The Carol Of The Bells – A Blast From The Past, 2/20/2014

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: What a fine day I picked to stop sniffing glue.  One of the devotees of the blog that shall not be named linked us.  Having skimmed through our comments, he decided our problem with Trump was that we were afraid he was too far to the RIGHT, instead of being afraid he’ll be Obama under a GOP flag.

(Update to the update: Special cupcake didn’t even skim here.  He got it from a post at the blog that shall not be named — which is also wrong but only because the blogger has never understood the difference between European right and American right.  Not stupid but strangely culturally blind — and COMPLETELY misunderstood it. I mean, amazingly, bizarrely misunderstood it.  Since cupcake set his link not to show, it’s Here.  And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we don’t name the blog.  Not because it’s uniquely evil, but because many of its devotees read what’s inside their heads, instead.)

This is the second time this month someone read something plainly written and came up with an interpretation that leads me to believe their first language is Martian. I’m starting to wonder if there’s a widespread illness that makes it impossible to understand your native language.
There will be incoming.

I have a book I need to finish, which was interrupted over the weekend by “stupid house follies.”  I.e. our landlord wants us to move at the end of next month which is two weeks to two months (depending on stuff) before we can move into the house we’re buying. (He’s within his rights.  We’re month by month.  It’s just spectacularly short sighted and annoying)  Since lodging with four cats isn’t easy, we spent the weekend dealing with this (a friend has offered us room.  Well, two friends, one offered room to son.) and trying to figure out how to get all our other stuff moved and stored.  This means I’m WAY behind, and won’t have time to deal with incoming.  It’s up to you guys.

*And so it looks like it’s going to be Trump — a conventional democrat, which is to say a socialist — which is to say we’re not going to be given a choice at all, and that the chances of this country escaping moderately free, moderately intact and without a massive butcher’s bill are slim.  All I can tell you is not to give up.  Keep ringing the bells.  The minute we give up, we have lost.*

There is a scene in one of Giovanni Guareschi’s books (I think The Little World Of Don Camillo) in which the communists set up a rally in front of the church complete with amplifiers. Then there is a big wig from the city who comes to give the big rally speech and it’s all about the evils of capitalism, the imperialism of America and clerical reactionaries who exploit the people and other such chestnuts.

In the book, Don Camillo paces up and down, each sentence making him feel like he has a live cat in his stomach (I understand Don Camillo at a gut level, you could say.) And then he loses it and remembers that the bell tower is constructed in three (four?) levels and that at each level the bell puller can pull the ladder up into the next level. Which means, when he’s at the top there’s no way to get at him.

So Don Camillo goes to the top of the tower, and starts ringing the bell at/over the most offensive passages. (I can imagine that as Americans you’re all recoiling instinctively at this, because the idea of freedom of speech is so strong, but let it rest that in the context of the book this is a battle in a war between communists and “righties” – which in the post war era meant “sides with America” – for the hearts and minds of the people, and that the communists had violated the rules of the game by putting the amplifiers in front of the church.)

The communists rapidly come to the conclusion there’s no way to get at him, but since the bells only peal on the most outrageous pieces of cant, about American imperialism, retrograde clericalism and the like, the speaker quickly learns he has to moderate what he says – and, to paraphrase the story “ends the speech on a pathetic and patriotic note that the bells wouldn’t deign contest.”

(I later repeated this incident – sort of – by getting caught in the middle of a communist rally and singing patriotic songs at the top of my lungs whenever they went over the acceptable partisan bullsh*t. This while I was on the phone with Dan, who still married me, despite it. [I was in a phone booth the rally formed around.] Only I didn’t have a bell tower, but that was all right, because I had the weighted weaponized umbrella. [ You only think I am joking. Mom had it built for me.])

Most of us don’t have a bell tower – or an umbrella – not even metaphorically. I keep coming up again and again to the thought that we should have started talking back in the eighties, instead of letting friends, colleagues and people in public life construct this myth that if only Carter had had a second term, we would be living in paradise. We should not have gone along with their myth that Reagan’s cutting (a bare pruning) of government was iniquitous.

And we should never, ever, have let them get off easy over communism and the horror that communism really was. We should have pointed again and again, when they tried to weasel that “but it’s not real communism” that “real communism can’t exist with real humans.”

We should have pealed our bells so loudly that they couldn’t tell themselves their comforting fairytales and pull their collectivist dreams over their wooly little heads.

We didn’t, partly because we had no blogs, and partly because we had no metaphorical bell tower. For those of us in creative professions – but even for the ones in tech ones – there was no alternate route, no ladder we could pull up. They could get us where we lived. And they would. Since they confuse morals with politics, they have no qualms about punishing political opinion with professional disgrace and ostracism.

So we couldn’t talk. And because the media, entertainment and the news, or what the fabulous Ms. Chase calls the media/entertainment/industrial complex all reinforced their delusions and assured them there was real gold and promise in trying again all these old, bankrupt, vile ideas of forcing everyone to live the way the “enlightened” ones at the top decided, we’re now in the position we’re in.

I mean, you hear about echo chambers but for the last fifty years we’ve had an enormous echo-chamber of what is now called “progressive” (progressing rapidly back to the thirties. The NINETEEN thirties) ideas.

Even for me, talking before I had an alternate route to feed my family fell under unacceptable risk.

And then of course, the question is if by then it was already too late. As I said this madness, worldwide, started before any of us (or most of us) were born, certainly before any of us were old enough to do anything about it. It was all “scientific governance” and therefore a small cadre of “geniuses” were supposed to steer us past the rough spots that the common man couldn’t navigate. It was the spirit of the age, and as inevitable then as it is out of step with reality now.

Mind you, it didn’t work well, even then, but the illusion it could work could be maintained in the era when everything was “mass” – mass transportation (though that never took well in America) and mass manufacturing, and mass marketing, and mass entertainment, and mass—

The likely future of that world was 1984, where things were run tightly from above, not well but inevitably. Heinlein predicted something like that, too. See the beginning of the Door Into Summer and how forlorn it was for the character’s father to hold on to individualism.

We didn’t go there. We went the other way, towards a million different alternatives, towards niche marketing, An Army of Davids, the ability for someone with a bell tower and a ladder to make a lot of noise indeed.

Because the last time I posted about something touching on this, one of you got the idea I was saying mass manufacturing of heavy industry stuff shall go away soon, I would clarify that’s not what I meant. (I’m not saying that it will be with us forever, either. I never cut short human invention. But I think that for the remainder of the lives of everyone who is alive today there will remain some mass manufacturing and some heavy manufacturing.) What I mean is that each age has a “prototypical” way of doing things. In Elizabethan England, for instance, the nascent industry was cottage industry, labor intensive, and most people still worked mostly at growing food, because their methods of cultivation required THAT much work.

In say the forties and fifties, our factories required – still – a lot of human labor and human supervision. To create the goods needed for civilized life, you need to make them all in one pattern, and as many as possible for economies of cost, and the making of them involved a lot of people in work that was done for a few, massive employers.

Now we’re at the beginning of that trend going the other way: towards distributed employers, and small-scale and customized goods for the people, all of it taking less human labor to produce. The trend is maybe forty years young, so very young indeed in sociological terms, where things change very slowly, if they ever change at all.

So maybe my dream that we should have started talking back back in the eighties is just that. Maybe it was impossible.

But the panic and lashing out we see on the other side now, comes from just a few towers, spread throughout the landscape and ringing in tiny voices over their speakers and amplifiers.

So, two things:

First, never think that we are defeated. Yeah, they finally captured all the high ground, and they have all the amplifiers, and sometimes it seems our little bells mean nothing, even when we’re ringing the pure truth. But just by ringing, by being the dissenting voice, we’re causing a reaction and we might in time even – who knows—cause moderation and common sense in those amplified speakers. Don’t lose heart. Don’t let that ladder you pulled up behind you make you believe you’re in a world of your own, and that nothing you do affects anything out there. It’s very early, and they’re still angry and trying to find a way to silence the bells. Once they realize that’s impossible, that’s when sanity can be expected. Will it be in our time? I don’t know. Shut up and keep ringing.

Two: My friend Bill Reader reminded me that October is coming out month, though as he put it “I don’t think they meant it for conservatives.”

I’m not in your position. I don’t know how secure your tower is, or if you can pull the ladder up after yourself. I’m not advising anyone to do anything that will cost them family support or employment, or the material things they need to survive. But I’m asking you to take a step back and access where you are, because things are changing very fast. And if you come to the conclusion that you can come out, do so. As someone who did – it makes you far less conflicted. There’s something soul-corroding about pretending – even through silence – to be something you’re not. My grandmother used to say “Quem cala consente” which for those less fluent in Portuguese means “Those who remain silent are taken to give permission.”

If you can, consider taking up that rope and ringing that bell. It might seem to you – it often seems to me – the sound gets lost as soon as it echoes, but little by little you start realizing people are listening. And those in the crowd who do not dare come out yet, are taking comfort from it. And the other side starts to realize that no, this is not what all right thinking people agree on.

And we take a step back from the cliff we’ve been careening towards.

It’s entirely possible that the future really is a boot stepping on a human face forever – but that future is only possible if we let it happen. You’re not responsible for the past and you can’t change it. And the present is the direct result of that past. But the future is what we let it be.

Shut up and ring your bell.

544 thoughts on “The Carol Of The Bells – A Blast From The Past, 2/20/2014”

  2. In the words of an old wise man “It isn’t over until it’s over”. [Smile]

    1. Yep. We keep fighting.

      But I have a sinking feeling that I’ll be praying for a nutcase to penetrate the SS.

    1. And they’re ecstatic with him. Which proves it’s not the RINOs it’s how the media treats them and how gullible these people are, falling for the pretend fight between the media and Trump. It’s not RINOs it’s “you don’t lie to us enough.”

      1. The current fight has nothing to do with conservatism or libertarianism.

        Trump and Sanders are popular because of a simple and somewhat rational populist appeal. The median person in this country is worse off after the last 30 years – most likely because we’ve opted for policies designed to lower wages. (Free trade, legal immigration, illegal immigration). Conservatism and liberalism have had their say and both agreed on sinking the middle class of this country. It is not surprising that other options are gaining prominence.

        Assuming this kind of broad based appeal is based on simple ignorance and racism is foolish. A significant fraction of both parties would, literally, prefer nearly anything that promised something to the middle and lower classes to the typical output of our current parties. Think slimy, shape shifting populist alien. I might have voted for Zortax over Jeb!

        1. No one assumes it’s based on racism. You must have come over from the blog where idiot assumed that we were afraid “Trump would take the country too far to the right.”
          We’re upset the media isn’t reporting all the times that Trump has echoed his approval of ALL OF THOSE POLICIES. Because he has.
          Trump is a slimy, shape shifting populist alien. And that is the problem.

          1. But the other candidates are wholly owned subsidiaries of the cheap labor billionaires and the military/industrial complex that produces $1.5 trillion airplanes that can’t be deployed and wrecks whole countries for the fun of it…Trump has indicated clearly that he doesn’t agree with those, very evil. policies.

            1. Oh, because Trump isn’t? Have you actually looked at Trump’s history? He talks game. He’s not any better.
              Look, he is “European Right Wing” which is why VD likes him. Americans following VD MUST understand he’s not an American conservative. He’s an European right winger. They’re not the same. And here in the states, they’re both socialists. The only difference is leftists in Europe are INTERNATIONAL socialists, and right wing is NATIONAL socialist. That’s all.
              You want national socialism here? Yeah. Trump is your man. He’s into the banks for millions and he’s corrupted everything he touched. But you guys believe he’s a white Knight sans peur et sans reproche. Good LORD.

              2. yeah um no. Seriously why is so f-ing hard for you anti trumpers to get it? how many times do Trumpites have to say, “Trump is not my protest vote, Trump is the weapon i will use to murder the Republican establishment” before it gets through your thick fucking heads?

                1. WHAT IN HECK DOES YOUR “PROTEST VOTE” for someone who supports all the crap you supposedly hate DO?
                  Unless the message you want to send is “please move the GOP further to the left.” If that’s what you want to say, well done, carry on.
                  It is not the fault of anti-trumpers if you’re massively unmedicated and insane.

  4. it feels like 2008 again.
    you warn them and warn them and they attack you for it. Later, from the few who will admit to folly, we will get “I didn’t think it would be that bad!”
    Fools.

    1. Print copies of relevant electronic communications, take pictures of campaign signs, buttons, and stickers.

      It’s amazing how many people develop this type of mental aphasia, where after it is apparent they made a bad choice, they absolutely remember *not* supporting that candidate…

    2. Only I think this is will be worse. Trump is more competent than Obama, which means more chance to implement his nutbaggery. Of course, my cat havey is more competent than Obama, and all he does is purr, eat, sleep and high-five daddy on command. (Why did my husband teach him that? Who knows?)

      1. Re: cat high-five…because it’s *awesome* that’s why. 😛 Or at least that would be my answer. *grin*

    3. Only this time, it’s by and large the people who saw through Obama in 2008. I swear, it makes you want to shout and shake people like those ham actors in old-school sci-fi-horror films.

    1. I’m gonna need a lotta coffee, as something tells me I’ll need a lotta booze for the next few years. Good heavens, I might even use tequila (I’m _very_ conservative with the stuff, but the ‘Brave Bull’ does call for it) more often.

  7. I’m not giving up hope. Cruz is still in the game. And Trump still has multiple opportunities to shoot himself in the foot, despite the media’s trying to hand him the (R) nomination. And there’s still the House and Senate, and (in TX) the courts to work on.

    1. The problem is, he shoots himself in the foot just about every day . . . and keeps winning.

      However, it may change when he’s up against a single Not Trump instead of half a dozen. I hope.

        1. Sarah, most of them simply don’t care. As long as a Trump victory causes the GOP to implode, that meets their objective. “You lied to us, and laughed. We expect that from Democrats.” Most of them aren’t thinking past that.

              1. And that’s the biggest failing of the GOP under Priebus. Once again we have given Democrat operatives a seat at the table when it comes to selecting the GOP nominee. 20 years ago we didn’t have much choice, but there are so many good conservative news and commentary sources online today that the GOP could have told everyone left of Fox to shove it and still have gotten the word out. Not only that, but it would introduce the non-internet portion of the Republican electorate to the likes of Bill Whittle and Steve Green, further weakening the MSM’s hold on the news.

                  1. ‘stupid’ as in, they kept voting for these pieces of crap even after getting betrayed decade in and decade out.

                    there is no accident in McConnell grandstanding about how he’s going to “stop Obama this time” … and then rolling over.

                    it’s because McConnell and Lindsey Graham and John Boehner and so many others are all members of the Dennis Hastert wing of the Republican party.

                    yes, i do mean to imply exactly what you think i am.

                3. I’m reminded of a dog and cat I once knew. When the dog (a Shepard/St. Bernard mix) was a puppy, the cat (a large Siamese tom) would attack and beat the life out of the little pup. When the dog grew up to be quite big, he was still massively intimidated by the cat.
                  Kind of like the Republican establishment & the mainstream press. The press we see- slanted, untrustworthy, disliked, and fading away is not the press the established Republicans see.

                  1. THIS. Also, I want to remind the establishment republicans they’re like my cat Havey (Sweet and adorable and very smart except in other-cat relations) compared to my cat D’Artagnan (Slinky McEvil). The fourth time that Havey got locked (by D’Artagnan) in the glass front bookcase, I told Havey “this cat doesn’t mean you well!” and he meowed forlornly. Then got locked in the glass front bookcase again.

                    1. Awww! That sounds like my Annie (scary smart) and my Dante (as sweet and tender as he is dim. He’s very dim.) when Annie was still with us! She seemed to think Dante was a living, breathing insult to all of cat-kind. Poor fella. But then he figured out he could chase her…until he forgot he was much larger than her (mid chase) and she started chasing him.
                      /facepalm. I love furry creatures. I just wish they lived longer. (Sorry for the waaay off-topic non sequitur…oh look! A butterfly! *skips away, mid-sentence*)

                  2. Several years back I was told the tale of the little pony who thought it great fun to get a good mouthful of water and hold it, then spray it onto the faces of other, larger horses. Evidently this had been going on for some time. And then one fine day, the huge, usually patient, draft horse had had enough. Saw what was going on. Knew what the pony was about to do. And had the perfect timing to… SNEEZE. Result was a booger-faced pony looking very, very stunned with an “I can’t believe you DID that!” look. Far as I know, pony didn’t bother the big draft after that.

                    It’s time the GOP sneezed.

                  3. “The press we see- slanted, untrustworthy, disliked, and fading away is not the press the established Republicans see.”

                    This brings to mind the great Boss Tweed of Tamany Hall fame, who said of Thomas Nast’s cartoons: “Stop them damned pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers say about me. My constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures!”

                    Established Republicans have press secretaries who fret over the MSM because the MSM is where they came from and to where they will return. Look at the difference made by Tony Snow in the Bush ’43 administration, or Tony Blankley, Newt Gingrich’s press secretary during that uprising.

                4. THIS THIS THIIIIIIS! Seriously. Come ON, darn it! Plus…I might just faint if I learned that a presidential debate was going to be moderated by Milo…hee! (Yes, he’s British. So? *chortle*)

                  1. I would pay money to watch a Republican debate or town hall-type gathering MCed by Alfonzo Rachel. I mean that literally – I have thirty dollars in my pocket that I would drop in a heartbeat to support that.

                  2. Watch Ted Cruz banter with an openly gay conservative? DNC headquarters would look like a Tarantino set.

                    1. The Trumpsters would be having similar conniptions; the latest slam on Cruz is that he’s a “dominionist” who’s “too Jesusy”.

                  4. I’m gonna join the chorus of “I would PAY to see that!” regarding a GOP debate moderated by Milo.

                    I’d go into hock to pay to see a GOP debate chaired and moderated by a panel of Milo, Bill Whittle, Kim du Toit, Eric Schie, Emperor Mischa, Mike Hendrix, Tom Kratman, Larry Correia, and David Codrea. Maybe throw in Ann Coulter just for the snark.

                5. There’s a level of frustration with those driving GOP pols, not to mention the men in office themselves that would be hard to overestimate.

                  “I can’t do anything about the Democrat pols, but I can do something about you, and I’ll keep doing it, even if it means electing dems until you change.”

                  They’re so tired of having to choose between an ineffectual resistance to the slide into socialist oligarchy and the slide itself.

                  1. We tried letting Dems win in 2006 and 2008 to get the GOP to remember their purpose. It got us Obamacare. Instead we need to vote for just enough Republicans to keep the Democrats out of power while at the same time making sure there are fewer and fewer progressive Republicans in the ranks. Eventually the rest will switch over to save their jobs. We don’t win when there are only good people in the party, we win once conditions are such that even bad people do the right thing.

                    4. ” Instead we need to vote for just enough Republicans to keep the Democrats out of power”

                      Considering that even when they are in power, Republicans just give Democrats whatever they want, I don’t see the difference here, to be frank.

                      Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. After watching for my entire adult life while Republicans do nothing but cower, cave, and surrender without even attempting a fight, I see no reason to believe they will ever do anything other than what they have done.

                      Given that’s the case, what’s the point in electing them?

                    6. Fascinating. How much of the Democrat agenda has actually been thwarted over the last decade and a half? How far has the advance of Leviathan been pushed back and liberty been restored?

                      Not at all, on both counts?

                      Yeah that’s what I thought, too.

                    7. We have single payer now and I didn’t notice?

                      My kids are being “deprogrammed” at a public school from age three, with morning and afterschool care in culturally appropriate areas?

                      All forests have been shut off from non-foot traffic?

