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Rigged, by Robert Gore

Posted by straightlinelogic 8 years, 2 months ago to Politics
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The founders knew that human nature never changes, that those in control of a government would inevitably be corrupted by their power and employ it to their own design and advantage. Their solution was enumerated powers, an overlapping separation of those powers, a myriad of procedural encumbrances, the Bill of Rights, federalism, and limits on the government’s abilities to tax, raise armies, and wage war. The idea was to make it harder for this new government to do what governments had done throughout history. They had to have realized that any effort to constrain a government ultimately depended on the wisdom and virtue of those in power. Wisdom and virtue in perpetually short supply, they also had to have realized that their effort would eventually fail.

And fail it has. Donald Trump is making more waves by charging that the electoral system is “rigged,” and for refusing to pledge that he will not challenge the official results of the election. Our entire government is massively rigged, an agglomeration of scams, testament to terminal philosophical deterioration and default. Its partners in crime have reacted vehemently against even the suggestion that the election could be rigged. Their fear: once discussion is allowed about rigged elections, people may take umbrage at all the other scams and actually do something about them.

This is an excerpt. For the complete article please click the above link. While you're on Straight Line Logic, take advantage of the special offer and get your pre-publication PDF of Robert Gore's scathing political satire, Prime Deceit.
SOURCE URL: https://straightlinelogic.com/2016/10/22/rigged-by-robert-gore/


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  • Posted by term2 8 years, 2 months ago
    I think the basic problem is that we need a consititutional amendment that says in effect that no law shall be passed that takes from one person and gives to another person. It would have to be carefully crafted so that it wasnt gotten around, but the idea is to make private property sacrosanct (which is certainly isnt now).
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    • Posted by blackswan 8 years, 2 months ago
      All that's required is to eliminate ALL subsidies, bailouts, bailins, welfare, social security, and any other government expenditure, other than defense, law enforcement and the courts. EVERYTHING ELSE should be private, period. No health care, no arts, no anything else. If individuals are unable or unwilling to do it, then it's not worth it at that time.
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      • Posted by term2 8 years, 2 months ago
        It would be quite difficult to actually craft something to eliminate cronyism, but it would be worth the effort
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        • Posted by MinorLiberator 8 years, 2 months ago
          I respectfully disagree. Take away the money from DC, cronyism goes away. By destroying the welfare state, reduce revenue requirements by funding a properly sized limited government. Institute a flat tax to eliminate cronyism via tax code cronyism. Get rid of all regulations and laws that allow favoritism that way. In other words, 99% of current laws.
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  • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 2 months ago
    The last elections had dead people voting, illegals voting, legals voting multiple times, a district in Ohio and another one in Philadelphia having over 100% of the votes for Obama. Is someone still questioning whether the elections are rigged or not? Seriously?
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years, 2 months ago
    There have been attempts, sometimes successful, to manipulate the American Presidential election since the founding. A number of U.S. Presidents have been elected with less than a majority of the popular vote, with a few failing to gain the necessary electoral total and have been elected by the House. Thomas Jefferson was the first elected by the House, over Aaron Burr. There can be no doubt that these decisions were the result of political wheeling and dealing.

    While most of us are familiar with questions about President Obama's birthplace, he wasn't the first President with suspicion about his American roots. President Chester A. Arthur may have been born in Canada, but there have never been sufficient data to determine if his birthplace claim of Vermont or the Canadian origin claimed by his detractors is correct.

    President Benjamin Harrison (often referred to as "His Fraudulency" by skeptics) was unquestionably granted an electoral victory over the incumbent President Cleveland as the result of a crooked deal to end reconstruction.

    The fact is that while our electoral process isn't without its flaws, the threat of violence over elections has been successfully repressed, which is more than many other nations can claim. Trump has a reasonable right to withhold acceptance of the election outcome, given a very real possibility of underhanded efforts to illegally influence the outcome.
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  • Posted by jwork 8 years, 2 months ago
    I do believe that the election will be rigged, certainly here in Colorado. For that reason I had decided not to vote, not to participate in the farce.
    But I have reconsidered. I don't believe half of what Trump says, and believe not at all that he will be able to change or restore what we have lost (or more correctly, thrown away). But I will vote for Trump anyway, more as a vote against Clinton. "We" are not doing anything to resist the tyranny. "We" talk and talk, whine and whine, but take no action of the type that is necessary. Eventually some of us will be forced to take action or die. I was going to say "or kneel and accept our chains", but we're already kneeling, already chained. We just refuse to admit it. Action, not words. Our lack of action and endless words defines us as the slaves we have become. Serfs in Medieval Europe had no more rights than we do now, and paid less in taxes. The Revolutionary War was fought over way, way less oppression that what the productive people in this country now endure. We are vastly outnumbered by the parasites. Drastic action is required, not words and whining. A vote for Trump is a very, very small action. But it is something. Might delay the unpleasantness, or might not.
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  • Posted by dukem 8 years, 2 months ago
    My partner has publicly stated she would leave me if I voted for Trump. I live in a community that adored Obama and will massively vote for Hitlery.
    Now I'm looking for that place to resettle. I guess now I have to live my truth.
    Reminds me of Nathaniel Hawthorne's words: "Ah, Bartleby, ah, humanity." (You could look it up.) : - )
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    • Posted by term2 8 years, 2 months ago
      I have decided that people who vote for Hillary are NOT my friends. They dont respect me, they want to steal from me, and they have now given me clear indication of where they are at.

