Almost Classical

Though the contemporary Republican Party has never been libertarian enough for me or many others focused on economic issues, we at least imagined the GOP would lead a President Trump, who came into office with no governing experience and a platform that was populist and nationalist. The GOP has failed to do much practical at all. If you, like me, at least hoped Trump would be contained by party orthodoxy, the year has been nothing but disappointment after disappointment. Civil Rights: Hard to think of anything the GOP or Pres. Trump has proposed with which I agree, from gender issues to voting rights, the GOP is allowing Trump to lead on these subjects — in the wrong direction. Gay marriage should never have been a national issue. Private matters are private, between consenting adults. The libertarians and social conservatives will always be in conflict on these issues. On voting rights, I am okay with a basic national ID standard, as is being implemented for the TSA via ne...

speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on February 10, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The economy is already rocky. This election won't bring a stable, growing economy, and it could bring disaster. In business, I'd rather know what taxes and regulations are ahead of me. If you can plan for something, there's stability. You might not like the programs and proposals of Hillary Clinton (I don't), but you can plan for what she would pursue as president. Donald Trump? His candidacy embodies the uncertainty businesses fear. It is like waiting for a natural disaster, but you don't know which type of disaster. Do we seek higher ground, to avoid a flood? Do we go into the basement to avoid a tornado? Trump is going to be something, but what will he be? Don't assume Trump cannot win. He can and he might. I'm not suggesting support for Hillary Clinton, either, but I am more concerned about Trump. The world today needs free trade. We need open borders. ...

Our "choices" for the 2016 presidential election are very bad and extremely bad. What, you say? There are more than two choices? Right. And I'll soon be running a Hollywood Studio. The two-party system of the United States is not going to change this election cycle, though the cracks are showing. More likely, if the Republican Party does implode, a new party will rise. It has happened before and will happen again. But, overall, we remain a two-party nation. The parties flip ideologies, the parties change names, individual parties split. And we always end up with a duopoly. Not that other nations really have multiple parties in the way romantically imagine. There are, generally, two central parties with minor parties trying to pull the major parties to the left or right. Because the parliamentary systems rely on coalitions, those minor parties have more influence than smaller parties can have in the United States. The upside of the European model is that small ...

Fascist! It's the insult that's separated enough from "Nazi!" that it remains popular on blogs, in columns, and even within books claiming to be scholarly. Books claim to identify liberal fascism, conservative fascism, and I am fairly certain there must be a book about moderate fascism. The problem is that left-right political dichotomies fail to appreciate that political theories and governmental systems overlap and intertwine. American liberals and progressives point to the nationalistic and "traditional values" of Italian Fascism to claim all fascists are of the right. American conservatives and libertarians emphasize the origins of the Italian fascist movement from within unions and socialist organizations to claim all fascists are of the left. As professor Crispin Sartwell writes: The left-right spectrum is often characterized in terms of two extreme poles. One way to see that this is incoherent is that these poles can be defined in mutually in...

United States Senate Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey ) "Senator Kaine espousing the radical, radical notion of majority rule. That is now on tape, sir," Chris Hayes said Thursday night (21 Nov 2013). And he couldn't be more wrong. In theory, the GOP could control the Senate with members elected from states representing less than 25 percent of the nation. The math is simple: win lots of small, rural states, and you have a majority in the Senate, while needing only a minority of American voters.  Can Chris Hayes and numerous other pundits (and politicians) be so dense as to not recognize that a minority of voters nationally, but representing majorities in small aging states, could elect a GOP majority in the Senate? And no, this isn't some gerrymandering trick, since Senators are elected state-wide. It's simply a fact that the rural states could dictate policy for the majority… within two or three election cycles. [See the MSNBC clip at: A ...

Members of the press should read this report: Family Feud: Democratic Activists v. Democratic Voters - The Ideological Gulf that Thwarts a Sustained Majority The GOP voters and activists aren't very far apart, ideologically. However, there is a statistically significant gap separating Democratic Party Activists from mainstream voters. I believe the press and chattering class are closer to the activists than the voters — which is why they can't believe Rick Santorum might run a close national campaign against Pres. Obama. Santorum is like an "alien" to Democratic activists. Ruth Marcus writes at the Washington Post: In the 10 presidential elections since 1972, Democratic activists — those who attended a campaign event and donated money — rated themselves an average of 3.06 on a 7-point liberal-to-conservative ideological scale, with 4 being “moderate.” By contrast, those who merely identify as Democrats or lean that way were significantly closer to ...

There are changes for which unions claim credit, but that really started to change before unions became involved. Two issues I'll quickly address in this blog entry are civil service protections and early workplace safety. Many of the benefits attributed to unions were actually a result of the "Civil Service" reforms before the 20th Century meant to end the patronage systems nationally and in New York. In NYC, things were so bad the state took over Civil Service rules from 1870 to 1900. Unions helped push many reforms, definitely, especially in terms of safety, but not as many as commonly thought. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Act Disgusted by the "spoils go to the victors" approach of the Andrew Jackson Democrats, Republican President Chester A. Arthur pushed for the Pendleton Act. The public, outraged by the "Spoils System" of patronage, helped push President Arthur, once a supporter of patronage, to embrace public employee reforms. The Pen...