The Privacy Candidate 593
Alsee writes "Wired News reports 'electronic civil libertarians' hearts are a-twitter' over US Presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton's bold stance on the right to privacy. Wired quotes Clinton: 'At all levels, the privacy protections for ordinary citizens are broken, inadequate and out of date.' Clinton gave a speech last June to the American Constitution Society (text, WMF) in which she addressed electronic surveillance, consumer opt-in vs. opt-out, cyber-security, commercial and government handling of personal data, data offshoring, data leaks, and even genetic discrimination." Would you consider a candidate's stand on privacy important enough to sway your vote?
The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only would it sway my vote, but a positive stance on privacy would damn-near guarantee it. Over the years, the U.S. government has eroded its citizens' rights to the point of absurdity. This latest president has only made a bad situation worse.
There are other issues at stake, of course, but none quite as dear as those that hit close to home. I'm tired of watching my privacy dwindle away, and I want it to stop.
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
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We don't have fixes to welfare or unemployment because we need them as issues to run on. We cannot have some government body fixing itself out of a job either. At best we can have numbers that are acceptable to some but not others. And this it the reason that it will get worse.
Some politician's main platform stands on continuously fixing the existing issues of what seem
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The Echelon program did not start under Clinton. From Wikipedia: "Reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its East Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early sixties, today ECHELON is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug-dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence."
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
Why I'm voting against Hillary: she is Anti-Gun, pure & simple. without a strong 2nd Amendment, the other "rights" are just words on paper that can be ignored as the powers-that-be wish. With a strong 2nd Amendment, they have to at least consider just how much they afford to piss us off.
It's not much, but it's something.
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ho-hum. In Ireland, we have a more restrictive gun regime. The government is no more corrupt and bloated than in America (though also no less so). Have you (as an American), or anyone you have ever known, or indeed anyone you have read about in the last 100 years changed the way the government has been eroding your rights through the use of a gun?
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with owning guns, just that it's not a great det
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What you're talking about is a large scale, violent resistance movement. If it's not large, the government can easily suppress it regardless of the Constitution, and if it's not violent there's no need for guns or the 2nd Amendment anyway. If things got so bad that hundreds of thousands of people all across the country were angry enough to take up arms against the govern
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hillary has proven that she *only* talks ("Think of the children!"). If you think that she can "think of the children" and protect us all from the evils of the Internet while protecting our privacy at the same time, you're wrong.
The only way I would vote for her is if President GWB rewrote the books so that he could run for a third term and she was the only other option.
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The best records in congress are held by Rep. Kucinich, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Russell Feingold, and as always, Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont.....(Although I am glad to see a fellow Vietnam veteran, Hegel of Ohio, finally retracted his head out of his butt and is finally seeing the light on the illegitimate and unlawful invasion and occupation of Iraq - WHERE THE HELL IS OSAMA - hiding in the Bush family basement????)
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And just what is it that makes an invasion "legitimate"? I'll use Ayn Rand's definition: a tyranny is not a legitimate government, thus has no right to sovereignity. This means ANY free nation has the right to invade ANY dictatorship to overthrow its rulers at ANY moment they find convenient.
Legitimate invasions (Score:4, Informative)
That country invading an ally of yours. George H. W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was legitimate.
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She is all about using your abilities to your fullest. Working hard for yourself. Getting rewarded for your hard work. What is wrong with that philosophy? I think it's much better than ex
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:4, Insightful)
Hillary's record from ontheissues.org (Score:5, Informative)
So she supports privacy when it suits her agenda, just like everyone else in DC.
Very true, Hillary can't be trusted (Score:3, Informative)
I'd also warn everyone that the founder of Hillarycare - the mandatory socialized medicine boondoggle that would have banned private payer insurance - doesn't sound all that right-to-privacy to me (the right to privacy, not enumerated in the Constitution, was based on liber
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
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Maybe the fact that she's a senator, and that the senate voted 98-1 in favor of the PATRIOT Act?
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe the fact that she's a senator, and that the senate voted 98-1 in favor of the PATRIOT Act?
Nope, http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_l
A healthy distrust of politicians is not FUD nor cynicism but merely realism.
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More than that, a healthy distrust of politicians is the essence of patriotism itself!
