Will Trump be Re-elected?

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Will Trump be Re-elected?

Trump is more effective than people are willing to admit [ala Scott Adams] and will be re-elected.
24
37%
Hillary will run again in 2020, and thus Trump will beat her again.
3
5%
Trump will cause the GOP to lose one or both houses of congress in the mid-term elections.
6
9%
The Dems in congress will be so insufferable, Trumps wins by a small margin despite them.
15
23%
Trump will choose not to run for re-election, since he never really wanted the job anyway.
7
11%
Trump is a disaster and will lose by a landslide.
5
8%
Trump will not only lose, but will lose to a candidate so far to the left that people will wish he'd stayed.
3
5%
Other, please elaborate.
2
3%
 
Total votes: 65
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Xan » Sun Mar 10, 2019 5:59 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Sun Mar 10, 2019 5:55 pm
jhogue wrote:
Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:51 pm
This important update (and milestone) in Trump's re-election campaign:

Trump's fellow billionaire Michael Bloomberg announces he will not run for President, saying:

“we cannot allow the primary process to drag the party to an extreme that would diminish our chances in the general election and translate into ‘Four More Years.’”

Bloomberg, a congenital Democrat who ran for mayor of New York City as first a Republican and then an independent, does not hail from the Looney Tunes wing of his party.


Source:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael- ... 3e410a00ea
Unfortunately for the Ds, and fortunately for Trump, it is looking more and more likely that the Ds will not field anyone who could win.

If they field a left-wing lunatic like Sanders, moderate Democrats will desert.
If they field a "moderate" like Biden, the left-wing lunatics will desert.
An independent campaign from Schultz could save them, presuming he then proceeds to act like (become? stay?) a "moderate" Democrat.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jhogue » Sun Mar 10, 2019 6:56 pm

Schultz has some celebrity name recognition with millennials, but he is way too pragmatic for rabid Trump haters.

When the Everything-Should-Be-Free Santa Claus Socialists start trying to outbid one another before the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Schultz will say something measured and diplomatic that will cause his numbers to plummet.
“Groucho Marx wrote:
A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by moda0306 » Mon Mar 11, 2019 8:39 am

jhogue wrote:
Sun Mar 10, 2019 6:56 pm
Schultz has some celebrity name recognition with millennials, but he is way too pragmatic for rabid Trump haters.

When the Everything-Should-Be-Free Santa Claus Socialists start trying to outbid one another before the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Schultz will say something measured and diplomatic that will cause his numbers to plummet.
You mean something like questioning when 70% marginal tax rates on very-high incomes have ever worked, to be met with a response of "The United States for 50 years."

Didn't go down exactly like that but something pretty darn close...

Unknowing corporatist centrist boobs can go the way of the dodobird.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jhogue » Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:12 am

No, I mean that Schultz might do something reasonable that the voting public expects that a CEO might normally do, like put a price tag on the Green New Deal ($8-12 trillion dollars over the next decade alone according to one estimate, which amounts to something like $600,000 per U.S. household.)

https://conservativedailypost.com/trill ... er-600000/

Can't you just feel the fury from AOC and her band of sisters?
“Groucho Marx wrote:
A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Libertarian666 » Tue Mar 12, 2019 2:50 pm

jhogue wrote:
Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:12 am
No, I mean that Schultz might do something reasonable that the voting public expects that a CEO might normally do, like put a price tag on the Green New Deal ($8-12 trillion dollars over the next decade alone according to one estimate, which amounts to something like $600,000 per U.S. household.)

https://conservativedailypost.com/trill ... er-600000/

Can't you just feel the fury from AOC and her band of sisters?
Yes, which is why he could never be elected as a Democrat in today's world.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:01 pm

Libertarian666 wrote:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 2:50 pm
jhogue wrote:
Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:12 am
No, I mean that Schultz might do something reasonable that the voting public expects that a CEO might normally do, like put a price tag on the Green New Deal ($8-12 trillion dollars over the next decade alone according to one estimate, which amounts to something like $600,000 per U.S. household.)

https://conservativedailypost.com/trill ... er-600000/

Can't you just feel the fury from AOC and her band of sisters?
Yes, which is why he could never be elected as a Democrat in today's world.
Is AOC fake or fact? Is this YouTube video factual?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd87b-8 ... e=youtu.be
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by dualstow » Tue Mar 12, 2019 4:00 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:01 pm

