Perhaps but the majority of the Rs still in power still doing there thing and at least President Trump is to willing to abuse the limited powers defined in the US Constitution for my taste.

No, you are correct. I live in Broward County and the Dems have been crooked for years.

There is also an excellent site titled
www.importanceofphilosophy.com. It is well organized and simple to navigate. Most is in easy to understand verbiage.

I find myself in agreement with much you have to say in this post, but not all. I know Trump is not a philosopher or Constitutional scholar (his forte is in building and business, not academics), but he seems to recognize the best of America and knows what's important in fixing many of its problems and moves to make those fixes real. His "trade war" fix and "wall" fix are not asinine, IMHO, and if properly applied will do more good than harm. For example, if the trade fix repatriates lots of jobs, especially for the less skilled among us, and the wall fix slows the tide of unskilled labor then, along with other benefits, the pressure on the great welfare state can be considerably lessened and more prosperity will result. A side benefit may be cries for more Marxist solutions to America's problems may lessen as well. One could argue to get rid of the welfare state, but good luck with that in these times.

I agree with your assessments of education in as much as can be addressed at the federal level. I agree with your stance on property taxes, but those are mainly at the local level (state, county, municipality). The income tax system can certainly be addressed at the federal level (abolish it!).

IMHO, Trump is more than a place holder for "Americanism", but he could be even more radical. The left hates him for his love of America.

Thank you for a very in depth reply, as far as schools go, I would invite you to watch this interview with Norman Dodd regarding Tax Exempt Foundations, his investigation from the 50's and what was uncovered. You can then draw your own conclusion.

https://youtu.be/YUYCBfmIcHM

Nope, but saw several reports as they investigated, several videos that were used to support the accusations.
This was not because of racisim, sexism or any other ism, but of her debacle in recounts, and the videos of the "ballots" being unloaded in the dead of night:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bren...

Am I in error?

"China having tariffs hurts the Chinese and does not justify the U.S. reciprocating." Really? It prevents trade balance even from rigorous competition from ever occurring and wealth flows from the US to China, but not the other way. I've been to China and I know the average Chinese and certainly the CCP doesn't give a Schiff if America makes a nickel as long as America's wealth flows to China. Tariffs may also be the most effective and immediate method to deal with currency manipulation and theft of intellectual property. Doing nothing is death by slow bleed. There might be disagreement, but at this time specifically placed tariffs are like tourniquets that can be removed when the problems are solved properly. There are other problems exasperating the issue like over taxation and regulation, but Trump seems to be addressing those as well.

"Jobs moving to China ... but that did not hurt our economy." I respectfully disagree. For example, there are large swaths of any population, including Americas, that have limited skill sets that can be trained into simpler jobs that large scale manufacturing plants and their support industries and businesses can fulfill. When those jobs are shipped overseas the only recourse for those people is the welfare state and that hurts America (you could argue getting rid of the welfare state, but good luck with that in these times). I believe Trump knows this, which is why he has worked to find ways to repatriate American companies and slow the tide of illegal immigration. I suspect he knows he will not get rid of the welfare state, but he can press policies that lessen the demand on it.

"I won't repeat Trump's contribution to the COVID problems - they are well documented." To satisfy my curiosity of this statement please do repeat or at least provide a link to the well documented list. I'd like to see it.

Thank you, this brngs up an interesting idea, how about a "Guide to Objectivist Resources" thread? Those who know could share their sources, as trying to sort through a lot of stuff is hard when you are not blessed with a lot of time, I work nights, but we are very short staffed now (no hiring during C-19) and so I have very little time off to devote to roaming. Thank you for the tip, I will go find it.

Well done.

As you suggest.
I have been called worse and never complained...it comes with the territory of learning and testing one's thoughts on a subject aloud...or in this case, writing. Being objective through that process is not easy but eventually, with a bit of introspection, it works itself out.
So, I welcome a hit, an observation, even if personal, from time to time...keeps one humble.

Yes, you’re right. The origin of this blog is about Objectivist views. But again your opening sentence displays your predetermined bias. You have subjectively determined that any Trump supporter cannot be an Objectivist, by the intrinsic application of what you understand the philosophy to be, and that’s hardly objective and quite a mouthful. And many thinking Objectivists do support him.
Your examples are not specifics, but broad platitudes and opinions that are open to a variety of interpretations, again hardly objective.
To say “Objectivists generally dislike him for his personality,….” can be a “frozen abstraction.” I wonder what you would say if you met Rand or Peikoff, neither of which demonstrated a warm and fuzzy appeal. That shortcoming did not undermine the brilliance of their thoughts.
And as you said, “enough said.”

