BTW my wife is collecting a herd of cats, if you ever need another gig I think we could work something out..@Myst
@montanajoe ...now if they were bulldogs I would consider it...you can never have enough bullies..lol
@mystery-ak
I was thinking of the skills you have honed in keeping this place going with all the different personalizes :beer: I've often thought it must be like herding cats.
Don't know if I'd equate some of the posters here to bulldogs...they remind me more of...err.......hmmm......cats :whistle:
@montanajoe, some of us really needed to hear that. Thank you.
@mystery-ak
I was thinking of the skills you have honed in keeping this place going with all the different personalizes I've often thought it must be like herding cats.
(http://nebula.wsimg.com/505a48ecd0e4ee102446a495c128fff5?AccessKeyId=E5688CEBB3B7476F791E&disposition=0&alloworigin=1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
Today, its my personal belief that due to talk radio, most conservatives and seemingly most trump supporters have bought into the idea they are victims.
@montanajoe As a proud and vocal member of the pro-Trump contingency here I just want to tell you that your personal belief, while your Constitutionally-protected right, is incorrect.
No Trump supporter that I know of (and I know plenty ... ^-^ ) would ever consider him or herself a "victim". Most, having successfully taken on the GOP establishment, the liberal establishment and the Clinton machine, consider themselves a warrior.
Having said this, I'm still unclear on the point of your thesis. How are you defining "snark"? Is there more than one type of snark? And are you fighting for it or against it?
Thanks.
I went back a reread Invar's post.../
Thanks, but I wasn't posting about Invar's post.
My questions were and are directed to montanajoe
:beer: @LateForLunch
@montanajoe Thank You for the clarity.
It is a great site, made possible by ALL it's members.
Myst and her crew have assembled quite a diverse, knowledgeable and opinionated group, AND that keeps it very interesting here.
****brownnoser
...but it works..lol
So.... He's teachers pet.
You could be teacher's pet too if you tried... *****rollingeyes*****
I clapped erasers after school every day for the Nuns... all I ever got chalk lung!
Those nuns could be slave drivers....ooops....was that racist.../s
Come on. The reason that most self-described conservatives support the Trump administration is to counter-balance the almost monolithic leftist unity which supports their odious, life-destroying agenda.
With all due respect (and that is great) what the noble Invar and other Never Trumpsters may wish to consider is that personal ideological purity is arguably not a legitimate reason to abandon support of a president when viewed in the context of the exigencies of political warfare.
The goal in applied political action is arguably not to attain some state of immaculate grace (though there may be diverse thresholds re the requirements of moral or character issues), the goal is to attain the best governance possible so that things can improve (hopefully permanently).
The tendency of anti-Trumpsters to derisively state that we do is unfortunate. We simply are not prepared to abandon the good in search of the perfect.
Those who declare that there are major, insurmountable differences which make political alliance impossible (so long as DJT is president) are IMO horribly mistaken.
For instance, those self-described conservatives who disapprove of DJT because he is not ideologically pure enough may not realize that this very lack of affiliation with a fixed ideology GAINS Trump significant support from self-described independent voters. In fact, that may well be one of the biggest factors that enabled Trump to defeat Ted Cruz in the primaries - Trump received more support from self-described "moderates" and won contests exactly because he was liked more by self-described moderates.
Isn't victory over the forces of leftism in the field more important that purity, if one ascribes to the same view of the Rules Governing Political Warfare which Machivelli and Alinsky both recognized?
The victimhood aspect of Trump supporters was already discussed ad nauseum on a recent thread (http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,277721.0.html) analyzing the ability of Trump devotees to twist themselves into knots excusing and justifying every faux pas and stupid thing Trump tweets and does.
There was no abandonment. I never supported him to begin with. He has not won me over to support him. Plus, those few moments I have given him a thumbs up - his rabid supporters were quick to chide and admonish against thumbs thumbs-up - reminding me they do not want any "fair weather friends" or will permit anyone to ride on Trump's coattails of success.
So there is no point even crediting Trump when he serves the Conservative agenda. He and his supporters will end up insulting us anyway.
Will never happen within the Republican party. It is as corrupt and self-serving for the Collectivist cause as the Democrat Party is. If Conservatism is to survive, it must separate and be independent of the corruption at Mordor on the Potomac.
You keep quoting that as if it is biblical. It's not. It's the folly of men who preach and entice the abandonment of Principles in order to serve the expedient. A disaster for Liberty.
You can dress up Liberalism under a big, fat shiny 'R' next to the name and you will only succeed in beguiling those whose way of life is not centered on the principles of Conservatism. Liberalism demands we abandon those principles for the sake of the 'good'. That is no longer a bridge of commonality we will stand upon with you. Hell, we cannot even agree among ourselves what the definition of liberty is - so standing on a common foundation is literally herding cats in this day and time.
We are a people unmoored from our foundations and the solution to fixing it is not to embrace liberalism to grow the share of "R"s in Government as salvation.
Your herd of liberals pretending to be Conservatives can march you right off the cliff while you sing your anthem of Good is better than Perfect. I will not be joining you.
Clever, but stupid. All your party has done is embrace Leftism, sans the militant Marxist wing of it. All you are doing is demanding Conservatives abandon principles to support Liberalism and Collectivism so your Party can claim a 'win'.
Acquiescing to Liberalism and Collectivism with a big fat R does nothing to advance Conservatism. All it does is make you a Liberal with an 'R' after your name.
And that is EXACTLY what the Republican party is today. A Liberal party - rather than the Marxist one. As I've said, one day soon you will saddle yourselves with a choice between a Lenin and a Stalin, making the same arguments why Conservatives must support Lenin, because the perfect is the enemy of good.
In the interests of clarity...
In my view although Trump was elected to the office, he is, for the reasons enumerated in my original past, unfit to hold the office.
The idea that he is at the vanguard of some mythical movement fighting for the destiny of the nation would be laughable if it were not so sad.
