Four years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Distributist Review, called “Navigating the Electoral Milieu”, where I criticized more or less every candidate, with some praise for Ron Paul among my severe criticism of him.

Having briefly reviewed the Republican debates, I can only come to the conclusion (which I have maintained for a very long time) that our national political life is all a sham. There may indeed be sincere individuals who think they can accomplish some good, but the reality is they don’t.

The Republican milieu is not much different from the last time around. First off, we have Jeb Bush, if we want a replay of 8 years of W. He makes gaffes just as bad as his older brother (though not as puerile) and waffles frequently, knowing that the base is increasingly anti-war while all his backers are the military industrial complex. A lot of people think he is great because he is Catholic, as if that lessons the positive evil he will unleash as president.  Then there is Huckabee, for what the third time now? He nicely invents himself as a true, prayerful conservative, nearly every time. Then there is Carson—what exactly is he running for again? Oh, the economy, right. Then we have Carly Fiona, we need a republican alternative to Hillary! Rubio talks a good game, but them he is open borders. Moreover he has no experience. He is a first term senator. Then again there is Obama—exactly. Do we want another one of those? Then there are a bunch of people I recognize, don’t know much about, except that when they talk they sound like everyone else.

Then there are two others. Firstly Donald Trump. You have to be kidding me if you take him seriously. Let us review Donald Trump’s political history:

-During the 1990’s, Trump joined the bashers of anti-gloablist Pat Buchanan while publicly saying he’d like to have Oprah Winfrey as his running mate.
2002-2007
Trump donated to then-NY Senator Killary Clinton
2008
Trump supported the big banker bailout of 2008: “Maybe it works and maybe it doesn’t. But certainly it is worth a shot.”
2005
The Clintons were honored guests at Trump’s third wedding.
2006
Trump donated $20,000 to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — in the year in which the Dems recaptured the majority in the House.
2010
Trump donated to Democrat Marxist Chuck Schumer
2012
Trump endorsed Mitt Moderate Romney for the Republican Primary
2015
The “courageous” Trump joins the lynch mob calling for the removal of the Confederate flag (as did Rand Paul).

Now, before I move on, a word about the Confederate flag. This is actually the Confederate battle flag. It is a version of the St. Andrew’s cross of Scotland. Now, I’m not particularly wedded to it. There is truth in the representation of Southern Culture with no reference to slavery. Yet, none of that can avoid the fact that pro-segregation governors used it as a symbol to fight desegregation and support the state-sanctioned racism. So there is truth on both sides. Was it actually bothering anyone? Probably not. Like so many things in the news cycle, it was a non-issue drummed up to take our attention away from what is really going on in the rest of the world. Quasi dicere, I could care less about it in itself. The fact, however, that Trump (and Rand Paul) joined the lynch mob shows them to be political opportunists riding the popular momentum of the news cycle. Were I running (I don’t know why I would do such a pointless thing) I would simply say that is for those communities to decide. I find the whitehouse lighting itself in rainbow colours far more disturbing than the Confederate flag in the now desegregated South. That the whole event was insanity is shown by the subsequent desire to dig up confederate generals buried here and there, and the banning of the Confederate flag from historical parks, Civil War games, textbooks, as if seeing a historical thing causes racism. Nonsense.

Either way, Trump is an opportunist, I know of no evidence that he is being asked to upset the field for some benefit, but I would not be surprised to find out that was the case. He is simply not a statesman, and could not do anything other than what the “experts” said were some national crisis to happen.

Now Rand Paul. On foreign policy he sounds really good, but I wonder what he can really do to change the system. In fact, he seems like someone that would quickly waffle in the face of some foreign political crisis. On top of that, he is entirely pro-gay marriage. Some people would say, “Well, he is pro-life, and he is anti-war [apparently] he just thinks the government should get out of marriage.” I’m all for getting the government out of marriage, since theologically civil marriages simply don’t exist, it is just a contract by the state, it has nothing to do with the institution of marriage established by God. Still, Rand—just like Ron—Paul’s solution would in fact create more government, just as we shall see shortly. Now gay “marriages” will be filling up the divorce courts (at a higher rate than real marriages) as well as child custody fights and many other things. There will be more government, not less, and the need for even more laws to determine everything.

I could go on more ranting about individual things, but all the candidates are lock-step in the same mold. That is more government (or policies that will increase it), talk but no action on abortion, and of course. They all voted for the TPP, which threatens our very sovereignty, and shamelessly gave in to the World Trade Organization when they overturned one of our sovereign laws. [See my interview with Bill Jasper on the TPP]. Then there is the fact that they all carry 100% support for Israel.

