Jon Wayne Taylor and I listened to Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech as we blasted to Best of the West to test the STI Hex Tactical and DVC 3-Gun pistols. We were both highly unimpressed. With the speech (the DVC is a peach, review to follow). It was as pedestrian as Times Square and logically inconsistent. His “America first” theme promised projection of power and non-intervention. Wait. What? Don’t The Donald’s speech writers know the history of the term “America first”? Apparently not. Wikipedia . . .

The America First Committee (AFC) was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 paid members in 450 chapters, it was one of the largest anti-war organizations in American history. Started on September 4, 1940, it was dissolved on December 10, 1941, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor had brought the war to America.

Charles Lindbergh was the AFC’s most prominent proponent. While history makes the movement’s idiocy self-evident, it’s worth excerpting a bit of the anti-semitic aviator’s argument against waging war against the Nazi regime.

It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race. No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution the Jewish race suffered in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy, both for us and for them.

Instead of agitating for war the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation. A few farsighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.

Just for fun, substitute the word “muslim” for “Jewish.” The wider issue: there’s no point in projecting power unless America is ready to use it.

Where should we use it? When should we use it? Trump offered precious little insight. Taylor reckons America should follow the advice of General George Marshall, champion of American military expansion (by a factor of 40) and architect of the post-war Marshall Peace Plan (for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize):

We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on one hand and overwhelming force on the other.

While being a “symbol of peace” is not the same as nation building, America should at least be committed to establishing the rule of law abroad. That’s how you create the “stability” that Trump trumpeted is his vague, milquetoast “policy speech.”

There’s only one way to do that: boots on the ground worn by soldiers with guns in their hands. Not someone else’s boots. Ours. Lots of them. “There is nothing more effective at destroying the enemy’s resolve than staring in the eyes of soldiers holding guns ready to kill them,” TTAG resident war hero opines.

Clearly, Americans are tired of endless war. Clearly, that’s the war we’re fighting. We’re fighting militant Islamic extremists who enter our country (speaking of loaded terms, no “Vaterland” terminology for me thanks), and the territory of our allies, to subjugate, rape, torture, kill and terrorize innocent civilians.

The flag is America’s symbol of freedom, but the gun is the means of its protection and expansion. Gun control advocates do more than leave citizens defenseless against criminal attack. By degrading and destroying our ability — and responsibility — for self-defense, they degrade our fighting spirit. Our desire to identify and protect the values of independence and liberty that we hold sacred, both here and abroad.

Donald Trump is a Johnny-come-lately to firearms freedom. While he’s saying all the right things now, we can no more trust him with our gun rights than we can trust him to create a plan for a successful American foreign policy and implement it effectively. His “ideas” on both fronts are better than Hillary Clinton’s, certainly. But nowhere near good enough.

Your thoughts?

 

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135 COMMENTS

  1. I actually agree with some of his aspects. One, he’s absolutely correct about NATO. A requirement for NATO is to spend a MINIMUM of 2% GDP on their own defense, only 4 nations of which do. Two, we give WAY too much globally. We give away money and arms, to groups and nations that are not friends, or have the “rule of law” in mind. Three, “Nation building” is a failure, and not our job. Countless examples of building a western style nation in Asia can be pointed to. Your, “America should at least be committed to establishing the rule of law abroad.” Doesn’t compute. Do you mean nation building? Because that’s what that means. Four, we shouldn’t protect anyone for free. We absolutely should be charging for our military help.

    • ^ This. For too long have we let become nothing more than subsidized defense for some of our allies. Allies who can’t even finish an extremely limited air-war and bombing campaign they start and have to beg us to do it for them.

      And nation-building has not *always* been a failure. However, it *only* works if the requisite culture is in place. An incompatible culture will royally fudge up anything humankind tries to accomplish.

      • Not everything that Trump says is wrong but that doesn’t make him a good candidate. As a brilliant young conservative by the name of Ben Shapiro puts it, Trump is just a hammer. Sometimes he hits a nail on the head and makes everyone cheer like when he attacks the mainstream media, the SJWs, or bad deals like Iran. BUT sometimes he hits a puppy. He can’t turn it off, he is always going to be the hammer that just hits everything and while sometimes that is good, other times you might just be that puppy that he hits.

        • I’d rather our president be a hammer, occasionally hitting puppies, than a steam roller squishing every puppy she can find.

          Did I say she? I meant… No, I was right.

        • Ben Shapiro is just another twerp playing SJW games. He had promise, but then doubled down on stupid.

      • Exactly, you can’t hand someone freedom and democracy who doesn’t want it or isn’t willing to fight for it.

        And for NATO, was anyone today even alive when we entered into NATO? And who honestly thinks any of those other NATO countries is much of any help to America’s national interests? The French can hardly maintain a bombing campaign against tiny Libya! Let them fend for themselves and allow citizens alive today decide if we want to sacrifice American blood to help them if the Russians, Muslim armies, etc roll in.

        • Re: “And for NATO, was anyone today even alive when we entered into NATO?”

          Anybody who is at least 67 years old now was alive when we entered into NATO — because the agreement was signed on 4 April 1949. There are many people that old.

    • I would agree that NATO should use tangible sanctions to ensure that all nations fulfill their commitments, and those commitments should be expressed not just in terms of defense budge $$s, but capabilities (i.e. having at least x number of mechanized brigades, y number of fighter-bomber squadrons and z number of destroyers ready to fight on n days notice). Having been a member of a non-US NATO army, it sucks KNOWING that you’re the poor cousin – desperately trying to make things work with little money and rusted out gear, and of course not really being taken seriously by the big kids – the US and UK really (ok, the UK was a lot more capable back then compared to today).

    • There is no point in supporting or being a member of NATO any more. The EU has joined themselves at the hip with Russia for cheap natural gas, and now all the Russians need to do to bend the EU to their will is wait until winter, and then stage an ‘accident’ on one or more of the pipelines. Message sent and received, and the EU will kiss Putin’s boots.

      • FYI, Russia supplied ~20% of natural gas used by Europe in 2010. That number has gone down since then.

        The myth of Europeans being so dependent on Russian gas is just that, a myth – and one perpetrated by Russia.

