Donald Trump

[Backlighting]

58 minutes ago, Peter said:

The patient suffers from an uncontrolled, reflexive urge to lie to the American public. Recommended treatment: Retirement from public life. 

...and take Bill the pervert with her.  -J

[Peter]

Hurrah, Backlighting! And take pervert Bill out of the public eye. The person who wiped Hillary’s hard drive just pleaded the fifth.

Below, Robert Tracinski uses the wrong examples, quotes, and hard evidence as reasons to vote for Donald Trump. (Of course, Tracinski won’t vote for DJ anyway, because he lives in the commie state of Virginia, so his vote even though it might add to the plurality, is going to be for someone who can’t win, either Gary Johnson, or mr. nobody.) I don’t think Robert has ever been to Trump’s site or retained anything he has heard about Trump, other than a vote for DJ is a vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger, either in the personae of Conan The Barbarian or The Terminator.

Here is why all objectivists and libertarians must vote for DJ. To keep Clinton from destroying our country. To restrict illegal immigration and terrorists from entering America. To retain our FREE, capitalist economy and to reform our trade deals that are not in our rational self-interest. To reform healthcare and get rid of socialized medicine which will destroy our freedoms. To support our veterans and all first responders like the police, firemen, and EMT personnel. To keep our second amendment rights. To select the best Supreme Court nominees. I think several Supreme Court justices are more likely to retire if they know Donald Trump will pick their successors. To ignore social justice warriors and progressive, political correctness. And to uphold The Constitution. Let’s get rid of “politics as usual.”

Peter

Tracinski wrote today, on 9/13: The MH370 Election. I observed recently that there is not much in the way of a broader trend of Trumpism within the Republican Party, at least not one that has been reflected so far in down-ballot elections. Part of the reason is because there is no real philosophy of Trumpism, and there are few intellectual defenses of Trump. I can speculate as to a few reasons why. But the closest thing to such an intellectual defense has popped up in a pseudonymous post at the Claremont Review which makes the case for treating this as "The Flight 93 Election."

"2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You--or the leader of your party--may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees. Except one: if you don't try, death is certain."

Notice that this still isn't really a case for Trump so much as a case against Hillary Clinton, our harbinger of "certain death," with Trump offered as the lesser of two evils or at least as the devil we don't know. But notice the main reason we're supposed to accept him as that alternative. To get to it, you have to wade through a lot of insufferable bluster about how everybody else on the right is a useless coward--this, from a guy who doesn't even have the guts to use his own damn name. But here, finally, is the reason: "only in a corrupt republic, in corrupt times, could a Trump rise."

A message that boils down to "vote for Trump because you're so rotten and degraded that he's the best you deserve" is not exactly inspiring, and it is not likely to appeal to anyone not already converted. But a certain degree of nihilism was already baked into the premise of the article. The passengers on Flight 93 may have had a better chance by storming the cockpit than by remaining in their seats--but the plane still crashed.

What is lacking in this article, and in the entire case for Trump, from top to bottom, is exactly how Trump is an answer to any of this corruption. The article is full of broad ideological complaints, some of which I agree with and some of which I definitely don't. But it gives no real reason to believe that Trump, who has no coherent philosophy of government or of life, is going to change our direction. Except one: he will keep out "Third World foreigners." This is the shallowest possible diagnosis of our cultural problems, and the least effectual cure, but among a certain faction it has become a monomania. It's a true Know-Nothing revival that is willing to throw away the entire agenda of liberty if it can just keep out the foreign hordes.

I think there is a much better analogy for the Trump candidacy: this is the MH370 election. Like the still-unaccounted-for Malaysian airplane, this is a mystery flight, and we don't know where it's going or how or whether we're going to get back. Trump is an ideological black box whose actual policies in office are likely to be a surprise even to himself. He represents four years of veering off course into the unknown. And here's the creepy, ominous thing about MH370. We still don't really know what happened, but some of the early indications were that the flight continued off course for many miles and possibly many hours, without anyone apparently noticing or making corrections. This led to some speculation that it continued for many miles as a "zombie flight," with its passengers and crew either dead or incapacitated.

