman from Kansas who got
>booed off the stage every time she tried to utter "family val..." BOOOOO!,
>"homosex..." BOOOOO!, or "morali..." BOOOO! Kansans are not willing to be
>diverted from the real issues on their minds with this Bush campaign pap. 


	"Stacked" or not, I can't see why you would assume that the
audience was an representative sample of Kansan voters.  Also, if the
Member of Congress was such a "die-hard supply-sider," then why was
she not speaking about economics (i.e. assuming that she is a Republican,
why did she not attempt to explain why Bush has strayed away from supply-
side models into a modified Keynesianism?  And why did she not try to 
re-assure the audience that Bush would, in a second term, return to
economic sanity?), but rather about social issues?  Or is her title
"die-hard supply-sider Congresswoman"?

>When Larry King asked the crowd to applaud if they are going to vote for 
>President Bush, there was some moderate applause. When asked who would 
>support Governor Clinton, the applause was enthusiastic and clearly in 
>the majority. The Congresswoman got flustered and exclaimed something 
>like, "Well, you... you can vote for him, but he's going to take this 
>country down the tubes!"

Maybe from now on, we should choose our Presidents with Applause Meters.


Andrew Aiken
From: shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: Electoral College
Date: 11 Sep 92 21:29:47 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

art@world.std.com (Al Thompson) writes:

>In article <Sep.10.15.11.20.1992.21841@gandalf.rutgers.edu> shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:

>   art@world.std.com (Al Thompson) writes:

>   >In article <1992Sep7.181148.22935@athena.mit.edu> wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr) writes:

>   >Quite simply because the people of the state of Wyoming would have their
>   >legitimate interests subordinated to the interests of, say, New Yorkers.
>   >Some columnist brought up an interesting thought on this a couple weeks
>   >ago.  (Sorry about the lack of refs)  He showed how 51 votes in the state
>   >of Alaska could elect the President.

>   Doesn't it work that way anyway?  Doesn't each state have a number of
>   electoral votes based on their population?  

>That's my point.  Preserve the electoral college, without it the small
>states have zero protection against the big states.

I don't get your point.  If the number of electoral votes is based on
the population of the state, the smaller state gets less votes either
way.  So how are they protected?  

-- 
Susan R. Hagan (shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu) 
Publications Coordinator - User Services
Rutgers University Computing Services
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: belld@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (David Bell)
Subject: Re: New Electoral College Predictions
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:06:40 GMT


Do Somoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands get to vote for
president?  I saw that they had delegates at the Conventions, but the
only non-state I ever hear about in the EC is DC.

Dave
belld@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: forbush@vxdesy.desy.de
Subject: Re: We Interrupt this FlameFest... (expats & the electoral college)
Followup-To: alt.politics.elections
Organization: (DESY, Hamburg, Germany)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 12:16:08 GMT

In article <frank-100992174421@dora.mlb.geomechanics.csiro.au>, frank@mlb.geomechanics.csiro.au (Frank Horowitz) writes:
> ...for a semi-serious (and nonpartisan!) question.  My wife and I are U.S.
> citizens, living in Australia.  We are intent upon voting in the upcoming
> presidential election, but do not know the answer to this question:  
> 
> Do expatriate citizens have any representation in the electoral college?  
> 
When you registar you must chose some county and state to
registar with. It is recommended that you use the last
residence that you lived at in the US. You must include
this address for most states. The individual states have
their own specific rules in which you qualify.

> All answers (in particular factual ones :-) will be cheerfully accepted.
> 
> (Donning my flameproof BVDs.) We now return you to your normally scheduled
> catfights.
> 
> __________________________________________________________________
> Frank Horowitz;                            frank@mlb.geomechanics.csiro.au 
> 
> CSIRO-Geomechanics, P.O. Box 54, Mt. Waverley, Victoria 3149, AUSTRALIA
> Tel. (03)881-1247 (Int'l +61 3 881 1247),FAX (03)803-2052 (+61 3 803 2052)
-- 
Mike Forbush
forbushpanofsky.desy.de


 In George Bush you get experience, and with me you get- The Future!
       -- Vice President Dan Quayle in eastern Illinois 
         (LA Times 10/19/88)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
From: jmk@cbnews.cb.att.com (joseph.m.knapp)
Subject: Re: Lets not blame Reagan for everything....
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 13:38:50 GMT

Speaking of President Reagan, did anyone see Bush's speech in Orange County
yesterday? He was going on about the "shining city on the hill" that Reagan
built. What is this shining city? Is it a schizoid delusion?

I.e., psychotics build castles in the sky and schizophrenics live in them?

Seriously, what is it?

---
Joe Knapp    jmk@cbvox.att.com
From: StarWatcher@uiuc.edu (StarWatcher)
Subject: Re: New poll results
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Reply-To: StarWatcher@uiuc.edu
Organization: Actuarial Science Program at UIUC
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 16:45:58 GMT
Keywords: significant words from a document used as an index to content

jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
:  bam@bnlux1 (Bruce A. Martin) writes:

: >My statement stands:  In 1988, the Libertarian candidate got more votes 
: >than ALL OTHER 3rd PARTIES PUT TOGETHER!  This was also true in 1980.  
: 
: _All_ 3rd parties?  How come there can be many third parties?

