Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Turner]

All governments except those whose authority is over fewer the 5,000 people.

Thanks for clarifying so specifically.

[drogulus]

     I wouldn't give up on the idea of making government better. All governments are evil just defends the most evil. It's an argument leftists used against democrats. We should make everything worse to expose the contradictions and bring on the revolution. Bannon wants just that, he's an admirer of Lenin. His proletariat is white native born Christians.

Oh, I accept the fact that governments are a necessary evil.  But find solutions?  Nah.  They only make things worse.  Best outcome is hamstring them so they can do as little as possible.

     If there is a better that a government makes worse there's a government that will work towards it, if you want it to happen. I detect you want a kind of self government, but would rather not say so.

All governments except those whose authority is over fewer the 5,000 people.

     That's certainly safe to want since there's no danger you'll suffer the embarrassment of getting it.

     Government is how big social systems operate. It's law and enforcement and the distribution of rights, goods, property etc. There will be rules and ideas of how to make them just. We wouldn't need any of this if we weren't a social species.

     You can't organize a country into 5,000 person units. You'd have no way, and no nongoofball reason.

[amw]

All governments except those whose authority is over fewer the 5,000 people.

Can't believe you're supporting the oppressive and violently collectivist governments of Niue, Norfolk Island, Tokelau, Vatican City and the Pitcairn Islands. Statist.

[drogulus]

     Woman Says Roy Moore Tried to Rape Her When She Was 16 and Signed Her Yearbook

     

     "You are a child. I am the District Attorney of Etowah County." Moore told her. "If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you"

     She was 16, but I know what he meant. If he thought he was trying to rape a child I'm not about to argue the point.

     Dept. of Immoral preening

     Report: Alabama Mall Banned Roy Moore in the '80s for Pursuing Teens

     This is terrible if the (heh!) allegation is true.

[BasilValentine]

     Woman Says Roy Moore Tried to Rape Her When She Was 16 and Signed Her Yearbook

     

     "You are a child. I am the District Attorney of Etowah County." Moore told her. "If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you"

     She was 16, but I know what he meant. If he thought he was trying to rape a child I'm not about to argue the point.

     Dept. of Immoral preening

     Report: Alabama Mall Banned Roy Moore in the '80s for Pursuing Teens

     This is terrible if the (heh!) allegation is true.

I saw Beverly Young Nelson's press conference. She is telling the truth. The scumbag tried to rape her. Moore is toast. Unlike Trump's accusers, this woman will be impossible to ignore. She's a Trump supporter.

[drogulus]

Unlike Trump's accusers, this woman will be impossible to ignore. She's a Trump supporter.

     What planet are you on? A Trumpist judge tried to rape her, what kind of support is that? Release the Bannon!

[SimonNZ]

Trump, Breaking with Precedent, Won't Meet with American Nobel Recipients

"Two American Nobel Prize winners, when contacted by STAT, indicated they would not have attended a White House event even if invited. Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded a Nobel in chemistry for his work in microscopy, said in an email he was "very relieved" when he learned there was no chance of an encounter with the president."

[BasilValentine]

Collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian intelligence operation to influence the 2016 election established? More hitherto undisclosed communications, this time between Donald Junior and Wikileaks, show that Junior received through Wikileaks specific URLs where Hillary dirt was to be posted. Junior in turn informed practically everyone else in the campaign of these contacts (about which every one of them who was questioned lied) and then disseminated the stolen data by tweeting and promoting the URL. This and related stories are appearing today in The Atlantic, WaPo, and Wall Street Journal.

[Pat B]

Please clap.

Why? There is a bit of entertainment value in watching the monster created by McConnell, Jeb!, and their ilk turn against them, but I am no Moore supporter. (FTR I do not have a vote in Alabama.) From what I have read, the accusations against Moore seem to have solidified his support, which is counter-intuitive to many of us, but has happened before. I expect, not want, him to win.

[amw]

Why? There is a bit of entertainment value in watching the monster created by McConnell, Jeb!, and their ilk turn against them, but I am no Moore supporter. (FTR I do not have a vote in Alabama.) From what I have read, the accusations against Moore seem to have solidified his support, which is counter-intuitive to many of us, but has happened before. I expect, not want, him to win.

Sorry, someone is obliged to say that every time Jeb! is mentioned >_>

Anyway: this is inspiring Moore's hardcore base to come out more aggressively and loudly for him, but the thing is that even in Alabama they're not enough to win a majority. Moore is also going to need to win people who supported Luther Strange in the primary—the "chamber of commerce republicans" who dominate the Birmingham, Montgomery & Huntsville suburbs—and from what I can tell on social media at least, they are not being won over. A lot will hold their noses to vote for him but I suspect a lot more will stay home. So I'd still expect Moore to win, but by like two points, as opposed to 6-8 points a couple of weeks ago.

Honestly though, the Alabama Republican Party should not have allowed him onto the ballot way back in the primary, let alone allowed him to get this far. Especially since it now seems that the fact that he was literally a paedophile was an "open secret" and "common knowledge" in the state, as more and more people come forward, including cops from his home town and this latest accuser who's willing to testify under oath. Like, they should have known something like this would come out once he was running for a national race and attracting national interest from major investigative journalism outfits.

[Florestan]

I consider all governments evil.

All governments except those whose authority is over fewer the 5,000 people.

