I am not one to avoid answering straight questions from someone who asks them in that way as you usually do with me. But at this point in time I feel that what I have said about Trump over the past year or so is pretty clear and that anything more that I could say wouldn't matter, be well received or make any difference in discussions here.
Now and for the foreseeable future I feel that few here want to hear anything good about Trump or from people who support him. I am exhausted by the events of the past week and am just going to sit back and watch things unfold. I will say I am still happy with Trump for the most part, still optimistic about things to come and no buyer's remorse yet.
I can make better use of my time now working on my music projects instead of worrying about Trump.
for now ...
That's a shame Kurtster.
My personal belief is that economies flourish best in more equal societies with open borders and free trade. Given that Trump is against all these things there is no way I can judge his success on my terms for he is already a failure before he even does anything... But I thought I might be able to judge his success at least on your terms, one of his supporters, but to be frank I actually do not know exactly what these are apart from vague promises he made on the campaign trail, such as make our borders secure, make America great again, bring jobs back to the USA, etc.
ok, some of those we can actually quantify, I guess. But are these your goals too? Rather than something quantifiable like this you claim you voted for someone who is going to tear it all down.. Given that destruction only takes a few seconds and construction can take centuries, that is a pretty low goal to be aiming for.. Come on, tell us. What is your vision? What is it exactly that you are optimistic about? What sort of society do you want to live in? Even if that society doesn't equate with the society I want to live in, at least I can start measuring it on your terms. At the moment I am just stabbing in the dark.
"Since most of our illegal immigrants don't originate in Mexico, it would make a lot more sense to negotiate with Mexico to build the wall along their southern border. It would be much shorter and cheaper. We could then negotiate with Guatemala for still shorter and cheaper wall on their southern border. Then Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The real beauty of this plan is that when we get to Panama, we don't need a wall at all... we already have a moat."
"Since most of our illegal immigrants don't originate in Mexico, it would make a lot more sense to negotiate with Mexico to build the wall along their southern border. It would be much shorter and cheaper. We could then negotiate with Guatemala for still shorter and cheaper wall on their southern border. Then Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The real beauty of this plan is that when we get to Panama, we don't need a wall at all... we already have a moat."
That position is sometimes held by the Chief of Staff but not always (e.g. Rove = "Bush's brain"). At this point there are still two opposite ways to interpret Trump's moves.
That position is sometimes held by the Chief of Staff but not always (e.g. Rove = "Bush's brain"). At this point there are still two opposite ways to interpret Trump's moves.
yep, that ties in pretty much perfectly with what I think is happening. These guys are reading from a copybook drawn up by the National Socialists in Germany in the 30s. Duly elected, they went on to gut state institutions and instil a regime of fear (with us or against us) purging all state apparatus of any one particular officer who wasn't towing the party line. No, I am not talking about the holocaust or genocide (yet).. it is bad enough to see the land of the free gutted from the inside like this and more frightening to see it happen so easily.
Whatever agenda these guys are following I simply can't square it with the picture I have of freedom and liberty.
i'm not a randian by any stretch,but i have read some objectivist stuff and watched a few films
and it's no surprise that i have some serious philosophical disagreements with some of the material
however some of the pieces i read i thought were somewhat relative
here's something (an observation) from peikoff in 1982
i also know it's not as important who penned it as what it said
have a look
Each of the philosophic principles essential to the rise of Nazism in Germany has a counterpart in present-day America. Is the freest country on earth moving toward totalitarian dictatorship? What were the factors that enabled the Nazis to seize power in pre-war Germany? Do those same conditions exist in America today? These are the questions raised — and answered, with frightening clarity — by Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's intellectual heir, in his powerful book The Ominous Parallels. "We are drifting to the future, not moving purposefully," Peikoff warns. "But we are drifting as Germany moved, in the same direction, for the same kind of reason." Some of the "ominous parallels" between pre-Hitler Germany and the United States that Peikoff identifies are:
Liberals who demand public control over the use and disposal of private property — social security, more taxes, more government control over the energy industry, medicine, broadcasting, etc.
Conservatives who demand government control over our intellectual and moral life — prayer in the schools, literary censorship, government intervention in the teaching of biology, the anti-abortion movement, etc.
Political parties devoid of principles or direction and moved at random by pressure groups, each demanding still more controls.
