Send in the Rookies!

Much has been said about Trump selecting people with insufficient experience, especially from those who have buckets of experience (I'm looking at you, John Bolton).  However, look at what we are getting for our hyper-experienced government employees: disaster.  I am reminded of a quote from William F Buckley: 

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory, than by the Harvard University faculty.

Experience in government is bad.  The longer people are in government, the more corrupt they will be.  It is not by accident that people with 6-figure salary soon have an 8-figure net worth.  When trillions of dollars are sloshing around, it is very hard to resist appropriating some.  Shrinking government would be a great first step, but only noobs can do that.  After a few years, only the most ethical of people can avoid being corrupted.  Ron Paul managed to stay true to his limited government principles even after 20 years in the House.

During his first term, President Trump tinkered with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which gave us bureaucrats outside the purview of the president.  The spoils system - which saw the president sweep all the offices and give them to supporters - was in poor regard.  Yeah, that's hardly a surprise.  The Pendleton Act took most offices out of the president's hands, effectively making them unresponsive to executive control.  Spoils was bad, but this has proven worse.

Maybe Javier Milei's chainsaw is available.  We have vastly more deadwood to trim than Argentina.

Right to Refuse Business

The Supreme Court has ruled (7 to 2) in favor of the baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding.  Those who are pleased by the ruling proclaim a victory for religious liberty.  Those against the ruling liken it to blacks not being seated in restaurants.  Though I like the result, I don't much care for the religious liberty reasoning.  I'm more of an extremist.

 

All transactions between private people must be consensual.  If Nazi Nick doesn't want to service Jews in his business, the government should not force him to do so.  If Klansman Keith doesn't want African American patrons in his business, then he should have the right to refuse service.  Of course, this works both ways.  Jews and African American business owners can refuse service to Nazis and Klansmen.  Government is a different matter.  The State of Alabama or the City of New York must treat all people equally.  As such, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, Votes for Women, and so forth were absolutely required.  Government is disallowed from being a racist or a bigot but it cannot criminalize that in its citizens.  The correct way to purge racism, bigotry, sexism, and other prejudices is through private ostracism.  That is a long and slow process.  It is so much quicker to pummel the racist and sexist bigots with the coercive government.  Barry Goldwater voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it criminalized the right of private individuals to choose to do business or not do business with whomever they chose.  People should be free to be miserable human beings.  Forced virtue is no virtue at all.  That's a hard argument to sell and is partly why Goldwater was obliterated in the 1964 election.

 

As Ron Paul said in his farewell address to the House of Representatives, freedom is a hard sell:

 

I have thought a lot about why those of us who believe in liberty, as a solution, have done so poorly in convincing others of its benefits. If liberty is what we claim it is- the principle that protects all personal, social and economic decisions necessary for maximum prosperity and the best chance for peace- it should be an easy sell. Yet, history has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled.

 

As Jefferson may have said (it has often been attributed to him), "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."  Vigilance is hard work.  The promises of politicians to do all the hard work for the citizens is enticing.  It is laborious and time consuming to debate the racists and the sexists and the bigots while it is comparatively easy to pass a law and sic the cops on them.  Sure, that punishes the bad think, but it doesn't reform them but rather hardens their prejudices.

 

With our current technology, such laws are mostly unneeded.  No law was required to cudgel Starbucks in the wake of apparent racism.  The company folded almost immediately.  Ditto for a bakery in Portland that refused to service a black women who arrived after the store was closed; employees were fired here.  Though I think the businesses were justified in both cases, private citizen outrage resulted in immediate action by those businesses.  In this atmosphere, just try to be a racist business owner.

 

The baker may have won the ruling but I highly doubt he will have great success in his future baking endeavors.  Everyone knows who he is and he will most likely lose more business from those who think he's a bigot than he will get from those who think he's a hero.  And that is how you change society.

