[Lnc-business] If you need commentary

Joshua Katz planning4liberty at gmail.com
Fri Jun 9 00:42:02 EDT 2017


I don't have a lot of time to write tonight since I've gotten home late.
Here, briefly, is what I see from the LP perspective.

First, the image of Trump that emerged.  You might know that Bill Cosby's
trial is going on.  I think there are issues with that prosecution, but
that's another story.  I remember hearing an interview with him a few years
ago that, I think, really sealed his guilt in many people's minds.  He
didn't admit a thing - instead, in response to questions about his
behavior, he said something to the effect of, if the reporter valued his
career and his future, he wouldn't ask those questions, and he'd delete
that tape.  That is exactly what I felt when I heard Comey talk about what
Trump "hoped" for, and, regardless of how it plays in court, I think it
played that way for many, many people.

The image of Trump is a President entirely indifferent to the success of
his country, interested only in building his brand, thinking only about how
his position plays into his personal wealth, and approaching foreign policy
like a middle-schooler choosing friends.  Now, you might object that other
politicians do the same thing.  I don't think they do, but it's irrelevant
- the voters don't see other politicians that way.  Trump let himself be
seen.

His voters wanted someone who cares about them.  They elected a man who
cares only for himself - whose mind the national interest never seems to
cross.  Whether he's turning FBI directors into loyal servants (or at least
trying), whispering creepily in their ears, or turning our foreign policy
in favor of brutal dictators because they play with him while the leaders
of democratic nations are mean to him (the Kaiser suffered from much the
same treatment, and based some of his foreign policy decisions on people
calling him "wet Willy" when he went to Britain for a funeral) it's all
about him, all the time.

So let's see.  What reasons do people give, exactly, for putting Trump, not
Johnson, in the White House?  Let's count off the usual complaints about
Libertarians:

Safety and security.  Are we safer with a President who actively colluded
with a hostile foreign power, led by an autocrat?  Ignore our position for
a moment, and focus on them.  If you want safety, this is not how you get
it.  How do you get it?  An experienced team of Governors approaching
foreign policy as realists, not neocons, and not for personal
aggrandizement.  (It is revealing, by the way, to read what Carrol Quigley
had to say about the Orthodox and Western civilizations in the 1970's, and
to think about what Putin is trying to do now.  I think he's trying to
rebuild the Russian Empire, and the United States is paving the way for him
through our inept policy.  Consider the mess in Qatar last week.)

"National interest/America First."  Has he put America first?  He most
assuredly has not.  He has made decisions about trade with the goal of
benefiting Russia's position in the world.  He is allowing Russia to set
the terms of Asian trade.  He actively engages with nations that harm our
interests, and he harms our interests here at home to enrich himself and
his family.  No one can get away any longer with saying that free trade and
open immigration harm our national interest, when this is the alternative.

What's left?  "What's Aleppo" and "he stuck his tongue out."  And every
time those who played up those moments, the media, complain about what a
monster we are saddled with, they should be nicely (and indirectly) asked
to justify the idea that forgetting the name of a city in Syria, or
sticking your tongue out to make a point (or that heart attack thing), were
worse.  This is a monster of their creation, and the only serious
challenger was purposefully sidelined.

Our theme should be - restore competence, restore trust, restore
integrity.  The Democrats can't run on that effectively, they're too busy
worrying that they didn't do enough for coal workers, the less educated,
Bernie Sanders fans, and the intolerant left.  They can't possibly please
all those constituencies, but they certainly can't position themselves as
the opposite of this small, sniveling child in the White House, this creep
who sees nothing but personal gain.

We don't need to talk about the testimony, we just play off the negative
image of Trump that was created, in a way that we can and they can't.

Paul Ryan says we should cut him a break because he's new at this.  The
world won't wait.  Who could hit the ground running, and know already about
operating with integrity, about not seeking personal loyalty from law
enforcement?  Two Governors.