In my mind, that's the real danger posed by Trump: not that he takes us off course, but that he incapacitates the crew. It's the argument I've fleshed out before. Trump isn't merely an imperfect candidate. He's someone who disables the ideological guidance system of the only major pro-liberty party.

To the extent that his presidency means we spend another four years expecting intellectuals on the right to swallow their ideological scruples, and to the extent Trump's success breeds hangers-on and imitators who embrace his Putin-style nationalism, we could end up flying the ship of state with a crew who are paralyzed.

I'm just an observer in this election. Despite what Donald Trump's campaign is saying, I don't expect the state of Virginia to be in play, so I don't expect my vote to matter. But it strikes me that if we're going to stay off course for another four years, we might as well have a crew who are alert to the danger, aware of some actual solutions, and spending the whole time putting out fires and frantically waving their arms in an attempt to wake up the passengers. That means that we're going to need people who have not agreed to put on blinders in the name of reflexive partisan loyalty to Trump.

Maybe we are too far gone for that, and the flight is as doomed as they say. Personally, I think prognostications of total doom are exaggerated, which is part of the reason I'm not so eager to risk crashing the plane. But if things are really that bad, I suggest that the solution lies, as it usually does, outside the realm of politics. If we're so rotten we got Trump as our political savior, then our most urgent necessity is to work on becoming less rotten.

Which, come to think of it, is good advice in any case. Moral reform movements have succeeded in the past, quite often and quite spectacularly, and this year is conclusive proof that we're in need of some moral reform. After November, maybe people will even be interested in hearing about that. 

[Peter]

In 2002, on Starship Forum, Dr. Linda Thompson of the American Justice Federation wrote about The Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to The U.S. Constitution): . . .  the MOST IMPORTANT PART of the Bill of Rights (is) the PREAMBLE which tells SPECIFICALLY that the Bill of Rights was to make sure the government knew it was limited to the powers stated in the Constitution and if it didn't, the amendments were rights of the people the government couldn't screw with. Our revisionist historians ALWAYS leave this off the Constitution!!! Here's a copy!!!

Effective December 15, 1791: Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

PREAMBLE: The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.

---

The first ten amendments are "declaratory and restrictive clauses". This means they supersede all other parts of our Constitution and restrict the powers of our Constitution.

There are people in this country that do not want you to know that these two sentences ever existed. For many years these words were "omitted" from copies of our Constitution. Public and private colleges alike have based their whole interpretation of our Constitution on the fraudulent version of this text. Those corrupt individuals have claimed that the amendments can be changed by the will of the people. By this line of reasoning the amendments are open to interpretation. This is a clever deception. The Bill of Rights is separate from the other amendments. The Bill of Rights is a declaration of restrictions to the powers of our Constitution. The Bill of Rights restricts the Constitution. The Constitution restricts the powers of government. The deception is that the government can interpret the all of the amendments and the Constitution itself. Without the presence of the Preamble to the Bill of Rights this may be a valid argument. End the deception. end quote

Mr. Trump, when and if we change the Constitution we must keep one principle as an absolute. Any Rand wrote: “There is only one basic principle to which an individual must consent if he wishes to live in a free, civilized society: the principle of renouncing the use of physical force and delegating to the government his right of physical self-defense, for the purpose of an orderly, objective, legally defined enforcement. Or, to put it another way, he must accept *the separation of force and whim* (any whim including his own). Such in essence is the proper purpose of a Government: to make social existence possible to men, by protecting the benefits and combating the evils which men can cause to one another.”

Peter

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Peter said:

In 2002, on Starship Forum, Dr. Linda Thompson of the American Justice Federation wrote about The Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to The U.S. Constitution): . . .  the MOST IMPORTANT PART of the Bill of Rights (is) the PREAMBLE which tells SPECIFICALLY that the Bill of Rights was to make sure the government knew it was limited to the powers stated in the Constitution and if it didn't, the amendments were rights of the people the government couldn't screw with. Our revisionist historians ALWAYS leave this off the Constitution!!! Here's a copy!!!

Effective December 15, 1791: Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

PREAMBLE: The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.

