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Whether Musk chose to fight the SEC at the time or settle is of no consequence. Freedom of speech is an inalienable right. The government can not take away his, or anyone else's right to free speech. Nor can Musk sign away his right to free speech. Inalienable rights are, by definition, incapable of being surrendered or transferred.

Other CEOs voluntarily self-restrict their speech because they are conformists (much like you). Musk is clearly a non-conformist. In that sense, Musk IS special.

Actually, the election evidence shows that the GOP absorbed the Peripheral South and gained in the South primarily from the importing transplants into the region, not by converting Dixiecrats and Democratic Party KKK leaders like Robert Byrd into Republicans.

See? I already said they know the name of Byrd, but not ACTUAL Dixiecrats like Strom Thurmond that were warmly embraced by the GOP. Mysterious oversight that.

Anyway, It's almost as if you are reciting a scholarly lesson that you see fit to educate us with. In fact, you sound like you borrowed somebody else's phony lecture.

The racist Democrats in the Solid South primarily stayed Democrats.

Oh? Like how numbers of them voted for Reagan? Or Goldwater? Or even Nixon of all people. That's basically because they forgot about the GOP being the party of Lincoln.

The GOP got more votes from the non-racists, both among the existing population and from immigrants from other States to turn the South into their voting block, beginning with the least (not most) racist States.

You mean the states that they gained first were the ones that were the least part of the Solid South? Gosh, who knew!

But the tide quickly turned, and by the 1980s, the Solid South was clearly trending Republican.

The details have been written up in many places, but here’s one I found with a quick Google search if you’re looking for more details.

To quote that article in relation to the myth you keep trying to spread:

Or you can read another study that comes to a different conclusion.

In sum, the GOP's Southern electorate was not rural, nativist, less educated, afraid f change, or concentrated in the most stagnant parts of the Deep South. It was disproportionately suburban, middle-class, educated, younger, non-native-Southern, and concentrated in the growth-points that were, so to speak, the least "Southern" parts of the South."

Suburban middle-class represents the most racist and bigoted groups across the country, or what I would call the "most" White and Southern parts. In reality, the GOP's Southern electoral was and is nativist, their education level is a meaningless distraction, they are afraid of change, and they are indeed not concentrated in the poorest regions of the South because that's where the minorities are, and they know that the GOP doesn't care one bit about them.

(This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)

Yes, thanks to Newt's broken Contract with America, that ended up being the Impeach Clinton show. Great job there, huh?

Only a few years later, what did we get? Interminable war in the Middle East, a massive economic collapse brought on by fraud, and the revelation of a sex abuser among the prosecution team.

Wealthy Southerners shifted rightward in droves but poorer ones didn’t."

That's because they were predominantly (though not exclusively) minorities. Which the Republicans lost in droves. Of course, others are naive enough to fall for the Republican dogma, but that's because well, the party of Reagan and Trump is blowing their dog-whistles for them.

Actually, the election evidence shows that the GOP absorbed the Peripheral South and gained in the South primarily from the importing transplants into the region, not by converting Dixiecrats and Democratic Party KKK leaders like Robert Byrd into Republicans. The racist Democrats in the Solid South primarily stayed Democrats. The GOP got more votes from the non-racists, both among the existing population and from immigrants from other States to turn the South into their voting block, beginning with the least (not most) racist States. The details have been written up in many places, but here’s one I found with a quick Google search if you’re looking for more details.

To quote that article in relation to the myth you keep trying to spread:
"Starting in the 1950s, the South attracted millions of Midwesterners, Northeasterners, and other transplants. These "immigrants" identified themselves as Republicans at higher rates than native whites. In the 1980s, up to a quarter of self-declared Republicans in Texas appear to have been such immigrants. Furthermore, research consistently shows that identification with the GOP is stronger among the South's younger rather than older white voters, and that each cohort has also became more Republican with time. Do we really believe immigrants were more racist than native Southerners, and that younger Southerners identified more with white solidarity than did their elders, and that all cohorts did so more by the 1980s and '90s than they had earlier?

In sum, the GOP's Southern electorate was not rural, nativist, less educated, afraid of change, or concentrated in the most stagnant parts of the Deep South. It was disproportionately suburban, middle-class, educated, younger, non-native-Southern, and concentrated in the growth-points that were, so to speak, the least "Southern" parts of the South."

Or as the NY Times put it:
"In the postwar era, they note, the South transformed itself from a backward region to an engine of the national economy, giving rise to a sizable new wealthy suburban class. This class, not surprisingly, began to vote for the party that best represented its economic interests: the G.O.P. Working-class whites, however — and here’s the surprise — even those in areas with large black populations, stayed loyal to the Democrats. (This was true until the 90s, when the nation as a whole turned rightward in Congressional voting.)

