2016 Progressive Fourth Party Presidential Candidate

[Selene]

Since Trump could run as a Third Party Candidate, why wouldn't there be a Progressive fourth party?

A little political paradigm thread...

Who would be on it? Bernie Sanders or Mayor DeCommio?

A female VP that would strip Evita a piece of her gender feminist base.

The electoral map would be a mess and that would throw the election into the house which would mean what?

Chaos...

Wasn't that a theoretical physics book?

A...

[Selene]

Ballot access is going to be a critical sub rosa issue in the 2016 election because of all the insurgent movements that are exploding from us great unwashed mass of productive citizens...

Texas Secessionists Trying to Use Obscure Procedure to Get their Idea on Republican Primary Ballot
Published on September 18, 2015, by Richard Winger

Texas does not have the statewide initiative. But it does have an obscure procedure in its election code for a group to petition for a statewide measure in a party primary. The procedure has existed since 1907, but apparently has never been used.

The Texas Nationalist Movement hopes to use the procedure, and to put a question on the March 2016 Texas Republican primary ballot asking if the party should endorse independence for Texas. See this story. The law requires a petition signed by 10% of the last primary turnout. The Texas Republican primary turnout was so low that only 66,894 signatures are needed, by December 2015. The group started circulating in August and hopes to succeed. The group’s web page is thetnm.org.

Party organizations can also put questions on a party primary ballot without the need for a petition, and Texas Republicans do that fairly often. The leadership of the Republican Party does not support the idea of secession for Texas and will probably try to prevent the question from appearing on the party’s primary ballot if it can. Thanks to Jim Goodluck for the link and to Jim Riley for explaining the Texas law, which is in sections 172.087 and 172.088.

Very smart move on their part...those signatures would form the base of your field organization.

A...

[Selene]

Ah the Wesley Mouch meetings are starting to take place.

Anyone see any Francisco in The Donald?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-preparing-for-contested-convention/2015/12/10/d72574bc-9f73-11e5-8728-1af6af208198_story.html

More than 20 of them convened Monday for a dinner held by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, where the prospect of Trump nearing next year’s nominating convention in Cleveland with a significant number of delegates dominated the discussion, according to five people familiar with the meeting.

Considering that scenario as Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listened, several longtime power brokers argued that if the controversial billionaire storms through the primaries, the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight, in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative, the people said.

Because of the sensitivity of the topic — and wary of saying something that, if leaked, would provoke Trump to bolt the party and mount an independent bid — Priebus and McConnell were mostly quiet during the back and forth. They did not signal support for an overt anti-Trump effort.

[Selene]

Another thread that I am glad that I started back in August 2015..

Seems with Bloomberg, the Establishment and Biden there is a maximum effort on to decide on an independent party run, no later than April 1st, 2016.

The weird looking Junior Senator from Nebraska came out yesterday with:

Quote

Sasse continued: “Given what we know about him today, here’s where I’m at: if Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, my expectation is that I will look for some third candidate – a conservative option, a constitutionalist.”

The freshman senator, who was elected in 2014 as a Tea Party insurgent, said Trump’s views were inconsistent with his understanding of conservatism.

“Conservatives understand that all men are created equal and made in the image of God, but also that government must be limited so that fallen men do not wield too much power,” wrote Sasse. “A presidential candidate who boasts about what he’ll do during his ‘reign’ and refuses to condemn the KKK cannot lead a conservative movement in America.”

The criticism from Sasse, a former college president with a PhD in history from Yale, isn’t new. Before Iowa, Sasse spent several days in the state campaigning specifically against Trump. As he told the Guardian in January: “I am not endorsing anybody in race and being pro-constitution just makes me anti Trump.” However, it makes him by far the most prominent conservative to embrace the label “Never Trump,” encompassing those Republicans who refuse to ever support the real estate mogul if he is the party’s nominee.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/29/nebraska-republican-senator-ben-sasse-says-he-wont-vote-for-trump

[Selene]

Here we are on April 1st, 2016 and we now have the probability that both conventions will be contested.

