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Grow Up!
Townhall.com ^ | January 30, 2016 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 01/30/2016 5:29:18 AM PST by Kaslin

Of all the many things said about Donald Trump, what was said by Roger Ailes, head of the Fox News Channel, said it all in just two words: "Grow up!"

It is amazing how many people have been oblivious to this middle-aged man's spoiled brat behavior, his childish boastfulness about things he says he is going to do, and his petulant response to every criticism with ad hominem replies.

He has boasted that his followers would stick by him even if he committed murder. But is that something to boast about? Is it not an insult to his followers, if it is true? Moreover, his cockiness is misplaced, because he still does not have a majority among Republican voters, while you need a majority of all the voters to win any state in the general election.

Trump has a showman's talent for telling people what they want to hear. But you can listen in vain for a coherent argument from him, based on facts and logic, much less an understanding of the inherent limitations of the office of president.

More than two centuries ago, Edmund Burke said: "Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state."

In other words, the personal character of the people to whom you entrust the powers of government matters even more than what kinds of government institutions there are. There have been some good kings and some bad presidents, as well as vice versa.

In a world where the future of this country is threatened from within by increasingly angry polarization, and where external threats can become nuclear, are we really going to entrust the safety or this country to a man who still needs to grow up?

Is the fact that he loudly expressed our own disgust with the political establishment a sufficient reason to gamble the whole future of the country by putting him in the White House?

The White House is not a place for on-the-job training. You are supposed to be ready, or at the very least grown up, before you walk in the door. Aging happens automatically, but maturity is optional -- and it is an option that Donald Trump has not yet chosen to exercise.

The issue that Trump raised about Ted Cruz's having been born in Canada is not the first time he has tried to challenge where someone was born. "The Donald" was among those who tried to say that Barack Obama was not born an American citizen, and who disgraced themselves, while undermining other critics of Obama who had serious objections to his policies.

On the other hand, messianic demagogues have often spoken at least part of the truth. But they have also often led their followers to their doom, whether at Jonestown, Stalingrad or innumerable other places. That is a very high price to pay for an exhilaration of the moment.

Donald Trump is not the only one who needs to act like an adult. With this country starting to unravel from within, while ruthless enemies overseas are developing both nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles to deliver them, we face problems that cannot be solved by candidates with glib words or by voters who vote for whoever meets their emotional needs.

If you don't understand the issues, but want to do your patriotic duty, then stay home on election night, whether in the primaries or in the national election in November. Uninformed voters turn elections into a game of playing Russian roulette with the future of America.

Conservative candidates will also have an opportunity to show their maturity and their patriotism. This is not the first primary season in which the conservative vote has been split among so many Republican candidates that it virtually guarantees that someone who is not a conservative will win the Republican nomination.

At some point during the primary season, it becomes clear that some candidates have no real chance of winning the nomination, much less the general election. At that point they can either continue hanging on, keeping the conservative vote split, or they can withdraw and throw their support to some other conservative candidate who has a chance.

A lot of people need to grow up, and to do something for this country that has done so much for them.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cluelessrant; growup; lilliputian; thomassowell
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To: nuconvert
hmmm... a black man in a white hood

Haven't you see Blazing Saddles?

141 posted on 01/30/2016 7:11:12 AM PST by MNJohnnie ( Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered)
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To: Popman

This story is BS as Roger Ailes answers to Murdoch’s sons. He damn sure is not smarting off to Trump like that. Hell, if he had-trump would not have been on O’Reilly. Use your brain. The Murdoch sons run Fox news and have since May of this year. For your INFO here are the Murdoch’s giving to the Clinton Foundation. The two sons have given much more then this report. Fox has turned much more left lately and that is why we watch One America News. The old man is pushing Bloomberg to run. They were damn near shut down in the UK for phone hacking.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/news-corp-murdoch-clinton-foundation-donation


142 posted on 01/30/2016 7:11:18 AM PST by Lumper20 ( clown in Chief has own Gov employees Gestapo)
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To: Popman; mylife

I do believe he was addressing the subject of Sowell’s concerns..
;o)


143 posted on 01/30/2016 7:12:34 AM PST by MEG33 (God Bless America And Our Troops)
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To: mkjessup
Back between 1993 and 1996 when I did political consulting (mostly research, voting record analysis, etc..) for a number of different Republican campaigns, I had access to the voting record databases in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

It was not difficult to take those records even back then, and do what the Cruz campaign did in Iowa in producing their "Shaming campaign." We could've done it back then!

