24A042 Few Great Expectations by Jim Davies, 10/29/2024  

The people who believe in government are holding their election on November 5th. I don't, so shall not be casting any vote.

In passing, I note that the 5th is celebrated in England by burning, on thousands of bonfires across the land, effigies of Guy Fawkes, a Roman Catholic nobleman who hoped on that date in 1605 to bomb the Houses of Parliament so as to restore Papal rule there. He was foiled, and hanged. He was far from being an anarchist, since he wanted only to replace one government by another; but his failure showed in any case the folly of trying to end any of them by violence.

Here in the former colonies on that date this year the choice of President is more important than usual. Ms Harris is a former prosecutor and the daughter of a declared Communist, who as his VP took part in Joe Biden's disastrous attempt to bully Russia into the US hegemon. Mr Trump is a businessman and former President, and this ZGBlog rates his performance in office. This time his promises include setting Ross Ulbricht free from his obscene 80-year prison sentence, and ending the Ukraine War in one day.

He still has little or no grasp of economics or liberty, for he proposes to hit China by imposing steep tariffs on imports (which will of course hit each of us, primarily) but those two promises tell me he is definitely the less ruinous of the two. He has also gathered around him an impressive group of advisors including R F Kennedy, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tucker Carlson, and they may well steer him in a more sensible direction; that team David Stockman dubbed the "good squad" and suggested "it is this flying wedge of anti-Washington statesmen and intellects that could constructively harness and channel the Donald’s own inchoate instincts to drain the swamp."

Trump's intention to wrap up the failed, proxy war on Russia is especially important, as Russia's Nuclear Doctrine made clear. If he takes a week or a month instead of just one day, that's quite okay. But if Harris were to win she'd continue it indefinitely, with potentially catastrophic results; I hate to have to discuss politics but if we are to build a zero government society, we do have to avoid getting turned into radioactive dust.

So my expectations from a Trump victory on 11/5 are not many, but not zero; unlike those of the orphan Pip in Dickens' novel, they are just few. And with apologies to Ross, the most important of them is the probability that he'll provide at least another four years in which to do that building.

Time is short, but he will buy us some more; are you taking an active part?