Uncle Webster writes:

: THIRD PARTY, 1. a political party organized as an independent rival of the
: two major parties [....]

Jyrki continues:
 
: Perhaps you have a different system of numbers?

No.  Just a different language.  I count 16 third parties that had 
candidates running for President in 1988.

--
Michael Adams (aka StarWatcher) 		"I'm Dan Quayle, who are you?"
Internet:  StarWatcher@uiuc.edu				-- D.Q. at a Hardee's
Bitnet:    FREE1217@UIUCVMD			"I'm your Secret Service agent"
Anonymous: wi5467@wizvax.methuen.ma.us			-- the answer he got
UUCP:      ...!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!StarWatcher     			


Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,alt.politics.correct
From: gary@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand)
Subject: Re: Gladiatorial Libertarians
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 06:25:40 GMT

sm> Stephen McLeod
gs> Gary Strand

  [Would libertarians allow gladiator contests as in ancient Rome except that
   they would not be involuntary, they would be by contract?]

gs> I see no reason *personally* to pass a law against such contests, however,
gs> anyone who wants to form an Anti-American Gladiators group won't run into
gs> interference from me. If people are willing to risk getting killed in a
gs> sporting event, why not let them?

sm> As a potential libertarian, this is one of the areas that really bothers 
sm> me. It seems to me that in the real world, wealth concentrates and then 
sm> empowers a small group of the population.

  Not near as much as when political (read State) power is concentrated in a
  small segment of the population. One little ol' Congresscritter can wreak
  havoc on an entire industry.

sm> In our current system, you see people who have money break the law, some
sm> times perhaps even kill other people, and get away with it because they
sm> have more money.

  Our current system is *not* a libertarian system. Also, are the non-rich
  *really* that much cannon fodder for the rich? I don't think so. 

sm> It seems to me that liberterian policy only works when the disparity of
sm> wealth (and hence access to good lawyers) is not too great. How does the
sm> liberterian philosophy try to deal with this problem?

  Well, for one, removing the access to State power that enables individuals
  to violate the rights of others and distort the market. If we try to redis-
  tribute wealth via State force, then we run into problems with those doing
  the redistribution, as well as the politics of envy. Libertarians believe
  that the market will sufficiently distribute wealth. It won't necessarily
  be "fair", but what you think "fair" is and what I think it is can be two
  entirely different things. Basically, "fair" and "everyone has the same
  amount, regardless of effort" are incompatible.

--
Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
Organization: Doctoral student, Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Date: Tue,  8 Sep 1992 10:34:56 -0400 
From: Conrad Poelman <conradp+@CMU.EDU>
Subject: Homestead AFB

I agree that all other things being equal it only makes sense to close a
destroyed AFB rather than rebuild it and have to close another one
somewhere else.  However, I've seen a few people here say that Homestead
AFB was slated to be closed, before the hurricane.  What do you mean by
this?  Was it on the list of base closings passed by Congress last year
or a couple of years ago?  If so, I don't see how Bush could keep it
open without approval from Congress, and I would expect a major uproar
from Congress after all of the work it took to come up with a
base-closings bill without every Congressman trying to make an exception
for his/her district!  Or is it on someone's hypothetical list of bases
that we could probably do without?

Finally, regardless of whether it had been slated to be closed or not,
will Bush need Congress' approval in order to rebuild the base?  That
could be an interesting fight (though my bet is that Congress would just
roll over and pass it).

--Conrad
Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:12955 talk.politics.misc:45093 ca.politics:7707 alt.politics.correct:5291
From: foy@aero.org (Richard Foy)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,alt.politics.correct
Subject: Re: Snuff Films was Re: Gladiatorial Libertarians [was Re: Pushkin Dueling...]
Date: 13 Sep 1992 03:39:17 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: aerospace.aero.org

In article <1992Sep12.212850.14353@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>In article <18rp7rINNrop@news.aero.org> foy@aero.org (Richard Foy) writes:

>>for her children if she will be the main star of a snuff film. That
>>is she agrees to be killed in a pornographic film.
>>
>>Would this be legal in a libertarian world.
>
>No one blinks when we pay race car drivers a few million to engage in
>an activity that will kill some of them.  How is the snuff a mother
>film different?
>
>Unless it is, this is no more of a "hard" case for a libertarian world
>than it is for our world.
>
>-andy
>--
>UUCP:    {arpa gateways, sun, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!cs.stanford.edu!andy
>ARPA:    andy@cs.stanford.edu

I find the responses to my sequence of scenarios, quite interesting. To
the dueling question most reponses said so what. The gladiator raised a
little more concern, but still the primary attitude was that the state
should not interfere. The snuff raised very serious concern about the
well being of the woman. One still expressed the attitude of its up to
the parties involved.

I posted this sequence to illustrate the problems I see with the
libertarian principles. The world is not as simple as the libertarian
philosophy paints it. Economics, property, force and fraud are
intimately related. The scenarios seemed to be contrived. However, it
seems to me quite possible that these cases could arise in a full
libertarian society. There are enough mixed up people, some with lots of
money, to make these things realistic possibilities.

Unfortunately, it is not such extreme situations that concern me about
libertaria. Rather it is that libertaria would create innumerable
similiar situations of lesser magnitude. Perhaps no more than we have
now. But I see no reason for there to be less.

The human animal is capable of great creativity, of great compassion,
and great social concern. We are also capable of great self-delusion, of
great self indulgence, of great social destructiveness.

In my view the political process in this country has resulted in a
situation which has the worst possible combination of government control
and government non-interference. I doubt that libertaria would be much
better.

Richard Foy  
Redondo Beach CA       Standard Disclaimer



Xref: sparky alt.politics.elections:12975 talk.politics.misc:45133 alt.politics.marrou:1138 alt.politics.bush:4907 alt.politics.clinton:5148 alt.politics.perot:1456
From: wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.perot
Subject: There's one in every crowd... (was: New poll results)
Date: 13 Sep 92 13:22:18 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: Northeastern Law, Class of '93


In article <BuI70n.Cp0@chinet.chi.il.us>, 
katefans@chinet.chi.il.us (Vickie of "Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago") said:

> The last extended conversation I got into with a Liberatarian was
> very confusing indeed. Even if I forget the fact that he said at one
> point "I spit in your face" (this was a net exchange) I still can't
> get over the fact that he raged at me because I supported the voting
> system.  According to him, Libertarians don't believe in voting. Is
> this true?  If so, why is there a Libertarian candidate running?
> It's no wonder the Party gets such a small percentage of the vote
> with such a wacky belief. If it's not true, then I wonder if this
> Libertarian is in any way representative of the party as a whole. If
> so, I shudder.  If not, I still wonder why he would say such a
> thing. No, I didn't ask him because I got fed up with him and broke
> off contact.

The person you spoke with may have called himself a Libertarian, but I
don't think he wasn't very representative of the ideology of the
Libertarian Party.  (I speak as a rabid small-l civil libertarian who
admires the civil-liberties side of the Libertarian Party but isn't so
sure about the rest of it.)

You have to bear in mind two facts here: (1) all political parties/
organizations/movements have their of (a) lunatic fringies, (b) rude
assholes and (c) both of the above.  As much as the party's leaders
and its middle-of-the-road members may wish that they could say a
magic word and make these jerks disappear, they can't.  There's just
no mechanism for formally excommunicating someone from a political
party, as the Republicans recently found out with regard to David Duke
and as the Democrats have known for years with regard to "Democrat for
President" Lyndon LaRouche.

Which brings us to point (2): the bigger and more well-known the
political party is, the smaller the overall damage caused to its
reputation by the above-mentioned jackasses and the easier job it has
(usually) of exhibiting plausible deniability and performing damage-
control.  Inversely, the smaller and less well-known the party the
harder it is for the mainstream members, party leaders, etc. to get
the word out that no, Joe Blowhard is _not_ an authorized spokesman
for us, no, we _don't_ necessarily agree with some or any of what he's
saying, and even if we did, we'd be a lot more civil about it.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,alt.politics.correct
From: st1lv@rosie.uh.edu (McLeod, Stephen)
Subject: Re: Gladiatorial Libertarians [was Re: Pushkin Dueling...]
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 19:19:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.050626.26509@ncar.ucar.edu>, gary@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes...
>rf> Richard Foy
> 
>rf> Would libertarians allow gladiator contests as in ancient Rome except that
>rf> they would not be involuntary, they would be by contract?
> 
>  Boxing is pretty damned close these days. Boxers die on a semi-regular basis,
>  but they seem to know those chances when they decide to box. Indeed, we all
>  regularly take voluntary risks every day. Now, some people are willing to
>  engage in behavior many others may find extremely dangerous, but almost al-
>  ways at that kind of level, the participants know exactly what the risks
>  are.
> 
>  I see no reason *personally* to pass a law against such contests, however,
>  anyone who wants to form an Anti-American Gladiators group won't run into
>  interference from me. If people are willing to risk getting killed in a
>  sporting event, why not let them?
> 
As a potential libertarian, this is one of the areas that really bothers me.
It seems to me that in the real world, wealth concentrates and then empowers
a small group of the population.  These people have more 'rights' than the rest
and there is no way under libertarian policy that I can see to correct this
problem.  In our current system, you see people who have money break the law,
some times perhaps even kill other people, and get away with it because they
have more money.  It seems to me that liberterian policy only works when the
disparity of wealth (and hence access to good lawyers) is not to great.
How does the liberterian philosophy try to deal with this problem?
---
Stephen McLeod
The Eternal? Student
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,alt.politics.correct