If there were such a thing as a three-sided coin, Trump’s clownish mug would grace the third side. (Ramirez cartoon from IBD)
“If the right to vote were expanded to seven year olds … its policies would most definitely reflect the ‘legitimate concerns’ of children to have ‘adequate’ and ‘equal’ access to ‘free’ french fries, lemonade and videos.” ― Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy–The God That Failed
By my calculation 118,000 Nevadans have just voted for avowed Marxist socialist Bernie Sanders, socialist-lite Hillary Clinton or epithet-spewing, land-grabbing, socialized-medicine-advocate, liberal Donald Trump. That’s 100 percent of the Democrats who voted in caucuses Saturday and fully 46 percent of so-called Republicans who voted in the Tuesday evening caucuses. (Actually, not really caucuses at all because 90 percent of the people stood in hours-long lines, marked their paper ballots and went home without ever discussing the candidates with their neighbors in their precincts.)
Only 40,000 Nevadans actually voted for people who espouse conservative views and values — that breaks down statewide to 75 percent, compared to 25 percent.
So much for the Trump ceiling. Trump got more votes than Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz combined. Doubtlessly some of those handful of Jeb Bush votes even went to Trump, as would some of those Ben Carson and John Kasich votes when they drop out.
Only the voters in Lincoln and Elko counties gave a plurality to Cruz, but Trump finished second in both of those.
Trump has already won in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The CNN poll prior to Tuesday gave Trump 45 percent of the Nevada GOP vote. He got 45.9 percent.
In the 12 Super Tuesday states next week, Trump leads in all save Texas and Arkansas, according to Real Clear Politics. His delegate count is building rapidly with half of Nevada’s now in his pocket. Can anyone catch him?
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Iowa. That is a scary assessment of both Trump and his supporters.
The November ballot could be frightening to face.
WSJ graphic using AP data for Nevada GOP caucus. http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-wins-nevada-gop-caucuses-1456290334?mod=djemalertNEWS
4TH ST8 
Republicans, tired of losing to Democrats in the race for the White House, and desperate to undo the damage from the current Democratic administration, reject the principled choice of a proven conservative and instead nominate a famous name that has only recently joined the party, because he is deemed more able to win in the general election. This famous person has never ran for political office before, but just the mention of his name excites many Republicans, and so they jump on the bandwagon.
Many Republicans warn that this newcomer is not philosophically fit to represent the party, but the majority just want to take the White House, because ANYTHING is better than another Democrat!
The newcomer wins the election, and Republicans nationwide are just thrilled to have him in the White House, and go along with whatever he comes up with, no matter how contrary to their conservative values, just to insure party unity.
Yes, it sounds familiar, since it happened in 1952…
Of course, there is a conspiratorial version of this, wherein fascist/globalist banksters encourage the newcomer to run, in order to keep the conservatives at bay, since they are getting stronger. Since the bankers couldn’t pull another Teddy Roosevelt out of their hat to split the Republican party, as they had in 1912, they settle for a theoretically non-partisan Eisenhower, who had actually been a lifelong Democrat, and a huge fan of FDR.
The thing about manipulating elections is you have to always think out 2 to 3 cycles, so you’ve always got your next chosen guy ready when the timing is right 🙂
Conservatives (and conspiracy theorists) just never learn do they?
Conservatives are taking a beating because the things they hold dear, as principles, are not held as dear by the population at large, and the candidates who are supposedly “conservatives” are just not like able people to most voters.
Anti- Gay, Anti-Pot, Anti-Abortion, Anti-Immigrant, Ultra-Religious, Small enough government to drown in the bathtub, conservatism just isn’t popular anymore.
But, as a liberal, I appreciate the party holding true to those principles.
Oh, gee Patrick, I’ll agree that, thanks mainly to the Hegelian Dialectic Process, the fascist/globalist banksters have successfully altered our society, using methodology pioneered by Edward Bernays. Obviously, both major parties have become more collectivist as the decades have passed.
That, of course, only means that many people aren’t really paying attention to the source of these attitude shifts. The mainstream media and academia have pushed for these changes, as agents of the banksters, who take advantage of mankind’s weaknesses, to promote their agenda, in order to increase their own power.
If this is the paradigm that you celebrate, one of manipulation and control, so be it, but most Americans are beginning to recognize the inherent corruption that the two major parties have wrought, in building their Orwelian warfare/welfare state. People on both the right and left are seeing the bullshit that has been foisted upon by would-be tyrants, and are rejecting the influences of the divide-and-conquer gang.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
My experience at Shadow Ridge High School was similar to others. I had volunteered as both a caucus worker and a representative of the Cruz campaign. I was told as a campaign rep I could wear any stickers, buttons, T-shirts, hat, etc. but could not have any handouts, signs, or campaign material. As a caucus volunteer, I was assigned to work the registration table for those wishing to be delegates. My daughter also volunteered and was given the same assignment at the delegate registration tables. I was told campaign Reps would speak between 6:00 and 7:00, and the delegate elections would begin at 7:00.
