I couldn't agree more!

Besides, how do we know that Sue Everhart is really a woman?  Has anyone actually inspected her genitals?  She could easily have arranged a fake heterosexual marriage to get elected and to get good health insurance.  I mean, can't anyone just dress up as a woman and shave their legs and all?

On a serious note, these people really are a problem for the future of our country.  The two party system is very much hard-wired into our system and it would take a very, very long time to change that.  And who would do it?  Not one of the two parties.  And these nut cases can't be reasoned with on their wacky beliefs, because they have no relationship to reason - not as ideas, and not in the way they formed, or are held by the nut cases.  And the people who hold power in the GOP don't want to upset those they see as powerful supporters against the Democrats.  The GOP establishment won't condemn the wackos, but on occasion feels obligated to make statement out of political correctness or because polls tell them that it would look bad not to.  

Right now the GOP is now showing serious signs of moving more and more into libertarian territory - and quite rapidly - historically speaking.  The only hope seems to be putting more and more libertarian leaning Republicans in office till they can work to cut off money and party posts for the nut jobs.  Don't give them a local political ladder to climb and don't fund them.  

The best approach would be to separate them from regular Christians.  And even separate them from Evangelical Christians.  If they can be painted as the nut cases they are by saying "This isn't Christianity.  This is forcing one's view on others.  This is a kind of Sharia law and no reasonable Christian wants that.  Putting in office people whose primary goal it force their views on other politically will destroy our right to worship as we see fit."  Politicians won't ever attack the nut cases unless they can see a way to do it that in their scared little minds won't worry them about losing Christian support.  If they are really frightened, they can add, "It isn't that they shouldn't hold those beliefs, it is just that it is wrong to bring them into the world of politics."  Attack their intolerance.  Accuse them of being unchristian.  Split them off.

It would do the GOP a world of good to stand for something and be able to fight back against the charge of being the party of "No."  The best way would be to keep speaking of "Liberty" and that makes it really easy to not just stand for something, but to take the fight to the progressives as being opposed to our freedoms.

That woman’s not just a random nut but the chair of the Republican Party in Georgia (in case you missed the second sentence). And anti-science guy (who I cover in more detail in another piece) in addition to being a Senate candidate in Georgia is a member of Congress and a member of the House Science committee, voting on our laws.

Let me explain the issue this way… No, wait, I just did a whole book on the subject, which you can download for free thru Thursday!

So study the chapter on the GOP’s crisis and on social conservatives in The Republican Party’s Civil War: Will Freedom Win? Then come back here and I’ll give you a quiz on the material. But don’t worry, it will be short answer and multiple choice. No essay!

"Shakes his head in bewilderment".  

Wow MEM...

Thanks Ed.

One hundred Senators, but point taken!

Ed, you are free to spend your time on whatever interests you. I just wonder why a bright guy like you invests so much of it in the Grand Old Party.

I'd say that these are the kind of reasons why a bright guy like Ed might write what he wrote:

1. We are a two party system. It is so deeply wired into the structures and laws that it would take a decade or so to change it and who would we get to make that change? One of the two parties?
2. We are seeing a surge of interest in libertarian principles that is resulting in a growing wing of the GOP - libertarian conservativess. They are already gearing up for primary battle where several of the leading libertarian conservatives will be fighting to be nominated for the GOP candidate in 2016. We are talking about Senators and Governors.
3. Watching those primary debates will prove to be one of the most effective political educations that our voting public could receive.  The media cannot not cover it.
4. This could lead to a fight for the Presidency between a libertarian-conservative from the GOP and a progressive from the Democrats. And that would nearly be the first time in living memory that the battle between liberty and collectivism were fought on a national level for the country to watch, and to vote on.  And again, the media has to show the debates and people will be able to see the contrast between what the media says and what the candidate say.
5. If the GOP were to win a contest of that kind, it could signal a turn in our political tides of major proportions, especially if at that time the Senate is already in GOP hands (even though the majority of those hands would not be libertarian at all).

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The GOP is on a stalled train. Heck, they are the stalled train. Walk away from it.

It is stunning that the very first time in living memory that we seeing so many libertarians holding national office, having an actual shot at the presidency, and at the same time we are starting to see the rejection the religious right.  That someone would say it is a stalled train is stunning!

