Roger Bissell

MY "portrait of evangelicals"?? How can I say this politely? M. Wuerker might beg to differ with your attribution. In case that's not clear enough: . REB

Looks like Cruz has definitely lost the evangelical vote:

Here's Milton Friedman on why illegal immigration should be kept illegal (hint: we have a welfare state). Could somebody please see that this video is sent to the geniuses running the Drumpf and Cruzafix campaigns? REB

I won't watch it. It's not HD. I felt that way at first, too, Brant. In particular, I thought the lack of high definition was the cause of all the jiggling in the video image. Then I realized the "objects" actually were jiggling, and I relaxed and enjoyed it. REB

Crystal balls and cartoon knobs - sounds like a bad porno movie title. Good job on the commentary and the sound track. "I Can Help" was one of my favorite songs-I-love-to-hate from decades ago. Speaking of For Whom the Crow's Served (the GOP nomination result), perhaps you heard in the news today that Cruz and Kasich have formed a Stop Trump alliance? Kasich is pulling out of the Indiana primary campaign, and Cruz is likewise pulling out of the Oregon and New Mexico campaigns. I haven't looked yet to see if there is any notice and discussion of this over on the Drumpf thread. But on the face of it, it seems like a really big deal. We'll see whether it keeps Drumpf from attaining the magic number - or the near-enough-to-the-magic-number-number. REB

Of all the things to find myself in agreement about with Herr Drumpf! I wasn't sure whether to post this here or over on the Drumpf thread. But since it's about a prediction Drumpf made about Hillary, here ya go, sports fans: http://www.americanpatriotdaily.com/latest/donald-trump-just-made-this-shocking-prediction-about-hillary-clinton/ REB

Ed, you do kick butt and you are making "a dent in the universe." But I can only guess at what you mean by having "developed thick skin" and "being dumped on for years," considering how I've been lauded and honored and praised to the rafters all across the Objectivist spectrum for decades. Anyway, keep up the good work! (Imagine applause or thumbs-up emoticon inserted here. ) REB

I hope you realize that this does not prove that Donald Trump is not Gail Wynand. (Actually, I think Drumpf is more of an amalgam of Gail Wynand, Peter Keating, and Lois Cook. Electing him would be, to borrow the words of Tamara Balderas, "essentially putting a monkey on the throne.") REB

People say the darnedest things in Rand-land. But in no corner, spot, neighborhood, or microclimate have I ever heard that Ayn Rand shouldn't have gone on Phil Donahue's show, because that, at the mildest, was casting the pearls without the pork chop. Perhaps this is an unfair comparison, but Milton Friedman gave the most eloquent defense of (private) greed, while Donahue looked on like the proverbial deer in the headlights. (I gloat at his discomfiture every time I watch the video.) One of the most socially beneficial things about YouTube is that Friedman's stunningly good appearance is still there for people to watch. I think it will persuade far more people of the morality of rational self-interest than all of Rand's public appearances combined. Of course, there is the spin-off benefit that people will be intrigued enough by Rand's comments to actually read her books and learn of the philosophy that way, but she is really not very persuasive in person. To me, anyway. And this is true of many worthwhile thinkers, not just Rand. They've got the written word nailed, but when speaking to people, they come across as stiff or cranky or not quite in the same world as the rest of us. I especially see this in Rand's Donahue appearances. Should she have refrained from going on the show? Depends on what she was after. If it was to win friends and influence people by the sheer personal power of her live presentation, definitely not. (I don't know whether she was aware of how awkward and unpleasant she came across in person.) But if it was to be a human billboard or advertisement for her written works, absolutely yes, and for the same reason that the Atlas Shrugged movies, as mediocre as they were, were very effective as publicity. REB

On the other hand, they are both noted for blowing up abominations. Roark blew up the Cortlandt Building, and Drumpf is in the process of blowing up the Republican Party (actually, whether it nominates him or not). REB

Ignorant as I am of the historical record on this matter - as well as unsure of what constitutes "normality" in the aftermath of inconclusive first ballots - I'd like to know your basis for saying this, Robert. Not knowing what you may know, I would simply assume that whether the leading candidate's support collapses depends on a number of factors, including who has the "momentum" going into the convention, how much an inconclusive first ballot undermines the "inevitability" of the leading candidates, etc. So please share what you know about this, OK? Thanks in advance. REB