Unfortunately, it appears way too late for a third party run. 

Any third, or, fourth party contest would only be a destroyer party/

A...

[Roger Bissell]

10 hours ago, Selene said:

Here we are on April 1st, 2016 and we now have the probability that both conventions will be contested.

Unfortunately, it appears way too late for a third party run. 

Any third, or, fourth party contest would only be a destroyer party/

 

So we're viewing the two major parties as the "real" or "legitimate" parties, and any other party is a "destroyer"?

1. How much destruction by the Big Two must we overlook in order to view challengers or upstarts as "destroyers"? Now, I think that Ross Perot was definitely a destroyer, i.e., a spoiler, in the sense that he kept Bush Sr. from being re-elected - but Bush Sr. deserved to be denied re-election.

2. The Big Two are destroying themselves, because they are out of touch with the American people and seeking to aggrandize themselves with wealth and power by pandering to special interests and demonizing others. I won't even comment on the two leading candidates in each party.

3. The Big Two both deserve to crash and burn, but unfortunately what is most likely to burn are the cities in which the nominating conventions are held this summer - especially if Bernie and/or Trump do not win the nomination. And I still think that there are stranger, less likely scenarios than a 4th party "Unity" ticket of Trump and Bernie.

REB

[Selene]

15 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

So we're viewing the two major parties as the "real" or "legitimate" parties, and any other party is a "destroyer"?

1. How much destruction by the Big Two must we overlook in order to view challengers or upstarts as "destroyers"? Now, I think that Ross Perot was definitely a destroyer, i.e., a spoiler, in the sense that he kept Bush Sr. from being re-elected - but Bush Sr. deserved to be denied re-election.

2. The Big Two are destroying themselves, because they are out of touch with the American people and seeking to aggrandize themselves with wealth and power by pandering to special interests and demonizing others. I won't even comment on the two leading candidates in each party.

3. The Big Two both deserve to crash and burn, but unfortunately what is most likely to burn are the cities in which the nominating conventions are held this summer - especially if Bernie and/or Trump do not win the nomination. And I still think that there are stranger, less likely scenarios than a 4th party "Unity" ticket of Trump and Bernie.

REB

REB:

Were you under the impression that the "destroyer 3rd/4th Party" was a negative?

I believe that John Galt was referred to as "the Destroyer."

I think Eddie Willers called him that with his regular lunch "date!"

A...

 

[Roger Bissell]

44 minutes ago, Selene said:

Were you under the impression that the "destroyer 3rd/4th Party" was a negative?

I believe that John Galt was referred to as "the Destroyer."

I think Eddie Willers called him that with his regular lunch "date!"

 

There's an irony - perhaps intentional! And thanks for reminding me about Galt aka "The Destroyer."

Peikoff mentioned Moses Mendellsohn, a contemporary of Immanuel Kant, who referred to Kant as "the All-Destroyer." Of course, what Kant was destroying was the religious Rationalist basis for arguing logically for the existence of God. He said that any attempt to reason about that which is beyond sensory experience - like God, immortality, or freedom of the will - ends in contradictory results, and therefore you shouldn't try it. So much for rational theology! But Peikoff took this to indicate that Kant was into destruction for the sake of destruction and thus was the epitome of the category of Nihilist, in his DIM Hypothesis book. I don't know whether he got this "destroyer" notion about Kant from his discussions with Rand, or whether he just picked it up uncritically from his readings about history of philosophy in re Kant.

REB

[william.scherk]

On 3/1/2016 at 5:50 PM, Selene said:

The weird looking Junior Senator from Nebraska

[Selene]

51 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

There's an irony - perhaps intentional! And thanks for reminding me about Galt aka "The Destroyer."

REB

No problem. 

Can you confirm that it was Eddie?

[Roger Bissell]

10 hours ago, Selene said:

No problem. 

Can you confirm that it was Eddie?

 

Well, that would require either my walking 30 feet to my copy of Atlas Shrugged and thumbing through it, hoping to spot the words "Eddie" or "Destroyer" - or, alternatively, my doing a Google search. I think you are equally qualified for these tasks. And since I'm not the one who made the point...