People stood in long lines to enter the building and then in lines to check in and obtain their ballots. The lines to turn in the ballots became mixed with the registration lines. There was no opportunity to meet as a precinct to discuss the candidates with your neighbors. There was also no opportunity to address the crowd as a whole and speak for your candidate.
I was at the Campaign Representative’s tables from 5:00 to 7:00. I had about 5 people stop to talk that were undecided. I was able to speak with them and answer their questions. I also had a Trump rep that came to my table and tried to start an argument that Cruz was not eligible due to his Canadian birth. He then veered off into a conspiracy theory that Scalia was assassinated, and asked me “Who does that benefit the most?” In response to my stare, he replied “Of course Cruz since he is now using it as an issue!” I looked around and told him, “Let me see if I can find you some tin foil for your hat”. He walked away.
I went to check on my daughter at the delegate tables. This was her first election as she recently turned 18. She had her chair pushed against a wall with the table in front of her. She said a woman who was standing in the check in line in front of her delegate table asked her if she was in the right line for her precinct. My daughter stood up on her chair so she could see over the crowd at the precinct designation signs. My daughter explained that she needed to be in a different line, and the woman replied to her “about right for a F—-king Cruz supporter. Why don’t you fix these f—king lines?” My daughter replied to her that she didn’t have anything to do with the organization of the caucus and neither did Senator Cruz. She said a man standing next to the woman pulled her away when the woman started to say something else. I told her about the weird person I had and we laughed.
My impression of the crowd last night was that the Trump people were angry at government, the Republican party, both locally and nationally, and were not so much voting for Trump as they were voting against everything and everybody. I did talk with one couple who was wearing the white Trump t-shirts that said they had been registered Democrats. They switched to vote for Trump, but were solid Hillary supporters and would vote for her in the general election. For the most part it seems Trump is the exceptional marketeer playing off emotions, and people are so fed up with Republicans they blaming any office holder.
This morning, I asked my daughter if she would vote for Trump if he were the Republican nominee in November. She looked at me and said, “Surely there would be a 3rd choice. I would hate to skip voting in my 1st Presidential election” I said maybe Rubio, and she said, “I don’t think so. He’s lying about Cruz and everything, and he supported Obama going into Lybia and look at what a mess that is. Cruz just better kick butt next week.”
I have a very intelligent daughter.
Winston:
Obviously we disagree.
My opinion is that as the world gets smaller, filled with more people that impact each other more than ever, with the consequences of that impact being known faster than ever, individual rights seem to be diminishing.
I don’t know anyone that likes being told that they can’t do something, especially when you used to be able to do it without being told you can’t, but that is what happens when there are more people around who’s interests must be considered. I know I sure don’t want anyone telling me what to do and when to do it, but let’s face it, that happens from the time we are born, and the more people who are around us, the fewer “rights” we seem to have.
Take it down to a home, where a single family lives. When the husband and wife (call me a traditionalist) have their first child, their freedom to do what they want to do, when they want to do diminishes. After a few years, and a few more children, the freedoms the parents have seem vastly different than they used to (no more lovemaking on the kitchen table at any hour, as an example) and to take it a step further, in the event siblings, or even the parents, of the spouses need to move into the home, for whatever reason, the spouses have even fewer freedoms than they had.
Its not some grand conspiracy that what you want to do today, is not necessarily what society permits you to do today, its a consequence of factors, that just result in what it is.
And again, its not that I love it, or like it even, but it is something that I understand, which apparently has escaped some people.
Patrick, I understand where you’re coming from, and that as our lives progress, we have fewer and fewer choices, as we should take responsibility for our earlier choices. There are natural consequences for many actions, and sometimes those consequences limit our freedoms. As you said, when you start having children, decent parents will alter their behavior to protect or improve their family’s well being. Normally, that is understood before producing children.
I have three children, all adults now, and raised them by limiting their freedom when young, so they wouldn’t get ran over or cut their hand off with a power saw, for instance. But once they entered puberty, I allowed them to exercise more individual freedom, as long as it was accompanied with personal responsibility.
Now, I realize that as population grows, the collective will tend to exert its desire to “keep things under control”, thereby limiting the choices of individuals, and generally that can be understood. We don’t want people shooting guns straight up in the middle of a city, for instance. The question has always been, where is the balance between individual rights and collective safety, and what punishment is reasonable for a given unmutual act?
Under Common Law, that was almost always decided on a case by case basis, as the damage or injury done to a victim had to be adjudicated by the collective and a recompense determined. Common Law tended to keep laws and regulations to a minimum, guaranteeing a certain level of liberty, as long as your behavior didn’t hurt anyone else.
