Why bother staying to vote if the system is rigged and you know you’re going to lose? Get out while the getting is good.
I don’t think the system is rigged and I think there is a better than even chance that Trump loses because the silent majority doesn’t support him, although it may be a close election with only a handful of states deciding for the rest of us.
With this in mind, I’ve been mulling over where to drop this piece (gift link):
From the article:
Calling themselves election investigators, the activists have pressed local officials in Michigan, Nevada and Georgia to drop voters from the rolls en masse. They have at times targeted Democratic areas, relying on new data programs and novel legal theories to justify their push.
In one Michigan town, more than 100 voters were removed after an activist lobbied officials, citing an obscure state law from the 1950s. In the Detroit suburb of Waterford, a clerk removed 1,000 people from the rolls in response to a similar request. The ousted voters included an active-duty Air Force officer who was wrongly removed and later reinstated.
In an election as close as this one is going to be, I find this very disturbing.
Everyone should verify their status as registered to vote, but especially if you live in one of the targeted states.
Yeah, right - I looked into that 20 years ago, when I was much younger. Good f’ing luck unless you have a highly specialized niche skill.
I wouldn’t even mind the weather - I already have plans to retire to a spot further north than such Canadian cities as Toronto - but Canada would be happy to have me as a tourist they apparently don’t want me to live there.
For the vast majority of Americans there is no getting out.
The friends I know who went to live and work in Canada were software engineers, and this was at least 15 years ago. It may be quite different now. At that time Canada was lacking programmers and really needed them. If I remember correctly they also got a cash bonus for moving and the Canadian company picked up all of their relocation expenses.
I realize that for most people leaving the US would be very difficult, but there are friendly countries that would love to have us and our money. For example, there are parts of Mexico that ex-pats are warmly welcome, and I’ve met some ex-pats while on a business trip who were happily living in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which is not someplace I’d want to live for a variety of reasons.
Some friends of mine permanently relocated to Belmopan, Belize and they had no problem doing that. (Whether they had to grease the palms of some low-level bureaucrats I can’t say.) The reality is that even with Trump as president the US is still a much better place to live than most other countries. No argument there.
It’s not yet rigged so badly that there’s no chance.
It is not possible for anybody who can’t meet those stringent requirements. It isn’t even guaranteed for those who can – I’m sure the number of points needed for a permit is adjusted depending on how many permits they want to give.
Again, nobody’s claiming it’s impossible for everybody. However it is nonsense to claim that it’s possible for everybody; or even for most people.
So, lie back and enjoy it? It’s probably someone else getting fucked?
Moderating:
Let’s get back to discussing Project 2025. Discussions about fleeing the US for another country belong in a different thread.
Circling back to this, I read the Salon article, and no, I don’t think I really can?
The Salon article contains a bunch of quotes. The author then explains why, in their opinion, the creators of Project 2025 said this.
I didn’t really see any specific claims that I could evaluate by reading more of the book.
If you mean this bit, then again, it’s all quite vague. Is this what you were referring to?
I have found it (through the Wikipedia article) in what appeared to be a legitimate archived link. I haven’t read it yet, though.
Thank you for trying.
Can’t say I’d blame them. There are just too many of us, overall, for Canada to be expected to welcome those of us who’d seriously want to move there.
There is no shortage of resources online to see what Project 2025 is about:
These are just four that one can reasonably conclude attempt to limit bias in the discussion. There is no shortage of media reporting on the proposal that look at it with either left or right bias which may be slanted but that doesn’t mean they are unfactual.
OK, finally got around to some of this. Holy crap it’s a huge document.
Here is a link to a PDF copy of the document
The search-for-page function is operating on this PDF, which makes finding things quite a bit easier.
Table of Contents starts at “v” and run to “viii”
Page 1 is a Forward. It starts with discussing the 1970’s from the perspective of the authors as a low point in American history, then leaps to the present day. Right away it’s clear the authors really hate transgenderism, drag queens, pornography and call the “Great Awokening” a “totalitarian cult” – again, this term is not defined but is clearly a play on “Great Awakening”, referring to periods of Christian revival (see here: Great Awakening - Wikipedia). More specifically, Protestant Christian revival. The second paragraph concludes that the very foundations of our society/civilization are in peril.
