News Bill Gates for President?

yes, i have to admit, George bush did a wonderful job of "liberating" those poor iraqi people..

 

Americans love bush. He helped raise our national debt and increase spending.

I dont really know Bill's political philosphy, so i cant really make a decision about him.

 

Everyone knocks Bush. One of my friends came back from a trip to spain and said that on the news channel they kept referring to him as el presidente loco.

Now that I think about it, I too rarely hear anyone here complaining about foreign leaders. Then again, most Americans really don't care about foreign politics. Although I know some people that love bashing Chirac.

We bash Kim Jong Il SO much though especially on Mad TV and Sat. Night Live.

Hmm, do you guys in the UK get Saturday Night Live at all?

The US president influences pretty much everybody so it's not too unjustified for ppl here to criticize him.

 

it is all a matter of influence and power.... Tony Blair is a flea in the world, he has some power, but very few compared to... lets see.... Bush the giant, he is the most powerful man in the world.

he has done a good job in making world peace, helping people in the natural disasters that the USA has endured... oww wait..... sorry wrong person.

and IIRC Americans talk crap about almost everything..... even things they don't even know anything about.


And WTF is the difference between a democrat and a republican (please simplify so my primitive euro-brain can assimilate it)?

 

I really like the idea of Gates for President. I would vote for his camp, I see it as a far better choice that the current or future pesidential canindates. our country has always been run by buisness owners turned politicians. How about now we get one that is actually a successful buisnessman?

 

oh god gates for president the usa would be the only country were the economy crashes 8 or 9 times a day and where every couple of weeks the citizens would be forced to read/sign to a new constitution update to fix the security flaws that they discover.

 

Yeah, we could do worse than Bill, but I would hope we could do better too.

On the other hand, Honorable men don't last long in the cesspool we call AMerican politics.

There is a precedent for this, remember H. Ross Perot in 92? He got somthing like a quarter to a third of the popular vote.

 

Er... can't help you there. I'm a Democrat though, except when it comes to Hillary Clinton. I'll vote for anybody but her.

Um... Republicans are more um... uh... shrug. I think the Republican party is more conservative and har-lined when it comes to abortion and gay marriage and things like that. Maybe the core differences have to do wth beliefs about the financial system?

I hope that helps. If it makes you feel better I know squat about Europan politics. I was trying to make a subtle sarcastic stereotype b/c some republicans are redneck hicks who are fanatically religious with rigid ideals.

 

Yeah.

 

Well, it's not so simple as we make it sound, since it's sort of a spectrum and both come in different flavors. That said, some generalizations are...


Republicans / conservatives:

Lower taxes
reduce government interference in people's lives
belief that private enterprise is better than government when possible
Tend to push personal responsibility over social welfare
Tough on crime
Strongly support national defense
Support traditional social values

Republicans / conservatives come in several distinct flavors including:

Libretarians (minimal government)
Pro-business
Social conservatives (the religious right)

Democrats / liberals:

Strong social programs
Enviromental concerns
Broad acceptance / inclusiveness (minorities / homosexuals / women, etc)
People before profits
Focused on the middle / lower class

Democrats / liberals also come in several flavors, often seperated by specific issues

Ecomomic (higher minimum wage, protection for labor and workers)
Enviromental
Civil liberties (gay rights, reproductive rights, etc)
Soical democrats (universal health care, affirmitave action, improved schools)

What I see having changed is that the whole spectrum has shifted to the right in the last 6 years and so people who would have once been considered moderate republicans are now considered conservative democrats. Their positions haven't changed, but the label for those positions has.

Hope this makes some sense

Can I ask why? I know a lot of people feel that way, but i've never understood the reason for it. I'm just curious.

 

Wow hypocrite.

In simplest terms:
Republican = conservative
Democrat = liberal

 

To be honest, there's no legitimate reason as to why I wouldn't vote for Hillary - I just don't like her. Originally I believed that she was just riding on her status of former first lady, but she does have the credentials for her position. So yea, it's unjustified personal bias. =)

 

To be fair, though ballmer is indeed a complete and utter ****off in the head, the direction that Microsoft has taken under his guide is nothing short of incredible. Before we had your static curve, or even a plane of an os; all things the same, all ideas working with the last. Now imagine his influence, the plane curves up and out - DX10, Office 2007, Vista - so many innovations, whether they're original or not.