The problems of this nation are not going to be solved by any political leader, they will be solved/or not, in the hearts and minds of of the average citizen being persuaded by his neighbor that the traditional Conservative values of God, Family and Country are as true today as they where when this great nation was founded.
An American president in order to succeed must first and foremost be a moral compass who inspires confidence across all of society and is able to unite the nation in shared common goals. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated he is utterly incapable of exerting any type of moral leadership. In fact, he has shown an astonishingly tin ear the concerns of segments of the nation that are not in his dwindling "base."
As to the title -Snark.
It is vaguely directed at the "warriors" whose feelings are hurt when they perceive their 'orange god' has been slighted on a thread and their reaction is to "stir the pot" by attacking the poster for pages and pages instead of the substance of the comment. In my neck of the woods is the classic behavior of the professional victim.... :shrug:
The choice is yours.
I sense in your post an urgency to convince, to persuade. Don't be disappointed if you fall short. See, Ben Franklin pointed out, "It is not sufficient to appeal to intellect to persuade. To persuade, once must appeal to interest".I think you place far too much emphasis on the egos of those who opposed the vituperation and incontinent prevarication that led to the nomination and election of the current office holder of the office of the President.
To establish interest (motivation) one must detect what a person WANTS. In the case of many self described Never Trumpers, what they want is revealed in what they call themselves - reasons to maintain, defend and justify an a priori - i.e., Trump is not O.K. Period. End of discussion.
Any information which does not fit into that template will (we may be certain of this at least) be wholly rejected.
We may see the essence of fanaticism here - a closed circle of impressions and information. When reading posts, it may be assured that a Never Trumper is not reading to understand nor much less ponder, they are reading in order to construct a retort. Purely.
Fanatics never say
Never see
Never think and
Never do
Anything
That's really new
Burma Shave.
I believe that in time, many self-described Never Trumpers will drop all of the defiant posturing and vituperative defensiveness, allow themselves the freedom to venture beyond the bounds of some stricture of honor- to cross that terrible line of admission of error (perhaps Trump was not the anti-Christ after all) and to rejoin the greater war effort with shoulder-to-wheel, sturm to drang, nose to grindstone.
In fact, many Never Trumpers, though vocal and bitter about things at the top, are still engaged in the political process (making political donations to candidates/causes, communicating with legislators/officials, working with campaigns) but they are just divorced from anything that even approaches tangible support for DJT. It is for them, a matter of honor.
See, once a person makes extreme declarations, (such and such is this way and no other) there is in their mind a terrible (intolerable) price to pay of humiliation to admit error. So their destiny is to defend those statements - that defiant emphatic declaration to their dying day. The alternative you see is to die - or at least to suffer some measure of humiliation or "loss of face" which though insignificant to virtually all living things save themselves, drives their resistance to any wavering or recantation the way a headwind drives a sailing vessel on the high seas. Forward! Always forward!!
I find it interesting that those prone to demagoguery are quick to assert that as the motivation of others, and that those who have linked their personal egos to the perceived success or failure of the president are most prone to asserting success where there is none. But that's "WINNING!", by some definitions.
That is a bold statement and one for which I find no strong validation - at least not on this site. There are doubtless an abundance of fanatical pro-Trumpsters over at yonder TOS, but on the whole, those who defend Trump on this forum do so substantively and by providing rational validation and with generally far less emotion/hyperbole than you (and others on this thread) often ascribe to them.When Trump does right, I defend him, not that I or any of the others who might not have voted for him or only voted for him to stop Hillary ever get credit for doing so. Yet you will see the demagoguery even here, albeit more subdued than elsewhere, if you only look.
I sense in your post an urgency to convince, to persuade. Don't be disappointed if you fall short. See, Ben Franklin pointed out, "It is not sufficient to appeal to intellect to persuade. To persuade, once must appeal to interest".
To establish interest (motivation) one must detect what a person WANTS. In the case of many self described Never Trumpers, what they want is revealed in what they call themselves - reasons to maintain, defend and justify an a priori - i.e., Trump is not O.K. Period. End of discussion.
Any information which does not fit into that template will (we may be certain of this at least) be wholly rejected.
We may see the essence of fanaticism here - a closed circle of impressions and information. When reading posts, it may be assured that a Never Trumper is not reading to understand nor much less ponder, they are reading in order to construct a retort. Purely.
Fanatics never say
Never see
Never think and
Never do
Anything
That's really new
Burma Shave.
I believe that in time, many self-described Never Trumpers will drop all of the defiant posturing and vituperative defensiveness, allow themselves the freedom to venture beyond the bounds of some stricture of honor- to cross that terrible line of admission of error (perhaps Trump was not the anti-Christ after all) and to rejoin the greater war effort with shoulder-to-wheel, sturm to drang, nose to grindstone.
In fact, many Never Trumpers, though vocal and bitter about things at the top, are still engaged in the political process (making political donations to candidates/causes, communicating with legislators/officials, working with campaigns) but they are just divorced from anything that even approaches tangible support for DJT. It is for them, a matter of honor.
See, once a person makes extreme declarations, (such and such is this way and no other) there is in their mind a terrible (intolerable) price to pay of humiliation to admit error. So their destiny is to defend those statements - that defiant emphatic declaration to their dying day. The alternative you see is to die - or at least to suffer some measure of humiliation or "loss of face" which though insignificant to virtually all living things save themselves, drives their resistance to any wavering or recantation the way a headwind drives a sailing vessel on the high seas. Forward! Always forward!!
I find it interesting that here, perhaps especially here, those who hold the highest standards are encouraged to divest themselves of those standards and derided for maintaining them.
After all, that is, and has been the problem with the GOP. Raise the bar and be accused of being a 'perfectionist', standing in the way of the good, an evil unto yourself for wanting the very best, most Constitutional America possible: one in compliance with its own Supreme Law of the Land.
Oh, my. How unrealistic, how unpragmatic such aspirations are considered by those who would deride them. Yet, if not for an ideal, if not for goals to strive for, what is there to guide people in their lives but the rumbling in their belly, the irrational desire of shiny objects, and the occasional biological urges?
