The Electoral College

I read two interesting reactions to the election of Donald Trump this morning: the first is a reaction to the Left's non-violent reaction, the other is actually a less common reaction from the Left. Suffice it to say, I think that the former is basically correct as far as it goes, and that the latter basically draws the wrong conclusion to this election. I will look at the former now, and the latter in a future post.

First: a defense of the electoral college, by Mr. Jason Willick of the American Interest. He brings up four points in defense of the electoral college:

Presidential election 2016 results by county and vote share. Source.

1. Changing the rules of an election also changes both the impetus for voting and the strategy pursued by the candidates. Thus, Mr. Trump would have spent more time and effort campaigning in rural and blue-collar California, Illinois, and even New York if only the popular vote mattered, whereas Clinton might have made more visits to Houston, Atlanta, etc. Indeed, I suspect that Trump would have actually done more to advertise earlier in this scenario (for example, Hillary Clinton's ads were frequently heard on the radio where I live about two months before the election; I don't think I ever heard a Trump ad).
2. Attempting to scrap the electoral college is a waste of energy that could be used to reform it instead. I actually don't think this is a good argument for why the college shouldn't be eliminated, but it is a decent argument from a practical standpoint for why people shouldn't try to remove it. The gist is that there are too many states with too much to lose if the college goes away, with only a few large-population (and largely blue) states gaining anything, so it is difficult to imagine getting the requisite 38 states to sign off on this Constitutional amendment. Again, I think that this is not a very good argument because it is less a defense of the college than a plea against the difficulty in removing is, and it may not even really dissuade people from trying (which is the main point of the argument).
3. The electoral college is what makes the presidential election an actual national election. At this point, the shift is from left vs right to nationalist vs cosmopolitan/internationalist (or so his argument goes). More importantly, the divide is largely between highly populated (but geographically concentrated) urban areas and large but sparsely populated rural areas. Thus, in a popular election, the impetus might be for the Democrat/urban candidate to focus exclusively in getting high turnout in their mega-cities. The rest of the country--including large swatch of "not-flyover" states, would be ignored. Having grown up in the rural part of a blue states whose policies were almost always dictated by the population of the one large city and maybe two or three medium-sized towns), this especially resonated with me. On a national scale, the problem is even worse, since a coalition of  very few large urban areas (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Twin Cities, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, Miami) could very rapidly supply a majority (or plurality) of the population. Indeed, this is a majority which is completely out of touch with smaller metro areas like Montgomery, Topeka, Boise, Amarillo, and even Kansas City or Pittsburgh, let alone the truly rural areas.
4. The electoral college is one way of forcing coalition-building. This is a sort of continuation of the previous point, but it also gets into the fact that under a winner-take-all poplar election, some third-party candidates would actually maybe be stronger (they no longer have to win states). Indeed, one possible outcome is that we could regularly see people elected by winning 30-35% of the popular vote--a point which again feeds into the third point above. To quote from Mr. Willick's article,
   

   The winner-take-all Electoral College system creates major obstacles to third-party presidential candidacies. Scrapping it would lead to stronger third-parties vying for the presidency, as these parties wouldn’t need to win any states to register on the electoral scoreboard. As a result, it’s possible that no candidate would come close to getting a majority of the popular vote. America could then regularly end up with plurality presidents with support from thirty percent (or less) of the voting public. Parliamentary systems manage this problem by requiring coalitions to form a government. The party that wins the most votes in the first round doesn’t immediately win power; it must create a coalition with other parties so that together, they represent a majority. (In a number of European countries, far-right parties are kept out of power despite having a plurality of popular support because the governing coalition excludes them). In America, there is no such mechanism. Popular vote champions looking to avoid minor plurality presidencies (the legitimacy of which might also be challenged on democratic grounds) would need to also seek to implement a runoff election or else scrap the entire U.S. Constitutional structure.

    I actually think that strengthening the third parties and weakening the two major parties is not a bad thing. However, I also think that Mr. Willick's prediction may be the opposite of what actually happens. To whit, look at the vote totals for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein (and the "others") in "safe" states vs "swing" states. A voter who does not expect his vote to influence the election one way or another is more likely to vote for his favorite candidate (even if said candidate is in a third party) than the one whom he considers be the lesser of t two evils who is likely to actually win. I suspect that in a close election year, the third parties would actually win fewer popular votes, thus adding a false sense of popular mandate to the eventual winner.
   

Presidential election 2016 results by county and vote share. Source.

Three of these four points argue that abolishing the electoral college could have either bad or at best unpredictable results. Certainly, the party establishment types living in the heart of a major metropolitan area will disagree with me there, at least if they favor gut reaction to prudence. Certainly, the New York or DC elite would be perfectly content to rule over the people in the hinterlands--right up until those people decide that they are no longer interesting in playing by the rules of a system which seems rigged against them by people who disdain them and who seem actively wish to destroy their ways of life. This is, by and large, the reason why enough electors have ultimately supported Trump rather than Clinton.

How Much Hypocrisy in 140 Characters

Good advice, but the person giving it doesn't believe it.

Hypocrisy is Hillary Clinton's telling people to have respect for "laws, institutions, and basic human rights and freedoms." She has respect for none of these things, but it is in her on best interests that everybody else (mostly) does so. In her world, Laws are for little people, and she has been part and parcel of an administration which has been systematically seeking to undermine both secular (marriage) and religious institutions and to trample on basic rights (e.g. to life) and freedoms (e.g conscience liberties).