I would definately vote Gates if i was an American, and he ran.

 

Link still broken



OK now I'm thinking of the old "If MicroSoft made cars" bit

So, ... half dead, quarter rich, quarter fictional spooky evil powers? To many, Windows runs on spooky evil powers.

 

I'm in Canada & I've seen it - I don't get it - It might be a decent show if they added some humour . (then again it has been a few years since I actually forced myself to watch it)

I'm so glad that I don't have only the two polarized options the USA has. I honestly don't know how I would vote: On half the issues I stand closer to the "Republican" view and against the "Democrats". On the other half of the issues that is reversed. To me both are packages that seem to be an unnecessary mix of good stuff and poison pills.

I don't know if I'd vote for Gates either but a third option might not be such a bad thing.

 

Agreed

 

I was thinking, "wow, I hope this gets off the ground, because that actually makes some sense, but I know it won't get anywhere." Then I remembered that the president needs to have served in the military, and I sincerely doubt that Bill is a military man. Oh well.

 

Most of the people here complaining about Bush (at least in SD) are Americans. And don't worry, Blair takes it too (from both US and England) when he screws up. Far less often, mind you. I'll also point out, but not draw any conclusion from the fact that you list your residence as Texas. I think the only not-anti-Bush comments I've read on Bit came from there as well.

THAT being said..

Not the worst idea ever. Software patents aside, he'd get a lot of good things done relating to technology. Bringing us up to scratch with places that have a good telecom infrastructure (Hong Kong comes to mind, though apparently Rwanda of all places is getting fibre laid down). He usually can get away with what he wants, which may or may not be a good thing, but it doesn't seem that he's truly stepped over the line for pissing off his customers (geeks excluded, but you may also consider that geeks probably have MUCH higher piracy rates than mainstream customers).

Of a lesser of two evils, I'm sure I'd vote for him. I'd probably still want to leave the country because I think he'd likely screw up most of the things I actually care about (copyright reform, etc), but I don't think he'd do anything as insane as what's currently going on with our foreign policy and homeland "security" measures.

Rephrased, I'd rather have someone with business corruption as President than someone with political corruption. And God knows you certainly couldn't bribe the man (Warren Buffet might have stood a chance, until he went and donated most of his fortune to charity - more specifically, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)

According to Wikipedia, that doesn't seem correct: "Section One of Article II of the U.S. Constitution states that the President must be a natural born citizen of the United States (or a citizen of the United States at the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted), at least 35 years of age, and a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States) I noticed no military requirements anywhere else in the article, nor can I EVER remember hearing of such a thing. I'm guessing that just came from the immense up-playing of having served in the Bush/Kerry race.

OT - where in Vermont are you?

Cthippo...not sure I'd really agree with all of those classifications (I consider myself a Libertarian, and certainly couldn't quality most of my views as conservative/Republican, though Libs really fall into their own category anyways, sort of universally pro-choice in a few words). Just goes to show that you can't really oversimplify things - the political notions of "conservative" and "liberal" are almost completely swapped from what you'd find described in a dictionary. I don't want this to get overly political so I won't give examples, but consider who tends to stand where on most hot-topic issues, and what you'd find in Webster's, and you'll find in general that republicans tend to be pretty dictionary-liberal and democrats are equally dictionary-conservative.

 

Couldnt do much wrong could it?

 

No arguement there. Labelling political positions is not an exact science. I grouped the libretatians with the conservatives because they are generally closer to the "small government" position than the "Better living through government position". I consider myself a libretarian socialist, even though most people think that's an oxymoron. In short, I believe in civil liberties as the most important aspect of civil life, but I also support universal health care and social democracy.

6 years ago I would have agreed with you, but if W has shown us one thing it's just how much damage an out-of-control president can do. If anything, the 43rd presidency should reinforce the value of taking an active role in the selection of our elected officials.