        And even to the extent that dependency exists, it goes both ways. Russia simply doesn’t have anywhere else to export. There’s China, in theory – but they need to build a pipeline there first, and Chinese aren’t willing to fund it. And Chinese want to pay much less for that gas than Europeans do, too. Some Russian opposition blogger has actually crunched the numbers, and based on the cost of said pipeline and prices suggested by Chinese, it would take decades to pay off. Which Russia cannot afford, because gas (and oil) exports dominate its budget – if it just stops selling gas, it’ll run out of money very fast.

        So all that talk of “freezing the krauts out” is just talk. Kinda like Trump boasting about the size of his dick.

        • But you ignore the problems Germany has with their power supply stability, thanks to their shutting down their nukes and relying on pinwheels and unicorn farts for their power supply.

          20% sounds like only a little to people who haven’t seen the effects of reduction in fuel sources at the margins. Commodities are priced at the margins. If you have enough of a commodity, a mere 5% increase in supply can knock down price rather substantially – and likewise, if you have only enough of a commodity, only a 5% reduction in supply can drive the price rather high very quickly. It took only a very small reduction in the supply of propane (LPG) gas here in the upper midwest in the winter of 2013 to rocket the price from approximately $2.50 to nearly $6 per gallon in a matter of about a week. There was plenty of LPG in the US – it just wasn’t here in the upper midwest where people needed to heat their homes.

          The point is, the Germans and other EU countries cannot replace that 20% all that quickly. The other point is, they hate being inconvenienced – as soft as our dazzling urbanite population in the US is, the urban populations of Europe are even more pampered and coddled. Remember that in 2003, over 10,000 people died in France during a heat wave. Why? Because it occurred during the time of year when their doctors and medical people take their vacations. Were they going to come back from vacation to deal with people in mortal danger? Noooooo.

          So don’t think that Russia isn’t holding the whip hand. The Europeans are far too soft to deal with so much as a hangnail during their day.

        • Gas is largely irrelevant to German power supply – they don’t use it for power generation in any significant numbers, but rather for heating (for power generation, as they close up nukes, they are mostly switching to coal short-term, and solar long-term).

          And you have completely ignored my other point that any existing gas dependence is two-way – even if you posit that e.g. Germany can’t live without Russian gas, it’s even more certain that Russia can’t live without Germany as its customer. It largely depends on selling its natural resources as a means to fill its treasury, and it simply doesn’t have any other customers, existing or potential, that are willing to pay as much as Europeans do – and even if it did have some, switching to them would be a multi-year affair (having to build a pipeline etc).

          So should Russia start to move in that direction, Europe has plenty of time to react and find another importer – such as Qatar, or Iran, or Turkmenistan. At this point, it is a buyer’s market.

  2. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: A vote for Trump is a vote for Clinton. You’re giving away what should be an easy win. I mean, seriously… Clinton?!

    • I mean seriously: “Obama”?

      Yet the chuckleheads elected him. Twice.

      Just because Hillary is a horrible candidate with awful plans and values it doesn’t mean she won’t win. Twice.

    • Exactly. Hillary Clinton is the second most unlikable candidate in the recorded History of United States primaries. She is a walking, talking target that makes her own case against her with the amount of recorded lies and flip flopped statements. In response, the GOP is going to put up the only candidate that is even worse with the single number one spot for the most unlikeable candidate in History to go against her.

    • So in other words, don’t even bother voting because there is no way to beat Clinton? If you vote for Trump you’re giving it to Clinton. If you vote for Clinton you’ve obviously given it to Clinton….. Kinda a nihilistic approach to election season you’ve got there, isn’t it?

      Get out the Vote. Get everyone to the polls. The 2012 election has just a bit over 50% of the eligible voters actually vote, which was actually a big decline in number of votes because of all of the new eligible voters.

      Get out and Vote. Just like all of our rights, use it or risk losing it.

      • Yet the “hold your nose and vote’ choice this year may well be WAY worse than any of the options the RINOs presented in recent elections. McCain, Dole, Romney, Bushes. In 2012 3million Conservatives refused to continue to “hold their nose”. They stayed home and Romney lost. Bummer’ margin was a fraction of 3million. Predict the result for a Trump ticket.

        TRUMP doesn’t know know diddly squat about Ameican/world history. What has been tried and work, tried and failed. It is apparently he has no knowledge of the Constitution. Seems to not even be aware of what he doesn’t know or to take timely steps to remediate such. Touted as this great businessman/wheeler dealer demonstrates that he has no ability to hire experts and not abililty to research the operational environment in which one has to work. AND a horse’s ass. A disaster.

        • Wait, so you’re saying that because last two rounds we lost miserably and got King Barack, we should do the same this time and accept Empress Hillary?

          Hate Trump all you want, but he’s better than Hillary. And yes, sometimes that’s all anyone needs to be. If he becomes the Republican nominee (which I’m almost sure he will), not voting for him is helping the country commit suicide. I hope all you principled NeverTrump geniuses are happy when Hillary sits at the desk where Monica used to give her husband the business.

        • Obama won by 5 million votes. Also, the myth conservatives stayed home is just that, a myth. It’s been studied by stats folks and they have disproved it several times.

          http://www.redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2015/11/26/myth-4-million-conservative-voters-stayed-home-2012/

          Romney lost because he got killed with hispanics, blacks and single women. Trump is doing MUCH worse with all of those groups, he has zero chance to ever be POTUS. Romney lost women by 12%, Trump is losing that group by 30% to Hillary right now. Trump is beyond toxic in a general election. Heck even 1/3 of R’s say they won’t vote for him in Nov.

        • not voting for him is helping the country commit suicide

          I’m starting to wonder if ripping the band-aid off isn’t a good idea….

        • Trump can’t even scrape together 50% of Republican primary votes except in deep blue states, how can we expect he will get more than 50% of the popular vote, or at least enough in the states that actually matter for electoral college votes?

          It is much more likely that Trumpists will hold their nose and vote for Cruz than any significant number of Blue Dog Democrats will vote for Trump.

          Dump Trump-Chooz Cruz.

