Did anyone’s political views change in last 6 months?

And that is true; there is no uniform. The point is that by calling these riots acts done on behalf of black people- the black population is getting used as the excuse, and that does harm their image. That is a great injustice in itslef.

 

You begin to lose them if you recognize that most of your group are hypocrites and liars.

 

I absolutely agree. You're coming from a position of libertarianism , which I also share to a large degree. I also am an ACLU-style fanatic about free speech, except under conditions of actual war. My whole family were Democrats, of the FDR persuasion, but are now Republican, with precisely the motivation you have: the lesser of two evils.

Where we might differ is this: I don't think the libertarian, free-market-over-all, approach is the right one for modern society. Neither do the people running the Republican Party, except they tend to shape government intervention to aid the business-owner class. Nothing wrong with that, in principle. But I believe
that we need to think about preserving and renewing the base of American society. So, although I am an intuitive free-trader -- as is everyone who, in Economics 101 encounters the iron-clad case for comparative advantage -- I now believe that we can't afford it, at the moment. Similarly, ten years ago, I did a speaking tour for various conservative groups, about the disadvantages of fully socialized medicine (which we have where I live). But I think we need something more than our current set-up -- maybe something along the lines of ferociously-capitalist Singapore.

Interestingly, although my Texas relatives are social conservatives (more than me, by a long way), they are also, for example, for the minimum wage.
And I think they're right.

Your post brings up another point: we've had fifty years of indoctrination -- using the term neutrally -- in fairness and equal rights for all and the evils of racism. Which is a good thing. It's gone in to the majority of whites, at least skin-deep. I've seen this with my own relatives. But ... the actions of the Hard Left now (and being accommodated by the weak liberals) are beginning to undo that good work. I've seen the growth of 'white consciousness' on the Right -- not dominant yet by a long chalk -- but there. And it's being championed by some very plausible people -- not knuckle-dragging semi-literates. The Hard Left wants to open up the racial fracture line in the US -- our Achilles' heel -- and they are succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. If they do succeed, and whites start adopting 'white pride' and paying attention to things like crime rates and IQ averages and all the rest of it ... the results won't be pretty. I think we're headed for civil war as it is, but God save us from one on racial lines.

I hope you have access to all the courageous Blacks who are speaking up against this. It takes huge reserves of personal strength of character to do so,
especially when they see examples of crude white racism around them, not hard to find.

So we have a civil war within the patriot movement: 'Civic Nationalism' vs 'Ethnic Nationalism': for an America open to every patriot regardless of race, color or creed -- or one openly based on the white 'nation'.

Which is why Trump is so frustrating, because he has the right instincts. But why, why, why, God, did you give us this particular man, when we need a Churchill or a Lincoln? (All right, God .... I know You're trying to be fair: you gave them Joe Biden.)

Oh well. You go to war with the army you've got, including its generals.

 

And this is why we should all, even the most etherial, gentle, nice intellectuals among us -- beat our ploughshares into swords and learn the art of war.
This doesn't mean there will BE a war. But Publius Flavius had it right: Si vis pacem, para bellum.

 

Lol...Here's another one who's seen the light, except in reverse, like you.
Do you think he'll be voting for trump in the privacy of his voting booth?

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/l...s-trump-in-brutal-ad-featuring-past-comments/

 

I've been disgusted with Democrats for a while now - since Hillary in 2016 to be sure.

In the last 6 months, I've become vastly more disgusted with them.

But I still won't vote Republican.

And Democrat?

NEVER again.

 

The odds are against it ... at least if you go by history.

But ... I have the sense that if a new party were to emerge, based on parts of the Republican and Democratic parties, that it would do very well.
If this part took my advice, its program would be:

--- Tulsi Gabbard's foreign policy: in nutshell, strong defensive alliances with other democracies, although not buying into any of their ethnic/border quarrels.
--- General tolerance for lifestyles involving consenting adults.
A strong decentralizing federalist approach to almost everything else. If your state wants to legalize plural marriage or bestiality, go ahead. Just don't make everyone else do it. Same for abortion and school prayer.
--- A committment to genuine school choice: if a bunch of people want to get together and have a school in which their children are taught that the earth was created 6000 years ago by an invisible man in the sky, so be it. (So far as I can see, they don't learn any real science as it is anyway.)
--- A 'centrist' social-economic policy, closer to the Christian Democrat conservative parties in Europe: raise the Federal Minimum Wage, create jobs by a lot of infrastructure projects, look at ferociously-capitalist Singapore's approach to national health care.
--- Careful protectionism to preserve American society -- this goes so against my grain -- which sometimes may involve not protective tariffs, but serious job re-training for people who would lose their jobs due to cheaper imports.
--- Campaign finance reform. Let the millionaires and billionaires spend as much as they like to try to educate us in favor of libertarian economics, or transgender whatever ... but no big money to individual candidates.
--- I'm not sure exactly how to implement this, but : much more pro-union than the traditional conservative Republican Party has been. NOT for government employees, but for Amazon and Walmart, etc.

