The French King Trump Threatens to End Support for the US Revolution

The British hold Philadelphia, New York City, Newport, Rhode Island, Charleston, South Carolina,  Savannah, Georgia, and numerous forts west of the Alleghany Mountains and east of the Mississippi River.  The French King Trump is weary of supporting the British Colonies of North America in their rebellion against King George III, so he declares an end of his support for the Americans unless they cede all of the cities, forts, and their surroundings held by the British to the British.  If the USA makes these concessions, King Trump of France will offer a pledge to protect the sovereignty of the USA in the future.

What President Trump of the USA is trying to force Ukraine to do is worse than the hypothetical I just outlined.  The British Colonies had belonged to Great Britain.  They were not previously entirely sovereign.  They had not had a pledge from Great Britain to treat them as sovereign states.  On the other hand, Ukraine did have a pledge by Russia, the USA, and the United Kingdom to preserve its sovereignty.  Russia dishonored its pledge twice, in 2014 with the invasion of the Crimea and parts of the Donbas and then again in the on-going invasion of 2022.  The USA to its dishonor did not uphold its pledge to preserve the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine in 2014, has done too little to do so since 2022, and now proposes to end its support for Ukraine's attempt to maintain its sovereignty and independence.  King Trump is telling Ukraine not only to give up the territory held by Russian troops, but to give up the grounds that Russia has been unable to take with human cannon fodder waves for the last two years.  King Trump tells Ukraine to reduce the size of its armed forces to two-thirds of its present size, while ceding the most defensible ground between Russian forces and its two biggest cities.  In exchange, the USA will once again guarantee Ukraine sovereignty over the remainder of the country.

France did not assist the USA when Britain invaded the USA in the War of 1812.  The USA did not keep South Vietnam free from the Communists as it pledged to do.  It left its allies in Afghanistan in the most ignominious manner.  It dishonored its pledge to Ukraine, which was given so Ukraine would give up its nuclear weapons.  The word of the USA is not worth much.

Putin is simply an evil man.  He will happily accept the cession of the Ukrainian lands this Trump Treaty would give him.  He will sell his oil and rebuild his nearly destroyed military.  Then he will attack Ukraine again.  The valiant Ukrainians will fight hard, but without their fortified positions, with a reduced military, and without intelligence and weapons assistance from the USA, they will lose people at a faster rate than they have in the present just war they are fighting.  The evil Putin will be rewarded with the present Trump Treaty and with conditions easing his next war against Ukraine.

Russia aspires to be the Mongol Horde.  Ukraine aspires to be a part of Western Civilization, a country inspired by The Enlightenment.  All good men are on the side of Ukraine, whose people have put up a most determined resistance to the tyranny of Russia and Putin.  No moral individual could propose the Trump Treaty to Ukraine.  Trump should be ashamed of himself.  Unfortunately, he is shaming the United States of America.

Obama is Yellow

While we know Obama to be a committed socialist, he has pretended to move toward the center politically upon winning the Democrat nomination and then still further on winning the national election. He will work to promote much of his socialist plan surreptitiously. This is much more to his liking than a head-to-head battle of ideas.

Obama has often claimed that he is strong because he rose in the rough and tumble of Chicago and Illinois politics. Of course, we know that that rough and tumble nature does not mean that they play basketball with little attention to fouls or that they play tackle football without pads. It means that they are as corrupt as politics can be anywhere in the United States. Only Louisiana is commonly mentioned as a rival in corruption. It is amid such squalor of morals that Obama chose to pursue a political career and to align himself with politicians and backers such as Blagojevich, Rezko, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and the Illinois senate president Emil Jones. These are not good men. Far from it, they are extremely flawed men and Obama is at home with them.

Obama clearly found it hard to condemn the corruption of Gov. Blagojevich. He and his incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel worked closely with Blagojevich six years ago to plot out his successful campaign for the Illinois governorship. Though there were many reports of corruption and violations of the law in the first Blagojevich term, Obama supported him for re-election. He won, but it was not long before the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives called for his impeachment. The kingpin of Obama's successful race for the U.S. Senate, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, opposed the impeachment of a sitting Democrat governor on the grounds that he was a Democrat. Obama remained silent.

