What fox news bullshit website did you try dredging that up from ND? David Duke is an active member of the kkk CURRENTLY dumbass.

Not reading the whole thread, but eight random points in reaction to what I have read:
1) My vote, my choice
2) Yes, I do know women & non-whites who are voting for Johnson, and even more who are voting for Trump.
3) The term "white privilege" is racist
4) Since Hillary Clinton is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of brown people due to her votes in favor of wars against them in the senate and her policies as Secretary of State, I can't possibly imagine how electing her president would constitute an improvement for the non-white people of the world (Trump, at least, used to voice some substantial reservations about American foreign policy before the Neocons sunk their hooks into him).
5) I'm not a millenial, and have voted third party for president all of my life (with the exception of 2008 when I couldn't stomach Bob Barr as the Libertarian nominee). I will definitely be doing so again this year, although whether it will be for Johnson is an open question at this point.
6) It's sad to see so many people so excited by the idea of electing someone with a vagina and a -D after their name that they're willing to overlook so much evil, incompetence, and corruption.
7) The Clintons are in the top 1% of the top 1%, and are in cahoots with the banksters that got off scott-free for causing the economic meltdown and sticking taxpayers with the bill. Railing against capitalism and then demanding everyone vote for its chief political hatchetwoman marks you as an idiot and a fool.
8) Trump was pretty socially liberal before he decided to run for president this time. Whether he will stick to his promise to select Heritage's dream team for the supreme court gets a huge question mark, considering his absolute inability to keep his word on anything.

Third parties are a bit silly, because we have a first-past-the-post district based electoral system. Thus, the only think that makes sense is to have the minor party dynamics happen internally to each party but unify in a large block for the general election. It's a bit wonky, but it was the best notion available at the time. So, if you want to change the system, look to the Tea Party, who have actually influenced our nation's politics, not to the Greens who haven't and won't.

Trump has never disavowed Duke. That's kind of the point. This is beyond silly.

How can you run a country when half of the population is simply hallucinating?

"How can you run a country when half of the population is simply hallucinating? "

I agree, the half of Americans who are enthusiastic about their vote for a presidential candidate are insane and should not be trusted.

And he never will. Because hes only gonna keep wasting our time another month thankfully.

Well I know most teachers and people in academia support Hillary. I do indeed have a Masters degree. You can say what you will but i'm no sheep.

"Well I know most teachers and people in academia support Hillary."

Considering what happens to anyone who voices an unprogressive thought of any kind in academia, that level of conformity is no surprise to anyone.

Can you define "unprogressive" because thats vague and could mean anything from bigotry to keynesian economics to ayn rand.

If you are taking this down the path I think you are remember the example of poverty ridden Chile, a country shaped by capitalist ideals, now struggling.

I dont think professors of Economics would be shackled with political affiliations. I cant imagine a professor at a cardiology program being told to be liberal

@Brain:
“ND, youve been brainwashed by the Bill Oreilly, Sean Hannity fuckbag machine. just stop. They do this to EVERY candidate.”

-I don’t believe that I have been brainwashed by anyone. You have no idea what I watch or hear so why are you making assumptions?

“There are no scandals, you literally are feeding into a bunch of garbage.”

http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/here-they-are-hillarys-22-biggest-scandals-ever/

-There is a list of 22 scandals. I mean, it is irrefutable that there are numerous scandals associated with the Clintons and to say there isn’t is just silly.

-Okay to your points about 2008 and who you supported and Iraq.

“Tell me how you can sit here and tell me, being someone (@ you ND) who works in Academia, support Trump and these republicans who want to keep the current student loan system for students.”

-That is a fairly humorous point. Sanders/Hillary (to a lesser extent) believe that the college loan system (soon to be crisis) can be solved by greater government intervention and higher taxes. Do you even have a clue how much debt and taxation will be needed to do this? We are already 20 trillion dollars in debt. Do you have any idea how much we are already in the hole and you want to add to it? This isn’t monopoly money and there will come a day when it has to be paid back. Trump has stated that he wants to do something about this. I mean, do you not understand how the economy works and how this plan will crash it? It’s ludicrous to think we can just keep printing money and keep interest rates at a historic (artificial) low.

“Do you realize we wont have jobs without College Tuition Reform in this next presidency? Are you seriously comfortable with the current state of Academia nationwide and the soaring cost of Student Loans?”

-The so-called reform put forward isn’t a solution to the problem. It is simply a lever that will quicken an economic collapse. Of course, I want a job, but not at the expense of a collapse of the system and suffering for millions of people.

“ Hillary is being endorsed right and left by "right center" newspapers, is supported by every ex president since Jimmy Carter that is still alive, and furthermore has the backing of most moderates, most women, most African Americans, Latinos, College aged educated people, and so on and so on.”

