Red Flag!
When leader worship is called a “people’s movement.”
It was just pointed out to me that it isn’t clear that the people on the left are Bernie supporters… so here’s a revised version of the meme:
Category: meme
A lot of people were impressed by the reasonableness of Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech yesterday … despite the usual hyperbolic promises of “best” and “great” and “beautifully.”
Its general tenor? Refreshing. Rejecting post-Cold War foreign policy for a return to “national interest” and “America first”? Long overdue. Like Trump, I think we should eschew nation building.
But still there is that one big problem: Trump is a mercantilist. He believes in protectionism. He thinks that trade has to be “fair” in order to benefit both participants. He thinks NAFTA and similar trade agreements (which generally promoted trade while still reserving a lot of room for government futzing about) are what hurt American industry. Trump is always blaming the “bad deals” made with Mexico and China, rather than placing the blame where it squarely belongs, on
- America’s world-high corporate income tax, and
- chaos of regulatory excess, and
- impenetrable tax code.
But protectionism makes sense to a lot of people. They are incredulous when they hear the (well-established) idea that free trade — even unilateral free trade — is a benefit to the people who live under it.
Surely, they snort, when you target aid or protection to some industries, you are doing good, right?
Wrong. Oh, yeah, of course protectionism protects the chosen few, the advantaged. That’s what it obviously does. But it doesn’t protect the general interest – consumers pay more and producers allocate resources to less valued uses.
You have to look beyond the obvious (“the seen”) to get the full picture (“the unseen”).
Trump’s at his most dangerous right here — forget his loose talk — by continuing to pretend that protectionism helps America.
We cannot afford another Smoot-Hawley.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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A new “right” that violates other fundamental rights, can’t be a right.
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The next president will take office as this year’s $544 billion deficit pushes up the U. S. national debt to nearly $20 trillion … which is chicken feed compared to nearly $127 trillion in unfunded liabilities racked up by our entitlement state.
And, on top of that, add our outrageous world policeman fees.
The Washington Post reports that, “thanks to various treaties and deals set up since 1945, the U.S. government might be legally obligated to defend countries containing 25 percent of the world’s population.”
And boy, has America, World Policeman, been active! The U. S. military is well into a second decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, engaged in ongoing armed conflict in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, and with ISIS and its terror, not seemingly degraded at all but growing.
No wonder, then, that the iconoclastic Donald J. Trump questioned — at a Washington Post editorial board meeting, just before the Brussels terrorist attacks — the wisdom of U.S. commitments to NATO, South Korea and Japan.
“NATO was set up when we were a richer country,” Trump explained. “We’re not a rich country. We’re borrowing, we’re borrowing all of this money. We’re borrowing money from China.…”
So why subsidize wealthy countries? “Well, if you look at Germany … Saudi Arabia … Japan … South Korea — I mean we spend billions of dollars on Saudi Arabia, and they have nothing but money.”
Lest I get my hopes up too high, it seems unlikely that Trump would change actual policy, but simply make “a much different deal with them, and it would be a much better deal.”
Here’s an even better deal, as our third president, Thomas Jefferson, articulated: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations. Entangling alliances with none.”
It’s quite affordable.
This is Common Sense, I’m Paul Jacob.
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Also, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money. Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!
As the President of the United States noodles around Cuba, opening up relations and trade for the first time in half a century, one obvious obstacle to progress sticks out: Fidel Castro is still alive, and his brother, Raoul, still runs a one-party state.
It is worth reminding Americans how desperately socialism in Cuba requires repressive one-party rule. Sometimes folks forget. As Bernie Sanders pushes a “democratic socialism,” we should wonder where he and his Sandernistas stand on Cuba’s brand of socialism, i.e. without the democratic part.
Months ago, an old 1985 video surfaced of Bernie Sanders, then mayor of Burlington, Vermont, back from trips to Nicaragua and Cuba. Frankly, I agreed with his opposition to U.S. intervention in Central America. But Bernie also praised the Cuban government, asserting that Cubans were not “against Fidel Castro” because “he educated their kids, gave their kids health care, totally transformed society.”
He did not mention what Fidel didn’t give, indeed, would not allow: opportunity, progress, autonomy, freedom, democracy … the list is long.
Cubans who speak out are arrested, imprisoned.
Bernie did add: “Not to say Fidel Castro and Cuba are perfect.” But failed to make any mention of the total political repression of democratic activity.
The necessity of violence to establish socialism should be obvious. Even Bernie’s so-called “non-violent” supporters engage in raucous, invasive protests against Trump, and litter Twitter with indecent talk of assassinating the Republican front-runner.
What would they do with official power?
Are they committed to democracy as a process, really? Or to their programs alone?
Programs that rely upon mass expropriation and strong-arming governance. No matter what Sanders says about “love.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Categories
BernieBot Logic: Bernie Likes Free Markets!
Bernie is not against free markets.
He only wants to loot them and control them.
But they will still be free!
Click for large resolution version of this image:
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Also, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money. Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!