Hello, rhfinle,
Pushing a collectivist utopia, which the history has shown to be straight road to a disaster, cannot qualify for a rational belief. Even a superficial survey of history will demonstrate beyond doubt that French revolution leaders, Lenin, Stalin, as well as Mussolini and Hitler (shall I add Mao and Pol Pot?) all explicitly claimed, innumerable times, that their success depended vitally on suppressing the individual to promote the collective. Why do you think millions of people, over more than two centuries, kept dropping everything to go to America? It is only with the recent precipitous decline in the quality of education than demagogues like Bernie Sanders and Elisabeth Warren can get traction, mostly among the young, many of whom come out of schools brain washed.
Best wishes.
Maritimus

True about money but you left out what is probably as good a motivation as money. Power! Money and power are the true motives of most politicians, even if they won't admit it. Even to themselves.

Give that man a raise, give him a medal and then shoot him. (Current mentality in Washington).

If the ship of state were in trouble, it would be because it is listing to the left.The socialists have become communists, the centrists have become socialists, across the aisle, the nationalists have become centrists and the capitalists have disappeared altogether.

I guess the congress has never mastered the following simple equation: Input minus a higher output equals a deficit.Gee, I got it and I never did that well in math.

Our financials are so out of whack that if the USA were a private corporation, it would have gone into bankruptcy by now.

"Where there is life there is hope."
~me dino recalls Tarzan saying that in an Edgar Rice Burroughs book I read as a teenager. Believe he was about to be burned at the stake with some other character. Oh, yeah, Tarzan also advised that breathing in the flames would lead to a quicker less painful death. The moral? Where there is life there is hope, but when you're tied up as well as burning up it's too late to wait. So snuff it.

Actually, even though he is impeding what I consider to be our forward progress, I must admire Rand Paul.He is a man of great integrity who remains consistent with his beliefs and is willing to pay the consequences for his actions. I may not always agree with him but I'd never doubt his sincerity.

You are viewing things from Olympia as a rational God. The sign at the entrance to Hell should be at the city limits to all the entrances to Washington: "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here."

During the last of my Vietnam War (and at least I got that part right) rooted lib years, me dino actually voted for Jimmy Carter.
Thought Ford did okay but he sprang from Tricky Dicky's resignation and Carter had the D beside his name.
It took only four years of Peanut Brain, as I quickly came to call that Georgia peanut farmer, to squeeze the last of my libbiness out of me.
Me dino began to THINK and am still proud I voted for Reagan instead of Mr. Malaise.
https://www.google.com/search?q=jimmy...

Probably all of them. Do I sound bitter?

Doesn't look as if.

Hope Arizona is finally tired of their mighty maverick without a clue.

And sorry forgot my last point, we need to make term limits for all government jobs. No more career politicians nor bureaucrats that are seated for as long as they live.
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In politics, there really is only one party, the "MY POCKETS". Be it a D or R at the end of that name they are all about "what is in it for me". During elections, they pander to the people that put the most money into their campaigns and when elected they will vote on what will make themselves the most money.

Precisely my point: Congress controls the budget - not the President.

I would also point out that in Gingrich's "Contract with America" were also several tax cuts and reformations to social spending programs. Those were significant factors which are often overlooked amongst those deliberations.

Pretty much with you here, blarman, except:

On point #2 I think the Democrats have become socialist/communist in spite of still calling themselves "Democrats" and the Republicans have become Democrats, that is socialists lite. They are left and right wings of the same left flying abomination party. Trump is a wake up call from the electorate that's getting sick of the whole thing.

Also, I don't expect too many "Republican" voters to stay home in spite of their disgust. They will hold their noses and vote Republican just so the Democrats (socialist/communists) can't get a free ride to rule.

I'm curious why you think Ron Paul should be a Democrat. Democrats have always been the party of huge social spending which both Ron and Rand have always opposed.

"and bring to life the Democratic Freedom Caucus..."