This is real hypocrisy. It also goes to show that just because a statement is hypocritical does not make the statement false--we should have respect for laws and institutions, for duties and responsibilities and the rights and freedoms and privileges that they entail. Society breaks down and civilization passes from decadence to collapse when we don't.

Also, for those who missed it because they get their news from social media and the Daily Show, there has been an attempted military coup in Turkey.

Stump Seech

The candidate who gives this stump speech--and who actually means it and backs it up by his actions and policy proposals--would get my vote in a heartbeat (heavily excerpted):

The crisis in our land is a crisis of truth. Let me repeat that. The crisis in our land is a crisis of truth....

The last eight years have seen an ever-accelerating push from our government for an agenda that is—let’s be frank about it—deranged. Social institutions of all kinds are breaking down, foreign policy is in disarray, racial and cultural tensions are suddenly at the boil, and we find ourselves hurtling through increasing social chaos toward complete disaster. It didn’t begin eight years ago, but the derangement has accelerated dramatically over the last eight years.

That is why you are here. You have known, in your minds and hearts, that many of the developments in our nation are deranged. But when you have turned to the usual places for help in applying the brakes, your voice is unheard. Those who listen least are in that bloated bureaucracy we call the federal government. Indeed, the current administration has gone out of its way to push for, and celebrate, our social derangement as though this is what you want. The Democratic candidates have been arguing strenuously over which of them is more committed to this derangement. This is no longer a surprise. The surprise is that the apparent Republican candidate has spent his entire life aiding and abetting the Democrats and their agenda of social derangement....

The crisis in our land is a crisis of truth. We are being told to believe things that are obviously false—things that cannot possibly be true—and to accept that the most obviously true things are false.... And yet, when you protest, you are bullied with name-calling and threats. You are told you are an irrational bigot.... And yet, when you protest, you are threatened with fines and legal actions for failing to fall in line....

What has produced the America that we know and love? What kind of America causes the world to flock to its shores in joy and hope?

It is an America that values the truth above all.

Listen to what the other candidates say; more importantly, look at what they do. Is any other candidate interested in this America? Is any other candidate interested, even the slightest bit, in the truth?

I am. And if this is the America you want, let me be your champion this November. Together, we can make America her truest self.

Unfortunately, neither of the frontrunners is this candidate. Nor, for that matter, is the "darkhorse" third party candidate Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party. And don't even get me started on the other third party candidate who draws substantial numbers in polls--with or without Bernie Sanders on the ticket.

When Amateur Hour Ends

The current Administration has proven to be largely an amateur operation. This has hurt us internationally, primarily: it is, in my opinion, best when the domestic policy of the country (at least) is for the most part decided by the states. On the other hand, Amateur Hour does not last forever, even in this Administration. There are certain things which President Obama and his underlings have approached with a dogged persistence: stamping on the states' already-too-limited powers and authorities is one such thing.

But it should be clear to any impartial observer that a significant goal of this Administration has been to go after the rights and freedoms and way of life of those whom disagree with the President. It has been to engage in social engineering, and to marginalize those who are on the opposite side of the Culture Wars: not only to prevent us from getting what we want, but to needlessly take from us what they don't need. The (happily failed) attempt at passing the Freedom of Choice Act was the first and most obvious case of this. The tyrannical HHS abortion/sterilization/contraceptives mandate was another, which has been partially overturned by the Courts*. And the latest is that that the Tyrant and his Minions are insisting that churches must be forced to cover abortions in California**.

It seems that the goal of the Left in general and this Administration in particular is to ensure not only that our civilization collapse into barbarism, but that Christians should be the targets of the barbarians when the burning times come.





*It is largely still in force, however: the Courts have taken Little Sister of the poor off the hook, largely, but most private business are not. In some ways, this is a Pyrrhic victory for the good guys, in that while the Little Sisters of the Poor have retained their freedom of conscience rights, many Catholic business owners are still having theirs trampled on; but the gullible public, which is alternatively feed propaganda and then left with no news at all by the various Left-wing stooges in the media, tends to have less sympathy for the rights of a small business owner than for the rights of a habited religious (for now).

**Granted, this is a collaboration between the administration and a depraved state's government: it's only a matter of time before other states and perhaps the federal government directly follow suit

A Roundup of Post-Orlando Links and Commentary

There are, of course, quite a few commentators talking about the Orlando Massacre--both of the "professional" and from the "armchair/amateur" variety--and not all of them are saying good or even intelligent things. Some on the Left are (rather predictably) attempting to blame the NRA and especially conservative Christians for this atrocity. The NRA, maybe, but then again if the FBI would enforce existing (mostly common sense) gun laws, a lot of these problems would go away.

The Ruger SR9 without extended grip.

Nor do I think that banning high-capacity semiautomatic weapons is necessarily "common sense," in part because I do not think there is a reasonable "common"definition for "high capacity." Is 7 round high capacity? I have a revolver which holds this many, so presumably not. Is it 10? There are handguns which can carry up to just fewer than 20 (the Ruger SR9, for example*), without being obviously overdone. Indeed, it is the magazine size and not necessarily the gun which fires the magazine which determines the ammunition capacity, and there exist "high-capacity" (more than 20 rounds) after-marker magazines for many common handguns.

For that matter, the (relatively lower-caliber, lower-power for a rifle/carbine) AR-15 could in principal accept a 10-round magazine. For that matter, there exist after-market limiters for the AR-15 which limit it to 10 rounds. Placing a ban on magazine capacity is virtually impossible in the US, shy of simply banning all semi-automatic guns (rifle, carbine, handgun, etc) for the simple reason that a semi-automatic gun need not use only the magazine made by the original manufacturer.

