Daniel Henninger, writing in the Wall Street Journal, points out one consequence of a Hillary Clinton presidency: the continuation and acceleration of the trends that are destroying American higher education.
One mechanism of destruction is the use of federal enforcement agencies to further entrench political correctness. Expect a lot more Star Chamber proceedings and witch-burnings. Another mechanism is increased federal dollars pipelined into the education industry, eliminating any incentives for reform.
(also posted it the members’ section at Ricochet)
I am unable to understand the thinking of the Never Trump crowd.
Patrick Frey, who I have met and whose blog I have read for years, mystifies me at his hatred of Trump.
It is just bizarre. They would rather lose to Hillary than support Trump.
I am by no means an original supporter and I still can’t watch him give a speech. I had the same reaction to George Bush’s speeches.
If Hillary wins, I am already making plans to get out of the urban or even suburban area where I live and go rural.
I still expect the US economy to collapse and there is some schadenfreud about watching it happen in Hillary’s watch but the danger is just too great.
Those who are of Codavilla’s “Governing Party” assume that as has become the norm, that they are immune from consequences. And they do not care what happens to the “Country Party”. They believe that the Leftists will follow the rules and allow elections to give them a chance at regaining power. After all, they are all on the same side.
If Hillary wins, they think their side wins. If Trump wins, their iron rice bowls may be broken and it might even be conceivable that they would be in the same subordinate position as the “Country Party”. That cannot be tolerated.
I am thinking about the movie “Les Miserables”, and the song “Do You Hear the People Sing?”. Replace the red banners with Gadsdens, and the phrase “meadows of France” with “the fruited plain”, and you may have something.
I don’t see why the Deep State will be slowed down one iota by a Trump election. They’ll still have the entire Democrat party, the entire MSM, and half or more of the GOP entirely on their side. In addition, I don’t see any reason to think Trump cares at all about this stuff, and certainly not about reining it in. For instance, imagine if on some off chance Trump or a Trump appointee tries to rescind federal pressure for “Yes Means Yes” absurdities on college campuses. Imagine the outcry from the Dems and the MSM. And imagine how many GOP Senators would join in. The Olympia twins, McCain, Kirk, Ayotte, all in a heartbeat. Trump would fold in a second, and the result could easily be worse than we’ll get from a Hillary presidency, which would be bureaucratic actions but no official action. [Caveat where I say I’m 1000% anti-Hillary, and 1000% anti-anti-Trump, and somewhere above 50% Trump, I just don’t think this a good argument for him.]
If you divide the world into Makers and Takers, like I do, it looks pretty grim. I just don’t think there are enough votes in the Working Middle to push back against the “Takers at the Top” and the “Takers at the Bottom”.
What next?
James Scott:”Quiet, anonymous, and often complicitous, lawbreaking and disobedience may well be the historically preferred mode of political action for peasant and subaltern classes, for whom open defiance is too dangerous”¦.One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy. More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called “Irish Democracy”””the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people””than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.”
For better or worse, I can rather easily see myself in this description; I do little things like using cash, trading with local businesses, skirting the effort by the big data aggregators/sellers of personal information and even some survivalist efforts. I try to push my children toward it, futilely, of course. They can barely be bothered to look up from their phones.
“I don’t see any reason to think Trump cares at all about this stuff, and certainly not about reining it in.”
Do you have any thoughts about why he is doing this ? The NeverTrump crowd assumes it is either 1, an ego trip, or 2, a stalking horse for Hillary.
If it is an ego trip, and I agree some of it is, why would he fold easily ?
I think he may want to do this as a contribution to the country as he gets toward the end of his life.
“One need not have an actual conspiracy to achieve the practical effects of a conspiracy”
You should read Charles Murray’s By the People; Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission.
It is about civil disobedience.
I don’t think the people we label as the Elites will respond to the Middle, unless and until, it starts biting them in the a$$. I am recalling what 9/11 did to tourism, as an example. In the meantime, most people are satisfied with trickle down tchotchkies, otherwise known as beads and baubles.
