10-29-16 Hodgepodge

The Best Argument to Support Cast a Vote for Clinton

Do note that casting a vote as advised here is decidedly not the same thing as supporting that person:

It doesn't make any sense to see Hillary Clinton as the candidate of weakness and simultaneously to fear her strength. The Democrats may talk about making America into Sweden, but all she'll succeed at is turning us into France. We can come back from becoming France. There's a big difference between "at the end of that road lies dictatorship" and actually being at the end of that road.

People forget when they look at the rise of dictators that they have the benefit of hindsight. Oh, if we had been there in 1932, we would have seen it coming. It was obvious that Hitler was going to round up six million Jews and put them in concentration camps and try to take over Europe.

Paul Blair's analogy makes perfect sense in light of what we know about Donald Trump and the political party that permitted him to take it over -- and yet claims it will keep him in check. (It is debatable that Trump will become a dictator, but I am sure he will at least send us a lot further down that road than Clinton will.)

That said,  I reside in a space-cadet blue state whose voting-age population consists of an overwhelming majority of (a) doctrinaire leftists and (b) docile recipients of government loot, so I will not need to bring myself to vote for Clinton. (Lucky me!) Instead, I will abstain from the presidential race (vs. the perception that the Democrat has a big mandate) and vote for Republicans down-ticket. The latter would be in the vain hope that they might offer some resistance to the Democrats' agenda, if Clinton is elected and in the unlikely event any of them win. Were I in a more ideologically diverse state, I might hold my nose and vote for Clinton.

Weekend Reading

"The intimate connection that exists among family and friends is not a license to ignore good manners and civility." -- Michael Hurd, in "How to Talk to Other People: 10 Tips" at The Delaware Wave

"As a physician and a gun owner, I was especially interested in how political affiliation affected doctors' treatment of patients who owned guns." -- Paul Hsieh, in "How Your Doctor's Politics Affects Your Health Care -- and What You Can Do About It" at Forbes

"Elderly people who thrive with a positive point of view are the most interesting and admirable psychological entrepreneurs." -- Michael Hurd, in "Think Young, Age Gracefully!" at The Delaware Coast Press

"By packaging together legitimate criticism with racism and bigotry, the term 'Islamophobia' works to smear -- and thereby marginalize, discourage, and silence -- any substantive critique of the jihadist movement." -- Elan Journo, in "What the Critics of "Islamophobia" Get Wrong" at The Times of Israel

Admin Note: Gus Van Horn on Twitter

As many regular readers know, it is possible to follow this blog on Twitter to learn of new posts. Since I don't have lots of time to sink into social media, I have automated the process, until this week using Twitter Feed. Unfortunately that service closing its doors on Halloween, necessitating my switch to another, similar service. I would like to take a moment to thank the folks at Twitter Feed for making it so easy to maintain a presence on Twitter, and those at my new service, dlvr.it, for helping me continue to do so.

That said, those who follow me on Twitter will notice that, whereas Twitter Feed would provide at least part of the first sentence of a post before the link, dlvr.it does not. If I find a competitor that does do this, I may shift to that service, since I suspect that some portion of the content might help interest readers in reading all of it.

-- CAV