Then what do you suggest as the Right choice?

Caveat Emptor

I don't see this as going to the dark side, then again evil people rarely see themselves as evil. I see this as choosing the lesser of 2 evils. If there were a truly good choice. Someone who supported the ideals Ms Rand laid out, I would back them 100%. As it stands I will be voting for someone who seems to be wanting to carry us all to Hell at least marginally slower.

The danger is not a "runaway convention" making the Constitution worse, it's runaway compromise at a convention making the Constitution worse.

The fundamental cause of the decline is bad ideas spread throughout the culture as a result of the intellectual influence of the European Counter Enlightenment driven by false moral and anti-reason premises of self-sacrifice, collectivism and faith not properly addressed the first time. The decline is not fundamentally caused by corruption concentrated in Washington, which only cashes in on the rest. A convention of states is no solution to that. The politics of the states has its own corruption and the same false premises.

Yes Donald. Now take your meds and go back to your cell.

Those changing views are not "core values". His "core values" are that anything goes when making a "deal" and everything is a "deal". It's full bore pragmatism against principle as a matter of principle and for whatever "works". That is why his switches on policy almost don't matter; you still don't know what he will do to you tomorrow in the name of his Napoleanic "greatness" image of himself.

"We" do not deserve them.

The trains that run over us would work just fine.

The prospect of having to decide if a vote for Trump is justified to keep out Cackles, Sanders, Biden or Bloomberg is truly terrifying.

Eminent domain is not a "natural tool of business". Trump's support of government force to seize private property while mocking and taunting the victims in his usual style have been documented and discussed extensively on this forum. That he "openly" calls his abuse "wonderful" is reason to reject him; his "open" pronouncements of his evil are no reason to support him.

I read the book when it was a best seller. In one sentence "The Art of the Deal" is to get what you want first, then negotiate the downside to the other guy. I guess what alarmed me was his bombast. Like we need to stop all Muslim immigrants from entering this country. That would never happen, it's unconstitutional. Then he walks it back the next day and says "temporarily" and "I didn't mean all Muslims".

On the one hand he says he will put a tariff on China, something like 35%, then later I hear him say it will never happen, they will concede on their currency manipulation before they would face that tariff.

It is a fact that every piece of information I have ever read on success states you get the best results when you improve your skills working with people. So, I would concede Trump knows how to work with people. I recall from the Art of the Deal, one of his first deals was in Cincinnati. Trump had been told the seller enjoyed French food, so they had the meeting to discuss the deal at the Maisonette. That was not an accident, he has always known how to reach out to people. In the last several months I have come to understand Trump will exaggerate an issue, attracting maximum press, then fine tune the issue later. He has played the press like on old violin.

He's not my first pick because my fantasy would be seeing President Ted Cruz swear in Supreme Court Justice Anthony Napoletano. I prefer to go by the constitution and in particular the 10th Amendment. That's just me. If Trump is the republican nominee, I will gladly vote for him because if it's Hillary or Bernie I don't think we will have a country after their term.

What I don't get is why, from the point of view of the establishment republicans, why is it perfectly acceptable for me and my ilk to hold our nose and vote for John McCain, G.W. Bush, or Bob Dole. It is expected for millions of guys like me to go along with the party choice. Why is it unacceptable to them to have a candidate Like Trump or Cruze? Why can't they hold their nose? I certainly have had second thoughts but then voted for the establishment guy. And what has it gotten me? I heard on Fox today if you divide the National debt by the population, it's like having $331,000.00 of credit card debt.

Article V convention is fine with me, I read Levin's book on the subject a couple years ago. Many wrongly believe a Art. V could become a run away, bu that's not so because the states have to ratify or a super majority I believe. The thing I find most amazing about this site is people will measure the minutia against the philosophy of Rand, as they we taught in college, then when a real world John Gault runs for President they forget all about doing a thing for the love of it, or because your good at it, or even because you want to...at that point they forget Rand's philosophy and start counting bankruptcies and divorces. Just seems strange to Rands ideads only apply to trivial things, at least sometimes.

I agree with you about the GOP. I recently received a donation seeking questionnaire from Paul Ryan and the Republican Party. Questions about standing up against Obama had me writing beside the multiple choices stuff like "When you quit kissing his butt."
At the end I was asked to give a written suggestion and I wrote "Get rid of that RINO Paul Ryan." For a donation I wrote, "$00.00.
Not having to provide a stamp encouraged me to do all that.
I've seen posters here hope that a Clinton or a Sanders should be allowed to crash the economy so people will wake up and raise a renewed republic from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix.
Such an idealistic hopeful outcome may instead slam into a brick wall of hard reality.
My concern is that calling down destruction may only accomplish just that permanently.
I've written this once before on this board~"How do we know 2084 won't end up like the novel 1984? If not Mad Max?"
Recently saw The Purge with "new founding fathers" that had to be psycho.

National Review has been a typical neocon establishment publication since the first issue. The neocon writers named do not surprise me. Not even Sowell surprises me. Sowell is a follow-the-pack neocon in everything other than economics and the other writers love government, too — the difference is they want to run it their way. If Reason Magazine came out with a special edition hit piece, that would disappoint me.