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Well, it’s been a good run, the last eight years excepted, of course.
Again, a modest proposal: shall we make the primary rules uniform throughout all states?
Suggestions:
–Presidential Delegates are always proportional, Not “Winner take all”, since it is the national presidency, and not a state Senate seat.
–No “open primaries”, which only allow sabotage voters of the other party to go urinate into one party’s voting pool. After all, where did Trump win big?
–No “jungle primaries” which are vulnerable to political chicanery? (See the story of Evin Edwards Vs. David Duke in Louisiana as an example)
No.
Because the nation exists to serve the states, not the other way around.
If you’re happy with everybody doing things the same way from sea to shining sea, then good on you. Some of us prefer at least a bit of local color while Our Betters tell us how to live our lives like one big equally miserable family.
While you’re at it, have Congress pass a law mandating that the National League use the DH too. Because shiny happy unity.
Assuming, of course, that you still want to dance with him after you catch him banging the hat check girl.
In the back alley. Behind the dumpster.
***
The only serious proposal in the same room as the table is an Article V convention of the states.
.
And nobody wants to put that on the table.
No.
Because the nation exists to serve the states, not the other way around.
If you’re happy with everybody doing things the same way from sea to shining sea, then good on you. Some of us prefer at least a bit of local color while Our Betters tell us how to live our lives like one big equally miserable family.
OK, fine. But don’t be surprised when people learn how to game the system. Again, where did Trump win, and big at that?
At least this primary season had more of a race than in the past, where the front-loaded, winner-take-all, and open primaries had the chosen candidate pre-ordained by February.
While you’re at it, have Congress pass a law mandating that the National League use the DH too. Because shiny happy unity.
Funny how you don’t think of having the American League get rid of its shitty DH Rule instead.
1. Any system can and will be gamed given enough time and motive.
2. The DH is an abomination fermented in Satan’s gut before being farted from his infernal anus. But since when did Congress ever do anything I liked?
Is the Presidential election a national election, or a nation-wide election conducted in the states simultaneously?
Are the political parties national parties or affiliated state parties?
Is the Presidential election a national election, or a nation-wide election conducted in the states simultaneously?
Are the political parties national parties or affiliated state parties?
Does the primary process narrow, and thus ultimately determines, the nation-wide election conducted in the states?
Is there anything that can be done to improve that primary process?
I asked first.
This seems deja vu in a way .. in California the state GOP fell over itself to elect The Arnold cuz ELECTABILITY and CONAN WILL SMASH OUR ENEMIES ..
and that worked out well :::spit:::
I asked first.
One rhetorical question merits another.
BTW, I’ve said from the beginning he was Hillary’s stalking horse and I’ve seen nothing yet to make me drop my first analysis. The only wildcard is Trump’s own ego. Here’s the tell — if Trump doesn’t go full bore in attacking Hillary like he has every Republican candidate, then you know the fix is in.
Neither question was rhetorical.
Okay, thinking about it, yeah I guess they’re at least half rhetorical. But they’re sincere since in order to answer your question we have to establish the premises we’re operating from.
The process is a means to an end. Tinkering with the process is pointless unless we’re clear about the end to which the process is directed.
Neither question was rhetorical.
OK, fair enough. I tend to be guarded on this blog because questions like that usually *are*.
Is the Presidential election a national election, or a nation-wide election conducted in the states simultaneously?
Are the political parties national parties or affiliated state parties?
Honestly? I would say–both.
We know the Presidential election is determined by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, modified by the 12th Amendment of 1804.
And we know there is an RNC and a DNC, and state parties of same in each state
Well, it was a nice 162 years. RIP.
The last Conservative out of the Republican Party, turn the lights off.
Oh and bring the Constitution.
Neither one of the candidates for President will be needing (or following) it if they win.
Congratulations Madame Presumptive President-Elect.
My guess is most people think like you do Curmudgeon. And that, it seems to me, is no small part of the problem confronting us all.
Because the Constitution doesn’t mean for the President to be elected by either the peopl, or the nation, but by the states.
Which is why Jeff was trying to point out in the other post that if we start bemoaning the unfairness of any process other than a straight up or down, “will of the voters” vote, you put the electoral college at risk.
And that’s just for starters.
My guess is most people think like you do Curmudgeon. And that, it seems to me, is no small part of the problem confronting us all.