Is AOC fake or fact? Is this YouTube video factual?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd87b-8 ... e=youtu.be
I think PP67 beat you to the punch just yesterday. You can see the commentary here.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Mountaineer » Wed Mar 13, 2019 6:33 am

dualstow wrote:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 4:00 pm
Mountaineer wrote:
Tue Mar 12, 2019 3:01 pm

Is AOC fake or fact? Is this YouTube video factual?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd87b-8 ... e=youtu.be
I think PP67 beat you to the punch just yesterday. You can see the commentary here.
Ooops! I missed it. Must have been busy distributing MAOCLess hats. ;)
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by WiseOne » Wed Mar 13, 2019 7:32 am

jhogue wrote:
Mon Mar 11, 2019 9:12 am
No, I mean that Schultz might do something reasonable that the voting public expects that a CEO might normally do, like put a price tag on the Green New Deal ($8-12 trillion dollars over the next decade alone according to one estimate, which amounts to something like $600,000 per U.S. household.)

https://conservativedailypost.com/trill ... er-600000/
Surprisingly, there's very little out there in the way of breaking down GND to concrete proposals and actual costs. However, some of them were (to my eye) low enough that we should be seriously considering them.

High speed rail is a standout. If it would really cost less than 4 trillion to lay down a national network of passenger rail track and buy high speed trains, then we should be doing this already. The only intercity passenger rail track in existence in the US right now is the Northeast Corridor (Boston to Richmond). All else is freight track, which is why train travel on every other route is so ridiculously slow. This is a national embarrassment, and could save us all a pile of $$ if fixed (air travel is much more expensive to run than train travel, plus much less convenient).

Upgraded electrical grid: This also looks surprisingly cheap, especially if you incorporate micro-energy on-site production like solar panels and window coatings.

Universal healthcare: the number provided ($36 trillion) is incredibly misleading. They totaled the amount currently spent on healthcare annually, then extrapolated to a 10 year period. What they didn't say is that 2/3 of health spending is Medicare and Medicaid, meaning it is ALREADY covered by state & federal budgets. To get to universal coverage would cost 1/3 the amount over 10 years, or $~1 trillion per year. You can immediately knock off about half that figure, which is the excess cost imposed on the entire system by private insurance companies. So in the end, universal coverage would cost $500 billion a year. But that's not actually a new cost, just a shift from insurance premiums paid by employers or out of pocket to the federal budget. So net cost actually negative on this one, assuming that we are currently paying at least this much for insurance premiums. But then we've had this discussion already. I assume doctors would still have the option of charging on a cash-pay basis for concierge care, just like they do now.

If you notice, these were all things that others (Obama, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk) have wanted to do for years. AOC didn't come up with these on her own. The remaining parts of the GND are crazy talk. I think the press is beginning to realize that she's a nut case, and they've already started the process of taking her down to avoid damaging Democrats' chances in 2020. Of course, the press will have to take her down while being politically correct by their own rules, which is going to be fun to watch.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by InsuranceGuy » Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:33 am

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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jacksonM » Wed Mar 13, 2019 5:49 pm

Although he's still being coy about it, the news yesterday was that Biden will be jumping into the race soon. From what I see of the democratic candidates I think he's the only one that can beat Trump and unless some things change before the election I think he probably WILL beat Trump. On a positive note, he's also the democratic candidate that scares me the least.

My preferred democratic candidate however is Bernie Sanders, but only because AOC isn't old enough yet. This is because I'd like to see a real debate in prime time about whether or not the time has come for America to embrace Marxism.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by moda0306 » Wed Mar 13, 2019 8:29 pm

jacksonM wrote:
Wed Mar 13, 2019 5:49 pm
Although he's still being coy about it, the news yesterday was that Biden will be jumping into the race soon. From what I see of the democratic candidates I think he's the only one that can beat Trump and unless some things change before the election I think he probably WILL beat Trump. On a positive note, he's also the democratic candidate that scares me the least.

My preferred democratic candidate however is Bernie Sanders, but only because AOC isn't old enough yet. This is because I'd like to see a real debate in prime time about whether or not the time has come for America to embrace Marxism.
The idea that Bernie's version of "Socialism" = Marxism is ridiculous. High-tax welfare-state mixed capitalism ISN'T communism/socialism in the Marxist sense.

Marxism would see workers seizing and owning the means of production and abolishing private property and absentee "rent-seeking" forms of ownership.

