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Post by artraveler on Jul 26, 2019 8:42:17 GMT -8
The Real Oldest Profession
Over the last two election cycles for president the numbers of pretenders have grown from a handful, with almost no chance to hordes with no name. In 2016 there were 16 so-called republicans to today’s numerically impressive number of democrats of over 20 and possibly more. We can ask, what motivates this unwieldy number who surely know they real chance to be president? Is it duty?
Most if not all, would say so, at least in public. However, that has the feeling of lemmings running for the edge. Everyone is doing it so . . . Based on their public pronouncements it seems unlikely that duty is a prime motivating factor. After all, if duty were that paramount a factor there is the military and most are not veterans, nor are their families.
Tied into duty is the claim of love of country or patriotism. “I need to be President because I love my country”. This imagines that the candidate has a unique set of solutions that have not been tried. Let us say that the modern state dates to the high point of the Roman Empire at the time of Octavian later Augustus. For over 2000 years everything possible has been tried and either failed or worked. There are no NEW SOLUTIONS just those that work and a much larger number that don’t work and never have worked. Intellectually, let’s assume duty and patriotism are, at best, minor motivating factors.
Power, raw naked power to command millions of people in a great struggle. Yes, power must be a factor and President and Commander in Chief must be an intoxicating reason for wanting The Presidency. However, power has limitations as Machiavelli explains in the Prince. The fate of the dictators and tyrants of the 20th century amply demonstrate the limits of power. Few and far between are the Washington and Cincinnatus who voluntarily walk away.
Of the 50 or so people who claim the qualifications to be president only one will be elected. The rest are also-runs. The endless campaign, with speeches, rubber chicken, and hotel rooms cannot be a motivator. Why endure this process when the odds are so overwhelmingly against you? Acquisition of power seems to be one factor, but there is another, and in my opinion, the most probable for the also-run: MONEY.
Yes, running for office has become an industry. In 2016 at least 2 billion dollars was spent by the two parties and as much as 5 billion more by the pretenders in both parties. Most of the money is donated by would-be supporters who, in exchange for cash, expect access to whatever political power the candidate reaches. And of course, the candidate keeps stacks of cash for their own use. In short, they are bought and paid for.
There is nothing new in this, political leaders have always been obligated to the people who financially support them. Machiavelli explains this also, the advantages and the weaknesses. But, for the losers there are piles of cash and since they lost almost no accounting for the cash that goes into their pockets. In effect running for office and losing is good business. When was the last time anyone ran for office using their own money and then went bankrupt? Professional prostitutes have nothing to explain to these people.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 26, 2019 10:01:45 GMT -8
It should be noted that there are probably bigger beneficiaries than the candidates. Consultants make big money, often despite lengthy records of losses. Pollsters do well, and again often for dubious results. There are also many PACs that collect a lot of money, and in some cases very little actually goes into politics. (Jim Geraghty has discussed this a few time in his Morning Jolt column. Some of them are basically fraudsters.)
Politics is indeed big business for many.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 26, 2019 10:40:01 GMT -8
I would say that they are the only two I have run across. Washington has the added advantages of being a good man, not being surrounded by the mists of ancient history and having turned down absolute power (kingship) and then the presidency.
Sulla is an interesting character who also gave up power and went back to consorting with actors, drunks and prostitutes. He walked around Rome without the protection of any body guards and told people he would be happy to give an explanation of his actions to anyone who demanded it. He died of old age and probably dissipation. Of course, Sulla slaughtered thousands of his opponents when he took over as dictator so there were few left to go after him after he retired. Julius Caesar was lucky to get away with his head, but I believe one of Sulla's wives or mistresses persuaded Sulla to let Caesar escape.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 26, 2019 10:54:29 GMT -8
Are they ever asked by so-called reporters why they are running? Or is the only qualification needed now to show one’s outrage at America? I would tell you what I really think but I hate to offend people. But soon I will publish my book, “You’re All a Bunch of Idiots and Deserve What You’re Going to Get.” The inconvenient truths will be in there. Pre-pre-orders are being taken. Hit the little PayPal button at the bottom of the home page. The cost is a very reasonable $12.95 for the Kindle edition. I suppose it’s only fair to give you an excerpt:  |
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 26, 2019 11:04:59 GMT -8
Already crass commercialism raises its ugly head!
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Post by timothylane on Jul 26, 2019 11:39:40 GMT -8
One book I read decades ago suggested that Sam Houston was someone uncorrupted by power (though he certainly liked his alcohol, enough so that his Cherokee friends reportedly called him Big Drunk). Robert E. Lee once got into a discussion in his antebellum days in which he noted how rare Washington was for combining both civil and military ability. Someone pointed to Frederick the Great and Napoleon as other examples. He agreed, but noted that they were also great tyrants. He considered Washington unique in that respect.
Of course, the US President didn't have that much power until the 20th Century, when it began growing fast under the Roosevelts and Wilson, and later just about everyone. Buchanan was eager to give up his position by 1861, and not just because he was probably the worst president ever other than Barry Zero and maybe Jimmy the Creep. This made it a lot easier to give it up.
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Post by artraveler on Jul 26, 2019 18:17:14 GMT -8
My wife is a direct descendent of Sam Houston. He lived for a time in Clarksville AR. And yes, he had the reputation for consuming prodigious amounts of what we now call white lightning. His refusal to go along with secession broke him as a political power in Texas, but also in the other trans-Mississippi states.