I think this is just wishful thinking. I don't wish it were wishful thinking. I just think it is. The latest polling shows Drumpf with a double-digit lead in California. That's not likely to change. Also, polling shows Hillary leading Drumpf more than either Cruz or Kasich. That is not an artifact of there still being 3 candidates in the GOP race or 2 candidates in the Democrat race. The GOP doesn't want the candidate who (supposedly) has the best (or only?) chance of beating Hillary. The three issues Hillary will whack Drumpf with in the fall are his sexism, his "racism," and his not being enough of a redistributionist. Once she works him over with her collectivist-altruist billy club, he will be lying dazed and bleeding in the ditch, wondering what went wrong. "The Anatomy of Compromise" 101 is my reference for this. And if somehow Drumpf prevails against Hillary (perhaps if she is indicted), Obama will go wink-wink-nod-nod and the Federal Reserve will pull the plug on "quantitative easing," and we will go into a huge recession, and after Drumpf is sworn in, we will hear no more talk of cutting individual and corporate taxes, and no more talk of repealing Obamacare. Instead, we will hear calls for more bailouts and relief programs not to make America "great" again, but to keep America from going completely down the drain. (When all they really need to do is keep the government the hell out of the way...) REB

William, it's interesting that you mentioned PDS but not me. I take this (as part of my now-on, now-off pattern of mild paranoia) to indicate your belief that I, by contrast, do have the reputation of "a person who cannot admit wrong." At least, in the "eyes" of one or more of the Trumpenprotelariat on the Drumpf and related threads. I'm sure that part of it is true, even if you didn't intend to allude to it. After all, anyone who opposes their realistic, objective orientation must be a rigid, deeply invested dogmatist, a religious, righteous mentality, close kin to the religionist conservatives. (Else, why favor the creepy religionist Cruz over the MAGNIFICENT creator-builder Drumpf?) This also may indicate some of the downside to blocking some of the posters on OL. For all I know, Princess Minne-Heh-Heh has run rampant, accusing me of hitting and running, making assertions that are proven wrong, but not admitting my errors. Specifically in re errors of prediction, I appreciate PDF's comments. I have to point out, though, that there are (at least) two kinds of predictions in politics. One is simply who will win a given horse race - and, yes, what is so bad or disgraceful about being wrong on such a prediction? It's just like a football game or Olympic event - rah, rah, our team won, yours lost, haha, boohoo. Until and unless it's made a contest between good and evil, and then it's: you are one of the bad guys, and you stubbornly refused to join us, so if you lose, you got what you deserved, and if you win, you cheated and robbed us, but in either case, you're evil, and our patience is running thin, and if you ever admit you picked the wrong side, it might be too late, and we might shun and ostracize you, or we might magnanimously let you in but you'll have to go to the back of the bus and shut up and let us do the talking, because you're dogmatic and mentally/morally defective and not to be trusted with the awesome responsibility of upholding the good and the right. The other is whether a result which is actually bad for people will soon happen, as the result of some election outcome. We're told that Drumpf, for instance, will change toward more positive, sensible policies once elected and once he confronts the political and economic realities and gets some intelligent advisors to shoo him away from promoting dumb, counterproductive policies. Failing that, it won't matter all that much anyway, and gosh wasn't it fun poking the socialist left and the GOP Establishment in the eye. So, it's win-win, or win-not lose so badly-and enjoy the agony of your losing opponents. I'm sure the liberal Democrats loved stomping the evul conservative GOP candidate and his supporters back in 1964 and thought that getting to have the War on Poverty was a great bonus (though trillions spent and the poverty line hasn't budged in 50 years)...until the first big wave of 55,000 young people started coming home in body bags. What will it take for people to realize how awful it is for Drumpf or Hillary to have won? What would they take as evidence or proof? And what will keep them from attaching that evidence or proof not to the winning Presidential candidate, but to the previous President or to their opponents in Congress (if there are any) or the media? That's what Obama and the Dem's have been doing since he took office - blame it on George W. Bush and/or the "obstructionist" Congress and/or the greedy bastards on Wall Street. But look a little more closely at the "transformation-once-elected" idea. The Trumpenproletariat say that Drumpf will change for the better, and then you'll see that he was a good guy after all, just like we were saying. In other words, his Howard Roark mask may not do a good job of obscuring his rude, sexist, unprincipled persona, but that is just a mask, too, and beneath that is the true Howard Roark guy who stood tall and strong against obstacles and created businesses, buildings, and thousands of jobs. A Howard Roark who doesn't run off to work in a quarry and doesn't blow up buildings that weren't built to his specs. Why he's better than Howard Roark! Actually, the insinuation is that he's kind of like Francisco d'Anconia. Francisco was a good and noble man, but he put on the persona of a blighter, a spendthrift playboy, as a kind of camouflage to cover his drive to accomplish the destruction of a corrupt system. The question should be not: is Drumpf like Roark, but is Drumpf like Francisco? Does he have any kind of noble scheme behind the superficial populist hoohah - or is that really all there is? Is he really just another Pragmatist power-seeker, who figured out the system's Achilles heel and is exploiting it in an end-run around the system (which he refuses to learn how to work)? Looks that way to me. Then the only question is: if we have such a crass, power-seeking Pragmatist in office, what will he try to impose on us as part of making America "great" again? Because that will be in the rhetoric tied to any and all of the legislation he asks for and the Executive Orders he makes. We really don't have a clue - except that if he betrays the people who think Mexico and China and traitorous corporations and illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from Americans, or if he actually replaces Obamacare with anything better than an extension of Medicare and elimination of the mandate, we perhaps should hope that his Vice President rules with more intelligence and principle than Herr Drumpf. (How long has it been since some over-wrought wack-job has taken a potshot at a sitting President? Not counting the shoe an Iraqi newsman threw at W in a news conference in Baghdad.) REB