Yeah... that's not going to work, Carl. No personal attacks, period. Both of these comments are blatant offensive personal attacks. Please refrain from any further indiscretions.

Thank you Scott. It is unfortunate to see your post in this capacity.

Let's just call it a description... one is self described and the other is observable. Neither is offensive or demeaning.

And there you have it, a flawed candidate and a perfect candidate of it's primordial enemies.

Yes, hiltery then (2016) biden now would definitely be trusted to destroy us.
Likely, biden would not be doing his own bidding, that much is obvious, the post modern cultural marxist would be marching on.

True and well said, my friend.

Oh boy. How about we refrain from name calling (e.g. the "Master" objectivist, "the predator"), Carl. Good?

Trump cannot possibly be what he seems to be, and yet, I have to believe my eyes and ears. This is not an ordinary man in hardly any sense. His larger than life story, his actions and attitudes as well as his unnatural energy and strength in the face of what would destroy the average man is jaw-dropping.He is almost a force of nature. I'm not sure whether to hate or admire him half the time, but always...yes, always no matter how deeply he is submerged, he always surfaces going in the right direction. Not always the way you or I would do it, or even conceive of doing it, but getting it done. Not all the time. But more times than not. It simply takes one's breath away.

Being a fairly ancient adult, I don't think you need go to pre 1913. I still remember the late 30's, early 40's, and the Roosevelt years.. I was a child, yes, but I now look back and analyze the attitudes as an adult. No one could get away with what is going on today or for the last 20 years. We recited the Pledge, Washington was the father of our country, and waving a flag was encouraged, and applauded.The left has succeeded enormously in the few years since my childhood in turning America's forward progress into a descent into purgatory.

Hmmm, Nick...it's funny that the "Master" objectivist has yet to chime in, don't you think?

Surely this post could be smelled from a distance but the predator has yet to show.

We shall see soon...can we say: Durham Report?
Actually he won't be reporting, he doesn't have to. He just says: Bring em in Daniel...But we will hear the details.
Not holding my breath but await while breathing. LOL

I was referring to this particular blog.
It's not because he is "capitalist enough", but because he is not Marxist enough. Difference.

Free market cap.s hate tariffs always! Trade does not have to be equal to justify trade. E.g. China having tariffs hurts the Chinese and does not justify the U.S. reciprocating.
Jobs moving to China (and many other places never discussed) was a result of many bad policies; but that did not hurt our economy (separate from China's misdeeds - e.g. theft of our intelligence.

I won't repeat Trump's contribution to the COVID problems - they are well documented.

There are a million tangents possible in answering nickursis' question and like most of us time is a constant enemy, but to soapbox my appraisal:

My initial view of Trump, from the moment in summer of 2015 when he bellyflopped right smack into the middle of what had been the most promising lineup of GOP candidates in a quarter-century, was of a pragmatist utterly devoid of philosophical moorings, who happened to lean in the direction of GWB-type conservatism, only with a more assertive and self-confident (not to mention abrasive and crude) public persona. In the runup to the 2016 election my attitude was close to that of Objectivist author Robert Bidinotto's, as expressed in his April 2016 blog post "A Vote For Neither":
http://bidinotto.blogspot.com/2016/04...

As a resident of California, a state 99.9999% certain to flop to the Democrat Presidential candidate in any case, my desire to vote my conscience - for Cruz, who was demonstrably the best of the 2016 lot - was an easy one with no downside (except for the fact that my vote was null in any case.)

I obviously cannot speak for Mr. Bidinotto and I do not know if his view of Trump has changed in any way since that blog post, but given the undeniably good moves Trump has done in office - alongside the certifiably moronic - my opinion of him as a President has improved somewhat, with the emphasis being on the "somewhat."

That he's better than any of the totalitarian-collectivist Democrat mentalities is a no-brainer, but at a visceral level I rebel against being placed in a position of having to cast my vote for someone I would never otherwise choose, just to keep barbarian marauders at bay. Which in context of the 2020 election means I remain undecided as to whether to cast a vote on conscience again or to just give it to Trump.

The void where a philosophical framework needs to be is Trump's key flaw and continues to be.