---

The first ten amendments are "declaratory and restrictive clauses". This means they supersede all other parts of our Constitution and restrict the powers of our Constitution.

There are people in this country that do not want you to know that these two sentences ever existed. For many years these words were "omitted" from copies of our Constitution. Public and private colleges alike have based their whole interpretation of our Constitution on the fraudulent version of this text. Those corrupt individuals have claimed that the amendments can be changed by the will of the people. By this line of reasoning the amendments are open to interpretation. This is a clever deception. The Bill of Rights is separate from the other amendments. The Bill of Rights is a declaration of restrictions to the powers of our Constitution. The Bill of Rights restricts the Constitution. The Constitution restricts the powers of government. The deception is that the government can interpret the all of the amendments and the Constitution itself. Without the presence of the Preamble to the Bill of Rights this may be a valid argument. End the deception. end quote

Mr. Trump, when and if we change the Constitution we must keep one principle as an absolute. Any Rand wrote: “There is only one basic principle to which an individual must consent if he wishes to live in a free, civilized society: the principle of renouncing the use of physical force and delegating to the government his right of physical self-defense, for the purpose of an orderly, objective, legally defined enforcement. Or, to put it another way, he must accept *the separation of force and whim* (any whim including his own). Such in essence is the proper purpose of a Government: to make social existence possible to men, by protecting the benefits and combating the evils which men can cause to one another.”

Peter

The Preamble is not law.  It is a motherhood statement to guide the understanding of the legal parts of the document.  

[Brant Gaede]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The Preamble is not law.  It is a motherhood statement to guide the understanding of the legal parts of the document.  

Yes. How the Constitution is interpreted is law and interpretation can easily take in the Preamble. In that sense the Declaration of Independence could be used as a preamble to the Constitution generally.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

13 hours ago, Peter said:

In my mind, that's the real danger posed by Trump: not that he takes us off course, but that he incapacitates the crew. It's the argument I've fleshed out before. Trump isn't merely an imperfect candidate. He's someone who disables the ideological guidance system of the only major pro-liberty party.

To the extent that his presidency means we spend another four years expecting intellectuals on the right to swallow their ideological scruples, and to the extent Trump's success breeds hangers-on and imitators who embrace his Putin-style nationalism, we could end up flying the ship of state with a crew who are paralyzed.

Peter,

This crap from Tracinski is exactly the kind of crap I have been arguing against with in this entire Trump election.

The fact that Tracinski is incapable of looking at a man's accomplishments in life and not discern his philosophy means he might have read Atlas Shrugged, but he didn't understand a goddam word in it. 

That's a serious charge, I know, but I'm sick of people who says idiot things like Trump "disables the ideological guidance system" and demands right-wingers to "swallow their ideological scruples" and crap like that. Trump does no such thing. He just uses different words and ties what he means to reality by building skyscrapers, demanding excellence, and things like that. And he stands up to bullies.

What he has done is shown our learned intellectuals (many of them) clearly how THEIR jargon is not connected to reality. He's done it by showing different realities that these learned souls had forgotten existed, even when it was right in front of them staring them in the face over decades.

 

1. The very first reality is that if you support endless war for profit, you are supporting murder for hire. I know a crapload of Objectivist, libertarian and conservative intellectuals who have supported endless war for profit over the years--not explicitly stated as such, but in their constant sucking up to the endless war for profit elite.  

They have treated this topic as something nobody really needs to do anything about just so long as you bitch about it once in awhile. If they say they don't like something (like objecting to offering up America's young for a war American leaders refuse to win) and sprinkle in jargon about individual rights, the constitution, and so on, they act like they have discharged their moral duty. But do something? Hell... it's cross your arm times. After all, what can any individual do? Bitching is easy and you don't have to do a lot of it to cover your ass. And you can keep being the go-to guy for freedom ideas.

What's worse, in practice, this becomes a perversion of freedom ideology. It's a form of keeping rational people who would actually do something about endless war for profit from doing anything. Why? Because when you frame soaring prose about principles and so on in a certain manner, readers get to feel morally good about themselves without doing a damn thing. This is quite a nice little con game as these "intellectual superiors" keep getting their paychecks for it.