-To my knowledge she hasn’t been endorsed official by either Bush. Maybe unofficially by Sr., but it can’t be proved. Okay, she got a few newspaper endorsements. Trump has been endorsed by pretty much every law enforcement and veteran group in the nation. We can trade endorsements all day long. I don’t think she is being backed by ‘most women’ maybe college educated women. Sure, she is carrying minority demographic groups, but they are a core constituency of the Obama coalition. Will she win them by Obama level margins? Trump is also carrying demographic groups so I don’t see your point here. The job of a presidential candidate is to form a coalition. We will see on Nov. 8 which coalition is stronger.

“Environmental Protection Agency”

-No, she isn’t advocating eliminating it. She has said that she wants to eliminate coal miners. I am an ‘all of the above’ type of energy guy. Anyone who isn’t is nuts. We need energy to power our economy and country and anyone who wants to raise electric bill costs on a struggling middle class in this economy isn’t looking out for ordinary people.

“Healthcare”

-Obamacare has been an epic failure.
http://www.startribune.com/choices-shrinking-in-minnesota-s-individual-health-plan-market/395737781/
-Just look at the recent disaster in Minnesota. People have lost access to their preferred doctors. Their premiums have gone up. People in this country are suffering. The answer isn’t to make people suffer more. It’s to repeal a partisan piece of legislature that hurts people, and replace it with something that works for everyone.

“Immigration”

-You know that Trump has been endorsed by the Border Patrol, right? First time in history. Hillary wants an increase in the refugee program (that can’t be vetted according the FBI director) and open borders. Open borders facilitates the drug problem, cartel violence, and lawlessness. Again, innocent people are losing their lives because of this policy. It has to stop. People are suffering because of it. We have to restore law and order on our border.

“So a guy who was in the kkk in the 1940's”

-There are other examples of her using racially charged remarks and having dubious endorsements that have never been disavowed. Such as this: http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/08/27/video-shows-ku-klux-klan-kkk-grand-dragon-endorsing-hillary-clinton
She has also been endorsed by the Communist Party of the United States. This is a Marxist organization that is tied to international communist groups. Many are successor parties to the ones that perpetrated mass murder and genocide on civilian populations in the 1920s-forward. I can’t imagine anyone would support someone endorsed by that group.

"Trump has never disavowed Duke. That's kind of the point. This is beyond silly."

He disavowed Duke like 50 million times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yseotd_fxWY

Are you silly? Or do you just not pay attention? Or do you just want to fit something to your narrative like Brain?

"No, she isn’t advocating eliminating it. She has said that she wants to eliminate coal miners. I am an ‘all of the above’ type of energy guy. Anyone who isn’t is nuts. We need energy to power our economy and country and anyone who wants to raise electric bill costs on a struggling middle class in this economy isn’t looking out for ordinary people."

You know what really raises costs on struggling middle class families? Increased range of deadly diseases that force long, expensive hospital stays under our fucked up healthcare system. Greater exposure to chemicals known to cause cancer. Higher likelihood of an urban child developing asthma. Massive droughts that dry up water supplies. Massive fires stemming from those droughts that burn people's freaking houses down. Rising seas flooding coastal territories. Land loss in the Gulf of Mexico. Closure of tourist hotbeds like the Yellowstone River or beaches in Alabama and Louisiana.

This is just a short list of what coal and oil consumption as energy costs us. Dirty energy needs to go. Anyone who thinks otherwise is, to use your word, nuts.

"Trump was pretty socially liberal before he decided to run for president this time."
He was also good friends with Hillary before now too. Chelsea and Ivanka are still definitely friends. What a real diversity of choice, eh?

"I do indeed have a Masters degree"

Since you're touting your paper as endowing you with some special wisdom, why don't you tell us what your degree is in?

"Can you define "unprogressive" because thats vague and could mean anything from bigotry to keynesian economics to ayn rand. "

To be honest, it seems *anything* can be construed as a "micro-aggression" or a "trigger". Truly, I think no white male can possibly be safe in academia these days from progressive inquisitors, and I am very relieved looking back that I didn't choose academia as a career for myself.

"If you are taking this down the path I think you are remember the example of poverty ridden Chile, a country shaped by capitalist ideals, now struggling. "

Huh? I confess my brain sometimes takes me down bizarre tangents, but I have no idea what the path is you're pointing to here.

"Massive droughts that dry up water supplies. Massive fires stemming from those droughts that burn people's freaking houses down. Rising seas flooding coastal territories. Land loss in the Gulf of Mexico. Closure of tourist hotbeds like the Yellowstone River or beaches in Alabama and Louisiana."

You're such a pessimist. Mankind has thrived in the wake of the global warming that ended the Ice Age and raised sea levels hundreds of feet, and I rather suspect that opening up the vast tracts of land on this planet that are currently buried under permafrost would be fantastic for our species.

@Bo:

No. Coal is a perfectly acceptable form of energy under an 'all of the above' strategy. Coal fired plants are also a perfectly acceptable form of energy production around the world. See, people like to have affordable energy. It keeps costs down each money on the electric bill. Anyone who wants to disable a form of energy production is hurting the middle class.