So what you basically maintain is that the evilness of a government depends only and solely on the size of the population. Interesting: that would mean that if a government, whose authority is over 10,000 people (and therefore is automatically evil), decides to eliminate half of the population by numbering them from 1 to 10,000 and shooting every odd-numbered person, it will end up being an automatically good government. 

Seriously now, you can call governments any way you want: evil, bad, monstrous etc. That won't make them disappear. Actually, they have been around for thousands of years and they'll probably be around till the Second Coming. And most of them had and have and will have authority over way more than 5,000 people. But there's government and government. I'm sure you wouldn't call that of, say, The Netherlands equally evil as that of, say, Venezuela, would you? But calling them equally evil because they are both governments over more than 5,000 people is meaninglessly doctrinaire.

And one more thing: if you are so convinced that all governments are evil, then you should have refrained from voting all your life, because following your theory voting means simply choosing which people will be in charge of all the evildoing in the country, and therefore being responsible for that evil.

Just saying.

EDIT: I used to be just as Libertarian as you are, but in my defence I call my age back then: I was way below the famous 40-year threshold. 

[Karl Henning]

Smug pleasure at President Butternut parading dysfunction, is not redeemed by the blanket assertion that all governments are evil.

[BasilValentine]

Roy Moore is now denying that he knows Beverly Young Nelson or the restaurant behind which he sexually assaulted her. Unfortunately for Moore, the victim has written proof in Moore's own hand that he is lying. He inscribed her yearbook a few weeks before the assault with the name of the restaurant and the words "love, Roy Moore." One would think even die hard supporters might take this proof seriously.

Interesting that the emails between DT Junior and Wikileaks, about which other members of the campaign, including Jeff Sessions, were informed, went public right before Sessions goes before a Senate committee today, especially given that the connection between the Wikileaks data and Russia was well-known at the time of Junior's emails. Will Sessions perjure himself a third time in a Senate hearing?

[Karl Henning]

Roy Moore is now denying that he knows Beverly Young Nelson or the restaurant behind which he sexually assaulted her. Unfortunately for Moore, the victim has written proof in Moore's own hand that he is lying. He inscribed her yearbook a few weeks before the assault with the name of the restaurant and the words "love, Roy Moore." One would think even die hard supporters might take this proof seriously.

Interesting that the emails between DT Junior and Wikileaks, about which other members of the campaign, including Jeff Sessions, were informed, went public right before Sessions goes before a Senate committee today, especially given that the connection between the Wikileaks data and Russia was well-known at the time of Junior's emails. Will Sessions perjure himself a third time in a Senate hearing?

Much like President Butternut, he is so accustomed to unthinking prevarication — not that the Tuperos here have any problem with that, what, -so, -ever — that he lies reflexively in futile hopes of exculpating himself, only to contradict himself in the next breath:

Moore hasn't done himself any favors. In the Hannity interview, he first said, referring to Leigh Corfman and the other women in the Post report, "I've never known this woman or anything with regard to the other girls." Then, in almost the same breath, he conceded, "I do recognize however the names of two these young ladies." Oh.

[drogulus]

EDIT: I used to be just as Libertarian as you are, but in my defence I call my age back then: I was way below the famous 40-year threshold. 

    "You can't make me grow up and have a government." - P. Pan

     This isn't really about having or not having governments, it's about having or evading responsibility for them. It's about how it's not your fault what they do. It's their fault, the poor "statist" shlubs who don't know any better.

     

[Karl Henning]

Lawd knows, it won't be the fault of the Tuperos!

[Florestan]

     This isn't really about having or not having governments, it's about having or evading responsibility for them. It's about how it's not your fault what they do.

I rarely agree with what you say, but when I do, it's wholeheartedly and 100%. This is one of those instances. 

[Karl Henning]

     This isn't really about having or not having governments, it's about having or evading responsibility for them. It's about how it's not your fault what they do.

Thanks, Obama.

[Todd]

One would think even die hard supporters might take this proof seriously.

Why? 

It's their fault, the poor "statist" shlubs who don't know any better.

True.

[amw]

    "You can't make me grow up and have a government." - P. Pan

     This isn't really about having or not having governments, it's about having or evading responsibility for them. It's about how it's not your fault what they do. It's their fault, the poor "statist" shlubs who don't know any better.

     

I mean this is hardly a non-mainstream goal in the conservative movement; the US President's former chief strategist outright stated that his goal was "the deconstruction of the administrative state" and this agenda is also pursued by various White House figures such as Mike Pence (VP) and Scott Pruitt (Environment) and Rex Tillerson (State) and Steven Mnuchin (Treasury) and Tom Price (formerly Health). Of course it's worth noting why they believe government is evil and must be deconstructed, or more accurately the parts of government they believe should be dismantled: their objection to government is that it can abrogate property rights in the interests of groups of people who are viewed as undeserving, and that therefore its ability to affect property rights needs to be dismantled. But no conservative ever suggests dismantling institutions such as the military and police, which exist to protect the property rights of the deserving against the undeserving. Government is necessary for conservatives because without it they would be unable to maintain the hierarchical structure of capitalism, but evil because some benefits of government could accrue to people on the lower rungs when they don't deserve those benefits under the rules of the free market, thereby taking away resources that would otherwise naturally accrue to the already provided-for. But anyway =.=