Intentional Conservative

I’ve presented a small selection of articles this week that cover a range of opinions about the e-mail controversy and the corruption issue in general: one that severely condemns Clinton, one that sort of condemns her, and one that points out that she’s kind of an amateur in the corruption world compared to her opponent. It could be pointed out that Trump’s misdeeds at least haven’t endangered American security, but then it might also be pointed that he hasn’t had a chance yet.

It would be very tempting for me to say, “Okay, fine. Go ahead and put Trump in the White House. You’ll see that I was right!” But I don’t want to be proven right. I don’t want to be able to say, two years into a Trump presidency, “I told you so!” I see such unmitigated disaster coming if this man is put into power that I can’t sit back and wash my hands of the whole thing. I can’t believe that is the right thing to do, although there are many thoughtful people who are saying that. National Review, a great conservative news outlet, had an article yesterday that takes that very position; you can read it here. But folks, one or the other of these awful candidates is going to be President. And the choice is up to us. Refusing to make a choice is . . . making a choice.

Okay, now you can read the article. Take a deep breath first.

​“Save the Republican Party: Vote for Clinton”

I’ve used the last two posts for articles on the Clinton State Department e-mails and made it very clear that I don’t consider this a trivial matter.  It is not anything of the kind.

Here’s what has happened in the media, though:  the two candidates have each been pigeonholed.  Clinton is corrupt; Trump is a clown.  News that fits into these categories gets a lot of attention; news that doesn’t, doesn’t.  And because Trump is so entertaining, with such a stream of gaffes (although he’s calmed down considerably of late–the iron hand of Kellyann Conway at work, no doubt), the focus stays there.  Meanwhile the poor Clinton press corps has to plod along, trying to make e-mails interesting.  She’s not providing new fodder every day, so there’s nothing for them to do but keep digging on what’s already out there, with periodic dumps of more of the same.  As I say, serious stuff that needs to be addressed.  But what isn’t addressed very much at all is Trump’s corruption.  This may be changing, what with his use of the sickening Roger Ailes as an adviser and the whole Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi campaign contribution/dropping-of-case-against-Trump-“University” case.  Here’s an excellent article from earlier this week on this whole issue:

“Trump’s History of Corruption Is Mind-Boggling.  So Why Is Clinton Supposedly the Corrupt One?”

You’ve all heard the expression “straight from the horse’s mouth, haven’t you? Well, a good source from the horse’s mouth would seem to be the actual FBI memo on Clinton’s misuse of a private server for her State Department e-mails.  This article gives a summary, but if you’re as fascinated by this whole thing as I am, you might want to give the actual document a scan.  I’m going to try to do this; it’s only 58 pages, so it won’t be like trying to go through the 30,000+ document pile.  Yesterday’s article that I posted was scathing; this one is less so, but no one, no matter how liberal, is saying that this is unimportant.  Clinton’s attitude was clearly that she wanted complete control over her communications and was willing to do something that she had to know was unacceptable in order to get that control.

As promised yesterday, here is the column from National Review on Clinton’s antics as Secretary of State:

​“The Clinton Revelations that Must Not Go Away” 

Lend me your ears!  I come to criticize Hillary Clinton, not to praise her.

I’ve said repeatedly on this blog, and will continue to say, that coming to the conclusion that I will vote for Clinton as the lesser of two evils is hardly an endorsement.  It’s a recognition of practical reality.  Better to know the positions of the person in power and be able to intelligently respond to those positions than to have someone running the show whose positions change every five minutes or so, and who is, I believe, dangerously unstable.  Make sure you read Dr. Thomas Sowell’s excellent article on this very subject if you have not already done so.  (I believe I posted this article over on facebook but did not include it on this page; I’ve used a different source here but the article is the same.)

My husband asked me last night what I was trying to accomplish with these posts.  That sounds a little snarky, but he wasn’t being that way at all. It’s a perfectly fair question, especially as no one is paying me to write them.  So why do I bother?  I can easily spend a couple of hours at least on a post, and since I’m sort of retired (I guess you’d say) I have time to write these posts, and the ones over on the Intentional Happiness page, and the Behind the Music posts now that the Cherry Creek Chorale has started up again for the season, plus working on some material I’m hoping to actually sell.  Hmmm.  Maybe I’m not so retired after all.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.”  John Greenleaf Whitter, “Maud Muller”

I had planned to write a post today on the op-ed from Jerry Falwell Jr. concerning Trump’s Churchillian leadership qualities, and I will do so tomorrow, but I was visited by a wave of nostalgia and regret as I thought about what candidates the GOP could have nominated and why they didn’t do so.

The above title refers to  II Timothy 4:3:  “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”  I was raised in churches where the old King James Version was used, and that translation says, “after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”  So I always had this idea that it was the teachers who had the itching ears.  But no–it’s the listeners.  They want to hear whatever scratches their itch, as we might still say today.  I love the way The Message translates verses 3-5:

You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.

I’ve been meaning for some weeks now to parse out the whole Supreme Court issue, as this one question is for many people the deciding straw on the camel’s back that forces them to vote for Donald Trump.  As Trump himself said in a recent speech, people who don’t like him “have to” vote for him anyway.  Why?  Supreme Court Justices.  The common refrain is that whoever becomes President would be able to appoint at least three judges and possibly four or even more, thus changing the makeup of the Supreme Court for a generation to come.  So, even if you fear and despise Donald Trump, you have to save the US Constitution by voting for him, goes the reasoning.  I listened to part of a podcast just this morning hosted by the conservative talk-show radio host Hugh Hewitt talking to a high-minded conservative scholar who was spouting this very rhetoric.  Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, was being very critical of NeverTrumpers who say, well, you can’t trust Trump to do what he says (a view amply justified just this week by Trump’s shifts/backpedaling/”softening” on his whole ridiculous immigration policies).  I don’t get it.  Of course you can’t trust him!  But even if you knew for sure that Donald Trump would, if elected, appoint solid-gold, dyed-in-the-wool originalist justices (not “judges,” as he keeps calling them), you still would have no assurance that he would really get to put those people on the Court.  Here’s why: