Monday, January 30, 2017

Good Trump News?

Zach Tatum  emails:
Good Trump News?

Can we celebrate this as libertarians?

Trump plans to cut EPA staff in half
Of course, we can cheer a cut in the EPA staff, but I think there is more to Tatum's email. A kind of hope that all libertarians get on the same page and sing kumbaya. The item to bring about this joyous song is Trump's slashing of a part of government, the EPA staff.

But I am sure that if Hillary had become president we could find some specific thing to cheer. The point is that Trump is horrific on many, many things and if libertarians should be coming together on anything it is this. He is horrific on protectionism. He is horrific on the entry of immigrants into the country--I am not talking refugees, I am talking those that have a private property place to go. He is horrific in terms of his pro-Israel stance, when the US should stay completely out of Middle East entanglements. He is horrific in his taunting of China. He has a National Security Adviser that believes the entire Muslim religion must be reeducated. He has an incoming Treasury Secretary who believes the IRS should be expanded. He is horrific in his plan for a  huge military buildup. He is horrific in his suggesting that he is willing to provide Federal "help" in Chicago.

There is something good that can be said about any government, any leader. I point to the book The German Question by the heroic Wilhelm Röpke who early on warned about the Nazi government and was declared by the Nazis an "enemy of the people" and had to flee Germany.

 Röpke wrote in the book:
[M]en began to talk of "the good sides of the regime that do after all exist" of the possibility of the great normalization, or of the supposed necessity of "helping" the decent Nazis against the worse ones. Nothing could have suited Nazism better.
There is much too much labeling of Trump by the wacko left with the Hitler label but that doesn't mean we can't learn anything from studying history, including German history. And German history teaches us what should be one obvious danger, that is, to find one sane move by an insane person, with an army that will follow him, and cheer. We must look at the totality of what is going on and with Trump it is mostly authoritarian and dangerous.

 -RW

10 comments:

  1. After criticism from McCain, Trump tweeted "Senators should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III".
    This is why libertarians for Trump were right all along.

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    Replies
    1. Wasn't the argument that Hillary would start WW3 with Russia on the basis of establishing safe zones in Syria? Isn't Trump trying to do that now?

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    2. Safe zones aren't necessarily no fly zones, but people seem to assume they are.

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    3. No. She was talking about shooting down Russian planes.

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    4. @incognost, fair point. With Cankles the safe zones were for the CIA to arm fighters. Trump seems to have no interest in regime change so they are likely to be genuinely for refugees.

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    5. Firstly, I hate you guys for making me do this.

      From the Wallace debate:

      Wallace: ...does president Clinton shoot that plane down?

      Clinton: First of all, I think a no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict. I’m well aware of the really legitimate concerns you have expressed from both the president and the general. This would not be done just on the first day. <>

      ----

      I hate the lady, but it sounds like she's proposing to do exactly what Trump is. After the S300 moved in to Latakia, it was fiat accompli, only potentially the Raptors could shoot anything down. The Syrian war was over far earlier than this debate, it's a cleanup operation now.

      In fact, if Trump involves Saudi per the call on Sunday, that could make the situation more volatile, Assad won't like this as the crazies there are funded by them and the gulf states.

      @PH Regarding the purpose? You may be right, remains to be seen. Flynn and Mattis hate Iran, and they're supplying a lot of the troops in this fight.

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    6. I had this in there to try to emphasize it but it got cut out, this was the important part of the quote, where the <> was (I guess you can insert html):

      HRC: This would take a lot of negotiation, and it would also take making it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe Zones on the ground.

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    7. And where do you think Al Qaeda would go?

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  2. This is great. Hope to see you invoke Godwin's Law more often, Wenzel. Got to fight against literally Hitler.

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  3. Simply reducing the size of the EPA and maybe lifting regulations does not actually fix anything. It may make matters worse. The EPA was not constructed around protecting property rights but rather to address people's anger over pollution while expanding government's powers. Larger leeway for the EPA to play favorites may turn out quite badly. For instance it may let large corporate entities pollute considerably more while focusing on trivialities of individual property owners who are easier to abuse.

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