Because the Constitution doesn’t mean for the President to be elected by either the people, or the nation, but by the states.
Which is why Jeff was trying to point out in the other post that if we start bemoaning the unfairness of any process other than a straight up or down, “will of the voters” vote, you put the electoral college at risk.
And that’s just for starters.
Ah yes, I always come here to be insulted and condescended to…. :-P
Did I not lead off with the Constitution? (Which is what I always say to ignorant people who bitch about the “Electoral College”, namely, we have it because the Constitution says so. Why it is called a “College”, on the other hand….)
However, the primary process does *not* have any Constitutional underpinnings.
If it makes you feel better, we can always fight to ratify primary process changes state-by-state, as previous Constitutional amendments were.
If I thought you were going to take that as an insult, I would have salved you by throwing a parenthetical “no offense intended” bone your way. (I don’t do emoticons)
If it’s a nationwide popular election, why not just hold a national primary? Why bother with political parties, which aren’t in the Constitution either, when we can just hold a non-partisan election with an instantaneous run-off? Why bother with states at all, for that matter?
And since the states set the rules for their own elections, there’s no “can” about it. It’s “we must.”
And since we’re on the subject: Why should the votes of Pennsylvania, a state that hasn’t gone for the GOP since 1988, count for more than those of South Dakota, which has only gone for the Democrat four times in it’s entire history?
Which brings me back to the question of first principles, so to speak: What is it exactly that we want to get out of the process we’re proposing to tinker with? Because once you start messing around, it’s hard to know where to stop.
And college come from the Latin collegium.
If it’s a nationwide popular election,
But it isn’t. We already know that….
why not just hold a national primary?
If we did that, we would still have a convention to broker results. In fact, if all the states had their primaries on the same day, brokered conventions would become a must.
Why bother with political parties, which aren’t in the Constitution either,
Because from the days of the Federalists vs. The Anti-Federalists, we have had them. The party system isn’t spelled out Constitutionally, but it has always been there. The 12th Amendment, which had the President and Veep run on a joint ticket, basically legitimizes the party system.
when we can just hold a non-partisan election with an instantaneous run-off?
Again, because the Constitution doesn’t have a national IRV.
Why bother with states at all, for that matter?
Because they are spelled out in the Constitution, and existed before the Constitution. In fact, they ratified it.
And since we’re on the subject: Why should the votes of Pennsylvania, a state that hasn’t gone for the GOP since 1988, count for more than those of South Dakota, which has only gone for the Democrat four times in it’s entire history?
Article II, Section 1 already explains that. It is a compromise between representation by population and representation by territory. (Which is why slogans like “one man, one vote” are so destructive.)
Which brings me back to the question of first principles, so to speak: What is it exactly that we want to get out of the process we’re proposing to tinker with? Because once you start messing around, it’s hard to know where to stop.
OK, here is A Modest Proposal of what I want out of the process: Party members choose their nominees, not “independents” in “open primaries”, which are subject to chicanery.
Again, in what states did Donald Trump win, and heavily?
What Objet d’Arth said.
Wow. I never saw this coming.
“Priebus tweeted out shortly before 9 p.m. that Trump will be the presumptive nominee, adding that the party needs “to unite and focus” on toppling former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in November. (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rncs-priebus-trump-is-now-the-presumptive-gop-nominee/article/2590293)
“The party” has shown itself to be pretty much useless. “The party” can stick a sock in its pie hole.
I’m going to be 50 this year. I (God willing) only have a few elections left before I, with increasing longing, depart this life for the eternal next.
Based on what I know of my health and life expectancies, that leaves about 8, maybe 10, times when I will have the chance to cast a primary or general ballot registering my opinion about who should head the Executive branch of this nation.
I’m not going to waste a single one of them on anybody that I don’t have even an iota of trust in. Or treat my vote as a sandbag to ostensibly “keep the other guy out”.
The only thing you take with you when you die is… yourself. And I have enough dross that will need to be expurgated without adding to it.
The Primary System was a Leftist creation and pushed hard by Progressives in both Parties.
When we form a new Party, it is essential that we reject it, because all Systems conceived by Leftist Masterminds are Evil by nature, corrupted in their conception, beyond all hope of Reform because their cores are mutations.
The Caucus System, as we saw recently in Colorado, works to protect it’s members from being compromised by it Officials and by Demagogues. It’s not Perfect – no Human endeavor can ever be – but it’s, I think, proven itself to be the most complimentary to the purpose of organized factions.
