The rise of American authoritarianism

Posted by $ nickursis 9 years, 1 month ago to Politics
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This may add to the discussion I have seen about the whole Trump thing, and why we (as a group) seem so uncomfortable with all of the candidates on both sides. I can see the basic idea being applied as equally to the Democrap candidates as well. It also is a terrifying prospect from an Objectivist viewpoint, as it seems to be the foundational result of a lot of what I saw being expressed in AS. Only a seed shift in the sheeple desire to have a :daddy" state to take care of everything, and allow nothing, can produce this effect. Somewhat chilling, if true.


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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    There is the root of the problem: The GOP is no different from the DNC. Therefor, voting for either is the same. The RNC was very different before, and in the 80s started this wandering move to try to please the groups they did not claim, and have ended up with nothing but platitudes and policies they neither enforce, or support. They cannot even agree on a single bill and get it through congress. They couldn't stop Obama care, they caved to Felony Pelosis, and they never indicted her when she was revealed to have done it illegally and lied to congress. That is the problem, and what allows a Trump to come up to power. The Dumbocraps are no better, they just do whatever the Obamanation wants, and are eating their own young as well.
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  • Posted by $ 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Agreed, but assuming we only had one word to describe the leaders:
    Trump: Corrupt
    Cruz: Liar
    Rubio: Corrupt
    HillaryBeast: Corrupt
    Bernie: Communist

    Nothing to reccomend any of them. I agree he is a perfect poster boy for authoritarianism, but he is also more of a fighter than the rest. He is hammering Rubio with his credit card debacle where he supposedly used a Party credit card for several trips, including one to vegas, and rubio said "oops wrong card, sorry". Don't know how true it is, but that stuff is going to hurt him. Cruz keeps claiming victory, bitches about all the bad things, yest in all his time in the machine, has generated zero change or done anything he can claim. HillaryBeast is a felon and a criminal, and even if she makes a deal with Obama, when elected and it goes through, she will be impeached, leaving us with whatever goober she has for a VP. Bernie is a communist whos trying to buy votes with money he does not have. His healthcare argument fails when co0nfronted with reality: the VA. Now, we have no one left so who DO you vote for?

    That is the problem and the quandary most sheeple face, so they go with the guy who is not of the enemy, and who promises the most. Trump is the best hands down at promising, without it even sounding like a giveaway...
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    You do not differentiate between the academic philosophy of Objectiviism and its psycho-epistemological foundation. The easiest paradigms to explain what I mean are the soliloquy of Equality 7-2521and Roark's "Courtroom Speech." Neither offers a consistent statement of objective metaphysics and epistemology.. However, the sense of life evidenced in both exemplifies the foundation of Objectivism.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Rubio is done for. He is like a teenage brat who is too annoying to be elected. Cruz is hated by the establishment but is part of the establishment Trump is master of the anti establishment movement on thecrepub side and sanders is master of the anti establishment on the democratic side
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    If we had a strong and perfectly written constitution and there was congressional acceptance of the constitutional principles, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The discussion would be on who was the best administrator. Of the current candidates you might even accept trump as the most qualified candidate. It would be like hiring a CEO to make the government efficient. BUT we are not in that position and I think you are somehow fearful trump would misuse the powers of president. He might. But certainly Hillary/sanders would be worse. Rubio wouldn't have a clue how to run a large government. Cruz is hated and has much less popular support to bring to bear on his programs. That leaves trump who is hated by the establishment but has a lot of popular support. The GOP is going to risk alienating a lot of voters by getting rid of trump and the ensuing repub civil war will prob result in the loss of the senate and maybe the presidency and the house
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    He didn't get t where he was by being a non-fascist. He is establishment for sure. He is left wing int hat he fully government over citizens or citizens under government. He is a second rater at best.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Trump has sounded off throughout the years on various political issues, so it isn't as if he hasn't dabbled. He's thrown his opinions into the ring of politics on everything from abortion (for) to free trade (against) to "assault weapons" (against). And if you want to judge him on his "productive" record, you've also got to throw in there his bankruptcies and failures - which are plentiful - as well as looking at what he actually "produces".

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...

    "He came out and willingly admitted using bankruptcy and eminent domain because they were legal."

    I'm sure that's comforting to all the people who lost their investment money because "The Donald" was a bad business manager. The four bankruptcies alone totaled $1 billion and he was kicked off the Boards of all four as condition of the bankruptcies. That doesn't really strike me as tremendous business acumen. And I'm sure that the people who were forced to move from their homes and businesses just so Trump could take over the property are similarly consoled by his admissions. That argument is an excuse, not an endorsement.

    "We need someone who will expose cronyism and trump has a history of doing just that."

    Can you provide a link with anything like that? I'd sure be interested ... if it isn't just puffery.

    I know Marco Rubio isn't going to change the game. I know Hillary Clinton wants to keep tilting the table until it breaks, thinking that she'll become queen. Bernie Sanders is just an ignoramus. What I want to know is how Trump is going to bring back the Constitution, because all I'm seeing is someone who wants in on the big money in politics and likes to see his name in lights.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    First of all, trump hasn't been in politics yet so we don't have anything but his productive record to go by. Obama was in politics before so it's fair to judge him on that.

    Secondly, politics today is all about manipulation , secrecy, and cronyism . That needs to stop before people can make rational political choices. I like trump in that he has a record of speaking his mind and not helping to hide these bad things. He came out and willingly admitted using bankruptcy and eminent domain because they were legal. At least now people can see what's going on and decide to oppose those things. We need Hilary's taking of 15m from Wall Street means she has promised to give them freebies at our expense. We need someone who will expose cronyism and trump has a history of doing just that. He tells you how political figures are so easily bought off by even his financial contributions.
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    I guess you would prefer Hillary or sanders, cause that's what you are going to get
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    There is no way you can show trump is worse than Hillary or sanders. Makes no sense at all
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    While you wait for a John galt to get 50.1% of the vote, you will have to endure the destruction of the country
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  • Posted by term2 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Why r u so hateful of trump. ? He isn't anywhere as bad as Hillary/sanders, and is the only likely one to beat them and keep them out. The GOP is being stupid and they will lose the presidency and the congress by doing an intra party civil war
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    From that perspective...yea, it defines the new age liberal Allistar Crowley like "be what ever you will" mindless set, because there are no rights or wrongs...strangely those on the left that have adopted so called science as their religion can't see the innate order built in to the cosmos and everything in it from the quantum field to the largest of all matter[s].
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    MichaelAarethun, DINO says stand on one foot and say "aardvark" 137 times.before recovering.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 1 month ago
    only evil if not controlled until the public learns that they are nothing but targets for government
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  • Posted by edweaver 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    So true!

    While government is a necessary evil, it is still an evil. Put no one, especially a politician on a pedestal or the power will corrupt them.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    The problem I had with it is that there are laws of nature which are fundamental and completely beyond our power to control. These include not only physical laws but moral laws as well. The choice we have is whether or not we are going to structure society to adhere to universal laws or try to pretend such laws don't exist. These authors seemed to strike me as the kind that wanted to just ignore the universality of law and play to the Sartre in themselves - the relativistic approach that says there are no good rules. To me, that's just nonsense because it argues that there is no purpose to be sought nor goals to reach for.

    Is there a danger that individuals will seek to take power and dictate to others what their goals should be? Yes - as long as humans exist. To me, these are the true authoritarians: they are those who want to subvert the rights of others so as to place others beholden to their decisions. But I think these authors conflate authoritarians with those who only seek to uphold and observe universal laws.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    It is not a foregone conclusion that the choice will be Trump vs. Hillary. As shown by this weekend, Cruz is far from out of the debate on the Republican side and Sanders is far from out of debate on the Democrat side. To call the nominees at this point is presumptuous to say the best. Do I want to see Hillary as President? Absolutely not. She would destroy anything remaining of free thought. Do I want to see Bernie as President? No, but I don't view him as near as much of a threat as Hillary. That might be naive on my part or not.

    You have already sided with Trump, that much is obvious. That's your choice. But his history is replete with evidence that Trump is just as narcissistic and authoritarian as Obama. He's admitted that he would use Executive Orders in exactly the same way Obama has if the Legislative Branch won't go along with him. I just don't drink the "revolt Kool-Aid" Trump supporters drink. I look at his record and his history and see some extremely troubling things. That being said, Obama had extremely troubling things in his history and the voting mobs put him in office as well. That worked out well, didn't it?

    Is there a perfect candidate for President? No. Nobody's perfect. But I'm not going to vote for Trump, Sanders OR Hillary.

    PS - not me downvoting you, but if you continue to push Trump purely from an ideological standpoint, I'm going to start. Show me how Trump is going to be the best option and I'll consider it. So far, all I've seen is hot air and bad hair.
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