MESSAGE
| DATE | 2017-05-19 |
| FROM | Rick Moen
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout of NYLXS] The rising shoutdown of the electorate
|
Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben-at-mrbrklyn.com):
> http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/removing-trump-wont-solve-americas-crisis/
Ah, Patrick "I'll bet it sounded better in the original German"'s print
magazine. But seriously, I respect and share their editorial stance and
favour of fiscal conservatism, civil liberties, and a realist foreign
policy based on military restraint and the national interest --
paleoconservative values that I share with the editors, FWIW. (I also
respect that they are genuinely non-partisan and not just a mouthpiece
for the RNC or the current crop of GOP pols. But that makes it all the
more bizarre that editor Merry is making a smokescreen for Trump, saying
it's all his fight with the 'elites'.
(FWIW, just to be clear, I agree with the magazine's stances more often
than not. They tend to be the adults in the room.)
Political elites in our system are real of course, but Trump isn't
fighting so much with them as with everyone.
Some believe it stems specifically from the election of
Donald Trump, a man supremely unfit for the presidency [...]
I'll bet you violently disagree with Merry on that, right? But you
forgive that, because at least he gives cover for resentment against
elites, which is part of your big thing. Overthrow the Washington
elites by electing a man who... um... doesn't deliver on any of his
campaign promises, but eviscerates environmental and banking safeguards,
etc., always with the effect of windfall profits to... the elites.
D'oh.
But you don't see that, and endorse Merry's deranged view that Trump is
a 'political revolution', which against all evidence you believe to be
poised to accomplish what you want, Real Soon Now.
I have welcome news to you and Bob Merry: No, impeachment isn't going
to go anyhere for the foreseeable future, because there just aren't the
votes, especially not in the Senate. 25th Amendment, same story.
Indictments of a lot of Administration figures, OTOH, seems quite
liikely.
Anyhow, as usual, I actually do agree with the basic thrust of Merry's
editorial
At least Republican elites resisted the emergence of Trump for as long
as they could.
I do not concur. A principaled position would have been to back, say,
Evan McMullin, and after that tent folded, to organize in opposition,
as Lindsay Graham and John McCain have done, among others. The power
structure, instead, went all Stockholm Syndrome.
Meanwhile, we have “sanctuary cities” throughout Blue State America
that are refusing to cooperate with federal officials seeking to
enforce the immigration laws — the closest we have come as a nation
to “nullification” since the actual nullification crisis of the 1830s,
when South Carolina declared its right to ignore federal legislation
it didn’t like.
Bob Merry is either failing to do good research any more, or failing to
pay his interns enough. The general model of 'sanctuary' statute
doesn't prohibit local officials from answering CBP's quetions if they
wish. (Any statute that does violates Federal law.) The general model
merely says that it's the policy of the city/county/whatever to not
answer such questions, e.g., the San Francisco statute merely advises
Sheriff's Dept. employees that they work for the City and County of San
Francisco, and that they have no obligation to do free-of-charge work
for CBP when they call and start asking about prisoners in the county
jail.
And you know what classic conservative principle that embodies, one
straight out of the Constitution? The Tenth Amendment. Read it, sir.
Giving San Francisco Cigy and County jail officials orders is not a power
delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Ergo, it is
a power reserved to the City and County of San Francisco. The Feds
cannot dragoon them into doing CBP work. CBP is free to do its own
damned work, but we (and San Francisco's staff) are not the Feds' serfs.
They can ask, and we can say 'No thank you.' Tenth Amendment, sir.
I really expect a paleoconservative to understand conservative
principles, so Bob Merry is letting the side down, here.
And if they complain they find themselves confronting the forces of
political correctness....
With all the force of a wet noodle -- victim-narrative sob-story
notwithstanding.
That’s why there is so much talk about impeachment even in the
absence of any evidence thus far of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
I expect better grasp of American political history from a
paleoconservative. Again, Bob is letting us down. Long history has
shown that the cited term in Article Two, section 4 is to be applied by
Congress to anything it regards as major abuse of a Federal office --
i.e., it's fundamentally a political concept more than a judicial one.
But Merry can save the concern. It's not going to happen. Not without
a big change from the present record.
The president and his top foreign policy advisers, who were present
during the conversation, say he didn’t. The media and Trump’s political
adversaries insist that he did, at least implicitly. We don’t know.
We do know. Trump said so in his television interview (contraditing the
lying cover stories several of his underlings had put out to make smoke
for him; as usual, he threw his people under the bus).
There is no way out for America at this point.
Here is what I'd suggest, and would be my advice for the next two years
to the DNC and similar folk: Let Trump be Trump. Let Ryan be spineless
Ryan. Let McConnell be McConnell. Keep an accurate record of all the
horrific things being done. (Be careful to be voted down in opposition
to them.) Let things go to hell in a handbasket in pursuit of the
make-everyone-but-the-0.1%-miserable GOP agenda. Make sure the voters
understand who is augering the nation into the ground, particularly the
41.0% or didn't vote in Nov. 2016.
Ignore the 27.2% who tore themselves away from their conspiracy theories
about First Lady Hillary murdering Commerce Secretary Ron Brown by
waving a magic wand and making an Air Force B737 hit a mountain behind
Dubrovnikjust long enough to pull the Trump/Pence lever. They're
delusional and just need to be outvoted, so they can wander off and shout
at clouds, or whatever else the terminally out of touch with reality do.
Again, to re-stress, I basically _do_ agree with Bob.
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