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How many delegates Trump can grab tonight...

So at this point it's looking pretty square that Trump is dominating and will more than certainly be the Republican nominee for the general election. --unless, I don't know, I'm missing something. I was really hoping he would lose just barely and run as a third party candidate, but now it almost feels like Trump has a chance at winning the whole deal. I'm already trying to imagine "President Trump" and it's all a giant blank on how I'm suppose to feel or what might happen.

Please tell me you have a reliable source that can confirm this.

Ironically, it probably would have actually worked better if they'd actually called themselves "The Legion of Doom".

I'd argue the "problem" is calling it a problem in the first place. It's not a problem. You have millions of people doing jobs Americans don't want to do. As a bonus they're eager enough to do it that they risk their lives to get here. Yes there are downsides, but we're benefiting from this influx of people. They're working in our economy, helping our GDP grow. Why treat them as criminals?

The reason you're trotting these things out again and again is because there's people who disagree with your definition of "small government." Frankly it's been one of the rather annoying things the Republicans have done lately. They've pivoted away from being about government spending less money, to pretending that inefficient government processes are "ok" just because they're part of a select group of exempt things, then increasing the amount of money spent on those things. Everyone needs kickbacks though I suppose.

You're still taking money out of the economy and putting it through an inefficient process with little justification. It's totally okay to waste money because there's a few bad apples sneaking across the border, or because some guy in Syria might come over here and blow himself up. Yet it's not okay to waste a bunch of money to treat the people hurt by someone who blew themselves up. It's an arbitrary distinction.

Reducing government to the state level isn't really much better. Sure you don't have people wasting money meeting the concerns of a few yahoos from California which aren't even relevant in your state, that's a plus side. Still though, just because the nanny state exists on the State level instead of the Federal level doesn't mean it's any less of a problem. You're just moving the problem into a new pigeonhole and pretending that's it somehow "okay" for the government to be involved now, because there's a different set of people doing the paperwork.

Exactly. You do get that "let them live here illegally, and just kinda sorta look the other way, while the whole time they know they're subject to the whims of the government" is not a great way to live, right? That's what the Democrats want (and the way things are right now). The GOP wants to create a legal status that allows them to do what they're doing right now. So they *aren't* living their lives in fear and hiding in the shadows.

Relying on not enforcing the law isn't a great strategy. I would hope we could all agree on that.



People who are wrong, and people who overwhelmingly don't agree with the principle they oppose. Um... You get that's not the most reliable source, right?



Except our definition of small government has never changed. Reagan used the exact same definition that I'm using right now. He argued for increases in military and foreign policy spending, while decreasing domestic welfare spending. It's the same thing. You've just bought into the straw man that Republicans must oppose all spending for anything at any level because they are "small government", despite knowing that we support military spending at the federal level. And every time you see us supporting spending at various levels, you scratch your head wondering why we'd do that since we're "small government", and no matter how many times we explain it to you, you pretend that we're lying to you or something.



It's not arbitrary. You just keep ignoring the explanation. And for the record, that was a terrible attempt at examples of what the GOP supports or opposes. I'm just not going to go there.



Because you're still stuck on thinking it's about the money. It's not. It's about the degree of control the people have over their own lives. The principle is about government power, not government spending. It's just that we can usually measure where the government is exerting power by looking at where it's spending money. But it's not actually about the dollars spent. It's "what level of government does <decisionA> get made, and how much say do I have in that decision? Obviously, the higher the level of government, the less say each individual has in the decision (cause, more voters). So we should do things at the lowest level of government that is practicable.

Whether the spending is efficient or inefficient is an entirely different discussion. You're conflating two completely different things. In the context of small government principles, it's entirely about the degree of say each individual in society has over the rules/regulations/whatever that government imposes on his life. A "small government", does things at the lowest level, and thus gives the individuals the most power. It's called "small government" specifically in the context of the "size" of the federal government that results. And no, "small" isn't purely about dollars. It's about the scope of power. The principle of small government does not oppose Obamacare because of it's cost but because it puts the federal government more directly in charge of people's health care. Which is a direct violation of the principle. The individual mandate is a massive violation of that principle.