That is all well and good, but there are also people, who I generally label “control freaks”, that want to systemically reduce our choices in life, by applying artificial consequences, usually with laws and regulations that use force, sometimes when no actual victim can be found. They do this for pretty much three reasons: Power, Money and Sex. Because of these Control Freaks, who pretty much only care about their own power and wealth, the rest of us must remain vigilant to protect our rights and liberty, or else we will be overrun.
Now, as a “liberal”, correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to believe that aborting a pregnancy before birth is a natural right of the mother, and there should be nothing wrong with that, morally or legally. Do you believe that there should be any limits place on that abortion by the collective, either in time frame or method used, or is that entirely between a mother and her doctor?
Winston:
As it relates to abortion, and as a liberal, and maybe just as a person, I am willing to accept that I am not an expert on science, and therefore I tend to give the benefit of the doubt on such matters as when “life” begins, to those in the medical scientific community. As our knowledge of that science progresses, the definition changes, but as of today, I am comfortable with the current understanding, from a medical/scientific perspective, that “life” begins…when they say it does. This informs my beliefs about when, and even if, abortions ought to be considered the choice of the parents.
But, I’m wondering if, as a libertarian, you believe as Murray Rothbard does, that parents ought to be able to do with the “invading tissue” as they choose? And even if the child is “allowed” to be born, would it be your position, as it apparently is Murray’s and many other libertarians, that the parents, ought to be able, after the child is born, to either sell the child into slavery, or simply tossed out onto the street lest the parents “natural rights” be interfered with?
I have to correct one thing you’ve said about the “Common Law” here though; the common law was not to be applied on a “case by case” basis, at least as I understand your use of that term. The purpose of the common law was to apply the LAW to situations where the application was appropriate. This arose because, unlike France where laws were codified to (hopefully) address each situation, the English law was not and thus the decisions of courts were used as principles to be applied, when the facts called for that application.
And we do agree that there are “control freaks” out there but, if our system of law means anything, it means that the control freaks are kept, for lack of a better phrase, under control.
I enjoyed reading your conversation. Your thought about common law keeping regulations to a minimum is well taken, although there are a few weaknesses such as the occasional astronomical damages awarded, especially by juries. One must keep in mind that common law becomes less effective as life becomes more complex. For example, how much fire protection must a building have before the owner/landlord cannot be sued for negligence in case of fire? As it stands now, if regulations are followed, the owner is essentially immune. Without the regulatory framework though, would the owner become easy prey for shyster lawyers?
Common law is very poor at recognizing the problems created when common practices begin to do harm as they start to be performed on a large scale. Bankers promoting subprime loans, companies advertising cigarettes to children or pollution come to mind. Perhaps common law can be tweaked to recognize the harm done by these sorts of practices, but I suspect that there’s no escaping a fair degree of regulation.
One of our greatest problems with regulations is that we’ve made them far too specific and thus, complex. Every time someone finds a loophole, another law is enacted to try and patch it up. This is necessary primarily because judges aren’t really allowed to do much judging these days. If someone follows the letter of the law, even with the most evil or fraudulent intent, then they’re clean in the eyes of the court. The guy who bought a small generic drug company and then raised the price of doxycycline, a lifesaving drug, by 8,000% comes to mind. I had a few dead bodies in my hospital to show for his escapade.
Without any regulations, would a Ponzi scheme be illegal if it had a fig leaf of theoretical legitimacy? Could a company be sued for dumping toxic waste if a plaintiff could not prove specific damage? What degree of cooking the books would be allowed by publicly held companies if there was no standardization via regulations? How about someone who sells and delivers a truckload of machine guns, rocket launchers and the like to a drug cartel? In the absence of laws and regulations, I’m not so sure that common law could address these kinds of situations, unless we changed the present procedures.
Rincon, your points are well taken. Common law, especially as practiced by the Anglo/Saxons before William the Conqueror showed up, operated with a few underlying assumptions, such as, the people cared about each other and wanted everyone to enjoy the same level of freedom. Perhaps this is impossible in a nation of 320 million, or even a town of 3,000.
I’m sure that the Founders recognized this, but still wanted to retain a high level of liberty and self-government, and not degrade into corrupt, vicious society.
Once again, I hearken back to the words of John Adams…
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
BTW, patrick, I don’t agree with Rothbard on abortion or child rearing. As I wrote before, we make choices, should recognize the consequences of those choices, and be responsible for them. Yes, that can be difficult at times, but self-government is not advertised as being easy. I think Rothbard was an outlier on that subject, even among libertarians.
But let me ask you this, if the current definition by the medical field of “life” is still tied to viability, what do you think of those that advocate abortion up to the time of birth? Is that murder in your eyes?