    • And what’s your point? I mean aside from how you start this as foreign policy rant- a somewhat intelligent one this time around -and then wind it alllllllll the way back to a gun policy rant in the most artificial manner possible?

      That’s a rhetorical question, BTW. I’m fine with you not liking Trump, but sooner or later you’re going to have to start asking the hard questions instead of using this website as a venue to vent your personal frustration; questions like are you going to use your non-vote to vote for Hillary? Personally, I think you already have that question answered and this is your response.

      • The “not voting is a vote for the other party” is simply factually incorrect. If two people are begging for votes, and I have a vote to give and I decide not to give it, neither gets anything. There is a net 0 loss and gain for each candidate. Just because I choose not to vote for a fascist over a socialist does not “give” the socialist anything, it just means that the fascist didnt gain anything. Its simple mathematics. You should vote your conscience not vote for someone who is contrary to nearly everything that you believe in simply because you are scared of the alternative, that is how the worst leaders in the world have come to power; fear of what would happen if you didnt give them the power.

        • Dead…Nuts…On.

          This, then, is a perfect and simple illustration of what I call the ‘Paradigm of The Lesser Turd’. A paradigm wherein it is proffered that anyone who actually holds fundamental priciple and stands firm on that principle, is supposed to abandon them and vote ‘our turd’ because even though he is a turd, he isn’t as foul as their turd.

          Any who resist this falsity or who point it out for what it is, are villified and marginalized amongst the hissing and cajoliing voices attempting to get others to join ‘the herd’ of other indoctrinated fearful creaturs who fall in line with the controlling cabal’s desires and who upport only the ‘choices’ that the Cabal offer up.

          ‘The herd’ never seems able to conceptualize or discern that they are being utterly controlled and that there is a long historical record of the direct result of this ‘Paradigm of The Lesser Turd’.

          Look around and see it.

          I believe that Professor Quigley long ago pointed out exactly how the controlling Cabal planned on and put into practice this evil paradigm…here is what he illustrated/identified and what so many practice cognative dissonence on:

          “The National parties and their presidential candidates,with the Eastern Establishment assiduously fostering the process behind the scenes (***Insert globalist-collectivist cabal), moved closer together and nearly met in the center with almost identical candidates and platforms, although the process was concealed as much as possible, by the revival of obsolescent or meaningless war cries and slogans (often going back to the Civil War). … The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy. … Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies. [Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 1247-1248.]”

          The dirt-simple fact is that there is really only one ‘Party’ in play here…the ‘Globalist-Collectivist Party’ which has two wings, the Republican right-wing and the Democrat left-wing…two wings…same bird…same destination…same overall goals and plans…They merely offer differing rhetoric and various minor variations on the path to the end goal.

          Pathetic how effective it is and pathetically-sickening how nearly everyone willingly laps it up.

          Fact is…There is no Left or Right…There is only Freedom or Tyranny. Until this is grasped and until this is subsequently acted upon, no hope for a restoration of the Constitution and of the Republic, exists.

          It really is as simple as that.

        • It’s also not true that only two more people are begging for votes. Both mainstream parties would love you to see the world that way, and mass media helps them create that deception, but there are other choices out there.

          And a vote that goes to a third party is not “stealing” a vote from one of the big parties. You can’t steal something that they don’t own; and they don’t own your vote, even if they think they do. A vote for Libertarian is not stealing from Republicans. A vote for Green is not stealing from Democrats. If they want that vote, they better damn work for it, instead of pointing at the other guy and whining, “Nut he’s worse than me! How dare you not vote for me?”

      • Lack of conservative turnout killed Romney. That is a fact. Romney accumulated enough of your “net zeroes” to give the Obama the presidency. You can try and rationalize your non-vote any way you want but it is a very quantifiable political trend. In a contest with a pool finite number of votersturnout matters. If one side does not achieve enough of this, they fail.

        Your vote alone may be a net zero, but when you start advocating a mass no turnout like Farago, you are effectively voting for the other party. You aim is to create another Romney scenario. You would rather hasten the fire burning the house down instead of try and salvage what’s left. At least own up and be proud of it instead of hiding behind lame excuses and convoluted reasoning.

    • I wouldn’t be too concerned about Trump. I mean, you are about as certain that Hillary will beat him as every expert on the planet was that he would never finish as high as second in any primary, he’d be gone in a week, all manner of concepts which were absolutely certain, expounded on by people who are no longer in the race. I’m pretty certain Clinton will not stand a chance.

        • Oh yeah!
          Clinton: “I can grow government surveillance best.”
          Trump: “I can grow government surveillance more biggly than you Hillary…and my hair is better, have you seen yourself eat? I have big hands, oh and lying ted.”
          Clinton: “On the hair point we can agree.”

      • This election has been almost impossible to predict. With that being said, its a lose lose here. If by some miracle Donald pulls another rabbit out of his hat and contrary to all the polls, beats hillary in a general election we really haven’t gained much. Sure he plays lip service to gun rights but he also attacks other rights by opening up libel laws and the like.

        • In this one instance I believe the devil we DON’T know is infinitely better than the devil we DO know.

          Literally Nothing. Could. Be. Worse. For. Our. Rights. Than. Hillary.

          Unlike Obama who is a complete gun grabbing Statist, Hillary hasn’t made any effort to appear moderate on the issue: she’s not proclaiming “you can keep your shotgun, you can keep your rifle” like Obama was at this point in his election campaign. In fact she’s so far out in frothing-commie-red left field that she’s already declared the Supreme Court AND the Constitution to be wrong, and that gun manufacturers should be sued out of existence.

          Let that soak in – Hillary has already declared the Supreme Court AND the Constitution wrong… and she gets to nominate at least 3 justices in the next term.

        • >> Literally Nothing. Could. Be. Worse. For. Our. Rights. Than. Hillary.

          You guys.

          Some day, I need to run for president and win, just to show you how much worse it can be.

          Too bad I will never have the qualifications. But I guess my wife, who is a natural born citizen, could substitute.