Anybody who is voting Hillary to avoid the impurity of Trump really needs to be building up parallel institutions to adequately resist Hillary when she does illegal things. Charles Murray’s book is quite good, though I find even he’s inadequate to the task. We’re in the 21st century. The structures he is talking about can be built and they extend far beyond the financial funds he advocates. I should be fair as I’m working my way through his book at present. Perhaps he goes into the other things that must be done to make civil disobedience practical in today’s environment.
Most people point to the down-ticket consequences of a presidential win, in that usually a president has coat-tails that favor his/her party at the federal, state, and local levels.
Another consequence that I haven’t seen addressed are all those political appointees within the federal apparatus. There are a large number of them; an article I recently read said 6000, but I think that’s high.
If Trump wins, the GOP gets to clean house a bit, although there will likely be significant resistance as the ticks try to burrow in. Replacing these appointees will help re-focus the federal bureaucracy a bit, which will be necessary if we want to reduce it.
If Hillary wins, expect the weaponization of the bureaucracy to accelerate.
This is in my mind one of the better reasons to back Trump.
MikeK: Sure it’s an ego trip. I think he’ll be sort of like Ahnuld, in that he’ll mostly go along with whatever he has to, in order to have some accomplishments to point to, i.e. I Make Deals. Neither is an ideologue, which is why I think he’d fold on most of this stuff. He’ll be better than the Governator because he won’t have such a powerful opposition to try to deal with, but his draw is as a breaker of the current DC status quo, not as a builder of what needs to come next.
I am now seriously thinking about how best to inoculate my wife and me from a Hillary and probably longer presidency.
For my kids, they have no such option.
It’s looking seriously dark come November. I’ve now spent months in Europe and I’ve seen our future of no growth, no incentive to work, PC on steroids, and brainwashed youths supporting the trivial.
“his draw is as a breaker of the current DC status quo, not as a builder of what needs to come next.”
Don’t you think that is enough ? I think so.
What comes after might be someone like Mitch Daniels who should have been president a while ago except for his unique family issues.
Absolutely! Everything in Trump’s record and statements makes clear that he is a champion of the free and open marketplace of ideas!
” Everything in Trump’s record and statements makes clear that he is a champion of the free and open marketplace of ideas!”
Maybe. I have no idea. I just know what is worse.
I think it is interesting and depressing that NOT ONE other candidate was willing to address the issues of immigration and Muslim immigration.
NOT ONE.
It ain’t nothing, that’s for sure. I just don’t know if he really cares enough about what has to be done to blow up DC (figuratively, of course) and break the Deep State. If he wins one wonders how much of the GOPe will see the light and how many will actively undermine him, since most of them want to get their own turn at the gravy train. But as flawed as he is he’s the first to ever really run against DC, and he’s what we got.
“he’s the first to ever really run against DC”
It’s really frustrating for me to see how many people who call themselves “conservative” are NeverTrumpers and will vote for Hillary or at least stay home.
People I respect like Michael Totten and others who claim friendship with Andrew Breitbart and claim he would never support Trump. I don’t see it.
Others I respect seem to see things as I do, but why are the people on the right so divided ?
Over at Powerline, the NeverTrump crowd now dominates comments.
Patrick Frey, who I have met and whose blog I used to read every day, is now ferociously hostile to Trump.
Larry O’Connor has some good questions about how long Bannon has been talking to Trump, and how those conversations might have influenced coverage of Trump at Breitbart.com. Apparently Bannon had been talking to Trump for months, advising him about how to run his campaign, even as Bannon headed a “news” site that covered Trump regularly. O’Connor says Andrew Breitbart was against such incestuous relationships between media and politicians, and that Breitbart.com has a lot of explaining to do. It’s hard to disagree.
OK, that may even be a reasonable matter but why the hate ? Patrick was a Cruz supporter and has not been able to get past Cruz’s loss.
Why all the conservatives’ rage against Trump ?
