What were voters thinking electing Ocasio-Cortez
If voters (even in NY) send a woman like Ocasio Cortez to the House, what does that say about the electorate?
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Years ago my golf buddy said, "If you read Atlas Shrugged and watch Idiocracy you get full clarity." Very true...
Now that O and the Ds pushed through O-care and the Rs are reluctant to restore order the moochers feel entitled and that they could lose something. Of course they will pick any nitwit who promises them the moon even is it is filled with shit..
Want to bet that not many would be found in the R camp?
Would you care to elaborate what do you mean by "socialist being much more serious and much deeper"?
I grant you that probably only a small percentage of the free stuff crowd heard about Marx or Engels. But even in the Bolshevik revolution in 1919 not many understood what they were fighting about, other than all hated the czar and the first thing they did when won to kill him and his family.
In socialism there is an elite just like in any other "-ism" based society. They need the crowd to rule. The last thing they want if for the crowd to think. Government was doing the thinking, at least that is what the crowd is being told and all they need to do in exchange is being obedient and keep the elites in power.
That doesn't mean that the Democrat ethnic hordes don't want us to provide them with what they want for "free", but there is a lot more to the mentality than just wanting free gifts. In fact they tend not to think of it as gifts for free at all, but an impersonal entitlement to be taken care of without regard to the source -- the last thought to enter their minds is to feel gratitude let alone say "thank you". Personal considerations of who is providing the wealth enters only in their resentment, envy, and hatred of the demons they call "rich". That kind of personal demonization doesn't account for the rest of what they embrace. (Murdering the czar was only one example.)
It has gone so far as to the migrant crowd approaching our Southern border is suing the administration for attempting to prevent their entering, on the basis that it is their right to come to the US.
We are getting close to the insanity of the Europeans who openly embrace migrants who are better than their own citizens, they say. They are entitled to the same benefits as the citizenry.
What are they? Have you seen this looter crowd supporting anything else but the socialists, which is of course the ruling party in Germany, France and Spain?
But would like to know nonetheless how do you categorize the "not everyone who likes to get something for free"? You say they are not collectivists and not socialists.
Then what are they?
The fact still remains that those voting for a candidate who promises free stuff are usually voting for a socialist/communist, because they are the ones promising it.
When someone demands free government medical care as a "right" and all one can say in response is that he wants it for free, the response from those who support it or don't know any better is only "of course he does, so turn it over".
"What were voters thinking electing Ocasio-Cortez?" What they were taught to think. And the American sense of life that used to cause them to revolt against the consequences is disappearing.
I don't want to be harsh but you often sound cynical. It is your business, of course, but it does not pass as a rational explanation or even an attempt to find solution. Are you saying we just have to sit back and wait until all of us are killed off by the left? That is the ultimate goal, just as it was Stalin's to execute tens of millions to "purify" communist ranks. Many of the elite in Europe are of the conviction that it was worth the price.
Has this nitwit Ocasio-Cortez checked what salaries are in a communist country? In a best case scenario they are one tenth of what workers make in the US or other developed countries, or less.
I bet their enthusiastic steam would diminish considerably if they knew that they would be paid $500 per month vs $10,000-$20,00 or more.
Ask anyone who have been visiting any of the communist countries in Central Europe under Soviet control, why these countries were favorite destinations? They could not buy enough goods to feel even a dent in their vacation expenses. A luxury apartment in the center of the capital was rented for $1 - $10 a month.
It would be useful if they "gimme" crowd would be aware of this fact.
Who wants to abolish ICE have open borders a sanctuary state and to stop the investigation into $100,000,000.00 sent to the Middle East from tax payers money through fraud at Muslim daycares.These many centers have one or two class rooms for 20-25 students yet have several hundred students registered.
Add to that the tainted nobody put up by the GOP.
I suspect that Cortez is only a facade or curtain placed right up front for all to see. The real power is whomever is hiding behind the curtain we are to pay no attention to.
So you think the left are not concocting conspiracy theories?