Electoral College Vote

The electors of the Electoral College have assembled in their state capitols and voted.  For the first time since 1912, there were multiple faithless electors.  Amazingly, Hillary Clinton lost more votes than Trump!

In Minnesota, a Clinton elector refused to submit a ballot but was replaced by an alternate who voted for Hillary.

 

In Colorado, a Clinton elector voted for someone other than Clinton and was replaced.  The replacement voted Clinton.

In Maine, a Clinton elector voted for Bernie!  The vote was invalidated and switched to Clinton.

In Washington, 4 electors went rogue.  3 of them voted for Colin Powell and 1 for Faith Spotted Eagle.  These votes were not changed, placing Colin Powell as the third place contender in a race where he was not on the ballot.

In Texas, two Trump electors jumped ship.  One voted for Ohio Governor John Kasich and the other for former Texas Congressman Ron Paul.  Another elector resigned in order not to vote for Trump but was replaced by an alternate who did vote Trump.  There was even an elector who voted Trump but chose Carly Fiorina for VP instead of Pence.

The final tally is:
Donald Trump: 304
Hillary Clinton: 228
Colin Powell: 3
Faith Spotted Eagle: 1
Ron Paul: 1
John Kasich: 1

Who is Faith Spotted Eagle?  I had not heard of her before today.  It turns out that she is a member of the Sioux Nation and has been part of the effort to block the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline.

 

It is peculiar that Hillary, who by her silence tacitly supported the intense lobbying of electors to change their votes, lost more electoral votes in the end.  It makes no difference to the state of the race but it does make for an interesting footnote in history.  Though I mention 1912, that was a case of a VP candidate dying prior to the electoral college.  For electors to abandon the nominee, we have to go back to 1808 when 6 electors chose someone other than George Clinton over James Madison.  It is a bad precedent to have so many faithless electors and will encourage more such lobbying in the future.

 

With the electoral college finally behind us, let us move on to the next effort to derail the Trump Presidency.  I've already heard calls for impeachment.  Which party was demanding that the other party accept the results of the election?  Yeah, there are those double-standards again.

UPDATE: An elector in Hawaii voted for Bernie Sanders, so that he joins the pool.  The electors who were reversed in Maine, Colorado, and Minnesota had all tried to vote for Bernie.  Had they not been invalidated, Bernie would now have 4 electoral votes.

Romney is the Nominee

It is painfully obvious to all that, barring some titanic gaffe, Romney is going to be the nominee. Even a titanic gaffe could do no worse than result in an open convention that would probably still select Romney. That said, it is time for Santorum to drop out. He cannot win the nomination and it is extremely unlikely he can deny the nomination to Romney by collecting enough delegates. At this point, Santorum can only diminish himself, which he has already started to do. He's managed to rehabilitate himself from his disastrous loss in 2006 and should quit rather than risk a loss in Pennsylvania again. He is positioned to be the frontrunner in 2016 much as Romney's successes in 2008 made him the current frontrunner.

Newt was out weeks ago but has refused to recognize it. However, he has no illusions that he might get another chance so he doesn't have the same calculus as Santorum. His political career is at an end so when he suspends his campaign that will be it. What bargaining power he had to suspend his campaign is gone so he can't even benefit from bowing out. But it was fun while it lasted.

Ron Paul is going to the convention. Though he has the fewest delegates, he has some of the staunchest supporters and, unlike Santorum or Gingrich, he could take them with him on a Quixotic third party run. Romney will have to show Paul some deference. Yes, despite his consistent 4th place showing, he has serious pull. Agian, I love Paul's domestic policies but think his foreign policies are naive.

I've mostly reconciled myself to Romney. If necessary, he will make the effort to repeal Obamacare - though he will fail unless the Republicans get a 60 seat majority in the Senate. I'm certain he will reduce the deficit; he has been a proponent of Paul Ryan's budget. He is far from my ideal candidate but a vast improvement over what I've currently got.