Mike K,
I can’t answer for others, but I am no voluntary supporter of Trump. I will vote for him with great reluctance because the Hildabeast is poison. Trump is an uncertain quantity. He may be worse, but that is hard to comprehend. I do not see Trump as believable or effective in the two main planks he says he is running on: getting immigration under control, at least the physical border portion and limiting international trade.
His long progressive and crony capitalist history greatly concerns me. I have a hard time seeing him as any sort of small government conservative or reformer of the current corruption. I am suspicious that if he wins, all the bluster about these two issues will go out the window and we will be left with a deal maker making deals galore. DC is the Mecca of deal makers and the opportunities are almost unlimited. As a person of no apparent deeply held policy beliefs, the field is wide open. I could be dead wrong about him, but all I have to judge him by is his past. I’m not a novice at politics and find little substance in his words. His past and his shallow populist and often inconsistent campaign give me little grounds for optimism. So even if I am wrong, the best I expect is something better than the Hildabeast and that might not amount to much better.
I am planning on voting for him, but my financial contributions will go to senate and house races where I have no such concerns. Some people just don’t have the stomach to cast an affirmative vote for him seeing the possibility that it could turn out worse than a sick and inept Hildabeast with a depleted Bubba beside her. They may not vote or cast a protest vote for a third candidate. I don’t see that as a good choice in places were the vote may be close.
I have no sympathy for those who would vote for the Hildabeast out of a personal hatred for Trump arising from his despicable attacks on his rivals for the nomination or any other reason. Trump earned their hate as no Republican candidate for president in my memory, but this isn’t about Trump. I don’t believe Trump is especially dangerous or is irrational. If any candidate could be seen as psychologically unfit, it is the Hildabeast.
Death6
Trump seems amoral, ignorant in many areas, undisciplined and a bully. However, he also seems to genuinely like this country. Does Hillary? At best she seems indifferent, at worst a true believer in various destructive leftist causes. Trump speaks in terms of merit and achievement. With Hillary everything is about patronage, spoils, identity politics, and fairness as determined by central authority. Trump talks about making this nation great again. Hillary promises to protect groups of Americans whose votes she needs from other groups of Americans. Trump seems to have raised his children well. Hillary has an unimpressive public record and is obviously dishonest. To elect her is to elevate the Clinton machine and its corruption over the national interest. Trump as president might be a disaster but might do some good, and even if he doesn’t do much he seems likely to appoint better judges than Hillary would. The choice between these two candidates isn’t a good one but it also isn’t a difficult one.
Hillary seems to be pretty high on the bullying index herself.
“His long progressive and crony capitalist history greatly concerns me.”
Never having tried to do real estate development in a corrupt place like New York City, I can’t judge.
The real crony capitalists are all in Hillary’s camp. The Silicon Valley types are all on board for H1B visas and government subsidies. Elon Musk is an example.
The era when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were entrepreneurs is long gone.
General Electric seems to exemplify the new era. Jack Welch built a great brand. Jeff Immelt seems to me to be mostly about seeking benefits from politics.
It is so characteristic of Bill and Hillary that Chelsea married a crooked hedge fund manager. His fund was slightly less criminal than Madoff’s
In 2014, Eaglevale Partners opened a Greek-focused fund, Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity, during a tumultuous time in the Greek economy (q.v. Greek withdrawal from the eurozone). In May, 2016, the New York Times reported that Eaglevale was closing the Hellenic fund, which Mezvinsky had helped pitch and run, after the fund lost 90% of its value.
Some hedge. Oh, his degree at Stanford was in “Religious Studies.” There’s that “Studies” word again.
I have said repeatedly here that I have no idea what Trump will do. I do know that if he turns out to be a disaster, there will be no trouble in impeaching him.
Hillary ? Do you really think she could be gotten rid of ?
I am unable to understand the thinking of the Never Trump crowd.
Many people prefer to be ruled by professional politicians with law degrees from our finest universities.
ErisGuy, Neoneocon seems to have joined the flock of sheep.
It is so disheartening to see the right surrendering so passively.
