Not suggesting a resort to violence. Only a proportional response to what others initiate.

Yes, I am. But I'm not prepared to resort to violence yet. That said, I'm playing "Santa Claus" I'm "making a list and checking it twice" while I wait, watch and reload.

Just to toss in my two cents ... folks, at the moment the choice is between an arrogant man and a hateful woman. Given that choice, I'm siding with the arrogant man. On November 9 I'll start taking a serious look at third party candidates ... but now is not the time. Johnson, Stein and McMullin are dead in the water this time around.

The time to make real change in "the system" is during the primaries. THAT is when a vote for a conservative or a libertarian carries the most weight. And not just a vote ... toss some cash into the game AND find a candidate to actively stump for. Start at the state and local level and the national level will be a lot easier to manage.

Or shut up and take your beating cheerfully.

That's how the ballot box works.

The alternative is likely to be the bullet box because this website is as close to Galt's Gulch as most of us will ever get and none of us want anything to do with the direction our world is heading.

We can't get off the bus, so we'd better take control of the driving, eh?

It's a pro-Trump ad. And pretty well done, I think.

Yes it is a very real problem, one that is becoming progressively and frighteningly worse. But we choose a lesser evil between the two candidates because they are the only ones on the ballot. You can't choose a better alternative than that when you vote because the election is not about a better alternative. There is no better choice in the election because the parties already put them on the ballot and one of those two will win no matter what you do or wish for. It is fact, not what we would prefer. Within the context of the election you can only choose who might be better in some ways versus who is a worse danger when there is a difference, or not vote if you think there is no difference or you can't fathom what it might be. And that is what you should do where you can. Morality means making choices that are possible to make in reality and does not consist in fantasy in the name of "idealism". It is important to realize that.

The more fundamental question is why is this moral false alternative the only election choice over such a long time period, why is it getting worse, and what can be done about it? This is not about just the future, but also the past -- how we got here. If that isn't understood you don't know what to do to change it.

Ayn Rand discussed this extensively. The politics of a country follows its dominant philosophy, culture and sense of life. If that isn't changed with better ideas the politics will not improve. Politics is the consequence and the last to change. There are no shortcuts. No matter what you do in politics the kind of viable candidates we get and the kind who are elected are a result of what appeals to most people because of what they believe.

You can't short circuit that or expect that without changing the culture the politics will miraculously change. It isn't a matter of somehow getting the parties to suddenly "wake up and give us a true leader". With the increasingly accepted bad philosophical ideas dominating they will give us a "true leader" all right -- der fuhrer. A dictator or a 'man on the white horse' pied piper who doesn't know what he is doing and claims he will "make us great again" with "deals" are not the answer.

We got where we are and it is getting worse because the Enlightenment philosophy of reason and individualism that made the founding of this country possible was incomplete and because it was supplanted by European counter-Enlightenment philosophy and it's consequent statist-collectivist politics. Read Leonard Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America.

Ayn Rand wrote in her "Don't Let it Go" in The Ayn Rand Letter Nov. 22 and Dec 6, 1971:

"We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something—and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason, and a view of man as a rational being.

"These are philosophical issues. The philosophy we need is a conceptual equivalent of America's sense of life. To propagate it, would require the hardest intellectual battle. But isn't that a magnificent goal to fight for?"

The philosophy she urged that we need is the subject of Atlas Shrugged and her non-fiction.

She did not say, demand that the parties "wake up and provide a true leader", or run out and put a fringe political party on the ballot, ignoring why people vote and run for office as they do, and complain that drug laws are too strict while urging ignoring the threat of foreign affairs. She thoroughly denounced and rejected such an anti-intellectual approach.

This doesn't mean that you can't do anything in politics. Some politicians are better or worse than others. We are still in a mixed (but declining) system of statism and freedom, not outright dictatorship, and many of them can be influenced on specific policy and actions through grass roots action (which is not something Ayn Rand was involved in). But that depends on enough people having common sense and a better sense of life to appeal to on the specific issues than the explicit statist-collectivist convictions and bromides repeated over and over by the intellectuals. And it takes a lot of knowledge and work in both the specifics of the problem and the means of affecting policy in government. You can't just run around saying "people yearn to be free" and "we have rights because faith in God says so" (whose faith?) and expect anything to change, either in general or for some specific problem. When you are up against a problem with government you have to dig in and intelligently fight it. But that doesn't stop the general trend from becoming worse. To bring about a better future you have to advocate better ideas through the principles of reason and individualism.

For the principles answering your question you should read or reread Ayn Rand's articles "Don't Let it Go" and "'What Can One Do'" (Ayn Rand Letter, January 3, 1972). Both are reprinted in her anthology Philosophy: Who Needs It https://estore.aynrand.org/p/218/phil.... Forty five years later the principles still apply, and it is interesting to see the comparison with the state of affairs then and how it has drifted.

