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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Vector]

"Solicitor" is from Latin "sollicitare" meaning "to shake."

Because that's what they did.  Shakedown.

[wierd]

....

A scene from the cosgrove hall stopmotion film "I go pogo" (also, "pogo for president") comes to mind.


...

They canvased their constitutents for campaign contributions. Literally. Then washed the money, because it was dirty.

...

I really need to find that show again.

[IronyOwl]

Want to hear Bryan Fischer talk about transgendered people and science? Of course you do.

Demons have to submit to a command that is uttered in the name of Jesus!

Thank you for fulfilling my facepalm/wat quota of the day.

[Culise]

The Romans had a system sort of like that at one point, where people would bid on collecting taxes from the distant provinces. What tended to happen was that the tax collectors would basically loot and pillage so that they'd make a tidy profit, in the process pissing off every Roman client kingdom, ally, and subject.

Indeed, and it wasn't just the Romans.  Tax farming or rent/revenue leasing, the sale of the right to collect taxes, was also a fixture of medieval systems.  Basically, the state got some guaranteed money in hard currency from it, and the person went out and shook down whoever they now had the right to collect taxes from for that amount plus whatever else they could get out of them (or equivalent goods, which they then could resell at a mark-up).  France maintained such a system until Louis XIV's reforms, and Russia still had it as late as 1862. 

[Max White]

Although the proposed system is in a way the exact inversion. Instead of the state choosing a collector, the company paying tax would choose its own collector. Different employer means different priorities. Instead of looking to shake down the company for every last nickle, a practice that would drive their clients away, they would seek to bend the rules as far as they can to lower their tax payments beyond what would otherwise be possible...

In other news: Something about the US resorting to firing squads? Is this big news over there?

[10ebbor10]

It is more humane than the electric chair, after all. Perhaps also better than lethal injection.

[Dutchling]

It's also more awesome. Keelhauling (to death) would be better though.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In other news: Something about the US resorting to firing squads? Is this big news over there?

Not really. There are barely any actual executions to begin with. It's a rather disproportionate issue, though that very fact is one of my arguments against it (it's rare even for the classes of crime it is used for, and is therefore unusual, which in turn means that it violates the Eighth by default).

[Leafsnail]

The problem with firing squads is that it makes it a lot more obvious that executions are state sanctioned murder.  Lethal injections are favoured because they make it look clean and clinical (although they may be agonizingly painful).

[Owlbread]

I would prefer to be shot in the back of the head, or front, than be slowly poisoned with some kind of abominable cocktail or electrocuted in a chair.

[kaijyuu]

Don't firing squads traditionally shoot through the heart?

[Owlbread]

Don't firing squads traditionally shoot through the heart?

They do. They make a big show of it and have several men with rifles, sometimes all of them except 1 shoot blanks. The idea is that they won't know which one of them killed the fellow. I think though if they're alright with someone pulling the switch to electrocute a prisoner then that's all a bit silly, just shoot them in the head and make it quick and comparatively humane.

[Helgoland]

If they ever get on to me, I'd like to go out with a big dose of pharmaceutical Heroin...

[Reelya]

What are the odds of a Bachmann-Turner ticket? I'd vote for that.

[Frumple]

Look outside your front door. Is there a frog with a tophat and cane superbly singing show tunes in a sunbeam on the snow?

If yes, the odds are 50%. If no, the odds are 0%.