I hear what you're saying! Thanks. I do disagree with you on your perception of taxation, but I think that's a worldview thing where neither of us are going to change the other's mind :)

It sounds like you believe that there should be a safety net as a fallback, but not to be abused: does that sound fair? I think most (vast majority?) of Americans, myself included, would agree with you. You may already be familiar with this already, but if you aren't, I would recommend digging into what the safety net looks like in practice in the US. This is an exceedingly well-researched source for me that helped me understand what it looks like in practice (if I taught a course on the US safety net, this would be required reading): https://www.amazon.com/2-00-Day-Living-Nothing-America/dp/054481195X

I don't think there's anything Trump or anyone else can do, at least if you're talking about a traditional brick and mortar 4 year university. The reason for this is well meaning progressive policies. They said "college is a good thing, lets make it easier for them to go". They offered cheap and easy money. When more money is introduced to a market than would be there otherwise prices go up. They answered by throwing more money in the forms of cheap loans, grants, scholarships, GI bills, ect. Prices go up even more. This cycle has been continuing for 70 years. You are about to go to college at a time when it's never been more expensive to do so and the value of most degrees have been so low. No politician can fix that, it's going to take a huge bubble burst and market correction.

I would recommend not going. There areonline degrees now that are fully accredited, here's an example. If I had to do it over again I would join the National Guard, and while your serving you can take these CLEP tests, which if you pass count as a college credit. Most colleges accept some of these credits, there are 3 that will give you a degree almost exclusively based on CLEP credits. And they are free for active serving armed forces (something like $200 a test otherwise). Google and Facebook and other tech companies sponsor something called nanodegrees, worth looking into. Trade school is looked down upon but today it's the more economically sound option.

Whatever you do I recommend the book Worthless by Aaron Clarey. I wish I read it when I was your age.

Sorry for not really answering your question, but good luck to ya.

I'm glad at least one person got it.

Persuasion and manipulation are the same thing. Which you use depends on if you agree with the goal. We all persuade/manipulate and the good persuaders are almost always quite successful. The very best persuaders we often say have a "reality disruption field".

If you watch a news source that has failed to mention any of the following and comes up with a new anonymous bombshell and doomsday porn every week then it's understandable you use the word "manipulation" and are frustrated.

>Landmark prison reform bill, getting china to crack down on fentanyl, increased sanctions on Russia, Opportunity and Revitalization Council formed to bring $100b to economically distressed communities, record high jobs/median household income, consumer confidence, manufacturing confidence, women/black/latino employment, China reducing auto tariffs and stopping mandatory IP sharing, improved NATO ally commitments, Korea hostages returned, ISIS retreats, global effort to end criminalization of homosexuality, Canada/Mexico and EU trade deals, direct praise from Jon Stewart on administering the 9/11 first responders Zadroga act, fast tracking generic prescriptions, etc.

***

>This strikes me as the one true genius of Trump’s candidacy: the creation of the myth that even when he’s losing, he’s winning.

You might be interested to know Trump's pastor growing up was Norman Vincent Peale. Even if you don't know him you've probably heard his book title "The Power of Positive Thinking", the book that popularized affirmations and self help in general and overall persuasive guy. If you're familiar with the book I think you'll see his communication style in a different way.

The purpose of history is to learn from it. To discover who we were, where we have made missteps, and to correct them. It’s Santaya’s quote “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” in vivo.
 
You said:
>My sense is that for conservatives, history is about monumentalization and triumphal identification, celebrating the achievements of great men (and sometimes women) who can set good moral examples.

I’d like to hear you say more, because my take on your perceptions is that they are reductivist, biased in the extreme (I’ll clarify when I share how you view the left), and not sufficiently broad to cover basic conservative principles like limited government, self-determination, and personal freedom.
 
Let’s take the commanding generals of the Union Army and Confederate States of America, Grant and Lee, as an example. Here’s an image to move along the discussion, based on historical fact: when Lee surrendered at Appomattox, he was dressed carefully in his uniform, neatly groomed, and did everything he could to lend honor and dignity to the proceedings. Grant showed up unshaved and slovenly. We can look at this and read into it a lot about the character of each general...but if you do this, you are missing a crucial bit of context: Grant looked unprepared because he didn’t want to keep Lee waiting. His appearance was actually a function of his desire to lend dignity to the general who he could have rightfully punished for being on the losing side. To put a very fine point on what I am trying to say: context matters.
 
Let me say a bit more about both generals before moving on to how you view the left...
 