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Marriage is a religious construct, e.g., a contract between a man and a woman and "God." Government should have NO say whatsoever where it comes to say who can or cannot marry whom because it is infringing on freedom of worship. Leave it up to the churches/temples/mosques/synagogues/etc. to decide who can and who cannot marry.
This solves the problem of the "marriage penalty" - and as far as benefits, insurance, etc. are concerned? Choose companies which honor the type of "marriage
Re:even LGBT benefit from today's laws (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. If the benefits are for the kids, then they should be categorizing the taxpayers according to who has kids and who doesn't, not by who is (religiously) married and who isn't!
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Don't you think it's rude to watch it so closely?
Olmstead vs. United States (Score:2)
Might guarnatee my vote too... (Score:5, Interesting)
For a presidential candidate, their stand on privacy really doesn't matter, just like their stand on a whole host of other things that Congress gets to determine doesn't matter.
Now, a stand on privacy is not to be confused with a stand on constitutional rights. Whether mailling lists are opt-in or not, or what kind of opt-in they have to be, isn't a constitutional issue. But having a president who believes being president doesn't give them the right to listen to my phone calls, or detain me without trial, is DEFINITELY a constitutional issue.
So, having a stand on privacy is a non-issue for me. If you want to grab my attention, promise to recind every invasive executive order from the Bush presidency. Promise to avoid signing statements. Promise to institute executive orders that prohibit you and future presidents and their respective executive branches from taking the same liberties with our liberties as this one has.
Taking a stand on who can see my credit report is a cop-out when the issue of when, and if, I get to see a lawyer is on the table.
Re:Might guarnatee my vote too... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you underestimate the power of the executive. While it's technically true that Congress passes legislation, it's also true that the President holds nearly equal sway. While he can't introduce legislation himself, he need only present it to a willing accomplice for it to make its way to the floor. Deals are often made between the executive and legislative branches, where one side will agree to pass Bill A in exchange for the passage/inclusion of Bill/Rider B. Of course, when the same party controls both houses, as we saw for the past 6 years, the executive can essentially dictate the agenda, and any detractors risk party ostracism, which could ultimately mean career suicide. (Fortunately, following the party line turned out to be career suicide for many candidates -- although that sets the stage for the pendulum to swing back the other way, perhaps sooner than the Democrats would prefer). The only time the President's agenda doesn't much matter is when the Congress overwhelmingly disagrees, and in more cases than not, that merely results in deadlock.
Aside from explicit powers, the President controls the bully pulpit, which means he can and does set the topic of public discussion. Once voters are talking about an issue, Congress will often have to act or risk losing face.
Granted, your point was that other issues are more pressing to you, and more relevant to the envisioned role of the office, but the power of the President to set the legislative agenda is not insignificant.
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and damn near pulled it off.
It's amazing how short some people's memory is.
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a presidential candidate. They have almost no domestic power; they can't make law, and they can't do a whole lot to stop law from passing unless it was marginal in the first place. The most important factor of a president's stance is the foreign policy stance, because there, as Bush has demonstrated, they have a lot of discretion and they can, again as Bush has demonstrated, make quite a mess. They can break the law, of course (again as Bush has demonstrated) but then again, so can anyone in the chain of command that leads to the pawn with the inductive tap, the capacitive sensor, or the digital network access. As far as the law of the land goes, it's your congresscritters and senators you need to think about.
That's not to say that I'm not happy with the stated position; I am. I'm also very much a proponent of universal healthcare, and she's demonstrated at least once that she favored it, at least at the time. Hopefully, she'll stick with that, but again, congress is where these things matter the most, and those views can't be selected "all at once." They are of course selected by lobbyists and not voters, anyway, and between insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, and lawyers, we won't be getting universal healthcare no matter if it was the raving, foaming at the mouth single issue for a presidential candidate.