It seems to matter not whether those goals are those laid in scriptures for thousands of years, or the well thought out writings of political philosophers and statesmen of only a couple hundred years ago--among them our Founders. Whether those are laws set forth by deity or men, they are all ripe for the breaking if the perfect would just not stand in the way of the good.
Yet we daily want purity, if not in governance, in the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe, even the rocks we wear for adornment, all as pure as possible, and even though we differ on the standard of what is 'pure', we want it, and often are perfectly happy to accommodate the concepts of purity others have, if not incorporate those concepts along with our own, so long as we see that end result as more pure. We place enough value on purity that we are willing to pay a premium for it, be that for what we consume, wear, or own.
Yet with governance it is not so. Even now those who claim to have the same goals, are willing to accept adulteration, and attack those with the highest standards as 'standing in the way of the good', for not being infused with a willingness, if not zeal, for abandoning principle in favor of pragmatism.
The old "Do something, even if it is wrong!' philosophy fails to take in that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, that choosing to deliberate further is a choice, that the maid waiting for Mr Right may end up a spinster, or married to one heck of a guy.
If we are to have laws, especially codified overwhelming principles (for laws are only the attempt to set principles in practice), then we have decided those laws should bind all equally, should protect the least of us as well as those with great means, and should be immune to the trappings of power; they should apply equally to all.
What it takes is a set of standards and the cultural will to aspire to meeting those standards, on the ground on a day to day basis. In this instance, the 'excess' is in favor of what we had accepted as the best way to ensure Liberty, Life, and the secure accumulation of wealth. I would far rather deal with excesses of Liberty than the excesses of the absence thereof.
I have noticed those on the Left whose philosophies are juxtaposed to and incompatible with ours have no such problem. They are content to accept any level of evil in the pursuit of their 'perfection', even though that 'perfection' includes everything in its philosophies from 'perfect' subjugation to 'perfect' monitoring of the subjects to "genetic purity" to 'perfect' control in their pursuit of their concept of perfection--right down to killing the 'imperfect' to remove them from the picture. All their forms of slavery are fine, except the past historical ones which are used to pursue those who resemble those who practiced it. Indeed their philosophies are anathema to the concepts of life, liberty, and property they decry for the very people they claim they liberate.
They have found their 'better way', their path to what they think will be Utopia, not by liberating others, but by liberating themselves from the very rules they would impose, but then if it were not for double standards they would have none.
The grave danger for those who consider themselves Conservative is to let those standards, that quest for the sort of purity become the enemy. "Doctrinaire fanatacism"another fine phrase for adhering to principle, and one who adheres to our principles should be our friend. Failure to adhere to our own principles, namely the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is what has created this mess. Our own government has not abided by the letter nor spirit of the law it is founded on.
What religion, what government, what entity can survive long if it will not go by its own rules nor hold true to its own law? What corporation routinely violates its own bylaws? Not even a local social club would long survive such egregious anarchy.
If you are a Conservative, you allegedly want to retain those founding principles of this nation, as laid forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Where you see deviation from those founding principles, either you accept the deviation and wish to change the Constitution and Bill of Rights (the Democrat approach, through mainly judicial fiat), or you seek to return, in practice, to those codified principles that founded this nation.
You follow those principles or you seek to change, 'reinterpret', or get around them. 'In or out', in this instance, is not demagoguery, it is a question of following the law. There is no kinda sorta purt'near killed someone, stole something, committed arson, you did or you didn't, all motivation aside.
One of the insidious evils of the human ability to rationalize things is that virtually anything, with the right 'logic' and repetition can be eventually justified through the process, and has been, from the retention of ill gotten gains to the genocidal slaughter of millions, to the physical destruction of babies in the womb and sale of their parts, to the institutionalized theft of property (or the use thereof) from its owners. Someone always has a logical sounding reason why such should be permitted, even though its fundamentally wrong.
The bar was set over 200 years ago by those who founded this country, and long before that by lawgivers acting in the name of their deities, who laid down the principles by which this Republic is to operate. Calls for compromise are the advocation (for the convenience or profit of those advocating that compromise) of breaking those rules, abandoning those principles, at least in part, of ignoring the law, of accepting the "good" over the perfect.
For those who advocate falling short of the mark, even as a 'pragmatic' gesture, an 'incremental step' to returning to those principles, if returning to the level of purity in concept and practice of those concepts that is demanded if the Supreme Law of the Land (The US Constitution) is to be accomplished, then we need to keep our eyes on that prize and not equivocate when it comes to the principles we would restore to practice.
Nor should we deride those who hold those principles sacrosanct, for they are not the enemy, but the standard bearers of our movement.
I sense in your post an urgency to convince, to persuade. Don't be disappointed if you fall short. See, Ben Franklin pointed out, "It is not sufficient to appeal to intellect to persuade. To persuade, once must appeal to interest".
To establish interest (motivation) one must detect what a person WANTS. In the case of many self described Never Trumpers, what they want is revealed in what they call themselves - reasons to maintain, defend and justify an a priori - i.e., Trump is not O.K. Period. End of discussion.
Any information which does not fit into that template will (we may be certain of this at least) be wholly rejected.
We may see the essence of fanaticism here - a closed circle of impressions and information. When reading posts, it may be assured that a Never Trumper is not reading to understand nor much less ponder, they are reading in order to construct a retort. Purely.
Fanatics never say
Never see
Never think and
Never do
Anything
That's really new
Burma Shave.
I believe that in time, many self-described Never Trumpers will drop all of the defiant posturing and vituperative defensiveness, allow themselves the freedom to venture beyond the bounds of some stricture of honor- to cross that terrible line of admission of error (perhaps Trump was not the anti-Christ after all) and to rejoin the greater war effort with shoulder-to-wheel, sturm to drang, nose to grindstone.