Israel is of course the biggest issue in American politics today, which is astounding, and should astound any objective observer. It is a tiny country, a combination of Jews who lived for some time under the Ottomans, then under the British, combined with Jewish emigres from Europe. It is really a failed socialist state, dependent upon billions of dollars in aid and weaponry from the United States. I’m not particularly anti-Israel, or pro-Israel. I have my own views on various Iraeli issues (treatment of Palestinians being a big one), but, why is it that there are so many dual Israeli-American citizens in government? Why does AIPAC have so much influence over our “law”-makers? Would we allow, for example, a European country like Italy or France, let alone Russia or an Islamic country, to have the same influence in government? Actually we do, namely Turkey. There are a number of people in government who take money from the Turkish-American Council (Former Republican speaker Dennis Hastert comes to mind). Sure enough, there are supply convoys that leave Turkey destined to ISIS quite frequently, and Turkey has long assisted the US in its foreign policy, much of which is directed by AIPAC. Rand Paul supports Israel, just like every other candidate. Surely, if we were concerned for American security, we would cut our ties with Israel, at least it seems.

Then there is the military industrial complex. Who is going to cut the military? It won’t be Rand Paul, nor will it be any other candidate. This is because the system, the bureaucracy is too large and too entrenched. We will not see the end of government from there.

Then some will say, this is important because we need to get rid of support for Planned Parenthood. Neither Bush nor any other Republican attempted to do so from 2000-2008. The Planned Parenthood videos, however, came out just in time to galvanize the Republican base to vote no matter what. Here is what really happens with such things. The Party gets together, excludes all those who are serious on abortion, and they work out, okay, who is in a liberal or moderate district that can survive a “no” vote on this? Boehner gets his ducks in a row, and they can make it look like a strong reaction has been made when in fact it is business as usual. The Republicans will never end abortion because there own polling sufficiently shows that the day abortion ends most Republicans will stop voting.

Then of course there is fractional reserve lending, which even Ron Paul would not have touched, let alone Rand, and it is nothing more than another version of theft. The Federal Reserve, anyone? No. Currency reform? China has been increasing gold holdings for years and all reports show the dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency. Are we ready? No. Does anyone know what that means? That means that when we want to buy oil, for example, we cannot print more dollars. We will have to buy whatever currency is in place (Yuan, gold, etc.) to do so, and the fall of the dollar when every country in the world is dumping dollars will mean we will be in a state of Weimar 2.0. No one is talking about this issue. Jobs? These guys are still running trickle down economics. Abortion? See above, or, my article The Failure of the Pro-life movement.

The whole spectacle of our national politics shows that in reality there is only one party, with two branches. Or, as I’d rather put it, two wings of the same bird of prey. This is why I don’t vote, except once in a while in a local election where it seems it might do some good.

Here is a debate I had via e-mail with someone whom I shall leave anonymous, from the first round of debates a month or so ago:

Q. Did you watch the Republican debates?
me. There were debates?
Q. Don’t you follow politics?
me. As little as humanly possible.
Q. Isn’t it disrespectful of your country to pay no attention to your future leaders?
me. They are only my “leader” in as much as they have more guns than I do. These “debates” are stage-managed grandstanding platforms to convince the powers that shouldn’t be that candidate x will be a better manager of their decisions on the government side than candidate y.
Q. So you are not going to vote?
me. I would rather open my wrist to be truthful, or clean out a few septic tanks. I could even bring myself to watch a reality show (which I have still never seen) before I went out to vote.
Q. Well, don’t complain.
me. Why?
Q. If you don’t vote you don’t get to complain.
me. Where is that written?
Q. It’s your civic duty.
me. Baloney. If it was a duty it would be legally mandated. A right is not necessarily a duty.
Q. You still can’t complain if you don’t vote.
me. Sure I can. If someone is put forward by my countrymen, or the selection of bankers and voting machines is accepted as constituting a right to rule (I prefer watery tarts throwing swords around, but anyway), then that someone is obliged to rule justly regardless of whether I voted for him, his opponent or nobody.
Q. But if you don’t participate you don’t get to complain.
me. Where is that written?
Q. It’s just common sense.
me. That’s ridiculous. I lose my free speech rights to point out the injustice of the system simply because I refuse to choose my dictator for four years?
Q. Yes.
me. So I need to vote for the dictator in order to complain about him when he becomes dictator, even though I am responsible for him being dictator by my vote.
Q. uhh…. I guess so.
me. Aren’t we morally complicit in the things that a candidate does when we vote for him?
Q. Well, if you know he is going to do x.
me. So if I know a candidate will continue the lie of 9-11, will continue sanctioning foreign wars that murder innocent people (turning the military into the Middle Eastern branch of Planned Parenthood), continue taking away our rights at home, continue devaluing our currency and tanking my economy, do I have to become morally complicit with all of that in order to complain about it?
Q. Well, i don’t—you still have to vote.
me. This is sounding more like a religion.
Q. No, we have separation of Church and state.
me. Which means the state becomes both.

So, no, I’m not voting this time. I didn’t vote last time or the time before that, or even before that. And things are the same each time. I won’t be lured by the promise of judges or the promise to fight ISIS (which is a creation of our foreign policy) other things that will not materialize to once again avail myself of America’s sacrament. What we see before us is not politics in a classical sense, but a stage managed reality show from hell, where no serious issue is on the table and we are treated to more politician speak. And most people are happy with that, and will take the sacrament of liberty, lest they be excommunicated to the realm of independent thought.

Again, no thanks. Our only alternatives are anarchy and monarchy, neither of which could be much worse.