And yet, the voters did not once, but twice. Remember Hope and Change and vague promises to "fundamentally transform our system"? Is it sane and non-naive to believe that the Trascists with their ignorance-based and anger-motivated policy proposals and their pompous, vacuous promises to "make America great again" would be any less damaging to our economy and national defense than the Obamanations have been? REB

Korben, Well, Trump is making a decision about corn-based ethanol, in any event. Why not make the push you are talking about right now? What is Trump waiting for? Did he declare in favor of corn-based ethanol simply because Ted Cruz was against it? Robert PS. In light of the efficiency of American agriculture in 2016, or the percentage of the population that works in it, I don't see how you can be serious about diverting corn into ethanol production, damaging car engines for no discernible environmental benefit, in order to save the small number of jobs that would be affected. Let's hope Trump holds no stake in any Iowa ethanol plants. This whole ethanol bit is a perfect example of the insanity gripping our country and the government's meddling in the economy. It's like forcing people to subsidize candle-making and horse-cart driving, in order to "save jobs" - not realizing all the productive, resource-maximizing jobs that could have been created, if the taxpayers had been allowed to spend their money on things they wanted instead. If it were possible to forcibly imprint in everyone's minds the wisdom and knowledge in Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson , by slipping some chemical into the water supply, I would cheerfully do it. The absence of that information from people's minds, and the presence of envy and altruism in far too many people's minds, is destroying us. It's only a matter of time, unless something far greater than the Trascists put a stop to the now-creeping-soon-galloping socialism-fascism taking over our land. REB