So at a baseline level I consider Trump an acceptable placeholder and bulwark of sorts against... a pack of barbarian marauders, which is regrettably what the National Socialist Democrat Party has become.

From that baseline upward I can only hope that Trump will work to roll back the evils of the Obama, GWB, Clinton and GHWB years, work which may outweigh his asinine trade war, his asinine border wall, and the asinine noises he's been making in the direction of censorship and "antitrust" action against his foes in online media.

His most catastrophic default continues to be a.) his failure to gut and overhaul American education from top to bottom, and b.) his default as a competent competitor in the ideological tug-of-war we're in.

a.) As we've all seen over the last six weeks, a dangerous percentage of American people have been steeping for far too long in the collectivist, anti-American toxins that American "educators" have been dishing out for decades, the general worldview of Howard Zinn: America was not founded on July 4, 1776 but rather with the brutalization of the Avatar/Eden-like Western Hemisphere paradise by the EvilGreedyEuropeans who arrived on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria in the late 15th century.

Every evil manifesting itself in American politics and culture right now can be traced back, not surprisingly, to the ideas that have been inculcated in American schools, particularly the increased radicalization of ideas we've seen since the close of the 1980s. If this is not reversed, it won't matter who's elected or what laws get passed.

The collectivist corruption in politicians, in entertainment, in the CEOs of American businesses from Disney to the NFL to Facebook to YouTube to Twit to Nike to Netflix, to the hordes of otherwise decent people who happily marched beneath the banners of an openly black-supremacist and Marxist-totalitarian group in the wake of the George Floyd murder, are the consequence of this uncorrected educational corruption.

The people working in these offices and these businesses and marching on the streets are people who... have been steeping in anti-Americanism for most of their lives. And most people believe what they're taught.

b.) Politics is a pendulum-swing or tug-of-war. The side that pulls the hardest and for the most radical goals will almost never get what it's pulling for - but in pulling for those radical goals it thereby pulls the entire context of debate that much farther in the direction of its worldview. It's the old Soviet "two steps forward, one step back" dance, and it still works.

A Republican President should be championing things like: a new Amendment to abolish residential property taxation nationwide (not a single American "owns" a home,) a 100% regulatory review with a goal of repeal, the expulsion and dismantling of the UN, the transformation of Mexico into a prosperous, constitutional republic by whatever means possible, etc.

America needs a "radical for Americanism," and Trump is at best... a placeholder.

It has been my understanding the origin of the Gulch was to promote the AS movie trilogy and Objectivist discussions were a prime topic, but need not be the only topic. See the "Ask the Gulch" suggestion above.

Trump is hated by the left because he is capitalist enough to poke their Marxist eye - and it hurts them. Every time he pokes them they label him "unpresidential" or other such hateful response.

Free market capitalists hate tariffs, but that only works when trading with other free market capitalists. As soon as the "other" initiates an action that crushes or manipulates the free market, then by default it is no longer a free market and must be dealt with accordingly. Between China's manipulations and our own foolish foreign and domestic policies, which Trump inherited, the wealth transference (including wealth creating jobs and businesses) from the USA to China (not to mention other worldly places) has been enormous. Trump is the first president in my lifetime to actually address these issues. Tariffs may be distasteful to free market promoters and believers, but we are not dealing with a free market.

C-19 is like a hurricane. How do you "handle" a hurricane? You don't, it handles you. The best you can do is find a way to hunker down and minimize damage until it blows over and then clean up the aftermath. Government can offer suggestions and assistance as it can, but your ultimate survival is up to you. Picture Trump as the Fed and you are the states. The states did what they did and if their outcome wasn't optimal they blamed Trump.

The origin of this blog is about Objectivist views of the current social system. Those who support Trump blindly (to some extent at least) are not applying Obj. principles.

Trump is hated by the Left and all associated Marxist groups. And it is "broad brush": his personality, mishandling of COVID/domestic terrorism, lack of progress with issues such as inequality and climate change.

Objectivists generally dislike him for his personality, general mishandling of COVID and BLM (albeit for different reasons than the Left), trade and immigration policies, etc.

I agree with most of what you say re China; but trade tariffs are not the rational or proper economic solution - they hurt us more than China.

COVID could have been essentially eliminated by now with good decisions. What he has done right was done too late. CDC and "experts" screwed up, but who is their boss?

Enough said.