It is fact that there is NO SUCH THING as a "secret ballot" and there hasn't been for decades. Every voter's voting history is in fact, a matter of public record. Every campaign has those records.

I can tell you factually, as someone who used to have access to voting records how easy it is it produce what were once called "walking lists."

Those lists were produced by people like me and given to campaign workers who went door to door soliciting votes for their candidate. When the campaign worker would knock on your door, they knew who you were, your party affiliation, your likelihood to vote for their party and their candidate, and how persuadable you might be to turn out for their candidate. They also knew who else lived in the house and how they voted as well, along with how likely they'd be to vote (or not) for the candidate they were working for.

They also knew which doors to NOT walk up to and knock on, as the focus during a campaign was to get out YOUR voters, not piss off the opposition and motivate them to go to the polls instead.

This goes to the critical mistake the Cruz campaign made here: Sending out "shaming letters" to people who are on the bubble as to whether or not they'll vote for you does NOT motivate them to get out and vote for you. In fact, it does quite the opposite.

Further, telling people that their votes and voting histories are in fact NOT SECRET and a matter of PUBLIC RECORD simply serves to demotivate that person from voting at all. The politicization of everything in our country is having a chilling effect on people's everyday behavior. Imagine, going to work one day and finding ones self ostracized from "the group" because everyone at work now knows they vote Republican or Democrat, or vote for one "extremist candidate" over another. That has an impact on personal and work relationships that can be very chilling.

We see that anytime a public figure once thought to be part of the "group think" speaks out in favor of a Conservative position. They get bombarded on "social media" and letter writing campaigns begin to have them fired from their position of leadership.

And this is what the Cruz campaign has unleashed in Iowa.

Chilling. Frightening. Not a Conservative behavior. In fact, it was the exact opposite of what we'd expect of Conservative behavior in that it uses the pressure of group-think to drive behavior. That's a LIBERAL characteristic!

Frankly, the Cruz campaign deserves to implode after this.

If the Trump campaign learns anything from this, it darn well better be that Trump needs to start acting more Presidential and tone down/turn off the personal attacks because he's not going to get away with that forever either.

I say that as a Trump supporter.

144 posted on 01/30/2016 7:12:56 AM PST by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: Popman

Duh


145 posted on 01/30/2016 7:13:41 AM PST by mylife
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To: nascarnation

Make America Great gain! LOL


146 posted on 01/30/2016 7:14:37 AM PST by mylife
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To: Alberta's Child
If Donald Trump were the president I could envision a scenario where the U.S. Defense Department is pushed to the brink of a military coup — over reckless and irresponsible orders they are given from the White House in a situation like that.

Says the guy who thinks Obama is just a wonderful CIC. Like most your posts, this is vacant of any contact with the real world.

147 posted on 01/30/2016 7:14:47 AM PST by MNJohnnie ( Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered)
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To: SubMareener; mkjessup
If we haven't had a coup after changing sides in the War on Terror, there isn't much Donald Trump could do to trigger one.

What? Changing sides? LOL.

Getting involved in some idiotic campaign called a "War on Terror" was bad enough.

I'm not referring to a situation where the military brass stages a coup because of bad decisions and bad ideas from above. I'm talking about a situation where a reckless and irresponsible chief executive puts the nation at imminent risk.

148 posted on 01/30/2016 7:14:57 AM PST by Alberta's Child (My mama said: "To get things done, you'd better not mess with Major Tom.")
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To: Kaslin

Blind worship of anyone is not “Wise”. People should have the intellectual honesty to accept the fact their idols, like Dr Sowell, are capable of error.


149 posted on 01/30/2016 7:16:22 AM PST by MNJohnnie ( Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered)
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To: AndyJackson
...start with a Trump-like smash all the furniture in the room and shake the chair rail in your opponents face - like Sowell does here

I don't read that way at all...

He sums it up here rather well in these two paragraphs ...

Donald Trump is not the only one who needs to act like an adult. With this country starting to unravel from within, while ruthless enemies overseas are developing both nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles to deliver them, we face problems that cannot be solved by candidates with glib words or by voters who vote for whoever meets their emotional needs.

This is not the first primary season in which the conservative vote has been split among so many Republican candidates that it virtually guarantees that someone who is not a conservative will win the Republican nomination.