          We’ll have Cambodia-style open field gulags all across the country, and we’ll pack them with both whiny right-wingers who complained about how Obama and Hillary would be the worst possible thing every happened, and the whiny left-wingers who did the same about Bush. 20 hours of work every day, then 4 hours of sleep. Rice paddies in the south, logging on the coasts, and we’ll make some kind of grand Belomor-style canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, going through all CONUS states, to keep everyone else busy.

          We’ll also have voting in those gulags. The vote will be on one thing only: who gets the shittiest job assignment for the next month. Sharp tools will be provided to assist in dispute resolution.

          Everyone [still alive] in a given gulag goes free after three consecutive unanimous votes. Once all the gulags are vacated, I / my wife shall retire as president-for-life, and declare the Republic restored. Hopefully it will last for a little bit longer after such a lesson.

  3. Trump will say whatever he’s told will get him elected and doesn’t much care if it directly conflicts with what he said 5 minutes before. Sadly a large enough percentage of Republican voters seem not to care.

    McCubbins/Nutz – 2016

    • Well, that certainly applies to every single politician in America, past, present and future, so I can’t see it as too big a problem for him, or for me.

      • At least some of the others had the history of the vote behind them. I don’t think that any of the last three or four candidates coming out of the GOP were anything special but they didn’t opine that an Assault weapons ban was palatable in a book describing their perfect america and proceed to wine and dine the Clinton family. Sure the rabid supporters are going to get on here and tell me “its just him being a good business man”, but Im not electing a CEO, I’m electing a president that is supposed to have principles.

      • True, that could be said about all politicians, but Thedonald has taken it to ludicrous speed. He’s having a hard time not contradicting himself in a single sentence. Other politicians have to parse their words carefully so as not to be called out on their inconsistency, but Thedonald gets a pass. He gets a pass from the leftist media because they’re waiting for the general election to tear him apart. And he gets a pass from most of the conservative media because they’re all a bunch of New Yorkers who wouldn’t recognize individual liberty if it came up and bit them on the ass.

  4. History is the story of endless war. The period between the Napoleonic era and. WWI was the most peaceful century since the end of the Pax Romana. Count the wars.

    • Actually if you look at post WW2 to present, that is considered the most peaceful time on record. WW2 made everyone sick of bloodshed, and it is only recently with the death of the last generation that remembers the war that we have seen an increase in violence.

      • A peace enforced by nuclear weapons. Look what happened when the nuclear threat was suspended.

      • Only if you don’t count all the nasty little proxy wars between communism and the west.

        If you do count all those wars… well, your assertion starts looking rather thin.

        • Those skirmishes are barely a blip on the radar compared not only to ww2 but the wars that came immediately before it. The fact they are even called wars shows how much things have changed.

    • The American Civil War falls in that time slot. It was easily the most violent conflict up to that time.

      • The US was far and a away the most warlike nation of the era. The so-called militaristic Prusdians spent less than 6 months at war during the era while the US spent more time at war than any other nation and that doesn’t count the Indian Wars.

      • What? Most violent conflict, really?

        Have you looked into Hundred Years’ War? Or, say, the European wars of religion?

        But even that is chump change compared to the Mongols. They killed more people during and after the taking of Baghdad alone – in two weeks – than the entire death toll of the American Civil War. And the total for all Mongol conquests is 20 million as the most conservative minimum, and more likely close to 50 million. It was not surpassed until WW2; but if you consider that the entire world population in Mongol times was under 500 million, they are still the absolute champions in per capita slaughter, having killed more than 10% of the entire planet.

  5. My thoughts? I have already gone into great length that Mr. Trump is a johnny-come-lately to lots of issues that he now “supports” in order to pander to the base that he thinks will win him the nomination and then the election. I don’t want a deal maker, I want someone who is strong on principals in the oval office and won’t compromise my freedoms, or the security of the United States for a deal with another superpower. Protectionist economic policies, inflammatory statements and an overall lack of consistency over his political career is enough for me to be in the Never Trump crowd.

      • Whining Donnie hasn’t won it yet.

        Good chance the Stupid Bernie drones are going to burn it down if Hellery gets the nomination.

      • Not really. Primaries aren’t over, there is a storied history of GOP contested Conventions coming out with great presidents who were not leading (see 1860 Lincoln). Im holing out hope. I also don’t see the logic between being forced to pick between two people who don’t hold my values. If I had the choice to chose Stalin or Hitler I would also not vote because neither of them are going to be advocates for my values as a conservative who values small government and civil rights. Neither Hillary nor Trump favor small government. We have the choice between fascism and socialism and damned if I’m going to be the one who says “well at least fascim will kill me slower”. Im not going to be a part of tearing apart the America that I love.

      • Not guaranteed yet…..but it’s looking that way. Talk about a lousy choice, still there really isn’t a choice- it’s the difference of cutting off your right arm (Trump) or your head (Hillary). Trump is a blustering d-bag with only vague principles. Hillary is pure, unadulterated evil.

      • miforest, you really think the only choices are Hillary and the guy who supported and bankrolled her for decades? More importantly, is that even a choice? Two sides of the same coin.

        • JW, he not only made contributions to Hillary, but also to your man Cruz. I note that Jeb Bush’s entire financial team (see his filings for names) is now on Cruz’s team, just as Neil is his financial director. Cruz’s SuperPac gave Carly’s SuperPac 500K last June. And today Jeb Bush gave an interview saying what a wonderful pair Ted and Carly are.

          Cruz was and is a trojan horse for the Bush clan, but, you already knew that. The Trojan horse is built with Mercer money. Worse, not one in a hundred Cruz supporters knows who Robert Mercer is.

          Mercer is rabidly anti-Trump, even more than is TTAG. One expects this is because Trump intends to end cap gains treatment of hedge “carried interest.” Typical.

  6. If Trump is the Republican nominee, I will vote for him. He might turn out to be a friend of the 2A. Or maybe not. But I am absolutely certain that HRC will be an enemy of the 2A, and probably everything else that I consider important.

    • Yup. Its a sad situation, but you don’t make a drowning situation any better by refusing to pick between backstroke and breaststroke because you’re indignant that you’re drowning.