      Before this election, statists could hide easier. Now, all I need to know is that they support Hillary, and it all falls into place.
      And no one can call me RACIST either !!! I can quietly just make my determination and find other friends.

      Time to reset your life, in my opinion. Who wants to live in an area that is wildly supportive of Hillary....
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  • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 2 months ago
    Is the election rigged? If the undercover tape made public by O'Keefe is accurate, Democrat operatives have been rigging elections for years now. I personally believe they are very active and complicit in vote-rigging.

    When Trump was asked in the debate about whether or not he would accept the outcome, what he should have said was "it all depends on how many dead people and illegals vote Democrat."
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  • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 2 months ago
    "They had to have realized that any effort to constrain a government ultimately depended on the wisdom and virtue of those in power."

    Of course they did. That's why Benjamin Franklin offered these poignant words: "A Republic. If you can keep it."

    Adams similarly remarked that the Constitution was good only for a moral (and religious) people - that if that changed so would the Constitution.

    I think that our people - "my fellow Americans" - have fundamentally changed. They have become less civil. Less respectful. Less tolerant. Less moral. And so they advocate for the same to be reflected in their laws. The problem is that moral laws don't change - people do. With the breakdown in adherence to moral law comes the inevitable repercussions of those choices - such as economic collapse due to too much borrowing, inflation, and currency manipulation. Eventually, those laws will come back to bite us because as much as people want to believe that they can create "law", they are gravely mistaken.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 8 years, 2 months ago
    As I have said it before here on the Gulch, if this election goes south a Civil War will be looming on the horizon. I would prefer Secession, I just wonder how many brave State Governors/Legislators are out there. I feel that if the congress become unbalanced to the Natl Socialist Democrats( yes, I see the Democrats as Fascists) this country will descend down the road to immolation. A course correction is needed to refresh out representative republic.
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  • Posted by chad 8 years, 2 months ago
    Always enjoy reading your work, need the dictionary every time so I learn new words! I would describe the current political system as a communist democracy. There is no way back to a republic from here. Either we find a new place, succumb to what is inevitable, or hope for Yellowstone to erupt or an asteroid to remove enough of the population that the remaining few will be too busy trying to stay alive to bother anyone else. I don't think Trump is any different than Clinton except in what he says he'll do if elected.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 2 months ago
    Rigged indeed.
    Jefferson commented that he'd be surprised if it lasted more than 25 years. Very strictly speaking he was probably right. While I am aware of what you say in your post, nevertheless seeing it in print depresses me. My BW has become a Trump fan (somewhat) because Hillary makes her so angry she almost throws stuff at the TV.I have never seen her so mad at a politician and we've known each other longer than most people in the Gulch have been alive.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 8 years, 2 months ago
    posted to facebook....and starting our first 30 day test of RVing and dropping out of the system...stay well and safe my friend...
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    • Posted by 8 years, 2 months ago
      Thanks for spreading the word. Assuming with your lifestyle change you may have some time on your hands, may I recommend my upcoming novel, Prime Deceit (available on Amazon and Kindle in a week or two). I think you'll like it, and somewhat self-servingly on my part, given your record of spreading the word, I'll think you'll recommend it to your friends, Facebook and otherwise! ;)
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 8 years, 2 months ago
    I agree with everything Robert Gore wrote 100 per cent.
    Me dino feels like I coulda coauthored that article at least to the point of our conversation being with Mr. Gore asking~
    Agree with that?
    Yep.
    Agree with that?
    Yep.
    And yep, yep, yep so on.
    The rigged coronation of such a so obviously crooked Shillary by those who have purloined power from We The People by slowly unraveling our Constitutional republic will be like frosting on a totally corrupt cake.
    Dino Brain Flash! "Can't" has just been removed form "have your cake and eat it too" if you are at one with the in-crowd of the more than equal Washington elite betters.
    That would include weaselly RINOs like you, Paul Ryan.
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  • Posted by coaldigger 8 years, 2 months ago
    As usual, I am pleased to read your articles for the truth and clarity that you provide. I am 100% on board but could never say it so well. It is interesting that Hillary is the personification of the evils faced by this country and clearly another dose of poison, yet so many are cult like followers and embrace it with joy.

