Normal was the systematic dismantling of our strengths as a nation.

++++++++1

I wonder if that would qualify as "having sex" to Bill.

"You're saying no system can be so good it can survive bad leadership."

If it were only a matter of poor leadership, it might survive. More accurately, it is leadership which desires - and has to a large degree succeeded - to change the rules themselves. They have co-opted the media so that it is ridiculously partisan. They have altered the rules - or ignored them - with regards to budgeting - a Constitutionally-mandated requirement of Congress. They have installed a bureaucratic State and then delegated to it powers specifically reserved to the Legislative Branch. The powers of the President have been both expanded and contracted and no one has bothered to challenge the Constitutionality of these actions. Most disturbingly, however, is the fact that the People have been complicit - either through duplicity and misdirection on the part of the Press - or by ignorance both individual and systemic (as a result of our educational system).

I really don't think short of a major revolution (culturally I hope rather than violently) that things are going to return to sound principles. Between the massive corruption in the bureaucracies and our massive debt and entitlement programs, we are a bomb primed for implosion at any time.

"Our leaders are merely a reflection of our nation's People."
I've been thinking about this. I learned what may be a facile story in grade school that goes the US has a Constitution and "checks and balances" so the system is not dependent electing good people. It's similar to how I think a good business should not be dependent on key personnel. Rather it should be a scaleable system that you can drop good people into and make it work.

Your view blows away the grade-school story I learned. You're saying no system can be so good it can survive bad leadership. That seems true. Now we're in a difficult situation. Once gov't spending is a third of the economy, how do you find unicorn politicians who can communicate to the people the need to dial back gov't, cut through the partisan attacks, actually execute a reduction, and stay in office at least long enough to do it? By partisan attacks I mean a variation of "this is a trick to make a group you belong to uncomfortable, and we need someone to stand up to them and get them back.". That's empty calories vs eating your vegetables. I think we'll limp along until some time or place is favorable to more freedom and they go from being a remote place to a major superpower as the US did, while US goes the way of the British empire.

Perhaps Mr. Tracinski has never read The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris. It did not occur to him that it was the monkey's house, after all, and the hairy apes might not have liked the smell of the naked ones either. While an elitist may be offended that others come in and become acclimated, it might be better that the different species are getting along.
While watching Mr. Trump in West Virginia, last night following the media shit-storm over impaneling a grand jury, I thought that perhaps the beltway crowd might be dangerously overplaying their hand. I escaped from West Virginia almost 60 years ago but I know and understand the people that live there. I have also seen many people just like them in my travels across the country. It might be misleading that many of these people vote Democrat out of tradition and habit without knowing very much about politics at all. Most Republicans talk over the heads of these people and lose them by default. Trump talks "under" we educated, eastern, politically involved elitists but straight at the audience he had last night. I refer to these people as "squirrel hunters" and they are quite different from suburban and urban Americans. They mostly want to be left alone to go quietly about their lives and they don't make a lot of noise. What we have to realize is that these are the people who fought the British, the Germans and the Japanese. They kicked their asses and if mobilized can kick ours too.
The people that think they can remove Trump because he is "unfit" are playing with fire and are so sure that they and they alone know who is "fit" that they can't see it. I don't see Trump as being a Democrat or a Republican but as the embodiment of a public that is outraged with the overreach of government and the blatant incompetence of everything it tries to do. Even a "good" function of government is doomed to failure because it has to be implemented by people that qualify not for their competence but for their patronage.

If you read "Conservatism: an Obituary" by Ayn Rand, you will understand better what the issues are. It is not a matter of this or that specific proposal, but how and why those arguments are framed and presented.

There are conservative ideas that have not been implemented, or have been overridden through social engineering that were more in line with Objectivist thought. Restoring the direct doctor-patient relationship in health care which was the way things operated for most of U.S. history is a conservative goal, but as more bureaucracy and third parties stepped between the doctor and patient, and as health care was made more "free" it's become difficult to restore. Misguided liberal social engineering destroyed the American family (not just the minorities), and has made all of us more dependent on the government. I'd hardly call that anything remotely Objectivist.

That is all completely true. Isn't it also true that conservative thought argues policies should be based on how we did things in the past, just because they're in the past, even if they involve violating people's rights by use of force or treating people differently based on their group profile? On the other side of that liberals/progressives, currently driving the Democrats, support trying new things and respecting (at least they claim) people's rights. By that measure, objectivism has more in common with liberal politics.

That doesn't undo any of what you said. This all shows there is very little representation of Objectism in the world of politics.

Objectivism is a philosophy that asserts the greatest good is achieved by self reliance. Progressive thought that is currently driving the Democrats insists on altruism and an emphasis on the collective good, by force if necessary. That couldn't be further away from Objectivist philosophy in practice, regardless of the purported superior morality behind it.

I had a yard sign, went to a fundraiser, told friends she was better than Sanders or Stein, and voted for her. I think it's fair to call me a "supporter" of a sort, but I think MM is right that it's not in the common meaning of the phrase. "Least of two evils" is correct. A longer way to say it is I think the fed gov't is too powerful and within the fed gov't I think the executive branch is too powerful. I thought she was by far the best choice for that job that shouldn't exist.

I did not know that. CG is a bit unusual for here. Got another?

Circuit guy said that he campaigned for Hillary. I consider that being a supporter.

I do not know of a Catholic school where that would have been true. Your wife was just blowing smoke. Where I come from, Catholic schools were always academically ahead of public schools.

For a similar profession of faith in ignorance, there was a blurb on the conservative "Politi-Chicks" about how common core forces kids to learn useless information about the Etruscans. The writer clearly had no idea what an inauguration is.

