Monday, February 29, 2016

The Meaning of the Belligerents Surrounding Trump

I am no fan of the establishment and no fan of neocon George Will. He is no libertarian (not even close) but it doesn't mean his warning about Trump should be dismissed out of hand.

He writes in WaPo:
Donald Trump’s distinctive rhetorical style — think of a drunk with a bullhorn reading aloud James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake” under water — poses an almost insuperable challenge to people whose painful duty is to try to extract clarity from his effusions. For example, on Friday, during a long stream of semi-consciousness in Fort Worth, this man who as president would nominate members of the federal judiciary vowed to “open up” libel laws to make it easier to sue — to intimidate and punish — people who write “negative” things. Well.

Trump, the thin-skinned tough guy, resembles a campus crybaby who has wandered out of his “safe space.” It is not news that he has neither respect for nor knowledge of the Constitution, and he probably is unaware that he would have to “open up” many Supreme Court First Amendment rulings in order to achieve his aim. His obvious aim is to chill free speech, for the comfort of the political class, of which he is now a gaudy ornament.

But at least Trump has, at last, found one thing to admire from the era of America’s Founding. Unfortunately, but predictably, it is one of the worst things done then — the Sedition Act of 1798. The act made it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people.” Now, 215 years after the Sedition Act expired in 1801, Trump vows to use litigiousness to improve the accuracy and decorousness of public discourse.

The night before his promise to make America great again through censorship, Trump, during the Republican presidential candidates’ debate in Houston , said that his sister, a federal judge, “[signed] a certain bill” and that Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. also “signed that bill.” So, the leading Republican candidate, the breadth of whose ignorance is the eighth wonder of the world, actually thinks that judges “sign” bills. Trump is a presidential aspirant who would flunk an eighth-grade civics exam.
Will then goes on in the piece to promote the horrific establishment puppet, Marco Rubio. But the point is he gets Trump right.

It is nice to see uproar over the establishment but, like with the Arab Spring, which has turned into new totalitarians replacing old totalitarians, it is too early for revolution.

All the choices in this election are bad. Trump appears to be surrounding himself with domestic belligerents (SEE: Giuliani, Christie, Sessions). Not good. Foreign wars are bad, but as Adam Smith warned in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, we may be sympathetic to far away abuses but when they hit home, we feel the pain with much greater intensity. Think about this: The Empire turning its guns and bully attitude inward.

There are no good choices in this election, as in most all past elections, but I really fear The Empire turning its shock and awe at us here in America at a high-level of intensity--and, of course, this doesn't rule out American troops on the ground, overseas, during a Trump administration either.

 -RW

11 comments:

  1. There are no good choices.
    My criteria at this point is whether or not the candidate is a sell out,
    All except trump are sell outs

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  2. Now I have a better understanding of the anti-Trump sentiment on this website. I'm more afraid of Rubio, Cruz or Clinton starting WW3, than Trump sending troops into my home. Isn't the probability of the war mongers creating more war much higher than Trump becoming some form of Hitler? Why do libertarians find Hitler and Mussolini easier than most people find Waldo?

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    1. Clinton is a ridiculous crazy warmonger but if she is president she will be egged on by republicans to become even crazier warmongerish. Everyone seems to think Obama is a peacenik despite his being a pretty big time warmonger. He has at least slightly resisted some of the calls for more war. Hillary wouldn't hold back at all. She would cackle and laugh about taking out Putin and starting WWIII just like when Gaddafi was tortured/murdered and that country was destroyed and more hell was unleashed on the Middle East.

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  3. Sorry AJO, I don't buy it. This website is published by an anarchist (though he prefers the term Private Property Society). Hence, he is "anti" every candidate who desires to ascend to the throne of The King of the Workd.

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  4. My work associates all think that a Trump presidency is scary. I find that I agree, but then I turn to the alternatives. A Hillary presidency is scary, too, as is a Rubio, Cruz, Sanders, etc. etc. As too, was an Obama presidency, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Carter, Reagan. All were scary.

    I have come to the conclusion that it is the presidency itself that is scary. Perhaps it should not exist. Perhaps that is an understatement.

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    1. Right on the money, gpond.

      Lew Rockwell delivered this speech in 1996, and publishes the transcript every year on Presidents Day. I read it every year. And every year, it becomes more and more true!

      https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/02/lew-rockwell/down-with-the-presidency/

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  5. I'm glad to see Target Liberty taking an anti-Trump stance. He's a crony capitalist statist with a totalitarian "Great Man" complex on par with Teddy Roosevelt. There are few things more dangerous.

    I understand why many libertarians are excited and amused by the headache Trump is giving the establishment. Unfortunately this reactionary sentiment seems to be bleeding into libertarian advocacy or approval of Trump's policies (whatover those might be) which is completely absurd. Trump has outright advocated torture and, as noted in this article, suppression free speech.

    Ron Paul, again, has it right. The fact thay Trump alarms the establishment doesn't mean he won't be worse than the establishment.

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  6. There is a lot that is terrible about Trump. Most likely the majority of people on this website don't vote because all national politicians, and most locals ones, are evil scum. My argument is not that Trump is libertarian leaning, it's that a war mongering desire to kill hundreds of thousands of people is the greater evil compared to someone who actually is saying he wants peace. Is he full of shit, probably. But I think the war mongers are a scarier alternative.

    I'm all for decentralization and eliminating one man having the power to destroy the world, but can someone please tell me how that is even a remote possibility in my lifetime?

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    1. "...tell me how that is even a remote possibility in my lifetime?"

      It may not be possible in your lifetime. So what? If one doesn't wish to propagate these ideas starting right now, then when?

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  7. Nobody else is talking about immigration/economy/neocon wars the way T is.
    Is he a crass brash buffoon and ass? Well yeah, but so what?
    Is The Bern or Shrillary any better? (Note bene, is there really any need to mention any of the other Repug candidates?)
    At least Donald is honest about his all American authoritarian and fascist views.
    Which means his presidency is not going to be great, but then again if Ron Paul's constitutionalism couldn't please the proletariat, they're going to get what they want/deserve. In aces and spades.

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