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Ayn Rand's objective vantage point allowed her to criticize Democrats (liberals) and Republicans (conservatives) alike on national issues that exemplfied the ideas that she wanted to explain.

That true. But supporting those candidates who supported free enterprise is a good thing if it isn't also a support of religious positions.  And that is why Rand was able to support Goldwater even though he was a religious man - he didn't make his approach to politics about religion.  He kept his religious views out of the campaign and he fought for liberty - explicitly.

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She also had good words for the left wing progressives for their intellectual approach to social problems. They at least attempted to bring the science to political science.

I'd have to see the quote, because I think Marotta has his head up his ass on this one. I don't believe she ever stood up in favor of government involvement in social problems. Also, what the left wing progressives are doing is not science, it is psuedo-science dishonestly masked as a cover for increasing government control over individuals. And what the left-wing progressives have attempted to bring to the 'science' of polical science is psuedo-scientific lies to support collectivism writ large.

I remember her digust with the kitchen debate between Kruschev and Nixon.  She was disgusted that Kruschev was claiming that science was on the side of communism, and that Nixon countered by saying God was on the side of America.  That was a clear indication of how little she thought of the far left's claims to be supported by science.

It is true that Rand had no good words for the Conservatives, apart from Goldwater. But she didn't live long enough to see this new breed of conservative. The conservatives of her era were mostly solidly christian and only varied in how overt and how smooth they were in espousing religious positions. Today, the religious right is finding a growing chasm between itself that the rest of the party.  Driving them out of the party that is closest to supporting limited government and free enterprise is a good fight.  Demographics and time support a fight to get them out.

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Based on Ayn Rand's appreciation of the liberal approach to politics....

The word "liberal" used to mean those who favored freedom. But today it is just the old name for what are now called progressives. To say that Rand appreciated the approach to politics that we see from the progressives would be delusional!

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I recommend highly that anyone who does not agree with me on this re-read the passages in Atlas Shrugged where John Galt is confronted by a parade of visitors to his hotel room after he is captured. Mr. Thompson warned and pleaded that while he is a liberal, enlightened man, others in the government are not. Galt's best chance, said Thompson, is to compromise with the better sort while he still had the opportunity.

We should take Mr. Thompson's understanding of who Galt is as true?!?!?!  Someone who is in the senate or a governor of a state and who is predominately libertarian and is fighting to become the president and to turn around the direction we are headed now... that's who Marotta sees as a compromiser?  And if Ed is fighting to knock religion out of the GOP, he is a compromiser!?!?!?  That's nutty thinking.

If Marotta were explicitly advocating going Galt, that would be different.  But that isn't what he is doing.  Here is why I think Marotta is the stalled train.  He sees the left-wing progressives as scientific and somehow they still generate feeling of affection in him - he feels some affiliation there.  But they don't support free enterprise so he won't support them (except here and there in minor ways and very half-heartedly).  When he looks to the right, he seems to have powerful emotions against the conservatives such that he is blind to the changes from the old conservatives to the variety of conservatives we see today.  For some reason he doesn't see a fight to bring Objectivist principles into the political arena as having meaning, or being practical or something - so he opts out.  I take it he was a far left progressive before he became an anarchist, before he became whatever it is he is now.  And I think that this happened because he doesn't fully tie his beliefs to reality - they float to some extent.  But that's just my take.

Steve:

On Goldwater: he didn't make his approach to politics about religion.  He kept his religious views out of the campaign and he fought for liberty

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice," Goldwater said. "And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

I can only wonder how "extremism in the defense of liberty" in 1964 rotted into Sue Everhardt uttering "Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this [she got that right!], but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” adding that “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

Unlike Goldwater,  cows like that uddering[sic] their nonsense is exactly where the modern faction of the GOP sells it's soul.   The vast majority of the nation has some kind of religious faith, protected by the same 1st Amendment these politicos trash by injecting their theocratic beliefs into American politics.    But they can't ignore the votes.   They can't turn their back on idiots, just like the Democrats can't turn their back on idiots, because there are a lot of idiots, and enough of them vote to turn this America into one massive cluster fuck steel cage death match struggle for domination.

Was Goldwater's failure primarily piling into a national wave of sympathy for the assassination of JFK?  Maybe.   He probably knew that.    He campaigned anyway.   It was admirable and principled.