That-said, one need-not be a "Marxist" or even a Bernie-crat to discuss things in terms of capital vs labor, which I think is sorely missed in our public and more-so our social discussions.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jacksonM » Wed Mar 13, 2019 8:45 pm

moda0306 wrote:
Wed Mar 13, 2019 8:29 pm
jacksonM wrote:
Wed Mar 13, 2019 5:49 pm
Although he's still being coy about it, the news yesterday was that Biden will be jumping into the race soon. From what I see of the democratic candidates I think he's the only one that can beat Trump and unless some things change before the election I think he probably WILL beat Trump. On a positive note, he's also the democratic candidate that scares me the least.

My preferred democratic candidate however is Bernie Sanders, but only because AOC isn't old enough yet. This is because I'd like to see a real debate in prime time about whether or not the time has come for America to embrace Marxism.
The idea that Bernie's version of "Socialism" = Marxism is ridiculous. High-tax welfare-state mixed capitalism ISN'T communism/socialism in the Marxist sense.

Marxism would see workers seizing and owning the means of production and abolishing private property and absentee "rent-seeking" forms of ownership.

That-said, one need-not be a "Marxist" or even a Bernie-crat to discuss things in terms of capital vs labor, which I think is sorely missed in our public and more-so our social discussions.
He's an avowed socialist who once praised Castro and still angrily preaches the kind of class hatred that is common to Marxism. In my opinion, if it looks like a duck and talks like a duck it's a duck.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Maddy » Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:42 pm

Today's young people seizing the means of production? To do what with it?
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by WiseOne » Thu Mar 14, 2019 7:40 am

Hey insuranceguy, no offense taken.

I feel like I've already made the case for universal healthcare, so I'll skip the response for now. Just one quick comment: if you had one onerous administrative task to do many times a day, but that task involved up to 50 different forms, sets of rules, procedures etc that varied case to case requiring a huge administrative layer to sort through, what would happen if those were reduced to just one form with a markedly simpler procedure?

re trains, they are absolutely more cost-efficient and convenient than air travel, especially for shorter routes. Trains have minimal security, easier/quicker to get to stations and you can show up just minutes in advance, more comfortable en-route with more seat space and no restrictions on getting up and walking around. I take the train to DC all the time and I wouldn't go by air if you paid me. There are tons of mid-distance routes like this that are ripe for train travel. Air is the only way to go when you're crossing the continent, but even distances of ~1000 miles are doable by train. I'd do overnight sleeper car to Chicago in a heartbeat, you leave in the evening and show up in the AM all rested and ready to go, as opposed to having to blow much of the day prior flying in to stay at a hotel overnight. You just don't realize what a PITA air travel is until you've experienced the alternative. Get yourself a Eurail pass and check it out.

Then there's the little known fact that air travel is much more heavily government-subsidized than Amtrak is. Airports, airport security & the TSA, the air traffic control system, the network of navigation aids, the FAA - only a small slice of that is funded from ticket fees. It's hard to imagine any private company being able to build and maintain such a system on its own. And what about the interstate highway system, you have any problems with that??? That's also heavily subsidized. Maintaining and running transportation systems is just plain a necessary function of government - and one that I'm happy to pay for.

Here's just one of many articles on this topic - you can surely find more:

http://allaboardohio.org/2012/09/21/roa ... -attacked/
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by dualstow » Thu Mar 14, 2019 8:47 am

WiseOne wrote:
Wed Mar 13, 2019 7:32 am
High speed rail is a standout. If it would really cost less than 4 trillion to lay down a national network of passenger rail track and buy high speed trains, then we should be doing this already. The only intercity passenger rail track in existence in the US right now is the Northeast Corridor (Boston to Richmond). All else is freight track, which is why train travel on every other route is so ridiculously slow. This is a national embarrassment, and could save us all a pile of $$ if fixed (air travel is much more expensive to run than train travel, plus much less convenient).
I remember reading this (because I pasted it) in the WSJ on the slow Chicago-St Louis line.
“To build the kind of infrastructure that is stand-alone—that is, just for high-speed passenger rail—it is just absurdly expensive and just takes years and years and years to get through the permitting and environmental process,”

“Land acquisition alone [would] take half a decade”
That's not to say we shouldn't do it. I love the idea, but...
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by InsuranceGuy » Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:19 am

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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Xan » Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:41 am