Lee has been vilified in the recent past, hopelessly linked to the institution of slavery due to his southern heritage. Almost everyone who lives north of the Mason-Dixon Line looks at him, and what he accomplished with a jaundiced eye. People call him a “traitor” and worse. This interpretation follows logically from his place in history, since he fought on the losing side. But...
 
Lee was an amazing general, an outstanding field commander. He was educated at West Point, like almost every general during the Civil War, on both sides. He was a supremely capable leader, one who was able to get his men behind him, inspiring them to fight until they perished. I was looking for a quote from Jay Winik’s fantastic book, April 1865 that goes something like “I’ve heard about God, but I’ve seen General Lee!” to illustrate the fondness the soldiers under his command had for him when I found this quote from the General himself:
>It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. We must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them. I cannot consent to place in the control of others one who cannot control himself.

And what I’m hoping you’ll get out of this is that he wasn’t someone who rebelled in armed insurrection against an oppressive government. He was just a damn good general. He was so good, in fact, that scholar James Macphearson has made the intriguing claim in his one volume history of the war that, had it not been for Lee, the war would have been over within six months and slavery would have remained as an institution.
 
Because I said context matters, and because I think it matters in a way that sometimes causes it to be overlooked, let me provide some context for Lee: He was from Virginia, which was a border state during the Civil War. That means it could have ended up with the Union, although it did not. Virginia was home to the Tredegar Iron Works, a massive asset that, by virtue of it’s capacity to churn out munitions, was a boon to the CSA. If Virginia has not succeeded, the war almost certainly would have been over in less than six months. Today, people in the north like to look down on people from the south, assuming that they have both cultural and moral superiority, simply because they have had the good fortune of being born in a part of the country where slavery was not practiced (because it wasn’t feasible, and really for no other reason). We treat Lee like an outlaw redneck, but there was this type called the “southern gentlemen” that Lee personified. Sir Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe” was extremely popular during the era in which Lee lived. The story is a romance (literally featuring a main character who rescues a damsel in distress), and I want you to consider how it finds something noble in combat, while featuring a main character who is an exemplar of gentlemanly behavior.
 
Now for Grant, who was an alcoholic and has also been called an anti-semite. He was also a fantastic general. He was the only military figure on the Union side who was a match for Lee. Lincoln cycled through five generals before finding one who was willing to take massive casualties (the single factor that made Grant successful), telling one of the four who didn’t cut the mustard, “If you aren’t going to use The Army of the Potomac, do you mind if I borrow it?” This is what we would call a “sick burn” in modern parlance.
 
Now for some context on Grant: Asstated earlier, he had a drinking problem. There are reports of him being drunk during battle, even. But he was able to do the one thing that his predecessors wouldn’t: use the North’s manpower advantage and win through attrition. As for his alleged anti-semitism, he did sign Grant issued General Order No. 11, which expelled all Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. But taking the order at face value and coming to the facile conclusion that he did this just to sock it to an ethic population isn’t fair to the historical circumstances that caused Grant to do this. According to his biographer, Ron Chernow, Grant issued the order after Jewish merchants used the high demand for cotton in the North to engage in profiteering, setting prices artificially high in a way that hurt the war effort. Yes, the order hurt Jewish families who were not merchants and had nothing to do with a small population of people who were being greedy, but calling Grant and anti-Semite and then calling it a day misses a very important nuance. Moreover, without Grant, the war drags on, and the outcome is uncertain. That is hard to fathom from our current perspective.
 
I’ll get to your view of the left in a moment, but first let me test what you said about those on the right against what I believe. And to make it more interesting, let’s take a modern moment and filter it through the perspective you offered: the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville was a reaction to the City Council in that town renaming “Lee Park” “Emancipation Park” and ordering the removal of a statue commemorating Lee. You said “For the right, history is about monumentalization and triumphal identification.” I have no problem with Lee being monumantalized and his efforts receiving recognition...but I don’t see this as a celebration of his “triumph.” He lost, after all. Instead, I see it as a pen acknowledgment that he was a central figure in this nation’s history. Removing the statue and renaming a park that had been named in his honor is an effort to whitewash the role he played, even if we today believe he stood for everything we detest, whether we are on the right or the left. It is important for me that we remember difficult times in American history. It is essential, even. If we fail to do this, it’s a form of hubris that allows us to believe that, because the “good guys” won, we have settled the issues that have plagued our nation through its formative years. Moreover, those statues and honorifics are a tribute to the man, not the things we think he stood for. Had I lived in Charlottesville, I would have proudly marched alongside people chanting “Jews will not replace us.” I’m Jewish. They are misguided. This is America...they have the right to be misguided in this country.
 