So-called clean energy such as wind turbines have a devastating effect on local wildlife (birds). Nuclear energy has a high risk if something bad happens. Oil can be devastating if spilled. We can debate the merits of each type all day, but as long as there are acceptable levels of regulation on all types of energy and all types of energy are allowed to exist then the American consumer can enjoy lower costs. Anyone who wants to regulate something out of existence, again, is nuts.

Yes let's ban all types of 'dirty' energy so we can all pay 5,000k a month and have frequent power outages because we are all using a solar panel. That's just nuts.

@Tolstoy I have a Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting. Currently I do lectures about Art in context. Normally I teach Foundations. I go where I'm needed.

Man was nomadic back then and actually had their eyes open to the ways that nature was changing. They didn't build skyscrapers on the oceans. They didn't build their shipping lanes and flight patterns around climatic constants that haven't changed in countless generations. They just walked, and when the resources ran dry, they walked somewhere else. That sort of simple, easily adaptable life is conducive to environmental changes. Ours today is not. Our entire approach to living is based on connectivity and total stability.

As for permafrost, if you think cows farting releases a lot of methane, just wait until that shit starts bubbling. God only knows what dormant specimens of smallpox, anthrax, or the plague are trapped in the dead bodies buried a hundred feet underground there too. I'm not saying that it shouldn't melt and that it won't melt at some point, but hopefully I'll be dead by then because I really don't want any of those things.

Not to mention the costs (environmental and otherwise) of destructing and disposing of all that solar system equipment when it reaches the end of its useful life.

"David Duke is an active member of the kkk CURRENTLY dumbass."

Look who's talking.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/05/488802494/former-kkk-leader-david-duke-says-of-course-trump-voters-are-his-voters

Note the word "former".

@Leon:

-Brain just told me that Byrd was a former KKK member from the 40s and attempted to refute my point. I suppose he will see that article and say the same thing about Trump. Or will he simply keep peddling his insult driven narrative that has no basis in actual reality?

"the only think that makes sense is to have the minor party dynamics happen internally to each party but unify in a large block for the general election. It's a bit wonky, but it was the best notion available at the time. So, if you want to change the system, look to the Tea Party, who have actually influenced our nation's politics, not to the Greens who haven't and won't. "

This could just as well be an argument for a one-party system, like we have in California where (thanks to the jungle primary system) even Republicans cannot be found on the ballot in the general election. By the same logic, the only rational choice in this state is to join the Democratic Party and one of its factions if you have any intention of influencing the political system, since the Republican Party is essentially dead.

@ND ... I have a degree in this. Do you?

(I've always wanted to say that.)

Wind turbines have no worse of an effect on birds than your windows do. I led a study on my campus last year of how many birds were killed by flying into one of our library's windows in the course of a migratory season and the number was approximately 19 a day. It is pretty disgusting, for sure, especially considering that we are in the migratory path of whooping cranes, which are, if you don't know, quite endangered and extremely well protected nowadays. I wish wind turbines didn't have that same effect.

As for coal being cheap, it is not cheap. Neither is oil. Both are scarce. Both are finite. Both take a massive amount of effort in order to extract. With a tax on carbon, the free market would quickly - and by quickly I mean by tomorrow morning - make coal and oil obsolete in the United States. Subsidies, tax breaks, and other incentives bargained for by special interests keep that dying industry afloat.

As for nuclear, I want fusion. Fusion is the future, not fission. You're thinking of fission. Fusion doesn't blow up. Fusion doesn't leave a significant amount of waste. Fusion is what our sun does, so we know it exists and we know it is self sustaining. It is an amazing technology. You would find it interesting if you have an open mind to that sort of thing.

The dangers of oil are far greater than a spill, though spills are clearly the most visible danger. Oil tanker trains run many times daily - probably 8 to 10 times - less than 100 feet from my girlfriend's home. One derailment and her home might as well have been ground zero for a nuclear bomb. Extraction of it is dangerous, transport of it is dangerous, its usage is toxic, and unfortunately, it is so vastly prevalent, marketable, and convenient that in the world as it is, we can't avoid it.

@Bo:

Unfortunately, I do not have a degree in that subject. Still, I would argue that while plans for planning a clean energy system is great and I have no problems with it I do have a problem with trying to regulate industries out of existence. It hurts people working in those industries, people that pay bills, and the economy.

Are you arguing that clean energy is more cost efficient (right now) then traditional forms of energy (coal, natural gas, oil)? If so, I want to see a source for that.

As soon as it becomes more cost efficient then it will naturally replace those forms of energy and that will be great, but until that point in time regulating things out of existence simply hurts people. I am not in favor of any plan that hurts folks that are already hurting in this economy.

Tolstoy:
"Truly, I think no white male can possibly be safe in academia these days from progressive inquisitors"
When's the last time you've been in a classroom?

Cost efficient with the current systems preventing their growth as an industry in place or just simply cost efficient? You should know as well as anyone - if the government regulates something differently, it will change industries just like that. I could say more, but I'm tired.