It could be argues that what is needed is not an absolute ban on magazine capacity, but rather ammunition sales in a given time frame. However, this does nothing to prevent a person from making (or even reloading) their own ammunition, nor from simply "saving" ammunition**. This is of course assuming that such an "ammunition limit" can be feasibly implemented in the first place. It also overlooks the fact that such a limit may prove detrimental to the ability of anyone who needs to buy ammunition for the purpose of practicing***. I suppose there could be a loophole for buying and then using ammo at the range, but then how would this actually be enforced?

Another alternative is to attempt to regulate neither magazine capacity nor bullet caliber, but some combination of both. The reasoning here is simple: different calibers will be more or less likely to be lethal, and thus more or less likely to be used for a mass shooting. Nobody is particularly worried about a mass shooter unloading 30 rounds of 0.22 caliber bullets into a crowded area, in the sense that while this would be very, very bad, and while is certainly could result in some death or serious injuries, the odd are that a shooter using this caliber of ammunition will not wrack up a high body count. Indeed, I would bet that said shooter would almost certainly wrack up a lower body count than a man using a 0.357 revolver in the same crowded area.

Of course, by limiting "high-caliber" rounds (and given that 0.223/5.56 NATO rounds prove quite lethal when fired from an AR-15) one may inadvertently encourage shooters to pack a combination of low-capacity, high caliber and low-caliber, high-capacity weapons (to say nothing about the aforementioned point about the difficulty of actually regulating magazine capacity). And as one observer has noted, "gun wounds are often preferable to the alternatives," and moreover,

"On guns, it is a little known fact that even in the Natted States Merica, where they seem rather more easily available than elsewhere, they do not account for the majority of murders. Convenient as guns may be for this purpose, if you are a Merican (according to the latest FBI statistics) you are six times more likely to be murdered with a knife; and with a rifle, only one chance in fifty. That the murder rate itself is higher than in some other countries, I will happily concede. What can we say? Mericans just like to kill each other. Banning guns won’t help."

I should note here that I am not in principle opposed to limiting magazine capacities--though I question whether there is a magic number to which they should be limited--nor to such things as expanded background checks, mandatory waiting periods, or (better still) randomly assigned waiting periods of arbitrary duration (not to exceed a month or so). In the past, I have favored what I would call the "national gun buyers identity" which would allow a person the ability to purchase as many or as few guns as he chooses without further background checks for a limited period of time, which is then renewable upon completing a thorough background check upon expiration.

I am, however, quite skeptical that any other these things will actually help. The US homicide rate in general--and also the homicide by firearms rate--has been decreasing for some time--the overall homicide rate in the US is at a 51 year low, according to the FBI. For that matter, so has the violent crimes rate, and our overall rate of violent crime is actually lower than that of Britain (though our homicide rate is higher).

What makes me more skeptical than anything against using regulations to lower gun death rates is that this is basically imposing a technical solution on a moral problem. And the moral problem here runs fairly deeply, and exists on several levels. For one thing, we as a society, indeed as a civilization (I am here including Europe as well) have become virtually incapable of naming our enemies, be they human or spiritual. I noted above (and before) that the immediate reaction in the wake of a killing perpetrated by a Mohammedan who may or may not have also been a homosexual but who did pledge allegiance to ISIS was to blame Christians in general and conservative one in particular.

When even moderate Muslims are willing to admit that Mohammedanism is at least in part behind this shooting, it seems clear to me that we who are not Mohammedans, and who have no vested interest in propping us Islam, should be able to do the same. Moreover, we have created an environment in which people are not allowed to turn others away for religious or moral reasons because of anti-discrimination laws. Now these anti-discrimination laws are to some extent good, but they fall prey to the very thing they try to prevent: namely, they do not allow discrimination in cases where discrimination is just.

Case in point: suppose a gun store owner decided to turn away a Muslim because the gun store owner had a suspicion that he was up to no good; what is this suspicion based upon? If the Muslim was acting in good faith, but merely had some social peculiarity, does anyone doubt that he might attempt to sue on anti-discrimination charges, thereby taking the gun shop owner to the kangaroo courts of the civil rights commissions? Yet, sometimes those hunches do prove to be right--as they did in the case of the gunshop owner who refused to sell a gun to Mateen "because he seemed odd." How many gun store owners are more afraid to be convicted of "hate crime" than of inadvertently selling a gun to a mass-shooter? Especially given that the former is more likely than the latter, since (we have all been assured) the vast majority of Muslims are perfectly harmless?

This is just picking on one sub-group of mass shooters and homicidal maniacs, the Muslims. This wasn't an isolated incident, as Mr. John C. Wright points out: during the Obama presidency, 115 people have been killed in the US in the name of Islam, whereas non have been documented to have been killed (or even brutally injured) for believing in Mohammed or Mohammed's God. And I am picking on this group in particular, because it is the one group which we cannot name as terrorists, the one group it has become politically incorrect to call out, and indeed one of the few groups which it has become politically expedient to actively help, and the one group which cannot be called intolerant, especially not of women or gays. It may not be the only group about which we must be dishonest, both publicly and privately, but it is the one group which we must continuously pretend to be "shocked" in learning that the latest terrorist--foreign or domestic--gives allegiance to.

I will add here that there is another sense of moral decline--they are myriad, too many to really discuss in detail here--which plays into all of this, and which regulation simply does not fix. That is the negligence of some--not a majority, but still far too many--actual gun owners. None of these proposed laws will prevent the negligent homicide of a child who finds the loaded gun and shoots himself (or his friend, sibling, or even parent). There is no reasonable law which can prevent this fully. Sure, there may be developed a technology of the sort which can help prevent this--for example, a gun which is bio metrically sensitive****.

