Mollie Hemingway hates everybody. I agree.
[Update a while later]
“Choose the form of your destructor“:
People who are unhappy with the things Trump is saying need to understand that he’s only getting so much traction because he’s filling a void. If the responsible people would talk about these issues, and take action, Trump wouldn’t take up so much space.
And there’s a lesson for our ruling class there: Calling Trump a fascist is a bit much (fascism, as Tom Wolfe once reported, is forever descending upon the United States, but somehow it always lands on Europe), but movements like fascism and communism get their start because the mechanisms of liberal democracy seem weak and ineffectual and dishonest. If you don’t want Trump — or, perhaps, some post-Trump figure who really is a fascist — to dominate things, you need to stop being weak and ineffectual and dishonest.
They can’t help it. It’s who they are. It’s what they do.
I dislike Trump’s bombastic style. But when I look at his positions that so inflame the politically correct I see profound kernels of truth that don’t get enough recognition in mainstream political politics. To draw away his support you must start by boldly recognizing those kernels of truth. Then proceed with realistic policy proposals to deal with those realities.
Those sneaking across our southern border in defiance of law do not represent the best of their country, and are far more than the rest likely to be criminals. We neglect control of the border at our peril.
ISIS is exploiting the Syrian refugee crisis to get fighters, both potential and already recruited, into the western world.
are far more than the rest likely to be criminals
I wouldn’t call that a “kernel of truth” unless I had reliable statistics on the crime rate among undocumented immigrants, showing it to be much higher than the general crime rate. Are there such statistics?
ISIS is exploiting the Syrian refugee crisis to get fighters, both potential and already recruited, into the western world.
How many examples of this have been verified? Have any of the fighters reached the U.S.? How big of a threat is this in the U.S., compared to other threats?
Have any of the fighters reached the U.S.?
Yes, 2 of them recently killed over a dozen people and injured two dozen more. That’s just in the US. It doesn’t include the 1 that killed 3 in London or the fighters that killed 128+ in Paris, because that is outside your scope, but not outside the scope of the average American that the immigration policy of Barack Obama is similar to the UK’s and France’s.
Jim will say but blah blah blah based on a narrow determination of where they originated from. Like if you were to mention how many Somali Americans that have turned to terror, it wouldn’t count, nor would the arrest today in NJ of an ISIS supporter or any of the hundreds of others arrested.
The claim is that ISIS is exploiting the Syrian refugee crisis to get fighters into the western world. The San Bernardino shooters did not get into the western world by exploiting the refugee crisis; one was born here, the other came on a fiancee visa.
So again: where’s the evidence that ISIS has used the refugee crisis to get fighters into the U.S.? During the 2014 campaign there were TV ads about ISIS exploiting the South American migrant crisis to send fighters over our Southern border; how many of those have been spotted?
It’s easy to imagine all sort of things that might happen, but what has actually happened?
Would it be “thought crime” if someone told you they wanted to kill you, and would do so at the best opportunity?
Mollie Hemingway nailed it.
I love Mollie. She’s so Ernest.
Here’s my thought about Trump’s anti-Muslim plan–actually, not so much a thought as a musing (an “I’m just saying” kind of thing):
Forget about Islam for the moment. What if there were another organization, secular or religious, whose members had to subscribe to a belief-system that ordained the use of coercive force–often deadly force– against people who did not accept that belief system or who violated its precepts. Even if all adherents of that belief system, for one reason or another (laziness, laxity, cowardice, etc.) did not act out the coercive-force part, wouldn’t even a limited libertarian government have to keep out that belief system’s adherents? If not, why not?
Because we don’t punish thought-crime?
Actually, we do. That’s what “hate crime” laws are about.
Hate-crime laws don’t punish people for thoughts alone.
They make the punishment harsher for thoughts alone.
Because we don’t punish thought-crime?
Funny, because Obama and Congressional Democrats just spent the weekend telling us they want to do exactly that.
Here is the problem with the Trump Plan that even Mr. Netanyahu appears to be distancing himself from it.
The NBC Nightly News went full force in drawing comparisons to internment of Japanese-Americans during WW-II (That dastardly bigot, FDR!)
No one is talking about interning anyone, just (temporarily) putting a hold on immigration or on visas. When the US was not yet in WW-I but choosing sides, would it have been a horror to restrict immigration of Germans? When the US was not yet in WW-II but was doing everything short of war to punish the Empire of Japan, would it have been a horror to bar entry by Japanese? If we had such bans “back then”, I don’t think they would raise eyebrows by right-thinking people even today.
The religion test isn’t an issue because have been excluding Orthodox Christians.in practice. The issue is that we would be banning entry from a long list of nation states encompassing well over a billion people, most of them allies in the Long War. The Long War is largely a factional dispute within those countries that mainly hurts people in those countries but is spilling onto our shores on the margins of the conflict.
Mr. Trump just doesn’t get the nuance thing — do we want such a loose-lipped loose-cannon as President?
That right-wing bigot Jimmy Carter prohibited Iranians from entering the country during the hostage crisis.
Well, there you go. You are wrong, however, about the right-wing part . . .
I believe Rand was being sarcastic.
One of my concerns about Mr. Obama is that on international matters, it is all about his personal story and he just talks too much. And our next president should be Mr. Trump?
“And our next president should be Mr. Trump?”
No but it would be nice if someone from either party would deal with the reality of the problems we face. People are tired of a government they see as being hostile to our own country.
Restrictions based on nationality aren’t remotely the same thing as a blanket ban on a religion.
So, I gather, you find that defacto, functional, in-practice bans of immigration by, say, Orthodox Christians, to be morally repugnant?
I’ve liked the things Trump is saying, especially lately. If I thought he meant even a majority of what he says, I’d probably vote for him.
I’ve said all along that, while I’m not a Trump supporter (I’m tentatively leaning Cruz at the moment), I sincerely thank Trump for saying things that need to be said, and bringing forth policy debates that need to happen. Immigration is just one example.
One other observation; every time the GOPe starts spouting lefty drivel (like the wording they are using to condemn Trump’s latest policy storm) I find myself sorely tempted to become a Trump supporter, in spite of the fact I don’t trust him, at all. I haven’t done so, and probably won’t, but I can’t help but note that Trump’s numbers go up every time this sort of GOPe/lefty flip-out happens. So, what is congress doing right now? It’s acting to take away a president’s power to bar immigrants on the basis of religion. My prediction; if this passes congress, Trump will be the Republican nominee, because this will only serve to stoke anger at the GOPe.
Cruz seems to be the only one that understands how to deal with Trump and his supporters.