If you don't think Bernie and his campaign and his supporters basically calling Hillary

[JHan]

159. feeling is mutual, good to have a calm discussion on things. And I'm up for a thread on trade..:)

I'm a liberal with some libertarian Leanings so that should be fun lol..: Some crazy libertarians out there though, Especially the sanctimonious Ayn Rand ones.

" but if you are doing things behind closed doors to make life better for the masses, then You couldn't possibly be doing so. Not without those insiders responding to some outside pressure."

no doubt it leaves a sour aftertaste in the mouth.It does in mine, and I figure the reason for this is we believe the world is inherently just or should be, we believe that decisions could be made with completely transparency and honesty in Politics. I don't think they can. Against this , I'll frame Hillary's "private vs public" statement, where she accurately contextualized Lincoln's machinations to get the 13th amendment passed. In understanding "private vs public" I also remembered Machiavelli, who was a passionate policy wonk, like Hillary, with a sincere desire to improve lives but whose political tools were devastating to his opponents/enemies.

This election has been framed as "good vs evil" , but suppose to avoid the greater evil you vote for the considerably less evil, rather than perfectly good, understanding we're all in the trap of human nature and its foibles. Our Democracy can withstand those flaws, it constantly tests itself against those flaws. And we the voter can prevent excesses, exercising our civic power.

One of many primary motives in politics for those with great ambition is survival (que captain obvious' theme song).- surviving by beating off opponents, contending with backstabbing, outright enemies, underhanded enemies- these realities exist in politics because of Power, which is neither bad nor good, but can be wielded to create good outcomes (or bad). We never win fights cleanly - we make up rules to give the pretense of goodness or even fairness- but the only action of pure goodness is to avoid the fight. In the arena of the Senate, building coalitions, involving elites - who aren't bad people, btw- they're just bad when they don't listen - becomes necessary. The more powerful allies you have , the more ammo at your disposal in the fight. The notion that we can win with clean hands, is folly, you just end up not winning.

before I ramble on too much it dawns on me now why I couldn't take the third partiers this year- calling them stupid isn't even accurate ( or fair), it's this false belief in "greater good" accomplishing anything, purity politics. Once I collect my thoughts about it I'll write a post - hillary's 79,000 electoral college loss puts it in perspective.