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I feel bad for Romney; he should have beaten McCain and then come back in '12; or he should have beaten Obama fresh in '12. He should go for it in '16. While I've tried to support Romney strongly, even I don't fully trust him on every position. But it's undeniable what a higher-caliber leader he is than both sets of his last competitors (though 2012 had some fairly good alternatives), and the current 2016 set. I like Paul, who could help silence the Libertarians, and especially Carson, though he would probably need to run twice. I really don't want Christie or the latest Bush, but, yes, they could fairly competently do the job. Labels like 'establishment' only confuse and divide us; they don't tell the whole story. Other good people exist, known and unknown. The big problem is, the impenitent leftist media retains the ability to 'hack' their demographic, and Clinton, Obama's superior, will almost certainly carry 2016 on strict partisanship no matter whom we have. Republicans have not yet found an opportunity to swing the necessary racial or youth vote, and right-siders are not and may never be united. Romney is still sitting back because he doesn't smell a win ahead.
In response to:

How Much Should We Tolerate?

Steve94 Wrote: Dec 27, 2014 1:18 AM
Yes to most, but I still don't want my democratic government surveilling me, nor doing so secretly, nor have I realized any new agreement with those who lump 'national security' together with 'mass domestic spying', and hint at a condemnation of those who expose the illegal secrets of government. Oppose the national security leaks by themselves, not the operation of a free press that informs its citizens of what its rulers want to hide.
In response to:

In GOP, 'Everybody Wants Rand'

Steve94 Wrote: Nov 04, 2014 9:08 AM
Yeah, I like Rand, as a third choice to Romney and Carson, on the strangely overlapping criteria of ability and electability. But 2016 was always going to be uphill with the new American demography, and all the body-snatchers need is a couple years of Republican Congress to turn the voting majority back in favour of the progressivism they are just barely daring to question now.
In response to:

Turn Down for What?

Steve94 Wrote: Oct 30, 2014 1:09 AM
Yeah, I agree that human nature is for far-minded ancestors to build up great civilizations, and for deluded descendants to gradually weaken and destroy them. No way around that conclusion. The question is, where are the turning points? America saw little worse from hippies than it had from flappers, but there's no question that Elvis-worship was one of many factors in the steady breakdown of traditional American culture. From the land of the dead, those old anti-rock preachers are surely laughing at how far down the same path our mindless country has stumbled, with little sign yet of turning back.
Tree cut off from the roots? Re-attach it. First believe the gospel, then preach the gospel.
In response to:

Conservatives' Culture Bubble

Steve94 Wrote: Aug 19, 2014 11:24 AM
Robin Williams? A guy with knack for voices and jokes. Though I enjoyed much of his cleaner work, he struck me as a crass man, like most comedians are. His life went pitiably, but since I started writing this, other human lives have ended equally pitiably, and my sense of sanity can ill afford to heap grief on only one member of our human family, unconnected to me in any real way, even if the world feigns jealous or deluded intimacy with him. So I 'embraced' the tiny comment this author critiqued more than I did her entire essay. So much truth is packed into it: the equality of all men, the deceptiveness of modern entertainment and the frequent spiritual hollowness of its purveyors, it's lack of tangible productivity and obscenely lopsided overvaluation... In a political context, it's true that conservatives are in the unhappy position of needing to try to appeal to the ever-more-vulgar tastes of those whose forebears, one broken link at a time, sacrificed their craving for cultural uplift. But an American conservative is at his absolute ugliest when pandering for votes against all principle, like his opponents. If good principles are worth dying for, surely they are worth losing elections for, or failing to tittilate the public. We need to engage for humanity's sake, not for our own popularity's sake, so we need not take popular positions, but correct and humane ones. Talk of 'bursting' our own protective, civilized 'bubble', or watching offensive shows and bending our tastes toward the ugly to look cooler, conveys nothing of the 'confidence' this confused author called for.
...Nah. The war is lost when you become like your enemies. The only thing more helpful to Democrats than being sent to Washington themselves is for Republicans to internalize their perverted principles. When a blue Democrat wins, and he wins once; he must guard against opposition scrutiny all his days. When a red Democrat wins, Democrats may get their laws anyway, at the same time as they discredit their foes for the next election; they win twice. This talk of uniting behind wrongdoers first out of partisanship, and worrying about the details later, may be sincerely offered, and tactically correct in some cases, but it only creates an endless paradox of both identifying and rewarding wrong behaviour. Romney was a respectable human being, even to Libertarians. There are honest differences of opinion held by basically decent candidates; there is stretching the bounds of friendly rivalry; and then there is outright power-addiction and Democrat-style campaigning: electing liars solely because they are better liars. It is not the label 'Democrat', nor Democrat policy itself, with all its naive good intentions, that makes compromise so dangerous -- it is the discarding of integrity, the bare craving of deception and self-interest, the intentional blinding of entire generations of voters to the vanity and impossibility of their schemes, that makes them so toxic. I would go so far as to prefer a clearly honest Democrat to a blatantly dishonest Republican; his honesty will save him from his party's insanity. There cannot be a contest between integrity and deceit unless there is first a side with at least some integrity. Other Republicans still may, but Cochran no longer carries that banner. This is not the winner-take-all race for the presidency, and if conservatism in the Senate stands or falls with Cochran, it's a lost cause already this cycle (and Childers, the Democrat here, claims some of Cochran's major conservative stances). Toss him; stay home if you can't stomach Childers. At the very least, it will send a warning.
Helpless children have claim on their mothers, who consented to form them, to not actively seek to kill them, before or after birth. Individuals do not have claim on larger society to provide them with every possible mean of delaying death, no matter the cost, no matter consent. Yet almost all people are willing to give to some extent to help out others. The figures here are only estimates, but if people in MA do consent to pay, say, four million dollars per year to save life, how is it not right to ask whether they want to spend that money saving one life, or find a way to save many more lives with it? Meanwhile, with perhaps a few hundred or even 1,000 people a year gratefully having their lives preserved by the MA insurance reform, at least 20,000 babies continue to be chopped up in the state every year. It would be no surprise for someone to 'yell and scream' over that disparity, or care more about saving the 20 almost-born people than the 1 born, probably adult, probably elderly person. I am not sure I know an older person who, if actually faced with the choice, would not give up their life to save even one child, let alone 20. Why not loudlier lament the greater loss?
Heather Ginsberg: The second and third quotations you ascribe to Romney are actually attributed to Pawlenty in your source article. Romney did not say very much there. He may be right about branding; the GOP may do better to make small, repeated, less consequential concessions with the minimum wage, if for nothing else, to detract from an anti-wage stereotype and blunt some of the mindless criticism. If he campaigned on the easy-to-understand plan of linking wage to inflation, at least he is being consistent by saying it should go up now. Personally, I see no real legislative need for a federal increase. Though the $7.25 has not changed for five years, just under half the states have already raised it above the federal minimum on their own, which they all are perfectly free to do. So let them do it. Many, but not all, of these states seem to suffer adverse employment effects; it is not a simple arithmetic question of how much the minimum will detract from jobs. Tax rates, industry and workforce specifics, and living costs all complicate the federal presupposition of an across-the-board increase taking equal effect everywhere. Obviously, it is not wanted everywhere. It's just a campaigning trick from the other side. Maybe Romney, even if not running, has decided that the best response is to play along, and pluck yourself at the marionette strings dragging the other side's voters around. This would not have been a vote-killer for me; I was far more annoyed by Romney's e-mail to Jan Brewer.
In response to:

Dissent on a One-Way Street

Steve94 Wrote: Apr 05, 2014 12:31 PM
Obviously this fae kingdom of yours, where everybody's rights are respected, does not hold sway over the public sector, where the only tangible fear of reprisal is in having opinions against homosexuality and its civil establishment, not opinions in favour. Is it freer and equaller in the private sector? I can imagine it was once harder for homosexuals to get jobs, if not for their straight allies, though I can't remember hearing anything about people being outright pushed out of professions, or fined, or sued, for voting against Proposition 8 or promoting dysgenderism. Maybe it's out there somewhere. And maybe people only really feel the boot on their own necks, not those on the necks of their enemies.
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