How do they do this? Easy. They talk one thing, support those--like establishment Republicans--who do the opposite, then muddy the idea-to-reality fit all over the place with secondary social issues (like abortion, gay marriage and so on). And they bash those--like Trump--who intend to actually fix the problem (and can fix it based on their past achievements--fixing problems is what producers do for a living).

 

2. The second reality is the nature of the people who are currently carrying America on its back--normal honest productive hard working people, whether business owners or employees.

Rand did a beautiful job of showing the top level producers (the "men of the mind") in a productive society, but she mischaracterized crony capitalists as ONLY slimeballs who could not invent a window covering out of a large thin board during a rainstorm. (Many actually are, but not all of them.) She did not deal with people like Bill Gates in her formulation--that is, great inventors and wicked smart businesspeople in their youth who turn into collectivist power-mongering technocrats after they get some actual power and influence from the wealth they created and like the taste of it. 

So what do the intellectual warriors (many of them) in our subcommunity do? They treat the power-mongers like Gates as if he were the same person as in his youth. I'm saying Gates because he's an easy case, but there are oodles of people who fit what I am talking about. Our intellectual warriors (many of them) ignore the crap he now does--at best, they call it perplexing.

And, because of Rand's previous (and insightful) glorification of high-level producers, our current geniuses take this to mean that normal honest productive hard working people, as opposed to top-level folks like Gates, don't have a moral leg to stand on. The implication is they aren't all that smart, anyway--that they owe EVERYTHING THEY DO to the grace of the high-level people.

So when "these cattle moo" and say they want something or don't want it, it's safe for our geniuses to ignore them and keep living in abstract jargon-laced ideology-ville--one that, day by day, bears less and less resemblance to the reality of the country's slide into moral and political erosion. These geniuses are helping the slide and they close their eyes as they enjoy the ride.

For example, when the normal honest productive hard working people say they like and welcome immigrants but don't want a disorganized, unlawful and unvetted flood of poor folks, our genius intellectuals talk about freedom in jargon and tsk tsk tsk people for not thinking in principles and yada yada yada. They employ lots of shame tactics and they've done this crap for decades. They help elect politicians who speak out against disorganized, unlawful and unvetted immigration, but then the true nature of both emerges after the elections. The politicians don't make good on their word and the intellectuals keep supporting them anyway. 

Everybody knows that Democrat elites want illegal immigrants to jigger into government-dependent voters and that Republican crony capitalist elites want them for cheap labor. Everybody knows that except for our genius intellectuals. 

I'm also using immigration as an example. There are plenty of other issues where the elites ignore the voters. The one constant is that the normal honest productive hard working people have to keep paying for it all--and gradually losing what they have built--while the parasites, including the intellectuals who have sold out, keep receiving the fruits of the labors of others.

Oh... I forgot... there is another path. Normal honest productive hard working people could sell their souls and become one of the parasites... Ugh...

 

I could keep going on, but the real issue is abstract talk versus rational-talk-wedded-to-action. Or in simpler terms, those who say and those who do.

Our intellectuals (many of them) say, but don't do. Trump does, but he's not so great on intellectual jargon.

However, our intellectuals (many of them) hate him because his very existence exposes their hypocrisy and intellectual con game. They say it's because he's this or that, but it's really because they don't like their own image when they look in a mirror. Trump is the one man who should not have existed according to their abstractions. That's why they call him Hitler and so on.

But there he is. Just look at him. He's existing in all his glory for the whole world to see. And he's a producer, not a war-monger, power-grubbing statist, or intellectual con.

Yup, there Trump is along with gazillions of people who can't wait for all this to be over so they can get back to work and live their lives and dreams as they see fit.

It's a thing called freedom.

They want it back.

Our intellectuals (many of them) don't. They say they do, but they don't, not really... They want to keep their con rolling so they can keep being the guru and not worry about reality.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Peter,

This crap from Tracinski is exactly the kind of crap I have been arguing against with in this entire Trump election.

The fact that Tracinski is incapable of looking at a man's accomplishments in life and not discern his philosophy means he might have read Atlas Shrugged, but he didn't understand a goddam word in it. 

