A new age?
Saturday, January 21, 2017
It has been a while. My life has been filled with family, friends and festive fun as I hope, gentle reader, has yours. Even this, the first post of 2017, is something of an accident. A young photographer friend of mine responded on Facebook to President Trump's inaugural speech as follows;
Now I am genuinely confused. How do you eradicate an idea unless it's made from bricks?
I replied but soon realised my post was not Facebook material. So here it is for your review and correction. Please let me know in the comments how you would change or add to my draft plan for POTUS to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism as a threat to the USA .
-
You begin by naming it. [Done, in the Inauguration speech].
-
You stop making excuses for it.
-
You deport its supporters and ensure proper screening of future immigrants from the countries where it is rife.
-
You publish a threat list of such countries; naming, shaming and withdrawing all aid from them and restricting their citizens' travel to the US until they qualify to be de-listed.
-
You ensure Saudi Arabia – the heart of Islamic darkness and Western civilisation's most important current enemy – is on that list.
-
You allow citizens of threat list countries to trade freely with yours so that their isolation is only political. Trade is always good and almost never the legitimate concern of government because countries don't trade — their citizens do.
-
You override all "Green" opposition to allow free enterprise to open every oil field, fracking site and nuclear plant it can on US and US-friendly territory to make your country energy independent and weaken the Arab oil states on the threat list.
-
You lean diplomatically on its sources of funds (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Iran, the EU — which funds Hamas in Israel).
-
You arm the West's only ally in the region — Israel — to the teeth and back it loyally in eliminating with extreme prejudice the enemies who threaten it.
-
You purge its cultural Marxist allies and apologists from US academia — there is no reason to fund treason from taxes; let them sell their indoctrination in the free market if they can.
-
You equip and train special forces and deploy drones to kill anyone who practises or promotes it.
-
You cease aid to any country or body (e.g. the UN) that provides support to it.
-
You announce that you will never intervene in a threat list state militarily to facilitate regime change. No more overthrowing one Arab fascist to make way for another. In making this announcement you acknowledge that President Putin was right to support the recognised government of Syria rather than back first the rebels who proved to be Al Qaida and then the rebels who turned out to be ISIS. You announce your intention to seek President Putin's advice in future such situations.
-
You close the UN nest of vipers in NYC (and redevelop the land as Trump-branded condominiums to help recover some of the millions wasted on funding US enemies there for decades).
-
You deploy a fleet in the Mediterranean to sink the smugglers boats, kill the smugglers and land any illegal migrants you may rescue back to their port of embarkation. You order that fleet to destroy any ports still allowing smugglers to operate after having given them fair warning.
-
You ask President Putin to deploy the Black Sea fleet on a similar mission.
-
You insist that freeloading parasites like Germany and France pull their weight in the defence of Western civilisation by putting troops in harm's way alongside Americans and Brits where necessary and paying their NATO dues of 2% of GDP (including arrears back to its foundation) or lose the protection of the US nuclear umbrella.
-
You ignore as irrelevances anyone who finds the above shocking because there is no question the majority of the American public will support all of it.
Today the Free World has a leader who has the balls to do it and "Mad Dog" Mattis in charge of the US military. US "liberals" may be trembling histrionically today but the terrorists they have succoured around the world should be genuinely afraid.
The Enlightenment West is as powerful as it chooses to be. All it has to do is quit the self loathing political correctness and believe in itself again — as its despised "ordinary" people have never ceased to do. You may say the above programme is not libertarian and you would be right. It is a plan for the US as currently constituted, not as I would wish it to be. In a libertarian America, for example, there would be no state funding of universities and so it would be up to their owners to decide whether to employ Marxists and other enemies of the Enlightenment - and up to students and their families to decide if they want to pay for an anti-Western education that equips them for nothing productive.
In the meantime, drain that swamp, Mr President. Gentle reader, please discuss.
I hate users of this word but I have no option so here goes. WOW ! Just WOW !
Posted by: Matt | Wednesday, February 01, 2017 at 09:47 PM
Nailed it. That's perfect.
Posted by: Cuffleyburgers | Monday, January 23, 2017 at 07:00 PM
The Diplomad 2.0 has a similar view to your blog post. He's a retired US diplomat with a sharp tongue, an eloquent style and I presume, better and more directly informed than most.
Posted by: markc | Monday, January 23, 2017 at 03:53 PM
True but nothing ventured?
