8 Years of suffering under Obama.

[_canpakes]

The people who are deeply into “America First” political messaging are some of the most politically correct people you will ever encounter. They just don’t consider their taboos to be PC.

I agree. The mythical ‘War on Christmas’ comes to mind as a strong example of this.

[_canpakes]

Isolationism isn't a conservative v. liberal issue. Bernie is an isolationist. Many people fighting to be the Democrat nominee see the US as having played too much outside of our sandbox over the last 70 years and are arguing for refocusing on us.

I may have veered off a bit from what you’re pointing at.

Besides the fact that motivations behind isolationism can differ widely (ranging from perceiving moral issues with interfering in events or governments abroad, to framing it in strictly financial terms), it appears that the ‘America First’ sentiment intends to not be isolationist, but merely always preferential to what is perceived to be in this country’s best and most immediate interests. This includes perceiving those interests as an extension of personal attributes and attitudes, such as pride, or religious ideals.

[_ajax18]

Over the last few years Ajax has consistently argued that Trump is doing what is in the interests of America and not prioritizing being a citizen of the world over being an American.

I'm sincerely curious, Ajax. Could you give a specific example from the Obama years that shows he was more concerned with the interests of other nations over our own?

1. Fostering illegal immigration to lower native wages and increase our tax and debt burden. Under Obama we took in and provided for as many impoverished unskilled and disabled immigrants as Latin American nations demanded we take. Under Trump we take people who can contribute and who we the voters decide we can afford to take.

2. Dumping money into foreign aid, nation building, pushing democracy on those who don't want it. Bush was guilty of this as well. If you want the US to fight your war for you under Trump you're going to pay for it. And those oil reserves that made you rich belong to us now. Be thankful we let you live and assimilate into our empire.

3. Potentially importing ebola from Africa and putting American citizen health at risk to get another immigrant in.

4. Refusal to limit or vet immigrants from where radical Islamic terrorism is raised and nurtured. Again better to have some American Citizen carnage than to keep out a few impoverished people who might not want to kill Americans and Jews and live the American dream they're entitled to.

5. Dumping palates of taxpayer cash into the American hating Iranian radical Islamic regime in a futile attempt to buy peace from an enemy with a weaker military.

[_honorentheos]

Over the last few years Ajax has consistently argued that Trump is doing what is in the interests of America and not prioritizing being a citizen of the world over being an American.

I'm sincerely curious, Ajax. Could you give a specific example from the Obama years that shows he was more concerned with the interests of other nations over our own?

Thank you for replying, Ajax.

1. Fostering illegal immigration to lower native wages and increase our tax and debt burden. Under Obama we took in and provided for as many impoverished unskilled and disabled immigrants as Latin American nations demanded we take. Under Trump we take people who can contribute and who we the voters decide we can afford to take.
Obama deported more people than prior presidents and was clear in that his doing so was limited by how much money Congress put towards it. He focused limited resources on finding and deporting people with criminal records. He had to work pretty hard to try and regain Hispanic support because he was seen as heavily focused on maxing out the deportations they could afford to carry out. How is that evidence he was not acting in the interest of the country but was taking orders from Central America?

2. Dumping money into foreign aid, nation building, pushing democracy on those who don't want it. Bush was guilty of this as well. If you want the US to fight your war for you under Trump you're going to pay for it. And those oil reserves that made you rich belong to us now. Be thankful we let you live and assimilate into our empire.
We don't have an empire. When the US came out of the second world war largely unscathed by the destruction of global war while the rest of the developed world had severe wounds to heal, we embarked on an almost unprecedented task of rebuilding a world order where the great powers would seek to establish a lasting peace rather than use their victory to simply subjugate the losers. We recognized we had to use our wealth and power to create a world order where the next world war would be undesirable because it affected us just as it affected everyone else when the nations of Europe and Asia broke into conflict. Republican or Democrat, protecting that works order was understood to be essential to our national interests, and we were uniquely positioned to reframe the desired world as one where human rights, economic achievement and upward mobility were more desirable than was conflict. We've stubbled at times, most recently in the Middle East, but that isn't actual ng against our interests. Again, I don't think your take on this is based on all the facts but instead a gross misunderstanding of how the world had and we hope should work. We're undoing that right now.

3. Potentially importing ebola from Africa and putting American citizen health at risk to get another immigrant in. Obama imported Ebola? Um. That's crazy. Sorry. I can't take this one seriously.

4. Refusal to limit or vet immigrants from where radical Islamic terrorism is raised and nurtured. Again better to have some American Citizen carnage than to keep out a few impoverished people who might not want to kill Americans and Jews and live the American dream they're entitled to.
We had limits on visas. We had a vetting process for asylum seekers. Nor sure what you're talking about here.

5. Dumping palates of taxpayer cash into the American hating Iranian radical Islamic regime in a futile attempt to buy peace from an enemy with a weaker military.
As you are surely aware, the payments were part of a settlement of a dispute that predated the revolution in '79. Yes, they were necessary to complete the nuclear deal. Having a nuclear weapons in Iran is destabilizing to the world. Having another war in the region, this time with Iran, would be a massive effort with lots of money spent and lives lost for is to do what? Take over and nation build? I'm not sure what your position is on nation building given its been presented as a negative in 2 above. Either way, it can't be argued Obama wasn't acting in the interests of the nation even if you don't like how he went about it.

Out if curiosity, how do you feel about Trump overriding congresses attempt to stop him from selling weapons to the Saudis? In our collective interests? Something else? Just trying to flesh out how you view here.

[_ajax18]

Selling weapons is good for my family and by extension the US economy. That's what most of my tribe still does is build the best weapons. We just don't sell our best stuff.

[_canpakes]

Selling weapons is good for my family and by extension the US economy. That's what most of my tribe still does is build the best weapons. We just don't sell our best stuff.

Honor, this is a good example of what I was referring to upthread. As opposed to isolationism, ‘America First’ is just the combined Base version of ‘Me First’, international circumstance or chaos regardless.

[_moksha]

Taking a break from bad news. My kids took me out to eat today for my birthday. They were marvelous by not doing that annoying waiters singing happy birthday stuff. It was so good to see them.

[_honorentheos]

Congrats and happy birthday, moksha, that sounds like a very nice way to spend it.

[_honorentheos]

Selling weapons is good for my family and by extension the US economy. That's what most of my tribe still does is build the best weapons. We just don't sell our best stuff.

I'm wondering what kind of weapons optometrist tennis players make...j/k.

Seriously, how is selling weapons good for your family first, and then by extension good for the US economy? Or you meant simply that military industry is good for the economy and therefore good in general?

[_ajax18]

Seriously, how is selling weapons good for your family first, and then by extension good for the US economy? Or you meant simply that military industry is good for the economy and therefore good in general?

Well it's an export. It's something we make in America for which in return we get money into the pockets of US citizens who spend the money in the US. If I buy something from you with money I earned by doing a job which you probably paid for in Medicaid taxe, money is moving around the country, but it's still just a service and it's not adding money to the US economy since we're both US citizens. At least that's the way I understand it.

If all we do is buy things from China while selling much less in return, how do we not run out of money and find ourselves in debt to them?