Posted on 03/30/2016 10:52:06 AM PDT by Starman417
As I’ve said before, if Donald Trump is the nominee I will vote for him over anyone the donkey party runs. Why? One reason… the single greatest threat to our nation is open borders and the continued entry of people from failed states with no understanding or appreciation for limited government or individual rights. The Democrat Party, which has a similar disdain for both things, has almost destroyed the country on its own and with open borders it seeks to tip the scales of our Republic towards their tyranny by packing the voting rolls with such invaders…
The candidate who promises to build a wall and curtail illegal immigration gets my vote… and my hope that he will actually do so.
But I have to say, Trump continues to make it much more painful to be willing to support him. From his thin skin and childish Twitter tirades, it makes one wonder how temperamental a President Trump might be. Something more consequential that forces some soul searching when considering voting for him is his unserious perspective on international relations. When he says things about not sending money to countries that hate us, that makes pretty good sense and makes a great place to start with foreign aid. But he doesn’t stop there. There are two things that are particularly troubling about his foreign affairs perspective. His populist tirades against free trade, and his statement of two weeks ago that the United States should pull back from its leadership in NATO.
On the former, Trump cries that the United States is losing out on trade with China and Mexico and other nations around the world and that these countries are taking the jobs of millions of Americans. Both of those suggestions may indeed be accurate, but he is wrong in that they are a symptom, not the illness itself. The primary driver of those issues is not that Mexico or China are cheats. They may be manipulating their currencies or labor markets, but that’s not why American companies choose to build iPhones in China or cars in Mexico. It’s American taxes and regulations… Think about it, China is a Communist country separated from the US by 6,000 miles of water and Mexico is a dysfunctional quasi state where the politicians and population are perpetually intimidated by narco terrorists. And somehow it makes sense that a US company would want to manufacture widgets in those places rather than in Detroit or Pittsburgh? Yes. Sure, labor costs are a problem, but it’s regulations and taxes that are the real drivers of trade deficits. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, federal regulations cost American consumers almost $2 trillion in lost economic productivity and higher costs in 2014. And that’s just the federal government! That $2 Trillion was almost four times the entire US trade deficit with the whole world that year! Add to that the fact that US tax rates are the highest in the developed world and that giant sucking sound of jobs you hear is not because of China or Mexico’s cheating, but rather because the US government is simply making it too difficult to operate profitably in the United States. If Trump wanted to make our trade balance more balanced and bring back jobs he’d focus on eliminating regulations here rather than spending most of his time demagoguing the rest of the world.
The bigger problem with Trump’s world view is his fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the United States in said world. Two weeks ago he suggested that the United States should take a step back in its leadership of NATO. We could do that and it would certainly save us billions of dollars a year. But it not only would it lead to a world war, but it would be the catalyst for a collapse of the world economy and western culture. Why? Because it was American military power, presence and a willingness to use both that has kept the west largely at peace for the last 70 years and driven a greater increase in world prosperity than in any period in all of human history.
To understand the impact of a United States led NATO, one simply has to look at the history of Europe. For two millennium, from the rise and fall of the Roman Empire to the rise and collapse of the British Empire, Europe was at an almost constant state of war either within itself or without, and often brought much of the rest of the planet along with it. That reality culminated in the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century that cost the lives of over 100 million men women and children. Post WWII however, after the United States military brought order to a world in chaos, Europe and much of that world have enjoyed an unprecedented period of relative peace, and as a result saw wealth and prosperity grow and expand at levels unprecedented in human history.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
How can a man who owns properties all over the world ever be an isolationist?
Trump is now the ONLY choice.
Not impressed with either one, and I think we could do with some non-interventionism.
Trump wants to put “America First” — is that now a disqualification for president of the US?
Take a look around. How long are you going to allow yourself to continue being played for a fool by the “Caucus for Perpetual War”? How well has 30 years of Interventionist policy worked out for the USA?
Globalism has sure worked out great for us. /s
Great idea, we have not yet completely decimated and eliminated the middle class. We can't have a guy as president that is not going to see the job through to completion.
Eliminate the middle class completely.
Don't Vote for Trump.
There are not conservatives that want all this intervention. Some no doubt call themselves conservatives but they have no idea they are the farthest thing from it. Avoid foreign entanglements. Trying to remember where I heard that before.
TRUMP is right about revamping NATO and hopefully the UN.
It is time AMERICA led from the front and not from behind.
I just heard a top-of-the-hour news segment about Trump. The guy says that GOP rules require that a candidate receive 1237 votes to win, but then he said Trump disagrees. Then he played an audio of Trump saying that if he wins he should get the delegates.
I think that was a splice put together about two different topics to mislead. Trump was probably talking about the situation in Louisiana.
A part of me is beginning to like the idea of isolationism. I am sick of giving money to people who hate us, steal our technology, corrupt leaders, or those too chicken to fight for their own freedom.
Why Trump is a Security Threat
Trump is not just ignorant, but aggressively so. Even when better-informed interlocutors (a category that includes just about anyone that Trump talks to) try to set him straight about his errors of fact, he refuses to admit he is wrong or correct himself. The Times interview provided two glaring examples.