No one will agree with all of this. Not even I do. Any real party is a coalition, a mass of compromises.

Something like this might just prevent the breakup of America, which is devoutly to be wished.

 

There's an old saw, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The biggest problem us that human beings are not omniscient, omnipresent, or omnipotent but way the hell to damn many politicians these days seem to believe they can acquire the last without benefit of the first two and everything will work out just fine. Never mind history bloody well screams, "Like hell, it will!"
No human being or group of human beings can effectively run a 20 trillion dollar economy any where but into the ground. Which is why you rarely see a leftist stand against any merger no matter how anti competitive it is.

 

You didn't? You have got to be kidding me! Is it this typical on the right that they didn't understand how and why (what reasons were given at the trial) Trump was acquitted? I can't believe it! It may be the most consequential event in this administration. Historically it may prove to be even more consequential than Trump's mishandling of the pandemic.

I think you should read the whole story. But, short of watching the long videos or reading the even longer transcripts, maybe this summary could help.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...years-to-build-is-destroyed-in-7-days.567526/

 

My politics haven't changed but my views on certain individuals have.

 

The 'moral fiber' to govern the nation isn't atypically found in moral character, though it would be nice(and admittedly, yes an important requirement.). But it's not THE most important governing trait(Democrats should know, Joe Biden's senility and his pandering did not stop him from becoming the presumptive nominee.)

To me, the most important governing trait is the ability to govern. The vision of a plan, and on this the President is mixed. Sometimes he'll say, but not do. Other times, he won't say but he'll carry a stick and it's a stick that was long needed(bringing jobs back to America.)

His Foreign policy equally has been excellent, using sanctions instead of military as his de-facto weapon of choice and when he has used military force, he's chosen to deliberately target targets that cripple the enemy, rather than waste them in a needless prolonged conflict. Had Trump been President in 2001, we don't get bogged down in Afghanistan and we certainly don't go into Iraq.

Of course for military contractors and their supporters *cough* Mitt Romney *cough*, these methods involve entirely too much American winning and not enough kickbacks to the contractors, so we're abandoning our nonexistent allies on nonexistent agreements.

The day where a neocon and their illicit gains in government could be swayed with "tough" words fell with the quagmire and failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. With both failed strategy and deliberate government for contractors, not for the national defense of the nation it is clear that the neocon is not to be trusted.

In fact, that's how Trump won in 2016. In Iowa, he in no inexplicit terms had rejected the neoconservative ideology and it is that ideology that Graham(a neocon himself) was trying to defend. Despite this, Trump offered a fig leaf and prominent government positions to neocons, you'll remember this earned early praise for his administration.

Except, a neocon cannot be a Nationalist. There isn't enough(or any) paybacks for supporting policies that while effective for your nation do not give bottom line dollars to your corporate lobbyists. So we had the "resistance"(what, you thought they were nobly fighting with their purest intentions?)

And with Democrats aligning with neoconservatives(at first to combat the tea party, and obviously now to defeat Trump), Democrats have lost the purity argument and now given the disasters in US cities, they're trying to lose the sanity argument.

As a Nationalist, my views have not changed but they have tightened considerably. We need to keep this administration so that we can limit the fires from reaching every city and town in this country, and in 2024 we need to seriously reevaluate our options. We need SOMETHING to replace the Democrats. Greens, Libertarians or us Nationalists(preferably) but I don't care which one.

Do it.

 

Oh I thought you had a serious answer. For the record, I ignore all such "Watch this video" posts. They never demonstrate what they claim.

Anyway it should be a lot simpler to highlight where the President's defense team stated that the President has the power to "decide their own powers."

 

That's a good policy. I do the same. I don't follow external links (video or otherwise) meant to "make the argument for me so I don't have to make it myself". But if your claim is (quoting you) "I sure didn't hear that in the Senate deliberations." well... a reference to where you can "hear that in the Senate deliberations" would be appropriate, don't you think?

In any case. That's not a video. Or even an external link. It's an internal link to my own post in which I answer the question you asked.

 

And I went to your link and I didn't see the answer to my question. Not that I expected to of course.

 

You couldn't?