Now then, you wrote of the left:
>For the left, it's about unmasking and unveiling, interrogating and teasing out the complex social, cultural, and economic causes of injustice.

I have to note that this is an extremely rosy view of your own side. We can take the modern day historical phenomenon that is the 1619 project, and test it against what you wrote. Since I do not agree that one side is more virtuous than the other, I’m going to point out some flaws—obvious to me—with this project. The most glaring of which is that there has been a lot of history since slavery was outlawed in this land that has shaped us far more than the historical blight that is slavery: industrialization, globalization, the boom-and-bust of the information economy, as well as the rise-and-fall of American manufacturing to name as many as I can off the top of my head. My question to you is this: what exactly is being “uncovered” by revisiting the date that slaves arrived on American soil? A key follow-up question is from whence you gained these powers of perception.
 
Having said this, I don’t want you to think that I am dismissing or trying to poke holes in your position. I’m challenging it. I recognize that it is a proper, morally defensible, and self-contained position. It just happens to be one I disagree with. My main criticism of the argument is that it overlooks a lot of context, and basically starts with an answer and works back to an already-arrived-at conclusion. To me, a more valuable question to ask when considering the problems that black Americans face today, which they undeniably do, is “In what ways was slavery not a factor? Provocative, I suppose...but a completely fair question, and one that I feel deserves an answer.

Have you read The Case For Mars ?

It completely lays out an affordable, technologically feasible (not even any "moonshot"-level technological development required) plan to visit mars. A series of missions which would each cost less than the yearly NASA budget.

Why isn't NASA doing this already? I won't spoil it too much (you should read the book! PM me your email and I'll happily send you a kindle copy), but, Zubrin attributes most of the problem to NASA administrators being too entrenched and too set in their ways. NASA money is thrown around as the biggest pork-barrel by the congress because many congressmen see NASA as being worthless besides providing their districts with jobs. Very similar things happen with military spending where bases are kept open and projects (planes/tanks/etc) continue to be ordered after their useful lifetime and after it makes sense to do so, simply because congressmen fear the economic impact. Trump understands this waste and sees privatization as a path to correcting this issue. Helping the economic recovery will avoid this too, there's no reason to keep that NASA or military factory open making things we don't need anymore if the people can just go across the street and get jobs at the new Carrier AC factory, right :).

That leads well into my next point, keep in mind also, the only way we have money for expanded spending on things like mars missions is if we fix our economy. That said, any good leader understand the value of inspiration. I have no evidence to support this, and I'm not suggesting that I do, but I wouldn't rule out a moonshot-style proclamation from Trump. Its the type of grand vision that he has and its something amazing he could do that could actually HAPPEN (as-in, humans walking on Mars) before the end of his 2nd term.

I'm listening to the JFK speech now in the background and just chills. I (way) missed out on the moon shot race. I really do hope I get to see us (humanity) land on Mars and I would really love for America to have that kind of leadership again and be the one to do it.

Hahah, you clearly didn't look too hard.

https://www.amazon.com/Let-Trump-Be-Inside-Presidency/dp/1546083308

And in regards to not profitting off the Trump brand....I think the name of the book and the cover photo are a pretty good indication that Lewandowski was definitely cashing in on the Trump brand, with Trumps endorsement it seems:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/942044657613230080

Newt also wrote a book about Trump, "Understanding Trump".

Heres Trump promoting another book written about him:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/965780052167286784

Comeys book was vetted by the special prosecutor and by the FBI, or at least thats what hes stated on his book tour when asked if he was worried about info getting out that shouldn't get out.

I guess I'm confused about why you are outraged? Is it that hes milking the Trump presidency for his own personal gain? As I demonstrated, theres 3 other authors doing the same, as well as provided endorsements from the Pres on 2 of them.

Is it because its an active investigation? Comeys contribution to that investigation has already been locked down via his meetings with Mueller and his testimony before the senate, so if anything, the only thing he can do now is perjure himself.

As other have noted, Comeys book is a memoir with only a portion being dedicated to Trump. Obviously thats the part thats getting the most juice because its the most relevant given current events.

I guess I just don't get what makes it sleazy, or maybe makes it any less sleazy than other authors who have to go out on a book tour.

[DISCLAIMER. THIS POST CONTAINS POSSIBLY FRADULENT AND OR POORLY REPRESENTED IF NOT FALSE INFO, I DID MY BEST SENPAI]

First, lets start with the facts

From Wikipedia.