That's a serious charge, I know, but I'm sick of people who says idiot things like Trump "disables the ideological guidance system" and demands right-wingers to "swallow their ideological scruples" and crap like that. Trump does no such thing. He just uses different words and ties what he means to reality by building skyscrapers, demanding excellence, and things like that. And he stands up to bullies.

What he has done is shown our learned intellectuals (many of them) clearly how THEIR jargon is not connected to reality. He's done it by showing different realities that these learned souls had forgotten existed, even when it was right in front of them staring them in the face over decades.

 

1. The very first reality is that if you support endless war for profit, you are supporting murder for hire. I know a crapload of Objectivist, libertarian and conservative intellectuals who have supported endless war for profit over the years--not explicitly stated as such, but in their constant sucking up to the endless war for profit elite.  

They have treated this topic as something nobody really needs to do anything about just so long as you bitch about it once in awhile. If they say they don't like something (like objecting to offering up America's young for a war American leaders refuse to win) and sprinkle in jargon about individual rights, the constitution, and so on, they act like they have discharged their moral duty. But do something? Hell... it's cross your arm times. After all, what can any individual do? Bitching is easy and you don't have to do a lot of it to cover your ass. And you can keep being the go-to guy for freedom ideas.

What's worse, in practice, this becomes a perversion of freedom ideology. It's a form of keeping rational people who would actually do something about endless war for profit from doing anything. Why? Because when you frame soaring prose about principles and so on in a certain manner, readers get to feel morally good about themselves without doing a damn thing. This is quite a nice little con game as these "intellectual superiors" keep getting their paychecks for it.

How do they do this? Easy. They talk one thing, support those--like establishment Republicans--who do the opposite, then muddy the idea-to-reality fit all over the place with secondary social issues (like abortion, gay marriage and so on). And they bash those--like Trump--who intend to actually fix the problem (and can fix it based on their past achievements--fixing problems is what producers do for a living).

 

2. The second reality is the nature of the people who are currently carrying America on its back--normal honest productive hard working people, whether business owners or employees.

Rand did a beautiful job of showing the top level producers (the "men of the mind") in a productive society, but she mischaracterized crony capitalists as ONLY slimeballs who could not invent a window covering out of a large thin board during a rainstorm. (Many actually are, but not all of them.) She did not deal with people like Bill Gates in her formulation--that is, great inventors and wicked smart businesspeople in their youth who turn into collectivist power-mongering technocrats after they get some actual power and influence from the wealth they created and like the taste of it. 

So what do the intellectual warriors (many of them) in our subcommunity do? They treat the power-mongers like Gates as if he were the same person as in his youth. I'm saying Gates because he's an easy case, but there are oodles of people who fit what I am talking about. Our intellectual warriors (many of them) ignore the crap he now does--at best, they call it perplexing.

And, because of Rand's previous (and insightful) glorification of high-level producers, our current geniuses take this to mean that normal honest productive hard working people, as opposed to top-level folks like Gates, don't have a moral leg to stand on. The implication is they aren't all that smart, anyway--that they owe EVERYTHING THEY DO to the grace of the high-level people.

So when "these cattle moo" and say they want something or don't want it, it's safe for our geniuses to ignore them and keep living in abstract jargon-laced ideology-ville--one that, day by day, bears less and less resemblance to the reality of the country's slide into moral and political erosion. These geniuses are helping the slide and they close their eyes as they enjoy the ride.

For example, when the normal honest productive hard working people say they like and welcome immigrants but don't want a disorganized, unlawful and unvetted flood of poor folks, our genius intellectuals talk about freedom in jargon and tsk tsk tsk people for not thinking in principles and yada yada yada. They employ lots of shame tactics and they've done this crap for decades. They help elect politicians who speak out against disorganized, unlawful and unvetted immigration, but then the true nature of both emerges after the elections. The politicians don't make good on their word and the intellectuals keep supporting them anyway. 

Everybody knows that Democrat elites want illegal immigrants to jigger into government-dependent voters and that Republican crony capitalist elites want them for cheap labor. Everybody knows that except for our genius intellectuals. 

