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...the libertarian case against Trump is so over-determined that it's hard to know where to begin.
Some of Trump's free market supporters claim that his tax cuts and deregulation have restored lost economic liberties. But he hasn't cut taxes so much as imposed them on future generations, given that his profligate spending has blown up the national debt to record levels. Indeed, Trump spent in four years what his predecessor spent in eight, and the latter's bill included the tab for the financial meltdown while Trump's trillions of dollars in COVID-19 relief don't even factor into his. The size of government is nearing a record high, notes Brookings Institute's Paul C. Light. "Despite campaign promises to the contrary, Trump opened the contract and grant spigots instead, adding more than two million jobs to the blended federal workforce, including one million in the Departments of Defense, Transportation, and Health and Human Services alone," he maintains.
And it's not just Trump's profligacy that offends my libertarian sensibilities. He's an aggressive economic interventionist. Both he and Biden are protectionists, of course. But it's even worse in Trump's case given that he is the leader of the (allegedly) free trade party. President Bill Clinton relied on Republican support to buck special interest groups on his side to pass NAFTA and normalize trade relations with China, both accomplishments that Trump has thoroughly trashed. His trade apostasy has shifted the Overton Window, handing Democrats the license to become even more protectionist in the future.
And then there is Trump's need to pick economic winners and losers, something that used to be anathema in his party. If Biden wants to tax businesses to eradicate income inequality, Trump wants to command them to do their patriotic duty. He has jawboned American automakers that shuttered money-losing plants because he considered it an affront to his America First agenda. He showered taxpayer dollars on Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturer, to prod it to locate its manufacturing plant in southeastern Wisconsin to create jobs that never materialized.
What about his much-vaunted deregulation? Whatever good he did early on has been wiped out by his hostility to trade and Big Tech. "Trump cuts, but Trump also adds," the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute declared.
But CEI didn't even take into account the worst aspect of Trump's regulatory overreach: His unprecedented assaults on immigration almost entirely by executive fiat and administrative means.
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Indeed, one of the cardinal sins under libertarianism is the initiation of force. Trump commits it on a daily basis with his glorification of both private and state violence. He has repeatedly encouraged his supporters to "beat the crap" out of protesters at his rallies. But even before he became president, he expressed admiration for the "vicious" and "horrible" tactics that China's Communist rulers used to crush the pro-freedom protesters at Tiananmen Square and lamented that America, by contrast, is perceived as "weak." Hence it was no surprise that this summer he deployed the military police to tear-gas peaceful protesters outside the White House to clear the way for his Bible photo-op.
But Trump's most dangerous trait by far is his open contempt for the institutions and norms of governance that check political power and hold it accountable.
https://theweek.com/articles/938981/why-libertarian-voting-biden
Much good truth in that article. Well stated.
Quote from: Barricade on October 17, 2020, 05:26:32 PM
https://theweek.com/articles/938981/why-libertarian-voting-biden
Much good truth in that article. Well stated.
Like what? Pick a point.
Quote from: taxed on October 17, 2020, 05:27:50 PM
Like what? Pick a point.
This should be interesting iF the troll responds.
Quote from: taxed on October 17, 2020, 05:27:50 PM
Like what? Pick a point.
Trump said China showed 'the power of strength' when talking about the Tiananmen Square massacre in a 1990 Playboy interviewQuoteDonald Trump in 1990 said China had showed the "power of strength" when its troops massacred hundreds, possibly thousands, of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square the year before.
Trump in a March 1990 Playboy interview said, "When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength."
Trump went on to say, "That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak...as being spit on by the rest of the world."
https://www.businessinsider.com/trumpn-tiananmen-square-massacre-china-showed-power-of-strength-2019-6
He's an authoritarian monster. His attitudes now are no different than they were then.
Quote from: Barricade on October 17, 2020, 05:26:32 PM
https://theweek.com/articles/938981/why-libertarian-voting-biden
Much good truth in that article. Well stated.
How would you know, you're a Marxist, you know absolutely nothing about Libertarianism~!
Quote from: Barricade on October 17, 2020, 05:33:25 PM
Trump said China showed 'the power of strength' when talking about the Tiananmen Square massacre in a 1990 Playboy interview
https://www.businessinsider.com/trumpn-tiananmen-square-massacre-china-showed-power-of-strength-2019-6
He's an authoritarian monster. His attitudes now are no different than they were then.
That was in the article in the OP?
Quote from: taxed on October 17, 2020, 06:56:45 PM
That was in the article in the OP?
I see no problem where Trump stated facts. I always said Hillary was a formidable dictator, it doesn't mean I like or agree with her, it means I recognize strength.
However, the author goes on with his leftist spin.
"Back in March 1990 — many years before he became president —
QuoteDonald Trump expressed admiration for the Chinese government's "vicious" crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square the year prior. "
Trump did no such thing, that was the authors leftist bull shit pouring out.
Just another piece of shit posts by the libs. Feel free to move it.
Quote from: Solar on October 17, 2020, 07:13:19 PM
I see no problem where Trump stated facts. I always said Hillary was a formidable dictator, it doesn't mean I like or agree with her, it means I recognize strength.
However, the author goes on with his leftist spin.
"Back in March 1990 — many years before he became president —
Trump did no such thing, that was the authors leftist bull shit pouring out.
Just another piece of shit posts by the libs. Feel free to move it.
Oh wow, it was in the OP article. The article is not even more stupid.
Yeah, like Trump wasn't all over China for decades.......
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EklPk6KX0AI4ho6?format=jpg&name=medium)
Quote from: taxed on October 17, 2020, 05:27:50 PM
Like what? Pick a point.
They have no point. They just throw poop, hoping it will stick.