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Hell, Yes!
Over at National Review, Conrad Black has posted a column explaining why he supports Trump in the upcoming election. His first sentence explains the difficulty in writing this column: “It is a squeeze to reduce the number of logically indisputable reasons why President Trump should be reelected to a single column, but I will attempt it.” And a heroic attempt it is.
He lists one reason after another after another and on and on and on. Reading his column, and trying in vain to come up with effective counter-arguments to his positions, I wonder about Biden voters. What, exactly, do they want?
I think I’d be happier if I didn’t think about that too much. But Trump’s list of accomplishments is impressive indeed. His behavior can be off-putting to conservatives like me, but it’s difficult to argue with the job he’s done. Which everybody would know if we had a media in this country. But we don’t. So lists of Trump’s accomplishments can be surprising even for news junkies like myself.
We can argue about Trump’s personality. I, personally, don’t like it. But I just don’t see how we can argue about his accomplishments. Don’t believe me? Please, just read Mr. Black’s column at the link above.
Imagine the last four years under Hillary Clinton. Then, imagine the next four years under Kamala Harris. Then think about what Trump has already done. Then go vote.
Please.
Published in General
Good article, but I find this part irrelevant:
“. . . the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its incarcerated people, and that an utterly scandalous 99 percent of criminal prosecutions are at least partially successful, 97 percent of those without a trial. The U.S. has six to twelve times as many incarcerated people per capita as Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, the most comparable large, prosperous democracies.”
Black goes on to call this a disgrace, but the truth of the matter is most of these people are criminals who deserve to be incarcerated. As for 97% without a trial, he must be referring to plea-bargaining, which I oppose. Nonetheless, this is what likely figures into the 99% partial success rate. One could argue other countries don’t police and prosecute as well as we do, or that the breadth and depth of our freedom provides more opportunities for people to commit crime. My guess is he holds this opinion because he believes he was wrongly convicted on several charges, serving time as a result (he may be right).
I thought our streets were becoming safer with more and more violent people put behind bars. But now with all these riots, I say we may have to bump that conviction percentage up a few more points. Also, we have to get rid of these Democrat administrations in our cities to reverse the decline that they’ve created.
In the midst of reading the article by Conrad Black, which seems to have created a sense of euphoria for @drbastiat, as well as myself and many others of us here at Ricochet, I came across an insert by the NR folks that listed other articles, pro and con, written by their staff. Amongst those was the “Hell No” article by Kevin Williamson. Many people here rave about Williamson’s intellect and ability as a writer. I have never been so enamored. This article completely reinforces my previous opinion. He is about one step above Max Boot in his utter inability to credit Trump with any accomplishment, including judges. He seems to think it is better to have memorized the Federalist Papers and be able to elucidate with amazing acumen their pros and cons, which we all know is not the strength of Trump, the pragmatic conservative, in an essay rather than actually run for, get elected to, and then, using advice sought, be in the actual position of SELECTING those judges. Williamson can write, but Trump can do. Big difference. Oh and about Trump getting credit for keeping his promises, Williamson asks “where’s that wall that Mexico was going to build?” Williamson gives Paul Ryan all the credit for the tax cuts but fails to acknowledge that it was Ryan and the Republican Congress and Senate that were not the least helpful with Trump passing any immigration legislation when they controlled all three branches. I could go on, but life’s too short.
Black does pack a lot into that one short column. Just looking at one line . . .
Under the prior administration North Korea was running missile tests and we wouldn’t even talk to them. ISIS, or the JV team as Obama referred to them, was in the news every day and now they are invisible. Iran was given the means to continue work on its nuclear program (ironically under a treaty to stop that). Norks and Iran are still a threat but Trump has shown a willingness to deal with them. Peace treaties between Arab nations and Israel would not have happened if these nations did not believe the US would protect them from Iran.
KDW definitely has a way with words, but his arrogance makes him tiresome to read in large doses.
Ignoring the fact everything has been thrown in the path of doing that, including a Republican House we had for two years . . .
“Euphoria” might be a bit strong. Again, I don’t like President Trump.
But he clearly is an extremely effective executive. I hired him to do a job, which he has done extremely well.
We won’t be going to barbeques at one another’s houses. And that’s ok with me. It’s probably ok with Mr. Trump, too.
But he has done an outstanding job as president.
I also admire Williamson’s writing. He’s brilliant. And I agree with many of his arguments.
He and I disagree about Trump. But we agree about a lot of other things.
Just voted (in case of call-out or emergency on voting day). Ahhhh.
The percentage of how many incarcerated people we have are immaterial. If there were no criminals, it would be horrifically unjust to have one prison unfairly incarcerated. If one country has 25 percent of the world’s criminals, it is only just to incarcerate those people. The guilt of innocence of a person matters, not percentages.
Heck yeah.
Decades ago there was a newspaper headline for a particular story that read “Crime is down, but jails are filling“. Only a liberal with her head in the sand could have written it.
What do Biden voters want?
A less garish aesthetic. For Europeans to like us more. To forestall a “Handmaiden’s Tale” future. Equity, whereby Black Lives get other people’s stuff. Really! I talk to these people.
Dr.B,
Yep, give me four more years of the Trump. Works for me.
Regards,
Jim
From all the headlines coming out about how China has bought off Americans, I am starting to feel left out. Hey, Chinese Communist Party where is my no-payment, no-interest loan?? Was it really up to a corrupt guy like Andy McCabe to stop the CCP from infiltrating American businesses? We are not getting our $1,000,000,000,000 worth of intelligence agency spending.
Many of the rioters are white children of prosperous parents. They are the leaders, for the most part. Look at the Antifa members arrested in New York City. The blacks are the looters but they are the foot soldiers for the white organizers. Look at who is funding this. The Walton heiress among others who are billionaires.
It was a he, Fox Butterfield who was made famous by Paul Gigot at the WSJ.
Whatever you have.
Are you sure it wasn’t James Taranto rather than Paul Gigot?
Then there’s this quote from Trump on Rush Limbaugh:
“And Iran knows that and, they’ve been put on notice,” Trump said. “If you f*** around with us, if you do something bad to us, were going to do things to you that have never been done before.”
Of course, that got the never-Trumpers’ knickers in a twist, but I don’t like the idea of bowing and scraping just to be polite to a bunch of people who would behead every American if they could.
No, I think Trump sent a loud and clear message to Iran:
“You want the Soleimani treatment? You get the Soleimani treatment!”
I don’t associate with many Biden voters because I’m concerned that sort of thing is contagious, but the few I know just want Trump gone at whatever the cost. I don’t understand that kind of hatred, but there are some at ricochet who share it.
I often have suspicions as to how the left is attracted to the aesthetics of an orderly, designer society but don’t often have the evidence necessary to be sure.
Check out what Thomas Sowell has to say about the Chess piece fallacy.
Worse than COVID . . .
Being around Biden voters in moderate doses makes you immune to the Biden disease. It’s called herd immunity. I can’t stand herds, so that makes Bidenism repellent.
Not mentioned: The number of incarcerated that are illegal aliens. It’s in the millions.
I think you are correct.