That's pretty funny. And, she's quite beautiful too!

Happened with Obama as the first black president as well. They choose fad over qualifications and ideology.

I guess I'm more looking at the future (one could argue that we might not have a future) because I DO realize that Clinton or Trump will be the next President. Something needs to change...I'm asking for potential solutions to a VERY REAL problem. PS: Why do we want to choose between the greater or lesser of two evils? Why not choose a better alternative?

"Team America - World Police" is coming true!

If I knew John McAfee, I would ask him.
There is no country in the world that is all the PR says, and there is no country without corruption at the highest levels. (The United States is a perfect example of the propaganda greatly exaggerating the benefits and not revealing the flaws.) I have been looking for another place to live that has the rule of law that has disappeared from America. Panama, Honduras, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Malta, Costa Rica, thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, Australia. None are as advertised.
However, without doing the investigation into the specific flaws, you can't make a judgement on whether the flaws are significant enough in your own particular case, and whether they exceed the significant flaws in the United States.

Ask John McAfee... its not all their PR firms say it is. And it's definitely no Gulvh.

Great observation! Denzel Washington, Gary Sinese, Mark Wahlberg, Morgan Freeman seem to be the rare exception.

Agreed, evlwhtguy. However, every delay is a chance the electorate might take a deep breath and wake up. Maybe Trump the wild bull, if he wins, will smash the china shop enough in DC to get their attention so the next POTUS after him will be the one to start steering the country in a better direction. If Hilary wins, the next POTUS may very well be Stalin reincarnated.

Hah, you are so right, Dr Z. I find it odd that there are so many voters out there that are obsessed with selecting Hilary based only on between-the-legs configuration as opposed to between the ears. I also find it odd that so many lefties are aghast at Trump's locker room banter when their Hollywood heroes have been dumping tons of that banter on our society for decades. And most of the time its supposed to be funny (as in "Revenge of the Nerds" voyeurism: "I see BUSH!") fed to our teenagers.

Hah, you are so right, Dr Z. I find it odd that there are so many voters out there that are obsessed with selecting Hilary based only on between-the-legs configuration as opposed to between the ears. I also find it odd that so many lefties are aghast at Trump's locker room banter when their Hollywood heroes have been dumping tons of that banter on our society for decades. And most of the time its supposed to be funny (as in "Revenge of the Nerds" voyeurism: "I see BUSH!") fed to our teenagers.

They don't usually explicitly endorse socialism by name, though they increasingly don't oppose it either, thinking of it is a viable approach if done 'correctly'. They are Pragmatist progressives who think of themselves as non-ideological while assuming the coercive power of government as a supposed non-ideological tool to progressively control more and more with no limits. In fact they are pursuing the collectivist-statist ideology of 1930s Europe and its state worship. They have no respect or understanding for Constitutional limits on government in either content or procedure, following its remnants out of no more than momentum, for as long as even that lasts. It doesn't make any difference whether they call themselves "socialists".

I would say that socialism is exactly what they want. They don't like that word, so they routinely give it other names, like democratic socialism or the democratic republic of North Korea. They are convinced that people need to be governed and that they are the best qualified to govern. Pure Evil, wearing the clothes of humanism.

Some of that may be true but the people I am in contact with and formed my opinion are Democrats. I merely observe and offered no comment so I heard what I might not have heard. They will miopically overlook her shortcomings and lies because, in their eyes, Republicans are wrong, not because they want socialism. If that were to happen most of them would be in shock and blame G. W. Bush for the mess!

It isn't secret. What they are advocating and doing is out in the open. Both are the consequence of variations on the same corrupt philosophy entrenched in the culture. Without changing that the "Ds and Rs" will continue to get worse.

You prefer the greater of two evils? There is nothing you can do in the election to change the fact that the choice is between Trump and Clinton. One of them is going to win and that is all the election is for. Objecting to the moral false alternative and the structure of the debates will not change that.

I don't think that anyone really thinks that she is honest; they are voting for her because she represents what they want - socialism. At any price, over anyone''s dead body. It doesn't matter how.

Perhaps you should look at the alternatives. Are you armed?

Some of our greatest actors heads have walnut sized brains. Try listening to an interview not about politics of Robert De Niro. He sounds autistic. Meryl Streep sounds either confused or intoxicated. The point is, these great actors are great because they have no personas of their own. They can assume a role and do well since it's easy for them to be someone else, because without a script they pretty much cease to exist as individuals. That is why there are very few actors like the woman portrayed. At present, I can only think of three A List actors who seem to have brains bigger than walnuts.

I am beginning to think that both parties - Ds and Rs - are on a secret mission together to destroy this country.

LMAO.!! Call in Meryl Streep to pull that BS off.