Intentional Conservative

News and opinion for the intentional conservative

The Folly of Making Donald Trump the Pro-Life Poster Boy

by
Picture

​I’ve had the experience several times over the course of this election season of developing ideas of my own that I think are pretty good and then running into an article and admitting, “Wow—that’s so much better!” So I had realized that, absent my personal fear and distrust of a Trump presidency, I would actually have a much better time of it if he won than if she-who-must-not-be-named won, because then I could just sit back and watch the disaster unfold, knowing full well that I had done all that I could to prevent it. Then this article by Jonah Goldberg came along.

I had done some deep logical reasoning, I thought, on the whole you-have-to-vote-for-Trump-because-of-the-Supreme-Court issue, and then I ran across this excellent article by Ian Tuttle which went several orders of magnitude deeper.

Read more

Conservatives, Don’t Cave!

by
Picture

I said in an earlier post that one way you could test the sincerity and honesty of commentators was to see what price they have paid for their stance. Ben Shapiro has stood on principle, resigned from a job, and been unmercifully trolled for his opposition to now-PEOTUS Trump. He wrote a great article before the election comparing Trump voters to people in abusive relationships, which was spot-on and which I posted. Now he’s written another definitive article which, sadly, I think is also spot-on.

“Holding Trump’s Feet to the Fire”

Ayn Rand Is Going to be a Pernicious Influence in Trump’s Cabinet.

by
Picturephoto credit: Wikipedia.

So far the incoming administration is planning to nominate huge Ayn Rand fans as Secretary of Labor, Secretary of State, and head of the CIA. The PEOTUS names Rand as a big favorite of his:

The president-elect said this spring that he’s a fan of Rand and identifies with Howard Roark, the main character in “The Fountainhead.” Roark, played by Gary Cooper in the film adaptation, is an architect who dynamites a housing project he designed because the builders did not precisely follow his blueprints. “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to … everything,” Trump told Kirsten Powers for a piece in USA Today. (from an article in the Washington Post)

Break it down!

First of all, since everyone agrees that Trump never reads books, we can be pretty sure he’s just seen the movie. (Fountainhead is about 700 pages long. I’ve read it at least twice.) I have no idea how faithful the movie is to the book.

Read more

Them Chickens Ain’t Even Had Time to Roost!

by
Picture

Let’s see if we can get this straight.

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, back in October when the “Access Hollywood” tapes had been released:

“My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values, it is based upon shared concerns about issues such as: justices on the Supreme Court that ignore the constitution, America’s continued vulnerability to Islamic terrorists and the systematic attack on religious liberty that we’ve seen in the last 7 1/2 years.”

Tony Perkins yesterday on the Tillerson SOS appointment:

Read more

Support the Constitution!

by
The Electoral College casts its votes on Monday, Dec. 19. This is the last chance we have to change the results of this election–as provided for in our Constitution. This is not some kind of rogue, rebellious movement. It is profoundly Constitutional.  Those of my readers who say that they are in favor of following the intentions of the Founding Fathers–then get with the program! I challenge you to read as many articles as you can this week, either here on this site or on sound, truthful, conservative websites. I’m going to be posting like crazy. Stay away from the Water Carriers for Trump. (This group includes, but is by no means limited to, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, The Gateway Pundit, WND.com, and Breitbart News. And, need I say this? InfoWars.com. Puh-leeze!)

You have a couple of options for signing a petition:

1.  What I did: Go to change.org and sign the petition asking the electors to change their votes to Hillary Clinton. While I have said repeatedly that my vote for Clinton does not mean support for many of her policies, I do support this movement. I would love to see someone such as Evan McMullin or John Kasich or Ben Sasse take office, but that’s a subject for 2020. Right now, we need to take the most direct route we can to stop Donald Trump from actually taking office.

2. You may say that you will not petition directly for the electors to vote for Clinton. Okay, fair enough. Then join the Hamilton Electors movement, which petitions the electors to vote their consciences.

Either way, we do not have to sit by and let this dreadful election stand. We can at least try to make a difference! The proposal has been made, the wedding venue has been reserved, and the marriage license is ready to be signed. But the bride hasn’t walked down the aisle yet.

A Last-Ditch Effort.

by

I would be thrilled to see Evan McMullin as our President, but that ain’t a-gonna happen.

So we’re back to the choice we had in the general election.

As Alexander Hamilton writes in “The Federalist Papers,” the Constitution is designed to ensure “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” The point of the Electoral College is to preserve “the sense of the people,” while at the same time ensuring that a president is chosen “by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.”

I know that many of my readers are going to be appalled that I’ve signed this petition. Hey, you can go online and find one that asks the electors to stay faithful, if you want to. It’s called freedom of choice.

“Electoral College: Make Hillary Clinton President.”


Funny Money 101

by
Picture

I am indebted to a commenter on my Facebook page for this post.

Usually my Facebook policy is “no response to comments,” as responding is pretty much a complete waste of time. I’ve relaxed that policy a little since the election, but I respond very rarely. Sometimes I will delete a comment and I’ve blocked exactly one person. (I wish now I’d kept up his final-straw post as a reminder of how obnoxious some people were about the Trump victory: it was a meme—I guess that’s what you call it—with a picture of a frat-boy-looking man yelling, “Say it! Say it! Trump won!” Woa. Or, maybe, Woe.)

Read more

More Carrier Controversy

by
Picture

I don’t want to beat a dead horse here, as I’ve already posted material on this whole Carrier deal. But George Will is such a national treasure and is so clear about this one relatively small deal’s portents for the future that I’m posting his article of today. I think it’s somewhat encouraging that someone so serious and thoughtful, who is not always an easy read and does not condescend or pander to his readers, has been out there writing his columns for 40 years.

I would especially encourage two groups within my readership to read Will’s article:

1) Those of you who want to say that “Donald Trump is going to be a better President than Ronald Reagan—you’ll see!” Reagan was a reader of the authors Will cites and was a serious student of history. Whatever you may say, or want to say, about our Presdent-elect, the words “reader” and “serious student” do not apply.

2) Those of you who want to say that we should “give Donald Trump a chance.” The problem is, we need to do exactly the opposite. All of the behaviors he exhibited during that campaign that concerned and indeed frightened those of us who opposed him are still completely on display now. Believe me, if after the election Trump had suddenly shown a serious, thoughtful side, (and if he had refrained from tweeting), then I’d be breathing a sigh of relief along with everybody else. But that’s not what is happening. We can’t “give him a chance” for the first year or so and then wake up and suddenly realize that the damage he has inflicted is, well, YUGE.

Okay. Enough of that. Please read this article.

“Trump’s Carrier Deal Is the Opposite of Conservatism”

Carrier Crony Capitalism.

by
Picture

I’ll end the work week with some commentary on the Carrier deal (hope you know what I’m talking about here–it’s the much-trumpeted keeping-factories-in-the-US agreement made with the big AC company):

First, quoted in a New York Times article:

“I don’t want them moving out of the country without consequences,” Mr. Trump said, even if that means angering the free-market-oriented Republicans he beat in the primaries but will have to work with on Capitol Hill.

“The free market has been sorting it out and America’s been losing,” Mr. Pence added, as Mr. Trump interjected, “Every time, every time.”

Read more