You have a strange view of the Democratic Party. But then, my wife's grandma was a lifelong Democrat because she lived through Roosevelt and WW II and just never could match up the reality with her romantic (and by that I mean imaginary) views of the man. Jefferson and Madison would be astounded and ashamed at the antics of the Democratic Party because it diverged from everything they stood for quite early on. Remember, it was the Democratic Party who agitated to continue slavery even in the early 1800's. (Lincoln was only voted in because the other three tickets all split the vote!) Following the Civil War, Democrats were the ones who brought in "separate but equal". Andrew Jackson - though a war hero - was responsible for the "Trail of Tears" - persecuting American Indians and the segregation of blacks and whites in the White House. All semblance of attendance to the Constitution was thrown out by Woodrow Wilson, who was the first major proponent of "one-world government" via the League of Nations. Wilson was also a huge proponent and original provocateur of the imperial presidency, arguing contrary to the Constitution that it was the role of a strong president to make "executive decisions" which were in all reality laws and to carry them out. The Democrats were overwhelmingly against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Fast forward a few more years to LBJ, who bragged that through social welfare programs he would both enslave the blacks AND make them willing victims/voters. I don't even need to get into Carter, Clinton, or Obama.

That is the real history (in a paragraph) of the Democratic Party. Democrats do not have freedom on their minds, and I can argue that every one of their policies is decidedly anti-freedom. That anyone - especially someone with functioning rational faculties - could associate themselves with such an organization staggers me.

Regarding Trump, he is a populist/nationalist response to the current political status of establishment politics. He's an outsider, which offends the Democrats (who consider themselves an elite class) as well as many of the Republicans. Yes, he's got more than a few rough edges and these irritate those who are used to the greased-palm machine of the Establishment. He's a bull in the china shop, and many on both sides of the aisle are lamenting the broken dishes. I look at the dishes and go "you're complaining about THAT?!?!"

Sanders is mental - as in mentally gone. He's down the rabbit hole. Socialism can only be contemplated by the demented or the self-appointed elite who think they would be in control. And that's what he wants - power. Clinton was even worse and more brazen in her pay-for-play. She (like Obama) are Wilsonites who see themselves as the self-appointed emperors that the voting public is too beneath them to recognize for their brilliance. In fact, she's so morally depraved she makes pond scum downright appealing.

Seriously. How can you even think of voting for people like this while calling yourself a lover of freedom?

"The most egregious overruns in our deficit came when the Democrats owned majorities in the House and Senate. "
And the last time we had a balanced budget Republicans controlled Congress and we had a Democrat president. They argued mightily. Between their actions and the expansion following the recession of '91, they balanced the budget.

Again, deficits are the responsibility of Congress - not the President. The most egregious overruns in our deficit came when the Democrats owned majorities in the House and Senate. That includes the last four years of Bush II and the first four years of Obama. In fact, the Democrats never actually passed a budget (as Constitutionally mandated) during Obama's first four years in office (CR's don't count). Average budget deficits ran $1.3 TRILLION. They only started to come back down once Republicans took over the majority in 2012 (though again here, Republican efforts were only marginal in either effect or intent).

And if you want to see a budget at least as ridiculous as President Trump's, look at some of Obama's initial budgets. They were so bad not even the Democrats would support them. Obama's first two budgets failed in a staggering manner, garnering a TOTAL of ONE vote between them (including both House and Senate)!

We already have a major monetary crisis. Our debt outstrips our entire economy and at staggeringly low interest rates. If those interest rates go up - which they must - debt service becomes the elephant in the room to rival either military or social spending.

Gee, I wonder how many Republican liars I've voted for in the past....far too many. At least this time, Dino, you didn't have to. Good for you!

As my mentor said, "It's not what you say it's what you do.Actual quote: "Don't try - do."

You got what you paid for. I doubt if you pay more that you'll get anything better. In any case, Obamacare will implode in 18mo or so.

"Your scenario seems to be a lose-lose situation."
The winning scenario is if they separate into a big-gov't party and small-gov't party and the country would decisively reject the big gov't one. The big-gov't party would be a minority that only dominated on the few rare times and issues where people felt the need for big gov't.

"which is conservative in nature called the House Freedom Caucus"
I'd be in that group. I loved watching Ron Paul in the debates. I felt like he should be a Democrat and bring to life the Democratic Freedom Caucus, which I think is nearly defunct.

"the solidarity of the Democrats"
I could be wrong, but I think that's only due to how they respond to President Trump's antics. Some Democrats think Sanders got us President Trump. They can stay united by disgust with Trump's antics.