                      There is no oil exploration going on?

                      Everyone who’s been accused of having a “threatened” animal on their land has lost use of it?

                      Damn, dude, the enemy gets a vote, y’know? Now we have to not just win, but take back land lost in the last century, in just a few years— or you’ll declare nobody’s fighting, everybody go home?

                    8. As soon as a plurality of elected Republicans make it look like they’re actually trying to fight, I’ll give them credit for it. To date…they have not. All they do is put up an appearance of almost trying to resist if there’s a certainty that they might have a slight chance of winning…and then they surrender without a fight.

                      So pardon me for having no faith in the Republican brand.

                    9. So they not only have to actually win, they have to LOOK like they’re fighting– even if that’s a terrible idea that will drive off half of the people that are on their side, and drive off most of those currently on the other side.

                      You insist on putting appearance above results.

                      But they are the problem.

                      Right.

                    10. Yep. Infant. Tantrum throwing infant. I’m starting to think this is the result of the no-frustration education of the seventies and most of these people never had a good skelping which they desperately needed.

                    11. Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse. Winning is one thing. But if you don’t win, at least put up a fight. The problem is they DON’T even try to LOOK like they’re fighting. At least if they bothered to make an effort for appearances sake, I could maybe talk myself into believing they were genuine.

                    12. Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse.

                      That word, it does not mean “pointed out facts another does not want to recognize.”

                      You’re welcome to your own views, but not your own facts– and the fact is, they have been fighting. And you are insisting on quitting, because even though they’ve been somewhat effective, far more effective than they would be if they were never elected, you want them to fit a specific appearance, even if it hurts the results.

                      And you don’t care if fitting that actually makes for results that are worse that what we’ve already got, because after all you didn’t get everything you wanted right now.

                    13. HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF THEY WERE WHEN THE PRESS IS TENDENTIOUS AND HALF THE BLOGGERS DON’T RECOGNIZE THE RESTRAINTS OF THE SYSTEM?
                      You to are too big to be on the floor pumping your arms and legs like that.
                      Get up, dust yourself, and act like an adult. Yeah, you don’t have everything AND a pony. That’s called life.

                    14. Yep. Kicking the teeth of the people actually fighting is much easier than getting in the trenches. I just want them to go whine elsewhere and leave my country to those who want to fight for it.

                    15. No. REALLY no. We’ve made great strides in gun rights. We’ve made great strides in other individual, limited cases. Price controls for instance are a thing of the past. If you don’t remember the seventies, you should read about them, instead of believing what you hear from ignoramuses. Or telling yourself pretty defeatist stories that absolve you of the need to try to improve things and allow you to burn things down.
                      If you’re not going to help, the least you can do is not kick those of us still fighting in the teeth.
                      You’re as bad as the progs. You’re enslaving my kids. This is not a good idea. you won’t like me when I’m angry.

                    16. The price controls that Nixon put in place, you mean? They’ve been gone for over 30 years.

                      You’ve got a point about gun rights. I’ll concede that. But I would counter that this happened at the state level, and we’re talking the Federal level now.

                      As for enslaving your kids (and mine too btw), I simply don’t trust the GOP NOT to go along to get along as the enslavement happens, for fear of being called racists and not getting to go to the right cocktail parties. I don’t trust them at all after watching what they’ve (not) done in DC over the last decade.

                      Seriously though. Now your making threats over a difference of opinion? Did you suddenly go to SJW school when I wasn’t looking?

                    17. Because they don’t give the Democrats everything they want. Part of the problem is that the extremists who want nothing more than to beat the Democrats decry at the top of their lungs every loss the Republicans suffer, which just gets us things like Trump. The fact is that most of the fights in Congress occur not on the floor, but in the cloakrooms, where we cannot see them. And sometimes the Democrats just plain win. To say that there hasn’t been a change in the last 10 years is to either be blind or overly nostalgic. We’re almost to the point, four election cycles after starting, where we can drive the Congressional agenda rather than simply react to it.

                    18. Considering that even when they are in power, Republicans just give Democrats whatever they want …”

                      Yeah, like how Scott Walker gave the unions certification forever, and the way so many Republican run states are enacting Bloombergian gun control legislation.

                      Oh, you mean at the national level? The way the GOP has just absolutely caved on allowing the Guantanamo detainees to be stashed in American prisons? Or the way they’ve enabled Obama to jack taxes through the roof and impose his Climate Change agenda legislatively?

                    19. He couldn’t have imposed his climate change agenda regulatorily if they’d stood up and defunded EPA. They passed a Cromnibus and gave him everything he asked for plus.

                    20. The “get it out of our system” argument was one I heard a lot in those election years. That’s dubious enough when you’re talking about, say, your binge-drinking teenage son – one guy who has ample view of the consequences of his actions. When the system in question is a legal system, with all the people and entrenchment that implies, the bad habit is nigh-impossible to learn from, never mind expunge.

                      Stupid hydraulic idiom.

                    21. Talking the federal level is the whole crux of the problem, if you ask me, Michael. (Have to reply upthread for some reason.) The federal government is in a state so that anyone running pretty much needs to be all right with a giant state. Recall Wolf Blitzer basically saying that all sane people know that the government cutting enough to run within budget is a physical impossibility, and no one really disagreeing with him.

                      So, yeah, all pushback IS going to occur on the state level. That, and the municipal and community levels, are the front to work with. Act accordingly.

                6. Here in TX, one county’s DNC chair is basically saying cross over and vote for the Republican you can live with.

    2. That is a strange interpretation of events.

      Every bit of media attention Trump has received has indicated, to me, the media 1) wants to destroy Trump with the usual SJW “-ism” cries but 2) can’t turn away from the spectacle.

      Point 2 is to be expected from ad-supported news media in an age when there are more and more competing distractions daily. “They want Trump to be president” is not the best explanation for that behavior, I mean to say. And as for point 1, that would indeed be a convoluted way of getting someone elected.

      1. Has it? Then you’re very gullible. The worst thing the press can do to you is the “cone of silence” which they do when anyone else challenges them.
        PLUS do you think he has no dirt, including the dirty financial deals? So why aren’t the people who destroyed a man on “binders full of women” not destroying Trump. think on that.

        1. That’s easy. Trump doesn’t care. Even if he has dirt and women lined up, he doesn’t care. You can’t shame someone who will not be shamed. That is part of the appeal, being part of a party that that has a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism.

          Look to your native land for examples just like what Trump is doing. It happens quite a bit there.

          1. Really? Not the dirt and women. The leftist beliefs he spouted just last week, like “I want to keep Obama care” If you don’t care either, you’re an idiot. And if you think the US is Portugal, you’re a REAL idiot. Stop already. You’re imbibing the opinions of someone who doesn’t even wish the US well, and parroting without thought.

  8. One thing that will *definitely* give you Candidate Trump: despairing and giving up the fight. Don’t let the media and the Trumpkins stampede you over the cliff.

    1. State caucuses on 1 March. I’ve made arrangements to be off work that night. Dunno if I can keep the ship the afloat, but d*mnit I’m gonna run those pumps for all they’re worth.

    2. Okay, I’m scratching my head on this. Which media is going to give us Trump?

      Not the various alt- and new media: they’re all over the map (As they should be. That’s healthy news-ing!)

      As far as I can tell from dipping into it occasionally, the only thing that unites the dinosaur media is not-Cruz. (Which is why I ended up with him after Jindal and Walker dropped out. And yes, in my run-and-find out phase, I considered Trump. But I digress)

      Seriously, I’m not being facetious. Which media?

        1. Not sure you’re right about this one. HOW would they destroy him? They’re currently at Palin levels of denunciation, and all it seems to get from his supporters is “we don’t care.” In some cases, it’s back-firing because they’re mis-reading the audience disconnect viz virtue-signaling and what people really think about unlimited immigration.

          2. Principles. Cruz and Carson have principles they won’t compromise. Trump? “He’s malleable.”

        3. Isn’t that what they call “riding the tiger”?

          I think you’re onto something, it’s a very clever plan, but one that could backfire for them HORRIBLY. As Screwtape said in his toast:

          It is in some ways more troublesome to track and swat an evasive wasp than to shoot, at close range, a wild elephant. But the elephant is more troublesome if you miss.

          You want to start the betting pool on whether the media will “miss” with full candidate Trump?

  9. I have been voting in presidential elections since McGovern ran against Nixon and can honestly say none since then have so depressed me as this augurs to do. Yet memory and history remind me that there have been many strange turns between February and November and there’s aught reason to doubt that happening this year. Naught for it but to soldier on, faithful to my God, my conscience and my duty.

        1. As I told one obnoxious Trumpkin, at least the Israelites worshiped a Golden Calf instead of a Golden Toupee.

      2. …now I’m suddenly thinking of the “Put the glasses on! PUT ‘EM ON!” scene from They Live.

        But I’ve been up about 22 hours and need to stay up a bit more to get my sleep schedule back on track.

          1. My husband and I have a similar reaction to Benny Hinn the televangelist’s “hair”.

  10. Your point on mass-(whatever) is spot on, as long as the technology keeps advancing. Ground transportation runs from the train (So-called ‘light rail’ is a 19th Century answer to a 21st Century problem. And most urban planners call themselves ‘Progressives’ Hah.) to the automobile. Air transportation runs from (bigger and bigger) airliners to the flying car (I still want my flying car). Manufacturing goes from huge assembly lines to 3D printing. Cody Wilson printed a plastic pistol, and the hoplophobes went into incoherent apoplexy; now they’re printing actual 1911s out of metal. There may still be a place for manufacturing centers to build big-ticket items, but they won’t be huge plants full of people welding and bolting things together, and if you want to build a garage-sized printer to fab your dream car the only thing stopping you will be the cost. Heck, an acquaintance of mine from my Maker Space is 3D printing houses now.

    http://makezine.com/2015/09/14/3d-printed-2-bedroom-villa/

    1. 20 years ago we knew someone who worked for a machining plant. He was the night shift. They had to have someone there to make sure the robotic work had a failsafe. that was it.

      1. There also needed to be someone there to send out a warning if the Robotic Uprising started.

    2. > if you want to build a garage-sized
      > printer to build your dream car

      Not a printer, but the same motion mechanism – Steve Graber built a garage-sized gantry router and carved the body plug for his “La Bala” kit car body mold. And when he was finished, he repurposed the bits for other projects.

      [Reaches to the left, pats a strange looking mechanism] Some people have printers or plotters as output devices. I have a 4-axis CNC milling machine on the table by my desk.

  11. It may be that I simply found myself in pro-Cruz echo chambers by following subtle cues.

    However, 33% is still pretty weak for a GOP primary. So some of the political nuts think Trump can still lose.

    1. Nuts as in that is the bread and butter of their focus. People who can talk about who won what primary at what percent fifty years ago.

      This is an election season which violates the conventional wisdom, so we cannot extrapolate from now to the future with conventional wisdom.

    2. The only thing the Trumpettes are doing is guaranteeing amnesty in a couple of years. Either by throwing the election to Hillary by nominating Trump or handing the nomination to Rubio as the only actual Republican who can win.

      I don’t want to beat the Establishment, I want conservatives to win.

      1. I think you may be onto something here.

        My take on Trump supporters is that the non-conservative ones sick to death of political correctness, of knee-jerk America bashing (including Federal policy based on “oh… the USA will get screwed internationally? Lets do that) and the rational fear of unrestricted immigration in a country where assimilation is actively prevented, percieve Trump as clearly solid on the first, and a reasonable bet on the next two: certaiy a safer bet than either Hilary or Bernie.

        The conservative ones appear to be the same, but that’s deceptive: they have overlapping concerns and certainly share the willingness to roll the dice with Trump v. the Old Establishment Dems. And while it’s possible Trump’s candidacy cost us a Pred. Jindal, it’s moved the window of what pols can and WILL say to the mass media.

        Meanwhile, it seems probable to that these folks believe that a conservative cannot be elected (based on previous election, are they misreading the odds?) and more importantly, cannot WIN once they get to D.C.

        Or, if I’ve been reading the Trump supporters correctly, that they WILL NOT win.

        So. There’s no real point in making the conservative argument to any on the populist left. I think the best hope is apposite: Cruz isn’t a “real” conservative (real = the mass media caricatures they think they know) AND is solid on at least two of their concerns.

        From the right… not sure yet. Need to think on it some more. But the clue is there in the willingness to roll the dice with the devil they don’t know.

        1. I think Cruz needs to start hammering Trump on his non-conservative statements. Just keep running ads showing Trump repeating Democrat talking points. Maybe throw something in about Trump threatening to sue to stop those ads, bullying people to shut them up isn’t an American value.

          I think a large chunk of Trump’s support also comes from the blatant racists who for decades have been shut out of the political process. Over at PJMedia, I saw a comment to the effect that the biggest problem with Obama is that he’s a black man. By going after political correctness (which needs to be done, if Trump dropped out today I’d salute him and count his run as a positive) he has signaled, intentionally or not, a vile part of America that they are welcome in the public square.

          1. Andrew Klavan has noted that the pro-Trump comments he receives typically include white supremacist rhetoric. That may be an accurate reflection of Trump’s supporters or it may express the warped image of conservative his trolls hold to. Me, I’m embracing the power of “and.”

          2. It’s because they’ve lumped USAan nationalists (of any color) and race-realists (*) in with the racial supremacists. It’s worked so beautifully that you probably can’t tell the difference between anyone in these three overlapping sets.

            And trust me when I say, that having been so lumped for so long there’s a strong sense of “may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb” when it comes to their public statements. I know at least one person who can be counted on to say horrible-sounding things simply for shock/gallows humor value.

            Or to put it in context: The statement “The biggest problem with Pres. Obama is that he’s a black man.” is true. (Assuming hyperbole)

            If he hadn’t been black, we’d be able to mock him in the mass media and criticize his errors. No SNL comedian, no late night talk show host cracks Obama jokes. No matter how egregious his stupidity. Shoot, we probably wouldn’t have elected the “I Voted Present” teleprompter-in-chief once, much less twice.

            It’s also true that some people think he’s THAT incompetent BECAUSE he’s black.

            Not being able to tell the difference? Huge headache. AND it’s going to make it nearly impossible to go after Trump on the basis that “racists” like him.

            Our chickens are coming home to roost in spades.

            (*Like Mr. Thomas Sowell or Bill Cosby or wossname, the fellow who sponsored the original paper on the decline of the Black family)

            1. “… wossname, the fellow who sponsored the original paper on the decline of the Black family”

              Are you referring to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Assistant Secretary of Labor for policy in the Kennedy and (in the early part of) the Lyndon Johnson Administrations, Counselor to the President for Urban Affairs in the Nixon Administration, US Ambassador to United Nations in the Ford Administration and four-time Democrat senator for the state of New York?

              Author of The Negro Family: The Case For National Action?

              Arguing that the rise in single-mother (amongst African-Americans) households and the loss of male role-models might cause problems was as absurd as insisting fish needed bicycles.

              1. And now it’s obvious, they blame it on the increase in black men in prison — which happened two decades later.

            2. His being black isn’t his biggest problem. His being an idiot is. Our biggest problem is how some of us respond to him being black.

              I agree with you about the dangers of conflating anyone who points out anything negative regarding minority culture with racists. Not only does it drive those who refuse to blind themselves towards extremism, it – as designed – prevents properly analyzing and fixing the deficient portions of the minority culture.

      2. Unless millions of people are physically repatriated and a wall built and immigration mostly stopped you’ll get amnesty anyway .Its too tempting for the Democrats and Republicans. I certainly wouldn’t trust Cruz or Rubio on the issue any more than Jeb.

        Trump at least says the right stuff and might even try it.

        There aren’t any Conservatives running anyway The Republicans haven’t conserved anything in decades. Heck even Reagan who was an actual Conservative of sorts managed to saddle us with amnesty.

        Also the “pick the electable guy” strategy has been a complete flop last couple of times It got us 8 years of Obama.

        Trump for all his flaws doesn’t seem like a gun grabber at this time, actually wants to stop a lot of immigration and even repatriate people. He won’t be that thorough , we should be sending around 40 million back maybe more but its better than anything offered by any other candidate, He also seems OK on trade and the only one looking out for the average worker.

        I can’t see anything worthwhile from Rubio or Cruz who seems to be in with Goldman Sachs

        So if Trump wins and betrays us? So what? The others were going to do the same things anyway. Get Hillary elected ? So? She is pretty much Cruz Lite anyway . Blows up the union? Hardly likely but also so? We aren’t preserving or using it anyway. Haven’t in decades.

        Somehow Bernie wins? Again so? The US has been listing socialist for some time a lot of people think they might benefit to some degree from wealth redistribution . A forced student loan amnesty would benefit a ton of people.

        1. Why are you obsessed with immigration. La grande salida is a thing. The only people coming in are welfare cases. It can be stopped by not giving them welfare. you know what does that? Conservative justices. You know what doesn’t do that? Trump.

          1. Reserve welfare for citizens / legal residents and watch the inflow stop. Give them a free trip home and watch them go or get a job.

          2. I’m not obsessed with immigration inasmuch cognizant that it is the only thing that matters besides guns.

            Simply I don’t want Los Estados Unidos De Mexico Norte is why. Conserving a nation means conserving its identity and the US identity is not Latino or Hispanic , its Anglo and ought to stay that way. Its not going to and that means baring an actual reversal or separation, it won’t survive.

            Since there is no magic soil and our ideology is nonsense on its face to most of humanity save basically upper class Englishmen It will either separate or slump to Brazil which is a damned shame if you ask me.

            We might have managed the US of 1970 or so if we shifted Right and economic nationalist but the current set up, No way.

            As a fellow Coloradoan (I was from from Colorado Springs no less) you’ve seen what happens with immigration, it goes Red to Blue. Its gets worse when its foreign ideologies and foreign nationals

            California where I live gave once us Bob Dornan and the moderate Reagan, what we get now is unspeakable and its much to do to illegal and legal migration.

            And while I 100% agree a welfare cutoff is a good thing, it won’t help stem the flow or stop new flows. You have to stop them from getting work or being used as welfare pawns and yes you have to repatriate a lot of people and close the borders,

            And in case you ask, I would not have allowed the large scale immigration from Europe either.

            Some sure, top notch people regardless of race so long as they have Western values are good things and a few “spousal” immigrants in most cases (well save the recent San Bernardino terror attack but they were not Western) is fine but less is more when it comes to migration. 50 million immigrants isn’t “a better country” is cultural suicide and Trump is the only candidate to dare to even mention it

            Heck I’m not even 100% sure German and Scandinavian immigration was a good think in any scale but being of that stock. I’ll have to side with them.

            In any case the chance of swinging the court to an anti immigration/pro national stance with either of the two candidates Cruz or Rubio both children of Hispanic immigrants is nil. A slight chance with Trump maybe maybe Cruz but never Rubio.

            By the time either of them are done the US will probably have a Democrat, probably quite far left as President an possibly a Congress anyway so its moot.

            Honestly Trump isn’t there to solve anything, he won’t. Its probably no longer solvable in any case

            He is there to shift the Overton window to the Right which he is doing, to buy time to prepare for festivities and as a Hail Mary play nothing more.

            If he does what is needed, we can recover.if not, we get time.

            As for the others, well Cruz isn’t terrible neither is Rubio really but voting for those guys is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

            Oh and as for Bernie or Hillary, ugh.Still with Bernie say what you want about a nationalist socialist like him, at least he has an ideology.