Not every person with faith blinks away the logic behind a secular nation with a 1st Amendment and ignores half of that 1st Amendment while exercising the other half. Sure thing, there must still be at least 400 reasonable people left in this nation of 330 million.      But many have concluded that national politics is an appropriate venue to push their faith and what their church believes about marriage and so on.  They are doing God's work, being faithful to what they know Jesus wants and so on, because they rolled their eyes into the back of their heads and He spoke to them, and would never turn their back on His wants and His teachings, and all that fucking complete nutter nonsense that tells them to worry about the happiness contained inside of skin not their own, and empowers them, in their sick fuck twisted minds at least, to attack others through the guns of goverment.     Check their flags.  Red white and blue, got a big red cross in the middle of a blue square on a field of the purest white.   Enough to make you weep.   Marching as to war.    

1st Amendment.   Believe what you want.  Speak your mind and convince others if you must and can.  But keep your grubby fucking hands off the guns of government while doing so, even if you've annointed them in the must be uniquely magic potion of your favorite Holy juice. .  Who doesn't get that?   Most of America doesn't get that. no matter what their religion is; traditional snake worshipping Jesus Bible thumping, or Progressive Social Scientology.    It is why America politics is a clown circus of going nowhere.

But even all that is just a distraction from a game ultimately run by reptilian mobsters.   The distraction is a necessary part of their ability to conduct business in plain sight.

I'm not sure I understand the friction with MEM other than it is the same friction all of us naked sweaty apes naturally feel for each other these days during this sad end game.  All of us.  Especially me.

Let me confess.   I look around, and I am embarassed at the mess we are handing to the next generation.  Ashamed.   Whatever was worth defending about this nation and its ideas has largely failed to be effectively defended.   It wasn't purely rot from lefties attacking from without and within, it was as much sellout by those within this nation criminally running downhill and shedding risk.   And it was also sold out by good, decent people in the vast middle who did nothing, who failed to defend the greatest ideas on earth and clean out our own fucking swamps, going all the way back to LBJ and beyond, sick corrupt motherfucker that he was.

But Goldwater's example, even in likely defeat, even when smeared by weasels, was admirable.    So lets look back at the mess he was facing and why he opposed it.   He stated clearly that he was morally opposed to segregation.   He also argued that it was economically wrongheaded to local business leaders in AZ as part of his politics.   He actively did not support segregation.   But he also did not support the federal government hamfistedly inserting itself into issues of unfettered moral and economic crusades, and that was the -principled- basis of his opposition.   LBJ on the other hand, for the same decades that Goldwater privately did not support segregation and was opposing it, was privately supporting it, southern Democrat that he was.    And Goldwater correctly identified LBJ as a complete phony on the issue by pointing out those facts.   Although the CRA was limited to public sphere, Goldwater objected to that on the slippery slope basis, and did so in a principled fashion.  (I would have disagreed; I recognize a different obligation to others in public.   I don't deny the fact that there is both a public and private sphere of existence in a nation.)   But he was smeared as a 'nazi' and worse by his political opponents, and -that- was far more egregious than his principled arguments.

However, the Civil Rights Act as written was common sense liberty and justice applicable in the public sphere, and more importantly was race neutral.  I could have readily supported it, but at the age of 9 was largely unaware.  This is all looking back at the facts.   JFK's Executive Order which preceded it was common sense liberty and justice.   LBJ's affirmative action Executive Order, which rescinded JFK's EO, was not only self-contradictory, but contradicted the CRA; it demanded precisely to be done what the CRA explicitely just prohibited.    In the face of such clear contradictory unlawful action, what could possibly be the reason for pulling off somthing so clearly bizarre by this souther Democrat, once proud supporter of segregation and discrimination?       

Goldwater's principled stance, as principled as it was, was IMO a bridge too far.   It too easily painted him as an advocate of injustice, even if that was miles from the truth.   He put the bullet in the gun his opponents used to defeat him with that principled bridge too far.    In some future hypothetical nation, there is only a private sphere.   Arguing for that strongly on any one of a million websites is fine, but in this nation, in this reality, when pursuing public office for chrissakes, recognition that there is a public sphere should be part of the recognition of context.   The CRA as written was clearly limited to the public sphere.    Supporting that race neutral CRA, and specifically, its limitation to the public sphere, would have reinforced the public position of a party not only claiming to compete for public office, but to champion liberty and justice.

