American Politics and Links

The politics of Terror

After September 11th, I had no clue how to update this page, so I decided to wait out the events and see how they played out. I can say with some irony that my earlier prediction that "politics would be interesting in the next two years" has come true in spades.

Constitutions are living documents, and they never cease changing and adapting to the times. In the last 6 months, I have seen unprecedent power arrogated to the presidency; a congress that is united in war for the first time WWII, even passing education reform as a part of the war effort. The war itself, though, goes well, and Afghanistan is currently working on building its own constitution.

We have abrogated ABM and turned Russia into an ally at the same time; turned the definition of "unlawfull combatant" under the Geneva Convention on it's head (and gotten away with it); almost scared the Canadians out of NAFTA with a timber dumping case, only to have them fight back by claiming that banning MTBE is a government taking.

Meanwhile, the fear of terror has erroded our civil liberties faster than anything since the war on drugs. Random, suspicionless searches are now common in some situations; we are seriously debating public surveilance and national ID systems. Bush's anti-terrorisim statutes are so blatantly unconstitional that I sincerely hope no real terrorist ever gets tried under one as the supreme court will have to free him on about 10 different grounds.

As I've said before, we live in interesting times.

Personal data

Petition to Eliminate Punchcards

Thanks to all those who signed my petition to eliminate punchcard voting: it went to congress in February 2001

Why I registered Green

A note on why I decided to switch my party affiliation from Democrat to Green when I moved to Nevada.

My constitution in context

Under Construction: How the American and world politics of the last 5 years have influenced my constitutional thinking...

Links

US Political Parties

From political left to right...

Greens

A Minor party advocating radical environmentalisim, alternative politics, and sustainable living.

Democrats

The more liberal of the two major american parties, strong on social issues.
Running: Al Gore/Joseph Liberman

Libertarians

The largest third party in the US, advocating non-interference by government and total individual liberty.

Republicans

The other major party in the US, advocating a mix of social conservatisim and free markets.
Running: George W. Bush/Dick Chaney

Reform

The party of Ross Perot; now mainly a platform for the ultra-conservative Pat Buchannan.

Political News

Voter.com

A good internet source for American political news.

CNN/AllPolitics

Political news from CNN.

Politics1

A good source of links, especially for minor parties and state elections.

Voter Resources

Be a voter

Register to vote and get reminders to vote.

Web Petitions, Public Petitions

:

Make and sign petitions

On to...

Webrings

Webring users, if you are not interested in this site please click here to go back to the ring codes.

The arguements for my constitution

An introduction to the theory and practice of constitutional government, in the form of an arguement for the proposed system.

My constitution

The document itself, a proposed constitution for a small 21st century state.

Links

To other online resources of interest to those studying constitutional and revolutionary theory.

The constitutional and economic theory reader

A list of those books I've found invalueable in thinking and debating political philoisophy and economy.

American Politics

Usefull political links for American voters

The Revolutionary reader

The difinitive reading list for all would-be revolutionaries.