So. Where do you start your consideration of how to vote from? I've posted time and time again over the last decade, on how easily being '
Principled!' in voting, can cease to be principled... such as
When acting 'on principle' is unprincipled behavior - part 1, and
Part 2 here, or
It's time to vote - Why?, and numerous other times over the years - if you'd like a more in-depth treatment, of the matter, look there.
But for the moment now, this will have to do.
Painful as it is for me to say, the only principled choice in this election, is the GOP Nominee, which happens to be Donald J. Trump. If you wish to make a principled decision, then cast your ballot for Donald J. Trump, as the only effective electoral means of defeating the greater threat to liberty and the rule of law, Hillary Clinton. Period.
Some of you might be taken aback by that. I suggest that you examine your principles, before once again consulting them.
What are they derived from?
As I've often said, Principles are a guide to thinking, not a substitute for it. Are you using your 'principles' to think, or to evade that?
Principles are derived from an hierarchical view of reality, from what is understood to be true within a given context, and by applying timeless truths to the moment within time, to determine what are the most moral
and the most practical actions to take - if you assume the two are contradictory, you need to give your mind an acid wash and cleanse it of the muck of modernity (
clues here)!
If your principles do not adjust to significant changes in the context of a situation, then they
are no longer principles, they are merely positions, and to confuse the two is both
unprincipled, and deadly dangerous.
To re-purpose an old Buddhist phrase:
"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!.'
For you coders out there, what this means is that you've taken the intellectual equivalent of an abstract class for managing reality (a principle), and hard-coded some fixed parameters within it, hopelessly tying it to one narrow particular situation. For the rest of you: Don't litter your generalities with specifics - you only transform them into rigid rules that are irrelevant and useless.
IOW if your '
Principles' do not direct you to adjust your actions, when the context of the situation has significantly changed, then they are no longer functioning principles; you've corrupted and zombiefied them, likely by emotionally attaching them to particulars of the moment.
For instance, for me, as my relevant 'principles' are derived from an understanding of the meaning of America, the candidate that I actively endorse and support needs to be someone who demonstrates an understanding of, and respect for, our Constitution and the Individual Rights it was designed to uphold and protect, through the Rule of Law and limited to that purpose. Those principles led me to choose Sen. Cruz over Trump in the primaries, because Cruz's experience demonstrated an understanding of, and his polices were compatible with, my principled understanding (rooted in Individual Rights, Property Rights, under Constitutionally limited govt) of what the President of the United States of America is supposed to be the Chief Executive of. On the other hand, Trump... I'd no idea what he stood for,let alone what his principles were, beyond some managerial skills and popular charisma aligned with a vaguely 'pro-Americana-ish' sensibility.
But Ted Cruz
lost the primary, and the primaries are over. Which meant that key, significant aspects of the context of my vote and the election, had radically changed.
My principles towards who I can support and endorse have not changed, but the new phase of the election is not about
my choice for who would be the best candidate to run for POTUS. Instead, the election in question is now about selecting a candidate from those options which the electoral process of the nation - of which I am a citizen of - has placed on the ballot, and from which one
WILL be selected by the voters as POTUS.
If your principles did not enable you to adjust with that context, if your '
Principles!' have instead urged you to ignore the actual potential outcomes of the election, and have instead led you towards some form of personal self-gratification in the voting-booth, then what you are following are positions,
not principles.
The fact is, that the context
has changed, and you must choose anew from the available options. While Trump is still an unknown and flamboyant player, he is one of the two leading candidates from which the winner
will be chosen. If the two front-runners shared fundamental principles of mine, then I'd choose from the best able to further them. However,
they don't. Neither one matches up with what I consider important. However, one
will be elected, so the next question to be asked is not how can I wash my hands of this choice, but does one of them pose a greater threat to that which I value, and which is the purpose of this election: the nation, our system of gov, and all of the people living under it?
For the answer to that, see my previous posts, especially "
Perverting Progress into Poison - the Doppelganger Strikes Back - The Rule of Law in Progress or Regress pt.9b", and "
Progressively Doing away with Truth - How Pro-Regressives see Regress as Progress pt 9c", is yes, the Pro-Regressive 'Progressive' Leftist candidate is
by far, the greater threat. While I still can't endorse Trump or offer my support for his unknown qualifications, I can,
and must, oppose that greater threat, with the most effective means electoral means available, which, from those options available to select from, as provided by the nations electoral process,
of which we are citizen participants in, that is the GOP nominee, who happens to be: Donald J. Trump.
If you grasp the context, the principles involved, and the threats to them, then there is little reason to quibble, and no room for any of the 'adult' whining about it that I've been painful witness of. The only viable option, is Trump. Done. Grow up, cast your vote and move on.