WiseOne wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 7:40 am
re trains, they are absolutely more cost-efficient and convenient than air travel, especially for shorter routes. Trains have minimal security, easier/quicker to get to stations and you can show up just minutes in advance, more comfortable en-route with more seat space and no restrictions on getting up and walking around. I take the train to DC all the time and I wouldn't go by air if you paid me. There are tons of mid-distance routes like this that are ripe for train travel. Air is the only way to go when you're crossing the continent, but even distances of ~1000 miles are doable by train. I'd do overnight sleeper car to Chicago in a heartbeat, you leave in the evening and show up in the AM all rested and ready to go, as opposed to having to blow much of the day prior flying in to stay at a hotel overnight. You just don't realize what a PITA air travel is until you've experienced the alternative. Get yourself a Eurail pass and check it out.
There's frequent talk (but not a whole lot else, from what I can tell) about having a triangular-ish set of high-speed rail among DFW, Houston, and San Antonio / Austin. Being intrastate, it could perhaps be free of federal interference. Seems like there would be a lot of demand for that, if it could be done well.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by jhogue » Thu Mar 14, 2019 1:41 pm

WiseOne,
This may sound a bit harsh, but were you asleep for 8 years of Obama rule by executive fiat?

1. Obama got $1 trillion for so-called infrastructure projects in his first year in office. Did he build out the existing high speed rail network (eg., the “shovel ready” Washington, DC to Charlotte, NC corridor?) No.

2. In his acceptance speech on election night, I remember Obama claimed that now was the hour to heal the environment by renovating the power grid with environmentally friendly technology. Did that happen? Not really.

3. His signature accomplishment was passing Obamacare. To get it passed, he repeatedly assured his fellow citizens that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” How has that worked out?

So, why should anyone old enough to remember the Obama years sign up for the Green New Deal after that demonstrated record of fraud and failure?
“Groucho Marx wrote:
A stock trader asked him, "Groucho, where do you put all your money?" Groucho was said to have replied, "In Treasury bonds", and the trader said, "You can't make much money on those." Groucho said, "You can if you have enough of them!"
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by stuper1 » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:26 pm

Any other Victor Davis Hanson fans here? He has a new book out called "The Case for Trump" discussing why Trump should get re-elected. I heard him interviewed on a podcast yesterday discussing the book. He seems like a thoughtful conservative. He doesn't like Trump's bombast, but he likes a lot of his policies. He lives in a farming region that could be described as low-rent (about 15 miles from me, who also lives in a low-rent area), and he seems to understand the frustrations of the lower class voters who elected Trump.

Hanson has his own podcast called The Classicist if anyone is interested.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kbg » Thu Mar 14, 2019 11:28 pm

I’ve no idea about cost effectiveness between rail and air but I do believe if rail was so Advantageous there would be more of it in the US. I think a huge aspect is population density. Got me why there isn’t significant passenger rail in more densely populated areas, but where I live distances between large metro areas are measured in hundreds of miles and trains are not going to compete well against air when the distances are that large. I’ve often considered taking Amtrak to visit in laws. However, I could literally probably fly back and forth 10-12 times round trip time wise for one round trip by train. The other reason is connecting transportation networks...lack thereof.

But I do find amusement in the fact those who tend left want rail and then all you have to do is look how CA high speed rail was essentially killed by state regulators or liberal mayors for a host of environmental, constituency and plain old not in my back yard protests.

I will agree European and Japanese rail is quite nice but when you get off a train you can get elsewhere...in most of the US that is absolutely not the case.

This post isn’t pro or anti rail, just pointing out a more rural perspective on why rail hasn’t been successful (which is pretty close to why rail started dying off big time in the early 60s)

A parallel is electric cars...it appears they are going to replace gas and diesel eventually but it’s slow going because there isn’t sufficient supporting infrastructure.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by WiseOne » Fri Mar 15, 2019 7:15 am

jhogue wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 1:41 pm
WiseOne,
This may sound a bit harsh, but were you asleep for 8 years of Obama rule by executive fiat?

1. Obama got $1 trillion for so-called infrastructure projects in his first year in office. Did he build out the existing high speed rail network (eg., the “shovel ready” Washington, DC to Charlotte, NC corridor?) No.

2. In his acceptance speech on election night, I remember Obama claimed that now was the hour to heal the environment by renovating the power grid with environmentally friendly technology. Did that happen? Not really.

3. His signature accomplishment was passing Obamacare. To get it passed, he repeatedly assured his fellow citizens that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” How has that worked out?