            Sooner or later we’ll get someone like him, especially with the huge migrant influx , young people tend to vote that way as do Hispanics save Cubans and having been shafted want to try something different. They’ll regret it in the end as will we all but as with any polity, if people won’t behave socially , they’ll be socialized

            1. The ONLY thing that matters, in the face of our economic doom, of the meltdown of our international security, of a million other things? Bah. You’re puerile and excitable.

              1. His argument is akin to claiming that the “only thing that matters” about smallpox is the skin lesions.

                Illegal immigration matters because it is a symptom of the abandonment of Rule of Law as our principle governing thesis.

                The US identity is not Anglo — that’s Race = Culture claptrap. Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Zo Rachel, Clarence Thomas, Bobby Jindal, Nikki Haley, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and a heck of a lot of other “people of color”* do not think the American Identity is Anglo.

                One who misdiagnoses symptoms for the illness are not a good bet to succeed in treating that illness.

                *includes a couple Portagee published by Baen.

                1. Except that all those people you mentioned, including the Portagee, came here determined to adopt the American culture and idea — both of which are founded on Anglo rule of law, etc. — rather than keep their own culture and idea and take to the streets to have the government encourage them doing that. You can’t seem to see how giving the vote to umpty millions with that idea (who will vote Democrat because of it) will change the country beyond recall… which is odd in someone who’s read history.

                  1. You are mistaking what I was defending — American Culture, including assimilation — with what he was defending: US Identity is Anglo, i.e., White Supremacy.

                    The problem is not immigration, it is failure to assimilate the immigrants. Heck, neither Angles nor Saxons are native to Britain; both represent Northern European tribal invaders. As for Rule of Law being an invention of their culture, I think its roots are much deeper than that; I think we could find them in the Old Testament, for example, although the task of tracking them forward exceeds any effort I’ve leisure for today.

        2. 1) The wall isn’t happening. “Fixed fortifications are monuments to the folly of mankind”

          2) Millions of people are not getting deported. It is a logistical impossibility, even setting aside the impossible task of identifying most of them.

          3) You can’t say anything about Trump’s likely policies, his statements have been all over the map and his actions have been hard Progressive.

          4) Trump’s proposed trade policies are terrible for the economy. A global depression – which is what his trade war will start – is not good for middle class America.

          5) If you think there’s no difference between Cruz and Hillary you need to stop giving yourself naked-eye colonoscopies.

          1. ” Millions of people are not getting deported. It is a logistical impossibility, even setting aside the impossible task of identifying most of them.”

            Look up the difference between deport and self-deport. The latter is what happens when those who don’t have citizenship don’t have jobs or benefits.

              1. Oh, I know. But when Cruz says “Enforce the law” that’s exactly what he means. It’s also the best way to fix H1B: if companies know they will be investigated and the boom lowered every time they skate around the requirement to find American citizens first instead of pulling a Disney, they’ll be restricted to using the law as intended; I’ll be surprised if they need more than a couple thousand imports a year to fill openings they really can’t find citizens for.

                And I do trust Cruz for that, because following the law and Constitution has been his whole track record.

                1. Steve, the problem is not investigating companies. yes, they can make things a little uncomfortable for them, but to get rid of illegal immigration you need to get rid of the minimum wage. Some companies CAN’T survive and comply with that and all regulations. Entire industries like construction or farming will go under.

                  1. Washington State effectively made it illegal to provide housing for seasonal workers– instead of being able to offer a glorified hospice, they applied the same laws as for renting.
                    (highly simplified, from late 90s; I haven’t been keeping up but I seriously doubt it magically improved)

                    It went from being something that’s awesome for college kids to do– fruit picking is skilled labor, but it’s a skill you can learn fairly well, especially if you don’t have to worry about paying for a place to stay and might get a lunch on the job, not counting all the fruit you can eat– to being something that only people who are in a well-established network that can get you illegally housed in a rental that isn’t on site and can provide transportation for you to the job site can do.

                  2. Not if the entire industry has to meet them, rather than some ducking the law by importing indentured servants. There are, after all, jobs that can’t be outsourced; construction in general is one of them.

                    And of course, we know where more immigration leads; we’ve been seeing it for 50 years. Companies will fire the Americans regardless if the serfs are cheaper to import.

            2. Self deportation isn’t happening either. That would require conditions in the US to be worse than those in the Latin American hellholes they came from. Do you really think Americans will tolerate having barrios that make the slums of Brasilia or Mexico City look good?

              I’m all for stepping up immigration enforcement, making it harder for illegals to work, ending sanctuary cities, and immediately deporting any immigrant convicted of a crime, but those measures are still going to leave millions of illegal immigrants here and we’re going to have to do something about them.

              1. However, the millions are negligible compared to the population. MOST of all, though we need to stop welfare. And demand assimilation of ALL immigrants, which requires cultural confidence.

                1. I think the best way to stop welfare, in its current bloated state, is to have benefits taper off, rather than cut off, with increased income. I’ve met more than one person who refuses to get a full-time job lest they lose their SSDI. (SSDI, ugh. By far the most humanity-crippling of the whole perverse-incentive-driven bunch.)

                  The only objection I’ve ever heard for this proposal is it essentially amounts to David Weber’s BLS. But that analysis neglects that welfare requires an opt-in in the first place, and you don’t opt in if you don’t feel you need to. But if it ever gets on the Congress floor, who’s actually going to object to making welfare a means to recovery and upward mobility rather than a Venus fly trap? (I mean, once someone baldly states it in those terms.)

                  1. I work for a company right now that deals with SSDI, doing business analysis and software development. It’s an exasperating field, both the clients and the government, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to tear my hair out over the stupid way SSA runs things (requiring faxes? Seriously?). One of the good things, though, is that no one with a room temperature IQ or higher can work there and retain any belief in efficient government or the virtue of technocracy.

                    1. Note that Leslie a) worked in that bureaucracy in the 70s and b) in Chicago. I can understand how she got a trifle… jaundiced and jaded.

                2. You’re absolutely right on both points.

                  But I have no confidence that anyone in this presidential race (or any future race) will do anything about our “entitlements” problem. Even with all three branches on lockdown, the Republican party wouldn’t do a thing. Touching welfare would alienate too many Americans addicted to handouts. I’m almost certain the only “answer” is financial collapse, which is no answer at all.

                  And as for assimilation and cultural confidence, how do we even start doing that?

                  1. We start with that, instead of with electing someone who is just another elite looking down on us. We start with people who love the culture and speak out about it. Western culture is important. Defend it. Do not elect Trump who is European culture or perhaps the last remnant of Roman decadence.

                  2. how do we even start doing that?

                    I actually have a post answering that question that’s been brewing for weeks now that I keep meaning to finish and send to Our Beloved Hostess… Warning: it involves work, dedication, and at least rudimentary people skills. 🙂

                3. But there’s no profit in that…

                  There’s a cartoon I saw long ago, that showed two suited men standing over a bruised and bleeding man laying on the ground. One of the standing men is saying to the other, “The person who did this needs our help.”

              2. Instead of ending sanctuary cities how about we just declare them foreign territories? Make them ineligible for Federal expenditures and establish blockades on all roads to collect customs and tariffs (including a percentage fee for using our currency)?

                1. Not a bad thought. Cutting off federal expenditures works for drinking ages and the like, and that’s not even a logical consequence.

                2. My thought was to bar any law enforcement agency that didn’t honor federal immigration hold requests from any federal law enforcement database or assistance. But your idea is good too.

              3. Only if you ignore the actual evidence: once Obama sufficiently tanked the economy, it’s already BEEN happening. It happens faster in states that actually follow the law.

                There is some evidence that the concept of self-deportation works. The Pew Hispanic Center released a study in early 2012 that estimated the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico living in the United States dropped by roughly 1 million people, or about 15%, from 2007 to 2012. The chief explanation was the lack of jobs due to the recession and downturn in the economy. Unable to find work, these people self-deported.

                http://usconservatives.about.com/od/glossaryterms/g/Self-Deportation-A-Definition-Of-The-Concept.htm

                Lefties and the media (redundancy) like to claim it doesn’t work; unfortunately, a lot of people swallow that Kool-Aid.

                1. The worst economy in decades caused around 15% to self-deport. There’s no way that law enforcement actions are going to be more effective than market forces, so we’re still looking at ~80% of the problem sticking around through whatever we throw at them. We’d need to make it nearly impossible for employers to hire illegals, but I don’t see a way to do that that doesn’t run afoul of the Fourth Amendment.

                  1. Except we don’t have market forces, and that number was obtained with winking at all immigration law, employment law, and benefit law. If we actually enforced what we have, the choices would quickly become leave or starve (or commit crimes, but we can arrest / deport or kill in defense of self or property).

                    And I’m good with that.

                    2. Hello, Mr. Employer, we want to run all the Social Security numbers of all your employees. Oh look, here’s 20 people who have SSNs that were never issued, and here’s 10 more that filed taxes claimed benefits here under the name Sanchez and here under the name Gauch. Funny, you don’t look like his DMV photo. You 30 are going on the bus, and Mr Employer can spend 10 years in jail or find 1 million in fines each.

                      Now, all of you other employers who just got the news: we’ll be around to your business next, Is it really worth it to have employees who can’t pass this check? Think hard.

                      Apply for government bennies: same deal, only if we find any other jurisdiction gave them anyway, replace Mr Employer with Mr Government Official and play it again.

                      No job, no bennies: eat in Mehico or starve here. Choose. Oh, and in the mean time, we’ll stop the remittances back to your home country too. Not much of a point in coming, is there?

                    3. The welfare check would work, but I’m not sure that going into a private business and demanding to see their employee records is kosher with the Fourth Amendment. And I don’t see how you stop remittances without shutting down international finance.

                    4. If it’s against the law to employ illegals, someone filed a complaint.

                      Or hiring illegals pollutes the job market in the same way that serving tainted food pollutes the restaurant market. Are you saying we can’t have restaurant inspectors do random inspections? or periodic inspections?

                    5. Periodic inspections just won’t work, the employers will just make sure that there’s nothing wrong come inspection time.

                      Illegal immigrants per se aren’t a public health hazard (immigrants from third-world countries may pose a threat to public health, but that’s independent of their immigration status) and the federal government doesn’t have the kind of general police power to perform those inspections. And there are limits to what the government can do in the name of public health, they can’t just grab random people off the street and give them TB tests. Random inspections as a condition of a food service license is one thing, requiring all businesses open their effects to random government searches is quite another. Now if someone calls in a tip, that should be treated like a report of any other crime. I’m all for fining the crap out of employers who knowingly hire illegals, but proving that they knew or should have known they were illegal isn’t trivial. But we can use the money from such cases to offer as a reward for reporting hiring illegal immigrants.

                      I’m not saying there nothing we can do about illegal immigrants so we might as well amnesty all of them. I just want people to recognize that we aren’t going to get all of them and that we need to have a plan for what to do with the ones that slip through our enforcement mechanisms.

                    6. Jeff, you probably need to go and take a tax accounting course before saying things like that.

                      Employers file quarterly tax forms listing whose on the payroll for FICA witholding, etc. When the listed employees SSNs get run, check’s made. Cross reference to any of a dozen different databases. You’re making how much output with that few employees? Hmmmm. Bottom line: the reason people weren’t getting busted before is that no one was looking.

                      And as for this: “Random inspections as a condition of a food service license is one thing, requiring all businesses open their effects to random government searches is quite another.”

                      We’re not opening their effects at random; we’re verifying that the law is followed, just like any other inspection regime: food safety, hazmat, etc. Don’t want to file the required reports, don’t serve food, handle certain materials, etc..

                      I guess it boils down to what keeping your country is actually worth. If it’s not worth the effort, why have one for anything else?

                    7. So the police can go into your house whenever they want with no warrant to ensure that the drug laws are being followed, or to make sure you don’t have a coed locked up in the basement? And using the mandatory tax reporting system to check for other crimes seems to be running pretty close to the edge of the 5th amendment.

                    9. The Fourth Amendment doesn’t have a business exemption. Now the states can require a license to conduct business and make inspections a condition of the license, if they have a darn good reason. “Poor sanitation practices could make people sick” is one “he may be hiring illegal immigrants” isn’t. And note that the states aren’t generally permitted to enforce immigration law.

                      Now, if the SSA were to stand up some anti-fraud measures like looking unissued or dead numbers or noting when the same number is used in two widely separated locations at the same time (this one would be tricky since it’s possible for someone to moonlight over the internet for a company based far away from his physical location) that might be permissible to pass onto law enforcement, who could call in ICE if the identity thief turned out to be an illegal immigrant. But to fine the employer you’d have to either prove he knew or that he should have known.

                    10. ” But to fine the employer you’d have to either prove he knew or that he should have known.”

                      Which is why no one has been enforcing E-Verify. Oh, and pretty much all regulations are malum prohibitum, meaning that the existence of an illegal on his employee list is enough; no need for knowledge or intent.

                      “this one would be tricky since it’s possible for someone to moonlight over the internet for a company based far away from his physical location”

                      Not for my present employer: my tax residence is Texas, and that’s where my employer has me. If my employer sends me to Oregon, my Federal tax residence doesn’t change; likewise my Federal tax residence when I’m working over the internet on a California project (which I am now, today).

                      So far, you haven’t managed an objection that can’t be handled with current law and tech; the dirty little secret is that both Democrats and GOPe have been using some form of Obama’s “prosecutorial discretion” to avoid actually enforcing the law for decades. Trump is the natural result of that dishonesty.

                    11. There’s nothing to enforce, there is no federal law requiring E-verify be used.

                      You haven’t proposed anything that isn’t blatantly unconstitutional or essentially ineffective.

                      Trump’s biggest problem – and the reason why even if he wins he’ll be a one-termer – is that he’s making promises that he can’t follow through on. I can’t say that he’s being dishonest because he may actually believe that he can get a wall built and that it will be effective, but there isn’t going to be a wall. The basic dishonesty of the GOP is in not telling the electorate the reality of the situation, in saying that they’re absolutely opposed to amnesty when they know that some kind of amnesty is inevitable. Instead of having the honest debate where we discuss our real options and come up with the best available plan, we spend the election season taking a hard line and then getting upset when the politicians go off and try to do something on the issue.

                    12. “You haven’t proposed anything that isn’t blatantly unconstitutional or essentially ineffective.”

                      Not uncostitutional, unless a) business regulation is unconstitutional or b) the Constitution is actually a suicide pact. And between no borders libertarians like you, the CoC Republicans, and the unamerican Democrats, you may well have achieved that objective.

                      As for ineffective, let’s actually try it and see. All evidence (and I’ve provided some of many) says it will work…. if tried.

                    13. I don’t think Jeff is a No-borders libertarian. I’m not. But I fear giving the feds more power over our businesses. You know they twist everything. Should I remind you of Gibson’s guitar?

                    14. I do. I also remember that Congress was given tools like impeachment and the power of the purse for a reason. Unfortunately, tools, like expensive militaries, are only effective if the will to use them is there.

                    16. How about the Attorney General? Head of EPA? Sec of Treasury over IRS?

                      The excuse has worn a little threadbare.

                    17. look, impeaching Clinton did nothing good. Younger people than I think it was stupid. I know, I know, but there’s more than one way to look at this. And they don’t have the NUMBERS in the legislative bodies. They just don’t.

                    18. How many votes to impeach are required in the Senate? At any time during this administration has there been any slightest chance of winning an impeachment? Hell, has there even been sufficient votes to block a filibuster of any impeachment proceedings?

                      The political winds were not there for those sails.

                    19. Oh heck, they denounced us as racist for simply failing to fall in line for the shackles his party was offering.

                    20. Business regulation by the federal government is unconstitutional. Separation of powers my dear boy.

                      And by calling me an open borders libertarian you have gone full Prog. We’re done here.

                    21. Point of order: tax reporting is privileged and MAY NOT BE RELEASED publicly nor turned over to another governmental agency. (Note to Al Capone fans: the IRS can prosecute for non-payment.)

                      Mind you, as this administration has demonstrated, what is legally impermissible and what a prosecutor will bring to court are very different things. See: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/02/the-obama-administration-takes-a-dive-to-make-sure-non-citizens-vote.php

                    22. Which is why Obamacare is officially enforced by the IRS; other agencies can turn their info over to them for cross referencing. And no one has mentioned turning over tax returns; all that’s needed is a list of possible identity fraud perps.

                      In addition, breaking down the “firewall” after 9/11 poked some interesting information sharing portals in all kinds of things, particularly where foreign nationals are involved.

                    23. You’re making how much output with that few employees? Hmmmm.

                      They already do this with agriculture.

                      Problem being, they set their idea of normal by having desk jockies go pick, rather than someone who knows the fruit from a hole in the ground, and it’s a guilty-until-proven-innocent thing. Really like to snatch perishable shipments until folks agree they’re guilty to get the stuff back before it rots on the tracks.

                      From the talk I hear about this case, the kids really weren’t working– they were just hanging out with mom and dad:
                      http://www.capitalpress.com/Orchards/20150824/washington-grower-must-pay-16000-to-dol-before-he-can-sell-his-apples

                      Remove the minimum wage, remove child labor laws (apply the hollywood kid star laws to kids to avoid that issue) and the problem stops.

                    24. I just want people to recognize that we aren’t going to get all of them and that we need to have a plan for what to do with the ones that slip through our enforcement mechanisms.

                      Except that in the past “plan for what to do with the ones that slip through” becomes “excuse to let them all slip through”.

                      When the feds have done as much with illegal aliens as they would if 12 million Americans quit withholding taxes and filing returns ask me about the ones who slipped through the enforcement mechanism. Until then my answer is “you aren’t trying hard enough”. Because you can be damn well sure the Feds wouldn’t rest until those slipping through on taxes were in the single digits.

                  3. I’ve got one that will lower identity theft/tax fraud opportunities– make it so employers can register their workers, for tax purposes, before they even start the job. If there’s a problem, they get alerted right away, before the first dollar goes out the door.

                    Make sure it’s free, maybe even list it as a eco-friendly paperwork mumble mumble.

                    This would also be rather nice for places that hire a lot of seasonal workers; my sister (works in low end retail) says that it’s fairly common for people to get hired, work a few days and then disappear without even picking up their checks, usually with stuff that was of greater value than their check. Fake names, of course. Even with increased security, it’s worse during things like Christmas.

                    *********

                    You also didn’t hit on the “reduce handouts” part. I don’t even suggest removing all things that they can get– just take reasonable measures to prevent the nastiest fraud-for-benefits, like actually verifying identity for those that require identity (sounds ridiculous? Tell that to the Church Ladies who had their IDs stolen from the parish “safe spaces” program and used for a bunch of them. Nobody checked the claimed identity until one of the ladies accidentally smacked into it.)

                    Being the horrible person I am, I’d also have ICE raiding the home of record for the children of illegals in schools– and if they’re not actually where the kid lives, start charges for fraud, just like that infamous case where the woman lived in one city and claimed to live at her father’s so the kid could go to a much better school.

                2. I think what Jeff means is that self-deportation doesn’t work when the economy is booming. I think it will work if we cut welfare and enforce the law. Not absolutely but in enough numbers to make a difference. But the self-deportation has been massive in places like CO which is why I find the Trumpsters’ obsession with Immigration Uber Alas as bizarre. Though the fact one of them commenting here was booted before for vile white supremacy makes you raise your eyebrow, doesn’t it?

            3. You and Jeff are both correct. Mass deportation by force is a logistical and political impossibility*, but taking away the incentives for mass illegal immigration would be more effective, easier, and considerably less fraught.