I'm also using immigration as an example. There are plenty of other issues where the elites ignore the voters. The one constant is that the normal honest productive hard working people have to keep paying for it all--and gradually losing what they have built--while the parasites, including the intellectuals who have sold out, keep receiving the fruits of the labors of others.

Oh... I forgot... there is another path. Normal honest productive hard working people could sell their souls and become one of the parasites... Ugh...

 

I could keep going on, but the real issue is abstract talk versus rational-talk-wedded-to-action. Or in simpler terms, those who say and those who do.

Our intellectuals (many of them) say, but don't do. Trump does, but he's not so great on intellectual jargon.

However, our intellectuals (many of them) hate him because his very existence exposes their hypocrisy and intellectual con game. They say it's because he's this or that, but it's really because they don't like their own image when they look in a mirror. Trump is the one man who should not have existed according to their abstractions. That's why they call him Hitler and so on.

But there he is. Just look at him. He's existing in all his glory for the whole world to see. And he's a producer, not a war-monger, power-grubbing statist, or intellectual con.

Yup, there Trump is along with gazillions of people who can't wait for all this to be over so they can get back to work and live their lives and dreams as they see fit.

It's a thing called freedom.

They want it back.

Our intellectuals (many of them) don't. They say they do, but they don't, not really... They want to keep their con rolling so they can keep being the guru and not worry about reality.

Michael

Trump buys and sells real estate and finances various erections.  What has he -invented-?   Compare Donald Trump (real estate capitalist)  to Edward Land (technology capitalist and Inventor).   Ed Land brought new technology to the market.  Trump puts his name in capital letters on his buildings.   If he is elected he will if not prevented put "TRUMP" on the white house dome.  Trump brought us gaudy gambling palaces and hotels.  Ed Land brought us instant photography and the best optical filters made. Did Trump ever fund any break-through or advance in building construction technique?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Did Trump ever fund any break-through or advance in building construction technique?

Did Howard Roark, even in fiction?

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Edward Land (technology capitalist and Inventor)...

Is Edward Land running for president?

I missed it if he is.

Let's talk about Hillary Clinton, the "technology capitalist and Inventor"...

 

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Just now, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Is Edward Land running for president?

I missed it if he is.

Let's talk about Hillary Clinton, the "technology capitalist and Inventor"...

 

Michael

Land is dead.  And if you bring up the fact that Trump is a capitalist then I have the right to ask what kind of capitalist he is.  In the novel Atlas Shrugged both Henry Reardon and  Orren  Boyle  ran steel  mills.  The resemblance ended there. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm probably impatient with Tracinski (and other of his kind) because I'm going through an audio version of Atlas Shrugged right now. (This is my fourth time going through AS. I read the book the other three times.)

I'm at the part right after the tunnel disaster.

It's amazing to me how Randian-based people in our subculture ignore wholesale chunks of Rand's explicit message as they go about talking in public about their own agendas...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 minute ago, BaalChatzaf said:

... you bring up the fact that Trump is a capitalist then I have the right to ask what kind of capitalist he is.

Bob,

Trump is the kind of capitalist who doesn't get profit if individual people don't buy his stuff of their own free will.

Where do the Clintons get their money from?

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

25 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

Trump is the kind of capitalist who doesn't get profit if individual people don't buy his stuff of their own free will.

Where do the Clintons get their money from?

Michael

That is not the issue I am addressing.  Of course Hillary is a Crony Friendly Statist  neo-fascist politician and she is NO kind of a business person.  I am comparing capitalist variety A to capitalist variety B.   I am not comparing  a business man to a political hack.  Since now  Trump is in a -political- contest  I must ask what sort of a politician (if he is any sort of politician)  he is or will likely be.  If Trump is elected he will no longer be just Trump the builder of ugly hotels   rather he will be the Commander and Chief of the greatest military machine the world has seen.  Trump (of questionable taste)  will have more power in his pudgy little hands  than did Alexander the Great have in his hands. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Trump (of questionable taste)  will have more power in his pudgy little hands  than did Alexander the Great have in his hands.