This raises alarm bells for me because I am not a Protestant Christian. Reading a lot of the rest of the document has not served to calm my fears about this. A lot of their policy is based on their religion, which only partly overlaps mine.
Paragraph three is a tiny self-congratulatory bit for the Heritage Foundation starting up in those years and taking some claim to improving things. Among other things was there “20 volume, 3000 page” handbook on governing. “This volume—The Conservative Promise—is the opening salvo of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, launched by The Heritage Foundation and our many partners in April 2022.”
I’m going to pause here to interject some of my own perspective. First, I do respect that these folks are being very up front with their positions. Regardless of whether or not I agree with them I really do want to know their positions on topics and issues. That said, some terms are not well defined here, and I really do not like them referring to “the Left” as “anti-American” just as I would equally object in a discussion such as this referring to “the Right” in prejudicial terms. Not even the worst of it, really, but it keeps coming up again and again that they are well and truly biased against anyone not as conservative (as they define it) as they are.
Back to the document: they then proceed to lay out four principals:
1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.
Now, on the surface that doesn’t seem bad, but I’m very much interested in the details and nitty-gritty. I’m also a bit puzzled – as someone with little family left in the world “the family” still seems to be a centerpiece and default assumption in American life. Self-governance is great, but it has to be balanced with the notion that one person’s rights end where another person’s begins, and I’d like to see a society where the less well off are not at the mercy of those who have much more wealth and resources to bring to bear. Number three sounds great BUT there are enormous differences of opinion in how to go about achieving those very worthy goals
Never fear, though – each of these points are about to be addressed:
PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.
First quote: “In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatural ones.” In order to not screw up cutting and pasting I’ve copied with minimal formatting which eliminated the many italicized words in the original which convey great emotion on the part of the writer(s). I’ll just note that clearly a lot of passion went into this project. Anyhow, I do have some concerns when someone talks about “natural” vs. “unnatural” in this context. How do they define family? The nuclear family? The extended family? What about people who, for whatever reason, do not have biological family?
Moving along, some of their ideas aren’t all bad. “Some are obvious and long-standing goals like eliminating marriage penalties in federal welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for food stamps.” I agree that there should not be a penalty for being married when seeking government aid. I will, however, point out that there are already work requirements for receiving food stamps, which I fully approve of. However, they aren’t of much use if parents of minor children can’t access child care.
Next quote: “The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists”.
OK, I have an objection here – you can’t ban a bunch of terms then claim it’s to protect First Amendment rights. That’s a contradiction. You might not agree with any of the above, you might find it repugnant, but you don’t have a right to tell other people what words to use or not use. Also, “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” are pretty fundamental to starting and raising healthy families.
The next paragraph addresses pornography: “Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare” Personally, I think “omnipresent” is overblown. It is certainly out there but it’s not “omnipresent”. I agree there are some serious issues around pornography, but first and foremost parents need to oversee their children’s reading and viewing habits and not rely on the government to protect their children from the entire world which is full of objectionable and unsettling things. There are a lot of means to do just that. I am certain this will be addressed at more length later.
I also do not agree with the stance that anything to do with trans gender issues is inherently pornographic. Then again, I have no problem with anyone in the LGBTQ+ rainbow. The authors of this document very much DO have problems with that rainbow.
Onward to education: “In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education is a simple one: Schools serve parents, not the other way around.” I disagree – schools should serve CHILDREN, not their parents. Parents certainly get input, but the purpose of schools is to educate children for the benefit of those future citizens. We can debate the best way to go about that, and again I’m sure there will be more on this later.
“Allowing parents or physicians to “reassign” the sex of a minor is child abuse and must end.” OK, we’ve known from the first these folks are anti-transgender so this is no surprise. I’m not even past the forward and it’s very clear these people want to erase the trans gender people among us.
Tech: “This resolve should color each of our policies. Consider our approach to Big Tech. The worst of these companies prey on children, like drug dealers, to get them addicted to their mobile apps. Many Silicon Valley executives famously don’t let their own kids have smart phones. They nevertheless make billions of dollars addicting other people’s children to theirs.” This gets back to parents actually taking responsibility – the primary gatekeepers should be parents. However, we know that not all parents are good parents (some are, themselves, addicted to “social media”) and I could, if I were so inclined to do so at this point, argue that there is a role for government in regulating the internet so I am in some agreement with their position(s). The devil is, as always, in the details.