              1. I really don’t get the obsession with immigration. Of course it’s a train wreck, but so is education, so are a hundred other things. I think the problem is that they have no idea how many people there are in the US. I think 12 million is way overinflated, but even if it were true we are 300 million. It’s not like “refugees” overwhelming Germany. Honestly? Legal immigration MIGHT be a bigger problem since in the seventies the dems turned it into an international welfare plan.
                While I agree a country that can’t defend its borders has an issue and that we need border patrols, they SERIOUSLY overestimate how very important this is short term. There are a ton other things.

                1. Because the legal immigration isn’t a flashing “hey, serial killers– this is a great out!” sign.

                  The rest are slightly less bad reasons, but it is a giant flashing invitation for the most dangerous to come in and get away with it over, and over, and over again.

                    1. Not “people who are planning terror,” but known, elsewhere identified murderers. The *known* bad guys, not the unknown ones.

                      It’s a big enough problem of major criminals wanted in other countries coming here and hiding in sanctuary cities that I’ve heard of security briefings (plural) on the topic.

                      That isn’t counting the gang related crime– it’s just the personal entertainment criminals.

                    3. Doesn’t matter what I think, it matters that they clearly think it– and that as illegals, they can effectively ditch their identity at the drop of a hat.

                2. Sarah, spread a few million more voters who will vote reliably Democrat (especially once their names are on the voting rolls and available for fraud) into a few critical states (including Texas), and you will lose the Presidency, governor, Senate, and Supreme Court …. forever. What will happen then?

                  That’s why immigration is THE issue.

                  1. no. Seriously, first clean up the voter roles. Remember when the — blanking on name — organization bragged of manufacturing 2 million votes for Obama? THAT’s the issue. Illegal immigrants voting is the issue. And btw, we don’t have anywhere near 12 million. We did at the height of it, but they HAVE been leaving. Which we find mostly about via news from Mexico. We’re being stampeded. And Trump will do bloody nothing about it. And you and I know it, too.

          2. It is a logistical impossibility

            People keep on saying this. Why is it impossible?

            I know mass murders have been carried out on the scale of millions, maybe even tens of millions. It seems like it could be possible to murder millions here in the United States.

            1. Okay, a logistical impossibility assuming that we’re going to peacefully deport illegals in an effort to remain a sane polity. Which I think is the standpoint everyone’s coming from in this debate?

              1. The roots of Republics and Democracies lie in armies that used voting as a way to distribute civil power among their soldiers.

                The Democratic plan to bring in illegals to bolster their ranks of voters is similar to bringing in an outside army. Compare Cataline’s treason. Those illegals who are participating are engaged in an act of war. Friends come through the gates; enemies come over the wall.

                I might consider us in a de facto state of war now. Certainly it is a risk in the future.

                1. Sanity is relative to culture. 2. Our polity can only remain a polity with a certain minimum of trust.

                1. At this point I would think you were actually advocating for mass murder, if you didn’t use the word “murder”. Help me out here – what’s the point of this discussion?

                    1. Yes. Bob was a bit off before he read too much history. Then he compounded things by studying Latin with the intent of better adsorbing some of the Roman martial ethos.

                      Bob’s highest priority here is the preservation of the Republic. Bob thinks that it is unwisely dangerous to have an organization capable of carrying out a mass slaughter inside the United States. On the other hand, Bob is not committed to making the governments of other countries work. Bob also thinks that if there is a sufficient national interest, the US government may slaughter foreign populations as necessary.

                      Bob’s sentiments are mixed. He sometimes has to wrestle with himself to make the preservation of the Republic the highest priority.

                      Bob thinks that there are a lot of really awful possibilities, including failure of the Republic. Vigilantism on the scale of the illegal problem would pretty much be a civil war, at a minimum.

                  2. a) people who insist deportation is the most severe approach are wrong b) impossible and ‘significantly more harm than good’ are not the same c) fixing the economic incentives that drive the illegals is safer and easier than some of the alternatives

                  3. No, he’s realizing that we’re actually in the middle of a war, even if we’re calling it politics.

                    1. I object to the tense of ‘realizing’ and the number of ‘war’.

                      Consider the possible conflicts:
                      a) The cartels and the Mexican civil war
                      b) Die hards from earlier Mexico Texas conflicts. Texas split off from Mexico in a Civil War. The Hispanic Texans and Mexican nationalists of the era didn’t necessarily love each other, and the grudge may continue.
                      c) Neo-Aztec revanchist crazy ideology (Mexica nationalists as opposed to Mexican nationalists)
                      d) The friction between Spanish speakers and English speakers.
                      e) border violation done as a political act
                      f) Democrats shopping for another people, due to the current one not suiting them.
                      g) What exactly have we been doing in Mexico during the Obama administration? Could we have been trying to screw it up as badly as we screwed up Syria? I would not at all be surprised.

                      As far as bridges go, the English language is a necessary bridge. Absent that, Don’s Wall and Frank’s Bridge can only serve as gibbets.

            2. Well, the last time a society tried moving ~10 million people against their will they wound up using cattle cars and only had to move them across the width of Central Europe.

              It’s not a perfect rule, but if your policy ever has you dusting off plans from Nazi Germany, you should seriously rethink your policy.

              1. I don’t only look at one regime’s methods of mass murder, and I spend too much time rethinking to let them gather dust. 🙂

                So America is probably too big and spread out?

                1. Definitely, and there just isn’t that much human “rolling stock” available. When the US Army did the build up for Iraq, they chartered entire jumbo jets to move the troops, and that was orders of magnitude fewer people. Plus there would still be immigrants coming in.

                  It’s a complex issue, which is why nobody with the political sophistication beyond dog-catcher is making any definitive statements. A definitive statement in a campaign is something your opponents in the legislature can use against you. Either stop it entirely or force you to give up something very valuable to them to get it. If Trump does get into the White House, he’s going to find making a deal harder than he’s letting on. After all, the first rule of deal making is not being afraid of walking away, and the Democrats aren’t going to have any problem walking away from a wall. He’s going to have to give away the store to keep them at the table, or he’s going to disappoint his entire constituency.

                  1. One possibility occurred to me for sealing the border that would work better than the wall. Start at the Rio Grande and go south, killing and burning. Poison all sources of drinkable water.

                    Of course, we still aren’t motivated and vicious enough for ‘what would the Romans do?’ to be a source of feasible solutions. (What the Romans would really do is practice honest and open slavery. I am absolutely opposed to slavery, which is why I talk about mass murder only. This situation with the illegals is in many cases involves slavery. Thanks so much for that, Labor Laws.)

                    1. Frankly I still think that the best solution to the problem is to finish the job we started in 1846. Given the number of Mexicans living in the US and the fact that for every illegal immigrant there must be at least 10 who would like to be in the US but couldn’t get across the border for whatever reason, most Mexicans would rather be Americans. Call up the National Guard, spend their two week annual training taking over the country – lob a few artillery shells through the windows of the worst of the drug cartels on your way through – and then sell the oil to pay for it all.

          3. I think probably not as well but the US has deported people before in numbers and contrary to opinion and glib slogans aside walls often do work .

            Also its not necessary to be perfect, only good enough and a combination of a wall, deportations and a “no work, no welfare. ” policy should dry up the supply.

            Actual deportation is not that difficult really, the logistics are simpler than day to day at Amazon which moves billions of items . Its a political problem and though I agree that its quite hard to do identity if you aren’t willing to try I hope you enjoy the Latin American flavor of Socialism because that is what you are going to get.

            I can only take Trump at what he says and writes which is the same as the I do for everyone else. His sucks less.He will probably lie but so will Hillary and the others

            On #4 you are just wrong free trade policies are never good for a country, Trade with China is flat out a terrible idea. If Americans want to be prosperous they need economic nationalism not neo-liberalism

            And yes Cruz and Hillary are quite similar, both are products of a rotten establishment and beholden to interests that don’t have most folks best needs in mind. Cruz is far far better than Hillary mind you and given a choice between the two I’d vote Cruz or even Rubio. I’d vote Vermin Supreme over most of them which I’m not alone in feeling as the novelty candidate came in 4th i New Hampshire

            1. “… you are just wrong free trade policies are never good for a country, Trade with China is flat out a terrible idea. If Americans want to be prosperous they need economic nationalism not neo-liberalism”

              Yeah, I’m gonna need to ask you show your work on this one.

            2. Oh, yeah, guys, btw, A B Prosper was banned here before for white supremacist remarks. I haven’t unbanned his IP, but he had a mobile IP anyway. I thought you all should know.

            3. OK, so you know literally nothing about economics. You missed the very first lesson. And your idea that moving millions of people who don’t want to be moved is similar to moving inanimate objects is laughable.

              One of the reasons I suspect Trump of being a Democrat stalking horse is the fact that all of his supporters demonstrate the same “thought” process as Progressives. You are not a counterexample.

        3. To be lying on this, Cruz would have needed to have been planning it for years, and would need ample powers of foresight and discipline to have pulled it off.

          To be lying on this, Trump would need to have decided on it a year ago, would not have needed discipline or foresight, just spontaneity.

          To be an effective liar about this, Cruz would need qualities I value. Trump does not need them either way, and shows no sign of them. Most of Trump’s apparent qualities are not ones I value.

          Cruz is a Texan, and not Dewhurst. He is culturally similar to me, and would hear and be concerned about some of the same rumors I hear and am concerned about.

          Trump is a New Yorker, is culturally alien to me, and no more shares my interests than any other foreigner.

  12. There is an old saying, what cannot continue will not continue.
    Trump, and to a degree Cruz, Rubio, and Sanders are the inevitable reaction of their respective bases to the pattern common to both parties’ movers and shakers to beg yet again for their support just prior to a critical election, and once the goal is achieved breath a sigh of relief, wallow once again in the same old comfortable hog trough, and immediately wipe all recollection of any promises made to those annoying rabble.
    This goes on year after year, midterm after midterm, on the Republican side, while the Dem base is no longer patiently waiting for puppies and unicorns and single payer health care.
    On both sides the well has run dry, all trust has long since been destroyed.
    So we see a tsunami of support for anything else, thus Trump and Sanders.

      1. The worst aspect of a Trump presidency would be the press blaming every failure as a consequence of electing a conservative.

            1. Agreed.

              The problem with these statements to any that do not already belive that Cruz is a viable alternative to the usual establishment offering (Jeb, Rubio) is this:

              “So what? If we elect any non-Democrat, the press is going to blame any and any failures – including failures they manufacture from whole cloth – on electing a conservative. So why should that concern me?”

              Ideally, we would want to elect a conservative capable of challenging the narrative presented by the mass media.

              Currently only Trump and Cruz show any likelihood of having this ability. And I have my doubts about Cruz. Trump’s weakness appears to be that he’ll only challenge it if his ego is pricked. And he does it badly (Yes, Trump supporters, that he does it at all is nothing short of miraculous. The late, much lamented Mr. Breitbart did it well. Mr. Reagan did it well. Please compare)

              3. Arguably (by which I mean demonstrably, but I lack the inclination to demonstrate these) those failures of the Bush ’43 presidency were failures to be conservative. Not stopping the Fannie/Freddie looting, allowing the DoJ to interfere in things where it had no business … add your own extra toppings to the pizza of W’s errors.

                1. No argument. They most definitely failed to be conservative, after running as conservatives.

                  That’s the problem. Republicans have been playing Lucy-ball for too long. The reaction of the GOPe to the tea-party has only made the situation worse.

                  1. I’m not saying George W Bush didn’t want to stop them, I’m saying that the failure was in spite of rather than due to his conservatism.

      2. I’m afraid that is exactly what most of the Trump supporters are doing.
        And only slowly somewhere in the first year of a Trump term will they realize that they exchanged a smooth talking Eurocentric marxist for a firey talking crony capitalist.

        1. The only slight glimmer of hope I see in a Trump win is if Trump was telling the truth about his potential Supreme Court picks. (That’s a big IF, I am the first to admit.) Otherwise, much of what I hear from him concerns me greatly

        2. Point of order. I dislike the term “crony capitalist.” The proper term is mercantilism and it was what Adam Smith was writing against when he described capitalism. Mercantilism’s history is longer and nearly as ignoble as socialism’s. The Irish Famine was caused in no small part by mercantilism. Ireland was growing more than enough food to support its population, but most of it was corn and wheat for export, not local consumption.

          1. Unfortunately mercantilism is a genuine problem on the right. Many of my conservative friends are mercantilists. And you’re absolutely right about how bad it is.

            1. And it’s that ugly strain in the GOP that Trump has tapped. The good news is that it isn’t a majority, so if the field can narrow quickly to 1 or 2 competitors to Trump he’ll likely lose. But if Trump runs against 3 or 4 people he’s going to take it in a walk. At this point my respect for Carson is dropping by the day. I’d say the same for Kasich, except I haven’t respected him at all since he took the Medicaid danegeld.

            3. Sarah, I don’t think you are seeing this clearly. Crony capitalism / mercantilism is a trademark of the left, so your friends aren’t really conservative nor “of the right”.

      3. Obama couldn’t destroy this country in eight years. And he was actually trying.

        The train is fine.

        1. It’s a big country, certainly with its faults, but arguably the best of a bad lot. No, the big O did not utterly destroy the country, just do terrible long term damage. He has for all practical purposes destroyed once solid relationships with nearly every former ally. He’s doubled the national debt. He’s perverted out justice system to the point that we no longer believe in equal justice under the law. Our economy is in such a shambles that even the cooked numbers being reported cannot instill confidence as people see their costs rise and income fall.
          The train is out of control, and could leave the tracks with just the right nudge at just the wrong time.
          The damage is real, infused in the bones of our people, and it will take I am afraid far longer to repair than it did to cause.

          1. One of the few positive things Obama did was convince more citizens that it was right and proper to not obey his diktats. If Trump tries anything too far-reaching, there will be far more pushback. And I don’t anticipate him trying to micromanage everything the way Obama has. He’s more the “surround himself with experts” type.

            1. He’ll micromanage WAY more, but it will be personal, not ideological. i.e. speaking against him personally will be a lot more dangerous.
              Fortunately I’ve reconciled myself to the bullet in the back of the brain pan back in 08. It’s the road we’re on. I don’t understand why I even bother exercising and managing my weight. The chances of dying from natural causes are minimal.

              2. You eat right and exercise because it’s the right thing. Right?

                And you have nothing to fear from the God-Emperor’s roaming right-wing death squads. You’re not a journalist.

                1. What “right-wing death squads?”
                  More like “Trumpster goons.”
                  Personally I think that’s a bit overblown, but one need not be a leftist to be concerned about Donald Trump’s brand of politics.

                  1. If you’re honestly more worried about Trump goons than Obama goons, I question your sanity. But have fun going to war with the army you wish you had.

                    1. Well…. “Trumpster goons” actually know what a safety is and which end of a gun the bullet comes out of, so it’s more reasonable than it sounds.

                      I do think the fear of a knock on the door from the Fed for wongthink js reasonable. We had the whole WI shennanigans recently: http://www.waukeshagop.org/site/Viewer.aspx?iid=36926&mname=Article&rpid=7896

                      What evidence do we have that Mr. Trump would not use this particular governmental tool if he felt the need? Indeed, if you take an honest gander at his business practices, it seems likely that he would.

                      Yes, I know you believe we live in a post-constitutional USA. And you’re not entirely wrong. But we’re not all the way there, or we wouldn’t even know about the John Doe cases and the victims would be rotting in jail, silenced (And wjth apologies to Mrs Hoyt that’s a far more likely scenario than her bulket in the head. We’re the USA, not Portugal or So. America. We have Plaintiffs attorneys. God help us)

                      Several of the Republican candidates clearly, indeed demonstrably WOULD not. The only one left from that set is Cruz, AND he has demonstrated an ability to overturn a fair bit of the Establishment policies we hate.

                    1. They call really, really mean names on the internets. They go full ad-hominem ballistic at the faintest hint of disparagement of La Donald. We’ll see whether or not using the tactics of the Vile 770-ers is effective or not (I hope not. That’s not a road I want us to go down whenever we’re convinced The Cause is worthy enough)

                      And don’t worry: we’ve survived a President (Wilson & his 5 minute men) who actually organized this kind of cadre to deal with critics and rebels. We got over it before, we will again.

                      Even so, the “Trump goons” are still not up to Gamergate war standards (and I write this with nothing but love in my heart for the brave anarchists of gamergate. But still)

                      I live next door and down the road from Trump supporters. I have them in my life as friends and family. Yes, many of them are armed. I can truly assure you that NONE of them would ever go full-potato SJW on you and try to put you up against the wall Bolshevik-style.

                      And based on the way rebels and dissenters are harassed here in the U.S. the bullet-in-the-back-of-fhe-head is really not something you need to fear. At least not from Trump goons. Even if you assume that they’re every bit as violently inclined as the Black Panther and black liberation-theocracy Obama supporters, the lawless Chicago gang STILL didn’t use a bullet-in-the-back to take on dissenters.

                      What he used is and was law-fare. Plaintiff’s attorneys and IRS attorneys and other legal assassins who will strip you to the bone economically at best and send you to prison at worst.

              3. Posted without further comment: This song of the Amerika to come . . . and I fear it’s coming really, really soon.

                1. It won’t be Trump that causes it though, Some Democrat or somebody like Bloomberg will push things to far, gun confiscation, another Waco or Ruby Ridge on someone who is media savvy and sympathetic, who knows?

                  Its kind of expected though, the Founding Fathers Jefferson especially know we’d need it from time to time.

                  1. It won’t be Trump? Really? Do you have a crystal ball?
                    Trump is the end. He’s the “strong man” who makes us a banana republic. If that’s what you want, run to it.

                    1. I don’t have a crystal ball any more than you do . Well alright I do but its strictly decorative I promise.

                      Anyway I’ve read the man’s books, watched his career with some interest since I was a kid and don’t see it in him at all.

                      He’s kind of a blowhard populist but that’s about it.

                      He probably won’t accomplish a fraction of the things he talks about and will almost certainly not get Congress to go along with most of them either.

                      He certainly can do some things by executive order, make the cabinet departments do their jobs and maybe try something dramatic if he is so inclined.

                      For example he could break the sanctuary city movement by having the Justice department prosecute people going along with it on conspiracy to facilitate terrorism and conspiracy to facilitate human trafficking maybe under the NDAA . Its legal but its far too risky. Likely he won’t do much there. He might try some of the policies re: illegal immigration you folks suggested upstream too.

                      What you fear, him sending in the troops or something seems kind of far fetched.

                      He is still heads and tales above the others Cruz who in the big banks pocket (and might not be eligible to hold the office anyway) Rubio who is just doubling down on the GOP/e cronyism and of whom both are Neo-Cons

                      Trump at least will probably make some peace with Russia ,maybe deal with the China trade issues and maybe deal with the invasion of the Us from Mexico and elsewhere.

                      I suspect he’ll stick to his written positions on guns, tinker with with immigration, increase the deportation rate a bit and in general be more bluster than anything else.

                      In any case what he will do just by being elected and its what I think makes y’all unhappy is shift the Overton Window closer to the positions of the Dissident Right .

                      Most folks here are Libertarian Right so a lot of the policies we’d like aren’t the same, its understandable but he isn’t a threat.

                      And if he wins there is a small chance he will actually prove to be a boon. Its small but its not zero like the others,

                      In the highly unlikely event he really screws up and everything goes boom. Well that’s really going to be unpleasant but at the rate we are going, its going to happen anyway. Oh well.

                    2. A.B. Prosper, I agree that Trump is moving the Overton window. I believe that you are seriously mistaken on most everything else.

                      Many here are libertarian but the biggest belief is that the US Constitution is THE most important and significant political document in the history of the world. Its power must be restored. That is why I will be caucusing for Cruz tonight.