Again. It's not about the money. That's not to say that Republicans may not *also* be concerned about total spending and how it may affect the economy, but that's not because of our small government principles. That's because of fiscal conservative principles. Which are only semi-related. And, not surprisingly, yet another thing that many on the left have managed to misrepresent in public over and over so as to make people think it means something it does not. Amazing how many times I have to trot out quotes from Burke clearly showing it's not what people claim it is. And not amazing at all that those same people will conveniently "forget" that the next time the subject comes up.

From what I've gathered Democrats are more in favor of some kind of Amnesty plan? Or at least that was what was floated around in the past, might have to ask Joph where that stands now. Whereas Republicans were more of a "leave the country, then re-apply to come back" mindset. Or has this changed recently?

Yes, Reagan was one of the more military-industrial types. Pretty sure there's more than just him in the party. Or have we completely lost the Republicans who are fiscally conservative first? I mean they were everywhere in the 90's, Contract with America being a thing and all, and "The Fiscal Responsibility Act" being the primary part of that.

I find the distinction you're making to be arbitrary. I mean it's nice you have reasons for it and everything, it's nice the founding fathers thought that certain things should be handled at the federal level and other things by the states. I would say running a government by the whims of a few people who came up with beta version of modern democracy a couple hundred years ago is a fairly arbitrary way of doing things. These other reasons you've been listing at length seem like fairly arbitrary reasons to me. Just my

That's because it's the important part to me. I realize I'm not a Republican, I'm really not. I'm a Libertarian if anything (like to think I'm not as nuts about it as some of them though, but I'm probably just deluding myself...). Problem being I wouldn't necessarily mind voting for a Republican who actually put fiscal conservative values they occasionally think are important to the forefront. I've done it in the past, and am not opposed to doing it again. But Republicans like to harp on fiscal responsibility when the Democrats are in power and want to block spending, but go away from it once they're in power and have the ability to spend more as they see fit. Again, it's rather annoying.

Edited, Apr 28th 2016 2:31pm by someproteinguy

Not a bad idea. I'm not aware that the Dems have much of an actual plan other than "keep calling the GOP bigots and anti-immigrant". When they do propose or take action, it's usually some form of exceptions, often designed to prompt GOP response, which they can then condemn the GOP for. The Dream Act? Stop and think about it. All it really does is create more problems. So now we're saying that students here illegally can stay, but of course their parents and family are still subject to deportation. It's designed to create conflict, not solve any problems. Same deal with sanctuary cities. Creating a zone where we just decide not to enforce the existing law isn't a solution, but it does create a point of conflict that can be used to paint those opposed to sanctuary cities as bigoted anti immigration types. Same deal with Obama's whole "let's be merciful" bit about unaccompanied minor undocumented aliens. Um... only in the most foolish surface layer analysis can his action be considered merciful or even ethical. What it did was exactly what us "evil" conservatives warned. A significant jump in the number of unaccompanied minors attempting to take the dangerous trip to the US. Once again, the pattern seems to not be about doing what's best for illegal immigrants and more about using them as a political weapon.

That honestly appears to be the extent of the Democrats "plan". I certainly haven't seen anything remotely comprehensive coming from their side. But maybe Joph will be able to illuminate us on the subject.



There's several variations on the same basic theme. Create a legal means for current undocumented workers to work in the US, and then create some process by which they can transition from their current illegal status to the new legal one, and then tighten restrictions and enforcement with regard to anyone who doesn't follow that path. Details change, but the objective is to actually "solve" the problem rather than just ignoring it and hoping it goes away (or using it for political fodder).

Amnesty (and we'd need a precise definition of what's meant by the term here) is generally not a solution at all. It's a nice sounding word (or a scary sounding word depending on context), but it doesn't solve anything. Inherent in the assumption of an amnesty is a lack of change in the underlying law you are granting amnesty from. It doesn't make it legal to come to the US and work, it just forgives those who are doing it now, or have been doing it for X number of years, from punishment (deportation in this case). It's a terrible idea, for a whole lot of reasons.