Next is Roe v. Wade and Dobbs, along with a paragraph that, no surprise, is vehemently opposed to abortion. “Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America…[snip]…Conservatives should ardently pursue these pro-life and pro-family policies while recognizing the many women who find themselves in immensely difficult and often tragic situations and the heroism of every choice to become a mother. Alternative options to abortion, especially adoption, should receive federal and state support.” My biggest problem with this stance is not the stance itself but how it has been applied. Make no mistake, I’m against the basic stance itself, too. We have already seen situations where women have been denied medical care in high-risk pregnancies where there is no hope of the child surviving such as miscarriages that threaten hemorrhagic bleeding. Whether that was deliberate or the consequence of sloppy writing of laws that is a serious problem and no one claiming to be pro-life should be minimizing the negative impact of these situations under highly restrictive laws. If you’re truly pro-life you won’t put the life of the unborn above that of the adult woman carrying the child. Of course, this entire issue is worth of an extensive debate in and of itself.
PROMISE #2: DISMANTLE THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE ANDRETURN SELF-GOVERNANCE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
“Of course, the surest way to put the federal government back to work for the American people is to reduce its size and scope back to something resembling the original constitutional intent.” The constitution was never meant to be carved in stone, that’s why it can be amended. I do not like the notion that we MUST adhere slavishly to the original intent of the Founding Fathers because they lived in a very, very different world than we do at present, and they had the forethought to make it possible to modify the document to reflect changes going forward. That does not mean all changes have been for the better, but I think it is a mistake to hamstring ourselves by insisting nothing should have been changed since 1788. Indeed, the current constitution was a second try as the original original government structure, the Articles of Confederation, didn’t work out very well.
“The surest proof of this is how strenuously and creatively generations of progressives and many Republican insiders have worked to cut themselves free from the strictures of the 1789 Constitution and subsequent amendments.” Well, I’m happy they recognized that all political parties have engaged in “constitutional creep” over time.
And…. I’m only on page 6. Of just the forward. There is a LOT to unpack here. Nonetheless, I think it’s important to actually read and consider this document because it is made very clear that the intention is to put this into effect at 12 noon on January20, 2025 – it’s right there on page viii: “The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is the conservative movement’s unified effort to be ready for the next conservative Administration to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025.” It’s pretty damn arrogant to assume you’re going to win the next election. If their guy does win, however, the intention is very much to put this 900+ plan into action.
I find this unsettling because, while there are some points I’m OK with I am not at all convinced that the overall plan is in my best interests.
2 and 3 seem to be at cross purposes.
Just FYI all of their documentation is available free at their website - all 5 sections and 30 sub-sections are linked there individually:
Granted, it is still a slog to read thru just one section, but it’s there for anyone to read.
I’ve not read the manifesto, but Wikipedia suggests priorities include
I mean, yes, sure, the Dept of Homeland Security could be abolished. No matter that it is the entity that actually enforces border control. The FBI too could go, I mean, what do they do that benefits the country? Only a little Federal Investigation?
These people are at the same time insane and intelligent and deluded.
Jesus, Americans, please vote Democratic Party.
From the PDF, page 133:
Our primary recommendation is that the President pursue legislation to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). After 20 years, it has not gelled into “One DHS.” Instead, its various components’ different missions have outweighed its decades-long attempt to function as one department, rendering the whole disjointed rather than cohesive. Breaking up the department along its mission lines would facilitate mission focus and provide opportunities to reduce overhead and achieve more limited government.
On the face of it that doesn’t seem bad, it actually makes sense.
Moving along, the proposal includes:
More specifically, the paragraphs addressing the DHS specifically refer to “the Left’s wokeness and weaponization against Americans whom the Left perceives as its political opponents” which reads to me as an indirect reference to people arrested for the Jan 6 incident. They apparently want/wanted the DHS to concentrate solely on foreign threats, not internal ones. There is also the complaint/claim that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency targeted speech and elections rather than protecting critical infrastructure. I read that as a complaint against insisting that media broadcasting lies be held to account and more of the 2020 election faux-fraud complaints. The agency didn’t give these guys the result(s) they wanted so they want it eliminated or at least drastically changed.