    Trump uses very imprecise language geared to appeal to the base of society and despite the attacks from the media who provide their own interpretation to his words, he does not clarify them. I have no idea what he actually believes. His private sector record is of a crony capitalist but his smirk tells me he was using the corrupt system and he has disdain for those that instituted it. He can't be as simple as he sounds but I have no guess as to his real plan. I understand the concern that he could refute losing results and indirectly cause considerable unrest. In fact, I expect to see increasing incidences of violence which can grow to become a serious problem and I am not sure that the military would be willing to participate in the slaughter of a proportional amount of the 600,000 killed in the last secession.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 2 months ago
    A lot of this post is about the old idea that democratic gov'ts fail once the people find a way to vote themselves money from the public treasury. I strongly agree with this.

    Seeing this message in Trump's comments sounds like seeing it in a Rorschach blot. Trump's comments about the election being "rigged" at a time when he's losing in the polls come off like sore losing. He later clarified he would follow the laws and customs, making me think it was an impolitic but not a serious threat to reject the outcome.

    I wish your claim were true that there is cause to think if people start to question the integrity of elections, maybe they'll next question gov't spending being a third of GDP. They're not related though. It's motivated reasoning trying to turn Trump's impolitic comments into something more.
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    • Posted by 8 years, 2 months ago
      You never address my central assertion, that this election could well be rigged, regardless of Trump's motive for saying so. Computerized voting machines can be hacked; felons, illegal immigrants. and dead people have demonstrably voted in the past and will undoubtedly do so this time as well; the US has a history of local, state, and national vote fraud, and this election is unusually high stakes for the powers that be, since Trump poses a threat to their power. I also question if Trump is actually losing, the pollsters and mainstream media having repeatedly demonstrated their bias.
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 2 months ago
        Some national polls actually show Trump starting to pull ahead. And there is potentially a "hidden vote" effect, where some Trump supporters don't publicly endorse him to avoid potential backlash from their peer groups.
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 2 months ago
        "that this election could well be rigged"
        I agree there could be cheating. In 2002 when I lived in St. Petersburg, FL I voted on a touch screen running proprietary software with no paper trail. I had no faith in that system.

        I am not an expert on the mechanics of making elections fair, but it's obviously important. I would be for some federal initiative to set standards for voting in elections for national office.

        Calling the election "rigged" and saying the mainstream pollsters have it in for a candidate sounds like sore-loser conspiracy-theory thinking. Calling for actual reforms to make the election system more robust against fraud is a good thing, as you say, regardless of the motives.
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      • Posted by term2 8 years, 2 months ago
        I think that since it is essentially impossible to get a 100% EXACT count of all votes, the winner should need to have an excess of xx% of the votes (depending on how well the election technology and process was able to perform).

        Also, the electoral college is a really strange thing. It just appears to me, without admittedly being totally up to date on its origins, that its in there to allow crookedness to creep into the system.
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        • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 2 months ago
          The Electoral College was put there to give the smaller states a little more influence in national elections. For example, Wyoming has three times the number of electoral votes as it would have if they were distributed according to each state's population.

          However, the Electoral College is no longer necessary because everyone knows that California and New York have the wisdom to make the best decisions for the rest of the country. :-)
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          • Posted by term2 8 years, 2 months ago
            BUT, those electoral votes should be assigned based on the number of votes for each candidate, NOT winner take all. That skews the result. Thats how a candidate with 50.1% of the vote can get a huge plurality of electoral votes, and keep out a third party candidate
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            • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 2 months ago
              Mathematically under the Electoral College system a candidate could win the Presidency with as little as 22% of the popular vote in a two-way race, and 15% of the popular vote in a three-way race.
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              • Posted by term2 8 years, 2 months ago
                That sounds way off
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                • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 2 months ago
                  It’s way off as far as being realistically possible, but not mathematically. For example, in a 2-way race, if each state in a group of states with 44% of the population and 50.2% of the nationwide electoral votes has candidate A winning by a 50.1% margin, then Candidate A will receive a majority of electoral votes even if the remaining states vote 100% for Candidate B.

                  Likewise, in a 3-way race Candidate A could win the electoral vote by winning only 33.4% of the vote in each of those states, regardless of what the other states do.

                  Farfetched yes, mathematically impossible no.
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    • Posted by edweaver 8 years, 2 months ago
      You cannot strongly agree with you first sentence because you don't realize the climate change BS is exactly that. Some of the people found out how to vote themselves taxpayer money. That's exactly what climate change is all about.
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