Damn well put, D’Arth [at 0700]. Our duty is to our Posterity [whether we have the blessing of children or not].
I believe we must withdraw from the Presidential Election, for, as Alexander Hamilton wrote: If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.
Amen.
A change of nomination rules isn’t currently the primary problem to address, though some aspects of the nomination rules may be a reasonable problem to address some time down the road to a creation of a new party which faithfully represents the large portion of those Americans like us who are not represented in principle by the parties now extant. Rather, dwelling now on the nomination rules smacks more of the “there oughtta be a law” reaction to a criminal or civil outrage, the sort of reaction which the progressives have used to marvelous effect these last hundred years or so, writing new laws and regulations which each chip away at American liberty ’til one day people sat up startled to say “holy shit, I don’t recognize this place anymore”, owing to the cumulative effect of that century of wheedling.
Nah.
We’ve seen the problem for many years here at pw. The GOP isn’t ours. The proposal had been, well then take the party over from within and make it ours, as over against the alternative, which was to build anew and afresh from the ground up, with the principles we seek preeminent from the beginning.
Now it appears that the GOP will indeed be taken over from within, just not by people who agree with us on principle, but by a leader who is no more than a dimwitted progressive lifelong Democrat in Republican-disguise running things (with a high potential to be ruining things). That’s no circumstance in which to attempt an internal take-over.
Better, I think, to act independently in the former American way, and with deliberation, and to begin afresh.
That’s fine. As long as you get what you want on a state by state basis instead of using the Federal carrot & stick to impose your desiderata.
And we’ve gone from smoke filled back rooms that weren’t democratic to angry mobs in the poll queue that are too democratic.
So really, is there a lasting solution to found by tinkering with the process?
Well put, Sdferr, well put.
THIS–> Better, I think, to act independently in the former American way, and with deliberation, and to begin afresh.
Good Burke quote to add to the Hamilton quote:
Can you tell me what work that quote comes from, Ernst?
So really, is there a lasting solution to found by tinkering with the process?
YES, because process *matters*.
So you go off and create a new national Party, or should I say new *state* Parties. If that new Party is subject to the same bad preliminary election laws, will it not degenerate as well?
A change of nomination rules isn’t currently the primary problem to address, though some aspects of the nomination rules may be a reasonable problem to address some time down the road to a creation of a new party which faithfully represents the large portion of those Americans like us who are not represented in principle by the parties now extant.
If that new Party is subject to the same state election laws like all the others, then you are back to the same problem over time, sooner or later.
Rather, dwelling now on the nomination rules smacks more of the “there oughtta be a law” reaction to a criminal or civil outrage, the sort of reaction which the progressives have used to marvelous effect these last hundred years or so, writing new laws and regulations which each chip away at American liberty ’til one day people sat up startled to say “holy shit, I don’t recognize this place anymore”, owing to the cumulative effect of that century of wheedling.
Au contraire. This had better be thought out, and worked out, in advance. Not in rash reaction to media hype, but in sober reflection upon the aftermath.
We’ve seen the problem for many years here at pw. The GOP isn’t ours. The proposal had been, well then take the party over from within and make it ours, as over against the alternative, which was to build anew and afresh from the ground up, with the principles we seek preeminent from the beginning.
Now it appears that the GOP will indeed be taken over from within, just not by people who agree with us on principle, but by a leader who is no more than a dimwitted progressive lifelong Democrat in Republican-disguise running things (with a high potential to be ruining things). That’s no circumstance in which to attempt an internal take-over.
Which just goes to show it could be done, even if it was done by the wrong persons.
Better, I think, to act independently in the former American way, and with deliberation, and to begin afresh.
Well then, you had better see how the state nomination laws affect your new Party, because yes, process does matter.
“the same problem”
Oh? Is this the problem that the current GOP does not represent in principle those principles which we hold and seek to see embodied in candidates to our offices? That is, that we would not belong to the GOP, nor to the Democrat Party? Or is this “same problem” a different problem rather, one which would be entailed secondarily to the substance of the principles not now represented in the GOP? Now, I have not claimed that the processes to which we would agree are irrelevant to the justice we seek to do, but do think that the processes are of an order of means which are subservient to the ends which conform to the principles at which we aim. First things first, and second things second.