In fact, many Never Trumpers, though vocal and bitter about things at the top, are still engaged in the political process (making political donations to candidates/causes, communicating with legislators/officials, working with campaigns) but they are just divorced from anything that even approaches tangible support for DJT. It is for them, a matter of honor.
See, once a person makes extreme declarations, (such and such is this way and no other) there is in their mind a terrible (intolerable) price to pay of humiliation to admit error. So their destiny is to defend those statements - that defiant emphatic declaration to their dying day. The alternative you see is to die - or at least to suffer some measure of humiliation or "loss of face" which though insignificant to virtually all living things save themselves, drives their resistance to any wavering or recantation the way a headwind drives a sailing vessel on the high seas. Forward! Always forward!!
Magnificent!
After two years of snark and bitterness here, it's refreshing to read such an eloquent POV of the everlasting question, ...."WTF is their problem?"
:beer:
Saying the President is “unfit for office” is a serious and sweeping judgment and IMO you have not justified it.
Magnificent!
After two years of snark and bitterness here, it's refreshing to read such an eloquent POV of the everlasting question, ...."WTF is their problem?"
:beer:
Not so fast. The same could be applied to those who blindly approve of everything Trump does and cannot admit any error in his behavior. I truly think most of us here are skeptical - not a supporter but willing to give credit when he does something right. Blind worship or blind dislike serves no one and does not improve the discourse.
Yeah, I agree with the first part of your statement. I'm still not sure why you carried it on that long, and continue to even now.
It's a conflict between the rationalist and the emotional viewpoint. DC Patriot and many in his camp feels that they have a compelling rational argument to support Trump and get very frustrated that others who disagree remain intransigent. That frustration often generates a tendency toward vituperation i.e., "WHY CAN'T YOU SEE REASON!?!"
The strident Never Trump camps has a list of shortcomings and offenses which constitute ample reason for their own rejection. For them, these reasons are often highly subjective but no less compelling because they intuitively link them to their past experiences of similar behavior and all sorts of alarm bells go off.
I would say to Never Trumpers, maybe DJT is not like the others. Maybe he is a singular figure - someone who seeks moral ends by immoral means and is one of those rare intellects which can - against all odds and reason, achieve them!! Maybe he doesn't fit into ANY previous categories or pigeon holes because he is in some very significant ways, entirely unique.
To Trump Supporters I would say, let the Never Trumpers reach their own conclusions in their own time- don't imagine that rational argument - no matter how compelling they may seem to you, will persuade them.
It has to do with the psychology of persuasion. Even if people disagree with you on the open forum, where people tend to defend their opinions the way Raptors defend their eggs, when they are alone with their thoughts, they may reconsider their positions. When ego is not on the line, people are more likely to really consider things in a calm, rational way.
Nobody changes an opinion about politics by confrontation in the form of rational argument. That's because most opinions are arrived at through emotions/intuition, which are a synthesis of unconscious and conscious content. We don't consciously choose our attitudes, they emerge out of our feelings/intuitions which we develop from cogitation, which is almost purely an emotional process.
So don't be too upset if Never Trumper seem to be blowing off your arguments. They may consider them later. I've seen it happen on other fora!! Patience is a virtue and one of the enduring frustrations of reality is that we can't crawl inside another person's skin and live their life for them.
I'm neither an EverTrumper or a NeverTrumper, which I think is the only non-emotion-based, rational position. You make a mistake of logic when you attribute rationality to EverTrumpers.
It should be noted, when it comes to "snark", you evidently take a back seat to nobody! :laugh:
The main reason for being "never Trump" is summed up in the passage from Lord Acton's The History of Freedom in Antiquity:
At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success. No obstacle has been so constant, or so difficult to overcome, as uncertainty and confusion touching the nature of true liberty. If hostile interests have wrought much injury, false ideas have wrought still more; and its advance is recorded in the increase of knowledge, as much as in the improvement of laws.
In the American context, sincere friends of freedom are called "conservatives", since conserving the American Founding is the surest guard of freedom we Americans have. The morally unmoored economic nationalism of Trump and his true believers, represents is not conservatism, but an auxiliary, association with may be useful to the advance of freedom, as for example in the appointment of Justice Gorsuch, but this association is dangerous and may become disastrous, has certainly given opponents just grounds of opposition, and likely will kindle dispute over the spoils if the uneasy coalition of actual American conservatives and Trumpites is ever successful in advancing an agenda beyond deregulation and shifting the bench right-ward.
Respectfully, I think that your hurt feelings have clouded many of your perceptions with over-generalities and led to (forgive me) outright incorrect conclusions.
The level of your conviction very clearly tells me that you are not ready to consider any alternative views.
That is unfortunate, not so much for you (indeed, you seem very satisfied with yourself) as for the nation and the Republican party which you believe is not only utterly and completely useless, but worse, complicit in every significant regard with the worst attributes of the far left.
Beware self-righteousness. I imagine that somewhere deep down inside your heart of hearts, you are not nearly as confident in everything you declare as you represent in your post(s).
A thirst for towering certainty, bold separations into absolute good and absolute bad, without nuance or doubt of the slightest shade pervades this post.
Pondering and long consideration of alternative points of view does not come easily to you.
You mention Tolkien's Mordor.
I find it interesting that here, perhaps especially here, those who hold the highest standards are encouraged to divest themselves of those standards and derided for maintaining them.
After all, that is, and has been the problem with the GOP. Raise the bar and be accused of being a 'perfectionist', standing in the way of the good, an evil unto yourself for wanting the very best, most Constitutional America possible: one in compliance with its own Supreme Law of the Land.
Oh, my. How unrealistic, how unpragmatic such aspirations are considered by those who would deride them. Yet, if not for an ideal, if not for goals to strive for, what is there to guide people in their lives but the rumbling in their belly, the irrational desire of shiny objects, and the occasional biological urges?
It seems to matter not whether those goals are those laid in scriptures for thousands of years, or the well thought out writings of political philosophers and statesmen of only a couple hundred years ago--among them our Founders. Whether those are laws set forth by deity or men, they are all ripe for the breaking if the perfect would just not stand in the way of the good.