Granted, the campaign is over, and we shouldn't talk directly about
Johnson/Weld because that's not an alternative we're putting forward any
more.  But it can form a theme for how we approach the Republican party
when we need to address them in the media.  They're unprepared, they're
selfish, they use political positions for personal patronage.  Again, you
might think all politicians do, but this is what the voter is thinking
right now.  Find ways to turn what they're thinking to our advantage.  Who
won't sell off the office?  We won't.  Who won't use office to pursue a
personal agenda?  We won't.  Who will approach foreign policy by seeking
those things that maximize freedom and avoid war, rather than soothe the
ego of the leader?  We will.

Joshua A. Katz


On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 7:30 PM, Starchild <sfdreamer at earthlink.net> wrote:

>
>     Ha ha ha... nice one, Sam.    :-)   Reminds me of how I got Facebook
> way back in the '90s – when I fell asleep while studying.
>
>      On a more serious note, what do you think the LP ought to be saying
> about James Comey's testimony, Joshua (or others)? What the pro-freedom
> angle is doesn't seem immediately obvious to me, as the situation is fluid
> and politically complex and there are bad actors on both sides. Is it that
> Trump has lied about the content of his discussion with Comey and tried to
> get the FBI director to stop his agency's investigation of General Michael
> Flynn? I think those things are probably true. Like his predecessors, Trump
> deserves to be impeached for various actions including his unconstitutional
> anti-immigration measures, but is this the best way for that to happen?
>
>      I think the president firing the FBI director before the conclusion
> of his informal 10-year term in office was constitutionally legal, and to
> my mind a positive precedent. As I heard one commentator observing today,
> having an "independent" FBI director isn't necessarily so great – J. Edgar
> Hoover was a very independent FBI director. I'd rather see any
> investigations pointing toward the Oval Office conducted by truly
> independent prosecutors not appointed by the occupant of the White House,
> not by somebody like the head of the FBI or the attorney general, who
> serves at the president's pleasure. Interestingly, Trump's relationship
> with attorney general Jeff Sessions has reportedly been frosty since March,
> when Sessions – who is no friend of freedom either – without first
> notifying Trump, recused himself from any investigation of collusion with
> "the Russians" (read: the Putin regime).
>
>      I've also heard reporting to the effect that members of Congress are
> afraid to go up against the intelligence agencies, because they've got
> stuff on everybody. That would be a particularly scary and unacceptable
> situation. And supposedly all 17 of those intelligence agencies were in
> agreement that "the Russians" were trying to tamper with the U.S. election.
> What is their evidence, one wonders, and if there's such unanimity among
> them (somewhat troubling in itself), why hasn't it been produced?
>
>      Then there is this damning recently declassified report on the
> agencies' unconstitutional spying during the Obama administration –
> http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2253658-declassified-top-
> secret-report-details-spying-on-americans/ . Its contents seem perhaps
> more worthy of LP comment than the media firestorm over the Comey testimony
> and related matters – although if we do comment, I hope the point will be
> made that the spying is almost certainly continuing under Trump, as he has
> not taken any steps to stop it or to hold anyone accountable for it that
> I'm aware of, and has exhibited a frightening tendency to praise
> authoritarian leaders, from Putin to the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte,
> whose draconian anti-drug crusade has caused thousands of murders, but
> according to Trump is doing a "great job".
>
> Love & Liberty,
>
>                                ((( starchild )))
> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>                       RealReform at earthlink.net
>                              (415) 625-FREE
>                                @StarchildSF
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sam Goldstein
> Sent: Jun 8, 2017 7:58 AM
> To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] If you need commentary
>
> I hear live tweeting from my open windows in the Spring.  Otherwise, not
> much.
>
> Sam
>
> Sam Goldstein
> Libertarian National Committee
> Member at Large
> 8925 N Meridian St, Ste 101
> Indianapolis IN 46260
> 317-850-0726 <(317)%20850-0726> Phone
> 317-582-1773 <(317)%20582-1773> Fax
>
> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 10:54 AM, Whitney Bilyeu <whitneycb76 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> What am I missing here?
>>
>> Whitney
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 9:24 AM, Joshua Katz <planning4liberty at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not live tweeting, but I'll be tweeting anything major and
>>> commenting. Feel free to use. Can't promise I'll catch things since I'm
>>> arty work. I think it's important we be on top of this.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>
>>
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>
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