Oh? Is this the problem that the current GOP does not represent in principle those principles which we hold and seek to see embodied in candidates to our offices? That is, that we would not belong to the GOP, nor to the Democrat Party? Or is this “same problem” a different problem rather, one which would be entailed secondarily to the substance of the principles not now represented in the GOP? Now, I have not claimed that the processes to which we would agree are irrelevant to the justice we seek to do, but do think that the processes are of an order of means which are subservient to the ends which conform to the principles at which we aim. First things first, and second things second.
All right, fine. But if the New Party ever does become a significant force, then don’t be surprised if “open primary” state laws result in significant numbers of non-members coming to urinate into your voting pool, and thus urinate on your principles.
Of all blog people, I would think that the denizens of Protein Wisdom would grasp that.
Process matters too much is what I think both sdferr and I are trying to drive at.
We need a better process for picking a better candidate who will do a better job of navigating the general election process so we can get a guy in the White House capable of addressing the process of reforming the process of enacting our program of conservative/classical liberal/constitutional reform, while also dealing with the federal bureaucracy process currently controlled by the socialist progressivist cabal, and the judicial process which is all but controlled by that same cabal.
Add to that the parallel processes of picking better candidates who will do a better job of navigating the general election process so we can get our people into Federal, State and Local elective offices so they can all do their things with the various processes at their levels, and before you know it, your in a bad comedy called Idiocracy Comes to Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.
The problem with process is that it begets more process. And little, if any of all that process is directed towards addressing the fundamental problem, which is too few people responding to a new government program with “who the FUCK do you people think you are to think you can make that decision for me and mine better than I can?” and too many people saying “COOL, free shit an’ stuff.”
Is it your contention Curmudgeon that members of the Democrat Party of Colorado sitting in the State legislatures there — to take a particular case — determined that the Republican Party of Colorado moved from a state-wide primary vote system to a caucus system in roughly 1912-14, and then from that caucus system to a state-wide primary vote system in the mid-’90s and then back to a caucus system in the 2004-ish cycle, where things there stand today? Or are these systems of determination of nominees to Party candidacies for various offices not rather determined by the Party (parties) itself (themselves)? These (parties) are nominally private associations open to the public to join, right, but governed internally by rules which they make? For how would a party, by definition an exclusive ordering of political views, agree to be governed by members of its opponent political party?
Your point about open primary laws is valid, and I doubt anyone here disagrees.
It’s just that it seems like so much bubble gum to repair one leak in the ship when the entire vessel is foundering because the bilge pumps were taken for granted for so long that nobody knows what they’re for anymore.
Is it your contention Curmudgeon that members of the Democrat Party of Colorado sitting in the State legislatures there — to take a particular case — determined that the Republican Party of Colorado moved from a state-wide primary vote system to a caucus system in roughly 1912-14, and then from that caucus system to a state-wide primary vote system in the mid-’90s and then back to a caucus system in the 2004-ish cycle, where things there stand today? Or are these systems of determination of nominees to Party candidacies for various offices not rather determined by the Party (parties) itself (themselves)? These (parties) are nominally private associations open to the public to join, right, but governed internally by rules which they make? For how would a party, by definition an exclusive ordering of political views, agree to be governed by members of its opponent political party?
No, that is a Caucus system, for which Bob Belvedere made a good case above. CO doesn’t have “open primaries” or “jungle primaries”. And I think that explains why Ted Cruz prevailed there.
I am looking at my own state of CA, where “jungle primaries” were imposed upon all the parties. Anyone can vote for whoever, and the top two primary vote getters have a run-off. The chicanery potential in this system is appalling. Other states with problems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary
And the states where Donald Trump won are….
Do you actually read what I post here, or do you just operate on your prejudices?
The Burke quote, in case Bob or anybody else still wonders is allegedly from Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791).
But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s from Stuff Said by Burke to Lincoln, Both at Martin Luther’s Table Talks and Whilst in the Company of Doctor James Boswell and Samuel Johnson.
It wasn’t a question about caucus systems as such, but about how changes in the various systems used by the Republicans in Colorado (or elsewhere, for that matter) came to be: i.e., whether those systems are determined solely by the Republicans of Colorado (in the example) as written in “bylaws” they make, or are determined by Democrats in Colorado, as you seem to say of the systems to which Republicans in California have been compelled to proceed. Seems in the case you write of in California (and with which I’m ignorant in general), that the very thing least conducive to the aims of the Republicans there (should they so determine on their own) are forced upon them or in the alternative are acceded to by them to their detriment and disadvantage. That’s something (one would think) they’d be determined to change. Or any self-respecting political party of whatever stripe would be determined to change.