Posted by: James Higham | Monday, January 23, 2017 at 03:31 PM
Surely, Israel's actions serve as a recruiter for Radical Islamic terrorism? It cannot therefore be a reliable ally, presumably?
Also, Iran is more concerned with its own security than exporting Radical Islam. The sanctions have done great damage to what is an essentially pro Western people.
Posted by: mickc | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 02:35 PM
I don't think my proposals involve any suspension of human rights in the true sense. A nation is entitled to take defensive actions (including pre-emptive strikes) to protect itself. The governments of the West have been so entangled by their treasonous academics in twisted notions of "human rights" (no human has a right to anything – such as employment, education or health – that another would be obliged to pay for) that they have lost sight of their duty to defend their nation.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:54 AM
I agree. In the context of the discussions on the implementation of Brexit it's depressingly clear that many people think nations trade. People trade and governments interfere. When they decide to interfere less they proudly announce they are "promoting trade" or even creating a "free trade zone", which would be hilarious if voters did not take it seriously.
One of the best moments of the Guardian Brexit debate at the London Palladium last year was Nigel Farage pointing out that he was the only person on the stage who had ever traded anything internationally.
Politicians are terrible people to handle international relations because they see everything as a "Game of Thrones" type power struggle whereas normal human beings are naturally inclined to deal peacefully with each other on trade, sport, culture and personal relationships, provided governments stay out of the picture.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:47 AM
I love your optimism James. I think POTUS's twitter feed is more megaphone than earpiece.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:33 AM
I generally think it's best to avoid wars - and especially metaphorical wars on concepts or weeds.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:32 AM
I wouldn't go so far as to say I support VVP. But he was right on Syria, whereas the USA did a lot of harm with the best of naive intentions. Acknowledging that, and asking for his support, would go a long way towards building influence with Russia.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:31 AM
True
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:27 AM
In dealing with Radical Islamic terrorism, Israel is a reliable ally.
Posted by: Tom | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:25 AM
Your point 6 is extremely important. Trade builds wealth, being excluded from it builds resentment and a nucleus around which hate and envy can coalesce. Wealth builds education and social mobility which counteract ghettos, mob thinking and ignorance. Education and social mobility increase the worth of individual lives - in the abstract sense. One of the Islamic world's big problems seems to be the idea amongst many that lives are cheap, or even cheaper than cheap.
Your plan has a flavour of the Israeli about it. Don't mess with us, and we'll leave you alone. One toe over the line, and you'll lose it at the knee before you can blink. All in all, good stuff.
Posted by: markc | Sunday, January 22, 2017 at 10:21 AM
Tom, I've now sent your 18 points [link] to Donald Trump directly [Twitter].
Posted by: james higham | Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 11:08 PM
Not much I could add to that, Tom.
Posted by: james higham | Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 10:48 PM
Ask you friend does he support the war on racism and if he says he does, tell him that you're genuinely confused and how do you eradicate an idea unless it's made from bricks?
Posted by: Damo | Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 07:22 PM
Not a problem with any of those.
How refreshing to hear so much support for Putin, the MSM and the British state broadcaster are getting so far out of touch with real normal people they are fast becoming a bad joke.
Posted by: Judd | Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 03:28 PM
I like to think of myself as a libertarian but as I am not shocked by your proposals in fact happy to endorse them then perhaps I am fooling myself. However as the libertarian creed is that an individual is at liberty to do anything as long as they do no harm to others then wishing to defend aggressively against those who wish to do harm to others is not anti libertarian. In fact it is taking actions that aids the maintenance of an environment that allows libertarian values to flourish. Liberty is a human right so precious that sometimes other human rights need to be suspended to preserve it.
Posted by: Antisthenes | Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 12:07 PM
Your friend should know you don't eradicate bricks, you eradicate plants.
Posted by: Sackerson | Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 09:35 AM
A very welcome and well reasoned first post of the New Year Mr Paine.
On all your points I would agree with except for number 9, Israel. I often wonder in the Israelis are an ally of the West or, just hell bent on achieving their own ends at the expense of everyone else? Both with-in the region and also on a more global level.
There just seems to be no word for compromise in their language.
So yes I hope President Trump does all of the above, excepting number 9, which instead is a declaration of recognizing the State of Israel's right to exist. Whilst using all the behind the scenes pressure the US can exert to get Israel to the negotiating table.
Hopefully all the other steps outlined above will create the right conditions for this to come about.
Posted by: barnacle bill | Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 09:21 AM