Pat Buchanan: Even If Trump Wins, The West Is Doomed

[LibertyEagle]

Former presidential candidate and conservative author Pat Buchanan feels his views have been vindicated this election cycle, but his next prediction, if proven right, won’t be a celebratory matter as he sees the death of the western civilization on the horizon.

Buchanan ran in 1992 for the Republican party nomination on a platform opposing globalization, unfettered immigration, and the move away from social conservatism. He has been harping on these views ever since.

These three stances that Trump hits on to Buchanan’s contentment are border security, economic nationalism, and being “skeptical of these endless wars and interventions.”

Buchanan told TheDC, “we don’t have any perfect candidates,” but the other options besides Trump are more frightening.

“Neocons offer nothing more than more wars,” he said, before adding that their support for free trade is “almost a religious belief.

read the rest...

 

[RJB]

“Neocons offer nothing more than more wars,” he said, before adding that their support for free trade is “almost a religious belief.

They should have sandwiched "free trade" in quotation marks.

 

[erowe1]

Prefacing that with "even if Trump wins," as though Trump winning would somehow make the West less likely to be doomed than if he lost, just makes Buchanan look so stupid.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Prefacing that with "even if Trump wins," as though Trump winning would somehow make the West less likely to be doomed than if he lost, just makes Buchanan look so stupid.

No, but I would expect you to say that.

 

[CaptUSA]

Prefacing that with "even if Trump wins," as though Trump winning would somehow make the West less likely to be doomed than if he lost, just makes Buchanan look so stupid.

Not to mention that he conflates "managed" trade, which the neocons like, to "free" trade which people who like liberty like.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Not to mention that he conflates "managed" trade, which the neocons like, to "free" trade which people who like liberty like.

Regardless, what we have now is not good for the U.S.

 

[erowe1]

Not to mention that he conflates "managed" trade, which the neocons like, to "free" trade which people who like liberty like.

That's because Buchanan unabashedly opposed free trade. So does Trump. They see tariffs as positively good things.

If China sent us a bunch of totally free steel and said, "Here, take it, it's yours." They would complain about it taking away steel worker jobs.

 

[CPUd]

That's because Buchanan unabashedly opposed free trade. So does Trump. They see tariffs as positively good things.

If China sent us a bunch of totally free steel and said, "Here, take it, it's yours." They would complain about it taking away steel worker jobs.

They devalue their currency!

 

[phill4paul]

Doomed! Doomed! Doomed!

O-mi-gerds!

Meh, I think I'll go do some more work on the homestead while waiting for the end.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Even if? LOL

 

[Ender]

Doomed! Doomed! Doomed!

O-mi-gerds!

Meh, I think I'll go do some more work on the homestead while waiting for the end.

LOL!

 

[CaptUSA]

That's because Buchanan unabashedly opposed free trade. So does Trump. They see tariffs as positively good things.

If China sent us a bunch of totally free steel and said, "Here, take it, it's yours." They would complain about it taking away steel worker jobs.

What about the sun?! I worked for a company that produces electricity that people use to light their homes... But that damned sun gives people light for free! Here we have a situation that is not only foreign labor, but completely alien! We should cast a law to remove windows from peoples' homes and businesses. h/t Bastiat!

 

[TheUglyTruth]

I agree. The West is too far gone.

On the one hand the downfall of Christianity and it's replacement with modernism and relativism has destroyed us from within. Homosexuality, abortion, and hedonism run rampant.

On the other hand, unchecked third-world immigration will replace our demographics with people who don't and can't understand liberty and western values which have made us great.

 

[Bossobass]

read the rest...

This sums up how I feel about the situation fairly well.

The purists' comments during the primaries show they are obviously not businessmen. Free Trade is a fairytale akin to Santa Claus. Even RP has realized that the US federal government was run with money collected through excise taxes and tariffs.

To provide funding for the federal government, Ron Paul supports excise taxes, non-protectionist tariffs, massive cuts in spending.

Thomas Jefferson:

Thomas Jefferson's position on the protective tariff was a negative one, though he accepted that it was necessary. Jefferson had at one time believed in free trade, but he came to understand that it would never work unless all nations agreed to it, states US History.

Jefferson also settled on the tariff as a means to avoid direct taxation of citizens.

The argument should be the difference between tariffs and "non-protectionist" tariffs.

