It has been an interesting week for Trump, and there has been shortage of idiotic comments. Unfortunately, some of those idiotic comments have come from people calling themselves libertarians, or associating themselves with the liberty movement.
Trump tried to end the war in Syria last year, saying he was going to pull all of the troops out. Then he took a beating by the left, the establishment media (which mostly overlaps the left), and the war hawks. This included several people in the Trump administration.
While Trump can be bold on Twitter and a debate stage, he isn’t so bold when it actually comes to following through on doing the right thing. He was unable to stand his ground on Syria, even though he is supposedly the Commander-in-Chief.
This past week, there was hope that he was going to finally end the longest hot war in American history. The U.S. military has been in Afghanistan for nearly 18 long years, and Trump was going to negotiate a withdrawal with the Taliban.
Of course, I don’t know why he can’t just withdraw. Maybe he wants assurances from the Taliban that they will allow U.S. troops to leave peacefully. Beyond that, there isn’t really much to negotiate.
When there was an attack in Afghanistan that killed people, including an American, the meeting was called off. Who knows if the Taliban actually did it, but it is a shame that one more violent act could lead to many more in the future.
After that, John Bolton was fired as National Security Advisor. Bolton was quick to go on television and say that he resigned. Either way, it was obvious that Bolton’s agenda was different from Trump’s agenda.
While we can lightly applaud Trump for doing the right thing, let’s remember that Trump was the blundering idiot who put Bolton in that position in the first place. Bolton was already a well-known war hawk, but that didn’t stop Trump from putting him in that role. That is not what you would call draining the swamp.
Justin Amash – An Enemy of Liberty
Justin Amash is a congressman and former Republican. He was the first Republican in Congress (at the time) to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump. But he wasn’t calling for Trump’s impeachment because his policies are helping to starve children in Yemen. He wasn’t calling for Trump’s impeachment because he has been overstepping his power in hiking tariffs without congressional approval. He wasn’t calling for Trump’s impeachment because Trump bombed Syria. If he had called for impeachment over any of those things, then he would have also had to call for impeachment of Obama when he was president.
No. Amash wants Trump impeached for supposedly obstructing justice in the investigation of Russian collusion. He wants Trump gone because he may have interfered with the witch hunt to overthrow the sitting president because some people didn’t like the election results. Amash bought into the whole Russia hoax. He is either a liar or incredibly naïve.
Anyone who is promoting the Russia hoax, regardless of motives, is helping to fuel tensions between the U.S. and Russia. Many people, including Amash, find it acceptable to slightly increase our risk of nuclear war if it means getting the chance to dethrone Donald Trump.
Now, here’s the latest from Amash. He sent a Tweet saying some good things about ending the war in Afghanistan, but then ended it with this: “How about we end the war without inviting the Taliban to dinner on the week of 9/11?
In other words, Amash is going to hammer away at Trump over something symbolic. He would rather see a continuation of war than to have Trump meeting with Taliban representatives during the week of 9/11. I know he says that Trump should just end the war, but then why does Amash mention 9/11 at all? It is completely counterproductive to his original message.
By the way, the Taliban didn’t commit the attacks on 9/11/2001. The best you can say is that the attacks were planned on soil that was controlled by the Afghans. But if that is your measure of being guilty, then all Americans are guilty too. The hijackers were planning the attacks on American soil and getting flight training. I don’t think the Taliban was giving lessons on how to fly airplanes.
When Amash entered Congress, some said he would be the next Ron Paul. That has turned out to be a joke. Amash certainly does take many libertarian positions, but he is either a liar or doesn’t understand the workings of the deep state. And his priorities are not set straight, as he would rather risk more war in order to score points against Trump.
Nicholas Sarwark – An Enemy of Liberty
The second “libertarian” who has shown his true colors is Nicholas Sarwark, the chairman of the Libertarian Party. He is a good example of why I have generally not supported the Libertarian Party over the last decade.
Like Amash, Sarwark takes some libertarian positions. But on the key issues, he is horrible. Sometimes you have to pick out the nuances in what he says. Other times, he is more obviously against the liberty movement.
After Bolton was either fired or resigned, Sarwark said that the country is safer without Bolton in there, and he criticized Trump for his lack of judgment for putting him in there in the first place. So far, so good.
Then, Sarwark said: “There’s also a fight over who is telling the truth about circumstances of the resignation. All I’ll say is Bolton doesn’t have a long and documented track record of being a liar.”
He later sent another message saying: “Bolton lied about WMDs in 2001 and said on TV that he believed in lying for national security reasons. The President has over 12,000 documented lies in the last 3 years, many of them petty things to make himself look better. An opinion on who is lying is not an endorsement.”
First, I don’t really care much if Bolton resigned or he was fired. Again, Sarwark will find any reason to go after Trump.
Second, where does he get his statistics from? Who has 12,000 documented lies by Trump? Is it the media?
With that said, here is the larger point. Bolton’s lies have led to devastation and death to millions of people. He lies in order to start wars and overthrow foreign governments.
Even if Trump has lied 12,000 times, all of those lies combined can’t equal one lie by Bolton that kills hundreds of thousands of people.
This is the “libertarian” version of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Let’s criticize Trump for every little thing, but overlook the lies that lead to devastating wars.
There are still many good libertarians in the Libertarian Party, but Sarwark represents what is bad about the party. That is why he is a defender of Johnson and Weld. Gary Johnson is a questionable libertarian who did not do a good job (in both presidential campaigns) of communicating a message of liberty. Bill Weld is not a libertarian at all. He is just a war hawk Republican who happens to tolerate gay marriage and marijuana.
I know that some libertarians will say that there is too much infighting within the libertarian movement. Maybe that is so. But I don’t consider Amash or Sarwark to be friends of liberty. In many ways, they are working against us.
That is why they should be called out and ridiculed. They would rather score points criticizing Trump than actually helping to get us peace in the world. They would rather see Trump fail than to end a war. These people are not friends of liberty.