Re: they can't make law (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be fooled by Bush (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't underestimate the veto, I estimate that presidents aren't likely to use it when it needs to be used - again, going by history. The difference between a regular majority and a veto majority is indeed considerable. The trick to getting a president to veto is they can't be trying to make deals (unlikely) they can't owe any political favors (unlikely) they can't have lobbyists whispering in their ears about post-term favors (not just unlikely, close to impos
Re:Don't be fooled by Bush (Score:4, Interesting)
Any examples in mind? (Score:4, Informative)
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Certainly - every time a law comes up that is a bad law, particularly with regard to the constitution, which the president is personally sworn to defend, the veto should be used. So - for instance - the veto should have been used when the ex post facto law that felons, already convicted, could not own firearms, because this adds to their punishment after conviction and is manifestly unconstitutional. There are other ex post facto violations that should have been defende
Riders (Score:3, Interesting)
Man, could you imagine if we got a president who refused to sign any bills that contained riders (good or not) that had little or nothing to do with said bi
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So - for instance - the veto should have been used when the ex post facto law that felons, already convicted, could not own firearms, because this adds to their punishment after conviction and is manifestly unconstitutional. There are other ex post facto violations that should have been defended as well.
While I agree that presidents should veto (and congress not vote for) laws which they deem unconstitutional, it's important to use proper terms here. The argument could be made that laws restricting felons
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Let me get this straight. You're
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Hey here's an idea: you're fucking up my country. Why don't you get the hell out?
yesno (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, sure I --
*bzzzt!*
Ouch! Er... I mean, no, no I wouldn't.
Meaning what one says... (Score:5, Interesting)
It was the American Constitution Society after all...
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National ID cards are no more a violation of privacy than having a driver's license. These simply provide identification for everyone in the country in lieu of having state IDs or no ID at all.
The existence of this in
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My perfect world...
I should be able to go to a credit age
Re:Meaning what one says... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, in most places, you are REQUIRED to have some form of valid ID. All a national ID has to do is identify you. The drivers license shouldn't be a primary identification, it should be a license to operate a motor vehicle. A social security number shouldn't be a central identification tool, it should be a Social Security Administration record. I'd rather have some national ID number associated with me universally than either my drivers license (which can impact my insurance premium and my DMV record if abused) or my SSN (which is tied to my receipt of money). A national ID, like a passport, has no direct ties to my financial information, health information, or driving record. The NID can cross-reference all of the other numbers (that is, I should be able to use an NID to verify that a savings account is mine, but should not be able to access said account solely with that number). If used effectively, some of the national ID proposals would actually protect personal privacy more than the current system.
As far as being forced to provide it, you're again falling into the trap of MISUSE. The existence of the ID itself has nothing to do with what sort of use is acceptable. Law enforcement currently forces you to provide a drivers license or state ID--a national ID doesn't make their job any easier, and refusal to provide one isn't any better or worse than it is now.
What I wonder is (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Ethanol's neat," Clinton says to corn growers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh-huh. Tell me what she says at the Society for People Unreasonably Afraid That Their Children Are Going To Die in Terrorist Attacks, and then we'll decide if she gets points for this.
Re:"Ethanol's neat," Clinton says to corn growers. (Score:5, Funny)
Not hated, more like disappointed (Score:3, Interesting)
Hillary =! privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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The one good thing about it is that as rhetoric, more people are going to hear about it. It's now "on the table" when last election nobody with a chance of getting elected to office would ever pro-actively bring up the subject.
Wrong way of thinking, but a good start (Score:4, Interesting)
However, a stance against personal privacy will strongly sway me against you. Fortunately for Hillary and other pro-privacy advocates, many candidates are easy to admit they'd spy, loot, and plunder in the name of "the children".
No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
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Please point me to the candidate who says we don't need to protect children from violent video games.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
In Australia we have a preferential voting system which I believe empowers voters to rank candidates - hopefully by policy (possibly in descending order of evil *grin*) - but we do have compulsory voting: the merits of which are debatable.
In fact, they often reduce our federal elections to a one-policy debate: economics. Compulsory voting with the threat of higher interest rates under the potential leadership of the opposition arguably scares the politically unmotivated or uneducated to vote with this threat in mind.
As Bill Hicks once said, "There are more important things to vote with than your wallet."
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
Her stance on video games isn't just about video games. It shows she believes that I need protecting from myself, and that I am incapable of protecting my children from video games. It shows that she places these values above free speech. It shows that she is quick to jump on the "Think of the children!" bandwagon, regardless of any actual evidence or logic.
Her belief that she knows better than I do what's good for me is the big reason I don't want to vote for her (though I might, depending who the opponent is -- she'd be better than Bush, of that I'm certain). Her stance on video games is just one example of this.