Yet we daily want purity, if not in governance, in the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe, even the rocks we wear for adornment, all as pure as possible, and even though we differ on the standard of what is 'pure', we want it, and often are perfectly happy to accommodate the concepts of purity others have, if not incorporate those concepts along with our own, so long as we see that end result as more pure. We place enough value on purity that we are willing to pay a premium for it, be that for what we consume, wear, or own.
Yet with governance it is not so. Even now those who claim to have the same goals, are willing to accept adulteration, and attack those with the highest standards as 'standing in the way of the good', for not being infused with a willingness, if not zeal, for abandoning principle in favor of pragmatism.
The old "Do something, even if it is wrong!' philosophy fails to take in that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, that choosing to deliberate further is a choice, that the maid waiting for Mr Right may end up a spinster, or married to one heck of a guy.
If we are to have laws, especially codified overwhelming principles (for laws are only the attempt to set principles in practice), then we have decided those laws should bind all equally, should protect the least of us as well as those with great means, and should be immune to the trappings of power; they should apply equally to all.
What it takes is a set of standards and the cultural will to aspire to meeting those standards, on the ground on a day to day basis. In this instance, the 'excess' is in favor of what we had accepted as the best way to ensure Liberty, Life, and the secure accumulation of wealth. I would far rather deal with excesses of Liberty than the excesses of the absence thereof.
I have noticed those on the Left whose philosophies are juxtaposed to and incompatible with ours have no such problem. They are content to accept any level of evil in the pursuit of their 'perfection', even though that 'perfection' includes everything in its philosophies from 'perfect' subjugation to 'perfect' monitoring of the subjects to "genetic purity" to 'perfect' control in their pursuit of their concept of perfection--right down to killing the 'imperfect' to remove them from the picture. All their forms of slavery are fine, except the past historical ones which are used to pursue those who resemble those who practiced it. Indeed their philosophies are anathema to the concepts of life, liberty, and property they decry for the very people they claim they liberate.
They have found their 'better way', their path to what they think will be Utopia, not by liberating others, but by liberating themselves from the very rules they would impose, but then if it were not for double standards they would have none.
The grave danger for those who consider themselves Conservative is to let those standards, that quest for the sort of purity become the enemy. "Doctrinaire fanatacism"another fine phrase for adhering to principle, and one who adheres to our principles should be our friend. Failure to adhere to our own principles, namely the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is what has created this mess. Our own government has not abided by the letter nor spirit of the law it is founded on.
What religion, what government, what entity can survive long if it will not go by its own rules nor hold true to its own law? What corporation routinely violates its own bylaws? Not even a local social club would long survive such egregious anarchy.
If you are a Conservative, you allegedly want to retain those founding principles of this nation, as laid forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Where you see deviation from those founding principles, either you accept the deviation and wish to change the Constitution and Bill of Rights (the Democrat approach, through mainly judicial fiat), or you seek to return, in practice, to those codified principles that founded this nation.
You follow those principles or you seek to change, 'reinterpret', or get around them. 'In or out', in this instance, is not demagoguery, it is a question of following the law. There is no kinda sorta purt'near killed someone, stole something, committed arson, you did or you didn't, all motivation aside.
One of the insidious evils of the human ability to rationalize things is that virtually anything, with the right 'logic' and repetition can be eventually justified through the process, and has been, from the retention of ill gotten gains to the genocidal slaughter of millions, to the physical destruction of babies in the womb and sale of their parts, to the institutionalized theft of property (or the use thereof) from its owners. Someone always has a logical sounding reason why such should be permitted, even though its fundamentally wrong.
The bar was set over 200 years ago by those who founded this country, and long before that by lawgivers acting in the name of their deities, who laid down the principles by which this Republic is to operate. Calls for compromise are the advocation (for the convenience or profit of those advocating that compromise) of breaking those rules, abandoning those principles, at least in part, of ignoring the law, of accepting the "good" over the perfect.
For those who advocate falling short of the mark, even as a 'pragmatic' gesture, an 'incremental step' to returning to those principles, if returning to the level of purity in concept and practice of those concepts that is demanded if the Supreme Law of the Land (The US Constitution) is to be accomplished, then we need to keep our eyes on that prize and not equivocate when it comes to the principles we would restore to practice.
Nor should we deride those who hold those principles sacrosanct, for they are not the enemy, but the standard bearers of our movement.
Exactly what a wifebeater would tell his spouse. I'm done with the abuse and the lies and the cheating and the beatings. It is an apostate party now dominated by big government liberals that run the show. The fruits testify to this fact. You are free to ignore it - but insisting the rest of us ignore it is not gonna happen.
Nope. Might as well try selling me on homosexual marriage as being biblical or that Satanism is a better belief system.
Bingo!
Well Dr. Shrink, you need to return that PhD degree you yanked out of a Cracker Jack Box. I am wholly confident in that what I type, I am confident in stating.
Blah, blah, blah, blah gobbledygook .
Not when it's bullshit and anathema to those principles and values that govern my thinking.
It perfectly describes D.C. - a corrupt cesspool of Orc-ish political vermin in a barren wasteland of foundational principles where the very air they breathe is a poisonous fume of Statism.
Those who deride us for forsaking the good in search of the perfect...Smokin' Joe has a good heart and often posts with excellence, but I have never derided anyone.
When you are able to post to this topic without resorting to profanity, harsh condemnations and general shot-gun-style hostility I will take them more seriously.
As it is, posts on this forum seem to fall into two categories - those meant to engage in expression and promotion of thoughts, information and opinions which and invite exchange and....those which are meant to shut down exchange of those same things. Your seems in the latter category.
It's a conflict between the rationalist and the emotional viewpoint. DC Patriot and many in his camp feel that they have compelling rational arguments to support Trump and get very frustrated that others who disagree remain intransigent. That frustration often generates a tendency toward vituperation i.e., "WHY CAN'T YOU SEE REASON!?!"Nothing subjective about character assassination and lying. Nothing.