However, if memory serves, I think it was Dagny who said to Eddie that there was "a destroyer" loose in the world, and Eddie in turn mentioned her concern in those words to Clark Kent in the cafeteria. I seem to recall that she also at another point referred to Galt as "the" destroyer. You might start by checking out chapter 3 of the book...

REB

P.S. - Back in the good old days, when my Objectivism Research CD still worked, I could have easily looked this up for you. Sadly, it refuses to cooperate any longer...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

39 minutes ago, Roger Bissell said:

Back in the good old days, when my Objectivism Research CD still worked, I could have easily looked this up for you. Sadly, it refuses to cooperate any longer...

Roger,

Mine still does, but it stopped working for a while under Windows 8 (or was it 8.1?). I even talked to Phil Oliver about it and he was surprised.

I got around that using it on an older laptop computer.

It works just fine under Windows 10.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

I use Windows 7, but it might have been during the brief, disastrous Windows 8 experiment that the CD didn't work. I'll try it again...

REB

[Selene]

I did a simple search and did not get what I wanted.

However, I did not make the search terms precise enough. 

I will later today after the NCAA games.

My recollection confirms the "Clark Kent" scene.

I am pretty sure you are correct about Dagny also.

Thanks.

A...

[Ellen Stuttle]

The Destroyer 

I Googled on "she says there's a destroyer" (I recalled Eddie telling "the worker" that).

The passage is quoted in a lengthy analysis of Atlas' Chapter 13 on freerepublic.com:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2226963/replies?c=16

~~~ Start Quote

Eddie Willers appears entirely aware of what is going on, and refers the matter to his confidante in the Taggart cafeteria, the nameless and voiceless track worker to whom Eddie has come to pour out his heart.

“I feel that someone is screaming in the middle of the streets but people are passing by and no sound can reach them – and it’s not Hank Rearden or Ken Danagger or I who’s screaming, and yet it seems as if it’s all three of us…Rearden and Danagger were indicted this morning. They’ll go on trial next month. No…no, I’m not shaking, I’m all right, I’ll be all right in a moment…That’s why I haven’t said a word to her, I was afraid I’d explode and I didn’t want to make it harder for her…it’s not Hank Rearden that she’s afraid for, it’s Ken Danagger…she feels certain that Ken Danagger will be the next one to go…he’s a marked man…she says there’s a destroyer, that she won’t let him get Ken Danagger…”

Those might be imprudent words in the wrong ears, perhaps, but then the fellow is only a track worker after all. And yet next we see Dagny cooling her heels in Danagger’s office, and when finally she is allowed admittance, he’s gone. The strongest pillar supporting her collapsing world. Oh, he’s sitting in front of her, but he’s gone.

He looked at her bowed head and said gently, “You’re a brave person, Miss Taggart. I know what it’s costing you…don’t torture yourself. Let me go.”

The Destroyer has come and departed, taking Danagger with him. And all he’s left behind is a gold-stamped cigarette butt.

“I won’t say goodbye,” he [Danagger] said, “because I’ll be seeing you again in the not too distant future.”

“Oh,” she said eagerly, holding his hand clasped across the desk, “are you going to return?”

“No. You’re going to join me.

~~~ End Quote

Ellen

[Selene]

55 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

The Destroyer 

I Googled on "she says there's a destroyer" (I recalled Eddie telling "the worker" that).

