The US government is too often on the side of the American People’s enemies. (Think closely about the implications of that statement.) I would venture that were a US pilot parachuting through disputed airspace, onto Turkey’s territory, the Turks—great NATO allies of Obama and Bush—would sic their Turkmen proxies on our pilot, and these ethnic Turkmen would have eliminated him, with blood-curdling cries to a vampiric god, as they did an ISIS-fighting Russian pilot. The Kurds—real allies to America and Israel but betrayed by both—our pals the Turks are always killing.
What is the term for a government that’s mostly on the side of its people’s enemies?
UPDATE: There is that tinny robotic libertarian edict to see no evil, hear no evil; some libertarians believe you should pretend to see no evil/ hear no evil, all under the guise of foreign policy neutrality. Not me. Noted here was the fact that there is a sympathetic people in the region. That only the 3, proverbial, see-no-evil hear-no-evil monkeys (and some libertarians) would deny. The post further asked not what we can do for the good Kurds, but why are this government’s interests (ditto Bush’s) the same as those of the bad actors. The paragraph is a rather modest one. So, where is its answer? What is the proper term for “a government that’s mostly on the side of its people’s enemies”? Where are those Founder quotes?
An excellent, courageous article. The author demonstrates her unwavering commitment to individual rights, including freedom of expression, by criticizing the Federal Republic’s prosecution of an elderly woman for the heinous thought crime of “Holocaust denial.” Such prosecution is a common occurrence in the soft authoritarian regimes of western Europe which the First Amendment has thankfully spared us in America–so far.
UPDATE: Clyde Wilson, another great historian (quoted just the other day), this time of the South, sent commendations. It means a lot, because, as I said, this piece took a lot out of me.
Bush, Cheney, Clinton and Obama started the wars that eventually caused entire Middle-Eastern populations to be on the move. Personally, I think these American politicians and their respective cabals (Samantha Power and the Rices, Condi and Susan) should pay reparations, out of their personal fortunes, to Iraqi, Syrian and Afghani refugees. No qualifying test required.
Libertarian justice aside, Laura Ingraham has been ahead of Ann Coulter in evolving away from establishment Republicans and their weasel words, as was noted in this space, in July of 2014. Now Ingraham is doing her listeners a service by alerting them to how “Paul Ryan is using the language of the Left to advocate a new Republican way forward”:
“By opposing a ‘religious test’ for refugees, the new House Speaker Paul Ryan is ‘using the language of the left,’ ‘the language of Obama.'”
“Nobody is talking about a religious test,” counters Ingraham, “we are talking about a test of leadership, for the American people to finally see their leaders—Obama and the Republicans—standing up for the American people.”
Not quite. A religious test is inherent in refugee legislation, as religious persecution is grounds for a request for asylum. However, and by the sound of it, Americans are sick and tired of laws passed in contravention of their rights and interests.
More materially, there is nothing in the thousands of bills dreamed up by representatives, annually, that remotely approximates the will of a self-governing people and their exclusive interests. I mean, poor, working-class whites are dying in inordinate numbers in the US. Who do these local refugees turn to for redress? The left-liberal establishment (GOP included), which finds the exotic more sympathetic?
UPDATE: As Christians die across the Muslim world, America’s leaders feel the urgency of importing more Muslims:
Jeff Sessions (R-AL), “chairmen of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations and Immigration and the National Interest subcommittees respectively, issued the following statement, 11/17. It’s a little soft, but better than most:
… Under our nation’s current policy, the President simply brings in as many refugees as he wants. Refugees are entitled to access all major welfare programs, and they can also draw benefits directly from the Medicare and Social Security disability and retirement trust funds – taking those funds straight from the pockets of American retirees who paid into these troubled funds all of their lives.
Our immigration and refugee policies must serve the interests of our nation and protect the security of the American people. After admitting 1.5 million migrants from Muslim countries on lifetime visas since 9/11, it is time to assist in relocating Muslim migrants within their home region rather than relocating large numbers to the United States. It simply cannot be our policy to encourage a mass migration of entire populations from their homelands, a strategy that will only further destabilize the region and bring threats of terrorism deep inside our shores.” …
… Because they’re so obtuse, it’s hard to see what Republicans and their supporters mean, politically, when they declare in opposition to abortion. One can reasonably infer that, since abortion is legal, Republicans are indicating they would like to outlaw the procedure.
A feasible, ethical political position this is not.
Woman or man: As most Americans see it, an adult owns his body and all that’s in it. To outlaw the removal of a body part, however precious to you and me, is to invade and aggress against a woman and her provider for the dominion she has asserted over what is indisputably her private property: her body.
Republicans are hopeless. But as this ineffectual lot keeps repeating, Donald Trump is not one of them. Mr. Trump can and has to be able to say what his Republican rivals have proven incapable of articulating.
When questioned about abortion, Trump needs to tell his detractors the following …