First, Trump complained that after signing the nuclear deal Iran is “buying from everybody but the United States.” Times correspondent David Sanger interjected: “Our law prevents us from selling to them, sir.” Trump: “Uh, excuse me?” Sanger: “Our law prevents us from selling any planes or, we still have sanctions in the U.S. that would prevent the U.S. from being able to sell that equipment.” Trump: “So, how stupid is that? We give them the money, and we now say, “Go buy Airbus instead of Boeing,” right? So how stupid is that?” Actually, it’s not so stupid since we have sanctions in place on Iran because of its support of terrorism and illegal testing of ballistic missiles. Is Trump implying that he’d like to lift those sanctions? Or is he simply unaware that they exist?
Another example of Trump’s ignorance: He said not once, not twice, not three times, but four times that “Iran is the No. 1 trading partner of North Korea.” Finally, Sanger challenged him: “Mr. Trump with all due respect, I think it’s China that’s the No. 1 trading partner with North Korea.” Trump’s insouciant reply: “I’ve heard that certainly, but I’ve also heard from other sources that it’s Iran.” What sources does Trump have in mind? It would be great if he would cite them, since every source I have seen — e.g. the CIA Fact Book and CNN — asserts that some 70% of North Korean trade is conducted with China and 20% with South Korea and most of the rest with India and the EU. Iran barely registers beyond serving as a destination for some North Korean missile sales. Far from being North Korea’s top trading partner, Iran is probably one of the smallest.
Trump seems to think he is entitled not only to his own opinion but to his own facts. He not only doesn’t know much, but he also doesn’t know what he doesn’t know — and he’s made no effort to educate himself. That’s a dangerous combination in someone who aspires to the most powerful job in the world.
Trump is highly selective and even deceptive in his citation of history. This is especially a concern since history provides the storehouse of information and ideas upon which statesmen act.
Read more here: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/why-trump-is-a-national-security-threat/
The finance/government/media complex alliance will not allow the slightest deviation in their plan to implement an Unlimited Immigration Welfare State.
This is a good article.
In the last 25 years, we’ve had presidents from BOTH parties...All of them were Washington insiders and “professional politicians”. They all had campaigns and promised the American people that they would do great things if elected. The media, the lobbyists, the elite, and the Washington insider crowd cheered them on...They gave speeches, had international parties, traveled the world...They looked somber on TV when discussing problems...
Yet, NOTHING was ever accomplished...
They sat back and enjoyed the fruits of your labor, your vote, your apathy...The “establishment elite” still talked them up and your listened and nodded your heads...
Now, a candidate comes in and says he is really going to do things to help America and the American people, you and me...The media, the “establishment elite” and the Washington insiders all excoriate him...They try to shout him down and ridicule him???
They are so scared that he will take the “easy life” they have all enjoyed for so long at YOUR expense, that they will do or say ANYTHING to stop him.
Why are a lot of you people going along with the “establishment elite” in this???
Do you just want to continue on the same path the country has been on for the last 25-30 years?????
I’ve never seen so much outside-of-the-box thinking about foreign policy, and yet, when you think about it, so much of this outside-of-the-box thinking seems obvious after you’ve thought about it for a couple of minutes.
1. Trump is right about not having toppled Mideast dictators (in the name of “Democracy”). The West would be FAR better off if the Mideast status quo from a decade earlier had been maintained.
2. Much of current foreign policy is simply stagnated momentum leftover from WWII and the cold war. What good does NATO actually do the U.S. right now other than to potentially drag the U.S. into stupid, useless wars in which we have no real dog in the fight, e.g. Turkey p!ssing off Russia? Half of the old Soviet Union wants to join or already has joined NATO. The old Warsaw Pact is long extinct, so what is it exactly that NATO is countering? If Europe wants to keep NATO, then let them pay for most of it.
3. Nukes for our allies Korea and Japan are a fine idea: nukes keep pretty much EVERYONE with a military from attacking you. Period. So if our Korean and Japanese allies had their own nukes, then the U.S. would no longer be obligated to protect them militarily. So if Korea and the Norks nuke each other or if Japan and China nuke each other, the U.S. wouldn’t automatically be obligated to engage in nuclear war.
4. And if/when we do continue to provide military protection to rich countries like Saudi Arabia and South Korea, then yes, let them pay for it. Why shouldn’t they?
5. And none of this is isolationist, it’s simply a matter of our allies standing on their own two feet.
And finally, besides formulating a 21st century foreign policy instead of coasting along on an obsolete 20th century foreign policy, Trump’s foreign policy ideas are brilliant from a political perspective as well, since you know damn good and well that that fool Hillary Clinton will feel obligated to knee-jerk oppose whatever Trump says, which is going to cause her to come off as a major war-monger, which will NOT make her look tough, but instead will p!ss off quite a bit of her pacifist base. No doubt this latter is a deliberate manipulation on Trump’s part.
Trump’s foreign policy positions are very similar to George Washington’s as stated in his Farewell Address.
Now Trump is the devil incarnate.
And how well has US foreign policy served the country’s interests in the last say 40 years? And especially the last, well since the beginning of Clinton? And even more, since 0bughole who was totally assisted by congress including the R controlled?
Chaos and death and jihad spreading rapidly is one result, after taking down Mubarak, Saddam and now trying to oust Assad - all by the US. And Clinton responsible for the deaths and nastiness in Yugoslavia.
Yet, NOTHING was ever accomplished...
I’d amend that to say “nothing GOOD was accomplished. A lot of BAD was accomplished, though.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.