  7. It isn’t necessarily the wars or goals we tire of. It is the feckless way in which we allow our politicians to wage them or neuter them, respectively. In life, the rules of self defense must apply to international dealings as well: Fight to win, or you die.

    And while no fan of Trump am I, the notions of a contraction in international relations are expected from anyone in politics at this point. It can be a scary world and people like to turtle up. The sad part is, they are not entirely wrong as we have so much to work on in our own country before we spread ourselves out to be help others. Not saying we shouldn’t aid those in need, but we need to start scratching off our own chore list before we take on others’ responsibilities.

    As far as gun rights go, well, quite frankly anyone with two brain cells to rub together needs to be a single-issue voter on the matter. Too much has been given up to appease the ever-hungry beast of ‘gun control’. Gun rights are the canary in the coal mine, and we’re all dangerously close to suffocating.

    • Iraq and Afgan (as in Vietnam) the US military WON the conflict but it takes an covey of marxist demtards to turn victory into a defeat (and a waste of lives and treasure0.

      • It seems they hated these wars mainly because it made Bush popular. Hardly a peep out of anybody during Clintons tenure.

      • Add the biggest win of the US military ever. The Cold War. Huge expense in treasure but relatively cheap in blood (per year).

        TOTALLY thrown in the shitter by Clintons and the dems.

        • All exactly my points. We are capable of winning even in the most dire of situations being afforded us, yet our hard-won victories are made pyrrhic by elected bafoons who care more about feelings than doing what is right and/or needed. And even more disgusting, it is almost always after the hard part do they manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

        • The Cold War was won only because we had a foreign policy team in the 80’s to early 90’s who thought, as Reagan did, that it could be won.

          Because, from the late 60’s to 1980, our foreign policy minions and political leaders kept mouthing the word détente. You might be too young to remember that, but it was the ‘accepted wisdom’ of the highly credentialed in DC that we couldn’t beat the Soviets, so we had to live with them and contain them.

          Then along comes Reagan, and the political establishment in DC crapped themselves when Reagan said he was going to beat the Soviets – economically and in foreign policy, which he then did, leading to the collapse of the USSR.

          This lead to years of crying and sobbing on American college campuses.

      • The best definition of war we have to date – certainly the one that remains the most relevant – is “an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will”.

        It doesn’t matter how many battles you have won, and how many people you have killed. If you could not impose your will on your enemy, and they proceeded with their intended course of action, then they have won.

        All this “but we have won in military sense!” stuff is just mental masturbation. It’s extremely common one, by the way – many Russians say the same exact thing that you just did, word for word, with respect to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Except that they substitute “Marxist” with “Western”.

  8. Also, I have to argue against this statement. “His “America first” theme promised projection of power and non-intervention. Wait. What?” that is entirely doable. We used do it. It means we only get involved when countries pose a direct threat to us, for example, Daesh. However, if Egypt wants US military help, equipment, or money, we tell them no. Unless they plan to pay us.

    • How does Daesh pose a direct threat as a country? They have no land border with US, they don’t have a navy, and they don’t have an air force.

      Their terrorists do pose a threat. But even if you were to nuke the entire area that is currently occupied by Daesh into a parking lot, they would still remain. War can take out a country, but terrorism, by its very nature, does not require a country to wage it.

  9. Trump offers precious little insight into any plan.
    “Make America great again”
    How?
    “By winning”
    How?
    “We’ll win by making America great again”

    There will be a wall though. It will consist of 50′ of welded wire fence 3′ tall that somebody at the FNC will buy at a Tractor Supply. O’Reilly and Hannity will stretch it out, Bolling will hold the T-posts, Wallace will pound them into the ground. Kelly will proclaim the fence complete and “America is safe” while interviewing Trump just after he’s polished off another bag of Cheetos.

  10. I’m 100% in favor of Donald Trump. He’s got my vote.

    Trump is at least saying he’ll put Americans and America first. Which is more than any President in recent memory has done.

    NATO was established to counter the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Kids in high school today have never lived in a world with either the USSR, the Warsaw Pact, or would even be able to tell you what CCCP stands for. Why do we have NATO still? Let’s get out of that organization. We shouldn’t be the world’s police. Let Japan and South Korea deal with countries like China and North Korea.

    In only 50 years, let alone by the year 2116, Europe is going to have more in common with the muslim caliphates of old than with Caesar’s Rome, Wilhelm’s Germany, Napoleon’s France, or Victoria’s Britain. I say let them be overrun by the barbarian muslim hordes they allowed in. Let’s protect ourselves first.

    • For statistical research purposes only

      How many presidential elections have you been eligible to vote?. In how many did you vote? In how many were you politically active (got involved in the process beyond showing up on the 2nd Tuesday in Nov)?

    • If you believe anything Trump says, you are VERY naive. Trump cares about trump. He doesn’t care about america, doesn’t care about you, he cares about himself. If he cared about america, why did he endorse Hillary in ’08? He’s support chuck schumer, kennedy, pelosi, reid, etc. He cares about himself.

    • “Trump is at least saying he’ll put Americans and America first. Which is more than any President in recent memory has done.”
      That’s an extremely short memory. Trump’s empty rhetoric has come nowhere close to George W. Bush’s doctrine of “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists” and that administration’s complete willingness to go it alone.
      What we found out, with a quickness, was the same thing we found out just after Pearl Harbor. Isolationism leaves a nation blind to threats. We found out that we absolutely need friendly nations around the world willing to provide intelligence materiel and assets to keep our country safe.
      What happens to those when we tell our allies we have to “cut them lose”? What happens to the bases we use for air campaigns, or ballistic missile defense?
      Your last paragraph absolutely cements the point. If we do not assist our NATO allies, like Germany, France, and Great Britain, as well as the other smaller allies, muslim extremists may in fact be able to continue to influence them to the detriment of the security of the US. Only by remaining involved in active defense with those nations can we identify, target, and eliminate our threats.

      • Iceland has been perfectly safe despite engaging in very little in the way of interventionism. Ditto for most counties around the world. Noone have ever bothered bombing the frozen hockeypuck to our North, despite them being neither willing, nor seemingly able to do anything about it at all.