So, why should anyone old enough to remember the Obama years sign up for the Green New Deal after that demonstrated record of fraud and failure?
Yes, I believe I said that these points of the Green New Deal did not originate with AOC, but in fact are long-standing goals. Obama didn't accomplish them, true, but it was for a variety of reasons that had nothing to do with the worthiness of these projects.

Dualstow &KBG: yes, the land right of way and towns imposing ridiculous speed limits on trains are indeed obstacles that would have to be dealt with. For right of way, what about at least laying passenger rail tracks parallel to existing freight tracks? And for the local town issue, a simple federal law perhaps combined with better safety measures at rail/road intersections, would take care of that. note also that "half a decade" is actually a pretty short amount of time for a major public works project.

I guess I view transportation systems as a public service (e.g. like the court system or water/sewer systems) that fundamentally can't be privatized. If your position is that all transportation systems should be privatized, then that means you must be for privatizing the courts, water treatment plants, city/town sewer systems etc. Rome was successful in large part because of its road system, aqueducts and sewers. Our business can't magically operate without those things either. This is why we have a government: to set the stage for businesses to succeed.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by moda0306 » Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:10 am

stuper1 wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:26 pm
Any other Victor Davis Hanson fans here? He has a new book out called "The Case for Trump" discussing why Trump should get re-elected. I heard him interviewed on a podcast yesterday discussing the book. He seems like a thoughtful conservative. He doesn't like Trump's bombast, but he likes a lot of his policies. He lives in a farming region that could be described as low-rent (about 15 miles from me, who also lives in a low-rent area), and he seems to understand the frustrations of the lower class voters who elected Trump.

Hanson has his own podcast called The Classicist if anyone is interested.
I think I saw this guy being a Vietnam slaughter apologist on the "rag" that is Prager U. Not even sure why I watched that garbage, but I wasn't impressed.

I've also seen him discuss other issues from a conservative standpoint since then.

As much as I am fascinated by Herbert Hoover and respect the hell out of him (one of my favorite Presidents... which isn't saying much, but he's one hell of a dude), I find anyone the Hoover Institution to put out to be just a standard conservative war-mongering pile of useless and pompous analysis.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by moda0306 » Fri Mar 15, 2019 9:29 am

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:50 am
moda0306 wrote:
Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:10 am
the "rag" that is Prager U.
Please elaborate on why you feel that Prager U is a rag. The videos generally feature prominent speakers who use very clear logic to define their points. Is it simply because you disagree with their conservative point of view that the channel becomes a rag?
Simonjester wrote: i haven’t seen a lot of there videos, but everything i have seen fits that description, plain, logical explanations of the basic American governing principals and civics, a cartoon make up class education for all the people who no longer get taught this stuff in grade school.. it hardly seems controversial...


"Prominent." Wolf Blitzer is prominent. So are a dozen other commentators at CNN. So is Hillary Clinton. "Prominence" isn't a good term in such an uninformed populace.

I do disagree with their conclusions, but that's a selection bias. The reason I disagree with their conclusions is because I disagree with what they believe to be the most pertinent, important facts and how conclusions flow from those facts.

But it has more to do with being a cuck to power and hypocritical. I don't mind people being wrong... it's when they suckle at the teat of powerful institutions and serve their masters and collect their check while folks suffer immeasurably that pisses me off.
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Re: Will Trump be Re-elected?

Post by Kbg » Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:10 pm

Roads are for the most part clearly a public good, as are buses. as is the aviation control system so I don’t have a conceptual problem with government support of necessary rail infrastructure. I think the interstate road system is the way transportation should work...federal does interstate NOT local. Why should I pay for a rail line that benefits a single state or why should another taxpayer support the county road in front of my house? I also don’t have a problem with the feds setting standards where we are pretty sure interstate and international connectivity is required for efficiency. Now it’s no big surprise that entities are going to try their best to give themselvesan advantage on the standards...but perhaps a corrupted standard is better than no standard. The poster child for this latter point is the food fight over internet standards. If you think there is a moral issue here you do not understand anything about it. It’s purely over control and who fobs off costs and profits on who.

Ultimately my criteria is greatest public good for the least dollar but this thread is illustrative of how our public discourse operates now days. Usually the starting point is: here is my political philosophy how does this idea fit or not fit it. Therefore, good or bad. Screw the merits, irrelevant.
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