I see no moral right, no economic right, no ethical right, to publicly discriminate.   I see every right to do so privately.   It is exactly the private that makes it a right, and exactly the public that turns that right into an obligation to those we willingly share the public sphere with.   ANd just like the marriage issue, we don't defend freedom by pushing our private views into the public sphere; in the most important fashion, the Marriage issue is exactly the CRA issue.   And just like the GOP is hopelessly splintered,  the objectivist perseverance on an imagined future world with no public sphere at all is succeeding in keeping it in a fringe cul de sac, going nowhere in a nation that for certain has a strong public facet to life, the very arena in which its ideas are weighed and measured.    Perhaps a Rand Paul can navigate those waters more effectively than a Ron Paul, and perhaps one sane-ish voice in the fray will be enough.   

So why did LBJ, of all the crooks in the world, about face and push the CRA in 1964?

It was national mental confusion, a distraction.   "Hey look, a squirrel!"  aimed at the nation, which immediately got itself up in arms and argued over this insanity while the most corrupt official in modern times got busy somehow making his public servant millions in plain sight.    Hey, look what you can get away with in this nation as long as you give it something that on the face of it is totally bizarre to agitate itself over.

The CRA outlaws racial discrimination.   JFK's EO forbade racial discrimination.    LBJ's EO starts of saying the same thing and then in the very next breath mandates racial discrimination-- as long as there was a federally controllable buck to be made in its selective administration.      Hello?   And he got away with it.   "Hey look!   A red squirrel!"   OK, never mind, they're going to be busy for decades figuring THAT one out, lets start carving this mother fucker up, boys!   

So Detroit looks better today as a result of all this?  Young inner city minorities are doing so much better?   They were used like political Kleenex by these tools just like LBJ and the thugs appeasing the mob run unions, on ad infinitum. 

When are we going to start to notice?   What the fuck are you reptilian mobsters, skimmed off the top of the scummiest of the reptilian scum, doing in DC?   What have youe done to this nation other than gut it?

LBJ:  He looked like a crook.   He acted like a crook.   He was a 'public servant' his entire life and ended up a multimillionaire.    Guess what?   He was a fucking crook.   Followed by Nixon. 

Next up?   The Definition of Marriage.    Hey, don't worry, we got plenty more of these to rule a nation.

2004 Election.   Big billboard on NE Extension, north of Lehighton.   Dark blue background.   Big white letters.    "God's Country."     Smaller letters:  Bush 2004

That's it.   That's all they need to rule us.  Aim that political 'argument' at center of mass.    Or compare it with the only slightly more word laden argument "It's the economy, stupid!"

They're fucking laughing at us, and rightfully so.  What a nation of idiots we are.   So here comes another election.   The latest version of "God's Country" vs "It's the economy, stupid!"    Can't wait to see who comes out on top.

Tone is hard to read in the written word.    I interpreted MEMs comments as grousing along at the absurdity of this theocratic wannabe.   And he is right; this woman's positioning of her beliefs into the context of any political arena for public office is so absurd that this -does- sound like a piece from The Onion.   The absurdity is, it is not.

regards,

Fred

Fred,

My favorite story about LBJ is when he was running for an office in Texas [taken from Hunter S. Thompson’s "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in '72"]:

"The race was close and Johnson was getting worried. Finally he told his campaign manager to start a massive rumor campaign about his opponent’s life-long habit of enjoying carnal knowledge of his own barnyard sows.

 

'Christ, we can’t get away calling him a pig-fucker,' the campaign manager protested. 'Nobody’s going to believe a thing like that.'

 

'I know,' Johnson replied. 'But let’s make the sonofabitch deny it.'

 

Progressives start with the view that the ends justify the means, and for LBJ his end was him winning so he could fill his pockets.  Progressives are so into "Inclusiveness" as to include crooks.

Steve:

We discussed this before, but, when JFK was assassinated, America was denied what would have been the joint Kennedy-Goldwater campaign.   They regarded themselves as colleagues, and had planned an extremely high road campaign, where they would both get off the same plane in city after city and debate each other.   They would have set a standard that would have changed American politics for decades. 

Instead we got that shit on his shoes pig fucker scheming LBJ, followed by Nixon, and American politics have been a total joke ever since, a thing of Carville's and Rove's.

"God's Country."    "It's the economy, stupid!"