It is understandable, after fighting Santa Anna for Texas freedom and later supporting statehood he believed secession was a step backwards. In that belief I think he was correct, but the hotheads, north and south were never going to compromise without a fight. Sadly, we seem to be inching closer to that same situation today.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 26, 2019 18:47:12 GMT -8
Sam Houston actually ran for President as an independent in 1860, but dropped out. When challenged on the issue of secession, he pointed out that the North delivered more votes against Yankee tyranny (by which he presumably meant Lincoln, though maybe also Douglas) than the South had. I'm not sure if he included the upper South states (which either didn't secede, or seceded after the War of the Rebellion started). But at any rate, his point was that the CSA would be very badly outnumbered, as indeed it was. If you exclude the slaves, the North had 4 times the population.
Of course, the slaves did provide labor (often including military labor) till the end, but the North also got a lot of troops out of blacks, mostly Confederate slaves. This was one of the factors that led Pat Cleburne to propose freeing and arming slaves to fight for the CSA. By some odd chance, the best division commander in the Army of Tennessee was never promoted after that even as at least 2 junior division commanders were given corps. Of course, after Franklin it was too late. ("Where Cleburne's division held the line, no numbers broke through. Where Cleburne's division attacked, no numbers withstood their onslaught, save only once -- and their lies the grave of Cleburne and his gallant division." Admittedly, Hardee wasn't exactly an unbiased observer.)
And of course you would appreciate that when Cleburne (late of the Coldstream Guards) emigrated to America as so many of his fellow Irishmen did, he settled in Helena, Arkansas.
Incidentally, some of the first Union black troops were a pair of Louisiana militia regiments made up of freedmen, many wealthy and even slave-owners. The CSA never activated them, but they were available, and so Banks decided to make use of them when he took over command in New Orleans. He would make sure that any black volunteers were asked if they were slaves (who were not eligible to join). It didn't take them long to learn that no one would verify their answers if they said they were free.
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Post by artraveler on Jul 26, 2019 19:58:24 GMT -8
Faulkner said it best for all Southerners.
"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: "
My grandparents and, I suppose yours, knew intellectually that it was a lost cause from the moment the first volunteers were called for in the North. Yet, for four years the war continued with more casualties after Gettysburg than than the 2 1/2 years before. The war, for good or bad is in our collective southern culture. We cannot escape it and it will not fade away.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 26, 2019 19:59:22 GMT -8
As a Texan, I naturally think Sam Houston was one hell of a man. Every school child in Texas had to learn about him in 7th grade. I don't know how it is these days, but Texas history was a big thing over 50 years back.
I believe my father knew a direct descendant of Sam Houston, who lived in Huntsville, Texas. I think her name was Margret Smith. This was between 50 and 60 years ago. There is a large statue of Houston on the interstate just out of Huntsville.
At one time, Houston was a favorite of Andrew Jackson and it looked like Houston would eventually become an occupant of the White House, but something happened, between Houston and his new young wife, that destroyed his political future. I have never been able to find out what happened, but it was after this episode that Houston left Tennessee and stayed with the Cherokee and became "Big Drunk."
After a couple of years he came to his senses and got his life back on track. I believe he originally went to Texas at the behest of Jackson and the Democrats to pull it into the USA. For a number of reasons, this did not immediately come about, but it did finally happen in 1845.
I have a copy of an old map of Texas which shows exactly how large a piece of territory it actually occupied. The USA paid of Texas' debts and took a large portion of this territory into its national land bank.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 26, 2019 21:16:10 GMT -8
Neither Houston nor his wife ever said anything about why she suddenly left him, but the suspicion would be that she found his personal behavior a little too lower-class. He promptly resigned and fled to the Cherokees in Arizona.
As for why he's so admired, we've discussed San Jacinto before. It was a truly amazing victory, comparable to Daniel Morgan's great win at Cowpens (and defeating Banastre Tarleton to boot) at the end of 1780.
Houston became a favorite of Jackson's by his heroic behavior against the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, where he was badly wounded. Eric Flint wrote an alternate history (1812: The Rivers of War) in which Houston escapes the wound (I think he trips at a key moment, accidentally dodging the arrow), with very interesting results.
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 26, 2019 21:29:18 GMT -8
As a child, I was told Red Eagle was an ancestor. I don't know if this story contains the same amount of veracity as Elizabeth Warren's claims, but I never tried to use it for gaining entrance into an institution of higher learning or for winning government contracts.
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Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 27, 2019 8:07:09 GMT -8
I'm a native American. Speaking of which:
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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 27, 2019 10:10:42 GMT -8
Ugh!
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 12, 2019 15:57:25 GMT -8
The link is to a very encouraging article about government employees being given the choice to move to new headquarters in Colorado and other offices in the West, or be fired. Get Government out of D.C. |
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Post by timothylane on Nov 12, 2019 16:18:42 GMT -8
Scattering the Behemoth all over the country is a good idea. Of course, it already is scattered, but here we're talking about the central structure, not local offices.
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Post by kungfuzu on Mar 22, 2024 12:04:54 GMT -8
Another scumbag RINO who times his retirement to inflict the most pain on the Repukelicans in the House. Which armaments company do you think this prostitute is going to work for? A pox on him and all who support him. Gallagher to retire |
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