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Justin Amash |
My comments are in blue.
- We must not, however, fall for the logical fallacy that because diplomacy and dialogue are good, @POTUS’s performance at the press conference was good.
- What was wrong with the performance of Trump? He is often inarticulate. There was nothing new here. But his position was one of advancing less hostility between the two countries, what was wrong with that?
- Bizarre behavior? That was typical Trump. He comes out of the New York City real estate environment, Those guys are street hustlers, not polished academics.
- The reason it did not achieve the desired effect was the immediate attack from establishment media, talking heads and politicians. Trump said nothing other than he wanted peaceful relations with Russia.
- What?!
- POTUS did his usual vacillating when confronted on an issue. He speaks out of both sides of his mouth. The problem is that Trump is not a good communicator and does not have the intellectual or historical knowledge to defend his original position. Others, such as Rand Paul and Tucker Carlson, have done that for the President rather than abandoning Trump's clumsy effort to ease tense relations between the U.S. and Russia.
- Well, neocons are a big problem and they are as anti-Russia as one can get. It is not virtue signalling to support peace between the U.S. and Russia. That is a sane position. It is insane to hold an opposite view or to attack the President for his clumsy effort to ease tensions.
- Less hostility toward Russia is a libertarian ideal. It has nothing to do with “owning the neocons.”
- Prominent libertarians and near libertarians such as Rand Paul and Tucker Carlson are not conflating libertarian-style governance and Trump-style governance when discussing the Helsinki Summit, they make the very sound point that good relations with Russia is a smart policy position that can keep us away from nuclear war. How is that going to scare away the general public?
- The isolation is the result of the establishment attacks on the summit and press conference.
- The widespread reaction on Capitol Hill, for example, has been to rally around the intelligence community. People are proposing resolutions of support for the FBI, despite its dubious track record and unconstitutional activities, particularly with respect to the #4thAmendment.
- You mean the deep state intelligence community that told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?
- Again because of the establishment attacks on the summit and conference.
- Be smarter by supporting the Deep State intelligence community?
- ----
- Bottom line: Remarkably, when it comes to the big question issues taxes or the Deep States, Amash seems to always side with the establishment. Keep that in mind.
You were definitely right about Amash being a coward and a fraud, Wenzel. He is more Jeff Flake than Ron Paul.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to flip over the table when you want a seat at it.
ReplyDeleteRobert, Amash's position is actually not that different than yours when you argued that a Hitlery government would be better for the cause of liberty than the current Pvssy Grabber's administration. He is arguing that the unpreparedness and vacillating and pusillanimity shown by the Pvssy Grabber-in-Chief in front of Putin served only to provide the Neo-cons and hawks in the government, and conspiracy theorists in the Media, further encouragement to keep beating the war drums.
ReplyDelete"You mean the deep state intelligence community that told us Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?"
ReplyDeleteNot True. That’s part of the narrative Trumpists (all ardent statists) are propagating to make Trump the poor victim of the headless evil shadow government. It was President George W. Bush, President George W. Bush, and National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice (Dick Cheney too I’m sure) doing the lying that sold the Iraq war, not the CIA, as Ron Paul points out below.
And Trump TV, aka Fox, where border nationalist ringleader Tucker Carlson works, was the biggest cheerleading for the Iraq War. From Ron Paul's article:
…
"We recently gained even more evidence that the initial war was sold on lies and fabrications. The CIA finally declassified much of its 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was the chief document used by the Bush Administration to justify the U.S. attack. According to the Estimate, the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded, “[W]e are unable to determine whether [biological weapons] agent research has resumed ... the information we have on Iraqi nuclear personnel does not appear consistent with a coherent effort to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.”
But even as the U.S. Intelligence Community had reached this conclusion, President George W. Bush told the American people that Iraq, “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons” and “the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.”
Likewise, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “bulletproof” evidence that Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaeda was contradicted by the National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that there was no operational tie between Hussein’s government and al-Qaeda.
Even National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice’s famous statement that the aluminum tubes that Iraq was purchasing “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs,” and “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” was based on evidence she must have known at the time was false. According to the NIE, the Energy Department had already concluded that the tubes were “consistent with applications to rocket motors” and “this is the more likely end use.”
…
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/march/22/after-a-twelve-year-mistake-in-iraq-we-must-just-march-home/
Meant for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's name to be in the 2nd paragraph, not post President G. Bush's twice.
ReplyDeleteSome weird comments for a professed "libertarian":
ReplyDelete"of our president" -- since when do libertarians recognize the legitimacy of (use the possessive for) the holder of this office. Shouldn't this be "the president"?
"as he tried to correct his remarks that exonerated Russia" -- meaning Amash subscribes to the theory that Russia is at fault re the election? Seriously? Don't libertarians pride themselves on non-conformity?
"libertarian-style governance" -- what, pray tell, is this? I don't think he means anarchism.