There exists already a number of laws which are meant to "idiot-proof" firearms against accidental discharge and/or unauthorized use. But, as the saying goes, any time you idiot-proof something, somebody comes up with a better idiot (the skills of whom are then widely duplicated). The vast majority of these "accidental" firearms homicides (or even injuries) can be chalked up to lack of common sense and/or lack of caution/precaution, or simple negligence (which is another word for "lack of care"). These are, by and large, all moral defects, and cannot be simply legislated away. There are some who go so far as to question whether Americans are "moral" enough to merit the constitutional protections of the Second Amendment. This is perhaps a valid question, but it leads to another--do we merit any of our other rights, either? Such a line of reasoning may quickly lead us to conclusions which are more dangerous, indeed which are in general worse, than the "threat" of firearms from which they were meant to protect us.


-------
*This compact handgun has a manufacturer-included extended-grip magazine which allows 17+1 of 9 mm ammunition, for example; without the extended grip, it's 10+1 rounds. This is a compact pistol, which is meant for concealed carry.

**Incidentally, it might still work to reduce "mass shootings" in the sense of serving as a deterrent to mass shootings committed by a person who is willing to plan for days, weeks, or months. On the other hand, given that a typical "box" of ammunition will have 20-50 rounds in it, and that it's generally recommended that one put hundreds of rounds downrange for practice to keep up marksmanship (to say nothing of competition shooters), it would seem to me that this kind of law will have very little effect on preventing mass shootings.

***Typical advice says practice live-firing your gun once per month, 50 rounds each time, minimum. That is 600 rounds per year, minimum!

****While we are at it, why not insist on a second law which disables the gun when outside of the user's house/property/hunting area/competition area/gun range? There are, of course, a variety of problems with this, not least of which is the obvious infringement on freedoms inherent in using, for example, a gps tracker to locate said gun. In a country with a history of mistrust of the government in general, and with respect to gun confiscation in particular, such a law is a non-starter, arguably worse even than gun registration. Perhaps the technology exists to do this without a gps, e.g. the gun has a receiver only and no transmitter, the transmitters can be bought and placed in the home--but then, what is to prevent one from being transported along with the gun?

Carpetbaggers

This election cycle, the two major parties look to offer us a choice between two carpetbaggers for the office of President of the United States. This may seem an odd statement--how can a presidential candidate be a carpetbagger? You have to have been born here to run for office, and so long as you are a citizen over 35 years of age and living somewhere in the US, you qualify for that office.

Hillary Clinton's carpetbagging is evident, in that she did this to be elected as a senator, which then enabled her to run for this office (and lose) 8 years ago. She has kept her face (and name) in the public eye by serving as a (scandal-ridden, if anybody bothers to look) Secretary of State. If I had to guess, she would likely not have made much headway in 2008 (and thus, thereafter) if she had not spent time as the senator from New York--yet one wonders if she had set foot in that state, other than to change planes and perhaps to campaign for her husband, prior to deciding to run for the Senate in 2000. Lord know she wouldn't have been elected as the senator from Arkansas.

What of Donald Trump? In What sense does a man whom has never held public office prior to running for President, and whom has spent his life in these United States, deserve the title "carpetbagger?" Whereas Mrs. Clinton is a carpetbagger in the strictest sense of the word--a "geographic carpetbagger," if you please--Mr. Trump is what I would call an "ideological carpetbagger."

He's switched party affiliation a few times, but by and large the ideology which he is espousing does not seem to be his ow, and is in fact largely a sort of parody of what many of the Right stand for. Certainly, he has suddenly pivoted to some semblance of the right on a number of issues, just in time to run an anti-establishment campaign for the Republican nomination; he managed to crowd out the far better Ted Cruz in doing so. And certainly, there are a few promising which he made on the early campaign trail (and then unmade, and then perhaps re-made) which would be nice, if implemented: the border wall, and stricter border security and control in general, for example. But on the whole, the man has done nothing to make me trust any promises which he has made; in some ways, it would be preferable if he rose to the level of a carpetbagger--in the sense that then, he might at least attempt to deliver on his new ideological promises, much as a carpetbagger must maintain some semblance of residence in his or her newfound "home" district.

TMM: Linksdump and Bitter Dregs of Politics

There is no good news in the realm of politics and the Union now: it is a dark time indeed. Ted Cruz has suspended his campaign, so barring a miracle Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee. Cruz was a long shot going in to Indiana--but he didn't need to win on first ballot. There are a number of things which I dislike about Cruz, but he was at least clearly better than any of the alternatives. Some pro-Trump commentators suggest that he plays to much for TV in the digital era, but I can't help but wonder if he doesn't play too much for radio. Many of the things he has said or done "on-the-spot" have been nice soundbites (I especially like his impromptu discussion with Ellen Page about religious liberties, and his "signing" of the communist manifesto), but have not been as well-received because of his odd facial expressions.

Trump is not clearly better than Hillary Clinton (though I suspect he may be the slightly less awful option). Neither is Bernie Sanders, who besides having a ruinous "pie in the sky" economics program, would use the justice department to punish any state which defunds Planned Parenthood. He is as pro-abortion as Clinton or Obama.

I'll wait until after the conventions have sorted things out before deciding who I will vote for--it's almost certainly going to be a third party/independent candidate, since neither major party candidate is likely going to clearly be the lesser evil. Maybe I will write in Joe Schriner. I dislike a few of his policy positions, and think that a few more are problematic in the opposite way that those of Bernie Sanders are problematic (you can only make a modern economy be so small and so local), but I at least don't have grave moral reservations here. We'll see if any major independent campaigns are started or not, and who they back.