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Hilary, Hilary, Hilary... (Score:3, Informative)
So, um, no. I don't think I'd vote for her regardless of what her stance of privacy is.
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It's not so much the idea of damage to gaming, but that she would sink so far to propagate fear, uncertainty, and deception in order to garner public favor. That heavily damages my perception of her character. To manipulate fears by portraying games as training kids to kill people is trying to play off ignorance and capitalize on it to the detriment of the responsible people who are aware that it is not a threat. It makes me wonder what else she'd be willing to do or tra
This would be nice, were it not Hillary (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, you may say that this is not germane to the privacy issue. But it is, because it shows that Hillary will say anything, at any time, to acquire and hold power. The value of her promises is null. The value of her insight is null. The value of her candidacy is negative, because it is most likely going to give the Presidency to those she claims to fight, while mimicking as closely as possible.
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I only know (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I only know (Score:4, Funny)
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her idea of privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
NORML (Score:4, Insightful)
Hillary? Is this just going to be about electronic surveillance and security of digital information repositories?
Or are you going to tackle the larger issue of protecting personal activities in private spaces.
Am I the only one.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, I'm posting this over a wifi connection that I perceive to be secure, using a name and password that I believe is uncompromised...
Then again, I am using a cantenna to connect to a router that is perceived to be secure from the viewpoint of the guy providing me with free bandwidth, shared iTunes, and an OS with remote support enabled, and the 'guest' account allowed to be part of the 'everyone' group...
other issues are more important to me... (Score:2)
Would you consider a candidate's stand on privacy important enough to sway your vote?
Yes, but this candidate's support of national health care cancels it out. I don't want to be forced to pay for other people's health care (especially filtered through government bureaucracy, ugh).
Let the flames begin...
Flames? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong: I despise libertarians (not just their ideas -- the people as well; I'm bitter like that :) ) and I think they're living in a deranged fantasy world where people get along by magic and things get done because divine intervention coordinates peoples' efforts ... but at least they don't go around trying to justify Fasci
Not hers (Score:5, Insightful)
Not hers. She's a US Senator, former First Lady, and the democratic front-runner for the presidential nomination in 2008. She's been in the public eye for years, she's wielded real power for years, is perhaps the most influential woman in the US after Oprah (seriously...); and yet our privacy has continued to be diminished on her watch without so much as a peep. You apparently have to go back to a talk she gave to the American Constitution Society to even know what her stance on personal privacy is, and I had to go to Wikipedia to find out who they are. Where's the public outrage if you care about privacy so much, Hillary? Lord knows you don't have a hard time getting in front of a TV camera with a chance to express it.
Will I support a candidate who's serious about protecting personal privacy? Hell yes. It's the most important issue I can think of. Hillary Clinton isn't that person, and neither is any other mainstream candidate. Pretty fucking sad.
"Right to privacy" (Score:4, Insightful)
This "right to privacy" does not apply to personal information out there on the internet. There might be laws protecting some aspects of this information, but it isn't a constitutional thing.
Clinton knows this. Non-lawyer tech geeks don't know this. She's using this lack of knowledge about what the legal term "right to privacy" means, intentionally allowing techies to confuse it with their concept of right to privacy, trying to attract votes.
Don't be fooled. The right to have information about yourself be private is purely statutory (without such a statute, there is no such right). This is not a constitutional right. It is fleeting. Don't let Clinton convince you that judges would extend this "right to privacy" to personal information (the judges know better, just like Clinton does).
Please try to remember... (Score:5, Informative)
She might be making noises about the "right to privacy," right now, but please try and remember that when Jack Thompson and the other usual suspects were screeching and crying about violence in video games, she supported that, too. She tries to determine which way the wind is blowing, and when she suspects that she has, then jumps on what she feels is the dominant voter bandwagon at any given point in time. But she is not the archetypical Slashbot's friend...or really anyone else's, for that matter.
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Do we really have to go back and forth between two horrible, terrible political extremes?
Re:Please try to remember... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd say if she were serving the wants of the people, that's significantly better than many, many politicians that server the wants of themselves. It's a strange idea, I know, but you do want your policymakers to listen to the will of the people and support it, and you'd like them to do that even when it is at odds with their own personal belief, if a sufficient majority of the nation wishes a particular change.