        One of the fundamental laws of civilized nature is: If you stick your neck out, you get your head chopped off. Ergo, don’t. Live your life in such a manner noone else is even aware you exist, unless they know you for inventing penicillin and curing their kid.

        “The Rule of Law”, is, at this point in history, as for the past 100 years, nothing but a declaration of war against anyone not wagging their tail like a puppy at the thought of sucking off lawyer scum. Both here, and abroad. Only reason some of the abroad ones, seem more cognizant of that, is that the publicly funded, universal domestic indoctrination propaganda, has worked as intended.

        “Rule of law”, is fine, as long as it is limited to “Rule of Justifiable Law.” Basically a union of Moses and the Founding Fathers. Beyond that, as in what passes for “Rule of Law” today, is order of magnitude less justifiable than Rule of Sharia law, which at least has some claim to universality, sad as that may sound. You and I can read it, and see where it violated Biblical law, and find it wanting. The stuff “America First” is prancing around calling “Rule of law”, is so overgrown that not one single one of the people that are supposed to run around and kill in it’s name, has ever read it all. Nor ever will. Heck, even the dimbulbs who wrote and enacted it, hasn’t read it. That’s how backtarded that whole exercise is.

    • Oh? Let me pitch my platform to you then.

      When I’m president, I’ll put Americans and America not only first, but firstest! At the very least, let’s just say I’ll put them firster than Trump.

      I’ll build a wall too, only mine will be TWICE as high as whatever Trump’s is at this moment. And we’ll build one at the border with Canada, too. And also one on the Atlantic shore, so that those pesky refugees can’t swim here. And on the Pacific shore, to keep Chinese away.

      And I’ll deport all Muslims TWICE as far away! We’ll stick them right in the middle of Siberia! Try to do another 7/11 from there, suckers!

      I pinky swear that all of the above is my true and real intentions. So you can absolutely trust me. I know I’ve said many different things on this blog before, but really, past is past. I have seen the light.

      “Great”? Pshaw. Make America EPIC again!

      Also, my balls are bigger, and my dick is longer.

      Now, if that sounds good to you, please write in my name on the ballot.

  11. Who can look at the state of the middle east right now and the existential migrant crisis its driving in Europe, and not see the folly. In hindsight that we should have left good enough alone after we dealt with Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. Trillions of our money wasted. Libya Tunisia, Syria ,Egypt, and Iraq all destabilized. turkey and Russia forced to go into Syria to protect their interests. The rise of ISIS and the Terror that has spawned .

    Our military did us proud, but that doesn’t mean it was a good idea to do it. We couldn’t really afford any of it . look at the national debt. It could soon wreck our entire economy if it isn’t controlled, and controlling it will be painful.

    We need a fresh eyes approach to the direction of the country , and both party establishments have made it clear they aren’t interested in that. The people were forced to turn to trump and Sanders to fight party Establishments who want to continue on these disastrous courses.

    I hope he will keep his promises on gun rights , but I’m sure Hillary will keep her promises to ” rid our country of the scourge of guns” If she gets a chance ,

    choose wisely

  12. I am not nor will I ever be a Trump supporter, but this article was garbage. Lindbergh was not an anti-semite his speech was critical of the Nazionale and sympathetic to German jews, he only thought war was both unnecessary and unwise. The myth that Lindbergh was an anti-semite was spread by the FDR administration because they wanted to enter the war, Lindbergh was not their only victim there were many people who were against war that were harrased, smeared and even arrested NY the FYI on trumped up charges. The person guilty of illogic is the author of this article who tries to say that if you want a foreign policy that isn’t insane you an anti-semite which is obviously false considering that many of those who are anti war today are jewish, also there is no contradiction in trump saying we should mind our business and only go to war for our own interests and defense.

    • A feckless FDR was (a marxist sympathizer) certainly allowed (at a minimum) the Moscow stooges in his administration to maneuver the US into the war. The debate if better to stand together of fall alone will never be answered. I’ll stand on the side that the world (and Russian) would have of been better the West had allowed the Germans finish off Stalin. FDR and his crew were never going to let that happen to their idols.

      The brief access allowed into Russian archives in the 90s was highly illuminating (obviously of no interest to a progressive press).

      See also Obumer as an islamist sympathizer (at a minimum).

  13. And what’s your point? I mean aside from how you start this as foreign policy rant- a somewhat intelligent one this time around -and then wind it alllllllll the way back to a gun policy rant in the most artificial manner possible? That’s a rhetorical question, BTW

    I’m fine with you not liking Trump, but sooner or later you’re going to have to start asking the hard questions instead of using this website as a venue to vent your personal frustration; questions like ‘are you going to use your non-vote to vote for Hillary’? Personally, I think you already have that question answered and this is your response.

    • I held my nose and voted for McCain and Romney. If it comes down to Trump vs. Hillary, I’ll have to hold my nose, cover my eyes and block my ears.

      • Thumbs up for letting us know where you stand in the negative. So who was your pick? I mean, I guess it irritates me that you’re all happily picking your personal grudges from the safety of non-disclosure.

  14. We must, at any cost, keep Hillary Clinton from winning the presidency. Whomever the GOP nominee is, is who we must vote for. Otherwise, once she gets her pick on the Supreme Court, America as we know it is finished.

    • I agree with this 100%. I will vote for Trump (in General election) if it comes to that- despite the fact I personally don’t like nor trust him. The alternative is horrifying. I am of the opinion that America is already on a path of nearly irreversible decline, but a Hillary Presidency will speed that up and may well result in domestic unrest and violence.

      The right answer would be to nominate and then elect Ted Cruz, but instead we may end up getting the leadership we deserve as a nation.

  15. I look at it this way. Trump is a pile of shit while Hillary is a pile of shit full of razor blades. Eating one will be unpleasant, make you sad that you have to eat it, likely make you throw up and you’ll still have the taste on your tongue long after your done eating.

    Eating the other will cut your mouth and insides to shreds, and you’ll bleed out and die, and the last thing you’ll taste is shit.

    I don’t want to eat shit, but I sure as hell don’t want to eat razor blade filled shit. I wish we could just vote on policies vs people.