Great job, Carville and Rove.   Well done.   Big round of applause.

They are all fucking scum in DC.

regards,

Fred

Steve:

Well, 50+ years of LBJ pig fucker, nazi calling, progressive Great Society politics might have been underhanded,  but remember:  it was all for a good cause, and that's what made it alright in the end.

Speaking of the 50+ year Great Society payoff, here it is.  The Big Payoff

I guess it was enough.   All that's missing is a big statue of LBJ.

Definition of 'racist:'  anyone who notices that the Progressives have been using minorities like cheap, throw away Kleenex for 50 yrs and counting.

regards,

Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 4/14, 7:16am)

A concrete example of LBJ's AA creating EO is the '8(a) Program'

I was a defense contractor for about 15 years, between 1988 and about 2003.  Been out of it for about 10 years or so, back to living in the quiet cracks of commerce as a simple consultant.   But I was intimately involved with selling to the government through 8(a) companies.

It is the most corrupt piece of shit program you could imagine.   I never once saw a company managed by any small disadvantaged minorities.   And as a vendor supplying niche toys to the military, I was -vectored- to these companies by the very government purchasing officers tasked with making sure that the American taxpayer is not being hosed over.

The 8(a) program is -exactly- LBJ's legacy of  entrenched government corruption dressed up as helping poor and disadvantaged minorities.

If I developed a system that did some desired magic...wrote all the software, configured all the necessary specialized hardware, often developing it at risk with other vendors, receivers, antennas, packaged it in a ruggedized tactical platform, wrapped it all up in custom tactical ballistic nylon black bags, shipped in rotation molded Hardigg style military shipping cases, crossed all the government t's and dotted the i's, provided the training, etc., and then sold same to the government for "X", I might not have objected to the government requiring that I pass all that through an 8(a) phone, fax, and PO Box, where someone simply accepted an invoice from me for 'X" (including all actual costs of development and manufacture and training and my profit) and marked it up to '3X' -- realizing a net profit of 2X my gross revenue before costs and development costs, if that is what this government said was necessary to help the poor and disadvanatged.   I'd have done that all week and twice on Sundays.  Gladly.  Saluted the flag doing God's work here on earth, using OPM, because that is what this nation had decided was necessary.

Only, the 2X pure profit markup wasn't going anywhere near the poor and disadvantaged.   It was going to corrupt WASP crooks who were abusing the intent of the 8(a) program.   I walk into a meeting down at Bay St Louis, MS (near Stennis Space Center) at the strip mall 'office' of this 8(a) company that the Navy contracting officer vectored me to.    I'd never seen so many WASPS in one room in my life.   I asked who the minority/disadvantaged owner was, and one of these WASPS high fives the guy sitting next to him and says "My aunt was 1/8th Cherokee" and these scum are laughing at their good fortune.   I'll say.   I did all the fucking work, these talentless scum were riding my fucking back, not a single disadvantaged poor person to be seen within miles of the transaction.   And then we all go back and pay tax on our profits, to enable more of this parasitic horseshit.   Only some of us are actually taxed on their meager profits on their actual efforts, and others are taxed on the huge profits of their effortless windfalls.

And the government contracting officer is happy because they get to meet their mandated 8(a) spending targets (10% of their total budget) and not lose budget next year.   They know damn well that X is being marked up to 3X for -nothing but corruption-.   And that is painting that in its best light.   In worse light, they are preparing their soft landing for when they leave 'public service' and in the very worst light, they are being paid kickbacks under the table while all this is happening..

But even in the best of light, this sick, corrupt fucking thing is the worst fucking sickness imaginable.

And that is the reality of the legacy of LBJ's AA EO.  That is the corrupt nation where we live.

And if you don't support Affirmatve Action, the contradictory beast created by a corrupt LBJ in complete contradiction to the Civil Rights Act legislation of 1964 as passed, why, you are a racist.

And the dumbass minorities who fell for LBJs line of shit and continue to fall for it to this day, and let their injustice be used have earned their Detroit rewards, and are being laughed at by multimillionaire crooks using this government and its constition of liberty like so much toilet paper.

Rev Al Sharpton?   Are you shitting me?  Will you morons who are falling for bullshit just like his just look at him and listen to him and wake the fuck up and drain your own damn swamps of chronic public dependency?  Ever? 

Will any of us?

regards,

Fred