We are buying gold and guns and looking at land outside of California. Preferable spots are semi0rural although I still like Tucson. My daughter, who is a lefty, mentioned that Tucson might be intolerable with electrical failure. I think even she is thinking about Gotterdammerung.
A lot of people seem not to have enough imagination to think about what Hillary would be like.
It’s one consolation about old age. Although my mother lived to 103. And Jill’s lived to 100.
Imagine where the Middle would be if fracking hadn’t come along when it did. I can’t see any solution for America that doesn’t depend on some pretty robust growth that is shared by everyone. Is someone besides Trump calling for this?
There is no recovery for the Middle without employment suitable for regular people, those who are not exceptionally creative or mathematical. So I support the reindustrialization of America though I have no illusions regarding the difficulty and the limitations. Because, it’s not just the loss of jobs, it’s the loss of companies, dividends, hard won knowledge and proprietary information, loss of innovation, competition, and creative destruction, the loss of corporate, individual income, state income, payroll, and local property taxes. Local property taxes support local infrastructure (stoplights, roads, sewers) and teachers and police etc. I hear the call to rebuild America’s infrastructure, but the reality is that business interests drive the need for it and subsidize it, but there are many areas where the economic rationale is gone. As we have witnessed, once the downward spiral begins, it is self perpetuating, self amplifying, and harder to stop, not to mention the social costs, especially for men or the impact on national security.
I apparently lack vision because I just don’t get how fast food, flea markets, beaders, and aroma therapy candle shops are going to make up for the significant revenues and infrastructure that would have been generated and supported by the manufacturing sector. I just don’t see how dead end service jobs, stoop labor, or government (health, education) jobs will make up for the jobs that generate “grow the pie wealth”.
I have no idea if Trump is sincere, if he created this wave or is just taking advantage of it, or if it is some sort of serendipity. I think his supporters have more confidence than is warranted, given these issues have been building for decades.
The Takers at the Top, who are also the political paymasters have no interest in finding solutions short of subsidies, welfare, or make work government employment, checking off forms no doubt. The Reps tout amazing dead end service jobs, joining the army, or the hope that everyone will become an entrepreneur. I don’t know if Trump has any real long term solutions but it would be nice to know that someone is trying to figure this out.
“I don’t know if Trump has any real long term solutions but it would be nice to know that someone is trying to figure this out.”
I feel exactly the same way.
I got just a bit of encouragement from a visit to my wife’s oldest son in Oregon. They live a semi-rural area. and are all doing well.
Her son builds houses and had three big projects he took us to see. They are custom homes each about 6000 square feet. His two sons are working for him. None has a college degree.
The family lives on a 50 acre compound with about five or six houses. A brother in law runs the machinery of a large vineyard and winery nearby. The houses are all occupied by family.
The other son works with his uncle in North Hollywood at a car restoration business that must be immensely profitable. They were working on a restoration of an antique Porsche for the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach this month. It is an ancient Porsche that won Le Mans many years ago. I think it will sell for multimillions.
These kids are energetic and making a good living doing something that I think must come back in this country. Working with your hands.
The techies that I nearly was 60 years ago are now being displaced by Indian code writers who work for half the salary an American expects and they are indentured servants on H1B visas. If they quit their job, they must go back to India.
A good Mercedes mechanic can make $100,000. The young man who runs the winery also has a hobby of rebuilding Model A Fords. He has four of them, one complete.
We have become a nation that can’t fix anything. I have two sons. One has my tools, including nail guns and saws that he probably never uses. My other son is a lawyer and I doubt knows one end of a tool from the other.
My nephew in Chicago has a college degree and has also completed an apprenticeship run by the elevator repair and installation union.
Needless to say, all these young men and their families are Trump supporters.
A surgeon is not exactly a manual worker but good ones are. I first smashed my thumb with a hammer when I was five. I wish I knew as much about car engines as most of these kids do.