The two scholars support their claim with an extensive survey of election returns and voter surveys. To give just one example: in the 50s, among Southerners in the low-income tercile, 43 percent voted for Republican Presidential candidates, while in the high-income tercile, 53 percent voted Republican; by the 80s, those figures were 51 percent and 77 percent, respectively. Wealthy Southerners shifted rightward in droves but poorer ones didn’t."

This is the UK's "flight 93 election" moment: http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/

Why Trump won...

The economy is a confidence game. Draw the appropriate conclusion.

No, progressive is used in the same way in the US, for pretty much the same political spectrum. The missing piece of the puzzle for you is that fascism was once understood as a progressive movement until political and practical considerations forced a demarcation.

You may find these items interesting even if much of the discussion is framed in an American context.

What Is a Progressive
A Nicer Form of Tyranny
Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt

I am happy to inform you that your entire post is based on rubbish.

Southern Whites' Shift to the GOP Predates the '60s

Debunking the Myth of the Nixon "Southern Strategy"

The Myth of the Racist Republicans

Desegregation, before Brown

I see... you link to a piece written by none other than Thomas DiLorenzo (Professor of Economics at Loyola Maryland, I believe) who is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute.

This is the same Thomas DiLorenzo that published a book critical of Lincoln that was rife with misquotes, mis-attributed quotes, and misleading anecdote use?

The same Thomas DiLorenzo that accepted funds (not just accepted -- billed them for it!) from RJR (tobacco company) to write a book called Cancerscam: the diversion of federal cancer funds to politics?

I wouldn't trust that author farther than I could throw him. He writes dishonestly to advance an agenda and to enrich himself.

The simple-but-dramatic solution: there should be a recognized right of secession. Communities should have the right to decide whether or not they wish to belong to a larger political entity. If they feel poorly served, they can go it alone, or agree to join some other political entity (Canada? Germany? Swaziland?).

This is true. I think it's been extremely thoroughly demonstrated at this point, that increasing population is almost the sole cause of virtually every human social and environmental problem. Even if it can't be argued as the direct cause, it can certainly be said that it doesn't help.

"According to Jefferson and Madison in 1825, the Declaration of Independence constituted an "act of Union of the States."

-- Mackubin Thomas Owens, The Case Against Secession, The Claremont Institute.

The above link essentially makes the case that, although of course revolution from England was desired, apparently the immediate establishment of a perpetual and insoluble federalism of their own was desired also.

Thomas Jefferson in particular, without attempting to attack him too harshly, was quite clearly an elitist. This can be shown by noting the creation of the electoral college, of which he was an advocate, and also that it was he who voiced the idea that limited republic rather than outright democracy was a necessary form of government.

The glowing summary of American foundational history generally consists almost exclusively, of the concept that the founders created a system allowing for an unprecedented degree of human freedom, while seeking virtually nothing for the government itself.

This, of course, sounds wonderful, and works particularly well as justification for foreign interventionism. Unfortunately however, when more thorough research is conducted, the situation becomes decidedly more murky.

To me there is more evidence to suggest that although, of course, there were considerably more legal restraints initially put in place, ultimately, a competing system with England was actually the real desire. We've seen the degree of imperialism which has become the contemporary result, as well.

I also just came across something else that is very interesting, relative to this discussion. Apparently there was the first of twelve amendments that were originally intended to be added to the Constitution, at the first Congress in 1789.

This amendment, apparently specifically sought to deal with the very issue of scaling population currently being discussed, and the Wikipedia article has a quote from James Madison to that effect.

It was never ratified; but as explained by Wikipedia, rather than creating an effect where the amount of representation within government actually scaled *up* with the population, with the proposed Amendment, it would actually be scaled further *down.* Current calculation of representative numbers, although not exactly using the Amendment system, is roughly the same.

There is some very interesting information about this issue here:-
http://www.thirty-thousand.org./

The omission of those key qualifiers--"essential" and "little"-- makes all the difference in the world. Ben Franklin has been hijacked to endorse an untenable and deadly view that no sacrifice of any liberty for any amount of safety at any time should ever be made.

These pseudo "civil libertarians" love to quote the venerable Benjamin Franklin (whose 300th birthday we celebrate this year) who said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." But they quote him entirely out of context.

First, his statement appears in his "Historical Review of Pennsylvania," published in 1759 (not available on line), a decade and a half before the Revolutionary War broke out. He was warning that state's legislature against putting too much trust in royal governors during the French and Indian War. True, it was often quoted later, but the purpose was to criticize those who sought safety from occupying British armies, not those who cooperated with Patriot measures to secure everyone's liberties by winning the war!