What Is Best in Life: Sanders the Bernbarian Edition

What is best in life?

This is basically what the Left represents in modern times (well, that and Moloch worship, and protection of ever more deviant perversions at the cost of curtailing actual freedoms).

On a related note, Time's financial section (Money) has linked to a pair of simple tax calculators, one by the International Business Times, and one by Vox, which attempt to estimate the impact of the four* major candidates tax plans on how much you should expect to pay  in federal taxes. They also attempt to estimate how these tax plans will impact the federal budget (and deficit--there are no projected surpluses). Neither site paints an especially rosy picture for any of the candidates.

On the individual side of things, most people would benefit in the form of more take-home money from both Cruz and Trump (the calculates both estimate that I will take home a few thousand dollars more annually under Cruz and a little more under Trump--but there are no deductions considered for one, and only number of children is considered in the other). Clinton's tax is a wash for the middle class--you don't pay much more, but you do pay a little more.

Bernie Sanders' tax plan is a complete disaster. Vox estimates that my annual tax burden will increase by a staggering $10 000, and the International Business Times estimates a $430 increase to my monthly taxes, which is about comparable**. This, to pay for things of disputable benefit. We don't need a federal healthcare plan, nor should we pay for every kid to go send 4 years at college: the former will mean a worsening of our healthcare in general (longer waiting lines, perhaps rationing or worse, and I can imagine how things like the tyrannical HHS contraceptive/abortion mandate will only be expanded, and worked around whatever Supreme Court ruling is handed down); the latter will mean that college is further dumbed down (it's already slipping there somewhat, and the value of many BS degrees is often worse than worthless). We have "free" k-12 education already, improving the quality of that would work far more wonders than tacking on another 4-6 years of college "education. And from a purely selfish standpoint, I see these as especially burdensome to me: the few actual perks of my job include steeply discounted tuition for my family, "free" health insurance***, and a pension plan****. So people like me will lose out the most on Bernie Sanders, because we will see a large tax increase to fund entitlements that we already pay or receive as a perk (read: non-cash payment) to our jobs.

On the other side of things, none of the candidates have made specific plans for cutting back our already bloated federal budget. The result is that while Ted Cruz and Donald Trump will cut taxes somewhat, they will also be increasing our debt (which has soared to nearly $20 Trillion as of this writing). Not that Bernie Sander or Hillary Clinton avoid doing this, mind you. The outlook for this election is bleak.


*John Kasich is excluded, but then again, he is mathematically eliminated from winning the nomination at anything short of a brokered convention (which actually is looking more and more likely).

**Vox includes everything from income tax to payroll tax to corporate tax. International Business Times does not, as far as I can tell.

***I pay for some of it, and of course I "pay" for some more in a reduced salary, my boss has estimated by about $20000/year. I don't hold high hopes for getting to pocket that money if we go to universal healthcare.

****Which actually take a substantial portion of my monthly paycheck, just under 10% of my earnings, so it is really more like a mandatory group investment.

Rise of Trump?

I've read a lot of commentary as to why Donald Trump is doing so well, and among so many different groups (he polls strongly across all groups save party establishment loyalists). One such article--I lost track of it, so no link right now--was sent to me a few months before the primaries in a conversation with a good friend of mine from South Carolina, who explained that he planned to vote for Trump.

Here is another one from John Hayward of Breitbart.com:

Trump’s voters have lost faith in the Republican Party, the media, the federal government, long-standing assumptions about the economy… and, most unfortunately, many of their fellow citizens.

That loss of faith has been building for a long time, across an entire generation and several presidencies. Its echoes can be heard among some Democrat constituencies as well, although they tend to blame different elements of the old order for breaking faith with the people.

On the Republican side, the loss of faith in the GOP Establishment is palpable, building into an avalanche of distrust over the past three elections....

The immigration issue resonates because it’s such an obvious example of the Establishment holding a radically different position than voters… and relentlessly trying to shove it down their throats, year after year, no matter how much they protest. It’s like the customer in the Monty Python skit trying to order a meal without spam, from a restaurant that insists on cramming spam into every single menu item. No matter how loudly they object, Republican voters can’t get their party leadership to take immigration seriously.

The central premise of open-borders ideology is that people who are not American citizens have needs the U.S. government must prioritize above the needs of Americans. Big Republican donors want cheap labor at the expense of American workers. On both sides of the aisle, our elite lost faith in us, long before we lost faith in them...

Saddest of all, the American people have lost a crucial degree of faith in each other. That’s not surprising, because they’ve been blasted with messages – and billion-dollar programs – for the past seven years, based on the idea that only the biggest Big Government in history can protect us from each other. Middle Americans see armies of Social Justice Warriors lined up against them. People who have been told they have no moral right to organize politically understand how that leaves them defenseless against a rapacious political culture. Nominally conservative big-money interests turned out to be very willing to cut deals with Big Government.

The value of persuasion has been reduced, because socialism is compulsive – it’s not a debate, it’s Thunderdome. The losers are punished and looted. No one gets to sit on the sidelines.

Can we persuade the Left to rediscover the value of free speech… or must we send Trump to show them how it feels to be on the wrong side of their tactics? Can we persuade the Left to remember the importance of limited government and the separation of powers… or must we replace their beloved “benevolent dictator” with Trump, to frighten them back into constitutional government?