Here's the relevant link. I'll cut and paste it from the page for you. This is the precedent I was talking about, and that you said you didn't "remember" hearing.

https://www.businessinsider.com/alan-dershowitz-trump-re-election-public-interest-2020-1

You demand quite a bit of hand-holding, young man, don't you?

 

Ahh I remember that argument, and it's nothing like how you represented it!

First, this is what you said:

Now let's go to what Dershowitz said.

"Alan Dershowitz, one of President Donald Trump's defense attorneys, argued during Wednesday's impeachment trial that a president can't be impeached for a quid pro quo designed to boost his reelection chances if he believes his reelection is in the public interest.

"Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest and, mostly, you're right — your election is in the public interest," Dershowitz said. "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment."

Dershowitz also laid out a hypothetical scenario in which a Democratic president told Israel he would withhold all aid until the Israeli government stopped all settlement growth, or if he told Palestine he would withhold aid until the Palestinian government stopped "paying terrorists."

"And the president said: quid pro quo," Dershowitz added. "If you don't do it, you don't get the money. If you do it, you get the money. There is no one in this chamber that would regard that as in any way unlawful.""

Either you didn't understand your links, or you were being deliberately deceptive by first linking your own posts, before begrudgingly giving one that you thought represented your argument that the President can decide his own powers. Now I could give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume that you don't really understand anything and just bark back talking points that your told. But I suspect that you are actually smart enough to know you are being deceptive and purposefully misrepresented a link.

But I can't say for sure. Care to clarify?

 

I have become more affirmed in my opinion that monarchy is the best system, elected representatives have shown themselves to be incompetent in every case. Towards the representative republic in which I live, I have become very anti-authoritarian and much more pro-gun. I resolve to not be told what to do by average idiots who have conned their way into positions of power.

I plan to write in Elizabeth II for president again and John McAfee or Vermin Supreme for vice president.

I'm done pretending like I care.

 

What limits the President's powers? For example, a President can declare an emergency in Florida on election day and send the Armed forces to enforce a quarantine in South Florida or other areas where there are more Democratic voters. Or Texas, if it's a Democratic President. Or he could order the Treasury to print $1 trillion to pay for his campaign... I could go on and on. It's only his imagination that limits a President's power.

 

You could go on and on, but you would do that only to avoid the argument that you made. Now...show me in the article you linked where Trump's legal team argued that a the President could decide their own powers. That was your argument, and as your own link demonstrates, it has nothing to do with the link. So do you admit you were wrong or do you want to "go on and on?"

The thing is, no matter how "on and on" you go, we both know you're wrong. You showed that in your link.

 

What the hell?

I told you my argument. And asked a question. What would limit a President's power?

If you can't answer that question it means that nothing limits it. Stop running around and answer it. Or acfknowledge what I already know: that you don't have an answer.

 

Definitely. Instead of being a right leaning person in the middle, I'm now way more on the right. Liberal politicians are actually letting a city get taken over by thugs and PRAISING it. Meanwhile those people that are residents there are screwed and so are the business owners and the lefty government isn't doing a damn thing about it. and now they wanna get rid of cops? Screw that!

 

Do you have any actual evidence that backs that up?

 

I really don't like you editing my reply when that editing includes key points I made. Here is my reply:

So...I still want to see in the article you linked where Trump's legal team argued that a the President could decide their own powers. You made a preposterous claim, provided links that you claimed proved it, and then ultimately, didn't say anything of the sort.

So, either prove your claim or admit you were wrong.

 

Ah! I see the problem. You took the expression "decide their own powers" out of context. One expects people to understand the context when they jump into a discussion.

The expression was not mine. It was the poster I was responding to who used it. I just followed their lead to avoid derailing the thread by getting into a debate about semantics.

This is what I said.

The expression "decide their own powers" that the poster used, even though in a strict sense is not accurate, it's not conceptually inaccurate either. But if it confuses you, the above quote should clarify things for you.

The bottom line is that, with their decision, and the reasoning used to support it, the Republican Senate has allowed a President to abuse his power at his/her discretion. Which makes their power as President almost unlimited.

BTW, what in the world kept you from just saying that that was the expression you were hung up on?

 

Changes in the last 6 months? No, I still think politicians of any position need term limits of 2, 4 year terms. No more. No extended benefits or lifelong health care or privileges. No access to law makes as lobbyists. Hell, ban them from lobbying at all.

No politician or political party has veered from their course set - grab as much money and power as possible, inflame the masses with rhetoric, make sure the people have someone else they can blame besides the politicians themselves, and throw a match on it.