The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British and Tory mail. On November 20, 1775, it received some intercepted letters from Cork, Ireland, and appointed a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, Robert Livingston, Edward Rutledge, James Wilson and George Wythe "to select such parts of them as may be proper to publish." The Congress later ordered a thousand copies of the portions selected by the Committee to be printed and distributed. A month later, when another batch of intercepted mail was received, a second committee was appointed to examine it. Based on its report, the Congress resolved that "the contents of the intercepted letters this day read, and the steps which Congress may take in consequence of said intelligence thereby given, be kept secret until further orders."...

Before we go too far, it's worth noting that Franklin was talking about liberty, not privacy. There is a relationship between the two, but I find it strange that no one bothers to quote Franklin when we're talking about the liberty to choose how your children are taught or smoke cigarettes in public. Instead, he's used to protect us from the government trying to find out whether or not we're terrorists.

The truth is, the government must strike a balance between privacy and security. Reduced privacy leads to a certain number of innocent private lives disrupted and reduced security leads to a certain number of successful terror attacks. The NSA data mining effort did not take place in a vacuum: it actually stopped real terror plots.

Do you have any thoughts on if the US should do anything to prevent Al Qaeda from attaining its stated goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans?

OK. Lets do some research here. Here is some info about Paul Marshall. He's a scary looking American white dude. He is in "frequent demand" to tell people what they should here on such fringe "news" outlets like ABC Evening News; CBS Evening News; CNN; Fox; PBS; the BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and South African Broadcasting Corporation. His work has been the subject of articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, Weekly Standard, First Things, New Republic, Globe and Mail, Christianity Today, Decision, Reader's Digest and several hundred other newspapers and magazines. Not a very impressive list, eh? He also heads this place. Notice the other scary looking American white dude in the middle there.

Paul Marshall also wrote this book, which the book description says, "In an age when the relationship between politics and religion is becoming ever more important--and ever more blurred--both in America and beyond, God and the Constitution is an indispensable guide for Christians interested in exploring how they can interject their religious convictions into their political actions."

Oh, and the 4,000,000 link mentions a guy named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. In case you don't know who he is, look here. Paul Marshall, in the pursuit of journalism objectiveness failed to mention anything beyond his scary name.

Oh, and the picture of the little girl was touching. I'm sure that its worse than any from what good old scary white Americans have done to people in Afghanistan, Iraq, not to mention Abu Ghraib, or Guitmo.

People like this, and this terrify me and others throughout the world. I've never had a beef with an Arab.

Do you have any thoughts on if the US should do anything to prevent Al Qaeda from attaining its stated goal of killing 4,000,000 Americans?

OK. Lets do some research here. Here is some info about Paul Marshall. He's a scary looking American white dude. He is in "frequent demand" to tell people what they should here on such fringe "news" outlets like ABC Evening News; CBS Evening News; CNN; Fox; PBS; the BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and South African Broadcasting Corporation. His work has been the subject of articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Christian Science Monitor, Weekly Standard, First Things, New Republic, Globe and Mail, Christianity Today, Decision, Reader's Digest and several hundred other newspapers and magazines. Not a very impressive list, eh? He also heads this place. Notice the other scary looking American white dude in the middle there.

Paul Marshall also wrote this book, which the book description says, "In an age when the relationship between politics and religion is becoming ever more important--and ever more blurred--both in America and beyond, God and the Constitution is an indispensable guide for Christians interested in exploring how they can interject their religious convictions into their political actions."

Oh, and the 4,000,000 link mentions a guy named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. In case you don't know who he is, look here. Paul Marshall, in the pursuit of journalism objectiveness failed to mention anything beyond his scary name.

Oh, and the picture of the little girl was touching. I'm sure that its worse than any from what good old scary white Americans have done to people in Afghanistan, Iraq, not to mention Abu Ghraib, or Guitmo.

People like this, and this terrify me and others throughout the world. I've never had a beef with an Arab.

http://www.claremont.org/projects/jurisprudence/01 0329eastman.html

jfgi

Law or Amendment, I'm not sure the people here in California knows the difference. Seems like they stick everything in the constitution.

Interesting article here.

"Perhaps direct democracy's profound effect, however, is on the California Constitution, a document that most Californians probably have never seen. Ten times the length of the U.S. Constitution, California's fundamental law has been amended about 500 times by referendum and about 40 times by initiatives since its adoption in 1879. By contrast, the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 27 times in 210 years. The amendments to California's Constitution have specified such grave matters as a fee schedule for permits during the three-year phase-out of gill-net fishing. As a result, our state Constitution is a small book -- a very bizarre, ill-digested, unimpressive book."

It is both wrong an very dangerous to think our rights come to us as gifts from our governments.

This is only if you believe in the principle of limited government (which the US's Founders did).
If you are "progressive" (of which socialism/communism is a type) you believe that rights are granted by the state.