Third Debate
I just saw the third presidential debate.
The press did not do as fierce a job mugging Trump as before, indeed, when I actually heard a question from the moderator about the Wikileaks revelations, I thought perhaps I had stumbled through a dimensional gateway into a mirror universe where Spock has a goatee or Superman is a crime boss. Her reply was to say that the Russians were behind it, and that Trump was a puppet of Putin.
This is the woman who took a massive bribe from Putin and made the Uranium One deal with them, giving Russia control of one fifth of the Uranium production in the US.
I am reminded of the story of Pygmalion. You perhaps have heard the second half of the tale, where he sculpts the perfect woman out of ivory, and falls so deeply in love with his own creation that the love-goddess Aphrodite grants soul and life to the figure, whom he weds. But the first half is usually forgotten:
There was once a sculptor in Cyprus, the island sacred to Aphrodite, goddess of love, named Pygmalion. On this same island lived the daughters of Propoetus, who scorned love and declared Aphrodite to be no goddess at all, merely another name for the passions we have in common with animals. In retaliation, Aphrodite cursed them. The Propoetides lost the power to blush, and the blood hardened in their cheeks. They became the first prostitutes in the world, as shameless with their bodies as with their reputations. So hardhearted became these women that they turned into statues of flint. Pygmalion, revolted at the sight of them, scorned the company of all women.
Listening to Mrs. Clinton, I just kept thinking of a daughters of Propoetus, flint hearted and flint skinned, a creature incapable of blushing.
The sheer effrontery of blaming Donald for the violence at his rallies when that violence was staged and caused by mentally ill people her campaign hired just for that purpose, when the fact that her campaign was caught on tape admitting the same had just been discussed, makes her a Propoetide.
Even if she loses in a landslide, the fact that she was proposed as a serious candidate is a shame and a stain on the name of America.
The best comment I heard about the debate was her, from the pen of one David Power (http://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/10/third-debate-and-more.html?commentPage=2#c2489838490825425601)
So there you have it people. Your choice has never been clearer…
If you feel that America is doing just fine, both domestically and internationally and all that is needed is more of the same; vote for her.
But if you think the previous eight years have accelerated America’s decline, both at home and abroad and that a new direction is needed; vote for him.
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If you feel that the biggest national dept in history is nothing much to worry about and that America can continue to borrow its way into further debt indefinitely; vote for her.
But if you think that America needs to tackle its unprecedented debt by insisting its economic rivals cease protecting their own markets by cynically manipulating the value of their own currencies and start playing on a level playing field; vote for him.
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If you feel that entering into endless proxy conflicts abroad is a great use of your most cherished national asset – the brave Men and Women who serve in your military; vote for her.
But if you think that American service Men and Women should only ever be used to protect America’s direct interests and that other nations who rely on America’s protection should contribute to the cost of that protection; vote for him.
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If you feel that mass illegal immigration from the third world, and all the adverse social deprivations associated with it, is good for America; vote for her.
But if you think that America should cease its policy of mass immigration from the third world until it can provide sufficiently for the people who are already in the country. And that America should finally start enforcing its existing laws on illegal immigration; vote for him.
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If you feel that vilifying your law enforcement officers and whipping up racial tensions, in already gang infested and drug riddled inner cities, has made them better places to live; vote for her.
But if you think the people who live in America’s cities deserve to be protected by strong and respected law enforcement agencies. And that the gang-crime that blights many of those cities needs to be tackled and tackled hard; vote for him.
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If you feel that allowing your industries to sack their American workers and move to third world countries to take advantage of slave labour and then sell their goods back to you, without penalty, is an acceptable economic policy; vote for her.
But if you think that encouraging industries to remain within America and penalising those that try the slave foreign labour route will be good for America and American workers; vote for him.
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If you feel that it is wise to ignore the fact that America’s core values are under violent attack from people who obtained their vicious hatred of those values from the teachings of Islam. And that it is some how morally wrong to even mention the phrase “Islamic Terrorism” for fear of offending somebody’s misplaced sensibilities; vote for her.
But if you think that America should acknowledge that many of the teachings of Islam are incompatible with the freedoms it holds dear, including equal rights for gays and women, and that people suspected of favouring such teachings should not be allowed into the country unchecked; vote for him.
Those who make their decisions about which leader to follow based on the policies the candidate supports have so easy a decision that it is no decision.
If there is actually a principled conservative stance opposed to any of the thing Trump routinely promises in his speeches, from a strong military to a sound border to repeal of Obamacare to deregulation to fighting the enemy abroad and crime at home to securing our electrical grid to appointing originalist judges to the Supreme Court, I have yet to hear it.
Since the question of which Republican candidate one prefers is pertinent only during the nomination period, and is irrelevant in the general election, I do not regard the question worth discussing.
Those who make the choice in the basis of trustworthiness of personal character, again, the decision is absurdly easy. The choice is between a known felon and lifelong defender of her rapist husband, complicit in the death of Vince Foster (and perhaps several others), a hag in the pay of Wall Street bankers and foreign powers, a shrew who openly and notoriously mocks the rule of law that applies to all other persons but herself, versus a man who, as all but the most perfectly bred of gentlemen do, brags in crude terms about his appeal to women when no women are around to contradict him.
Those who make the choice based on the stage presence, magnetism, or the demeanor of the candidate, what are now called the “optics”, they again have an easy choice. One need only compare the natural charisma of a man who routinely fills and overfills thousand seat stadiums with cheering, chanting standing-room-only crowds versus a granny who rarely gets more than three hundred people.
Last night, one image make a sharp and clear impression on me, and, I hope, on any undecided voter who makes his decision based on optics:
This is the moment when Donald Trump mentioned homosexuals being thrown off buildings by her Mid-Eastern donors.
Perhaps this skull-like rictus was meant to be the gay nonchalance of a schoolgirl giggling at the absurdity of the mention of her donors, as if to what barbaric yet hostile foreign powers she is indebted for political favors is inconsequential; but the optics make it look like she is making light of the cruel deaths.
Finally, those who are tired of their own government lecturing, hectoring, slandering and libeling you as racist, sexist, Islamophobic, transsexphobic, unreconstructed, benighted and bigoted idiots and subhumans, those of you tired of endless stream of contempt poured out by these America-haters who want to fundamentally transform the Republic into a failed, impoverished and unfree Euro-state, your choice is easiest of all.
If you want to have the next four years of government by someone who does not hate you and hate everything you love, then vote for him. If you want four years of peace and quiet, then vote for him.
But if you enjoy the shrill clamor of neverending nagging, whining, blame-throwing, browbeating, lies, more lies, and contempt poured over you from the dry throat of this nasty, sick, old crone, then vote for her. If you want four years of being insulted, then vote for her.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