                    4. I’m glad to see you out and working Oldgriz . I’d wish you luck but its politics. Your guy is my second choice though so its not all bad. Cruz is OK and if it comes to him or Hillary? I’ll campaign for him

                      As I see it the US Constitution is a dead letter now. Has been for probably a hundred years or more, cannot be salvaged. Maybe shouldn’t be.

                      The reason is simple, it has an Achilles Heel namely there is no way to keep the courts clean. Its effortless to get people on the court that will bend and distort it any way you want them too. They’ll lie there way in and you can’t stop them. Even guys that are thought to be basically decent end up like Roberts and make terrible decisions

                      The number of principled people like the late justice Scalia or Bork who never got his shot or any other originalists are negligible and very hard to get in office.

                      People want to do things, its the point of power and being utterly prevented from that would be intolerable.

                      I suppose Cruz might appoint some justice that will slow the rot but its a holding action and with illegal and legal immigration from people who do not prize or want liberty, your ideology will end up loosing power in any case,

                      With Cruz might end up with another Roberts too.

                      The optimum solution would be a Con-Con, rewrite the thing and have every member of the government swear an oath to that particular form but we cannot do this, we don’t dare even try to do this.

                      Not only is cheating a risk, the divisions are too great.

                      I always liked How It Could Happen by J.M Greer as a cautionary tale

                      http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-it-could-happen-part-one-hubris.html

                      With Trump, you are right his justices will probably suck but I really don’t care. The only issues I care about are immigration , guns and privacy/civil liberties

                      Trump is the only one talking about the 1st two in a strong manner and seems to one most willing to step on the opposition. Do what it takes to get what he wants.

                      Given how important these things are and the contempt everyone has of the Constitution, I find it hard to care so long as he gets close to what I want .

                      Now if Cruz could populate the courts with enough originalists and do some good work on immigration I’d be very much in favor of him but he can’t and I don’t trust him.

                      I don’t trust Trump either but I think he’ll get me closer to what I want . Maybe

                      And if he shivs me? And so? Its expected behavior. Its win win, the one guy who seems like a reformer turns out bad, This shoves the Overton window to by any means necessary and BOOM!

                      I think BOOM! is unavoidable anyway but as Claire Wolfe often says

                      America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards

            2. Unless his ego is pricked. At which point I can easily see him taking personal charge of the revenge.

              1. Yep. That is probable. Based on how he handles detractors: He’s pretty decent to opponents unless they actually attack him effectively, then Mr. Trump hits back twice as hard, and without worrying about Marquis de Queensbury rules. Based on how the man has lived his life it’s hard to imagine any moral restraint stopping him from “hitting back” if he felt it were warranted.

                And he’d have the power of the presidency.

                On the other hand, we got through the Clinton 8 years, and that’s how they handled things. Shoot, it’s how Mrs. Clinton is dealing with the possibility of indictment: threatening the FBI and any congress-critters who might go along with it.

                So I think we’ll manage. But it will suck hard vacuum.

            3. “If Trump tries anything too far-reaching”

              It has generally been acknowledged that part of how Obama inflicted so much damage on the nation is that he is for all practical purposes, unimpeachable. Trump, OTOH, will probably be the most impeachable* president since Andrew Johnson.

              It will be interesting to see who he picks as his VP, although leave us all pray the question never comes up.

              *Based on lack of supporters on either side of the Congressional aisle and the probability of his “base” abandoning him as soon as his presidency becomes fact rather than its current theoretical condition.

              1. It’s one of the things that makes me hopeful about a Trump presidency in a way that a Clinton presidency would not.

                Honestly, I’d prefer Bernie to that woman. She has the full machine behind her.

          2. No. About the same time. This train wreck started 100 years ago, give or take, with the European idea of the perfect government being imported. We need a lot of time and patience to fight it.

          3. This. Just because it didn’t end our civilization doesn’t mean it can’t be a contributing factor. Rome survived Diocletian’s policies by centuries, but no one can say with a straight face that those policies had nothing to do with the fall.

        2. “Obama couldn’t destroy this country in eight years. And he was actually trying.”

          Rome didn’t fall in a day. Or even a century.

  14. When trust in government at all levels is destroyed, the result is never pretty. I foresee blood in the streets (more, that is). Too bad Cry the Beloved Country has already been used as a book title.

  15. A friend of mine the other day, when talking about China, started talking appreciatively about all the things that the communists had done to bring the country “out of the dark ages.”

    I balked at that, saying that as far as I could tell, Mao Tse Tung destroyed that country, and broke it down to a standard of living that was below that of pre-historic animals. I had seen pictures of how the people in the countryside (in the various provincial labor gangs) were living in 1980 in one of those national-geographic type magazines in undergrad: Some of them were literally living in mud holes in the hillside, wearing woven grass! I told him that I didn’t have a very warm fuzzy about anything that any communists had done, Mao being at the bottom of that dismal list!

    He said something to the effect that his own family suffered under SE Asian communists, but that what they did was “necessary”. That there are too many people over there with too many needs, and so individual rights mean nothing. That nothing can be done without sacrificing the individual to the good of the collective.

    I grumbled something about how you can only ever sacrifice one group of individuals to another group of individuals, but didn’t pursue it much further at the time. I don’t push political arguments anymore. No one agrees with me, and I don’t want to start trouble or cause too great a rift with my friends and coworkers.

    Literally everyone I know in school is somewhere on the socialist to communist spectrum. Either that, or they are accepting of rationalizations put out by actual communists. I don’t know what kind of civilization is going to result from a future of people who don’t even think in terms of individual rights, much less speak up for them.

    1. “I don’t know what kind of civilization is going to result from a future of people who don’t even think in terms of individual rights, much less speak up for them.”

      China. The concept of individual rights is a Western one and hasn’t made much penetration into the Orient. Those places that have taken it on in some form, South Korea and Japan for example, do rather well, but it is a foreign concept.

      1. Americans believe in individual rights- it’s the concept that people they don’t like also are individuals with the same rights that seems to be missing.

      2. Oh, don’t pull your punches. It’s a Christian idea, and it’s part of “Western” culture to the extent that they were Christian cultures.

        And we owe it all to the Jews, God bless ’em, who discovered (invented for you non-theists) the idea of ethical monotheism. Pace Johnson’s excellent A History of the Jews. Very highly recommended.

        I’m so tired of pussy-footing around reality to massage the tender sensibilities of the diversity uber alles crew. I quit.

        2. Re. Overgrown Hobbit & “Western” individualism:
          Christianity wasn’t the only source of an individualistic ethos, but Stoicism was never suited for non-philosophers, and mostly died out because of that.

          A Stoicism-dominated West would look quite different from the Christian West.

      3. I’ve spoken with a bunch of post Christian Brits. They think our individualism fetish is bug nuts crazy. It’s sad that they have lost their way.

        1. While their island is being overrun by welfare cases and Muslim immigrants unwilling to assimilate.

        2. More likely they returned to the old ways. Most human cultures including Western ones are far far from individualistic, they are clannish, folkish and family centered. Not living in such societies make most people sick in the head and soul

          Of course some folks are more individualistic than others but baring totalitarian collectivism, they’ll find a place.

          1. Look, you collectivists have a lot of places to go and be collective. You try to take down the only place on Earth where we might, marginally, be left alone? No. we won’t roll over and let you.

            1. They seem to believe that SOCIETY MUST help those who can’t help themselves. And of course society is government. Oh, and church is a societal plus. It is where the weak minded go to get direction in their lives.

              1. Thing is, their solution entails society helping those who won’t help themselves, and any effort to distinguish the one from the other is racist/sexist/somethingphobic.

            2. I hear you but the number of people who are highly individualistic or like me can live in such societies is tiny. Outright minuscule. There aren’t enough of us to fill a continent sized nation probably not enough to fill Texas.

              This isn’t actually old news, its the central hidden conceit of L. Neil Smith’s Libertarian novel “The Probability Broach” in fact

              Numbers wise I’d guess people suited to libertarian Individualism are about 3% of the population and almost entirely European in origin and people with the drive and ethical character to handle it though not drawn to it like me are maybe 3x that. Call it 10% in total. Of the US population its maybe 30 million tops.

              A bit more than the population of Texas close to that of Canada or California .

              Ideally there would be a nation of Liberty or whatever but I have no idea how such a thing could be accomplished or if it can be. Sea Steading is just silly.

              1. I think you mistake the HARDCORE LIBERTARIANS as the only people with libertarian leanings. As technology moves society away from an economies of scale system to everyone wanting their own choice. The idea of personal freedom is growing again in America. Most young Socialists haven’t yet learned that the government steals their hard earned wealth at gunpoint to pay for all the free stuff.

                Besides America has a higher percentage of goats to sheep than anywhere else in the world. We also have a higher sheepdog to wolf ratio.

    2. “all the things that the communists had done to bring the country ‘out of the dark ages.’”

      Five gets you twenty that friend couldn’t tell you squat about the standard of living in China before Mao — and probably can’t describe how much of the improvement in living standards is as a result of the current regime adopting limited capitalism.

      Look into Humberto Fontova’s writing on the Cuban standard of living (per capita income, average education level achieved, life expectancy, infant mortality) during the corrupt Batista regime and the enlightened rule of the Brothers Castro.

      Communist regimes are very, very good at blackening the reputations of the predecessors. It is about the only thing they’re successful at. (Well, that and enriching their commie bastich rulers.)

  16. Hey kids? Want to freak out those fuddy duddy old dinosuars? Share the following meme.

    ‘The nationalist socialist solution to the economic problem: Gas and Bern.’

    Remember, Obama would have fixed the economy except the banks stabbed him in the back.

    1. And Barry Super Genius should remember what the Nazis did with the Kaiser after they rode the “stabbed in the back” horse into power:

      Absolutely nothing.

      Barry’s ride into the dustbin of historical footnotes has only 11 months to go.

  17. We should be so lucky that Donald Trump will be another run of the mill Democrat.

    Trump is the next Bloomberg, a self-indulgent plutocrat who hasn’t heard a negative word from anyone he HAD to listen to in decades, vastly less informed and gifted than he thinks he is, who has lived his adult life in a world where all his mistakes can be whisked away with a court appearance and a stroke of a pen, without consequences — to him, anyway. To his tenants, employees, investors… not so much.

    If Trump is elected, things will get ugly early.

  18. Trump supporters seem to fall into two camps: the true believers, who fervently believe whatever Trump is saying that particular day. Then there’s the “burn it down” crowd, who seem to know he’s a terrible person, but who also think a Trump presidency will be some kind of amusing reality show without any real world consequences.

    2. Precisely why I took myself out of Baen’s Politics forum. One major proponent of each. Normally very smart people.

      Well, I suppose the burner is still being smart in a way – he’s likely to get what he wants. The other one seems to think that Caliphate is a user manual on par with 1984 (and that Trump is Pat Buckman).

      1. I think both The Donald and Nationalist Socialist Bernie (and the Dowager Empress) could go Full Scudder, but only The Donald could go Full Buckman.

    3. I think you meant to write “The irrational Trump supporters fall into two camps.”

      There. I fixed it. I’m having a lot of problems with serious typos in the comments on this post, too.

      1. My experiences with Trump supporters has not been a positive one so far. I will concede that a few people seem to be following him based on the perception that Trump has genuine convictions.

      2. Isn’t “The irrational Trump supporters” a redundancy?

        We are seeing (on the Left and Right) the Politics Of Tantrum. And it will end as do most tantrums.

        1. With a responsible parent hauling the screaming brat away for punishment?

          I can only hope.

          1. I was listening to two people talking politics at work the other day. If the Hillary beast beats out their man Sanders then they will vote Trump. They both think conservatives are evil.

    4. To jump on what someone said a few days ago- the problem with burning something down to get rid of vermin is the fact that vermin do way better in blackened ruins than people.
      Likewise, we do not get to stay in a Ramada while rebuilding, nor is there a handy Home Depot to provide materials for the new house.

  19. Possible off-topic- this came up on Dr, Pournelle’s blog.

    A subtle but innocent looking brainwashing technique.

    1. I suspect that the Chinese people will handle this in the age-old manner, and subtly subvert the whole thing. Kinda like the way they eventually turned communism over into something that looked a lot more like the Imperial China of yore than the “dictatorship of the proletariat” that Marx was yammering on about.

      That’s the trouble with all these schemes; they forget the “finagle” factor of dealing with real people. I can almost guarantee you that they will have black-market subversions of the system going within weeks of this becoming a “thing”, and the whole system is going to crash, based on the inherent nature of the people in it. Score low because of the people you hang out with, online? Oh, look, here’s ten thousand fake accounts springing up overnight to balance out the subversives… Not getting what you want, because of a low score? Bribe the authorities.

      China is China. You’re not going to change it that much, even with this. More than likely, the whole scheme is the brainchild of some up-and-coming new-age bureaucrat/entrepreneur, and he’s going to find out the hard way that you can’t change human nature that much, at least without genetic engineering.

      1. above comment is aimed at old surfer, not kirk.
        in response to kirk, yes people will end run around it, and yes this is in china. now, however think about this system being introduced in the US.
        not at a level of adults that can game the system, not at the level of gamers (whos idea of fun is gaming the system)
        introduce this system at the grade school level, where every person is logged on by teacher/admin/gov. monitored by the government/press.
        good scores = college. bad scores = ditch digger. parents will be monitoring your scores! yes gaming of the system would happen, but enough damage would happen that control of peoples thinking would happen.
        might fail
        might not

        1. Looking back over the history of “managing people”, under any regime…? Yeah, I’m not sanguine about their chances, even with this stuff. The thing that these “nudgers” and “managers of human behavior” forget is that play is play–Make play work, and people aren’t going to do it, anymore.

          The “fixing” of human behavior isn’t likely to happen until genetic engineering takes hold, and even then…? Can you point to where the interaction between environment, genes, and epigenetic factors has effect in actual behavior? I can’t, they can’t, and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to figure it out any time in the near- or mid-term future, either.

          Every idiot that reaches for control over something winds up with a handful of smoke. You want control? You’ll never get it, not really, and not even the appearance of control for very long. The next generation will subvert it and destroy it, before you ever manage to make it last. Human culture and behavior is like some disease organism, constantly shifting, mutating, subverting every attempt to control it. That may be a bad thing, and it may be a good thing–But, it is a thing. You strive to control, and it blows up in your face. That’s been true since we first started to tell the Alpha male and female of our hunting band to go piss up a rope, we weren’t doing what they wanted us to do. And, it will likely be true when the last of us finally goes into the dark. We’re a contrary, fractious species, and that’s damn near an ineradicable trait of our nature–Tricksy monkeys, the lot of us. We’ll be flinging poo at the Alphas right till the end. And, they’ll hate us for it.

          1. make play work, your right that people will resent it.
            make work play, reward good think (shudder).
            remember I am not talking (typing) about adults, short term gains. I am talking about starting with very young children, brainwashing them (like they are doing now in public schools) and going for the long game.
            depending on the rewards / punishments, it would/could become more acceptable. and when you hold out things like college / betterment of your children, you get peer pressure and parent pressure.
            you make it a game, with rewards, etc. makes it more acceptable.
            this is not an end all. just another tool to control.
            yes kirk you can trick the system, I can trick the system, everyone on this site can trick the system. … great, now what about all the young children in “higher” education. take a long look. and tell me about how “good” it will be to get rid of free speech. safe spaces. racism (from the party of jimcrow. )
            I am not saying this will work, I am saying that I am afraid that this will work.

            1. Given the current popularity of “social networks”, this could be implemented in the next version of “facetwit” and could be self-sustaining right out of the gate. The connectivity available right now is frightening in its implications. Tricking the system may be a bug- or a feature.

  20. We didn’t, partly because we had no blogs, and partly because we had no metaphorical bell tower. For those of us in creative professions – but even for the ones in tech ones – there was no alternate route, no ladder we could pull up. They could get us where we lived. And they would. Since they confuse morals with politics, they have no qualms about punishing political opinion with professional disgrace and ostracism.

    *sad smile* And yet folks are shocked, shocked that the loud-mouths in the Millennial set– those of us who spent a minimum of our school years under the thumbs of those exact sorts of activists– aren’t all loud and proud with anything but The Approved Views.

    About the only folks who were loud the whole time are the shit-kickers, and they’re as likely to kick it in your face as the progs.

      1. That’s what worries me.

        Rand was right about what was wrong, but wrong about what was right. (Mangled Chesterton, there.)

        There are a lot of other directions besides “right.”

        Mostly just tired of getting kicked by the people who didn’t manage to stop this from happening because we haven’t magically fixed it before 35.

        1. Yeah, a lot of them are becoming like VD. “Everything the leftists say is a lie, so racism, sexism, etc. must have a point.” Head>desk. Hey, I save the ones I can, one on one, in evening talks with kids’ friends. It’s the best I can do, short of setting up free political seminars at various colleges. I can do that, but I’d need money for plane fare, and overnight stays where applicable. (Or volunteer drivers.)

          1. Well, there are several colleges in this area (four in 45 min drive, off the top of my head), and I can have a guest room and chauffeur (i.e. me) ready with, say, two days notice. Drop me an email if you want to give it a shot; I’m only working on four different projects right now, I should have plenty of time to spare! *crazed grin*

            2. Contact the local branch of FIRE, the young Republicans, any other potentially friendly students group including religious orgs and gaming & SF clubs.

              Post a bleg to Huns & Hoydens: would you like Ms Hoyt to speak near you? Contact your local university group (see list in previous graph) and request.

              Note! Do NOT offer to go for free. They won’t value your time or what you have to say. Find out usu. speaker fees and undercut by half or more as a special discount just for them. Give the moola to charity if you wish, but human nature is what it is.

              HTH

          2. “Yeah, a lot of them are becoming like VD. “Everything the leftists say is a lie, so racism, sexism, etc. must have a point.” Head>desk.”

            So, in order to avoid the ditch on the “Left” side of the road, they are aiming right straight at the ditch on the “Right” side of the road. Either way, you wind up with a totaled car.

            3. It’s beginning to look like the same ditch – perhaps it is a moat?

              See the report on people yelling at an interpreter for Mexicans in the audience “English only! English only!”

              At a campaign event for Bernie Sanders.

            4. Part of it is that when everything’s CALLED racist, it takes careful filtering to discern what isn’t. And when the last 99 things proved to be lies, your base assumption is going to be that the hundredth is, too.

            5. What is this ‘Right’ ditch you guys are referring to? The only spectrum I’ve been able to see is collectivist to individualist, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.

          3. VD doesn’t go far enough. Everything the vileprogs advocate needs to be re-examined down to the ground-level assumptions. Stopping part way just leaves one with bits of prog stupid rattling round the mental furnishings and gumming up the philosophy. Like mistaking an is for an ought.

            Still have hope for the guy. He’s got some sound foundations, and he’s right more often than wrong.

              1. The answer to the problem of hot dogs being sold in packages of ten while their buns are sold in packages of eight IS NOT to start selling hot dogs in packages of eight and buns in packs of ten.

          4. Even if they don’t actually believe it, they’ll say it, because that’s what the shit-kickers say– and if they become one, hey, free kicks at everyone!

  21. I’m going to hold off on really panicking about Trump until I see what he does with who he brings into government with him. As I’ve pointed out before, it’s not the guy whose name is on the ballot you need to be concerned with, it is who he appoints and puts into place in the Executive Branch. Trump might be a creep and a disaster, personally, but if he has the smarts to bring in the right people…?

    Agreed, it’s a bit of forlorn hope, but one can hope he’s more worried about his “legacy” than his bottom line. I mean, where do you go after President? I can remember similar crap being said about that 2nd-rate actor, Ronald Reagan–Who, I have to admit, did have a much better track record prior to election than Trump ever will.