A "progressive," anti-intellectual educational system that, from kindergarten to graduate school, creates students who can't read or write — students brainwashed into the feeling that their minds are helpless and they must adapt to "society," that there is no absolute truth and that morality is whatever society says it is.
A student radical movement (from the 1960's through the violent anti-nukers and ecology fanatics of today) who are, Peikoff maintains, the "pre-Hitler youth movement resurrected." The radicals are nature worshippers who attack the middle class, science, technology, and business.
The rise of defiant old-world racial hatreds disguised as "ethnic-identity" movements and "affirmative action."
A pervasive atmosphere of decadence, moral bankruptcy, and nihilist art accompanied by the rise of escapist mystic cults of every kind — astrology, "alternative medicine," Orientalists, extrasensory perception, etc.
In an introduction to Peikoff's book, Ayn Rand describes The Ominous Parallels as, "the first book by an Objectivist philosopher other than myself" and goes on to say that, "If you do not wish to be a victim of today's philosophical bankruptcy, I recommend The Ominous Parallels as protection and ammunition. It will protect you from supporting, unwittingly, the ideas that are destroying you and the world."
In brilliantly reasoned prose, Peikoff argues that the deepest roots of German Nazism lie not in existential crises, but in ideas — not in Germany's military defeat in World War I or the economic disasters of the Weimar Republic that followed, but in the philosophy that dominated pre-Nazi Germany. Although it was mediated by crises, Peikoff demonstrates that German Nazism was the inevitable climax of a centuries-long philosophic development, preaching three fundamental ideas: the worship of unreason, the demand for self-sacrifice and the elevation of society or the state above the individual.
"These ideas," Peikoff says, "are the essence of Nazism and they are exactly what our leading universities are now spreading throughout this country. This is the basic cause of all the other parallels."
I am not one to avoid answering straight questions from someone who asks them in that way as you usually do with me. But at this point in time I feel that what I have said about Trump over the past year or so is pretty clear and that anything more that I could say wouldn't matter, be well received or make any difference in discussions here.
Now and for the foreseeable future I feel that few here want to hear anything good about Trump or from people who support him. I am exhausted by the events of the past week and am just going to sit back and watch things unfold. I will say I am still happy with Trump for the most part, still optimistic about things to come and no buyer's remorse yet.
I can make better use of my time now working on my music projects instead of worrying about Trump.
Nope, a reconstruction / repurposing of our current government, avoiding chaos that would come without it before it completely fails.
You and many others only see gloom and doom coming with Trump in charge. I see change for the good coming, for the first time in ages.
Is there something wrong with putting the needs and security of American citizens in the front of the line within our own borders ?
Please describe the good you see.. not many others say see much at all. What do you mean by the good?
I am not one to avoid answering straight questions from someone who asks them in that way as you usually do with me. But at this point in time I feel that what I have said about Trump over the past year or so is pretty clear and that anything more that I could say wouldn't matter, be well received or make any difference in discussions here.
Now and for the foreseeable future I feel that few here want to hear anything good about Trump or from people who support him. I am exhausted by the events of the past week and am just going to sit back and watch things unfold. I will say I am still happy with Trump for the most part, still optimistic about things to come and no buyer's remorse yet.
I can make better use of my time now working on my music projects instead of worrying about Trump.
What you'e seeing, ladies and gentlemen, is Trump crashing headlong into his ignorance about the workings of the federal government, its laws and yes even the Constitution. Who knew that we'd see a variation on "The Saturday Night Massacre" so soon into Trump's administration.
This is what happens when the clueless old angry drunk from your neighborhood bar gets to run your country. No, Trump isn't a drunk...he just acts that way.
WASHINGTON — President Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates Monday night after the Obama holdover refused to defend his controversial refugee ban in court.
Yates said Monday that she will not defend in court the president’s executive order that suspends immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. Three hours later, the White House announced that she had been relieved of her duties.
"Ms. Yates is an Obama administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration," said a statement from the White House that appeared to be in Trump's own voice.
Trump appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve as acting attorney general until his nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, can be confirmed by the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a Tuesday vote on Sessions, who has closely advised Trump on immigration matters.
for now ... 
"We are drifting to the future, not moving purposefully," Peikoff warns. "But we are drifting as Germany moved, in the same direction, for the same kind of reason." Some of the "ominous parallels" between pre-Hitler Germany and the United States that Peikoff identifies are:
