Category: international affairs

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First Amendment rights ideological culture international affairs

Elon Musk’s Right Answer

Elon Musk, censorship, EU, free speech, democracy

“By the rules of the complicated pretense which all those people played for one another’s benefit, they should have considered his stand as incomprehensible folly; there should have been rustles of astonishment and derision; there were none; they sat still; they understood.”

These words are from a scene in Atlas Shrugged in which beleaguered industrialist Hank Rearden rejects “this court’s right to try me” and refuses to put on a defense. Thereby giving the best defense of all.

Elon Musk didn’t give a speech.

Instead, when an EU muck-​a-​muck, Thierry Breton, sent him a letter on the eve of Musk’s Twitter interview with presidential candidate Donald Trump, a letter babbling about dire consequences for Twitter if it were to “amplify potentially harmful content [i.e., any deviation from current government dogma] in connection with events with major audience around the world,” Musk responded with a quote and a clip from the movie Tropic Thunder.

Other EU officials are now rushing to disavow Breton’s letter, widely castigated as an attempt to interfere with the U.S. election.

I can’t repeat the line Musk quoted, because we don’t use cuss words here. If you don’t like to hear such words, don’t click into the video clip. Just don’t go there.

Mega-​magnate Elon Musk is often badly wrong about China. But when he’s right, he’s right. Even super right. 

And we need a million more CEOs to be thus willing to stand up to regulators foreign and domestic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom international affairs

Bombers Off the Coast

China, Taiwan, defense

No wonder Taiwan is going ahead, despite a typhoon battering the island, with its annual war games. 

China threatens. And threatens. And threatens. 

As discussed yesterday, it is unclear just how committed a Trump 47 administration would be to protecting Taiwan. 

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, has repeatedly pledged to engage U.S. military forces in defense against China. But since he is physically and cognitively unable to run for the presidency, are we safe letting Joe hang out at the White House for the next six months performing the “lesser” job of being America’s commander-in-chief?

That position might suddenly take on a less sleepy character.

Just prior to Biden’s Oval Office address, NORAD disclosed that it had “scrambled fighter jets to intercept two Russian Tu-​95 ‘Bear’ bombers and two Chinese H‑6 bombers off the coast of Alaska.”

Lately, the Philippines has gotten most of the CCP’s bullying, enforcing their ridiculous claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea. The U.S. has an unambiguous treaty obligation to the Philippines. 

On the other hand, the U.S. position toward Taiwan, right there 80 miles off the Chinese coast, is friendly … but the U.S. doesn’t officially recognize Taiwan as a country and our policy toward its defense remains one of “strategic ambiguity.” 

Still, unless the U.S. plans to leave Asia, and maybe even then, we will have to stand up to China. Best to draw that line, to mount that defense at Taiwan.

Why? 

  • Because of the island’s worldwide dominance in producing vital computer chips, a New York Times headline declared, “Pound for Pound, Taiwan Is the Most Important Place in the World.” Kept free, that is.
  • But it’s more than that: without a free Taiwan uniting Japan and the Philippines in the “first island chain,” China can divide those two countries — both of which the U.S. is treaty-​bound to defend — and conquer.
  • Taiwan is freedom and democracy’s success story of the last half-​century, successfully throwing off four decades of martial law authoritarianism to become, arguably, Asia’s freest and most democratic nation. 

Making it in my interest and yours to disallow the snuffing out of freedom on the other side of the globe. 

We need a president who knows the world is a dangerous place, understands how critical Taiwan is, and levels with the American people about the challenges ahead.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war general freedom international affairs

Breaking Taiwan?

Donald Trump, Taiwan, China

“Would you defend Taiwan against China?” Bloomberg News recently inquired of former President Donald Trump.

After mentioning his great “respect” for the Taiwanese — though complaining that the nation “did take about 100% of our chip business” — the Republican nominee responded: “I think Taiwan should pay us for defense. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything. Taiwan is 9,500 miles away. It’s 68 miles away from China. A slight advantage …”

Indeed. But the Nazis and Imperial Japan once flaunted the same geographicadvantage. And note that the Japanese island of Yonaguni is closest to the big island of Taiwan.

Taiwan is much freer than China. And, accordingly, richer per capita … because the Taiwanese do give us (and the world) something: computer chip manufacturing, especially high-​end chips. An important commodity. The Chinese government encourages and facilitates the stealing of our intellectual property; Taiwan companies just kicked our butts in the marketplace. 

“Cool to the idea of the U.S. protecting Taiwan,” was how Nancy Cook, Bloomberg’s senior national political correspondent, not unreasonably characterized Mr. Trump’s comments. Still, Trump may have been simply negotiating up Taiwan’s military commitment, much as he did to NATO countries in his first term. 

Of course, “Taiwan has been paying for its own defense,” says the State Department. 

Taiwan has “consistently been one of the biggest buyers of U.S. weapons,” argues Michael McCaul (R‑Texas), acknowledging that Trump “is right that U.S. allies should” pony up “in their own defense.”

Lastly, is the United States like an “insurance company”?

Well, it’s certainly a breakable world. But the idea is to prevent more breakage, not pay out after a disaster. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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inflation and inflationism international affairs too much government

Is Milei Making It?

