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the usa is going through the change from a free country to a socialist country. the change has been going on for over 100 years and depending upon your age, if young enough you will experience seeing all of this happen. my family came here from minsk about 1900 or so, so i had the benefit of growing up in a relatively free country but that has all changed. maybe some will heed your advice.
How long will it take before Trump supporters realize that putting down the media elites isn't enough? Are we supposed to support Putin's "deals" and his "put downs" of the media, too? The 'man on the white horse' is an unprincipled Pragmatist who would "deal" anything. Both of them. For the same reasons, with less extremes, don't support Kasich either. He's exploiting Trump's "deals" to further his own.
I do have a question about the accuracy of the quotes, however: did Putin really say that about Trump?
Whoever is left in the final election almost a year from now, a vote -- if there is enough difference to vote at all -- is not an endorsement, it's a choice under very limited constraints.
The electoral college... our votes are only symbolic at best... if the power brokers want it so. The Republicrats will continue to convince the masses that any third party rival is a wasted vote. The MSM will foster the notion and pragmatism will continue in the voting booth... for what it is worth.
Unless the minds of many more, especially the youth, are properly instructed and more attention is paid to local and state elections then the pool from whence most of these statist abominations spring will grow.
Vote to cut off another toe, but save the foot, or vote as a political statement for a third party, or abstain which is at best a statement or irrelevant; you can save some of your liberty, or you can shout while they take more, or you can remain silent while they take more... There is one more choice; you can support the candidate that wishes to do the most damage, or good, depending upon perspective.
Yes, it is "a choice under very limited constraints."
Respectfully,
O.A.
Not voting or voting for a hopeless candidate "sends a message", but not one that makes any difference. The politicians don't care, they only want the power that comes from the election, and the 'message' is useless. At best it says "frustration, not the first two", which can mean any of a large number of motives encompassing anarchy, anti-foreign policy and all kinds of 'rightist' and 'leftist' positions. If you want to send a message then send a message and say what it is. It isn't what votes in this mess are for.
As one who has voted for every Libertarian presidential candidate since 1972, I think the exact opposite is true. By voting for my principles, my votes over the years have had far more impact than if I had allowed the two “establishment” parties to dictate my choices.
Consider this: no matter how you have voted for President in the past, your vote has never made a difference in the outcome. Nor will it do so in the future. Even if you live in a “swing state” that could go either way, your lone vote will not spell the difference between victory and defeat for either establishment party candidate.
So if you can’t change the election outcome, why vote at all? The answer is that by voting Libertarian, you will be adding to the vote totals of the only party that consistently supports individual freedom. And those vote totals matter – the establishment parties pay close attention when a significant number of voters break with the two-party system, and they will often modify their stands on certain issues to protect their base and prevent further defections.
On the other hand, if you vote for the “lesser of two evils,” you are saying in effect, “I support the political status quo. I have faith in the two-party system, and I’m not interested in supporting candidates from other parties, even if they have fresh ideas that I agree with. I don’t like either of the two establishment party candidates, but I will vote for Establishment Party Candidate X because he is not quite as bad as Establishment Party Candidate Y.” This truly is a waste of your vote, and does nothing to advance the cause of freedom.
Vote Libertarian instead, and declare your independence from the broken two-party system and its deeply flawed candidates. Your Libertarian vote will put the establishment parties on notice that you are not satisfied with the candidates they offer, and unless they come up with better choices they will not earn your vote in the future.
I can just hear you advising the founders.
"Poor King George. He's so misunderstood. I don't mind quartering a few soldiers in my house, why do you? Gosh, you think that's bad? Things will only be worse when we lose a war to them. I am afraid of what he would heap on us if we resist."
Don't worry. They will never come for you.
They have lots of domestic terrorists (aka people with assault weapons) to put in concentration camps first.
Armchair "libertarians" inept at making a difference and who stand on the sidelines doing nothing have no business smearing those who are doing the work for leading to "dictatorship".