Weird - there is no "quote" function here. Had to use copy and paste...so, here are my comments: I think that's how it's going to end up, too. Except it will be just the beginning of the end... REB What are you guys going to do if it turns out to be a landslide for Drumpf as president against Hillary? Rend your garments? Mend your evil ways? Do the unthinkable and say, "I was wrong?" 1 Interesting that MI(chael)ST(uart)KE(lly) = MISTAKE is so preoccupied or concerned with what "you guys" are going to do if OUR predictions are wrong - but I haven't seen anything from him (though I haven't read all the past 83,632 posts) about what HE will do in such a case. MISTAKE wonders whether and how we will prostrate ourselves and admit that our predictions were incorrect. As if it wouldn't be obvious without our also admitting it. What's obvious is that admitting our fallibility is not the point, but humbling ourselves before his (MISTAKE's) MAGNIFICENCE and CORRECTNESS. I'll tell you what I am "going to do" if Drumpf wins a landslide: the same thing I'm going to do if he wins by a modest or narrow margin, or Hillary wins by a narrow or modest margin or landslide. I'm going to take whatever practical steps I can to offset the fact that if EITHER of them is elected, America will be less prosperous and less safe than we are now, which is less prosperous and less safe than we were 8 years ago. which is less prosperous and less safe than we were 16 years ago. It is pitiful, naive, self-deception to think that Drumpf is going to be any better for the economy than Hillary - and in particular, for the economic well-being of average citizens, who depend on getting the most affordable prices they can for the things they need, which will become more expensive under Drumpf's proposed tariff/balance of trade policies. And if he's not going to enact those policies - and the other alleged reforms he is appealing to Yahoo-America with - then why the hell vote him in? If he "keeps us out of war" and degrades our ability to defend ourselves (by pulling out of NATO and by not restoring the strength of the military, which Obama has gutted), then how are we more secure - just because he says he will build a wall and make Mexico pay for it? Rush and Sean seem to have hitched their wagon to whoever has the best chance of beating Hillary AND being nominated. Yet, all the polls show that Drumpf is the dead last guy in line for beating Hillary. So, his function - like Goldwater's in 1964 - would be simply to give the ruling statist clique the middle finger and turn the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court over to the Democrats, but worse, at a point in history when we simply cannot afford for that to happen. (Though it's going to happen anyway, whether we can afford it or not.) Cruz may be able to beat Hillary, and the outcome might be somewhat better for the country, though I doubt he can or that it would. Kasich might be able to beat Hillary, though I think she would rip him to shreds in the debates - and that even if he did somehow beat her, nothing much would change from how it is now. Plus, he would nominate "moderate" (i.e., liberal) judges for SCOTUS, so there goes the High Court. I'm sure there are thousands like me, if not more, who see it this way - and it may be the case that the combined effect of our negativity and pessimism (though I call it realism) will have the appearance of a voodoo hex on the future outcome of the election and our country's well-being. But that makes about as much sense as blaming the people who sold short in 1929 for causing the stock market crash and the Great Depression. As if our saying nothing negative would keep anything negative from happening - subjective "wishing will make it so" or, in this case, "not predicting, will make it less likely to happen." I don't know how much of this superstitious rot plays into people's thinking, but I wouldn't be surprised if some GOP folk, even CINO, LINO, and OINO (conservative, libertarian, Objectivist in name only) entertain such mental goofiness. But to wind up my comments: no, it is not unthinkable to admit I was wrong. I admit it every day and twice on Thursday. But our friend MISTAKE, I'm worried about. He seems to rapturously cling to the inevitability and desirability of Drumpf. He explains away all of Drumpf's bad ideas and minimal thinking processes and points to buildings and businesses he has built, as though that qualifies him to repair a seriously damaged country. No principles, just anger and arm-waving and threats to China, Mexico, and the Establishment and vague promises to workers and middle-class Americans and people afraid of terrorists and illegal immigrants destroying their communities and taking their jobs. I'm sorry if this all sounds like repetitive talking points, but I'm rapidly approaching the point where I simply don't want to talk about politics any more. So many of our libertarian and Objectivist comrades either want to embrace the most convenient alternative to a known demoness - or to abandon their principles as "not applicable" in the present situation (we need a "transitional" President) - or both. I think that is a very dangerous policy. We've had a transitional President for 8 years now, transitioning us to full-tilt, mixed socialism-fascism. What would a President Drumpf transition us to? What would be better in the direction we want to go, under his leadership and policies? As noted above, I don't think he's going to do much more than reshuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic, while waving his arms and demanding that people make a deal with him, or they're "fired." REB P.S. - William, you may use any portion of this for a submarine transmission that you like, changing or omitting names to protect the clueless where appropriate.

I think that's how it's going to end up, too. Except it will be just the beginning of the end... REB

Sorry, should have checked the authenticity of that supposed Bill-and-Hillary photo. REB

But Drumpf isn't going to rule. Hillary will march up to the throne and take the crown and scepter, and Drumpf will go back to making billions and figuring out which corners to cut on people's Constitutional rights when they get in his way, Howard Roark type that he is REB

I agree. There's so much of this that is parallel to, or reminiscent of, Obama's selective enforcement of federal law, it's hard to see Drumpf as ruling as anything other than yet another statist thug (politician) indulging his own personal preferences as to what goes and what stays, what gets enforced and what gets ignored. Constitutional oath of office? WTF is that? Mere words you utter before being given the keys to the People's Palace. REB

Oh, Cruz can. The problem is I don't think enough voters want that much of a conservative as POTUS. I think the popular vote will be 52/48 against him and the electoral worse. Another problem--like I said before--is his face can't keep up with his brain so he tends to keep it too much in neutral. Not good for a politician. You may be right, Brant, but I tend to think that because altruism has so deeply rotted out our culture and politics, anyone running against a committed, pushy altruist on the left (like Hillary) will be pressed to go leftward (and welfare-ward) himself in order to defuse smear-claims that he is "not even" Christian enough to care about the needy and those (like women and minorities) who are economically deprived and underpaid. Trump has already indicated that he will not let the (supposed) repeal of Obamacare compromise the providing of medical care to those who would otherwise be bleeding in the streets - code for: we're not touching Medicaid or Medicare, and if we have to increase or expand them, we just will. I think that if the GOP pick is Cruz rather than Trump, he - by virtue of his cross-on-his-sleeve approach - will have his religion rubbed in his face and his hypocrisy made the focus of Hillary's attacks. (If he's not even Christian enough to play fair with his Republican opponents, how can we expect him to treat women and minorities and the poor and the sick fairly?) This is Ayn Rand "The Anatomy of Compromise" come home to roost, as I see it - and it won't be pretty. Republican and social-conservative pea-shooters are no match for Hillary's nuclear ammo, and she won't be shy in using it. If Trump is the GOP pick, as soon as they discuss domestic policy in the fall debates, he won't know what hit him. He'll tap dance and back pedal and make generous offers (on the taxpayers' behalf, of course), in order to duck her broadsides, but he will appear to be "me, too," and she will appear to be the "real deal." And that's why she will win. REB