Bob,

And you want that power in the hands of whom?

Michael

[Jules Troy]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward–Piven_strategy

Hillary is a wet dream for these guyyyyyyys....

Oh and Bob....Didn't you used to build missile guidance systems or something?

[Peter]

Ah gee. Poor Colin Powell has been email hacked.

Michael wrote: The very first reality is that if you support endless war for profit, you are supporting murder for hire. I know a crapload of Objectivist, libertarian and conservative intellectuals who have supported endless war for profit over the years--not explicitly stated as such, but in their constant sucking up to the endless war for profit elite.  end quote

But what is the “endless war machine” and what is “good foreign policy?” (Somewhat as evidence) I gleaned the following from actor Jon Voight’s and Bill Hemmer’s interview on Fox today, 9/14. Trump has a way of making statements that “break through” the news cycle and enter the listener’s consciousness. As an example, consider Trump’s statement that Obama founded ISIS.  “What the hell, Americans ask?” Military experts, newscasters, and people in general will investigate that statement and come to the conclusion that the vacuum left in Iraq, by Obama, is what energized radical Islamists to create another terrorist organization  . . .  where they are in charge. In that sense Obama is the key to the horrors that have blossomed since his policies in Iraq were established.

What I wonder Michael, is how Sir Donald Trump (or you) would use our military, economy, and foreign policy to further American interests? Isolationist policies can be depicted as the moral equivalent of laissez-faire, but over a half a century ago we had Germany, Japan, and later the Soviet Union as adversaries and we won. We were not exactly isolationist in 1939 but we were not projecting the Monroe Doctrine or gun boat diplomacy around the globe to a great extent. Now we have Communist (lite) China, Nationalistic, expansionist Russia, and terroristic expansionist Islam. Do we ignore them? Should President Trump ignore, invade, or just bomb the crap out of “just who” and what will his justification be? Success is the key.    

Peter  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

What I wonder Michael, is how Sir Donald Trump (or you) would use our military, economy, and foreign policy to further American interests?

Peter,

In my mind, I think he will use common sense based on the interests of American citizens--the majority of citizens, not an elite minority.

In war, this means if a war is necessary due to a belligerent threat and/or attack, Trump will have the US go in and win it, then get out. And he wants to leave behind a message that if the defeated country goes back to doing what it did to cause the war, the US will go in and fuck them up worse than the first time. Also, he wants the defeated country to pay for the war costs.

In the economy, Trump constantly talks about encouraging manufacturing once again in the US, getting rid of regulations, etc. In other words, he wants the free market back and to let people create wealth because they want to.

In foreign policy, it means making good trade deals with other countries rather than playing word games like using "free trade" to mean "crony insider trade." It also means reestablishing border-based sovereignty and implementing a properly functioning legal immigration system.

I could go on, but all this, to me, is obvious since it is stated quite openly at almost any Trump rally, on his website, by his surrogates, etc.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just spent an hour and a half of my life to watch a debate:

"Intelligence Squared" Debate: "Blame the Elites for the Trump Phenomenon"

Sorry, the video doesn't embed, so you have to go there to see it. 

Essentially, there were four elitists debating, two conservative anti-Trumpers and two liberal anti-Trumpers. I watched this because I truly wanted to see what elitist anti-Trumpers think. Maybe see if there was something I was missing.

I concluded, nah... I haven't missed anything.

Still, it was interesting to see all four (and the host) skate around the fact that Trump supporters are neither victims nor playing victimization games. Victim-mongering was the foundation of the arguments on both sides, with the liberals throwing in racism, fear-mongering, etc.

Instead, they ignored the reality that Trump supporters want to clean up the mess and get someone who has both the insider knowledge and a good track record of achievement to do it (i.e., Trump). During an hour-and-a-half of debating by four highly intelligent humans, I did not hear one of them mention this. The funniest, most obvious part to me, that they kept ignoring was the the fact that they, themselves, qua elitists, were part of the mess that Trump supporters want to clean up.