This is a fairly good summary of the reasons I have seen given. Personally, I take these collectively as reasons to be wary of Marco Rubio (the establishment's current choice after Jeb Bush fizzled out). If you dislike the establishment, vote for Ted Cruz. The man at least has a touch of decorum and class, even if he does at times come across as a used car salesman or evangelical preacher.

Presidential Primaries Endorsement

Since primary season is upon us, I suppose I should make some endorsement. For the Democrats, I cannot offer an endorsement, because I think that both main candidates are absolutely awful. If you must vote Democrat, then I suppose that the approach should be "Bros before hoes," but then again I suspect that Sanders is more likely to win than Clinton in a national election.

For the Republicans, my endorsement is a bit more serious, because I might actually vote for their nominee. If it's Trump, then I'm going to vote third party, in all likelihood. Each of the other candidates has, in my opinion, some large flaws but also some significant upside. With that said, I think my preference is either for Rubio or Cruz. Carson seems very discerning, and he's certainly quite intelligent, and Kasich is also reasonably discerning about where he will dig in his heels and fight and where he will compromise. He's not pro-life enough for my tastes, and is weak on the marriage questions--but on the other hand he is signing the bill to defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio, and I suspect that we have lost the political fight over the meaning of marriage for the next generation at least. The goal her should really be, "do no harm."

With that said, neither Kasich nor Carson has a particularly clear (nor likely) path to the nomination. My first Choice was Jindal, but he did not even make it to the Iowa caucuses (in the the same way, my first preference two cycles ago was Brownback, who dropped out shortly after Iowa). If we had a less appalling frontrunner, I might consider a vote for Carson or Kasich, but really I don't lean much towards either of them over Cruz or Rubio.

I lean slightly more towards Cruz than Trump, but my actual endorsement at this point is "anybody but Trump." To this end, I would recommend the following strategy: vote for whichever between Cruz and Rubio is the frontrunner (or second behind Trump) in your state, at least until it becomes apparent that one or the other will bow out. Since many states are either winner-take-all or (more commonly) winner-take-most, having Trump lose (or come in second) in many states will draw a lot more delegates away from him, and will go much further to prevent his becoming the nominee, than will splitting the "not Trump" vote between Rubio and Cruz within each state.

Irony from New Hampshire

Bernie Sanders handily beat Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary. However, he will not receive more delegates from New Hampshire than did Ms. Clinton. Indeed, Ms. Clinton has so far had one tie and one blowout loss, yet has many more delegates so far as compared to Mr. Sanders. I don't mind this much either way, to the extent that I won't be voting for either of them; I do think that the Democrats (and the Republicans, to the extent that they do this too) should consider not placing so much power in the hands of the party machine, since it does tend to make voters feel disenfranchised, to say nothing of disenchanted, with respect to their party of choice.

With that said, there is something ironic about the idea of the man who is running on an explicitly socialist platform complaining that the votes which he is working so hard for are being taken from him and given to somebody else who didn't earn them.

Bonus:

Cads, Cads Everywhere!

In the senate, and running for president... but so few real men. No decorum, nor virtue: we have no leaders, only would-be rulers and demagogues. And the person in the White House now is the worst of the lot, a poltroon who at times rises almost to the level of being a cad.

What a stupid time to be alive. Or, perhaps the real moral is, "Trust not in princes..."

Unions

The propaganda:

The rebuttal:

Lol... lets pretend the premise that unions being solely responsible for all of those things isn't fiction, and that those things aren't federal law... now why, oh why, would I want to like, let alone support, organizations who have done nothing in the last 80 years but embezzle money from their members, assault people, bilk taxpayers for billions of dollars with thier health-insurance schemes, support politicians that're contrary to the interests of the worker. I don't want to see unions banned, but I think every worker should be able to CHOOSE not to be part of these organizations (Right to work.) Maybe then unions would have to stand up for the worker's interests, instead of thier own, in order to retain membership.

That seems about right.

Bonus:

Come on. There's a bit of a difference between wanting to see lower taxes and smaller government with less bureaucracy and more accountability, on the one hand, and wanting to see the government cease all services of all sorts. Yes, there are probably some "libertarians" (or anarchists) who do want such a thing. The Tea Party with all its faults has never struck me as being such a group. This kind of "irony" is rather tepid next to the corporatism of the Occupy Wall Street mobs:

Anyways, there's no disconnect between saying that we need less government and using such services or products as the federal highway system or relying on EMS personnel, policemen, or even our military. Less government is not the same thing as "no government."

Alabama SB377

In anticipation of the practically inevitable Supreme Court ruling against marriage, the state senate of Alabama is considering legislation to do away with marriage licenses. I've been suggesting that something like this will be tried at some level, though I suspect it won't be especially widespread. Sympathy for "gay marriage" and against religious liberties have both been on the rise* in America, across the nation. The plan all along has been to force this issue on people, and in particular to force it on people who don't want to participate.

The latest on that front is is that participating is not enough--you must also practice correct-think. As Rod Dreher notes,

You understand, of course, that this is not about getting equal treatment. The lesbian couple received that. This is about demonizing a point of view, and driving those who hold it out of the public square. Just so we’re clear about that....

It does indicate, though, the next phase in the March of Progress. You must not only bake the cake, or arrange the flowers, or make the ring, you must hold the correct opinion when you do it.

A typically hateful commenter (from the other side) glibly replies,

"You people truly are unbelievably dense.

Do you not get that gay couples (and their family, friends, and fellow decent fellow American citizens) do NOT want your bigot products and services. We (all the above mentioned) don’t want to give you one dime. Period.

