With trump it might be 30% bad. With Hillary ,90% bad. With Sanders 99% bad

I think there is a lot of anger about politicians taking our money. And if you think about it, those people are attracted to trump. Trump has tapped into the anti establishment feeling. Gary Johnson is way more intellectually consistent than trump nut lacks the charisma. Trump makes it acceptable to be yourself and ignore political correctness. That is a good thing to open up thought. It's why I am voting for him this time. I can't stand lying, manipulate, and consistently statist Hillary. That's showroom get if not trump

I have it listed correctly, in the stack under term2's
first-level statement, "Donald Trump says the things
that we are already feeling as citizens." -- j
.

I translate that to indicate that you have given up
on the u.s. and expect that another revolution in
the society will be required to fix this situation.......
am I close? -- j
.

The biggest battle is still to spread the right philosophical ideas. Without that no "courage to resist" would make a dent, and there is no point in making a martyr out of yourself.

Dictators 'appoint'.

George and Tom would be good but they term-limited out a while back.

The problem today isn't picking an ideal president. It's finding who could and would want to do the most to protect the rights of the individual and re-establish limitations on government powers, who could explain it well enough to be elected, and who would be willing to tolerate the job under today's conditions. The problem of bad political philosophy entrenched in government and culturally supported is much broader than picking a president.

I wonder, ewv, who you would propose for president
if you could appoint someone. -- j
.

yes, a hodgepodge of programs which incentivize
folks to sloth and pretend to replace the man of the
family, leading to social disintegration. -- j
.

I hope you're right. I hope whoever of the pseudo conservatives wins and gets the presidency does the right thing. I won't bet on it, however.

"[Gary Johnson's ideas just have no traction in this culture at this time."--term2
I think his ideas could be nearly a majority if there some system like IRV that would keep people from feeling like they were throwing away their vote. "Social liberal / fiscal conservative" is almost a cliche. I think this is a libertarian country. We don't like sending nearly half our money to the gov't and then getting it back in a hodgepodge of programs.

Sad but all too true.

Hmm... I guess I shouldn't attempt sarcasm in this forum. Too many people don't get it.

Pickup is on Mondays.

You said you hoped he would implement some of what he is saying.

The Trump supporters are susceptible to the part of his demagoguery they find appealing, ignoring the rest, ignoring that even what they like is a contradiction of what he said the day before or the year before, ignoring the destruction of pragmatic strong arm ideology, and not asking questions so as to not rock the boat. What are they counting on?

The election is not about the job being vacant for 20 years or about what we want. It's about which of very few alternatives we will be subjected to and which might be the least harmful in what way under which policies.

If the presidency were vacant for 20 years we would only be subjected to the rule of the whims of the Federal agencies already entrenched, much of which doesn't change because of who is president and some of which becomes worse to varying degrees, and a military run by competing generals with no one in charge. The problems in this country are a lot more fundamental than imagining keeping another bad president out of office for 20 years.

Power in the hands of the supposedly "right people" is not acceptable, not "always acceptable". Whether or not some people recognize that depends on their premises and values. This is not a matter of platitudes about an ox being gored. You started out talking about "itches" against "too much power in the hands of too few" and wound up contradicting yourself.

If people don't have reasons for what they do based on their premises what is the point of trying to analyzing it and attributing the motives to them that you did? If people only act out of irrational "itches" no discussion is possible.
People are reacting to Trump and Sanders based on the values they hold and don't hold.

He is the ONLY one putting his money up to get elected. The rest just sell their souls to contributors in exchange for favors that will cost us all. He gives more of the facts than any of the others.