Writing from the the Ayn Rand Institute, some have said that given the choices in the presidential election, Hillary Clinton or someone else was the least of the evils. That does not make them "Hillary supporters." I warrant that there are no "Hillary supporters" here in the common meaning of the phrase. They do not even show up to troll, unlike the alt.right.

That is easy to agree with at face value, Dr. Z. The error is focusing on the specifics of a few policies. Yes, conservatives generally favor free trade and open markets and leave as much as possible to individual choice. Ayn Rand gave attention to the methodology the standards of decision-making when she favored the liberals over the conservatives. Liberals have an agenda based on an ideology which informs that proposals they make or oppose. Conservatives just want to hold the line, preserve traditions, maintain our society, and now, "make America great again."

Objectivism is a philosophy. Political decisions can only rest on epistemology and metaphysics which define morality and ethics. Those discussions go nowhere here. Offering concepts that depend on enumeration does not attract the replies that you can get by condemning HIllary Clinton's personal finances.

Point taken, Mike, we've always been a mixed bag. But it seems to me we've turned a corner.
It kills me to see Trump openly praised and defended in these halls.

Newbees might well beleive he is embraced by Objectivism.
That thought horrifies me.

How many good people have turned away?
How many of those opposed feel vindicated?
And how many chose to stay that I'd rather just keep moving?!

Do I agree with all Trump does, no, but what president have I agreed with 100%. I hate the tweeting, it is juvenile and and not reasoned. Do I like the daughter and her husband in the mix, not really. I don't think Ivanka is up on Gore's environmental schemes and she does not meet with Dr. Paugh nnor Tom DeWeese, who have studied it rationally.I just am not comfortable with their qualifications.
However, Hillary was dishonest, she approved weapons fuel sale which brought milloins to the Clintons, whcih seems like treason. She promised to reign in free speech discussions on the Internet, censor is more the word. Obama was not the man the media sold to the voters. He had all Muslim advisors, he bowed to Muslim leaders, he never tired of being a race-baiting community organizer, yet the press never said it was "un-presidential", as they should have.The FBI never properly checked out Obama's past illegal dealings, his connections to domestic terrorists, to communists to Islam. It was the first time people elected a man who did not use his real name, used the name of his non-father to get black votes. He admitted his cocaine background, almost proudly. What president started his first speech referring to voters as "them" and "us", and never stopped being divisive? He was not even the first black president, as he was half white, and half, we are not sure, since he had no valid birth certificate. What was NORMAL about those 8 years?

The "Monkey" house existed long before Trump and will last long after his presidency. We have been living in decline on many levels ever since Wilson's presidency, one that was a pretty smelly Monkey House as well!

Trump's Monkey House is just more chaotic (at this stage of the game) than others however what is transpiring there is not new. Understanding the extent of power is always the toughest part of the learning curve and this one is no exception.

On the upside however, by entering with a clean slate and the desire to fulfill one's campaign promises (that is refreshing isn't it?) the chaos will be magnified. However, with the appropriate organizational expertise, the negatives can be overcome (and they probably will to a large extent in Trump's case).

It is natural that a person who was not (and I guess is still not) a Trump supporter would have this take however (and I say this because I too was not a Trump supporter) I believe it has clouded his view of the realities other than what the Mainstream Media is pushing. That is Madison Avenue at its best. the "Pravda-ization" of the media is amplifying what is really going on and providing ample fodder for the writers viewpoint.

I say, Trump is our president whether or not we liked that outcome, therefore he (as all presidents have) should be given the benefit of the doubt at least until the next election.

For what its worth!

I hope you are wrong, but some evidence supports your assertion.

Calling Khalling...Where are you?

Quite true. I have often described my position as: "No one in their right mind can really think Trump is doing well, but he is much better than the alternative we might've had."

Trump is a childish, over-reacting clown, making it almost impossible to defend the conservative positions. He is likely to do for the left, just what Bush did...ensure they are elected next in a massive retaliation.

Easy enough to agree with, except for the "honest press." The press was never honest, nor expected to be. Read actual newspapers from the 1700s and 1800s into the 1930s. Everyone knows (or should) that Louisa May Alcott and others of the time invented newspaper stories as "penny-a-liners." Everyone knows (or should) that the sinking of the Maine in Havana harbor by Spain was fake news of the day from William Randolph Hearst and it supported a senseless, imperialist war against a third-rate power. Joseph Pulitzer was no better. Both Pulitzer and Hearst were yellow journalists. But when Pulitzer died, his foundation made a bequest to the Columbia School of Journalism and the East Coast Ivy League Elitist Liberals created a prize for honest journalism. We came to expect honest journalism only in our own lifetimes.

Even so, growing up in Cleveland in the 1950s through 70s, The Plain Dealer was the pro-business Republican paper, and the Cleveland Press supported the unions and the Democrats. And it played out in Chicago and New York and Boston and St. Louis, LA and SF... But we knew that and we subscribed to the paper that told us what we wanted to read, just as people today choose Huffington Post or Breitbart, CNN or Fox.

Try using that on her and you'll be read the riot act though...laughing

EXACTLY! I think it is why all politicians hate Trump - he was not one of them.

First of all, we didn't enter the monkey house. The monkey house enveloped us, and became our environment. By the way if anyone referred to the Obama Administration as a monkey house he'd be tarred and feathered as a racist. We've been in the monkey house through no will of our own for many years, starting with the feces thrown by Clinton et.al. Perhaps it takes a monkey to lead us out of the monkey house.