Making a difference? Yes, more dictatorship and less freedom is a difference, and although you support that, I will not, and I will state the facts that you want to ignore. I will even make jokes about your irrational faith in a process and a party that delivers tyranny while promising liberty.
Are you ready for Hillary as president in 2016? We already know a lot of the dumb things she will try to do. God knows what else she will promise to people.
Rand Paul has had his moments of religious zealotry, too, like sponsoring legislation overthrowing Roe v Wade through the ear-wilting of device of legally defining a fetus to be a person. Bizarre moves like that undermine the good in him.
You choose slavery ... or liberty.
Republican voters have ignored the lessons of history for too long. The reality is that voting for the supposed lesser evil only results in more evil: bigger government and less liberty.
When it's your rights and those of your family that are sacrificed by one of his "negotiations", your "but, I didn't think he would" won't carry much value.
Lady Liberty is drowning in a sea of Pragmatism. Getting in a boat with a bloviating statist is not "rescue".
I just know if Hillary gets in, she will doom my small business with her minimum wage hikes and higher taxes. Its not that I WANT Trump as a principled leader, but I dont WANT Hillary. Plus the fact Trump will be a better administrator and foreign affairs negotiator.
The only reason we are still here is that I have been buying about 3/4 of our raw materials and subassemblies from china. We have 8 people working here, not including me, and if they do the $15/hr thing, we will have to get rid of 3 of them in order to stay in business. That means more work goes to china and I scramble to automate and computerize more of our operations, for which I am granted a reprieve from bankruptcy.
I do think that 4 years of Trump will slow the decline compared with Hillary or Sanders. The die is cast as to socialism taking over however. Too many people want it, and the influx of socialist south americans has sealed the deal.
The other GOP candidates will do nothing to stop socialism and also impose some religious restrictions and increase taxes like all of them do, but I really dont think they can win against Hillary and her liberal media juggernaut.
Things are going to go the way of Venezuela but it will take a long time to exhaust all the wealth of the USA and people here will put up with it long after I am gone.
The collapse as depicted in AS is pretty much the way it will go. Even John Galt didnt try and stand in the way to stem the tide. He let it go to its end, and THEN came forth.
The 2nd Amendment isn't the only part of the Bill of Rights under attack. Private property rights are being decimated and government power expanded beyond anything remotely allowed in the Constitution. Trump has shouted to the heavens that he thinks "eminent domain is wonderful".
I doubt you could be convinced otherwise, regarding Trump. So many are blinded by their new political 'significant other', they can't see that Trump's actions and promises echo the pattern of past populist dictators.
If not voting for Trump meant that the criminal, political gangster, Hillary, was elected, then the difference in damage to the country would be similar. There is a long time before the election; hopefully the FBI will refer charges against Hillary or leak her crimes.
The whole corrupt political system needs a "do over" before the next US election.
Otherwise we will get another 5 years of,"pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
In the meantime, bloviating Pragmatists and political gangsters should be rebuked at every opportunity.
Here in NH I notice that most of the people who are going to vote democrat, kinda keep to themselves at the polling place because they know it's not popular to talk about - it's only fun to talk politics when they are making fun of conservatives.
.
a candidate who might get that kind of praise from Putin, yes. -- j
.
The "cultural barometer" of significance in the Trump campaign is that so many people mindlessly support him just because some of the things he says are filling a vacuum, without regard for what else he says, does, and advocates in the name of "deals" for anything regardless of what it is.
Putin didnt say much about Obama because he didnt respect him at all. Obama was a weak but arrogant person deserving no respect. Same with Hillary.
The purpose of government is to protect our rights, not make "deals".
You should ask yourself why Putin sees so much in Trump to praise and what he expects to get from it politically.
So if you think Trump is a fascist, what do you think of the back room dealings of Hillary throughout her career. She gets campaign contributions from people who want favors and they know she will deliver.
Its going to be Trump OR Hillary. Which one would you rather have. You will have ONE or the other.
Could a white knight come in at the last minute, sure. But is it likely- NO
Putin is a conniving, fascist, murderer from the KGB, a glorified thug. What Putin thinks or says is not grounds for supporting anyone, let alone Trump and his unprincipled, anti property rights "deals".