Now that Blagojevich has been arrested, Obama first tried to remain silent. Only after a public hew and cry arose did he finally call for Blagojevich to resign. This reminds one of the process when public indignation grew to Rev. Wright's recorded "God Damn America" speech. At first Obama was unwilling to reprimand his 20-year long spiritual father, but managed to do so when the public indignation reached a sufficiently high level. Obama is consistently a man good at playing the part of being self-assured in the way he presents himself when not under much public pressure, but who reveals his constant vacuity of self when the going gets rough. It is also clear that he has no compunction to actually act morally, though he has some wish to appear to be a moral man. What this man consistently lacks is moral courage.

If he had arisen to the Presidency as a moral reformer who was clearly appalled at the corruption of Chicago and Illinois politics and who had the courage to fight it, he would have earned some respect. Instead, he ignored the many cesspools around him and failed the people of Chicago and Illinois. Now, we must be prepared for him to fail as President of the United States. No one can succeed in this office who has no moral courage.

Fein -- Redistribution blather

Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer, has written an interesting commentary called "Redistribution blather" for the Washington Times on 11 November 2008. He says,

Morality and economic prosperity militate in favor of turning the prevailing progressive income tax scheme on its head. They also argue against government redistributions of wealth through spending, including the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Act of 2008, which was championed by President Bush, Mr. McCain, and the president-elect alike. It lavishly rewards the prodigal, financially irresponsible, and politically connected at the expense of the thrifty and prudent.

He notes that barriers to voting by the masses have been reduced and the checks against majoritarian tyranny have become less effective. The progressive income tax and massive redistribution programs have allowed politicians to purchase the votes of much of the middle and lower classes. The rich retain influence by making campaign contributions and by providing advertising and think tanks. The politicians then squander many billions of dollars winning the affections and allegiance of the rich, the middle class, and the lower class. Then Fein produces a great argument on the morality of progressive taxation:

In any event, the "ability to pay" standard is morally obtuse. At present, most income is obtained through private market transactions. Income is earned by doing things other persons want done, i.e., giving them satisfaction. The willingness of a private individual to pay from his own resources is the best proxy ever invented for fixing the economic value of the thing provided. Every other standard is hopelessly subjective.

Individuals who earn high incomes through private transactions are thus the true "Good Samaritans" because they give the greatest amount of satisfaction to others. Someone who slaved 24 hours a day digging a hole to nowhere that no one wanted would be economically barren and might be whipped for refusing to do things that others wanted done. So much for Karl Marx's labor theory of value.

By any sensible moral yardstick, high-income earners should be taxed least because they generate the greatest amount of consumer satisfaction. Low-income earners should be taxed most because they create the least social good. Moreover, taxation reduces the amount of the thing taxed by raising its cost. High taxes on low-income earners would reduce their numbers by giving tax relief for earning more.

Then another juicy comment:

An individual whose diligence, industry and wisdom have earned great personal wealth by satisfying the wants of others stands on a higher moral plane than an individual whose indolence, indiscipline and criminality have plunged him into abject poverty.

For my part, I will not propose an anti-progressive income tax with say the first dollar earned at a 39.6% rate, the second dollar taxed at a 36% rate, the third dollar earned taxed at a 33% rate, etc. Well ... at least not as long as government does not insist on doling out more welfare benefits to the lower income groups. No... I am willing to go along with a system with a flat tax rate of say 10%. I understand that it is said that a flat rate of 17% would be needed, but that assumes that we will continue the many redistributionist programs we already have. So either we slash those programs and go with a 10% flat income tax rate, or we keep the redistributionist programs and adopt an anti-progressive income tax. Thems my terms!

But really, Bruce Fein is on to something here. Besides making it apparent that he has probably read Ayn Rand, he is staking out the moral position from which we will probably have to start if there is to be any hope of ending up with a flat income tax. The socialists claim we are our Brother's Keeper even when we do not know our brother and their numbers are too fantastical for any one mother to have borne them all. We need to finally apply the counterbalancing truth in order to get any justice at all. That truth is the truth I quoted Fein on above. We need to start the Anti-Progressive Tax League and parlay that into something approaching a moral income tax.