Would you elaborate, or provide examples for your "observation"?
https://nypost.com/2018/10/30/gop-dit...
The republicrats in NY should all be ejected, their party disbanded, and a new party drawn up, as they had to be in bed with the dumbocraps to not vet their candidate. They allowed her a free pas. That is, unless someone WANTED a "child" to go to congress and then become the screaming meltdown queen of the left everytime she cannot get "free stuff" and is rudely forced to face reality, that no one cares about her agenda, and she will be told to shut up and sit down. Once the FISA is revealed, there will be very little left of the current leadership in the house, as well as seeing how many indictments take them out as well. Then, in a new election, things may change for the better.
"Once the FISA is revealed, there will be very little left of the current leadership in the house"
From your post to Galt's ears, but wishing won't make it happen. (Nor will believing in a shadowy figure who spouts numerology instead of providing objective evidence.)
I would love to see all the looters prosecuted, but from my observation of the ethics of current bureaucrats, I doubt there will be charges brought on looters by looters. They do not see the wrong as wrong. AS portrayed today's reality.
In the meantime, I think we are going to see Trump 2.0 unleashed- he will do whatver he can get away with against the liberals now.
Voting for the socialists instead of the intellectually challenged pseudo individualists won’t change things at all really, even though it’s emotionally satisfying
Believe me, I try to influence people to be more rational in their thinking, and perhaps in 50 years collectivism will no longer be the preferred ideology in the USA. I would like this process to be faster, and it’s frustrating to see how things are going
Voting for the "wildest socialist" to "get this madness over with" is nihilistic self destruction. Now you say that it is "emotionally satisfying".
You did not answer what you think would ever cause "a real objectivist" to have "a shot to win" and how that is helped by not voting at all.
The story of the world becoming decadent causing the gods to destroy the world, except for a righteous few, paving the way for a new pure world crops up everywhere. It's in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the old story know. My guess is it's not because the story was passed from one culture to another but because we're adapted to have this urge. Maybe it had a selective advantage in causing us to keep clean. I'm just guessing.
I am categorically against giving into this flood myth urge. It is especially unreasonable when respect for human rights is increasing along the long arc of human history.
Given that current voting choices are variations of collectivism, whats the point of voting unless just to slow down the march to complete collectivism (which in the case of older people, I can understand actually as I did that by voting for Trump).
The whole thing is very upsetting as there are no good alternatives that do not have side effects. One thing that can be done is to cut personal spending so as to cut the need for income (which is taxed) and cut the amount of sales taxes paid. Less money to the government means less control they exert over us all.
The "point of voting" is to support an occasional good candidate and slow down the worst as long as it does make a difference. That in itself is no more a long term solution than deliberately causing a suicidal collapse. It buys time, while it is still possible at all, to spread better ideas.
People have been doing collectivism for a long time, along with other things like slavery. The bad philosophies preceded respect for property, but preceding a thing is not causing a thing. Increasing slavery is not a way to reduce slavery. Slavery and not respecting property rights are actually getting better. We need to extend that, not go backward.
It is not only our schools that are failing. It is parents, society, workplace, etc., which are all contributing to the disfunction over time.
Take parents for example: what do children "learn" from them? In most households the youngsters are left to themselves to learn and be prepared for life. Parents don't want anything to do with them and they grow up like weeds, without any directions. Parents think it is the schools that must prepare them, and we know what schools do: giving us the snowflakes.
This means to me that whether we help the collectivists destroy the country or not, it will be essentially destroyed before we tip the educational scales to a sufficient degree to help reverse the process. My estimate is like 50 years of slow and agonizing destruction of our civilization before it just collapses, or is taken over by a foreign power like china.
On the positive side, I see people to a larger degree accepting that the MSM is crooked and not to be believed. In addition, although conspiracy theories arent universally accepted, people have much less trust in government in general and politicians in particular. This is indicated by the election of Trump, and his recent advertising banners "promises made... promises kept" (we never used to see this sort of advertising).