The strident Never Trump camp has a list of his major shortcomings/offenses which constitute ample reason (in their view) for rejection. For them, these reasons are often highly subjective but no less compelling because they intuitively link them to their past experiences of similar behavior and all sorts of alarm bells go off.
That would make him unique in history, imho. Do you seriously think immoral means can accomplish moral ends? That's the same justification the Left uses for their perfidy.
But maybe DJT is not like the others. Maybe he is a singular figure - someone who seeks moral ends by seemingly immoral (or at least highly distasteful)means and is one of those rare intellects* which can - against all odds and reason, achieve them!! Maybe he doesn't fit into ANY previous categories or pigeon holes because he is in some very significant ways, entirely unique.
To Trump Supporters I would say, let the Never Trumpers reach their own conclusions in their own time- don't imagine that rational argument - no matter how compelling they may seem to you, will persuade them.Yes, please don't imagine that your rationalizations will overcome our morality. Thanks. You can stop any time. It's tedious to see the contortions of logical fallacy which have been displayed to justify egregious nonsense.
It has to do with the psychology of persuasion. Even if people disagree with you on the open forum, where people tend to defend their opinions the way Raptors defend their eggs, when they are alone with their thoughts, they may reconsider their positions. When ego is not on the line, people are more likely to really consider things in a calm, rational way.Oh, back to the Freud. How quaint, but no so quaint, nor so well established as the scriptural basis of people who are never truly alone nor without guidance. Perhaps that is the difference. What you don't seem to understand is that being calm and rational only works if your rationale is consistent and correct.
Okay Lucy, here's your nickel. Actually, the process is very rational. He said things which were not true, he knew were not true, he did so for personal gain (talk about ego) and he continued to do so for personal gain, proving that there was neither a moment of error nor accident, but a pervasive pattern of behaviour. That pattern of behaviour matched other behaviour and previous conduct which indicated an individual who, despite what he said or the lofty reasons ascribed to his actions did them for personal benefit, first, foremost, and always.
Nobody changes an opinion about politics by confrontation with rational argument. That's because most strong opinions are arrived at primarily through emotions/intuition, which are a synthesis of unconscious and conscious content. We don't really consciously choose our attitudes, they emerge out of our feelings/intuitions which we develop from cogitation. This is almost purely an emotional process.
So don't be too upset if a Never Trumper seems to be blowing off your arguments. They may consider them later. I've seen it happen on other fora!! Patience is a virtue and one of the enduring frustrations of reality is that we can't crawl inside another person's skin and live their life for them.Thank you for not trying to establish a parasitic relationship with me, or anyone else here. You make your own choices in this life, and I will continue to make mine.
* Regarding unique intellects/personality types, CG Jung (the great psychologist and colleague of Sigmund Freud) identified some personality types as "extroverted/irrational". That does not mean they are insane, but rather in the Jungian psychological lexicon, "irrational" means that they use "impressions" to make many decisions. An impression (in the same lexicon), is a perception achieved in a person's mind which is a complex mélange of rational (logic, reason, factual), empirical (experience), and affective (raw emotion/intuition). Most people are either emotion/intuition-centered or thinking-centered. Extroverted/irrational personality types are somewhere in the middle - therefore they do not easily fit into our past experiences with people and often seem very strange or even scary. They are often very good at dealing with chaos because they commonly aren't disturbed by it - in some cases they THRIVE on chaotic situations where others are daunted and dismayed by them. Michael Eisner is one such personality. They are often very successful or sometimes, very troublesome characters. Eisner for instance, was also known to be a grand champion a-hole who fired people by the barrel and was known to be disagreeable - however, he turned Disney from a failing company into a powerhouse of the media age.For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Smokin' Joe has a good heart and often posts with excellence, but I have never derided anyone.You would assert that the Devil might never do that which appears good to achieve evil ends (no I am not comparing DJT to the Devil, here).
Likewise, I qualified the use of that term "forsaking the good in search of the perfect" to those who apply doctrinaire rigid standards to affairs of state and who declare that DJT is unfit for office because he is a "liberal". The last time I checked liberals do not appoint people like Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Awaiting your substantive response and hitting my stop watch NOW...
You would assert that the Devil might never do that which appears good to achieve evil ends (no I am not comparing DJT to the Devil, here).
Viz: Someone wins the lottery. They use the money to drink themselves to death, or start a binge of partying that ends in a lethal overdose of drugs. Was winning the lottery a good thing?
Sometimes, that which appears to be 'good' is, in fact, good. Sometimes, the effects are far worse than if that 'good' had not happened. Only time will tell. We have had SCOTUS appointments which went bad, most notably, Roberts in recent time, so the jury is still out.
In addition, there have been quite a few EOs that appear to be good, flawed only in that they are subject to being overturned at the whim of a successor. They aren't carved in stone.
Even the overturning of Obama regulations stuffed through at the end of that Administration can be overturned in Congress should that change, for those were the result of Bills which were passed to overturn those regulations.
So, nothing is permanent, but there is, on this website, a list of the promises made during the election campaign by none other than the POTUS himself. I'll be so generous as to let that be the standard (his own words) by which his progress should be judged.
If a liberal thought that appointing one conservative justice to SCOTUS when there are likely two more to be appointed this term of office (enough to overturn one conservative) would further their aims by taking heat and scrutiny off of the administration and allowing other things to be enacted devoid of the scrutiny which should ever be upon the machinations of government, sure they would. The temporary 'losses' will depend on those filling the lower courts, and the wheels of just-us grind slowly enough that there will be little, if any setback, from appointing one Conservative justice to replace the one who left us all too soon.
IOW, that gesture costs nothing in the long run, but has been used for political gain as the thing to point to for Conservative cred. We'll see how he does with the next one.
I don't care if you do, or never do. Interesting that the above condemnation is perfectly acceptable to Always Trump to push their devotion to the man they made king: "Don't give a damn how many p#####s he grabbed in his day."