Conservatives rushing to nationalistic "make America great again" as the supposed alternative to socialism is a replay of pre-Hitler Germany in which Hitler and the National Socialists arose as the compromise between traditional German conservatism based on religion and nationalism versus the communists based on the same altruist-collectivist premises. See Leonard Peikoff's Ominous Parallels.
America did not become great from a strong arm government wheeling and dealing anything and everything. That is the Pragmatism that wrecked the country. Get rid of the statism and ordinary Americans in their freedom will "make the country great again", like they did the first time.
As to Putin, I agree with what you say about him. BUT, he IS the leader of the largest country on earth, and the USA does have to deal with him. Better to have someone on our side who sticks up for us, rather than muslim foreigners like we have now.
Americans make America great. But our government can and does make that difficult and sometimes impossible. Best thing our government could do to 'make america great' is get out of the way.
So, if the election were to be held today with the candidates we have today, and given the majority takes all mentality, I would vote for Trump as I think no one else currently running could beat Hillary. Call me collectivist or fascist or whatever, but I dont want Hillary to win.
Trump would not 'get out of the way'. He's antsy to impose government 'deals' in droves. Decide how to vote, or if it is still worth voting at all, when you know who the candidates are. The frightening Trump with his anti-private property rights, overt contempt for innocent people in his way, and loose canon unprincipled "deals" should not be supported if you don't have to.
dictator? (The place is still Communist, isn't it?)
I knew that Trump wasn't a free-enterprise man, but
that goes farther than I would have dreamed of in a
nightmare.--By the way, who was that guy with the horse? I didn't see the whole photograph at
first; was relieved to find it wasn't a woman ex-
posing that equipment.
the VP must be a u.s. native over 35. -- j
.
Putin's Translator: "Ve vill agonize, er, organize a new country so powerful that no one vill efen try to challenge us.Of course, Pressident Trump vill recognize me as leader .
My suspicion is the left is running scared and is trying to pull whatever dirty tricks they can think of... or an ISIL destabilization web-hack... Whoever it is, they fear a strong president, so they need to try to take out the one person who will endanger the status quo of decline into the morass, and possibly be another president like Reagan was on Iran...
Whoever it was knows that John Q Public will not know how to dig to uncover who really sent this. If you ever watch them, the whole thing sounds way too much like a Comedy Central parody propaganda spot...
I will say that Putin is loyal to his country and sticks up for its citizens, as he should as president. His methods are not supporting freedom , which I dont approve of.
However, contrast what he does with what Obama does. Obama does NOT stick up for Americans either domestically nor abroad. He weakens our country from within with his dramatic and reckless spending. He fights wars which we should never be in, and makes the US look stupid with his arrogance and petulance.
Although people in this forum seem to hate Trump, he would be a LOT better than Hillary or Sanders, and no one else on the GOP platform has a chance in hell of winning over Hillary.
He would stand up for America, and probably be able to negotiate far better with other countries than anyone else. He tells it like it is for a change, and isnt controlled by insider politics or political correctness.
While I'm intrigued by Trump's candidacy I'm also interested in Cruz and, of course Rand Paul, but Paul isn't getting any traction. I will say that I think that the American president should be someone that Putin respects. Having the President of Russia not respect the U.S. President is inherently risky. And vice-versa.
You can respect someone without approving of what they are doing. And I do think Trump could negotiate with Putin effectively.
I try not to get excited about things like the marriage issue. This is in the hands of the Supreme Court and even the ability to nominate a Supreme Court justice doesn't give the President much control over it.
Cruiz is definitely intelligent and would, in my opinion, move the ball in our direction. I think Trump would as well, but he's a wild card. I do think that Trump knows how to build and manage a good team. I would expect him to surround himself with competent staff rather than ideologues.
The electoral college seems to be there to tilt the scales in a big way so people fall into line. This is not a scientific analysis, BUT it seems like even if the popular vote is close, the electoral college votes are heavily skewed one way or the other. Just an observation.