Another positive influence, which would would probably disagree with, is the abject failure of socialism in relatively close-by countries like Venezuela. Although it doesnt get much press so far, once it gets to the point where masses of people are dying, it might more attention.
Most socialist countries like Russia, China, Cuba, and most of Europe limp along without mass deaths, which promotes the hope that socialism CAN work if done right.
I agree it would be preferable if OUR society didnt collapse around our ankles.
You should not join the mob.
Even though it is a protracted process which will eventually lead to complete terror and totalitarianism, I always believed in the American people that when things get very much out of control they step in to straighten things out. The "people who stick to their guns and religion".
Ayn Rand discussed this several times, such as in her analysis of the Nixon-McGovern election in which McGovern lost by a landslide despite the intellectuals supporting him, while she warned that there is inadequate explicit opposition that can sustain the American sense of life. Today the Democrats are even more extreme, open collectivists than McGovern was and are winning elections, with many more very close. Ordinary people are increasingly wondering if we should "try socialism", in health care and much more.
You cannot count on the American people continuing to "step in to straighten things out" indefinitely without explicit, philosophical defense of reason and individualism.
Perhaps that would take more than a generation, which would subject the people currently living to a worse life than if the resistance slows down the process. I am willing to accept this caveat.
I am also curious if you look at Atlas Shrugged as more of a documentary than a novel, with the actions of Francisco in destroying his mine, Ragnar by sinking ships, and Galt by "stopping the motor of the world" as actions just allowing the collectivist ideology to run its natural course. Once the economy collapsed, the people were more ready to accept the more rational alternative ideas. Galt presented.
What I am saying is that until a fountain of youth is discovered, I will be LONG LONG dead before that process even gets a foothold. So, why would I be interested in supporting a process that will most likely take generations? Short term fixes to make MY life better seem to be a better bet. I am changing my mind about the voting for the wildest socialist (and havent done that in the past)- in thinking about the time frames, it would take too long for that approach to work for me to benefit. It is enticing to find a shorter term solution, but perhaps there is none, and I will have to just live with a declining society here for the rest of my time. Maybe I can find a better place to live out my days, either in a remote USA location with less collectivist leanings, or somewhere outside the USA
There are no shortcuts to spreading the right ideas and no "short term solutions" -- other than some specific political battles that are still possible to win -- beyond whatever progress we may make that can make life better or not as bad as it otherwise would be. Isn't that worth it? Both that and knowing that you are fighting for a rational goal proper to humanity are reasons to keep fighting.
It does not mean to sacrifice your life to an unattainable goal you'll never see, outside your life and therefore outside your standard of value. If you can find a better place to live, then do it. And it doesn't mean to sacrifice a chosen career to 'saving the world'. But whatever you do, 'buying time' means both time to fight for better ideas and the time span and values of your own life and those you care about.
Scientists routinely struggle for ideas they may never see in final form, let alone the technological results. But they pursue their own goals for understanding and for what is right without sacrificing themselves to a future in which they won't exist to enjoy, and we are grateful that they have. What would have happened if Newton had quit because he wouldn't live to see the space station, or those who risked everything for the American Revolution had instead holed up on "strike" or supported the wildest British tyrant in a nihilistic fit to "get it over with"? They didn't live to experience the best consequences of their work, but they also benefited enormously from how they lived.
In "Don't Let It Go" written in 1971 on behalf of the American sense of life, Ayn Rand concluded,
"Can this country achieve a peaceful rebirth in the foreseeable future?
"By all precedents, it is not likely. But America is an unprecedented phenomenon. In the past, American perseverance became, on occasion, too long-bearing a patience. But when Americans turned, they turned. What may happen to the Welfare State is what happened to the Prohibition Amendment.
"Is there enough of the American sense of life left in people—under the constant pressure of the cultural-political efforts to obliterate it? It is impossible to tell. But those of us who hold it, must fight for it. We have no alternative: we cannot surrender this country to a zero—to men whose battle cry is mindlessness.