Process matters too much is what I think both sdferr and I are trying to drive at.
We need a better process for picking a better candidate who will do a better job of navigating the general election process so we can get a guy in the White House capable of addressing the process of reforming the process of enacting our program of conservative/classical liberal/constitutional reform, while also dealing with the federal bureaucracy process currently controlled by the socialist progressivist cabal, and the judicial process which is all but controlled by that same cabal.
The second longer sentence is in stark contradicition to the first shorter one.
While I will give 2016 better reviews than 2012, 2008, etc., where front-loaded, early, open, and winner-take-all primaries made the Presidential conclusion pre-ordained back in February of those years…. :-P
Seems in the case you write of in California (and with which I’m ignorant in general), that the very thing least conducive to the aims of the Republicans there (should they so determine on their own) are forced upon them
By voter initiative, that is sadly correct. And I warned people up and down that they would be sorry for it.
I have no respect for “Independents” who bitch and moan that they are shut out of the primary process. “Well then go register for a Party, you slobs”, I tell them.
I even have respect for people who are registered Democrats out of “damage control”, that is, trying to get the least toxic one nominated. In states like here, that sadly may be the way to go. Real world and all that.
The California system has (on the cursory surface I’m looking at now) all the appearances (at my distance and in my ignorance of it) of a tyranny fit to be overturned as unconstitutional on its face — an undue process if ever one thought to perfect such a thing. But of possible court challenges to it, those decisions, etc., I’m as ignorant as I am of the mere law or plebiscite itself. On the other hand, looks like a perfect reason for any conservative to move to another state and leave California to its self-imposed ruin.
I don’t believe so. Sure, How You Get There Matters (C) (TM), but you do have to get where you want to go. You can’t spend all your time either searching out and mapping the perfect path forward or taking every fork in the road when you come to it for that matter.
I guess we can’t all be results oriented.
Somebody has to work at the State Department.
Why? The end result was the same, wasn’t it? The more conservative candidate lost each time, didn’t he?
Arguably ’16 was the worst. People have had more time to get pissed off and dug in, with less time now for fence mending.
I suppose it was good if you like voting.
Johnny Rocco liked voting. Almost as much as he liked slapping around his alcoholic lounge singer girlfriend.
fence mending
Oh Trump will mend fences with the Mexicans, in much the same manner as Barry told Dmitry Medvedev to communicate to Vladimir that he’d have a freer hand for Vlad’s aims after his election season was over and he’d won reupping to office.
To try to be clear, again. Curmudgeon is coming at the problem from a different end than sdferr and myself. Curmudgeon wants a better nominating process. Sdferr and I are saying a better nominationg process, nice as that would be, won’t fix the underlying problem.
Why? The end result was the same, wasn’t it? The more conservative candidate lost each time, didn’t he?
If more states had a process like Colorado, and less states had a process like these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_United_States
or these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary
Then the better candidate WOULD win. Spacing out the contests instead of packing them all into a front-loaded February “Super Duper Tuesday” as had been done in prior elections, immensely helped out Ted Cruz in itself!!!
Arguably ’16 was the worst. People have had more time to get pissed off and dug in, with less time now for fence mending.
Since when were PW denizens interested in fence mending, with all the NeverTrump vows? You can’t have it both ways, you know….
And for those interested in fence mending, well, let the Party conventions do that. It would be far more educational–and entertaining—than the coronation ceremonies for would-be kings that the Party conventions are today.
To try to be clear, again. Curmudgeon is coming at the problem from a different end than sdferr and myself. Curmudgeon wants a better nominating process. Sdferr and I are saying a better nominationg process, nice as that would be, won’t fix the underlying problem.
And to be clear again, the nominating process *is* an underlying problem.
And it is one we *can* fix, whereas trying to undo the flawed nature of humanity that wants “free” shit and votes for people like Bernie or Hillary to get it, is something that is utterly intractable.
Of course having a better school system would help, but the idea of socially engineering a “New People” that don’t have the sin of wanting “Free” shit, strikes me as anathema to the conservatism (or classical liberalism) which understands that people are basically what they always have been, flawed.
