Thursday, October 13, 2016

I May Be Wrong About Donald Trump

I may be totally wrong about Donald Trump.

He may not be the stuck-up, self-important, ignorant, obnoxious, mean, petty, underhanded, vindictive, amoral, dishonest, braggadocious (his word, not mine), boastful, narcissistic, greedy, foulmouthed, peverted, misogynistic, racist, power-hungry megalomaniac I perceive him to be.

He may actually be a total and complete windbag, an impotent fool, nothing but a braying jackass with an inferiority complex.

I'm willing to admit to that possibility.

Donald Trump and the Supreme Court Argument: Don't Be Fooled

UPDATE, 20 OCT 2016: You Mormons will understand this one immediately. One of my friends pointed out that electing Clinton is like electing the Gadianton Robbers, while electing Trump is like electing King Noah. That's perfect. 

I've seen the "Supreme Court Justices" argument against voting for Clinton for president. This argument makes an important, but WRONG assumption: that Trump, if elected, would appoint justices that reflect conservative ideals and will make decisions that favor the desires of (pick one) Republicans, conservatives, or religious people.

ARE YOU PEOPLE BLIND? What is Trump's opinion of the judicial system? Does the name Gonzalo Curiel ring a bell? And that's just for starters. He has abused other judges as well, and he has flouted the law and dared us to try to bring him to justice for it. He has been involved on one end or the other of 3500 over 4000 lawsuits, an astonishing abuse of the civil court system.

If he is elected, Donald Trump will appoint justices to the bench (and judges, to lower benches) who reflect HIS ideals, and who will make decisions that favor HIM and HIS desires. He will appoint judges who will throw his enemies (starting with HRC) in jail. He will manipulate judges to decide civil and criminal cases in his favor, just as he has done (or attempted to do) in his private life. He will declare war on his enemies, either openly or in secret, and use everything in his nearly limitless power to destroy them.

Anybody who speaks against him, opposes him, or even makes fun of him, will see their lives ruined. He or his operatives will harass people, getting them fired, dispossessed, evicted, whatever he can get away with to make their lives miserable.

When he said about Clinton in debate #2, "She'd be in jail," I got chills. That was a sinister threat, evoking images of totalitarian regimes in Russia, Argentina and, of course, Nazi Germany. If Donald Trump gets elected, and if he has his way, Lyin' Hillary will be the first of thousands of American desaparecidos.

Donald Trump doesn't care one spotted fig about ideologies, morals, the rule of law, or YOU. He only cares about HIMSELF. Don't fool yourself.

Postcript: Some of you Trump defenders are ready to hit the "Comment" button and tell me that Clinton will do the same thing, or worse, or that she is already guilty of crimes. I don't know why you're even bothering to tell me that. I already know what Clinton is like. Reminding me about it is not going to prove that I'm wrong about Trump

Morally, I cannot vote for either one of them. Fortunately, the third-party alternative is a reality, and it's becoming more tangible every day

Post-postscript: It has come to my attention that I may be completely wrong about Donald Trump. I'm willing to entertain that possibility. 

Friday, October 7, 2016

PLEASE VOTE THIS YEAR - Even if You Don't Like The Choices

Just end it already. (This image carelessly copied from imgur.com)
In a previous post, I did some math and I'm sure it flew over everybody's head. Here's a restatement of the math. Please bear with me - especially those of you who are so fed up that you don't even want to vote for president this year.

This year, more than ever, we need you to cast your ballot on November 8, and not for the Democratic candidate, nor for the Republican candidate.

In that previous post, I mentioned that Donald Trump got nominated because less than 7 percent of all registered Republicans voted for him. About 7.8 percent voted for all of the rest of the candidates, combined. That means that 85 percent of registered Republicans didn't vote at all. If you stop and think about it for a bit, those 85 percent are the real reason that Donald Trump won the nomination. They didn't vote for anybody, and their apathy let a [insert really nasty adjectives, invectives and epithets here] minority of Republicans give him the nomination.

I also mentioned that similar percentages voted for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders - and I also noted that the Democratic National Committee had the fix in for Clinton all along. There was no way they were going to let Sanders win the nomination. This has been revealed in leaked emails, which leaks resulted in the resignation of four top DNC executives shortly after the Democratic National Convention. But nobody apologized, nobody went to jail, and nobody offered to undo the damage that had been done. So in Clinton's case, it was a comparable minority of Democrats, plus a conspiracy among the party leadership (one in which Clinton was undoubtedly involved, or at least aware of), that elevated her to the candidacy.

Now, here's the thing. As this presidential race comes down to the wire, it has turned into a contest of not-Trump vs. not-Clinton. "Which one do you not want to win?" says the prevailing wisdom, "Then vote for the other one." THAT'S THE WRONG THING TO DO.

The choices are so unpleasant that many voters are going to stay home and not vote - again. THAT'S THE WRONG THING TO DO. Just as the 85% who didn't vote are responsible for Trump and Clinton getting this far, likewise the ones who do not vote, who do not exercise their Constitutional right and obligation, will be the ones responsible for the wrong person getting into the Oval Office. The majority cannot afford to be silent this time.

So who do you vote for? You vote not-Clinton and not-Trump. You vote for a third-party candidate - any third-party candidate. Let's be realistic: no third-party candidate is going to win the election. But all we want to do is deny both Clinton and Trump the majority of votes. We want to deny both of them the majority of all registered voters who voted in this election.

It would be really cool if the only majority on Election Day was "none of the above."

So on Election Day, go down to the polling place. If you cannot in good conscience vote for either Trump or Clinton, DO NOT leave your ballot empty. Let the silent majority become the Very Vocal Majority, which rejects both candidates. Stand up and make sure your rejection is counted. Vote for somebody else.

One Two final thoughts:
When the votes are counted, I expect that Clinton will win. Her one term as president will be full of greed and corruption, and she and her family will pillage the White House (again) on their way out the door in 2021. But I think (and I hope) that most Americans realize before it's too late what a disaster it would be to let someone like Donald Trump loose in the White House.

And after the election, when your friends point their fingers at you and say, "Your vote is the reason XYZ won!" you can tell them, "I didn't vote for XYZ! But I did vote. I did my civic duty, I joined my voice with thousands of others, and my conscience is clear. XYZ won because of everyone who didn't vote."

Don't be the reason that either one of them wins. Vote for someone else.

#votethirdparty #noneoftheabove