That is not the point....

So… put out your signs [and offer to cheerfully serve the gay community despite them]...Then watch as you’ve made your beliefs and feelings perfectly well known how your business crumbles, as not only gay people but a large swath of customers choose not to do business with those they know to be bigoted and engaged in efforts to harm their gay friends, family, and neighbors."

In any case, I do not know if this decision to cease offering marriage licenses is a workable solution--though I am in favor of the government getting out of the marriage business if marriage is to become meaningless. And, to the extent that civil marriages are dissoluble by divorce, and that they do not function for the purpose of procreation, and that they will now start to be expanded to include ever more types of partnerships, marriage has become civilly meaningless at best. So long as the government finds a way to recognize the actual rights of spouses (hospital visitation, joint ownership, etc), extended to non-spousal relationships or otherwise, fine, do away with civil marriage.

For better or for worse, the law is a teacher. It is best when the law teaches rightly, but the law has not been doing that for decades. This is basically just a continuation of that slide from teaching correctly about marriage, and so the law is not only not teaching well or flat out refusing to teach, it is in fact teaching lies. So, in that sense, having the law refuse to teach anything at all is a step in the right direction, albeit a very hesitating one (and one with some possibly bad complications).

An institution which should be the source of much good is becoming a source more of evil. The right thing to do is to redeem that institution; that action has failed. I suppose that the next best thing is to burn it down, which is going to happen anyway. It can hopefully be rebuilt, and correctly, in some distant future. I'm not one to stand by chanting "burn baby burn!" as civilization is engulfed in flames--but if burning it down is the wrong reaction to civilization as a whole, it is the right reaction to a Trojan Horse. And, tragically, that is what the civil institution of marriage has become.

This may not be the right solution, but in the end, it may be the only solution left, at least as far as the present civilization is concerned.

---
*Soon that will be "old" news, and the social justice brownshirts, will embrace the next (lock)step of "progress." They will then demand that the rest of us fall in as well. Or else.

Protecting Religious Freedom

I've read a few articles of late about Indiana's recent passage of a Religious Freedom Protection Act. It seems to me that the informed opinion is that this act--like laws in 19 other states which have been passed since the early 1990's--basically just weighs religious liberties against compelling interests of the state. My comment here is that it is not a good thing that we need such an act, a point which I have noted before. Nevertheless, the state has made it quite clear that it will overreach wherever possible, including by attempting to stamp out religious liberties.

The most visible way in which it does this is by trying to invoke so-called "gay rights" (hence all of the hysteria of how this law which never mentions GBLT-etc folks is somehow "anti-gay). Invoking so-called "women's rights" arguably a close second. Forcing Christians to participate in so-called "gay marriage ceremonies" as photographers, bakers, floral-arrangers, and perhaps even as ministers is the all-too-common example of the former; the Obama administration's rather tyrannical HHS contraceptive-abortifacent-sterilization mandate is an example of the latter.

In all, this law is meant to be a sort of shield for religious liberties, though I suspect that it may be a rather nebulous one. Case in point, I have yet to hear of any Christian who is sued for exercising his conscience cite any of the various RFRA-analogs. This isn't the Arizona version of the bill, after all.

On the other hand, it seems that these bills provide a flimsy shield at best, since it will largely end up being the state which gets to decide when the state has compelling interests. Not to mention, that is repeat, but the fact that we have sunk so far as to need a law like this is also a rather ill omen.

Women in Currency

President Obama suggested not so long ago that we should have more women on U.S. currency. The simple idea of doing this does not particularly bother me--we have already had Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony on the dollar coins, plus Helen Keller on the quarter (well, the Alabama quarter) and Martha Washington on the $1 paper certificate.

More recently, there has been a small campaign aimed at getting a woman on the $20 bill--again, I don't really mind this idea. Andrew Jackson wasn't a very good president (and honestly, he beat a better one when first elected), and we do have non-presidents on paper currency (hello, Benjamin!). With that said, my bigger worry is that we would get somebody like Hillary Clinton (if she wins the presidency in 2016, thus continuing what will have been a pair of 8-year tragedies in the White-house); or for that matter a number of the people listed by the campaign. I'd be fine with Rosa Parks (who is a sort of civil rights hero), or Harriet Tubman (ditto), or Sojourner Truth (ditto again); and it would be interesting to see Elizabeth Ann Seton (though that's never going to happen!) on the twenty.

On the other hand, there are a number of women whom I would be appalled to see honored by our currency which are (unsurprisingly) on the campaign's list: Betty Friedan would be awful, and Margaret Sanger would cause me to stop carrying or accepting 20's.

Presidential PeDegree

Scott Walker is one of the possible Republican candidates for President in 2016. Actually, he's currently one of the leading potential candidates. Therefore, much is being made of his lack of credentials, by which I mean a college degree.

I think there have been maybe two Republicans to be elected president without earning a degree: William McKinley and Abraham Lincoln. Both died in office, so I suppose it's nice of Walker's political rivals to be so concerned with his health. Except, well, that's not why they want to keep him far away from the White House.

Honestly, though, we've had a few Presidents who did not graduate from college, including both Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Every President since Reagan has been a graduate of Harvard or Yale (though I'll take the Eureka College Alum over any of his successors).

To be honest, I'd take Washington, Lincoln, Monroe, or even Truman over any president since the 1990's: degrees be damned. And lest the rejoinder be, "oh, but education nowadays isn't what it used to be...", let us not forget which side has been running the education system for the last several decades.

Some Random Reflections

I have  variety of random observations, thoughts, and remarks rattling around inside my head. I suppose that I might as well write them here.