And a better nominating process is something vastly simpler and easier to implement than a rooting out of the 5th column in academia, although I still long for a clean and sober 21st century Tailgunner Joe McCarthy to come along.
Or maybe we just don’t let people addicted to bread and circuses vote themselves bread and circuses by restricting the franchise.
Or maybe we severely curtail the ability of politicians who promise bread and circuses to deliver bread and circuses by reminding people that providing bread and circuses are not among the enumerated powers in the Constitution; and if bread and circuses are what they want, they should move to a carnival state like New York, or Illinois, or California. And then leave the rest of us the hell alone.
So you see, I’m not trying to fix man’s fallen nature. I’m just trying to limit the ability of the political class to take advantage of that nature in order to make serfs of us all.
I’m sympathetic to reforming the nomination process, but I’m skeptical that it will change anything for the better in the long run. I think you’re right the Trump would have flamed out. But I doubt Jeb would have. So, pick your poison: a process susceptible to demogogery and outside manipulation (open) or a process that still favors party insiders (closed) while giving party outsiders a fair shake .
Knowing the Stupid Party, they’ll choose the worst of both worlds: leave things more or less as they are, but add Superdelegates like their friends the Democrats do.
Or maybe we just don’t let people addicted to bread and circuses vote themselves bread and circuses by restricting the franchise.
Hey, good luck repealing the 24th Amendment (1964), because “That’s Ray-Sist! Waah!” cry the Left. Fixing the preliminary (primary / caucus) presidential election process in all 50 states is a cakewalk in comparison.
Or maybe we severely curtail the ability of politicians who promise bread and circuses to deliver bread and circuses by reminding people that providing bread and circuses are not among the enumerated powers in the Constitution; and if bread and circuses are what they want, they should move to a carnival state like New York, or Illinois, or California. And then leave the rest of us the hell alone.
Like I said, I want a 21st Century HUAC purging academia. Good luck getting that done. Again, fixing the preliminary (primary / caucus) presidential election process in all 50 states is a cakewalk in comparison.
So you see, I’m not trying to fix man’s fallen nature.
YES, YOU ARE. Try reasoning with a Bernie Sanders dupe. And they are legion.
I’m just trying to limit the ability of the political class to take advantage of that nature in order to make serfs of us all.
Same thing. :(
I’m sympathetic to reforming the nomination process, but I’m skeptical that it will change anything for the better in the long run. I think you’re right the Trump would have flamed out. But I doubt Jeb would have.
Silk purse, sow’s ear and all that. Make no mistake: the Jeb / Marco / McCain / Pansy Grahamnesty faction were trounced this year.
And that, at least, is something to smile about.
You are correct, Ernst – thank you.
This Letter can be found in Edmund Burke – Writings and Speeches Volume the Fourth over at Guttenberg.org
I’m not trying to fix human nature
Yes you are.
I’m trying to keep politicians from taking advantage of human nature
Same diff.
Either you’re not understanding me, or we have very different definitions of “fix.”
Seriously. It’s curious to me that you think I’m trying to “undo” or “fix” flawed human nature, which can’t be done (upon that we agree) while at the same time thinking that tinkering with the nomination process is going to accomplish anything meaningful.
I could say as much about reasoning with a Donald Trump dupe.
In fact, I’m sure I have.
Darleen, your first post about this election being Governator, Redux…I had that same thought the moment Trump said “I’m capable of changing into anything I want to”.
As to your 2nd post, I’ve feared that since Trump announced last year. I’m thinking that if his election position is untenable come fall he’ll announce that he’s quitting the race and leaving it to Hillary.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s from Stuff Said by Burke to Lincoln, Both at Martin Luther’s Table Talks and Whilst in the Company of Doctor James Boswell and Samuel Johnson.
— 4th ed.
Har. Politicians being human, trying to exploit human nature is human nature. Not one of us would ever be able to get what we want if not for somebody, somewhere, taking advantage of human nature — usually us, and usually in collaboration with those others whose human nature we’re exploiting, as they exploit ours.
Failure to understand this (and/or the exploitation of others’ failure to understand it) is the cause of all toxic human interaction.
I’m a big courtesy runner fan.
Then I’m still not being clear.
I’m trying to get us back to the idea of limiting the opportunities for graft, so to speak, in line with your idea about keeping the government small enough that only obsessives will obsess over politics.