We can do it but the disdain for manual work must end. One of the most important inventions of World War II was a device mounted on a Sherman tank that cut through hedgerows in Normandy. Eisenhower described it as one of the most important factors in winning Normandy. It was made by an Army sergeant by welding German glider obstacles together
It was called the Rhinocerous.
The invention was credited by Eisenhower to Sergeant Curtis G Cullen who has his own Wiki entry.
Culin was serving as a tanker with the 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (New Jersey National Guard, the “Essex Troop,” 2nd Armored Division)[1] when he came up with the four-pronged plow device created from scrap steel from a German roadblock. When attached to the front of his tank it was successful in rapidly plowing gaps in the hedgerows.[2] Military historian Max Hastings notes that Culin was inspired by “a Tennessee hillbilly named Roberts”,[3] who during a discussion about how the bocage could be overcome said “Why don’t we get some saw teeth and put them on the front of the tank and cut through these hedges?” Rather than joining in the laughter that greeted this remark, Culin realised the idea’s potential and put together a prototype tusk-like assembly welded to the front of a tank. In due course this was demonstrated to General Bradley, who “watched in awe as a hedgerow exploded … to make way for the Sherman bursting through”.[3] According to Hastings, Culin, “an honest man”, attempted to give credit to Roberts but this was forgotten in the publicity surrounding the invention. Hastings concludes: “[Culin] became a very American kind of national hero”
We need some more of those heroes.
Mike K,
We moved to a relatively low populated rural area close to a medium Texas city. Getting prepared to be able to subsist indefinitely if the need arises. I am proficient as possible at my age to defend us and we are off the beaten path. I have a very good friend who is like minded and he has located SW of Flagstaff. I think that would be a much better locale than the valley floor. Check on having a water well or other water source. Get enough backup electrical power to survive any issues that come. Temperatures on the plateau are much milder in the summer than down below, but can be cold in the winter with a little snow. Easy to get some distance and cover.
“Many people prefer to be ruled by professional politicians with law degrees from our finest universities.”
I don’t think that very many conservatives are in that permanent “never Trump” crowd. Some may take some time to come around, but I believe they will. Their reluctance certainly is not because they prefer her qualifications as a ideologic progressive professional elite.
If the right is disintegrating it might have something to do with the choice of a large number of them of a candidate with so few right qualifications and some severe personality short comings. While there were no perfect candidates in the nominating race (again), there were several that I believe would have been better at representing conservatives and uniting broader support than Trump has so far achieved. If he loses to the Hildabeast, he may be the only one in that field who could have done so. Any discussion of what if she wins needs to factor the wisdom of choosing populism over substance in the nominating process and making bitter enemies of your opponents in a very personal and trashy way. If he fails to secure their support, he can look in the mirror. While we get the Hildabeast and Bubba.
Death6
Get enough backup electrical power to survive any issues that come. Temperatures on the plateau are much milder in the summer than down below, but can be cold in the winter with a little snow.
My stepson has three freezers full of fish plus other frozen food. He has a propane driven generator to keep all going in an emergency,
They grow their own chickens and have them slaughtered by a neighbor who cleans and dresses them and freezes them. They are much bigger than store chickens and look like small turkeys.
I was thinking this way in the 70s and had about three weeks of freeze dried food plus was planning to get a mill to grind wheat. I had a secretary who was Mormon and who showed me the Mormon routine about food preservation.
His brother-in-law, the guy who restores Model A Fords, has a gun collection that looks like a good sized gun store. Nobody is going to mess with these guys. One sister-in-law raises goats and they have their garden fenced with chicken wire to keep the goats out.
I’m too old to get too far into this. In the 70-s, I had my sailboat which was a sort of survival capsule as it was big enough to go anywhere.
I just hope none of this happens but gold and guns are both going to be very valuable if we don’t watch out. I wish I had bought S&W and Ruger stock when Obama was elected. I did buy gold stock when Bill Clinton was elected and made some money but nothing like what gun stocks have done.
Two place I;m looking at are the Willamette Valley and Vashon Island, Washington. I owned ten acres on he island for years and planned to retire there but never did. I now kick myself that I finally sold the two parcels.