After libertarian economist Javier Milei surprised the rest of the world by winning the presidency of Argentina in 2023, the question became whether — or how quickly — he could slash government programs, privatize nationalized firms, and set free a flatlining government-​controlled economy.

A president can do some things on his own. But Milei requires the cooperation of the legislature to institute many substantial reforms. And for months his legislative agenda has stalled.

Now some of it is being enacted. On June 28, the Chamber of Deputies passed a sweeping package of bills that Reuters dubbed Milei’s “first big legislative win” and Bloomberg’s Manuela Tobias characterized as “deregulat[ing] vast swaths of the economy and boost government revenues.…”

The enacted reforms include provisions to make it easier for employers to fire workers and to deregulate the oil and gas industry. Milei was able to privatize only a few of the dozens of state firms that he wanted the government to unload.

Tobias notes that the passage of Milei’s reform package, “albeit significantly watered down,” is impressive considering that members of Milei’s own party constitute less than 15 percent of the lower chamber.

Milei’s most obvious success has been fighting inflation, which according to Deutsche Welle is “down from around 25 percent per month last December to 4.2 percent this May.” This is a major achievement for a figure outside the mainstream of globalist standard opinion, who has called himself an “anarcho-​capitalist” (of all things) and was labeled by the German paper “right-​wing populist and economically liberal.”

Terms mean different things in different countries: it’s pretty obvious that Milei’s program has nothing to do with that of American “liberals” such as President Biden and his partisans.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Xi Excuses, Demands, Assaults

South China Sea, threat

The good news — to hear Xi Jinping, chief Butcher of Beijing, tell it — is that Mr. Xi will “not take the bait.”

You see, China’s authoritarian leader complained (in a conversation last year with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen) that the U.S. had been “goading” him, trying “to trick” his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) into a military invasion of Taiwan. 

How difficult it must be for this totalitarian titan to restrain himself from launching a murderous assault against a neighboring country … and all triggered because the bad ole USA talks to the ROC (Republic of China/​Taiwan) and provides the weapons it needs to defend itself. 

One constantly reads that China claims Taiwan as its own province, of course, though the actual history behind that assertion tells a much different story. 

History regardless, Taiwan today ought to belong to today’s Taiwanese.

But it is another Chinese “claim” that may first lead to a full-​fledged world war: Xi and Company demand virtually an entire ocean, the 90 percent of the South China Sea captured within their nine-​dash-​net. 

Now, back in 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, an international tribunal at The Hague, heard a case brought by the Philippines, in which it ruled that China lacked any reasonable basis for its nine-​dash-​line demands.

Last week, reported VOA News, “China announced its coast guard will be empowered to investigate and detain for up to 60 days ‘foreigners who endanger China’s national security and interests’ in the disputed waters.”

Yesterday, Foreign Policy informed us that China is “sharply increasing its violent attacks against Philippine vessels and sailors in disputed waters off the Philippine coast,” and that on “Monday, China Coast Guard ships intercepted Philippine vessels attempting to resupply their own sailors grounded on a shoal inside the Philippines’s own exclusive economic zone (EEZ), barely 100 miles off the western coast of the archipelago.

“The Philippine Armed Forces chief of staff likened the Chinese assault” — perpetrated by “ax- and knife-​wielding Chinese crewmen” — to “a pirate attack.”

China has a long rap sheet in its treatment of the Philippines, and with everyone in the region save for North Korea. 

War rages in Europe. And the Middle East. Now the world’s worst regime, the CCP, inches ever closer to World War III.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption international affairs

Hunter’s Pseudo-​Crime

Hunter Biden has been found guilty of buying a gun while being a crack addict.

Yes, that’s a federal crime.

The jury “heard testimony from Hunter Biden’s ex-​wife and former girlfriends,” UK’s Mirror explained yesterday, “and were shown photos of him with drug paraphernalia and other salacious evidence to make the case that he had lied when he checked ‘no’ on the form at a gun shop asking whether he was ‘an unlawful user of, or addicted to’ drugs.”

While the U.S. President’s son is guilty as charged, the prosecution was almost as bogus as Trump’s.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R‑Ky.) put it best, on X: “Hunter might deserve to be in jail for something, but purchasing a gun is not it. There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, and none of them should be in jail for purchasing or possessing a firearm against current laws.”

Elon Musk, who owns X (ex-​Twitter), concurred: “I agree. He (and others) should be in jail for impugning the integrity of the United States by taking bribes for political favors, but not for this pseudo-crime.”

But pseudo-​crimes are what the Department of Justice, and your local lawfare Democratic prosecutors, specialize in. 

“They picked the gun charge because it was the only one not attached to Joe Biden,” explained Natalie F. Danelishen. “They also convicted Hunter Biden because they needed a fall guy so that Trump’s 34 felonies look less like political prosecution. Now ‘Justice’ seems fair. It’s a chess game.”

Exactly. No matter what the president says, or Merrick Garland says, or the talking heads on cable news say, it’s a scam.

Set Hunter free — and prosecute him, his uncle and his father for their evident corruption.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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