And really, this isn’t that hard, because the Framers did all the heavy lifting for us. The best thing we could do would be to scrape all the barnacles off of the Constitution.
Ernst, I wasn’t disagreeing with you — in fact, it’s my position, oft-implied, occasionally stated — that the recognition of this aspect of human nature is why the Constitution exists, and why it says what it says.
Sorry if it seemed I was misunderstanding.
After all, my dictum to which you refer is inspired by someone else’s sage observation that the reason there is so much money in politics is because there is so much at stake that shouldn’t be.
The general drift of what small disagreement is here in the thread (and it is small disagreement) seems to be predicated primarily upon a misapprehension, as I take it, on Curmudgeon’s part, that either Ernst or I take issue with Curmudgeon’s proposals as such.
We don’t, I believe it is safe to say. Not to say in detail on Curmudgeon’s proposals, which details would remain to consideration, to working through, taking each proposal one by one and deliberating each on its own merits, but in general on his proposals, which, I believe, we do not either disagree on principle nor dismiss them out of hand. So, a misapprehension.
Rather, as has been made plain, I think, we all three of us agree that there is an order of things which imposes an hierarchy on human endeavor — we often speak of nature for instance in this regard — to which both Ernst and I refer in our objections to Curmudgeon’s proposals as not ripe at the moment, owing to what we (Ernst and I) understand as the underlying issue at hand: that we have no political party to which to adhere, and are in need of that prior to our decision how such a party would proceed with nominations to political offices, whether to the highest office or to the lowest.
Nature, oddly enough, or significantly enough, is at issue not amongst Constitutionalists (as we may call ourselves), but is very much at issue as between progressives and Constitutionalists. Progressives reject nature, much as they reject the Constitution, on general terms as a measure of political life, preferring either of two other bases — history and science — usually in combination in various proportions in their accounts.
In religious parlance, one could say that the Framers wanted a system that would avoid the near occasion of sin, so to speak, as much as possible.
What was it Madison said? Ambition must be made to oppose ambition, something like that? He would put “sin” (or potential toward “sin”) to work against “sin”, looks like. Almost as though there was no avoiding it.
And need I note that today we find ambition in collusion with ambition, and not in opposition. And that precisely there is our objection?
I could say as much about reasoning with a Donald Trump dupe. In fact, I’m sure I have.
I never said you couldn’t, although I do forgive them more than Sandersnistas. At least the Trumpeters don’t hate this country and aren’t communists.
Progressives reject nature, much as they reject the Constitution, on general terms as a measure of political life, preferring either of two other bases — history and science — usually in combination in various proportions in their accounts.
I wouldn’t even give them those. You are far too charitable…..
History? See what they have wrought, vs. what the Constitution has. History is worth studying precisely because it repudiates “progreseive” (socialist) nonsense.
Science? “New Ice Age” became “Global Warming” became “Climate Change”.
In short: they lie….and people like to believe lies that are pretty.
You must take that “history” in the Hegelian sense of the thing in order to make sense of it Curmudgeon. Perhaps I should have said. Still, historicism is a thing. You may take my word for it. Science, on the other hand, I would attribute in this instance to such as Max Weber, or, say, Bertrand Russell and various other positivists of that ilk.
As well, I should perhaps say, this isn’t a matter of being charitable as such with me, but rather a matter of driving the principles put forward back to their sources. For they all have sources, and often the best representation of the principles as such are to be found at the inception of their hold on minds.
The best thing we could do would be to scrape all the barnacles off of the Constitution.
No disagreement there either, although sadly I think many of the largest barnacles were put onto the Constitution, like the aforementioned 24th Amendment. :-(
TRESPASSERS W says May 4, 2016 at 6:26 am
Wow. I never saw this coming.
“Priebus tweeted out shortly before 9 p.m. that Trump will be the presumptive nominee, adding that the party needs “to unite and focus” on toppling former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in November.
(http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/rncs-priebus-trump-is-now-the-presumptive-gop-nominee/article/2590293)
“The party” has shown itself to be pretty much useless. “The party” can stick a sock in its pie hole.
Well, if it is any consolation, other establishment members like the Bushes, their right hand men like Karl Rove, and pundits like George Will have vowed, “Never”, and for all we know they would prefer Hillary.
Which makes me think, with enemies like that, does Donald Trump even need friends? :-D
Actually…
Now, why wouldn’t the Bushes do this, if they’re really against him?