Both are in blue states, which is a negative, but they are close to places I can work for a few years part time and family. Seattle is only 240 miles from Portland and the kids are 40 miles south of Portland.
Anyway, we are going back up in October. Both are mild climates and semi-rural but close enough for medical care for us oldsters. The stepson is looking for some acreage with a small house for us near them. Prices are low enough, I would not have to work. Vashon is a bit more expensive but I could work a few days a week for a few years. I was up there two weeks ago working.
Hillary seems to be pretty high on the bullying index herself.
Yes.
Just like there’s no one reason people are for Trump, there’s no one reason people are Never Trump, but I think in general Ace had it right a while back–Trump’s image is low class and embarrassing to upwardly mobile types, the sort of folks who tweet and comment on blogs, but not representative of the general population. And of course NT has cheerleaders in media folks at NRO, etc, who have their own racket going and Trump’s upending of the political status quo seriously threatens that.
“Trump’s image is low class and embarrassing to upwardly mobile types”
I kind of agree but the vitriol is a bit surprising to me. National Review and The Weekly Standard have gone nuts as far as I am concerned. I was a subscriber to both.
Not anymore. I was already down on NR for firing Derbyshire and leaving Mark Steyn in the lurch.
Mike K:
You may be interested in one of my favorite programs, “Ultimate Restoration”. I saw it on PBS. This program documented the restoration of steam liners, locomotives, fire engines. I teared up at the reveal of the restored legendary Ahrens Fox fire truck from KC,MO, built in 1927. I marveled at the big brains that accomplished this magnificent artifact, conceived and built before computers and CNC. It scares me that we are losing these skill sets, yet we should grapple with the reality that they have much less economic value now and in the future. In fact these kind of skill sets have been devalued and sometimes even sneered at by our betters. If I were in survival situation I’d follow these guys, not a glib wonk.
I live in exurbia where I think quite a few people could live at least a few weeks in a catastrophe. Most have generators and larders; some have goats and chickens. It makes us very conscious of how dependent we are on the grid. If the government ever turned on the people, it would be over in fairly short order except for those who can live off the land. It is fine to imagine living off the land if you are a healthy adult male, less so for the children, pregnant women, and the elderly. In addition, I don’t think, people realize that RF technology is constantly advancing regarding jamming, decoy signals, detection…..
“If the right is disintegrating it might have something to do with the choice of a large number of them of a candidate with so few right qualifications and some severe personality short comings. While there were no perfect candidates in the nominating race (again), there were several that I believe would have been better at representing conservatives and uniting broader support than Trump has so far achieved. If he loses to the Hildabeast, he may be the only one in that field who could have done so. Any discussion of what if she wins needs to factor the wisdom of choosing populism over substance in the nominating process and making bitter enemies of your opponents in a very personal and trashy way If he fails to secure their support, he can look in the mirror.”
I’m of two minds. I think Trump’s capacity to self fund and manipulate the media is key. Weren’t all the other candidates dependent on the political paymasters? Why did they not respond to the concerns of the Working People in the Middle with something besides platitudes and condescension. Even Hillary is trying to move in on this position. I wasn’t a Trump fan, but early on I was defending the Trump voter from the bigoted smears and stereotypes offered up by the GOPe, types. I am still bitter about this and cannot unsee it.
As for Trump’s persona, I think it is a double edged sword. I can’t tell if it is theater or not. Some of the stuff he spouted would have been done by surrogates in other campaigns. I worry that his tendency toward flippancy will undermine his credibility in a genuine crisis and his burning bridges will leave him in effective.
I can see this election cycle as feces throwing contest. Trump does have a knack for hitting the target in a way that really gets under the skin. The shrieking, chittering, and flailing about are telling.
I leave you with a post from the Althouse blog.
Anglelyne said…
I dunno. Western Europe has much “better” politicians, in terms of “professional” presentation, public-speaking skill, and keeping up a pretense of “substance” (“being the adult in the room” ha ha ha) but they’re screwing up their countries even worse and faster than our clown club is managing to screw up ours.