$/w is cost per watt or dollar per watt.

• Coal is $2.10/watt
  
• Solar Panels are $0.70/wat alone. The cost of wiring, racks, and inverters up the price to $4.87/watt.
  
• Hydroelectric is $1.00/watt.
  
• Wind is $2.00 /watt.
  
• Gas is $1.00 / watt.
  
• Nuclear is $0.70 / watt.
  
  Capacity Factor - The actual power produced yearly relative to the amount of power produced if the system could hypothetically run at full power all year long.
  
  
• Coal, gas and nuclear plants have to go down for maintenance. Nuclear power plants need to be refueled. The sun doesn't always shine, damns do not always have enough water, and the wind does not always blow.
  
  
• For example, in 2012, the United Sates had 60 GW of wind capacity. If max power was maintained for 24 hours, 365 days. 525,600 (60 x 24 x 365) gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy would have been produced. However, only 140,000 GWh were produced. So, the capacity factor of US wind power in 2012 was 27% (140/525).
  
  To give you an idea of what this means. The United States of America uses 4,686,400,000 Megawatt-Hours of energy yearly.
  
  That is 4,686,400,000,000 kilowatt hours OR 4,686,400 gw.
  
  As stated above, the U.S. in 2012 has 60GW of wind. 4,686,400 - 60 = 4686340. Wow, thats nothing.
  
  

  But wait? Why does this matter? Of course the U.S. has large energy consumption. Its a big country. Well good thing I looked up the rest of this information for you.
  

  
  According to solarpowerrocks.com, the average solar power watt/ft is 190 watts / 13sq ft.
  
  146 watts = 10 sq ft.
  
  1460 watts or 1.46 kw = 100 sq ft.
  
  14600 watts or 14.6kw = 1000 sq ft.
  
  146000 watts or 146.0kw = 10000 sq ft.
  
  1,460,000 watts or 1460.0kw = 100,000 sq ft.
  
  14,600,000 watts or 14,600.0kw = 1,000,000 sq ft.
  
  146,000,000 watts or 146,000.0kw = 10,000,000 sq ft.
  
  1,460,000,000 watts or 1,460,000.0kw = 100,000,000 sq ft.
  
  1gw (ONE, NOT 60GW, ONE) = 1,000,000 kW = 68,493,150 sq ft.
  
  68 million square feet required of current of solar panels at current technological standards to produce ONE GW. 68 million square feet is roughly 2.5 square miles.
  
  To give you some perspective, a football field is 57,600 sq ft. You could fit 1190 American football fields in 2.5 square miles. You'd have to fill 1190 football fields with solar panels to get 1GW.
  
  
  The United states uses 4,686,400 GW per year. 1GW = 68mil sq ft. So 4.6mil GW = 312,800,000,000,000 sq ft required.
  
  

  Three-Hundred and Twelve Trillion, Eight Hundred Billion square miles of solar panels. According to Space.com, the earth has 197mil sq ft of surface, and only 29% of it is land.
  

  
  Here the deal though, according to amazon, a 150 watt (rounding 146 up) solar panel is 200 bux.
  
  Using the numbers from above and rounding 146 watts up to 150 watts, 1,460,000,000 watts is 10 million solar panels. 6,849,315 solar panels would be required for 1GW of solar energy. 6.8 million x $200 USD = $1,360,000,000.
  
  So with all this (probably wrong but hey) math. It will costs the U.S.A. $1.3b to build the amount of solar panels to supply exactly 1GW of energy. A nuclear power plant, which costs about $0.76/Kwh, costs 2 billion to build for perspective.
  
  Wind in 2012 produced 15GW.
  Coal, natural gas, and nuclear produced the rest.
  
  According to NEI, the Nuclear Energy Institute. Nuclear provided 797 billion kilowat hours. 790,000 GWH. 17% of the amount of energy required. Not 1/4.68 million like the impossible solar project.
  
  
  

  TLDR 1: Is "renewable energy" a viable issue we need to be worrying about right now? No. The tech is simply not there yet.
  

  
  

  TLDR 2: Trump isn't against green energy, which is the ultimate goal of climate change activists. So its really whatever. Again, we aren't there yet.

I agree that it may, at first glance, seem way over the top to ban such a large, generalized group of people. I sort of appreciate his vagueness, though, in that he says we have to "figure out what's going on".