The passage is quoted in a lengthy analysis of Atlas' Chapter 13 on freerepublic.com:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2226963/replies?c=16

~~~ Start Quote

Eddie Willers appears entirely aware of what is going on, and refers the matter to his confidante in the Taggart cafeteria, the nameless and voiceless track worker to whom Eddie has come to pour out his heart.

“I feel that someone is screaming in the middle of the streets but people are passing by and no sound can reach them – and it’s not Hank Rearden or Ken Danagger or I who’s screaming, and yet it seems as if it’s all three of us…Rearden and Danagger were indicted this morning. They’ll go on trial next month. No…no, I’m not shaking, I’m all right, I’ll be all right in a moment…That’s why I haven’t said a word to her, I was afraid I’d explode and I didn’t want to make it harder for her…it’s not Hank Rearden that she’s afraid for, it’s Ken Danagger…she feels certain that Ken Danagger will be the next one to go…he’s a marked man…she says there’s a destroyer, that she won’t let him get Ken Danagger…”

Those might be imprudent words in the wrong ears, perhaps, but then the fellow is only a track worker after all. And yet next we see Dagny cooling her heels in Danagger’s office, and when finally she is allowed admittance, he’s gone. The strongest pillar supporting her collapsing world. Oh, he’s sitting in front of her, but he’s gone.

He looked at her bowed head and said gently, “You’re a brave person, Miss Taggart. I know what it’s costing you…don’t torture yourself. Let me go.”

The Destroyer has come and departed, taking Danagger with him. And all he’s left behind is a gold-stamped cigarette butt.

“I won’t say goodbye,” he [Danagger] said, “because I’ll be seeing you again in the not too distant future.”

“Oh,” she said eagerly, holding his hand clasped across the desk, “are you going to return?”

“No. You’re going to join me.

~~~ End Quote

Ellen

Thank you Ellen.

I thought that was where he told the story.

It is interesting the analysis you posted with it.  In one of my readings of Atlas in the last ten (10), I decided to number the "clues" that Ayn planted about JG on each page.  

It was a type of "content analysis" that I learned in rhetorical analysis.  Additionally, it made good common sense as an analytical tool.

There were a lot of clues and they started much earlier than even I had surmised.

A... 

[Ellen Stuttle]

43 minutes ago, Selene said:

Thank you Ellen.

I thought that was where he told the story.

It is interesting the analysis you posted with it.  In one of my readings of Atlas in the last ten (10), I decided to number the "clues" that Ayn planted about JG on each page.  

It was a type of "content analysis" that I learned in rhetorical analysis.  Additionally, it made good common sense as an analytical tool.

There were a lot of clues and they started much earlier than even I had surmised.

A... 

There's further analysis of the chapter, plus philosophic reflection, in the freerepublic entry.  I don't agree with the metaphysical point the author makes re the "laws" of nature, and Rand's being inconsistent (the writer says) in rejecting the idea of God, but I found the analysis interesting.

Regarding clues: I felt sure, after a couple Eddie-and-worker scenes, that the worker was Galt, and I thought that Rand was intending this to be apparent to the reader.

Ellen

[Selene]

30 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

There's further analysis of the chapter, plus philosophic reflection, in the freerepublic entry.  I don't agree with the metaphysical point the author makes re the "laws" of nature, and Rand's being inconsistent (the writer says) in rejecting the idea of God, but I found the analysis interesting.

Regarding clues: I felt sure, after a couple Eddie-and-worker scenes, that the worker was Galt, and I thought that Rand was intending this to be apparent to the reader.

Ellen

Agreed.

One of the reasons that I did that aspect of "content analysis" was precisely because I felt the same way.

I hope I still have the copy where I started numbering the "hints."

You sparked my curiosity.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

43 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

There's further analysis of the chapter, plus philosophic reflection, in the freerepublic entry.  I don't agree with the metaphysical point the author makes re the "laws" of nature, and Rand's being inconsistent (the writer says) in rejecting the idea of God, but I found the analysis interesting.

Regarding clues: I felt sure, after a couple Eddie-and-worker scenes, that the worker was Galt, and I thought that Rand was intending this to be apparent to the reader.

Ellen

Since the novel starts with "who is John Galt," a basic mystery is presented. It was pretty obvious from the start that the worker was he. That's because of the quality of the writing. You knew the author wouldn't just throw a "worker" in there only a worker. But the answer to the question wasn't "a worker" in the Terminal. The reader didn't know who he really was--all to be discovered. Yeah, he's JG--then after a few more times, just like Ellen, you have absolutely no doubt. It compounds the mystery.  I think the reader experience on this was/is common and expected by Rand. My experience dovetails with Ellen's perfectly.