You keep inserting insinuations into the conversation. When you say "military industrial" you're harkening back to Eisenhower's "warning" against such, and thus presenting me with a complex question fallacy. if I continue to argue in support of the GOP belief that the federal governments focus should be on military and foreign policy, I can be painted as supported the "military industrial complex", which is "bad". But that's your own association, not mine. Once again, the discussion of whether the influence of private money into spending choices for military operations is good, bad, or whatever is completely unrelated to the question of whether federal spending in the form of military or foreign policy is acceptable under a "small government" model, while federal spending on welfare, food stamps, education, etc, is not.

Whether private industry has the potential to corrupt government spending is a whole different topic. And btw, one that applies to any spending by the government, not just military spending. When Eisenhower made his warning, the federal government was not nearly so directly involved in things like housing, education, health care, etc. If it had been, it's almost certain his warning would have been much broader than just the military. Painting spending on military as "bad" in this context, and while ignoring that the same problems can exist with any spending is foolish IMO. It makes for a great bit of rhetoric, but not a very strong argument.



Again, you're conflating two very different things. The idea of being fiscally conservative is one thing. The idea that the federal government should only act in areas that the federal government *needs* to act is another. Can you understand that conservatives can pursue both at the same time?



Why do they seem arbitrary? I mean, yes, I suppose we could argue that "wanting to maximize individual liberty in our society" is an "arbitrary" choice. We could just as easily choose to live in a dictatorship, right? But, since we already live in a society where the former principle was and is the founding principle, it's not arbitrary at all to argue for a given model of government spending because it aligns with that principle. That's not arbitrary at all. It's logical and reasonable. If we accept that maximizing individual liberty in society is a good thing, then a small government model is a good thing. Right? One flows from the other.

It's only arbitrary if you don't think that maximizing individual liberty is important. Is that the case? And if it is, then what sort of principle do you think we should be using to define the role of government?



Then by all means argue about spending too much money. But don't support this argument by claiming that the GOP is being hypocritical because their spending violates their small government principles. Because, that's not actually what "small government" is about.



I also think that much of that is fabricated by the left as an attempt to create just the perception that you have and drive a wedge between conservatives at large (including libertarians) and the Republican party. It's not accidental. It's also generally not true. The left tends to cherry pick spending on this or that in order to make a case that "The Republicans are just as bad on spending as the Democrats". And they're pretty successful at it. But if you actually look at the spending, and where it comes from, and why it's being spent, you find that this is not the case. What usually happens is that the Democrats push for new spending constantly, while the GOP opposes it. And what's really annoying is that when the public gets fed up with the Dem spending, they vote in the Republicans, only to find the spending stays high because all the spending bills last 8-10 years, and in some cases, are legislatively just staring up right when the republicans take power finally, leading to the false claim above.

If you actually allowed the GOP to remain in power for more than a few years at a time, and in more than just one branch here or one part of a branch there, you'd see a massive difference in total spending. It just hasn't happened (certainly not since the adoption of fiscal conservatism by the GOP).


What I find amazing about this is that we can see two semi clear examples of that difference just in the last 15 years. The difference between spending increases during the Bush years and Obama years is absolutely massive. And the difference in terms of impact on our debt has been massive as well. It's just not fair to say that they are the same. Is the GOP "perfect"? No. But that's not as much the point as the question "which party will be closer to my idea of low spending?". And that answer is obviously the Republicans.

Do you honestly think the GOP introduces new things to spend money on at nearly the rate as the Dems?

I think gbaji took the post right after this as a challenge.

Cruz picks Carly Fiorina for his VP, stating one of the reasons as she's someone who "knows where jobs come from." I imagine the answer is "not from her." She also has accepted a job offer for a position she has no chance of getting. Guess by "small government" what he really means is "totalitarian."

Edited, Apr 29th 2016 10:06am by lolgaxe

Unless, of course, the Zodiac Killer reappears and murders everyone between Ted Cruz and the presidency. I mean, it's a long kill list, but I bet you hadn't considered that.

And, I mean, it's not like one of the candidates is secretly the Zodiac Killer.