I guess what you see is a bad thing, is actually a good thing in my book. Do you want your leader's vote to be for sale to the most powerful lobby, or would you rather it be for sale to the public opinion of the majority? The question isn't whether her opinion can be swayed. The question is who can do it. The point of her stance on Iraq is she and every other member of congress was LIED TO, and made their decisions based on LIES. People actually criticize our policy makers when they do an about face after realizing they were lied to. That's pretty sad.
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Has anyone had "the talk" with you about Santa Claus yet?
More seriously, politicians only give a d
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Same old.
Consider (Score:2)
Ron Paul? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:Ron Paul? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think they'll try anything they can think of to keep him out of any potential debates. It would be intersting to see. As far as I know he is the only guy running who opposed the war in iraq, is anti
patriot act/ realid act, supports gun rights, and has consistently voted against pork.
Hell I'd just love to see a debate between him and the flunkies the GOP is running.
I've never voted for a Rep, but I'd vote for him in a minute.
Privacy isn't the only issue (Score:2)
My
God, I wish I could believe. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Wrong question. (Score:2)
The real question is:
1) Who's funding her and do those people have anything to gain by eroding privacy?
2) What's her previous track record? What was she doing about the Patriot Act? etc etc.
Yeah, but where does she... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Does it go beyond just "Keep mature games out of the hands of minors"?
Because if thats all it is I refer you to:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/03/20 [penny-arcade.com]
Hell, I'd even start a new party (Score:2)
Oh, wait. I did. [piratpartiet.se] And it was reasonably successful too, although the privacy debate is just starting out in Sweden...
Right to privacy (Score:5, Funny)
It would sway my vote, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not trust Hillary Clinton at all. She is a blatant political opportunist of the worst sort. I have no doubt that she would talk loudly about privacy when anybody was looking, then implement totally opposite policies to gain political favor.
Did anybody read this? (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing new in the speech. She talks a lot about data breaches. Those are devastating, sure, but they're hardly an "issue." Being against data breaches offends no constituency (who *isn't* against them?) -- it's like being "tough on crime." She seems to be against a lot of things that nobody is for.
However, she spends very little time on what most of us think of when we talk about "privacy" -- that is, the government's prohibition, under the fourth amendment, against searching us without probable cause, and without a warrant. In fact, she comes to the conclusion that the warrantless searches the Bush administration are doing are probably fine. She believes in the same odious calculation that defines rights and security as mutually exclusive constraints, that have to be "balanced."
Rather, she only takes Bush to task for not letting congress in on the action. That is, had only Bush asked congress for "authorization" -- which would surely have been forthcoming -- everything would have been okay. "Let is in on the action," she seems to say, "and we'll make sure you get the warrants so your policies will be easier to sell to the masses." Instead of real criticism of a policy that's both illegal and that actually makes us less safe [schneier.com], we get criticism over tactics, and parochial self-interest.
The title and blurb for this are completely misleading.
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I have mixed feelings about this. What Bush did was wrong, but the question is what part of it was wrong. It's not like he could go to the entire population of the United States -- or the whole world -- and say "can I spy on anyone, any time, without any given reasons?"
If you grant that there's a reason for a government to spy on people -- and the US Constitution say
Government Health care incompatible with privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
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Bush promised not to pull the troops out of Iraq.
Any Politician? Ron Paul (Score:3, Informative)
As
Re:Clinton is a joke and a liar (Score:5, Insightful)
Your attitude is a real threat to democracy, and stupid, and self-fulfilling. Thank you for doing your part in killing honest political and social discourse on the issues that matter. Yes, such discourse is difficult and tiring. It involves questioning whether Clinton was, as another poster put it, preaching to the choir or actually serious. But this discourse is the core political process of democracy. As long as you don't actively participate in it and try to get others engaged as well you have no right whatsoever to complain about the state of politics.
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Really? You know that for sure? There's no chance she just still loves the guy she was married to for most of her life, and forgave him? Or maybe she just thought it would be worse, personally, to go off on her own at that point? Has no girl ever been cheated on by someone with no political clout and stayed married?
Hell, maybe they're just open-minded and she had been sleeping with Giuliani since 1985, and she just had to prete
You should not have looked! (Score:4, Funny)
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