As to watching the debate, I recommend it. This was a tightly run debate, so there was no yelling and so forth. Also, right as the spin would get to complete bullshit level, a debater's time would run out. It was most satisfying to see them interrupted at such a moment and see them have to stop.  

There were a few interesting and intelligent ideas and stats, but they were secondary to the theme. And even re the them, the real value (to me) was different. This debate was a great exercise to see if I could detect the same underlying argument in words that, on the surface, appeared to mean different things from two opposing sides.

And I could.

There were three ideas (actually more, but three is a good number for now) both sides kept saying over and over explicitly or as saying as subtext: (1) Donald Trump is evil, bigoted, a con man, etc., 2) Regardless of how they framed it and justified Trump supporters, they all all agreed that Trump supporters are stupid enough to be conned by him, and (3) The world is a far, far, far better place when the elites (like them) run it rather than Trump or Trump supporters.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

And you want that power in the hands of whom?

Michael

Certainly not the Bitch.  Since one of those two are going to be elected, I choose to promote Trump as the most interesting challenge to our political system that it has had in the past several decades.  If the U.S. government and political system survives Trump intact  I will have   no fears for it in the foreseeable future.  If the U.S. could survive an asshole like Warren Harding or a piece of Bad Luck like Jimmy Carter, then it most likely will survive Donald Trump. 

[Jonathan]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

There were three ideas (actually more, but three is a good number for now) both sides kept saying over and over explicitly or as saying as subtext: (1) Donald Trump is evil, bigoted, a con man, etc., 2) Regardless of how they framed it and justified Trump supporters, they all all agreed that Trump supporters are stupid enough to be conned by him, and (3) The world is a far, far, far better place when the elites (like them) run it rather than Trump or Trump supporters.

I'd like to propose some new categories for the "basket of deplorables": Conservatiphobes, Trumphobes, liberty-haters, etc. They are people who have prejudiced, irrationally hateful, knee-jerk reactions to people who don't want to be controlled by them.

J

P.S. You often see Conservatiphobia in the press immediately after a mass-shooting or other act of terrorism. Certain "journalists" instantly try to paint the perpetrator as a conservative, or as having ties to conservatism. It's like hearing an old Democrat who was a leader in the KKK immediately assuming that any crime in his neighborhood must have been committed by a racial minority.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On a positive note, here's a word from Sarah:

Michael

[Jonathan]

Interesting question from Coulter: COULD HILLARY TELL US WHAT PERCENTAGE OF MUSLIMS ARE 'DEPLORABLE’?

After all, since Hillary gave the examples of racism, sexism, and homophobia as attitudes that make one irredeemable and deplorable, then it would seem to logically follow that Muslims who hold racist, sexist and homophobic views would also fit into the basket with Trump’s despicable supporters, no? Or perhaps Hillary is a Conservatiphobe (and an Islamophile?), and therefore only denounces those attitudes when she wants to smear conservatives?

Heh.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

5 hours ago, Jonathan said:

I'd like to propose some new categories for the "basket of deplorables": Conservatiphobes, Trumphobes, liberty-haters, etc. They are people who have prejudiced, irrationally hateful, knee-jerk reactions to people who don't want to be controlled by them.

Jonathan,

I love this concept.

The gall of those inferiors who don't want to be lorded over.

 

I find the term Conservatiphobe a bit clunky, though. It doesn't roll off the tongue like, hmmm, let me think... say, Conservasnoot.

 

Edit - As I said that over and over, I grew to like it. Conservasnoot kinda rolls out of your mouth all by itself. But I won't mind if you don't care for it. I don't want to butt into your idea...  

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The following is about Colin Powell, but his own current email scandal will directly influence this election in a small part.

So here is Ann Coulter about it:

Powell emails are hilarious and will ruin his reputation. He sounds like the biggest Washington DC bitch since Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 15, 2016

For those who are not aware of what Powell did, here's a taste:

...but some revelations in Powell emails are gems, including his remark that "Bill is still dicking bimbos at home." https://t.co/MrISHau4vo

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 15, 2016

Gotta love Ann...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

And...

Weasley things come with a price when found out:

I was never a fan of Colin Powell after his weak understanding of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq = disaster. We can do much better!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2016

Michael