“I think Trump’s capacity to self fund and manipulate the media is key.”
Agreed. The influence of the “donor class” is overwhelming. I was a Walker, then Carly supporter early.
Walker probably got the word from the Koch brothers that they were going to sit this out. His personality did not seem a good fit this year.
Carley sounded OK but she never got into the immigration debate. Was this because H1B visas were a big personal issue to her ?
She is now talking positive things about Trump but nothing about immigration.
The Wall Street Journal is almost a parody of itself. Trade and immigration are big issues to the normally conservative editorial page.
Some columnists are seeing Trump, finally, as a positive.
“If he loses to the Hildabeast, he may be the only one in that field who could have done so.”
I don’t believe this. I thought and still believe that Romney would have been a great president but he was vilified with very weak response from his campaign.
I still do not know what will happen on election day,
This is one of the scariest things I’ve read lately, and that’s saying something:
https://ricochet.com/the-end-of-democracy/
“Only 32 percent of millennials agree that it’s “absolutely essential” that “civil rights protect people’s liberty.” Some 26 percent of them think it’s “unimportant” in a democracy for people to “choose their leaders in free elections.” And 24 percent consider democracy to be a “bad” or “very bad” way of running the country.”
“Democracy loses meaning if both rulers and ruled cease to be part of a community tied to a specific territory. In this historical transition phase, lasting perhaps a century or more, in which globalization has begun but is not complete and loyalties are highly confused, civil society will be harder to maintain. How and when we vote during the next hundred years may be a minor detail for historians.”
We are in such a phase, which may be the final phase for Democracy.
Remember Athens had a near pure (male citizens only) democracy for about 150 years. Cleisthenes began it in 502 BC and Athens lost the Battle of Cheronea in 338.
Socrates was put to death by the Democracy in 399.
I think the rich assume they will control an autocracy but the Thirty Tyrants of Athens lasted only 13 months.
The French Revolution is closer to what I expect to happen if civil society breaks down, not an oligarchy of the rich, many of whom seem unlikely to be able to defend themselves.
For example, I think there is a huge underground level of support for Trump among ordinary policemen who know what anarchy looks like up close.
Going through all this Hell and aggravation, if there is ANYONE who is not going to vote for Trump and get out of this Third World fog we have drifted into, they must be a total moron.
From raising racial tensions to looking at police as if they are criminals with a guilty-first label until proven innocent, “government” has gone wacky.
We need to get back on track. My two cents —–
NRO is a bunch of losers, settled into a nice little gig being allegedly against the main bulk of the DC establishment, being CNN’s goto conservative pundits, etc. Losers don’t like being called out as being total losers.
NR has gotten a bit strange since Rich Lowry has been running things.
The Derbyshire thing got my attention. His essay has proven prescient again and again.
Rule 10h:”Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.”
Last week, another event proved him right.
According to a North Charleston police affidavit, the two teens asked the victim, identified as 45-year-old Chadwick Garrett, to help them pull their 2016 Dodge Durango out of a ditch. Witnesses told authorities that Garrett agreed to help the pair with their SUV for $20.
Authorities said that after Garrett helped the pair pull the vehicle out of the ditch, Garrett asked Frasier and Dupree-Taylor about the $20 when Frasier took out a gun and allegedly fired several rounds and struck Garrett in the chest.
Unmentioned is the fact that Derb’s kids are Eurasian.
By the way, the “Good Samaritan” killed was also black.
I do kinda operate on an assumption that globalization is inevitable and that immigrants are going to be a different breed than they were generations ago. A hundred years ago when someone left Europe et al it was permanent. They were unlikely to see their birthplace or loved ones again. Today, half of the employees in my work place are from Southeast Asia. They are in daily communication with their friends and family back home. Many Americans retire abroad. World travel is far more commonplace. And we can easily forget that many of our own consumer goods have a very diverse pedigree; it is hard to tell where they are made. What is not to like?