  16. I don’t trust Trump, but his foreign policy is actually the best thing he has going for him. I definitely agree with him on NATO. The left wants us to look at the wonderful socialistic society they have built in Europe, infrastructure, mass transit, health care, etc. Of course it’s all wonderful, let’s see them do it and pay for their own defense instead of being subsidized by the US for the last 75 years.

  17. America First? Never!

    As Americans, we should be spending all our blood and treasure on foreign countries. Like Iraq, Mexico and Chicago.

    No more American privilege! We must all become Democrats! America for non-Americans! Because self-hatred is the American way.

    And BTW, pro-Nazis also said things like “good morning” and “Happy Birthday.” We must ban those expressions too.

    • Which planet do you live on?

      Trump is behind Klinton by 8 1/2 points. (This is an average of multiple polls.)

      Cruz is behind Klinton by 3 points.

      Kasich is ahead of Klinton by 8 points

      You’re fucking delusional. Pull your head out and smell some clean oxygen.

      • The polls will find whatever the pollsters wish to find. Nothing more and nothing less.

        I trust politicians more than I trust polls — and I don’t trust politicians even a little.

        • Nope. What he has done in the past is what matters to me. The politicians he backed in the past is what matters to me. From what I can see, DT has done one thing for gun rights and that is get himself a cwp in New York…thats it, nothing for anybody else. Had he lived this new found conservatism, spouted of about Reid, Schumer, Pelosi, Warren or Boehner the way he’s talked about Cruz it might mean something. If he had spent the last decade advocating pro gun policies, the wall, legal immigration, lower taxes, capital repatriation, it might ring more true. Actions matter and words are cheap so I don’t know why he says the same words over and over.

        • Trump is getting the record number of votes in the Republican primary. Even in the best case, this translates to, what, 25% in the general?

          And the way he’s doing that, he also has the highest negativity rating ever in the history of this country – at least since they’ve started asking people how much they hate someone, and recording that.

          So basically he’s pissing off 60% big time to make 25% into fanatical supporters.

          You only need a very basic understanding of math to see why this fails as an electoral strategy.

  19. Trump,as president, would be extremely ineffective. His lack of experience guarantees it. This is the primary reason I’m voting for him.

    Next best thing to no government.

    • The hazard of that is that he will be manipulated and/or rolled by much more effective people, and become their tool (after all, that’s one way they have of being effective).

  20. So which is which? Who’s the turd/douchebag? I’m going with trumpturd…John Boehner’s new bestest orange buddy. We are soooooo screwed. Arm up.

  21. A couple of observations:
    1. Saying that someone will put America’s interests first in 2016 doesn’t have anything really to do with the historical America First political movement. To equate the two is either intellectually dishonest or political jackassary.
    2. It’s pretty clear that our current open borders an “free-trade” policies are not in the best interest of America in the long term.
    3. I don’t know if Americans are “tired of endless war” or not — just because it is a DNC talking point doesn’t make it true — but Clinton’s rhetoric is just as hawkish – “defeat and totally destroy ISIS”.

    And Clinton will likely start a civil war here at home as well by attempting to destroy what is left of the Bill of Rights.

    So there’s that.

  22. I’ve been a Republican for 26 years. I don not vote for Democrats. Unfortunately “logically inconsistent” is a charge that could be levied against conservatism and the Republican generally.

  23. “While being a “symbol of peace” is not the same as nation building, America should at least be committed to establishing the rule of law abroad.” Why? What has it ever gotten us but the enmity of most of the world? How many of our WWII “Allies” even remember the sacrifices we made to liberate them?

  24. I hope he wins if he is truly non interventionist. I would not have gone to WW2 and would have supported America First, if I had access to the same educational materials I have today. Neoconservatism should die. Die neocons. DIE.

  25. If you can’t say you support America First above every other nation, then maybe you should emigrate to the nation you can support. America First, America Only, America Always.

    Just goes to show the problem with letting any immigrants in after 1800.

    • I don’t support any nation unconditionally. I support individual rights. I only support nations and governments to the extent they respect and defend said rights; and when there’s a conflict of interests, I support the side which is closer to that ideal.

      Blind nation-worship and state-worship is for sheep. It doesn’t matter if sheep follow the banner with a hammer and sickle, or a swastika, or stars and stripes. It doesn’t matter if they sing The Internationale, Horst-Wessel-Lied, or The Star-Spangled Banner as they are doing so. The banner doesn’t mean anything except that which the person dangling it in front of the sheep wants it to mean. Thus, anyone who asks you to pledge allegiance to symbols, rather than ideas, is an enemy.

  26. I am a life-long Republican but I will sit on my hands this election if Trump is the nominee. I will only vote for Cruz. Trump lost my vote when he trashed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Obama was stupid to pull troops out, and now we must put them back in. Everyone hates “neocons” but at least they understand how to deal with our enemies. Isolationism is not the answer.

    • How long are you willing to subsidize “nation-building” in Iraq and Afghanistan with your taxes? 10 years? 20? 30? Sign your kids up for it, too, and make it 100?

  27. Trump is a johnny-come-lately to gun rights. So what?

    We’ve all had our epiphanies. In fact, I’ll wager that some of TTAG commenters and writers were not gun rights advocates and might have been anti-gun at some point during their lives. In fact, a lot of the strongest gun rights advocates were anti-gun in the past.

    And then they saw the light. This often occurred after they were victimized because they were defenseless.

    So Trump may have turned a new leaf. So what if he does it for votes? Will he change his spiel after he is elected? No, not if he wants to be re-elected.

    “People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”

    Maybe we shouldn’t do that.

    • So much truth to your statement. I’m willing to bet, that in 2000, the year Trump made that statement, that The vast majority of the people that read/comment/write on this site, would’ve said an assault weapons ban “seemed reasonable”, as well. TTAG itself could be called a “Johnny come latley” to gun rights.

        • As far as I know, Trump made one anti gun statement in the year 2000, and has since reversed his opinion. That’s 16 years. What were your opinions on gun rights in 2000? Did you even care? There wasn’t anything like the modern gun rights movement at the time, other than the NRA, as far as I know. This website and the many like it, didn’t exist.

