Semantics, surely? He's from Buenos Ares.
Starship Troopers (1997) is coming back to Theaters...
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
- Start date
Semantics, surely? He's from Buenos Ares.
No, he's Filipino. IIRC near the end of the book he reveals that his native language is Tagalog. His mom happened to be in Buenos Aires when it was attacked.
Ya know, sometimes I get so frustrated with what I perceive to be the ignorance of the General Electorate, I could almost endorse something like this. Problem is, who makes up the test? No matter who it is, there's going to be ideological bend in the questions that is designed to disenfranchise one ideological base or the other.
There's about 30% base each for Pubs and Dems, that is absolutely unmovable, that will never, ever, under any circumstances, vote for the other party. It doesn't matter what the names are on the ballot, the important thing to them is wether there's a "D" or an "R" after their name. You had Dems calling for Pres. George W. Bush to be impeached and tried for War Crimes, and now, with Pres. Obama, doing the exact things and taking it a step further (rather than closing Gitmo within a year as promised, he's opened more POW camps for indefinite detention, Drone strikes, etc, etc) those same Dems defend his every action. Likewise, the Pubs who defended Pres. Bush's every action are screaming about Pres. Obama doing exactly the same thing.
It's pretty obvious many black voters, voted for Pres. Obama, simply because he's black (And I'm fairly confident a good deal of white voters who voted against him for the very same reason). No Candidate ever takes 95%+ of any demographic, yet, in alot of places Pres. Obama took over 95% of the black vote? That's unheard of. Hell, even Dems and Pubs don't take anywhere near 95% of the voters registered in their own party. Now, hopefully, this was just a "Breaking of the glass ceiling" and won't be a regular habit. Hopefully, in future, most people will vote for the best man or woman for the job, not the blackest or the Republican or the Democrat, etc.
Personally, I think the best solution is take nearly all money out of Campaigns. Ban Political ads, 99% of them tell you nothing about the candidate they want you to vote for, instead, it is a slam against the other candidate telling you why you shouldn't vote for them, and often laced with distortions and untruths.
There's enough 24 hour News channels now, they should be giving time to the Candidates to talk about their own strenghts and what qualifies them for the job (And local news channels could often spare time for local candidates), take more interviews, put up websites with their voting records, then they have the debates, etc. If it's a candidate in office already, use their exiisting staff, don't spend millions on hiring more staff. Require a sest minimum attendance in Washington DC. It's freaking ridiculous these days. Candidates with positions that come up for vote every 2 years, are now starting to campaign for their next election practically as soon as they are elected for this term, and the 4 and 6 years terms are typically campaigning 2 years before an election takes place.
True, it'd have to be a very specific type of test, and is therefore unlikely to ever exist, but I'd totally be behind it. I don't think an uninformed view should mean as much as an informed view. To me that is genuinely unfair.
Yup. American politics are a total joke. I see only two sports teams with equally mindless fans. Bush and Obama have served the exact same agenda, yet their supporters can actually have vitriolic arguments that imply there's some huge difference.
The media should be doing this, but it never will. The media exist to make the two barely distinguishable parties seem like polar opposites by sensationalising their differences out of all context.
Meanwhile, people like Bradley Manning are thrown in prison.
Well, to be fair, Bradley Manning was a soldier and used his position to steal and give away/sell(?) hundreds of thousands of Secret documents. Now, it may be true, that there was nothing there that compromised National Security, but, he couldn't possibly know what was in every single document, and it's just likely he could've caused the worst breach of National Security ever, so, it was indeed Treason, and he's lucky to have gotten away with only a 35 year prison sentence. He very well could've been given life or worse. At least he'll be out of prison before he's 60 years old.
The Tagalog is what stood out to me; I remember it because it was pretty unique and struck me as cool.
TerraNovan
Lieutenant Commander
It's the tired old joke about how the novel makes Heinlein out to be some sort of fascistand that it supposedly advocates the position that only soldiers can and should vote, which is also not true for at least two reasons: 1) you can't vote while on active duty, you have to retire first; and 2) it's not just soldiers. Any kind of federal service whatsoever, even cooks or accountants or quartermasters, qualify. If you don't have any qualifications, they have to make up a job for you. Doesn't have to be anywhere near the front lines.
And since the military is not allowed to reject candidates for any reason - they must, by law, accept absolutely everyone who signs up - then, by definition, there is no 'disenfranchisement' either.
Pretty dam sad that modern sci fi cant even explore a dynamic idea without being a watered down parody.