"We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something—and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason, and a view of man as a rational being.
"These are philosophical issues. The philosophy we need is a conceptual equivalent of America's sense of life. To propagate it, would require the hardest intellectual battle. But isn't that a magnificent goal to fight for?"
As she lay on her death bed over 10 years later, she still asked Leonard Peikoff to do the best he could for Objectivism. She knew what she had achieved and she still cared that it live. In fighting for it, like scientists struggling to understand, she experienced the meaning of what she once described as "those who fight of the future live in it today" -- which does not mean a mystical living in a time in which you don't exist, and does not mean sacrificing the joy of pursuing, attaining and experiencing values in one's own lifetime.
It is called "passing on the torch".
It takes the same strong determination generation after generation to have the flame live and pass it on to the next. In the process, the flame may go out. If the older generation has not prepared the next to know how to re-ignite it, it'll die forever.
As to your first comment about buying time, isnt that what I did with voting for Trump, as the obvious less evil choice? Sounds like you would agree that it was a good idea to keep crooked Hillary from getting in there. It would appear that Trumps ride will end in 2020, as it partially did in the election of 2018. But without an intellectual base, Trump could only slow down the rise of collectivism in a few areas, which I think he has done.
"Can this country achieve a peaceful rebirth in the foreseeable future?
"By all precedents, it is not likely
I think AR was right in making this comment. The rise in entitlement, political correctness, and the supremacy of pure emotion over reason has created very large problems for us.
Collectivism has attracted many more followers because of offering them freebies that others will pay for. I think it will take the exhaustion of the 'others' money before this can stop.
Gematria is a type of CODE.
Gematria is one of several methods of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase based on its letters.
Gematria originated as an Assyro-Babylonian-Greek system of alphanumeric code or cipher that was later adopted into Jewish culture.
electorate!
Dismissing deadly ideas of an enemy as mere "low IQ" will get you nowhere and results in complacency allowing the cause to continue unchallenged.
Reversing it will take much more than a Trump and more than "vigilance", which is only watching our own demise.
Would you care to explain what that is?
On the other hand, never mind. We probably will disagree on this subject so it'll be just wasting space.
He is proposing a merger of education and labor depts and like everything else Trump attempts to accomplish it will face stiff resistance.
U.S. Department of Education and the Workforce? That’s what the Trump administration envisions in its new 132-page framework for merging the Education and Labor Departments, as part of a broader overhaul of the federal government.
The departments, officials wrote in the proposal, “share a common goal of preparing Americans for success in a globally competitive world through family-sustaining careers. However, the two departments operate in silos, inhibiting the federal government’s ability to address the skill needs of the American people in a coordinated manner.”
Higher-education programs would fall under a new office called “American Workforce and Higher Education Administration,” which would be “charged with ensuring that American workers possess the skills necessary to succeed in the workforce.”.
There shouldn't be an "education department" (or a "labor department"). The administration's bureaucratic shuffling only concedes statist premises of government control over education, evading and obscuring the fundamental debate, while arguing with the other side of the swamp over how to do it. It wastes effort, in the wrong direction, while decrying "stiff resistance" in an irrelevant political battle -- all without mentioning the real problems with the content of education and the political support for them.
There isn't anything Trump can do to reform what is taught in schools, nor should he in his government role, other than removing existing Federal spending, controls and interference. Part of the problem of Trump idolatry is conservative belief that Trump's temporary political role is or could be a substitute for the required reform of fundamental ideas in the culture, including education, even if he were not further entrenching the wrong direction. Citing and relying on an administration political sales "report" for reorganization does not address any of this.
If public school are exempt from these kinds of criminal actions, then all ISIS would need for safe spaces in America is to call their militant training camps, “Public Schools.”
What is the solution to prevent it from taking over young minds?
https://g.co/kgs/nTdiav
We rented a convertible in San Bernadino
We were driving for driving's sake
Across the tortured waterless mountains
Through the moonscape of Mono Lake
The lights of earth had faded behind
The stars were fat and sleek
The universe seemed enormous
So how could we be unique?