  28. ‘America should at least be committed to establishing the rule of law abroad. That’s how you create the “stability” that Trump trumpeted is his vague, milquetoast “policy speech.”’

    And how’s that been working out for the past 70 years?

    By the way, lets recognize that phrases like “nation building”, “establishing rule of law”, and “spreading democracy” are PC terms for imperialism and colonization. There is nothing virtuous about imposing your will on nations on the other side of the world at gunpoint.

    • Exactly. Rule of what law? Whose law? Enforced in what courts? By whom?

      These are the sorts of nonsensical tropes thrown out by idealists and pollyannas who really don’t know much about the world. They also fail to understand how unique the founding of America was, and why that was attached to a particular culture of northern European white Protestantism. ie, we won’t be establishing Jeffersonian democracy in the middle east any time soon – because doing so would require the extirpation of Islam and Muslim adherents of same.

        • Without a constitutional framework no country has established independent courts. Without some level of citizen enfranchisement no consittution has survived.

          I’m with Dyspeptic on most of these issues. Even our billions in Japan led only to a one party (LDP) state for most of the post-war era.

          Politicians rarely reveal their principal motivation to voters. The Iraq wars were fought to assure Saudi Arabia some measure of security for a time, a protection both for the global economy (until fracking) and to the Saudi royal family, to whom the Bushes owed favors, beginning with the funding, in part, of Zapata Offshore Company, a very interesting enterprise.

        • That’s what our policy “betters” mean when they use that phrase.

          The Muslim hears that we’re going to replace sharia law (NB the term law there – it’s in the Hadiths that sharia is a system of law) with something else – including voting.

          This is why I contend that people in DC don’t know jack about Islam. When one studies Islam, it is far more than a mere religion, and it involves far more than thumping one’s head on a carpet five times a day. It is a system of religion, economics, political and military conduct in day-to-day governance, foreign policy, war and trade all rolled into one.

          So establishing a “rule of law” as the Ivy Leaguers in DC like to burble about means (and requires) either displacing Islam, or accepting and recognizing that Islam is their rule of law – oh, and accepting that their law requires the killing of infidels and especially Jews.

        • So, your advocating US military force, to globally “enforce law”, which doesn’t “have” to be a constitutional republic. Ok. However, that then means, your advocating we send our military to impose law, of another system. Like monarchy, socialism, deism, or military dictatorships. That means good American born men and women of our constitutional republic will be killed fighting for what? A monarchy? Honestly man. Fuck that.

        • Rule of law simply means that the ruler cannot do whatever they want by decree. They have to make a law, universally applicable, that is then enforced uniformly. The law can still say things like “infidels must be executed” or “saying that the ruler is a bad guy is treason, punishable by death”.

          In that sense, vast majority of countries in the world – including Middle East – already have rule of law.

          Indeed, by that metric, ISIS is a shining example of the rule of law, because they enforce Sharia far more consistently and uniformly than Gulf monarchies.

    • When Christians (or other minorities) are slaughtered and/or millions of innocents tortured, starved or murdered in genocidal campaigns, we have a moral imperative to act. We ARE the world’s policeman. That said, we don’t have to act everywhere all the time. And that action doesn’t always have to be military.

      • The only nation in which “millions were tortured or murdered” post-WWII was China, the PRC, during the Cultural Revolution, circa 1966-1971 (alternatively, -1976). I agree we should have intervened, as it was a short flight from RVN up to the China coast. I doubt you agree.

        • You’re forgetting about the Chinese Famine of the late 50’s.

          Read “Hungry Ghosts,” or “Mao’s Great Famine.” We’re talking about 45 million, give or take, dead by starvation in China.

      • And do…. what?

        See, this is where this “moral imperative to act” runs straight off the rails.

        In WWII, OK, we acted. A few million German and Japanese stiffs later, including 100’s of thousands of civilian non-combatants, and the other side copped a clue to “stop that.”

        Killing only one dirka-dirka here and a couple there with a drone strike? That’s doesn’t get the point across. If you want to stop something on par with the Armenian slaughter (the Turks are Muslims, and the Armenians are Christians), then it will require the slaughter of at least hundreds of thousands of Turks before the message sinks in. When we wanted to get a message to the Germans that what they were doing was not A-OK? Hamburg and Dresden drove that point home. Tokyo left little doubt for the Japanese civilians that they were backing the wrong horse, even before we toasted Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

        But the people who like to signal their virtue of how kind and nice and high-minded they are don’t want to do that. They want precision, surgical strikes, leaving the non-combatants alone.

        Well, here’s a news flash: The people who make such genocides political policy are usually not in combat, and they’re invariably surrounded by lots of other non-combatants. The populace who support such homicidal loons are invariably non-combatants. Unless we’re ready to start slaughtering on a much larger scale, things are not going to change – and all efforts to play this game will come to expensive failure. If we’re going to fail, then fail cheaply – ie, let’s not play this game. If you’re not going to sign up to change culture, then don’t bother signing up other men to change politics – because it will be a failure. Politics is downstream of culture.

        Come back to me when we’ve lined up all the mandarins in the State Department and flung them against a wall, and then installed some hard-nosed realists – then we can talk. In the meantime, if you haven’t noticed, we’re broke. We’re at 100% debt:GDP, and headed in the wrong direction. Obama is the first POTUS in history to not have a single year of even 3% GDP growth. What we’re seeing portends a very great problem for the US domestically, never mind internationally. We’re about to become a world cop who can’t afford shoes, never mind bullets.

        • Trump’s foreign policy plan was all things to all people, many of which contradicted each other. Which was, I believe, the point.

  29. I’d have to say that you’re both ignorant of the fuller scope that period of US history, and the war that came before it, and led to the inevitable Second World War.

    All of that was brought to us by Ivy League graduates and the supposed ‘intellectual elites’ of this country – who never seem to pay the bill when the currency is blood.

  31. The notion that America is a country with tangible interests is anathema to broad swathes of the intelligentsia. Why, it’s only supposed to be a market, an economic zone! Some rights are enforced or upheld (depending on one’s POV) but that’s it. Individual atoms float in and out of it freely to conduct transactions. Anything more, any identity or meaning would be horrid!

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