I guess taking them seriously is more fitting for someone of your political bent.
Just more Always Trump Projection on your part. The 'Replacing the GOP' thread had overt efforts made to shut the thread down by the very A/T people you defend as 'rational'.
I never called those people traitors, harmful, selfish, evil, self-righteous, and the litany of crap you and yours fling upon those of us DAILY who will not compromise our principles and/or advocate separating from apostasy, lawlessness and Collectivism.
Instead we get psychoanalysis from self-ascribed shrinks like you subtly attributing our motives as dangerous and harmful if not evil in themselves.
Well... pound sand pal. I'm not interested in getting along with those preaching apostasy.
It is my firm policy not to attempt to engage in topical discussion with fanatics since they are not generally interested in considering any opposing point of view, but only in reinforcing/celebrating their own.
I'm neither an EverTrumper or a NeverTrumper, which I think is the only non-emotion-based, rational position. You make a mistake of logic when you attribute rationality to EverTrumpers.
Same exact crap I hear from SJW who insist I'm a 'fanatic' because I an not interested in considering their POV, which is anathema to mine and is not deserving of any consideration except to eschew it with all vigor.
So, your 'policy' not to engage in discussion with 'fanatics' being in place - we're done talking.
I believe that in time, many self-described Never Trumpers will drop all of the defiant posturing and vituperative defensiveness, allow themselves the freedom to venture beyond the bounds of some stricture of honor- to cross that terrible line of admission of error (perhaps Trump was not the anti-Christ after all) and to rejoin the greater war effort with shoulder-to-wheel, sturm to drang, nose to grindstone.
It is for them, a matter of honor.
See, once a person makes extreme declarations, (such and such is this way and no other) there is in their mind a terrible (intolerable) price to pay of humiliation to admit error. So their destiny is to defend those statements - that defiant emphatic declaration to their dying day. The alternative you see is to die - or at least to suffer some measure of humiliation or "loss of face" which though insignificant to virtually all living things save themselves, drives their resistance to any wavering or recantation the way a headwind drives a sailing vessel on the high seas. Forward! Always forward!!
Not a single chance in hell.
To admit some error on my part would be to admit that:
The end justifies the means.
That lying through one's teeth (not once or twice, but continually without end) is just fine,
That painting a man of low brow and lower character, after the fact, can make him a rosy hero, a saint, and even a god.
That principles I have held dear my whole life mean *nothing*, because if one is ceded, so are they all.
That a heavy gloss of turd-polish and spray-on tan fixes everything.
and that words mean nothing at all.
Absolutely, and not unjustly.
Dead wrong. I find it shameful that people would vote for such a boorish ass. His past aside (where I could dwell for hours), just the manner of his election was so unconscionable as to make him forever unpalatable to me. Just the type of character who would baldfaced concoct lies, and slander his opponents, is all I need to know about the man.
That guy is a sack of crap, and it doesn't matter how much you wish it otherwise, I will never, ever trust a man like that. Period.
So you can damn well stop gazing at my navel for me. I know exactly why I don't trust the man, and why I never will. And I am most assuredly not in error, any error whatsoever.
Foremost: Character. If that is not there, nothing else matters, because there can be no trust.
Lastly I address something stated by another poster previously regarding the supposed impossibility of achieving moral outcomes using immoral means. The entirety of that question hunges on the definition of immoral. Lying is not immoral if in the process of applying a falsehood, good is achieved( a "white lie"), can we not agree on that?...The watchword in politics is not "what is moral" the watchword is "what will achieve results"
If you say it. In my own experience I have found that declarations of uniquivocal certainty about things which cannot possibly be known fror certain (the hearts of men) or really any absolute statement about anything as chaos-ridden as politics, or the future ( more than a few seconds from now), are doomed to eventually being revealed as vain.
As someone recently stated, "you may be the first" to prove that belief incorrect.
With all due respect, all that your statement proves to me is that you know your own feelings. Nothing more and nothing less. I believe your statements about your feelings. Your prognostications and declarations of "facts" are another matter.
Lastly I address something stated by another poster previously regarding the supposed impossibility of achieving moral outcomes using immoral means. The entirety of that question hinges on the definition of "immoral". Lying is not immoral if in the process of applying a falsehood, good is achieved( a "white lie"), can we not agree on that?
Oh, hold on now - Either I missed this in your post, or you have since edited:
No, we will not agree, and as predicted the entirety of your defense is one of 'the ends justifying the means'. This is, and has always been wholly against Conservative principle, and is a corruption of truth.
It is a slippery slope you've stepped upon @LateForLunch ... I have always respected your mind and thought process, but I will never go with you where you are going now.
The behavior of Trump and his minions is simply egregious, and without root or bough.
@INVAR is exactly right. Sin does not fight sin. Only truth will do.
We have arrived at an impasse. I am grateful for the civilized responses. Even the disagreements were light years removed from most of the ones I have witnessed on other forums where these issues were discussed. Kudos to all!! :patriot:
Just a note on history- Christians were utterly and totally devoured in the Borgia reign. The Borgias were the Law. So it is in all savage empires, that those who rule are immune to being subject to their own laws. Of course, even though the Borgias slew or destroyed anyone or anything that stood in their way during the height of their reign, most of them were also eventually murdered, their families decimated and eventually utterly destroyed - often by their own infighting.
The Godfather could have been about the Borgias in many ways.
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct
or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in a new order of things.
-Machiavelli
All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” 24But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebub the ruler of the demons.”Matt 12:23-28
25And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. 26“If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? 27“If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. 28“But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Matt 12:23-28
Pretty much sums up the perils of doing evil in the name of achieving good.
Aside from deception on the battlefield, you mentioned lying and how it wasn't bad as a means to achieve an end, but the only people who believe that on a wholesale scale are Muslims practicing Taqiyya.
Or to put it another way, if your competitor in business lied about you and your company to get a job contract, or a co-worker lied to your boss to get a promotion you were in line for, would you argue for the practice?
