4 ms·

G.W was a Goog-Magoog mumbling idiot, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush http://www.theguardian.com/commentis

by enupten 12y ago

G.W was a Goog-Magoog mumbling idiot, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/10/religion-george-bush http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/au... (yes, he may still have been good). That said, I think Ron Paul is awesome - although IMO he's a bit too libertarian. Definitely not charming enough for contemporary sensibilities, however.

nickysielicki 12y ago
Totally agreed. What drew me to Paul was the way he spoke. He was this frail looking old man that mumbled in debates, which the general public sees negatively, but to me it just made him so genuine. The guy believes everything he ever said. He's honest. He doesn't change his opionions to pander to audiences. He doesn't try to go all Hollywood and make agreeable soundbytes. He lays all the gory details right in the open, and you can see his thought process as he goes along. This doesn't bode well for the political debate world where you're limited in time and have to give a bunch of elevator speeches. Most politicans will tell you how they feel, and then say why they feel that way, where Ron Paul brings you through his thought process. What this means is that even where I disagree with him, I understand where he's coming from.
- enupten 12y ago
  "This doesn't bode well for the political debate" ...which is precisely why all this (the "zeitgeist" ?) is so worrying.
  - nickysielicki 12y ago
    Even with all the pessimism that I express here about the future of the internet, I think that the internet can and is fighting against this. We need an educated voting population. One with an attention span that's longer than 60 seconds. This is difficult to do. But more importantly, for those who do have the attention span, we need to provide a way for them to get the debates that they deserve. I hope that someone on HN is building a better US debate platform. I want to see a back-and-forth between the 2016 candidates that isn't limited to 140 characters or 60 second increments. I want to read paragraphs and paragraphs of their reasoning, and I want to see candidates criticize each other asynchronously.
    - enupten 12y ago
      I don't think the Internet is doing anything good. If you have a wide reading, you'll quickly realize that you can easily predict the positions taken by articles, by simply looking at the outlet publishing it. No one cares for the truth, or for the middle path.

by enupten 12y ago

nickysielicki 12y ago

Totally agreed. What drew me to Paul was the way he spoke. He was this frail looking old man that mumbled in debates, which the general public sees negatively, but to me it just made him so genuine. The guy believes everything he ever said. He's honest. He doesn't change his opionions to pander to audiences. He doesn't try to go all Hollywood and make agreeable soundbytes. He lays all the gory details right in the open, and you can see his thought process as he goes along. This doesn't bode well for the political debate world where you're limited in time and have to give a bunch of elevator speeches. Most politicans will tell you how they feel, and then say why they feel that way, where Ron Paul brings you through his thought process. What this means is that even where I disagree with him, I understand where he's coming from.

enupten 12y ago
"This doesn't bode well for the political debate" ...which is precisely why all this (the "zeitgeist" ?) is so worrying.
- nickysielicki 12y ago
  Even with all the pessimism that I express here about the future of the internet, I think that the internet can and is fighting against this. We need an educated voting population. One with an attention span that's longer than 60 seconds. This is difficult to do. But more importantly, for those who do have the attention span, we need to provide a way for them to get the debates that they deserve. I hope that someone on HN is building a better US debate platform. I want to see a back-and-forth between the 2016 candidates that isn't limited to 140 characters or 60 second increments. I want to read paragraphs and paragraphs of their reasoning, and I want to see candidates criticize each other asynchronously.
  - enupten 12y ago
    I don't think the Internet is doing anything good. If you have a wide reading, you'll quickly realize that you can easily predict the positions taken by articles, by simply looking at the outlet publishing it. No one cares for the truth, or for the middle path.