More for DHS: privatize the TSA and forbid unions within it, privatize the National Flood Insurance Program (which wound up in government because no private company would touch it but lets ignore history, right?), and throw almost all of FEMA’s duties onto the states while slashing Federal funds so… basically each state would be on its own to cope with whatever disaster happens. The end result would be DHS would be external border control, “correct” adjudication of immigration claims (not seeing a definition of correct…), oversee transportation security, and, let’s not forget “Protect political leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or government” because, of course, the rulers of the nation need to be protected at all costs, right?
Other changes include explicitly increasing the number of politically appointed and approved upper level people running what’s left of the DHS, slashing the guest worker visa programs, eliminating visas for victims of human trafficking and other crimes (which should make producing witnesses for prosecuting such crimes a bit… difficult), and slash visas for foreign students, allowing ICE unlimited jurisdiction and permitting them to arrest without warrant, abolish all Temporary Protected Status visas, and that this newly refashioned agency “not honor court decisions that seek to undermine regulatory and subregulatory efforts.”
Wow, haven’t even gotten to the FBI but let’s continue with DHS which apparently will mostly morph into an immigration agency. Unaccompanied minors will simply be sent back to their country of origin with no attempt made to find relatives for them (page 148). Repeal of all standards for housing people while being processed. Slash reasons for claiming asylum and increase needed evidence and proof (because I’m sure people fleeing for their lives are going to prioritize paperwork that will keep DHS happy). Force local law enforcement to be an arm of this agency (so much for more limited government, I guess).
Yeah, this document is so huge any summary is ginormous. That was just DHS and immigration, and only part of it - it continues getting progressively more fine-grained as it goes, referencing types of visas and things I’ve never heard of before.
OK, let’s see what I can get for the FBI. On to page 215 where FBI investigation of Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was basically said to be full of errors and lies. Although the solution proposed makes sense on the surface - “An incoming conservative President should consider reforms designed to prevent future partisan abuses of national security authority.” - the devil is always in the details. Which include:
Still not too bad? They want to repeal the Hatch Act which would allow Federal employees to engage openly in political actions. They want to end “monitoring” of “domestic information” which sounds like an opportunity for propaganda to run wild without any need for fact-checking of any sort (possibly penalizing fact-checking) because, according to this document, suppressing fact-checking or counter-arguments is a violation of the First Amendment (page 216).
Upon further reading, looks like the FBI won’t be abolished so much as turned solely towards external threats and investigation, eliminating its role in investing any sort of domestic affairs or crimes. On 285 the document directs “the next conservative Administration” to “eliminate any offices within the FBI that it has the power to eliminate without any action from Congress.” which sounds like “gut the agency” to me.
Oh, this paragraph I want to quote in full:
Elsewhere, DOJ should target violent and career criminals, not parents; work to dismantle criminal organizations, partly by rigorously prosecuting interstate drug activity; and restart the Trump Administration’s “China Initiative” (to address Chinese espionage and theft of trade secrets), which the Biden Administration “terminated…largely out of a concern for poor ‘optics.’” It should also enforce existing federal law that prohibits mailing abortifacients, rather than harassing pro-life demonstrators; respect the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech, rather than trying to police speech on the internet; and enforce federal immigration laws, rather than pretending there is no border.
OK, I’ve had enough. There’s even more, and more specific, starting on page 545 where details on specifically the Department of Justice get a chapter but I’m tired of this right now. The one word summary there would be “The FBI is hopelessly partisan in favor of the Democrats and we need to put a stop to that we’re insulated from investigation, and everyone currently employed by the is a corrupt liar that needs to be replaced by properly loyal Americans.” Yeah, that’s harsh but that’s my overall read. By all means, I invite anyone else who cares to download this PDF to read for themselves and draw their own conclusions.
I will say that this is a very well organized document in regards to how it sets up particular bullet points then addresses each in turn. What makes it unwieldy is its sheer size. And there are some genuinely good ideas in here (such as stating that a LOT more should be done against ransomware and security our infrastructure from cyberattack) that any administration should pursue. My issue is all the other stuff that I do NOT think is in the best interests of the nation, or of me, and seeks to institutionalize “conservative” control of the government forever while demonizing anyone who isn’t “their people”.
I take Christianity seriously. I have never understood how Christian conservatives can think Trump was sent by God. In addition to being the most famous adulterer in the world, Trump is a dishonest, foul mouthed con man.
Their reasoning is that he’s an “imperfect tool for an imperfect time.” I’d agree that it’s accurate, just not in the way they mean.