A good rule of thumb is to not engage in behaviour against others which you would find unfair if it was to be practiced on you. That is the root of behaving honorably. Using evil means to accomplish what might weem to be good ends only corrupts what you build, sowing the seeds of rot in the foundations.
Once the threshold of the ends justify the means is crossed there are no real limits left standing. It is the proverbial slippery slope that in time ends up with people in ovens for the "greater good". People can rationalize pretty much anything once their moral anchors have been severed. I won't knowingly be a party to any of that. And that is my biggest objection with Trump. It isn't that I expect Trump to put people in ovens but the well has been poisoned and there will be dire consequences if this approach isn't abandoned. I guess what I find most disturbing is so many on "our side" were so willing to go down this road and not see it for what it is and why I'm no longer a Republican.888high58888
Once the threshold of the ends justify the means is crossed there are no real limits left standing. It is the proverbial slippery slope that in time ends up with people in ovens for the "greater good". People can rationalize pretty much anything once their moral anchors have been severed. I won't knowingly be a party to any of that. And that is my biggest objection with Trump. It isn't that I expect Trump to put people in ovens but the well has been poisoned and there will be dire consequences if this approach isn't abandoned. I guess what I find most disturbing is so many on "our side" were so willing to go down this road and not see it for what it is and why I'm no longer a Republican.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
"And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering.
Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man.
And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Sam Kercheval about reform of the Virginia Constitution, July 12, 1816; "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson," Definitive Edition, Albert Ellery Bergh, Editor, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association (1905) Vol. XV, p. 40
As I know you understand, you are arguing with people who have no use for morality when it comes to achieving political power. As you rightly noted, the ends justifies whatever means is necessary to achieve it - even if it's lying, slandering, misdirecting and grandstanding on a false promise. L4L admitted as such, as if there was a better morality in lying for the sake of 'the good'. It will be humorous in the day of Judgement to hear them attempt to justify that before the Father of Truth. We already know that behavior is condemned, and yet people are more comfortable in the lie that it is not behavior that is wrong. They truly epitomize Isaiah 5:20, for this is exactly what they are doing.
They just continue to bring home the fact that like the Democrats, we have absolutely no commonality to stand upon with such people. They are deceived, and engaging in deceit themselves to push power for themselves in the vain and false belief they somehow will achieve what they pretend we all want together.
No. What we want is not what they want. They eschew us and our refusal to compromise for the good of getting along with Democrats and Statists, and we rightfully eschew them for attempting to beguile the principled to abandon their foundations for the expedient and the temporary.
I don't want to start up a kerfuffle, but if people are going to quote scripture to justify their political opinions, the specific quotation in the Commandments uses a word which translates from the original Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew as "to bear false witness against thy neighbor". It is more specific than merely "lie". I would NEVER bear flase witness against my neighbor. That is where I draw the line. If others do that, it's on them to bear the consequences both temporal and absolute.
There is another false premise lurking in that post - the notion that there is some standard of extant morality which stands athwart the energies that would trigger "decline". From my POV, that is a fiction. The wolves are already fully and wholly in domination of the global arena of power.
Smokin' Joe has a good heart and often posts with excellence, but I have never derided anyone.
Likewise, I qualified the use of that term "forsaking the good in search of the perfect" to those who apply doctrinaire rigid standards to affairs of state and who declare that DJT is unfit for office because he is a "liberal". The last time I checked liberals do not appoint people like Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Awaiting your substantive response and hitting my stop watch NOW...
I thought this bus was headed for Realsville. Instead, it took a tortuous detour into the Twilight Zone.
I thought this bus was headed for Realsville. Instead, it took a tortuous detour into the Twilight Zone.
I thought this bus was headed for Realsville. Instead, it took a tortuous detour into the Twilight Zone.
:silly:
I followed that all the way through to your surprise, yet logical, conclusion. :beer:
... Insanity is rampant...
@Wingnut
Tell you what Wingy and with all due respect... if you represent sanity here or anywhere, the definition of sanity has cratered...bigley... :laugh:
I was on you like ugly on a Baldwin brother before the election.... But i have moved on. I have embraced the Thump. But the butt-hurt are legion here. Insanity is rampant. :beer:
I remember that. I did come across as a bit needy. As I recall, I said, "Why are you dissing Trump? Give him a chance. He will do great things. And, why can't you just be understanding?"
And you shot back, "That would be fine in a world of fairies and magic bunnies." Or something like that.
Those were the days.
uh huh
You just shot yourself in the foot and then stuck it in your mouth to stop the bleeding.
Not sure if the cul-de-sac analogy quite fits...
I think the GOP prays, and a few NT or AT believe we are on the same road and we have ended up in a cul-de-sac and are simply arguing over the approach but are agreed in the direction.
To me this is simply fantasy. Both NT and AT are fed up with both political parties and the direction they are taking this country. Although I think the AT are deluded, I have no doubt they fervently believe the cult figure that they worship is telling the truth this time and will come through on his promises.
The NT's are just as fervent in their knowledge that it is only when there is a return to the traditional Jude-Christian Conservative values that this country was founded on, by a large majority of the citizenry will to offer a cliche, the ship of state be righted.
As I've stated before he was elected but as he proves on a daily basis he is not fit to serve. Those that have emotionally invested in this man and are somehow attempting to straddle the unbridgeable divide between the two groups in the interests of party unity, or more likely their own self interest or financial security, are greatly conflicted....
During the election season I was of the view that a Trump presidency would destroy the Conservative movement for at least a generation as I'd expected he would display at least marginal competence and an affinity for the job. He has embodied the prediction for everyone arguing that voting for the lessor of two evils is idiotic and if the voters keep doing that they will end up with an idiot.... :shrug:
:3:
That's the beauty of the Internet. These comments are frozen in time, if you have the courage to let them stand, and the truth of what was said will be known in time, likely in less than a few years.
That's the beauty of the Internet. These comments are frozen in time, if you have the courage to let them stand, and the truth of what was said will be known in time, likely in less than a few years.