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf

the study is super long, but if you just skim through the graphs on the side you can get a lot of the meaningful info. Living here in America, I personally don't (think I) know anybody who shares pretty much any of the beliefs polled in the study, but actually thinking about how potentially dangerous some of those beliefs can be to our society is hard to even think about.


http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Future-Tolerance-Sam-Harris/dp/0674088700/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458096350&sr=8-1&keywords=sam+harris+islam+and+the+future+of+tolerance

I read this book recently, and it was really great. It addresses the issues with the religion (with some subsets of its followers, I should say) and is all around really informative. After reading it (and looking at the statistics), I can't think of a better way to put it than "we need to figure out what's going on".
I hope that helps

The issue is not with publicly funded abortion services. The issue is with overly politicized wedge issues. Abortion, whether it is an emergency procedure or an elective procedure would be 100% removed from public discourse if the federal government is to be held responsible for reproductive medicine.

In America we have HIPPA. HIPPA is the (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) and it is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. Any woman who sees her physician would have a greater right to privacy than just the fourth amendment. States will cry "States rights" I am sure but at the end of the day the only way for them to alter the practice of abortion would be to go to med school, become a physician, join the AMA and attempt to substitute something better than AMA Principles of Medical Ethics. Also good luck to them- they will need it.

A lot of what I have to say would be cribbed from Paul Fussell's book Class (https://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253). And yes, it does factor into my evaluation of Trump.

One point you miss here is old money does not see itself as leeching money, but rather they are being rewarded handsomely for bringing benefit to all (I'm describing their view of themselves). They see new money like Trump as grubbing and leeching that is beneath them.

> Kinda but these people are against universal healthcare and certain other social programs.?


Read the literature, the demographic Trump attracted support socialized policies (medicare, social security, etc.) but only for those they saw as worthy, which brings in a racial dimension.

He wants to renogiate trade policies and increase protectionism. All good ideas:

https://www.amazon.com/Free-Trade-Doesnt-Work-Replace/dp/0578079674/

https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Revised-Expanded-Dethroned/dp/1848139926/

https://www.amazon.com/Endangered-American-Dream-Edward-Luttwak/dp/0671869639/

Strong immigration reform, which is not trickle down economics.

https://www.amazon.com/Heavens-Door-Immigration-American-Economy/dp/0691088969

He favours America first. Which is in effect disengaging from a unipolar American led world and accepting a multi-polar world. What function does NATO serve aside from trying to force Russia into accepting US hegemony?

He never mentioned small government at his convention speech.

Ben is a smart guy but he isn't an intellectual of the Trump movement. Of the conservative movement, certainly, and there is a lot of overlap, but they aren't the same thing. Ann is not somebody I think of as an intellectual per se, but I haven't read her books yet so I'll reserve judgement on that one.

It's hard to name people who totally line up because to be frank, there aren't many. Victor Davis Hanson, Conrad Black, Dennis Prager, and Pat Buchanan would probably be the ones that are the closest, though. Also, although I would not consider him to be an intellectual, nor would he, it's impossible to talk about the Trump movement without talking about Andrew Breitbart.

There are also a lot of people in the conservative movement who'd I'd say are on the periphery of the Trump movement. Far too many to name, but most all of them worth talking about are listed under "people" in the first box on the right.

Edit: Forgot the last link

Oh man! I'm in my element! I just finished reading Empire of Wealth! I'm gonna feel really smart now.

We actually did not go off of the Gold Standard until 71. It was proposed as one of several solutions to crazy inflation partly due to social programs implemented by progressive legislation. The economy was booming but LBJ was a child of the New Deal and thought the same solutions would work in a different climate.

The Federal Reserve was established in 1913, not 1929. It is the third iteration of a central bank in our country. The Fed did not limit the lending power of banks until during the Great Depression. Alexander Hamilton was a huge proponent of central banking and his central bank helped stop 2 runs on gold. Both eliminations of regulated banking in our country have been followed with recessions.

Hoover / Roosevelt increased our currency supply to pay for Public Projects. However it was a combination of import tax, deficit increase, and increased cash to pay tor these projects. They didn't just distribute printed cash to the wealthy.

I take it that you do not support the Federal Reserve and would like to reestablish the Gold Standard? Do you know of any existing models / specific time periods where this has worked out?

EDIT:

I read a bit more about the gold standard from some of the questions on the http://www.igmchicago.org economists panel.

What it comes down to for me is that commodities in a global economy, are volatile in value. New gold reserves and extraction methods could be discovered by a competing world power tomorrow. For a smaller, more isolated economy, you could base the value of your currency off of a limited commodity. That is how the system could function in a time when our economy was a) more isolated and b) lending non liquid assets without regulation.