Just curious - would you also say that Tara Smith is a hack and a sleazeball? In her book on Rand's ethics, she relied heavily on borrowed ideas, including especially self-esteem, which she hilariously attributed to Leonard Peikoff. For that matter, what about Leonard Peikoff? I'm just trying to clarify whether the uncited borrowing of ideas by ARI writers is the sign specifically of sleazeballishness and hackery, or if there are other syndromes or character flaws that such intellectual stealth point to instead (or as well). REB

It doesn't matter whom the Republicans nominate this year. There's no one who can or will stand up to Hillary. Once the candidates get to the fall televised debates, and she unleashes the full force of her horrid, abrasive, righteousness behind the morality of altruism - welfare statism, politically correct statism, etc. - the GOP candidate will fall all over himself to prove that he isn't as cruel and heartless as Evita's smear attacks paint him as being. All of his planned attacks on her character and record will boomerang, as she "proves" how much she wants to do to unite an already great country, and how "greatness" without unity (and loads of redistribution and forced acceptance of the differences of others) can never bring us together or keep us great. And then, in November, the GOP would-be POTUS will fall into the electoral ditch, dazed and bleeding from a landslide defeat, wondering what happened to his hopes to beat this lying, corrupt, malevolent witch in the race for the White House. And then the rest of us will have to put up with 4-8 years of her. And no, she isn't just a little worse than Bill. She's a lot worse. And she will have a Democratic Congress to work with. And the golden opportunity to nominate 2-3-4 Supreme Court justices, ensuring liberal-leaning decisions for the next generation. Our only hope, if there is one, is that Trump's bull-in-the-china-shop machinations will have succeeded, one way or another, in destroying the Republican Party, so that a new, better, more individual liberty oriented party can emerge that will push for more economic freedom, civil liberties, and non-interventionistic foreign policy. And no, there is no "transition" candidate who can get us there, only some who might have slowed the progress toward the cliff, while others in unguarded moments give indications that they would be little different from the turkey presently in the White House. REB

For Trump hardly anything exists other than himself. That is an overdose of "self esteem". 1. Let me get this straight: Schwartz has been awarded the title by his peers of "Distinguished Fellow." Apparently, they regarded him with enough esteem to award him that title. (I doubt he awarded it to himself.) So, by your way of thinking (?), MSK, the man who is awarded (by his university) the title of Professor Emeritus and uses that title when writing an article or when being introduced is "the man who's gotta call himself "distinguished" in public because no one else will." Well, I suppose you would also reason (?) that since I have recently been named a research fellow at an institute, if I used my title like Schwartz or the emeritus prof does his, I would similarly demonstrate my lack of self-esteem - and thus really be laughable and crazy if I commented on the lack of self-esteem of someone you, MSK, admire. Good fricking god - I would expect such an attitude from an envious, low-self-esteem "under-achiever." What's your excuse? 2. The clique of "neurotic bickering underachievers" you're referring to have turned out an awful lot of books in the past decade. How many of them have you read? Schwartz himself has published one on foreign policy and one on ethics. How many books or articles have you published, MSK, and where might one purchase them? 3. When was the last time you had a gatekeeper problem with ARI? Why were you wanting to get in? Was this before or after you discerned what a pathetic group of neurotic underachievers they were? REB

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/04/13/a-new-electoral-map-model-finds-hillary-clinton-crushing-donald/21343655/?cps=gravity_4816_-6779503048815341813 I don't know who this Morning Consult bunch is (www.morningconsult.com), but I wouldn't be surprised if George Soros is behind it. He has not only given huge hunks of money to Democratic candidates and groups like MoveOn.org, but also generous amounts to John Kasich. For the GOP to nominate Kasich would be win-win in November for Soros. If anyone other than Kasich is nominated by the GOP, the party goes down in flames and loses the Senate and perhaps even the House. If Kasich is nominated and wins, there goes the Supreme Court (no difference, essentially, from a victory by Bernie or Hillary). Time to bug-out soon? REB