We scanned the voids for humanoids
And an answer to the question "Why?"
¡Carramba! What were we thinking?
Cause we were borning to die!
To the aliens above we are just tiny anys
They could crush with their giant feet
They could smash our car and mash us into
A little bit of hamburger meat
So let the wind blow through your head
Your thoughts don't matter anyway
We're insignificant, baby
And we're all gonna fade away
We only stopped in Reno for a very short time
But the lights were way too bright
We got tired of spending our winnings
And went spinning out into the night
In the desert we saw this giant man
Exploding like the Fourth of July
Slowly we turned to say "hello"
When he vaporized into the sky
We're feeling like a bunch of hothouse tomatoes
Riding in a bubble-pack box
With nothing between us and a big hungry worm
But this canvas roof and the push button locks
To the aliens above we are just tiny anys
They could crush with their giant feet
They could smash our car and mash us into
A little bit of hamburger meat
And then someday the whole planet'll blow
And we're all gonna suffocate
We're insignificant, baby
And we just think it's great
Insignificant
Get it over
Cut our taxes
Make it so
Marfa Lights
Can't get no
Where's our luggage?
Just say thanks
That oughta do it
There should be many laws against this
What has always puzzled me (the same thing is happening in Europe) that what do the elite expect from this? It comes naturally that they think they'll assume power should such an overturning would succeed.
That is how the elite transcends from regime to regime: they must be the winners in control.
Blondes in name only.
Pseudo-blondes.
Bottle blondes with dark eyebrows who tan, not freckle.
;^)
His candidacy was withdrawn.
If there were some referendum question that would guarantee cutting gov't across the board and reducing taxes, many people, although maybe not a majority, would be for it. The problem is what Mitt Romney famously said: Most people don't pay incomes taxes except for payroll taxes, so it's not a high priority for them.
BTW, I turned off the spliced video juxtaposing supposed questions with out-of-context statements by the candidate.
I just fell off of my chair laughing.
“ Most don’t pay taxes except payroll taxes “
Bang down to the floor again.. don’t they buy gas
Are any other goods ever purchased by most people
ever heard of a thing called sales tax? Ha ha ha ha ha
You could have a stand up act on kimmels show
In California the stupid voters approved a gasoline tax (it has been an increasingly higher amount over years). After the ballot passed, the left praised it as the best thing since sliced bread, saying now we'll have money for infrastructure. It is common knowledge that not a penny will go to roads which have been in dismal shape for decades. The money will go to pet projects and voters will not see ANY result in improved roads.
I said it was a multivariable equation, one of the variables being the parent.
I was not blaming them solely for the problem.
It does not seem useful to continue this dialogue.
However, none of these erstwhile politicians exhibited the complete ignorance to the level which Ocasio Cortez has done.
https://youtu.be/sh-Uemf8-RU
I like how Ocasio Cortez invents many of her own jokes.
They don't have limited intelligence. They know what they are doing and what they are after.
The two parties are marketing organizations each wanting to compete with the other. I dont think either of them really care what their platform is, so long as they "win". Its like Pepsi vs Coke. Each has a base and they are trying to entice the fringe independents to go their way.
The millenians are socialists, as are the hispanics, gays, a lot of blacks, a portion of jews, and probably others. This is why the big push to get central americans to move here and vote.
"the ability to understand and learn well, and to form judgments and opinions based on reason:"
Do you see the left's thinking/actions there?
Where we differ is that while I am aware the leaders on the left have high IQs, the mass below the tip of the iceberg is like a herd of sheep, blindly following the directives.
That is the main and defining difference between the GOP and the left. The GOP indulged in the "differences" (see Freedom Caucus) to fracture their power of action. At the same time the left stuck together and overcame the GOP.
Had it not been for the president the House would have been lost by an even larger margin.
- Apple - Big Brother - 1984
Unless it is sarcasm.
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