    Yeah, he could be the worst thing that ever happened, but, frankly… After Carter, Clinton, and Obama, how much worse could he be? Hell, at this point, I’d settle for a president that was openly bought and sold, instead of the crypto-fascists like Carter who likely secretly sold us out to the Saudis (look at the money which bailed out his family business, paid for his library, and which funds the Carter Foundation, if you doubt me–Saudi fingerprints, everywhere), Clinton who sold us out to the Chinese, Indonesians, and God alone knows who else, and Obama, who has done so many shady deals in the background that we don’t even have a full idea of the limits of his crony capitalism…

    Trump, at least, is likely to be open about it all. He’ll have no choice, because the media is gonna be all over his ass, along with the Democrat establishment–Of course, since he’s really one of them, maybe not.

    We’re fucked, in so many ways, no matter who wins. At this point, it is simply a matter of choosing the form of our Destructor: Socialist Bernie, Crony Hillary, Open Oligarch Trump, or any one of the remaining GOPe types. Cruz? I’m not even so sure about him, any more. There isn’t a single one of the candidates that I want to vote for, on either side–It’s going to be a case of holding my nose, and filling the ballot out for the “lesser evil”.

    Which, I’m here to tell you, I am so fucking tired of. 300+ million people in this country, and these clowns are the choices they come up with for President? WTF? I’d almost rather go to a lottery system. We couldn’t do any worse, if we just hired the whole thing out to the Great Old Ones, and had Cthulu be the subcontractor. At least, we’d know we were gonna be eaten, and likely, when…

      1. add in who, politically, he has been tossing the most money at and gee, why would I be concerned? McAuliffe got a bit more than a few pennies from him.

      2. If that could be a sole criteria for President (able to hire competent people) – I’d vote for Jeff Bezos.

        No, I don’t have ADS, far from it – but that is where that man needs to stay, as Amazon CEO – not US CinC.

  22. Apropos of not much at all, I’d recommend that the rest of y’all not wait until you reach “critical dust” before tidying up and riffing old papers-n-such. Spent today doing that in two rooms. I feel like a dog’s recycled breakfast. Even the closet had dust bunnies on the upper shelves. Blech.

  23. Trump is what happens when someone finally starts speaking the unspeakable truths. By suppressing real discussion of the economy, of illegal immigration, of damn near anything that didn’t shower Dear Leader with praise, the establishment – including the establishment GOP – brought this on themselves.

    People are so relieved that *someone* is telling the truth about illegal immigration being damaging, about the source of most terrorism these days, and so forth they don’t think past that to examine whether or not the rest of what he’s saying is true. They just figure “Finally, someone on our side at last.”

    It’s an old technique that’s been used successfully in multiple places at multiple time. The 1920s in the Weimar Republic are probably the most famous.

    Which is why I’m going to keep on being my opinionated self just as hard as I can. I happen to believe the old “All it takes for evil to flourish is for the good to do nothing.”

      1. If they’re lucky. They typically don’t realize they’re going to end up on the enemies list sooner or later.

        I know damn well that’s where I’ll be if I’m not there already. So I’m mentally prepared for that, as it were.

    2. When the wolf and the lion argue, the sheep need to keep in mind that “The enemy of my enemy” is not necessarily my friend.

    3. So you’ve been ignoring Duncan Hunter (father and son), Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, and a dozen others wh0 have been speaking about illegal immigration for years?

        1. Precisely. You’ve got to *look* to know others have been talking about this – and none of them have been openly confrontational in the MSM (or if they were it got memory-holed).

          To Joe Average, it LOOKS like Trump is the one and only.

  24. There’s at least one good thing about a Trump win: Since he’s pretending to be from the Party Out Of Power, all the D political appointments across the executive branch would expire, and the executive appointee empire building and aggregation of power that’s run free for the last 7.1 years would temporarily halt. Lois Lerner would be out of her job were she not already out of her job.

    The downside is this leaves the civil service GS and SES folks without any effective checks, but we know where they fall on the political spectrum, and across any Trump regime they would constitute the Executive Branch Internal Opposition anyway just on basic principles. Unless Trump does some truly massive housecleaning, which would generate loud howls of anguish from the media.

    But there is that upside.

  25. The biggest problem we have in this current round of Crazy Season is that so many of the Trump supporters ARE the bell ringers.

    Not sure what the most helpfu response is if your ultimate goal is a civilized Constitutional Republic.

    I do know that the internecine fights amongst the anti-prog set aren’t it. And yet we have to ring that bell, don’t we?

    1. Right? I mean, Mark Steyn is the most dedicated bell-ringer I know. In 2002, he denounced the Department of Homeland Security and the people who didn’t want the War on Terror to be a war, per se. In 2014, he denounced killer cops and Black Lives Matter. Why he’s refrained from quoting or otherwise referencing choice passages from After America for the duration of Trump’s candidacy, I really can’t fathom. Maybe Trump has leverage in his global warming case? Seriously, I have to resort to perfidy to explain this one.

      1. Steyn happens to be fighting a battle pretty well singlehanded that may determine whether anyone can say anything at all. This isn’t the first time; he experienced the same abandonment in Canada, it was only he and a firebrand Albertan who went totally over the top to beat down a vile and widespread government practice. He is pretty well persona non grata in Canada now in official and elite circles.

        Read what he says. US conservatism is a failed movement that cannot prevail electorally unless everyone stays home. Mostly because they have ceased representing anyone but themselves. Trump has two platforms, stop illegal immigration and muslim immigration. If those are your issues, who else is there? Rubio?

        Cruz belatedly fired one of his hacks. About time.

        Don’t worry about Trump. He will awaken the Congress to their constutional duty of balancing the power of the executive. He will awaken the press. He will awaken the American people as to the depths of their depravity and irresponsability. He will awaken foreign investors of the instability of the US, and the Treasury will be forced to pay a reasonable rate on the debt. This will force a rationalization of government. A Kevin Williamson scenario where all the pretty little fictions that have characterized the last two decades will collapse.

        This should have happened in 2008 but Republicans took your money to bail out fools.

        If Trump wants the job, let him have it. I think he will bring lots of people to the table that have a stake in the country. You have a 15 year project ahead of you.

        1. Trump has no platforms. He has both used and called for illegal immigration. The question is, why are you voting for a liar?
          The second question is, why is immigration your hot button issue when there’s a dozen other things just as pressing, and when immigration has been reversing for six years?

        2. The last few decades’ gross misuses of all of the above didn’t awaken the body politic. I’m not going to put my money on Trump starting that awakening, rather than simply giving us the coup de grace.

          On the other hand, as awakening the body politic goes, I do have a plan, and it occurs to me that there are a disproportionate number of Coloradans here…

          2. Aye. Can we save Colorado?
            I’d like to. I love Colorado only marginally less than I love the US. I am a Coloradan. I always wanted to be one (since I was 8). I don’t want to have to leave here.
            So, sweet mind, speak thyself.

              1. Right, Sarah. This one showed up. (Good thing I intend to bring my construction experience to the table and not my web design skills. Good grief.)

          4. Indeed, we should consider a coffee klatsch or meet-up one of these days. I was listening to an old BFRH episode and was surprised to hear Sarah also lives in COS. Are there many others living near the purple mountains majesty?

            1. I will be relocating to Denver in about a month, having lived various points South for 23 years. My family has haunted Pete’s Kitchen on Colfax for that entire time, since the kids were in arms, and back when it was actually dangerous or at least dicey.

              1. It’s West Colfax that’s dicey now. There’s a distance stretching from maybe Meade to Pierce that’s just a sprawling wasteland of car leases, payday loans, pawn shops, weekly hotels… practically nothing but debt predators as far as the eye can see, and the nightlife is particularly scary. There is one honest car repair place in the heart of it, and I make a special point of going whenever I’ve got a wheel or alignment issue, but the basic point is that guerilla beautification (which is all I’ve done for the Tuttle ethos so far outside the people I see regularly over the normal course of the week) won’t do much.in that area. Even aside from the shadiness – particularly conspicuous around the Sheridan 7-11 at night – there’s just this grey empty bleakness that seems permanently cast over everything. Been considering activities in the area for a while, but (this is one reason I’m trying to organize a convention around the idea) I keep flitting from notion to notion and never settling on one thing. Set up a book corner in the central square of the cheesy motels? Give one person a house-shopping tour, and afterward what they need for a starting deposit in order to pay legitimate rent? (Can only really manage one on my paycheck.) Selling from a pushcart, street theatre, anything at all that gives some kind of semblance of a culture that isn’t parasitical off the residents?

                To be honest, I’d rather start the civic improvement game on Capitol Hill – I mean the act of improvement, not just the meeting about it. There’s a lot of destitution there too, but it feels like a somewhat tacklable challenge, and even a lone idealistic nutbar.likes to have the precedent of other lone idealistic nutbars before her. (So, clearly, West Colfax is the place I ought to begin.)

                2. The problem with trying to improve an area is that unless there’s something to protect the improvements, they’ll be destroyed. Sometimes stolen, sometimes just…destroyed.

                  1. yep. And West Colfax will improve. East is becoming unaffordable. Of course a lot of people will be pushed off West Colfax, as they were pushed off East. If I were 20 years younger I’d be buying on West Colfax. In ten years it will have tripled or more.

        3. ” He will awaken the Congress to their constutional duty of balancing the power of the executive. ”

          Yes, he will. Which is why none of his so-called plans will ever happen. And unless he’s a complete ignoramus, he has to know this.

          Between the Democrats and the RINOs, they have enough votes in the House and Senate to sustain a filibuster, override vetoes, and most importantly launch and sustain an impeachment. And Trump is not grounded enough in the Constitution to figure out how to get around them.

  26. I was an advisor and close friend to Newt Gingrich from his first term in Congress until he left the office of Speaker, and I value his judgment. He has not exactly endorsed Trump, but he has certainly found him an acceptable candidate. So do I.

    Reagan used to tell us — told me personally — not to speak ill of fellow Republicans. It is difficult advice to follow and few of the current candidates follow it; but of them, Trump doesn’t attack first. He retaliates quite effectively, buy his campaign tends to the positive, even to glorification of American potential; but then he is a pragmatist influenced strongly by populism. Not blind populism: he was the first to say that Scalia must be replaced by another original intent constitutionalist, as close to Scalia as we can get. He was quite explicit.

    As to details; I doubt he knows much about building construction techniques, but the Trump Tower stands. Bush II knew how to fly an airplane but that did not make him an air warfare strategist.

    Trashing Trump is an easy exercise. It is not one I would indulge in.

    1. I understand, and note I don’t even speak ill of Kasich. I simply don’t believe that Trump is or has ever been even up to RINO. I think he’s an opportunist and a potential death bomb for the party and the country. I’m not obliged to speed the death of either.
      I can’t understand why Gingrich would even consider endorsing him, but I know Palin did, and I used to respect her. She might have reasons I don’t know, but from everything I’ve seen of the man, they’re not how he’ll govern or his temperament.
      I believe Trump is no republican, but the political poison pill that destroys the system and yes, I’ve been following him for a while.

      1. Doctor Pournelle, I wish I could agree with you. Yep, the Trump Tower stands… on land cleared by 200 illegal Polish workers that Trump then tried to cheat out of their salaries. It went to trial twice and Trump lost both times (caveat: the second verdict was sealed, but I understand the Poles got their money).

        The Dubai hotel that fired Trump’s company from managing the building documented rampant mismanagement and fiscal malfeasance, Now, I do not expect Trump to work the lobby desk and deliver the luggage himself…but with all his casino and hotel experience you would think he could hire people who would do it properly.

        Even in his personal finances, yes, he has Scrooge McDuck’s coin-filled swimming pool. But according to financial sources, his personal fortune’s growth never even kept up with the Standard & Poor index. He would actually have been better off sinking his money in a nice mutual fund and spending his free time hawking suits and bad vodka.

        I was born, grew up and worked in NYC. Trump is a gifted hustler, and I’ve seen him in action. I’m seeing it again. Yes, he’s saying what people need said. Any good bridge salesman will validate his marks. But I’m pretty sure there’s a school marching band for sale in there somewhere.

        1. Watching Trump hustle is fun, but you don’t want to get in the middle of it. Frankly I would never want to involve myself in anything that man is involved with. I’ve watched the hustle too long to believe anything Trump says when he’s in the middle of a hustle. The biggest problem is that Trump can’t stop hustling and actually run things. He’s always looking for a big one, but once he gets it, it’s on to the next things, leaving the ruins behind for other people to deal with.

      2. I’d have to side with Dr. Pournelle. Personally, I am not a big fan of Trump. The problem is, ALL of the others avoid the elephant in the room when it comes to issues. So do I support the guys that won’t even admit the existence of the elephant or the one I am not sure will deliver on promises? As a commenter elsewhere said the Republicans do their best to run away from any fights (except over seas), at least this guy will get in one. Anyone that has the least bit of support by the party establishment has “guilt by association” writ in large letters across their forehead. As far as I am concerned Ron Paul was the last shot at a real change (his son falls far short).

        1. If you think the other ones avoid the elephant in the room, you haven’t been paying attention.
          ALSO which Trump? The one who agrees with Code pink that Bush lied, people died? The one who wants to let Dreamers stay, by not deporting them?
          Which trump are you okay with?
          And Ron Paul, really? Oh, please.

    2. “buy his campaign tends to the positive, even to glorification of American potential; but then he is a pragmatist influenced strongly by populism. ”

      Really, Dr Pournelle? 9/11 trutherism, “Bush lied, people died”, endorsement of government healthcare, etc.? THAT’S your definition of positive, America glorifying, pragmatism?

      Just Damn.

        1. The media desperately wants him. Not as president, of course, but as the villain their new designated Socialist Savior, Bernie, can save the country from.

          The news media is at the root of so many of our current woes.

        2. Except… they are reporting it. It’s just not gaining any traction. For whatever reason, no-one seems to care. Ace of Spades had an excellent take on the Trump’s claim that Bush screwed up the Iraq war (He screwed up the reconstruction. The war went just fine) and lied us into it.

          The media went with that one. Trump did a dance step and… got out of it. I can even perceive how he did it after the fact (I though for sure he’d stepped in it this time)

          This is a tough one. I know a media black out when I see it (the Obama campaign, the Goznell atrocities, Fast and Furious, just frex) and a white-wash (Obamacare, the Clinton decade, etc.) But Trump campaign doesn’t fall into either category. Yet you’re probably right: the mass media would rather Trump than either Carson, Rubio or Cruz. Bush would be favorite but he’s out. But whether or not they’re actually for him… I don’t see the evidence just in what they’re not doing.

            1. Remember how Mittens was treated – right up until he had the nomination sealed. Same with the “What cookie jar?” corruptocrat from Arizona.

      2. He may not have seen the SC GOP debates. That was last week, and he may be pretty busy.

        FYI Dr. Pournelle,

        Check the transcript of that debate. There are at least two places in that debate where Trump blames G W Bush for 9/11. I did not see him assign any blame for that to Clinton, but perhaps I overlooked that. Find those places, and check out the corresponding video.

        1. Does Trump seem sincere? 2. Does he seem to expect it to go over well? 2a. Who does he surround himself with to have that expectation? Consider his apparent claim that the audience must have been stacked against him to respond in the way it did. 3. I tend to think that certain views of 9/11, the second Iraq invasion, the war on terror and so forth were fictions politically convenient to the Democrats. Obama was elected based on them, then not criticized for failing the same standards Bush was criticized for not meeting. Wouldn’t these tend to place an adherent as a Democrat?

        1. Trump is friends with the Clintons. I’d be surprised if he blamed Bill for the intelligence failures under his watch.

          1. Trump was apparently able to get some of the ‘Bill is a rapist, and Hillary is a rape enabler or apologist’ stuff to stick, so maybe ambition trumps friendship.

            How many people know about the ‘Gorelick wall’ who weren’t paying attention to rightwing alt-media or better sources at the time?

          2. I’ve heard the theory that Trump is a caricature plant by the left (maybe even Hilary herself), possibly aiming to get the nomination then… I’m not sure, drop out at the last moment to give Clinton the default win?

            It seems almost plausible, but I’m not betting on it yet. Though part of me almost wants it to be true just to watch the faces of all those who bet everything on him as they realize the full weight of what happened.

            The other part of me wants him to be sincere so I can watch the faces of the media et al as he wins and takes the White House in both hands.

            So yes I am betting that entertainment is going to happen somewhere.

            1. The plausible version of that theory I’ve heard is to run as a parody of the right, get nominated, laugh your toupe off and if you win, you get awesome power to abuse, if you lose, then the Democrats still owe you one and you can keep doing business as usual.

    3. Thanks for stopping by Mr. Pournelle.

      I’m hoping to convince my conservative friends that staying home if either Trump or not-Trump wins the nomination and letting Ms Clinton or Mr. Sanders win by default is a terrible mistake. So far I’m having better luck convincing the Trump supporters to go in for Cruz if he should win, than am with the Cruz folks to hold their nose and vote against Hilary or Bernie. Which makes the current topic thread: “Oh, those close-minded, irrational Trump goons–!” blackly humorous for me tonight. Meat space vs. internet space: interesting as usual.

      My liberal friends are a tougher nut. I can get them to consider Trump but not Cruz.

      All of you shouting “Trump is not a conservative” have really helped Trump with the general electorate by the way. I’m still of two minds whether or not that’s a good thing.

      1. Oh, I’m a Cruz supporter – and will vote for Trump if it comes to that.

        A bit less damage, and I can hope that he pisses off his SS detail just a bit sooner than the other one, making them just a bit less vigilant…

      1. I don’t know about Geneva, but I know when I sing at certain Presbyterian churches on either Reformation Sunday or the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan, I wear earplugs. Bagpipes, played well, are a glorious thing. Bagpipes in captivity, as it were, ow.

  30. For the record, I’m, pro Cruz. I’ve just been highly amused by the Trump phenomenon and the reaction to it ever since Trump announced his candidacy back in August (?) of last year.

    I have been accused (over at InstaPundit) of being pro-Trump. What I am is approving of the way that Trump punches back against the media, and the way that he’s consistently advancing and moving the Overton window in directions that I like. Sure, Cruz has done so as well – but on a more low key basis. The last time that Cruz got massive visibility in doing it was in the early debate where he owned the media and moderators on their obvious biases and the low ball questions they were asking the Dem candidates. Trump is highly visible in doing it, and a large part of that is due to his outrageous approach. He’s extremely un-PC, not at all SJW, and he’s voicing things that a lot of people have wanted to hear for a long time from a political candidate.

    You can count me in with VD in agreeing that the main three issues in this race are 1) Islamic immigration/invasion, 2) guns, and 3) economics. Trump has massively moved the Overton window on number 1, has moved it some on #2, and at least hasn’t hurt #3 with his comments on American jobs and manufacturing. (I’m pretty single issue when it comes to gun rights, but the other two are important as well.)

    If he does nothing other than move the window and visibly make the unthinkable thinkable, and the unspeakable speakable, then he’s done something valuable, win or lose.

    Please, please don’t make the mistake of assuming that all people who like what Trump has to say are “low information voters”. They are not, and it is insulting. I’m as high information on politics as any commenter here, and have been for a long time. Please don’t assume that everyone who likes or supports Trump is blind to Trump’s faults or that we/they all trust him on his positions and what he says.

    I haven’t trusted a politician – any politician – since before I hit voting age. I trust Trump to fight, and to do what he thinks will cause him to win. After he wins, if he wins… welllll… then we’ll see what he does.

    I think, based on my reading of both historical precedents and Trump himself, that in practice in office Trump is a lot more likely to be a Theodore Roosevelt than a Benito Musolini. Which may not be reassuring… but TR was far from the worst president we’ve ever had, even if he wasn’t the best – and he was far from the unmitigated disaster that Carter and now Obama have been. At worst, I see Trump being a nationalist, pro-American, Progressive Republican in the loud and exuberant TR mold rather than the next coming of Hitler.

    I could be wrong on that. Or I could not be.

    I would love to see a President Cruz. I could live with a President Trump. I’ll be blunt: at the very least, a President Trump and the reactions to him – from both sides – would amuse the hell out of me for four to eight years.

    It’s less “burn it all down” and more, to steal another aphorism from Beck, that I don’t see “any political solutions for the problems created by politics.”

    Expecting a political solution at this point is like putting the coyotes in charge of the chicken house just once more and hoping that “well, this time maybe they’ll leave some chickens.” Politics are downstream from culture.

    We win the culture wars, and politics will take care of themselves down the line. We lose – continue to lose – the culture wars, and all the political solutions in the world won’t matter. We win the cultural wars by bypassing the Left and making them irrelevant. (And yes, easier said than done. But it is happening.)

    Whatever happens in politics is a matter of trying to buy enough time to allow the cultural bypassing to happen without causing either a collapse, or a descent into civil war.

    I think we have a *shot* at doing so… but I’m not all that sanguine about it at this point. My friend Billy Beck said way back in the early 2000s that “All politics in this country right now are but dress rehearsal for a full scale civil war.” I’ve seen nothing since 2002 to make me believe that Billy was not prescient in that. I see the political and cultural divisions in the U.S. as having gotten far, far too pronounced and acrimonious to allow a peaceful solution. I would love to be proven wrong on that.

    I just want to run out the clock as long as possible so that the cultural shifts can take root – and make the Left culture irrelevant without having to resort to bullets and rope. or to Balkanization, which I agree with Col. Krautman on being something we won’t survive or recover from… although I suspect it may be inevitable.

    *grin* I actually ended up typing a lot more on this than I intended to. Thank you for indulging me, considering that while I’m a long time reader, my posting history is practically nonexistent.

    I think I’ll leave it at this. I get into enough Trump brawls over at Glenn’s without wanting to get into another front on the Trump Wars elsewhere.

    1. Right now I support Cruz, but come to it, I’d vote for Trump over either of the Dems. Why? While I think Sarah is right about the negative impact on the future of conservative politics, I think we’re going that way regardless, so better to choose our ride than be dragged.

      And while Congress can choose to ignore the president’s wishes, they’re far more likely to ignore Trump than they are to ignore either Bernie or Hillary, either of whom would grease away the legislative gridlock our government was designed to achieve.

      1. I think that Bernie has the best extant record for political impotence of the three. But, for posterity’s sake, if Trump’s the nominee, I think I’m voting for the massive national monetary crisis with a (D) after it. (Or possibly Deez Nuts.)

    2. This comment is my position on the whole Trump thing; but as I’ve said before, what I think doesn’t ultimately matter since I’m not voting (I’m not American, for those who don’t know me.) The only opinion that counts is the vote in this case.

  31. Pingback: A pernicious influence | Neoreactive

    1. You realize your reading comprehension is flawed or you were skimming, right? You conflated two completely different discussions. No one is worrying about Trump taking us “too far to the right.” We’re worried about him continuing Obama’s policies, which is exactly what he’ll do. (Care to lay a small bet?) Dr. Pournelle is the ONLY one who doesn’t believe he’s a leftist conning you rubes.
      We’re worried the MILLENIALS will turn too far to the right, including swallowing undigested the provocative stuff VD says.

      1. Point of order: I’m not concerned that the millennial will move towards the right, as I understand the American right. I’m concerned that they will move towards the leftist image of the right, which is itself contaminated by leftist influences.

        2. Clarification: There is no concern that Millenials will become conservative — that would be a good thing. The concern is they will abandon Socialism for her even uglier twin sister, Fascism.

          People unable to grasp such basic distinctions are unlikely to be received well in this arena.

      1. Sucks to say, but Marcos would’ve been okay if it hadn’t been for the rampant overindulgence of his inlaws and relatives; indeed he was a pretty good President for a while even after martial law started – because no matter what, there’s always a good reason for temporary martial law – but then his cronies liked the idea of endless power once tasted. Things started going downhill after that. But even during the excesses of martial law, you could see the bits of ‘good intentions gone to hell’ because there’d be programs for trying to elevate the Philippines to global scale advancement, that would be drained by corruption. A much tighter fist on the reins of his cronies would have been good.

        And no matter what people say, the Marcoses have governed their district consistently well. Which is why a Marcos is currently one of the favorable runners for Philippine presidency again, over the idiot son of Aquino.

        As an aside, y’all should never watch Philippine politics as it plays out. I’m almost at the point, if not occasionally there, where I go “Get conquered by the Chinese.” Noynoy Aquino is what it is like if you end up with an autistic in power.

          3. Ugh, I remember. Are there any non-Communist major parties these days? I’ve not kept up, but when I left ten years ago that was pretty much all there were. I mean some of the minor parties were radical socialists, instead, but still…

            1. Well, Lula is from the Workers party, and his idiot protege Dilma (she actually drinks the pue Koolaide – think Bernie vs. Clinton) is from the Socialist Workers party. They’re both degrees of Marxist. The social democrat party opposes them both, and both the two Marxists call it right wing, but only because it’s not full-potato communist.

              So… short answer: not really.

              1. Yeah, I remember Lula. He was a few years in when I left. I don’t remember there being anyone as far “right” as the social democrats, but that was before I paid a lot of attention to politics. Heck, I was barely out of my communist-sympathising stage at that point.

    2. <shrug. Dr. Helen can do what she does. She believes the other candidates on the right don't have a chance. That's obvious from her post. She acknowledges the concerns.
      QUITE a different perception from convinced Trumpites.
      I think she has insufficiently examined him. BUT THEN I have a different history than she has, and I hate crony capitalists as much as I hate the left. So, there's that. Just don't tell me he's on the right or for freedom.

      Note I work for her husband and he has no problems with my being vocally anti-trump.

      As for you, I owe you nothing, I despite "why don't you and her fight" techniques, and this is my middle finger.

      1. and he has no problems with my being vocally anti-trump.

        neither do i. when Trump started running i was the one who pointed out that Trump’s “i’m great and i make things great and i make great things and you can be great if you vote for me” spiel was a quasi-conservative knockoff of Obama’s “we are the change we’re looking for” slogans. intellectually, there’s nothing there. otoh, you can’t argue that it’s not effective campaign rhetoric, it got Obama eight years of the presidency. so i’m supposed to complain that Trump is doing what works?

        the reason i posted is that even Rush Limbaugh knows ( and broadcasts to tens of millions almost every day ) that most Trump supporters recognize that Trump’s “conservative” bonafides are … sketchy. at best. many of his supporters aren’t even registered Republicans.

        therefore, for you to assert that there is some yuge portion of his fanbase that is “deceived” about this is a strawman of your own construction.

        which, i guess you did a good job of burning that down.

        i posted Dr. Helen because she is more representative of what’s actually going on.

        as for me, i have no great hopes for Trump. but AT LEAST he’s blathering things that are actually important for the country to aspire too. most of the rest can’t even manage that much.

        both of Rubio’s parents were Cuban nationals when he was born in Miami. there is no AND NEVER HAS BEEN a definition of Natural Born Citizen which would permit him to run for the presidency.

        Cruz qualifies as NBC because of the technicality of the idiotic 1790 Naturalization Act, *otherwise he would not either*. so much for the concern of Cuban Americans for the Constitution.

        there is *no other* Republican running who isn’t simply another cuckservative in the McCain / Romney mold and i was done voting for those idiots 15 years ago.

        the idea that ¡Jeb! or McCain would presume to instruct me in what constitutes conservatism is nothing but the punch line to a joke.

        despite “why don’t you and her fight” techniques, and this is my middle finger.

        stay classy, Sarah. it’s easier than addressing reality.

        only try not to burn down any more straw men. wouldn’t want you to light your new domicile on fire.

        1. Sigh. No. Most of the trumpites I’ve talked to hold him as the paragon of conservatism.
          As for staying classy — I am. This is my house, and you came in yelling at me, and btw using abominable syntax. So please grow up.
          As for Cruz or Rubio not being natural born citizens (rolls eyes) that’s where you’re a LIV and a trumpite. He dreamed up this crap. Every lawyer I know says it’s crap.
          Kindly don’t let the door hit you on your way out, okay?

          1. This is my house, and you came in yelling at me

            that’s a bald faced lie, Sarah.

            and easily verifiable by anyone who bothers to scroll up to my first post.

            you could misconstrue some of my subsequent all caps as ‘yelling’ i suppose, but that’s simply how i place em-fass-is on the sill-abble.

            and a trumpite. He dreamed up this crap.

            so far as i know, Trump has not said a peep about Rubio’s NBC status
            AND
            i acknowledged that according to current US law it does NOT apply to Cruz.

            so now you’re just babbling.

            Every lawyer I know says it’s crap.

            it’s right there in the Constitution, English and French Common Law, Sarah.

            you can read the definitions for yourself
            OR
            you can take the advice of people who agree with the Kelso decision and who claim that shutting down bakeries is Constitutional law and who like the War on Drugs ( funny how the War on Alcohol required a Constitutional Amendment ).

            any definition of Natural Born Citizen which would define June Oswald as a NBC of both the United States and the United Soviet Socialist Republic is utterly useless.

            Kindly don’t let the door hit you on your way out, okay?

            *shrugs*

            there are 10 theses in the second chapter of the Communist Manifesto. the United States has adopted six of them since the late 1800s.

            i don’t expect you or pretty much anyone else here to grasp just HOW FAR astray from the Constitution the US has gone. certainly, i don’t expect any degreed lawyer to do so. they spent 6+ years getting degrees … which require them to not understand this.

              2. Oh Jesus tits. You dipshit, the Constitution states: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident …

                it leaves what that means to the legislative and judicial branches, who have both held that being born to an American parent outside the US or to Immigrant parents ON US SOIL counts.

                So you can scream all you want you ignorant boob. But the law is against you.

                Like Sarah said, you’re not even interesting.

              3. I don’t think he ought to get banned, looking at this conversation, but then there’s clearly a history here I’m not familiar with.

                1. I have no intention of banning him. I’ve banned three people. He has no history, other than using “cuckservative” while trumpeting for trump and generally being annoying, including is abuse of syntax.

                  2. I hate that term with a passion. I don’t know how many of the Huns are familiar, but while it’s become somewhat common in the alt-right community, its roots are in the white nationalist movement. The cuckold accusation is tawdry enough, but its usual usage carries implications of miscegenation and race treason. It’s… I keep wanting to say baixo with that scornful Nordeste drawl my best friend had. It’s low, in every derisive sense of the word.

            3. Let’s see, first you accuse Sarah of being a bald-faced liar. Way to make yourself welcome here. But let’s look at some of your comments here to see.

              Your first post, at least at first glance, is timed at 1228. While you might not be actually “yelling”, there can be no mistaking the fact there is nothing about your comment that looks like you want to discuss the original post. Instead, all I see is an in your face attitude without any facts or substance to back it up.

              Your next comment appears to be clocked in at 1328. That’s your Dr. Helen comment, btw. In it you imply through the tone of the comment more than a bit of condescension and contempt. Not everyone is going to agree with what Dr. Helen says. Heck, I bet there are times the Blogfather doesn’t agree with her. Nowhere does Sarah say everyone who backs Trump is a “low information voter” as you seem to allege. I don’t blame Sarah for getting fed up with your BS.

              Let’s skip forward to your comment timed at 1717:
              Your comment about using all caps – gee, so we are supposed to know what your habits when it comes to posting are when they are in direct opposition to the generally accepted rules of the internet? Get over yourself. As for the rest of it, you keep saying “it’s right there”. So show us. Give us cites to back your allegations. So far, you’ve done nothing to show that you want a discussion. You just want us all to bow down to your wisdom. Sorry, but that isn’t going to happen. Not when all you can do is insult Sarah, refuse to take part in discourse and when you continue making statements and alleging them to be irrefutable facts without actually giving proof thereof.

              “i don’t expect you or pretty much anyone else here to grasp just HOW FAR astray from the Constitution the US has gone. certainly, i don’t expect any degreed lawyer to do so. they spent 6+ years getting degrees … which require them to not understand this.”

              Wow, full of yourself, aren’t you? What makes you such an expert? You continue to prove that you love to hear yourself talk but that there isn’t much, if any, substance behind what you have to say.

            4. Re: “Yelling”
              that’s a bald faced lie, Sarah.

              and easily verifiable by anyone who bothers to scroll up to my first post.

              Perhaps “snide” would define it better? Worthy of an annoyed response in any case.

        2. Which leaves the other alternative: you’re a bunch of blithering idiots who would fit right into an SJW temper tantrum.

          Pick your poison; I ain’t fussy. Just watch me laugh my *ss off when Trump gets into office and makes all the deals with Vichy Mitchy that Rubio would, because he wouldn’t know a principle if it bit him in the butt.

          1. Yep. And bob here is a good example of muddled thinking and tripping on his own dick. As well as a stellar example of manners. Apparently he thinks going to someone’s blog is the same as screaming in the public plaza.

            1. TWEEEEET! FOUL! Fact not in evidence!

              While it is indisputable bob is a dick, there is no evidence bob has a dick big enough to trip on.

                1. Sigh. Out early for phlebotomist withdrawal, attendance at a memorial service (sympathies are noted and please do not force me to endure more such for the nonce – Mom has gone where her memories went to wait for her) and two visits to lawyers to make sure the estate doesn’t get bollixed up before it even gets a TIN.

                  Splurged on a nice dinner out for me & Beloved Spouse and myself.

                  On that note, I will be here sporadically the remainder of the week as reality will be intruding with a vengeance. While I intend to strike back, history suggests Reality has the bigger cudgel.

                    1. I appreciate your effort to provide slow posting days — a retread and a guest post typically don’t generate more than 2, 3 hundred comments (and most of those sane or frivolous or both.)

                    2. I’ll be out much of tomorrow, so hopefully that’ll reduce the volume and increase the sanity for you.

                    4. My head is big and gets swollen. I need the self deprecating humor to make it fit through doors. 🙂

        3. Oh for fuck’s sake. You really are a special kind of stupid aren’t you?

          A. Yes, Rubio’s parents were Cuban nationals, but he was born on US soil, which per current law and SCOTUS precedent means he’s a natural born US citizen. Oh, and Cruz. Yes, his mom was a US Citizen. Are you seriously trying to tell me he doesn’t qualify based on the fact that he was born in Canada while his parents were expats working a job there?

          According to that sort of idiocy the children of any expat would be barred from the presidency based on “not being natural born citizens.”

          If you had done any actual, you know, reading, instead of licking what Trump has convinced you are rainbows coming out of his ass you might actually understand this.

          Run along now little boy, the adults are talking.

          1. Are you seriously trying to tell me he doesn’t qualify based on the fact that he was born in Canada while his parents were expats working a job there?

            it’s hilarious that you accuse *me* of being comprehension impaired when you accuse me of saying EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what i actually did.

            not that i expect any better.

            here, i will type more slowly:
            a – Cruz meets the current US definition of NBC, as defined in the 1790 Naturalization Act ( single US citizen parent )
            http://www.indiana.edu/~kdhist/H105-documents-web/week08/naturalization1790.html
            b – the 1790 has an exclusion for persons whose fathers were never US “residents” ( mother who marries a foreign national and moves to Iran, say ). this does NOT apply to Cruz because his father had “resided” in Texas before going to Canuckistan. , he got his degree at UT-Austin so you’re looking at a minimum of ~4 years “residency” before emigration to Canadian oil fields
            c – therefore, Donald Trump IS WRONG in his accusation that Cruz does not qualify to run for president under current US law
            d – however, NBC status is NOT conferred simply by being born on US soil, *at least* one parent is required to be a US citizen. Rubio does NOT meet this criteria

            of course, the ability to follow this conversation requires you to be able to comprehend that there is a difference between “Natural Born Citizen” and “Citizen”.

            as for my aggravation with Cruz’s NBC status, it’s not the location of his birth, it’s his Canadian citizenship up until 2013. the British and French Common Law defined NBC as a person born within national borders AND required both parents to be citizens. this original definition would flatly exclude Cruz from NBC status.

            the 1790 law ( which is perfectly valid, passed law, by the way ) redefines NBC so that the child of Lee Harvey Oswald, who was born in Russia to the daughter of a Soviet citizen mother and a US citizen ( soon to be ) presidential assassin father now qualifies to run for the office of POTUS.

            this is insane.

            even more insane, using the criteria of this law would define June Oswald as simultaneously a NBC of Russia and the US simultaneously.

            the whole point of NBC status ( as opposed to naturalized or lower birth citizenship ) is to provide a minimum bar against persons with foreign loyalties achieving the highest executive office. current US law completely subverts the Common Law definition of the term NBC.

            1. Just pointing out something that might not be immediately obvious, Bob: not everyone in Sarah’s blog reads VD’s comments regularly, so the usual modes of discussion you’re used to might not necessarily go over well with the folks here, especially if you’re not a regular here.

              Just saying.

              1. I’m not an Obama birther. But he certainly exemplifies what the NBC clause was inserted to prevent. He was raised to be an anti-American

                3. The fact Obama was and is anti-American has nothing to do with his citizenship or that of his parents. Unfortunately, we have plenty of contemporary examples of raging anti-Americanism amongst second, third, and even fourth generation Americans.

            3. It has been 40 years since I taught Constitutional Law, but I do not think the definition of citizenship and natural born have changed. The courts have consistently held that birth on US soil by persons legally in the US qualifies you as a natural born pre-citizen until you come of age after which you are a citizen with all the rights and privileges, and duties thereto appertaining. This was true before the Civil War for many, and the Civil War Amendments nailed it down: born or naturalized. There are those who would argue that this was never intended to apply to children born to illegal immigrants, and the case can be made, but so far it has not been adjudged.
              It is highly unlikely that the US Supreme Court will on its own reach that conclusion and impose it: it would be judicial activism and conservatives generally tend to resist judicial activism.

              If Congress were to declare that children must have at least one parent legally within the United States at the time of birth, the court would hear such a case, and it might be fun to watch, Without an Act of Congress I do not believe the Court will ever consider the case; so the status quo legalizes anchor babies born on US soil even if both parents have no legal status and even if they are wanted by the police both State and national, and even if the authorities hold a valid deportation judgment against the parents. One may argue that the law is a ass, but that is not generally considered good pleading. Congress may change that law; but the conservative position is that Courts may not substitute their judgment for that of Congress even Congress has erred.

        4. “and he has no problems with my being vocally anti-trump.

          neither do i. when Trump started running i was the one who pointed out that Trump’s “i’m great and i make things great and i make great things and you can be great if you vote for me” spiel was a quasi-conservative knockoff of Obama’s “we are the change we’re looking for” slogans. intellectually, there’s nothing there. otoh, you can’t argue that it’s not effective campaign rhetoric, it got Obama eight years of the presidency. so i’m supposed to complain that Trump is doing what works?”

          Wow, that has to be one of the longest sentences I’ve seen on ATH, or any other blog, in a very long time. Oh, wait, it is three sentences. Sorry, but when you don’t use capitalization ANYWHERE it is difficult to tell when one sentence stops and another starts. Not that it makes much difference with what you said. Let’s see, you were the one who pointed something out about Trump. Really? And we’re supposed to know this how? As for whether you are supposed to complain or not, who gives a damn what you do. Sarah is saying that Trump is using the same BS sort of rhetoric Obama did and look where that got us.

