President Trump on Wednesday thanked Saudi Arabia for lower oil prices in the U.S. -- a day after he touted the importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship in the face of calls for more action over the killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi. Trump: “Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82. Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let’s go lower!” he tweeted. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tr...-for-lower-oil-process-but-says-lets-go-lower So, the price of murder is cheap oil for Americans. How sad. Whatever America once was, she is becoming much less, much faster, and after Ayn Rand, with very little excuse. Ayn Rand: "Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html In other words, cheap oil doesn't justify murder. America is not a capitalist country any longer. It is now a statist country on its way to becoming a nationalist/socialist authoritarian country, which is just one step from a totalitarian dictatorship. Trump? He is not an Objectivist hero, but he is a very good hybrid between Orren Boyle and Mr. Thompson. America? She's dying.
A shout out of thanks to Donald J. Trump, the hardest working man in politics, for keeping my gasoline prices low and worrying about jobs and wages for U.S. citizens. Keep my tax "crumbs" flowing that you got for me, Sir. Very, very happy with the performance of President Trump.
Trump doesn't care about Saudi oil or arms sales. The Saudis spend megabucks purchasing his real estate, staying at his hotels (Saved DC hotel from sustaining huge loses), and maybe lending him money (banks won't loan him money), so he is going to embrace Saudi Arabia no matter what.
Apparently, not quite accurate. Though I agree he has sold his soul to the "Islamic Devil", he still has sanctioned murder with lower oil prices. Quid pro Quo.
Saudi 'state-sponsored murder'? Bad. Obama state-sponsored murder? No problem. Remember when drone strikes against American citizens were totally cool at the Washington Post?
We are supposed to be outraged over a supposed "state-sponsored" murder, based on supposed evidence from the always reliable CIA. After all, the pals of former communist John Brennan wouldn't lie to us for political advantage, would they? We should trust the CIA implicitly, since they were only caught one other time in a blatant lie, successfully influencing U.S. policy by falsely claiming that Iran had abandoned its nuke program. I guess those who are screaming for Trump's impeachment over the Saudi government's alleged murder of one of its own citizens have conveniently forgotten something in our recent past. Were they this upset over the Obama administration for murdering three U.S. citizens (including a 16-year-old) by targeting them in drone strikes?
The drone strikes were part of the war making power. Those attacking the Obama administration for legitimate war making powers are simply making unsupported assertions. Supporting Saudi murder is something else, then lying on top of it.
Naive. Saudis murder. Hide it. Then use sophistry to cover it up. Then arrest the actors in the murder while pretending the Saudi Prince is aghast and shocked. American intellectuals name it for what it is, murder by the Crowned Prince. And oil prices drop. All coincidental.
No, I don't remember Obama deliberately targeting Americans with a drone strike. And no, I think that Brennan is a patriot and the CIA is an important institution, staffed by hard-working dedicated people who could easily make more money in the private sector. I believe that Brennan made a mess in Iraq when he disbanded the Iraqi army, sending the unemployed Iraqi troops right into the hands of the enemy. We should not have gone in there but we were hoodwinked by Cheney into believing the weapons of mass destruction thing, which Trump supported. I also think that Trump is a jerk for denigrating our institutions because they work for America and not for Trump. Trump wants them to be loyal to him only. That was Comey's downfall. Also, I have not heard of calls for Trump's impeachment over the Saudi murder.
That's why I gave you the link. Comey was a liar, a leaker, a fixer and unfit for the office. 16-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi was one of three U.S. citizens killed by U.S. drone strikes in Yemen by Obama. Abdulrahman was eating at a restaurant with his teenage cousin when they and 5 others were torn to shreds. Abdulrahman was not accused of any crime. This video about Abdulrahman, including photos of him as a young child and an interview with his grandfather, is hard to watch. But it tells the human story of drone killing in a way words can’t. The Obama Administration has tried to justify drone killings by, in part, claiming they fully comply with domestic and international law. But the Obama Administration is lying. The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit in U.S court against CIA and military officials over the deaths of Abdulrahman and the two other American citizens killed with drones–including his father, the controversial Anwar Al-Aulaqi–because: “These killings, undertaken without due process, in circumstances where lethal force was not a last resort to address a specific, concrete and imminent threat, and where the government failed to take required measures to protect bystanders, rises to a violation of the most elementary constitutional right afforded to all U.S. citizens – deprivation of life without due process of law.”
That became the slogan in America back in March 2016 when the official House and Senate reports came out that KSA's government was involved in 9/11. We did absolutely nothing about it.
The drone strikes were against the enemies of the US and those who were allied to them. If an enemy is stupid to have his children within range of US drones is a stupid enemy. Only stupid people think the strikes were illegal. And the suits against the administration failed, of course.
I hardly think America is on the way to an even more statist country, we are about to go into a significant decline after this next recession. If anything there will no safety net left, and the homeless population will surge and the only way to live is to become a lemming to greedy corporations. Seems more like Neo-feudalism than a totalitarian state emerging. How exactly we would fund those obligations is beyond me. And this story is something else, oil is collapsing and Trump thanks Saudi Arabia for it. He should be thanking Iran more, as they produced more than expected after the sanctions were lifted. The US is also pretty much the leading exporter of fossil fuel so this hurts us a lot too. So many fantasies that the GOP has embraced, that tax cuts will magically lead to sustained growth over 4% for 10 years. That a collapse in oil prices serves as a tax cut.
Geez. Some of these posts remind me of Jethro Tull. Murder is murder. The Crowned Prince did it. Trump sanctioned it. I don’t need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind is blowing; it has the whiff of fresh blood.
The bloodlust and desire to kill that has been quiescent within me for so long is awakened. Nothing like the aroma of fresh blood.
We are still a capitalist country, but capitalism run amok, capitalism without conscience, capitalism on steroids, which is to say FASCISM.
America is as close to capitalism as the Pope is to atheism. Capitalism is like being pregnant; you either are or ain't, there's no "Mister Inbetween". Capitalism in its simplest and broadest terms is: Free men trading freely that which they own and earned for that which they want and desire. This is only possible with men who have a conscience, who seek not the enslavement of others in the name of self-sacrifice but seek prosperity and happiness for the betterment of their lives. This is not America today. Not even close. At best, as Ayn Rand suggested, America is a mixed economy sliding faster and faster into a fascist dictatorship under a socialist banner justified by the moral principles of altruism. Furthermore, the capitalistic ideal would be impossible to evolve into a fascism because capitalism at its core forbids force. This is because capitalism is ruled by this simple principle of justice: You earn your rewards; or as the Bible puts it, you reap what you sow. If you are implying that capitalism without government oversight is every man for himself and not the common good. I agree. And that's its moral justification. Ayn Rand on capitalism: "In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others." "The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve “the common good.” It is true that capitalism does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man’s rational nature, that it protects man’s survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice."--http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html And amen to that, Sister. Amen.