All nations do NOT agree with free trade. FTAs are passed by bought and paid for politicians at the globalist's behest. I manufacture a product. A fella in India e-mails me and asks for pricing to export my product from the US to India. I find that India imposes a 100% duty on my product category. That's PLUS VAT and shipping. Now, if I were in India and a fella from the US e-mailed me and asked the same Q, the duty charged to Indians for the same product is 4.5%, no VAT, plus shipping.

China has numerous and onerous barriers to imported US products while they enjoy permanent Most Favored Nation status bestowed upon the Communist Regime by none other than Ronald Reagan. Japan, S. Korea, etc., have similar prohibitive barriers to US products.

During a recent trip to Korea, a journey I have made countless times over the past 30 years, I couldn't help but notice that I saw no American cars. This didn't make any sense to me as we now have a free trade agreement in place.

But after a little digging, I discovered that my eyes weren't deceiving me. The Public Citizen website noted that since the trade deal was enacted, fewer than 1,000 additional U.S. automobiles have been sold in South Korea. Meanwhile, 1.3 million Korean cars were sold in the United States. America's trade deficit with South Korea in automobiles and auto parts has increased 16 percent during the first year of the trade agreement, according to Public Citizen.

Tariffs with reciprocity is Free Trade. FTAs are bovine excrement enacted to achieve the globalist agenda. When someone takes advantage of MFN and a FTA to dump and corner a market (the John D Rockefeller play book), then tariffs it is. When they have something we want/need and we have something they want/need, tariffs disappear and may the best man win.

The worker always takes the blame in these BS globalist schemes. The average car sticker price includes 5% for labor. It costs 7% to ship the car from Asia to the US, so even if the Asian labor costs were zero, there is a net loss. The globalists want to be able to freely pollute and control the masses. The UAW, USW, etc., do not conduce with that agenda. So, we have the EPA on a mission to clean up the nearly dead rivers and lakes and the smog-filled air while China receives MFN and the steel industry is moved from the Ohio valley to Asia in 5 years, a feat that could not possibly have happened without decades of planning.

Etc., blah, YMMV. Like Pat said, if Trump can't fix the planed inpouring of the scum of the earth, crooked and stacked-deck FTAs and Israeli-planned (our "greatest allies in the ME") US military interventions (that cause the mass exodus of ME refugees)… the other choices will only further hasten the agenda. PB gets a lot of things right, IMO.

 

[erowe1]

The argument should be the difference between tariffs and "non-protectionist" tariffs.

...

Tariffs with reciprocity is Free Trade.

From this, it must be that the kind of tariffs that you favor are the protectionist kind, since that's what reciprocity is.

N.B. Ron Paul opposes all taxation and all tariffs. It's not that he positively ever favored tariffs as a good thing, just that he favored them as a source of revenue for the federal government over the income tax. But the ideal would be for the federal government not to get any revenue from any coercive means whatsoever.

And even when he did propose tariffs as an improvement over the income tax, he clearly disavowed protectionist tariffs (i.e. tariffs with reciprocity). He favored instead a single rate that applied equally to everything from every other country so as to interfere with the market as little as possible.

 

[LibertyEagle]

That's because Buchanan unabashedly opposed free trade. So does Trump. They see tariffs as positively good things.

What you wrote is not his position and you have been set straight more than once. Trump's position on tariffs is as a deterrent if China chooses not to balance trade.

If China sent us a bunch of totally free steel and said, "Here, take it, it's yours." They would complain about it taking away steel worker jobs.

Hardly.

 

[LibertyEagle]

From this, it must be that the kind of tariffs that you favor are the protectionist kind, since that's what reciprocity is.

N.B. Ron Paul opposes all taxation and all tariffs. It's not that he positively ever favored tariffs as a good thing, just that he favored them as a source of revenue for the federal government over the income tax. But the ideal would be for the federal government not to get any revenue from any coercive means whatsoever.

And even when he did propose tariffs as an improvement over the income tax, he clearly disavowed protectionist tariffs (i.e. tariffs with reciprocity). He favored instead a single rate that applied equally to everything from every other country so as to interfere with the market as little as possible.

That's nice, but that is not what is going on. The "free trade" is only going in one direction.

 

[TheUglyTruth]

That's nice, but that is not what is going on. The "free trade" is only going in one direction.

Which direction is that?

 

[LibertyEagle]

Which direction is that?

We give to China, but do not receive.

 

[TheUglyTruth]

We give to China, but do not receive.

We don't?