          “the reason i posted is that even Rush Limbaugh knows ( and broadcasts to tens of millions almost every day ) that most Trump supporters recognize that Trump’s “conservative” bonafides are … sketchy. at best. many of his supporters aren’t even registered Republicans.”

          Wow, you know what Limbaugh thinks and knows! I’m impressed. Are you guys best buds? Seriously, I don’t know where you are from but I happen to know a great many conservatives who have bought into what Trump says lock, stock and barrel. They aren’t looking at his record as a businessman. They aren’t looking at what he has said or done before the campaign. They are doing what so many who bought into the Tea Party did before this election: they are voting for someone they see as being outside the political establishment without looking to see if he would be good for the country or not.

          “therefore, for you to assert that there is some yuge portion of his fanbase that is “deceived” about this is a strawman of your own construction.”

          Oooh, so your whole basis for this is because you “know” what Rush “knows”? Grow up and give us some facts.

          “as for me, i have no great hopes for Trump. but AT LEAST he’s blathering things that are actually important for the country to aspire too. most of the rest can’t even manage that much.”

          Talk is cheap. Other candidates throughout history have talked about things the voters felt important but that talk never turned into action. Why should we believe Trump will follow through with what he says, especially when his history does not back up his so-called conservative platform that he is currently spewing?

          “both of Rubio’s parents were Cuban nationals when he was born in Miami. there is no AND NEVER HAS BEEN a definition of Natural Born Citizen which would permit him to run for the presidency.”

          Cites, please? Note, too, while you are at it that at least one court has tossed out that particular allegation since Rubio entered the presidential race.

          “Cruz qualifies as NBC because of the technicality of the idiotic 1790 Naturalization Act, *otherwise he would not either*. so much for the concern of Cuban Americans for the Constitution.”

          Hmm, so Cruz, who was born to an American citizen mother, isn’t a natural born citizen because he was born in Canada. Tell me, are you going to apply that same rule to every military dependent born overseas while a parent is stationed off of American soil? Or will you make an exception for those born in base hospitals but not in hospitals off-base? Would that disqualify all those men and women from becoming president simply because at least one of their parents stepped up to serve the country?

          “there is *no other* Republican running who isn’t simply another cuckservative in the McCain / Romney mold and i was done voting for those idiots 15 years ago.”

          Wow, classy (to use your own term).

          “despite “why don’t you and her fight” techniques, and this is my middle finger.
          stay classy, Sarah. it’s easier than addressing reality.”

          Wow, that’s ironic coming from you. You are the one who came here looking for a fight. You are the one claiming others to be pedophiles and “cuckservatives”, for just a couple of examples. Is it that you can’t stand it when someone tells you to stop your bullshit or is it that you simply can’t stand it when a woman stands up to you?

          “only try not to burn down any more straw men. wouldn’t want you to light your new domicile on fire.”

          Ah, there you are being cute and classy again. Grow up, learn to punctuate and capitalize and work on your reading comprehension. Then, when you have some actual facts to back up your comments, come back and let’s have a real discussion. Until then, slink back to your rock. Maybe by the time you come out again, you’ll have a world where Rush really does speak for most conservatives and the Constitution has been warped far enough that it will prevent children of military personnel from being elected president just because they were born outside U.S. borders and for no other reason.

        5. i posted Dr. Helen because she is more representative of what’s actually going on.

          Really? It looked more like an attempt at appeal to authority (Dr. Helen likes Trump!) on your part.

          Which, when called on it and given the dreaded middle finger, leads you to whinge about staying classy. Typical.

          1. Doctor Helen — it’s obvious from her article — thinks that no one but Trump can win on the right. You know what? She’s wrong. If he goes third party (and he will) he’ll pull more from the left than the right.
            I can disagree with her without calling her names, or vice versa. This critter, though….

    3. TWEEEEET – Foul On Field/Logic Fail: Facts Not In Evidence And Inverse Generalization. Additional Penalty For Hit After Halt of Play

      Fact Not In Evidence: “low information voter” Is not a term used in original post nor by Sarah.

      Inverse Generalization: Nowhere does Sarah assert that only low information voters support Trump. Evidence of the support of a cyborg such as Helen Smith does not generalize as defense of mouth-breathing white supremacist Trumpkins. To cite a Narnian example, observations about Black Dwarfs do not generalize into statements about Red Drwafs.

      Hit After Halt of Play: Note original date of this post. It was written well before any trump candidacy existed or before any Trumpkins manifested as the wretched refuse blog trolls they are. Helen Smith’s column coming almost four years after this post’s original construction cannot be used to discredit the post as of the time posted (even the repost was up ere the Smith column.)

      1. And Bob- please remember that proper use of the two “Shift” keys will make you look like less of an illiterate, Low Information Voter.
        Seriously, dude, your post look like a parody of the typical Trump nuthugging moronic troll.

  33. Bad news – the Evil Lord of Evil has linked to this thread. Now you’ll be hated by Far Left and Far Right both. On the other hand, every potential book buyer who sees your name will say “Oh, I’ve heard of her. Cool cover. And cheap. I’ll give it a try.” So you’ve got that going for you.

    1. He’s a garden variety schmuck who’s fallen for a real estate agent’s pitch of “the inventory is low right now, the house will sell fast” (Yeah, it’s always low in February. As for selling fast, magic eight ball says unlikely.) Eh.

  35. *horrific giggles echo*

    Let it Bern,
    Let it Bern
    Can’t hold it back anymore
    Let it Bern,
    Let it Bern
    Turn my back and vote no more….

    1. oh, i’ll protest vote.

      but i’m done voting for these Dennis Hastert pedophile faggots like Lindsey Graham and John Boehner.

      1. You’re also done capitalizing. And you’re done being rational. VERY cute. And “faggots” — PEDOPHILE FAGGOTS at that?

        THIS, ladies and gentlemen is the quality of mind that tells me to “Stay classy” (Rolls eyes.)

      2. Are you trying to sound like a 14 year old boy who is very very impressed with naughty words but not too clear on what the poop you’re flinging actually means, or is it all natural skill?

          2. Whether Hastert was or not, you more than implied that others were as well. THAT is part of the many objections we have to what you have said.

      3. You know, the more I see voxdroids talking about pedophile faggots, the more I think “reaction formation”.

        Here, show us on the doll where the man touched you.

        1. a – Vox isn’t the source of the “Hastert pedophile wing of the Republican party” meme. i am. so far as i’m aware, Vox has never even repeated the assertion. and i don’t even claim to be Ilk, Dread or otherwise, nor do i have a VFM number.

          b – i’ve disagreed with Vox on numerous occasions. clearly, this identifies me as an unthinking automation for whom critique is a foreign concept.

          c – the goal of homosexuals is always the same. we have only to observe history to see it. they will, if they can, replicate the social mores of ancient Greece, Sodom and the Caliphate Turks.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi

          so much for homosexuality not having any social component and being completely genetic. they desire to make your children their sexual playthings. AND they desire to socialize you to accept it.

          it’s called “grooming”.

          is this what every single homo wants, without exception? perhaps not. but it’s not an accident that they were so hot to attain the right to adopt boys.

          d – what does offend me is the refusal to observe reality or apply principal simply because some people are going to claim to get their feelz hurted. hello, SJWs.

          such as this from Foxfier:
          Ah, it’s a pose to hide a bait and switch.

          bait and switch? not at all.

          i KNOW that Hastert is a pedophile faggot. so do you. if you dare to admit it.

          the question is whether you actually believe that such a man spent decades achieving the highest rank in the House without a single Republican leader or member noticing his proclivities.

          while making no serious effort to conceal himself.

          because it only takes ONE Repub ( out of literally hundreds, possibly more than a thousand ) getting his gaydar set off to require the answer to these questions:
          why wasn’t Dennis outed ( or at a minimum, diverted ) long before he got near the levers of power? why is the Republican vetting process so inept that it allows such results? how many other homo moles are there? we all KNOW that there was at least one.

          don’t think to long on those questions. because it’s not just Epstein and Clinton who like em young.

          and you clearly can’t handle the answers.

    2. You’ve heard my theory that ‘Burn and Kill’ goes to ‘Silver Bells’, and ‘Caedete Eos’ goes to ‘Adeste Fidelis’ (sp)?

      1. Caedite eos– no, do please elaborate; do you mean the one by Iron Fist or something else?

        (I don’t speak Latin, I just have my search engine trained that it took me straight to that old myth, with the proper spelling.)

        1. The quote supposedly from the conflict with the Cathars. Thanks for catching that, I’m embarrassed.

          Cae-di-te E-os, Cae-di-te E-os,
          Caedite Eos, (I forget the rest, I think it starts numquam)
          You got-ta kill -’em all, you got-ta kill ’em all,
          You gotta kill ’em all, and let God sort ’em out.

          Yeah, I don’t know how to mark up lyrics for singing, and forget much of the original songs.

          The fuller burn and kill quote is ‘Burn and kill. Burn and kill. The more you burn and kill, the better you will please me’.

          1. I only found out it wasn’t true when I tried to find out the source– and frankly it’s embarrassing that a monk though it was a good thing to put in the Legate’s mouth.

            But having found out I gotta be a pain…although it is a pretty good line.

  36. > Just watch me laugh my *ss off when Trump gets into office and makes all the deals with Vichy Mitchy that Rubio would, because he wouldn’t know a principle if it bit him in the butt.

    Many of us have been voting for a long time now. We know politicians don’t keep there word. But that and their record are all you have to vote on. Trump doesn’t have a record, so…

    > Cruz qualifies as NBC because of the technicality of the idiotic 1790 Naturalization Act, *otherwise he would not either*. so much for the concern of Cuban Americans for the Constitution.

    Except for the minor fact that a naturalization act doesn’t have the power to override the Constitution. That requires a Constitutional amendment. Cruz is the best true conservative of the lot. He has a lot of good qualities. If he wins the nomination I’ll vote for him, eligible or not. But I won’t vote for him in the primary.

    1. “Trump doesn’t have a record, so…”

      Oh, of course not. Just 20 years of publicly searchable interviews, autobiography, donation records, court cases, etc. all of which show him supporting everything from the Iraq War to government healthcare to donating to every Democrat and RINO that came along. Hint: Google is your friend.

    2. How about another Amendment? Specifically, the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth, which says that you can’t deny someone who is a citizen under the law from any privilege any other citizen enjoys.

      1. No, it says “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” Federal immigration law is not state law.

        I think it is clear that both Rubio and Cruz were both US citizens and birth, and Rubio definitely natural born. I’m not so certain about Cruz. As I understand it the 1790 naturalization act mandates that foreign-born children be treated as if they were natural born. Clearly, Congress has the power under the Constitution to establish “uniform laws of naturalization” but does that truly give them the power to extend the meaning of “natural born?” I’m just not convinced either way.

        OTOH, I’d rather vote for Cruz than Trump, and likely will if the opportunity presents. Not like it ever matters. Whoever I prefer never makes it to the Ohio primary.

        1. No. Read the Volohk conspiracy blog. The sovereign citizen (meaning of age) passes citizenship to his child, just like kings’ sons were always subjects. Because we’re the sovereigns in this nation. The amendment was to make it possible for underage citizens to also pass on citizenship.
          Which is what made Obama’s status questionable. This? This is Trumpery.

          1. I’ve read several opinions on this topic, though Volohk’s is a new one to me, and am about 7/8ths convinced that Cruz is natural born. Especially because it was so soon after the Constitution was ratified that those who’d created the law and the Constitution were, if not the same, partially overlapping and very much in contact with each other.

            OTOH, the Cruz campaign could all be part of the diabolic Canadian plot for global domination. Everybody knows how they’ve been plotting to take over the world and be ruthlessly polite. 😛

              1. Hey, what you and Dan get up to on your Canadian vacation is none of our business! *sticks fingers in ears*

                1. Oh dear. We’re going to need a bigger carp-cannon, aren’t we? *sprints away at top speed* 😛

                2. Hey, it could be worse — poutine!

                  TTTO: Cocaine

                  “If you wanna pig out, you got to get it out — poutine!
                  If you wanna get brown, brown and round — poutine!
                  On the fries, on the fries, on the fries —- poutine.”

          2. I can’t believe that that didn’t really gel for me until just now…I “got” it before, but I didn’t *get* it, if that makes sense… It’s especially embarrassing because I have in the past reminded people I know, even family members, that in the US the citizenry are the sovereigns…but somehow that concept never clicked in connection to citizenship, in my head…amazing. Anyway, thank you for the reminder! 🙂

            1. Not surprising it hadn’t occurred to you — the governments and MSM spend a lot of energy throwing up chaff to distract from the simple fact that in the United States: the People are sovereign / for the protection of that sovereignty we delegate certain rights and authorities to government to act as our agents / those agents are busy converting title to everything into their own names and robbing us, the principals, of our inheritance.

              Per Wiki:
              The principal–agent problem (also known as agency dilemma or theory of agency) occurs when one person or entity (the “agent”) is able to make decisions on behalf of, or that impact, another person or entity: the “principal”. The dilemma exists because sometimes the agent is motivated to act in his own best interests rather than those of the principal. The agent–principal relationship is a useful analytic tool in political science and economics, but may also apply to other areas.

              Common examples of this relationship include corporate management (agent) and shareholders (principal), or politicians (agent) and voters (principal). For another example, consider a dental patient (the principal) wondering whether his dentist (the agent) is recommending expensive treatment because it is truly necessary for the patient’s dental health, or because it will generate income for the dentist. In fact the problem potentially arises in almost any context where one party is being paid by another to do something, whether in formal employment or a negotiated deal such as paying for household jobs or car repairs.

              The problem arises where the two parties have different interests and asymmetric information (the agent having more information), such that the principal cannot directly ensure that the agent is always acting in its (the principal’s) best interests, particularly when activities that are useful to the principal are costly to the agent, and where elements of what the agent does are costly for the principal to observe. Moral hazard and conflict of interest may arise. Indeed, the principal may be sufficiently concerned at the possibility of being exploited by the agent that he chooses not to enter into a transaction at all, when that deal would have actually been in both parties’ best interests: a suboptimal outcome that lowers welfare overall. The deviation from the principal’s interest by the agent is called “agency costs”.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem

    3. Good FRACKING BOB. You do know the constitution considers those born here naturally born citizens, as far as LAWYERS can discern, right? Stop drinking trump’s koolaid.

  37. > Just 20 years of publicly searchable interviews, autobiography, donation records, court cases, etc. all of which show him supporting everything from the Iraq War to government healthcare to donating to every Democrat and RINO that came along.

    Statements and actions as a private citizen can have little to no bearing on actions as President.

    > You do know the constitution considers those born here naturally born citizens, as far as LAWYERS can discern, right?

    Sarah, I couldn’t care less what lawyers think about what the constitution says. I can read it for myself.

      1. “I couldn’t care less what lawyers think about what the constitution says. I can read it for myself.”
        So can that guy over there who wants to take your stuff, and he says the Constitution gives him the right to do just that. So, who’s the referee in this situation, if we take away lawyers and the court system?
        You got guns and will protect yourself? Great, because he’s got more guns than you do, and people to use them as well. And since we don’t have the Rule of Law, he’s also going to make you and yours an example- because that is how law of the jungle works.

        1. That apparently is the philosophy of at least four current Supreme Court justices: We don’t care what lawyers and precedent think about what the constitution says. We can make it up for ourselves.”

    2. “Statements and actions as a private citizen can have little to no bearing on actions as President. ”

      Mein Kampf and Das Capital were written by private citizens too.

      He has a record, you’d just prefer to ignore it.

      2. Trump does kind of remind me of another leader of that time, but not the ones most compare him to. He makes me think of Il Duce with an alien squirrel atop his head. And that orange skin may be from the alien interaction with his metabolism. 🙂

        1. Take it back immediately. You’ve insulted Mussolini. He was a vastly educated and brilliant man. Evil but brilliant. Trump is an operator with guile, but no real intellect.

              1. I find it highly unlikely that any candidate can win a general election for President if he holds 30% of his party’s base, and he feels that he has been treated unfairly by that party.

                1. Trump’s media skills are a significant part of making his campaign work.

                  Can’t find the cite, but a month or two back I saw a piece on declared income and expense’s of the GOP candidates and their Super PACs.

                  Apparently Trump’s are running fairly light. He doesn’t seem to be heavily investing in it, which is good insofar as he is not expecting sizable returns.

                  However, it is not clear that his non-traditional campaign will continue to work as effectively as it has. If it doesn’t, it is not clear that he will be willing to spend, or get the donors for, making up the slack with a traditional campaign. We are coming up on several large states with primaries at the same time, and Trump can only be in one place at a time. I think Mike Murphy is out of business, so he can’t help Trump now, if that was what he was doing.

                  We shall see.

          2. I have no qualms about insulting dead tyrannical Progressives, and few about insulting live ones if they deserve it.

            I’m not entirely convinced one way or the other on Trump, because I simply can’t tell how much of Trump is an act and how much is really him. I’m more inclined to your view of Trump than that of Newt Gingrich (via Jerry Pournelle), but I think we truly have no way of knowing for certain unless he actually ends up as President. I hope and pray that Cruz (or even Rubio), beats out Trump and wins in the end.

          1. Pfui. Take a good look. The Nestene Consciousness is on the attack. Its Boehner Mark II didn’t succeed, so it is trying an alternative version.

  39. > …but it looks like you need a speak and spell.

    If you say so, Sarah.

    > He has a record, you’d just prefer to ignore it.

    Not as an elected politician. Is it that hard to understand that different jobs have different responsibilities and the same person will treat them differently? Apparently so.

    > So can that guy over there who wants to take your stuff, and he says the Constitution gives him the right to do just that. So, who’s the referee in this situation, if we take away lawyers and the court system?

    Where did I say I want to take away the court system?

    > You got guns and will protect yourself? Great, because he’s got more guns than you do, and people to use them as well.

    The only entity that describes well is our government. And they’re the ones who interpret and enforce the law. So what’s your point again?

    > And since we don’t have the Rule of Law, he’s also going to make you and yours an example- because that is how law of the jungle works.

    Again, where did I say I didn’t want the rule of law? Of course, the rule of law rather than men hasn’t been the case for a long time now.

    1. ” Is it that hard to understand that different jobs have different responsibilities and the same person will treat them differently? ”

      I have history on my side; you have an opinion. There’s the difference.

  40. > I have history on my side; you have an opinion. There’s the difference.

    I have 40+ years of history on my side. There’s hasn’t been a President who kept his campaign promises in within my memory. Even Reagan broke his promise to end registration for the draft. Trump is no better or worse than the others.

    1. Warp goalposts, engage.

      Trump’s utterances as a private citizen have 100% relevance to what he’ll do in office. As I said, I have history on my side. You don’t.

  41. Pingback: Politics as a Triangle, Not a Line

  42. > Trump’s utterances as a private citizen have 100% relevance to what he’ll do in office. As I said, I have history on my side. You don’t.

    Why don’t we just wait four years and see whose side history takes? Trump may not even get the nomination. And if you think even the votes of everyone who reads here is going to affect the outcome, I have some prime ocean front real estate for you.

      1. Sarah, this has nothing to do with illegal immigration; even if they came legally, they shouldn’t be voting UNTIL they are citizens. And it shows why even legal immigration must be slowed down or stopped until we’ve dealt with assimilating the ones here.

          1. Too bad the Bamster has the natural tan Get Out of Jail card. Anyone else, ANYONE would have been impeached by now.

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