150 posted on 01/30/2016 7:16:30 AM PST by Popman (Christ alone: My Cornerstone...)
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To: Gaffer
In many respects Ronald Reagan's foreign policy was very similar to Kennedy's, both regarded communism as an existential threat, both thought that a negotiated modus vivendi was possible (Reagan, after all, did say "trust but verify" even as he sought to be to me in the Cold War, and Kennedy negotiated arms limitation or testing agreements) but both thought that those negotiations should be undertaken from a position of superior military strength.

The media was looking to fault Reagan but would go to the ends of the earth to cover for Kennedy.

The scary dimension for Obama as commander in chief is that for the very first time in our nation's history we actually have to worry about treachery from our president. This is not only scary because it implies he would sell us out to adversaries but also because it will generate a cynicism domestically which will bring us down the low-level of a banana republic in which even a coup is justified.


151 posted on 01/30/2016 7:18:20 AM PST by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: Gaffer

I meant to say that Reagan sought to win the Cold War.


152 posted on 01/30/2016 7:21:46 AM PST by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: Kaslin

Does anyone think Fox is objective, fair, and did not try to knock Trump out during the first debate? I found the first three questions highly out of place. I did some digging. The Murdoch sons took over Fox news this May.

James Murdoch, one son is now over his father as CEO. James is a lefty and he is a Hillary pal. He is ready to join a big shot Dem organization.I quit Fox for One America News. Here is James and one of his Clinton ideas.

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/james-murdoch-edges-closer-to-hillary-clinton-20151201-gld21u


153 posted on 01/30/2016 7:23:15 AM PST by Lumper20 ( clown in Chief has own Gov employees Gestapo)
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To: nathanbedford

The treachery has been done, Obie will get away scot free but Hilly sure is in a bind.

Smartest woman in the world my eye.

Obama played her like fiddle.

What is at task here is getting the creeps out that are creeping to the highest levels


154 posted on 01/30/2016 7:23:24 AM PST by mylife
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Trump reminds me of the Piper of Hamelin. The Trump followers are following him blindly like the children did when he led them to their death out of revenge against the mayor of Hamelin


155 posted on 01/30/2016 7:23:29 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: nathanbedford

My thoughts on Obama, although he may be technically an American, is that he is not ideologically. He is the product of the liberal product of two liberal parents and a schemer. He was educated during the most formative years in an Indonesian school many call a Madrassa. Nothing he’s ever said or done leads me to think of him as traditional American. None. I believe he is first and foremost, a Muslim that won’t admit it.

As far as I’m concerned, Obama’s job one is to devolve this country into a third world banana republic (small R republic).


156 posted on 01/30/2016 7:23:33 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: MEG33

Oh, really?

I’m really supposed to consider a mature, reasoned argument that begins with:

“It is amazing how many people have been oblivious to this middle-aged man’s spoiled brat behavior, his childish boastfulness about things he says he is going to do, and his petulant response to every criticism with ad hominem replies.”

In one frigging SENTENCE he managed to insult every Trump supporter, and Trump himself FOUR separate times. Screw HIM and whatever his opinions are.


157 posted on 01/30/2016 7:23:47 AM PST by Pravious
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To: nathanbedford

Yes, understood. In the end, they just couldn’t match the power, productivity and technology of an America led by a man who had steadfast resolve.


158 posted on 01/30/2016 7:25:42 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: Kaslin
It is amazing how many people have been oblivious to this middle-aged man's spoiled brat behavior, his childish boastfulness about things he says he is going to do, and his petulant response to every criticism with ad hominem replies.

Lost me here. The author is either completely in the tank against Trump or a complete idiot. Anyone who's ever read "Art of the Deal" knows exactly what Trump is doing. He's not letting the system and the process control and dominate him nor his strategy. He's not sitting back and letting things happen to him but instead is controlling the agenda. He's garnering free publicity and free press.

In a normal political process the parties and the media weed out those who are not acceptable. They do it primarily by denying funding or denying press coverage. Trump is beating them at their own game and beating them badly.

The author is apparently too dense to put two and two together. Trump is leading in every single poll by often huge margins exactly because of what he's doing. That's unprecedented in modern politics at this stage. It's a first. Yet all this simpleton can do is turn a brilliant political campaign and strategy into a snarky insult.

159 posted on 01/30/2016 7:28:39 AM PST by DouglasKC
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To: Pravious

Apparently Thomas struck a nerve.


160 posted on 01/30/2016 7:29:07 AM PST by mylife
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