My initial comment was meant to mock the mindset of the typical Obama supporter. If that’s prohibited now unless one brought 300 people to the polls with them, I guess I didn’t get the memo.

Kataklysmic

Ever heard the saying “If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one you hit”? Guess who you tagged?

‘We have now an American political party and a European one. Not all Americans who vote for the European party want to become Europeans. But it doesn’t matter because that’s what they’re voting for. They’re voting for dependency, for lack of ambition, and for insolvency.”

Modern day slavery and Obama, ironically, is the perfect slave-master. He and Michelle live like Lois XV and Madame de Pompadour, sacrifishing nothing, as she says.

“party of condoms”…and they have the perfect Pimp to scroom the entire land.

Heh, Mr. Mansfield is a nationa treasure whom the leftist will certainly call “racist”. Anyone who helps minorities how to become independent is called a “racist’. MLK died for nothing, in this regard.

Kat, you are delightfully objective and intelligent and please don’t let the turkeys bring you down, from either side.

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.” — Alexander Tyler, 1887, on the fall of the Athenian Republic 2000 years ago.

Democracy and democratic republic alike.

John McCain was (assuming Jim Jeffords to be technically ineligible) the worst candidate the Republicans could have run in 2008. And Mitt Romney was the worst candidate the Republicans could have run in 2012. And neither of those was a coincidence.

logis on December 1, 2012 at 11:30 AM

No question about it. And in both cases the FL primary is what essentially clinched the nomination for both. I fully anticipate the trend to continue in 2016 with Jeb.

All they know is some rich guy who wants to take away big bird was running against their messiah.
Kataklysmic on December 1, 2012 at 11:00 AM

A candidate who couldn’t attack Obama’s biggest weakness: Socialized medicine. And he also just happened to be a real-life Richie Rich cartoon caracter; thus stepping, fairly or not, into the anti-investment banker attack Obama had spent the last three years making?

John McCain had spent the entire time from 2000-2008 doing precisely what the Democrats were doing: badmouthing George Bush and the Republicans in Congress; leaving him no way to dispute anything a Democrat candidate had to say. And again, fairly or not, McCain’s hardcore pro-Iraq War stance made him the perfect target for the rhetoric the Democrats had been spewing for the past five years.

John McCain was (assuming Jim Jeffords to be technically ineligible) the worst candidate the Republicans could have run in 2008. And Mitt Romney was the worst candidate the Republicans could have run in 2012. And neither of those was a coincidence.

“We have to take measures to teach the poor and vulnerable to become a little more independent and to prize independence, and not just live for a government check. That means self-government within each self, and where are you going to get that except with morality, responsibility and religion?”

Well, when you put it like that… cultivating self-government/reliance sounds a lot more daunting.

In any case, Mansfield had a good interview on Uncommon Knowledge a while back that covered some of the topics in this article – academia, character, etc.

So please count me as 100% against democracy.

Few have thought as hard, or as much, about how democracies can preserve individual liberty and national virtue as the eminent political scientist Harvey Mansfield.

No. Democracies can not preserve individual liberty. Individual liberty cannot exist without property rights and Democracy is incompatible with property rights.

“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.”

James Madison

For ever Romney supporter, there were 20 automatic Republican voters who just go to the polls as a habit.
astonerii on December 1, 2012 at 10:11 AM

Mitt Romney was a successful businessman, and John McCain had a distinguished military career. I wouldn’t kick either one of them out of my Rotary Club. But there’s a rather important factor in political campaigns that a lot of people want us to forget, and that is POLITICS.

What political cause did either candidate offer aside from: “I am not Barack Obama?” Don’t get me wrong, in a perfect world that should be sufficient. But it very clearly wasn’t.

The liberal media know that they can give fifteen points to any candidate they want. That might not be enough to overcome a strong candidate in a general election. But it is sure as Hell enough to allow them to choose their favorite opponent out of the top four or five in a primary.

If we want to be successful, we have to get serious about this. From now on, any Republican candidate whose platform consists of: “Hey, the liberals don’t hate me as much as they do the other guys,” will have to be politely, but firmly, removed from consideration very early on in the process.