The first is that and increasing number of people who I would have previously assumed would act as cheerleaders for the Republican party are starting to rumble that they would prefer a third party, or at the least a re-aligning of interests for the GOP, even if this requires voting third-party for a few election cycles. This group now includes Erik Erickson from RedState, Jay Cost at The Federalist, and Ace. I'd like to see social policy put first, rather than seeing the party largely surrender every battle of the culture wars. It would be nice to at least get a coalition together that is moderately pro-life enough to pass incremental abortion bans (after 20 weeks, for starters) with some consistency--especially when said bans are already popularly supported. And it would be similarly nice to see some sort of interest in making a workable solution that at the very least protects religious freedoms and rights of association and free speech on the whole "gay marriage" front.

Second random thought: since poll taxes are not allowed, and poll tests are not allowed, perhaps the next best thing is to require that all votes for a candidate be write-in only. Meaning; the Republicans and the Democrats and everyone else can still have their nominees at any given office, but the voters can no longer just lazily fill in a bubble next to their names. You will write out the name of the man or woman for whom you are voting; spelling errors can be accounted for via common sense, and of course in the age of computerized voting, by "write" I mean "type", so illegible handwriting is not an issue. And in places where there are ballot measures, you will at least write in "yes on ballot #" or "no on ballot #" (specifying the number) to have your vote for that ballot counted.

Third random thought: Eye of the Tiber continues to be funny, this time in a sad way which comments on the hypocrisy of our culture.

Fourth random thought: a better way for making college "affordable." Recall that President Obama had originally proposed raiding peoples' college savings accounts (529 accounts) by taxing any withdrawal from these (the deposits are often taxed already). This was in order to pay for other people who couldn't (or simply didn't bother to) save up for college, so that they could go to a community college for "free", thereby making two more years of school de-facto compulsory. Here is a counter-proposal. If getting people to go to college means so much, why not make any payment for tuition (or repayment of a loan) tax-deductible at a special rate. The rate is: for every dollar you spend paying for your own tuition up front, you will pay $1 fewer in taxes. For every dollar you spend paying your own student loans, you will pay $0.75 less on your taxes that year. And for every dollar you spend paying for someone elses' tuition or student loans, you get back 50% of the return they would have had.

Fifth random thought: enjoy this fanciful fairy tale from the Imaginative Conservative.

Eleven Nations and States' Rights

Every so often, I see article which crop up stating that this or that state (or country, or region, or whatever) should be broken up into smaller blocks. Lately, such articles talk about the EU in this way, though I've seen such things about California (I really like that proposal, by the way, especially if Southern Oregon can join Jefferson) and Texas and even North America or the US.

Concerning the US/North America, at least, some of the problems could be solved if the federal government had a lot less power, and if much of its power was vested in the states instead. The Civil War, and later the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, and even the Cold War and the Culture Wars, pretty much guaranteed that more and more power would start to be concentrated into the hands of the federal government at the expense of the states. It also happens, to some extent, because federal courts in the US end up overturning state laws every time enough liberals whine about this, that, or the other social issue. I think that, all-in-all, both the people of (for example) Georgia, the people of New York, the people of Texas, the people of California, and the people of Mississippi would collectively be much happier if they were allowed to focus more on running their own affairs in-state than having to bicker over running everybody else's.

Revolution of the Justices

A large number of probate judges in the state of Alabama have decided that they will not comply with a federal court's ruling that they should start manufacturing fiat marriages. It's nice to see that there are some judges who are actually interested in justice, which in this case means disobeying the orders of a higher court. Or, more appropriately, getting creative in their interpretation of what the higher court's orders actually are:

An attorney for the Probate Judge’s Association said that is not an accurate reading of the judge’s ruling. Probate Judges are elected in all 67 counties in Alabama and carry the responsibility of issuing and recording marriage licenses.

“Judge Granade’s ruling in this case only applies to the parties in the case and has no effect on anybody that is not a named party. The probate judges were not parties in this matter,” Al Agricola, attorney for the Alabama Probate Judges Association, explained. “The legal effect of this decision is to allow one person in one same sex marriage that was performed in another state to adopt their partner’s child. There is nothing in the judge’s order that requires probate judges in Alabama to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.”

...Judge Greg Norris, President of the Alabama Probate Judges Association, hopes that misinterpretation of Friday’s ruling will not cause confusion among the general public. Probate Judges are elected in all 67 counties in Alabama and carry the responsibility of issuing and recording marriage licenses.

“As probate judges, our duty is to issue marriage licenses in accordance with Alabama law and that means we can not legally issue marriage licenses to same sex couples,” said Greg Norris, President of the Alabama Probate Judges Associate. “The recent federal ruling does not change that.” Probate Judges are elected in all 67 counties in Alabama and carry the responsibility of issuing and recording marriage licenses.

Probate Judges are elected in all 67 counties in Alabama and carry the responsibility of issuing and recording marriage licenses.

Sometimes "the law" and "justice" are at odds. Sometimes,"the law" asks for the impossible, such as for people to "marry" two (or more) people of the same sex. Sorry kids, it's not a marriage, no matter what the piece of paper says. On the other hand, this seems like an awfully shaky method of making a stand, since it is here based more-or-less on the claim that no ruling has been passed (yet) which requires the state to begin issuing "marriage" licenses to homosexual partners. Of course, that particular situation can (and very likely will) change in the near future, probably about as soon as the first lawsuit is filed against the Alabama probate judges association (or perhaps if they are really stubborn, against each individual probate judge's office).