Thoughts on Various Issues
Reading about SOPA & PIPA reminded me of my time at Boy's State in high school. I ended up a lobbyist. My first bill was a very basic one, merely establishing that a "town"'s laws would apply within the "town"'s boundaries (essentially an equivalent of the U.S. Bill Of Rights' tenth amendment). I developed a bill which was exceedingly explicit, defining what made up a "town" and so on. I handed this to a legislator who proceeded to turn it into high-level bullet points. Other legislators looked at the bill, thought it was a good idea, but referred to committee because it was too vague. In committee I essentially sat with the legislators and re-wrote the bill back to how I'd originally laid it out. Then it was released from committee and was made law. I feel like SOPA & PIPA are akin to my bill after the original legislator got his hands on it. The core idea isn't bad, but all the really important details have been removed. You're left with bills that still generally sound good, but have such definitional holes that very bad things could happen if they're passed. And it's my experience that when bad things could happen, they likely will, even if people are denying that they could have known that they would happen. (See Hillary Clinton's explanation that in voting for the resolution that allowed George W. Bush to use force against Iraq, she couldn't have known that he'd actually do such a thing.)
I can certainly understand that many of today's Republicans do not want Mitt Romney to be their nominee for President. His very core is that of a venture capitalist. His goal is to maximize Mitt Romney the man's return on Mitt Romney the persona. He's willing to say and do whatever it takes to maximize his own outcome. This is exactly what venture capitalists like Bain did with the companies they funded. If they could make the most money by bleeding it dry, it would be bled. If they could make the most money by cutting it up for parts, it would be cut up. If they could make the most money by encouraging growth, then it would be encouraged to grow. There is no morality involved in this line of thinking. Anything outside of profit is inconsequential. If you truly believe in the "ideals" of the modern Republican party, you're not going to be real keen on trusting Mitt Romney to really live by those "ideals", especially if he feels he'll be more likely to have a positive outcome by not living them.
So, who's left? Ron Paul is an isolationist, which shows that he's not really willing to force those modern Republican "ideals" on others (not even Arabs), so he's out. Which leaves Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Santorum is not Southern (which is also a knock on Romney) and just doesn't come across like a leader. Which leaves Gingrich. Gingrich has impeccable modern Republican credentials. He shut down the government and tried to impeach a sitting U.S. President for not being entirely forthright about getting a blow job (at the same time as Gingrich was having an affair). That said, I believe that Gingrich is doing well because he presents a narrative that many in the current Republican base desperately want to believe. Gingrich is telling them that he can demonstrate that Barrack Obama is an intellectual fraud and demonstrate the intellectual superiority of the modern Republican world view to everyone.
Can Gingrich beat Romney for the nomination? Quite possibly. Republicans who vote for Romney do so from duty, not passion. Mitt feels "electable" to the party leadership. But the patients are very close to running the Republican asylum, and Newt seems a lot more like another patient to them, while Romney looks a lot like an orderly. Add in to that the fact that the amount of money broadcasters can make during the primaries is directly related to how long the contest is not decided, and you have a nice recipe for having this continue for a couple more months.
On the topic of Newt Gingrich. He's now Roman Catholic. He was married twice before being Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic church allows only one sacramental marriage at a time. So Newt had to get his prior two marriages annulled by the Catholic Church, if he wants to get married in the Roman Catholic Church. Now, I have read that he has requested an annulment for his 2nd marriage, which tells me he has received an annulment for his first marriage (his second marriage couldn't be considered sacramental until his first marriage was annulled, but once his first marriage was annulled then his second marriage would become sacramental and then require annulment for him to have a third marriage - which the Roman Catholic church would consider his first marriage). Even better for Newt, if his prior two marriages were annulled, then he didn't really commit adultery, he merely was non-monogamous while having extra-marital sex. This is a good example of how the Roman Catholic Church constructs an internally consistent worldview which look quite insane to anyone that does not accept the tenets on which the worldview is constructed.
I can certainly understand that many of today's Republicans do not want Mitt Romney to be their nominee for President. His very core is that of a venture capitalist. His goal is to maximize Mitt Romney the man's return on Mitt Romney the persona. He's willing to say and do whatever it takes to maximize his own outcome. This is exactly what venture capitalists like Bain did with the companies they funded. If they could make the most money by bleeding it dry, it would be bled. If they could make the most money by cutting it up for parts, it would be cut up. If they could make the most money by encouraging growth, then it would be encouraged to grow. There is no morality involved in this line of thinking. Anything outside of profit is inconsequential. If you truly believe in the "ideals" of the modern Republican party, you're not going to be real keen on trusting Mitt Romney to really live by those "ideals", especially if he feels he'll be more likely to have a positive outcome by not living them.
So, who's left? Ron Paul is an isolationist, which shows that he's not really willing to force those modern Republican "ideals" on others (not even Arabs), so he's out. Which leaves Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Santorum is not Southern (which is also a knock on Romney) and just doesn't come across like a leader. Which leaves Gingrich. Gingrich has impeccable modern Republican credentials. He shut down the government and tried to impeach a sitting U.S. President for not being entirely forthright about getting a blow job (at the same time as Gingrich was having an affair). That said, I believe that Gingrich is doing well because he presents a narrative that many in the current Republican base desperately want to believe. Gingrich is telling them that he can demonstrate that Barrack Obama is an intellectual fraud and demonstrate the intellectual superiority of the modern Republican world view to everyone.
Can Gingrich beat Romney for the nomination? Quite possibly. Republicans who vote for Romney do so from duty, not passion. Mitt feels "electable" to the party leadership. But the patients are very close to running the Republican asylum, and Newt seems a lot more like another patient to them, while Romney looks a lot like an orderly. Add in to that the fact that the amount of money broadcasters can make during the primaries is directly related to how long the contest is not decided, and you have a nice recipe for having this continue for a couple more months.
On the topic of Newt Gingrich. He's now Roman Catholic. He was married twice before being Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic church allows only one sacramental marriage at a time. So Newt had to get his prior two marriages annulled by the Catholic Church, if he wants to get married in the Roman Catholic Church. Now, I have read that he has requested an annulment for his 2nd marriage, which tells me he has received an annulment for his first marriage (his second marriage couldn't be considered sacramental until his first marriage was annulled, but once his first marriage was annulled then his second marriage would become sacramental and then require annulment for him to have a third marriage - which the Roman Catholic church would consider his first marriage). Even better for Newt, if his prior two marriages were annulled, then he didn't really commit adultery, he merely was non-monogamous while having extra-marital sex. This is a good example of how the Roman Catholic Church constructs an internally consistent worldview which look quite insane to anyone that does not accept the tenets on which the worldview is constructed.