Hopefully you'll join me, beginning the day after he is elected (fingers crossed), in working to educate the electorate as to what ideas, principles and considerations they should have a more solid understanding of, but until then, we go to vote with the ballots we have.
Would I prefer to have a candidate that I could feel confident would understand, support and defend the Constitution? Absolutely. Sadly, tragically, that is
not the option, IMHO, that the American people have left us with. The reality is that we do not have
anyone available, conceptually
and electorally, who I can see fits the bill, not in the two major parties, or, even if they were electorally viable, in any of the third party candidates. Still, there
will be an election - Tuesday - and one candidate
Will win it. If this were a cycle with generally pro-American candidates, whose main differences were simply policy, then we'd have an election with someone to vote
For, and without having to be too concerned with if they lost (again, sadly, we haven't seen an election like that in over a century).
But that is
not the reality we're facing.
We have a front runner for the Left who is possessed of an
anti-American philosophy, and if you need a reminder, these are just a few of the founding ideals of the 'American Progressives' that Hillary identifies herself as being:
- "Each year the child is coming to belong more to the State and less and less to the parent."
- "The tradition of respect for individual liberty, Gladden preached, was "a radical defect in the thinking of the average American."
- "...Individuals, Ross maintained, were but "plastic lumps of human dough," to be formed on the great "social kneading board.
Those are the fundamentals which guide here in the laws and policies that she will implement.
If elected, she will have not only enjoy the support of the bulk of Congress behind her in her efforts, but the wide landscape of the judiciary, to which she will deliberately add more equally anti-American judges to the Supreme Court, not to mention the entire bureaucracy of all the administrative agencies, such as EPA, FDA, IRS, etc, that will be behind her as well.
Outside of govt proper, she will also enjoy the full support of academia, the educational bureaucracy, the media, Hollywood, etc. In 8 yrs, Obama has transformed the bulwark of our Constitution, into little more than something of a fundraising talking point for a few of those 'on the right'... and that's about it. And the culture of our nation has slid
at least as far down and to the Left. That is where a Hillary Clinton presidency will be
starting from. She will
Not stop at the level of economic policies, she will do
everything in her power to extend govt power past what we can do, and into what we will be allowed to think and hope of doing.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that I see the Left gaining power at this point in time, as an
Evil, and a far greater one than is posed by Trump, no matter how foolish or corrupt he might be.
The Left Must be slowed. Period. And the most effective means of doing that, sickeningly, is with the GOP nominee.
I don't like it one bit. I've disliked Trump since the 1980's, but this isn't about my preferences or sensibilities, but about attempting to keep the greater evil from gaining power.
Once again, I in No way am a supporter of Trump - I'm an opposer of the pro-regressive 'Progressive' Left. I have no basis in reasoned experience to believe that Trump will succeed in accomplishing anything good, I have reams of information and understanding that the Pro-Regressive 'Progressive' Leftist candidate, is the most vicious believer and operator the Left has fielded in a century.
I am not supporting Trump, I'm opposing the Left's Hillary Clinton.
To treat this election as if it is simply a choice between policy options, is ignorant, and borderline insanity, and the habit of treating the left as just another policy choice, is what has had a great deal to do with the Right's failure over the last many decades; failing - refusing - to confront the meaning of their policies, and I'm speaking of those who think in terms of defining their 'principles', which Are anti-American, has been a futile, foolish policy of 'competitive appeasement'.
By anti-American, I don't mean they are bad people who kick puppies and are mean to all - I've far too many friends and family who are leftists, who I know to be wonderful, kind, generous people, to give that a moments consideration. But then I don't define America by is boundaries or 'baseball, hot dogs, apple pie...', but by the ideas that first made it possible, and which our founding documents embody. That means ideas that recognize and uphold individual rights, property, and a rule of Law that recognizes their being upheld, as
its purpose. To deliberately infringe upon, or negate those principles, Is to advance ideas and positions that are, necessarily,
anti-American.
And by evil, I mean that the driving philosophy behind the Left, is opposed to even recognizing that reality can be known (see Kant), is deliberately intent upon imposing their will over and against what is real and true, and because they prefer their wishes to reality, they feel justified in having 'experts' and legislators '
force us to be free', which goes back to Rousseau, and as
this quote indicates, has persisted from then, to Joseph Stalin, and has certainly not been denounced in our day,
"...We will mercilessly destroy anyone who, by his deeds or his thoughts—yes, his thoughts!—threatens the unity of the socialist state..."
as well as every PC re-education program anyone had ever been sentenced to, is alive and kicking in the left.
Finally, it is the intent and deep desire of the Left, to not allow people to live their own lives, but to use govt power to live their lives for them, and I most definitely do see that as being evil.
Tomorrow, don't react,; think, before you vote, vote as if your grand children's lives depend upon it..