Big business is a factor in driving big government and the emergence of international authorities, often for legitimate reasons. The government has to be large enough to have leverage over the business or industry, otherwise multinationals can extort concessions and play one jurisdiction against another. The dilemma is how to balance the conflicting agendas and to protect the public’s interest (health and safety) and not strangle innovation, investment, and growth? Consider that these decisions are less and less local, by people who have skin in the game and hands on in the trenches knowledge, as opposed to a remote book learned technocrat, or hack, in another state, country, and on another continent. These bureaucrats have been accused of putting their own class and Big Business first over the citizenry. It is the nature of the beast to keep pushing the envelope, just to justify one’s job and one’s existence. Even this maybe inadvertent, since Big Business can control the debate and is the source of their information.
As an example, here may be in part some parallels to the mortgage meltdown. It’s about the disconnect that occurred between the borrower and the lender. What at one time was relatively local (face to face) link has stretched out across the globe (the lender may live anywhere in the world and has no connection to the borrower). This has over the decades become increasingly true of businesses. The business shareholder has no connection to the community where the plant(facilities) are located and is not a stakeholder. Multinationals to the degree that they are unethical or irresponsible are disconnected from their suppliers and their customers and in a position to do a great deal of local harm without any blowback. What do they care if a business decision creates a disaster for a locality. Any thoughts on to how this impacts the normal market feedback loops of Capitalism.
“What do they care if a business decision creates a disaster for a locality.”
It went a bit beyond that. Read Nicole Gelinas’ book, After the Fall,
Here’s my book review written at the time.
The fools who ran mortgage banks almost tanked the world economy.
I think it will still go under. US national debt is an order of magnitude greater than the $20 trillion talked about.
Ben Carson talked about it in 2015.
He’s not the only one talking about it.
RealClearPolicy: Cox and Archer argue that the U.S.’s underlying debt is much higher than the officially stated debt of $16 trillion. They argue that if you add up the unfunded obligations the government has — to Social Security, Medicare, federal workers’ pensions, and so on — the real debt is about $87 trillion. Can that be right?
Kotlikoff: That’s wrong. It’s $222 trillion.
That’s what we economists call the fiscal gap. I don’t know what those guys are looking at, but we economists do it a certain way. We’re not politicians. We’re just doing it the way our theory says to do it. What you have to do is look at the present value of all the expenditures now through the end of time. All projected expenditures, including servicing the official debt. And you subtract all the projected taxes. The present value of the difference is $222 trillion.
You can argue about it but it is far greater than the $20 trillion being talked about.
Carson also suggested that the nation could sell a lot of assets and retire some debt. I doubt the Socialists would agree.
You can talk all you want. But the bottom line is that no matter how flawed Trump is, Hillary is 5x worse.
And you got two choices, Trump or Hillary. Voting 3rd party is just a vote for Hillary, because we have all the stupid and evil people voting blindly for Hillary. Just like they’d vote for Lucifer himself if he had (D) after his name.
I don’t want another ACLU Ginsberg on the SCOTUS, nor do I want Monica and Bill back in the White House.
But maybe you do. So, if you do, I suggest you keep on attacking Trump and then stay home or vote 3rd party or for Hillary.
This past year has been an eye-opener for me. Going in, I thought NRO, the Weekly Standard, Hot Air, and Red State, were – what they claimed to be – conservative websites.
But evidently, these sites would rather have Hillary elected, then elect Trump and implement sane immigration laws, an America First foreign policy, and good trade deals.
Hillary will nominate another Ginsberg, Trump has given a list of conservative Judges he will appoint. Hillary will continue Obama’s polices – Trump says he wont. Trump, in other words, is a moderate Republican who wants to enforce the immigration laws and negotiate better trade deals. But that somehow makes him K-k-krazy and not CONSERVATIVE – according to the WSJ, NRO, and the Weekly Standard.
Which is a shock to me. Because *I* thought conservatism was about patriotism, the rule of law, a conservative SCOTUS, and a foreign policy that was good for America.