A Socialism That Republicans Passionately Embrace

Having to take a week off of blogging because of bronchitis allowed me to think more deeply into whatever subject I would write on next. And there is more than one subject to address. I could write about the latest campaign scuffle between Bernie Sanders supporters and the Trump campaign. A group of alleged Bernie Sanders supporters actually shutdown a Trump campaign stop and was done with apologies from neither Sanders nor the protesters. Such is an ominous sign that for all we know about voting, we know nothing about democracy.

And Trump's response of encouraging his supporters to be defensive and strike back should give us a deja vue experience of Germany during the 1930s.  For it was during that time when the Communists and the Nazis felt entitled to take their fights to the street. We should note here that certain aspects of Trump's campaign and the behavior of some of his followers have already reminded some of this time period in Germany.

But I am not going to write about that. There are simply bigger fish to fry. And one of those bigger fish consists of the foreign policy philosophy adhered to by the surviving Republican Presidential candidates as expressed in the CNN Presidential Debtate in Miami (click here). The foreign policy portion of the debate begins at the 47:25 mark of the debate when Trump was asked about whether all Muslims hate us. The discussion then morphed into a discussion on Israel-Palestine, Cuba, Russia, and then the rest of the world. The basic defense for the Republican approach to foreign policy is their claim that the world clamors for America's leadership. And only Republican leadership of America can provide the strong leadership that the world requests.

The basic Republican approach to foreign policy is that the US must show the world that it is the boss. Regarding the Muslim world, there is recognition of hatred of the US, but there seems to be a deliberate obliviousness as to why. This is true even though we know that the Israel-Palestine conflict is an important issue to Muslims (click here and there).  One should consider what it means to be pro-Israeli to the Republican candidates. That is because the US, though it is still aligned with Israel under Obama,  has expressed criticisms of Israel. And this criticizing of Israel is an anathema to the Republicans. Thus, Obama is described as being anti-Israel. In addition, the Republicans view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict completely in black-and-white terms. None of the candidates view the Palestinians with any sympathy or as having any merit. 

The problem with the Republican view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that it is not backed up by the facts. The Republicans seem not to acknowledge that Israel has violated numerous UN resolutions (click here), broken ceasefires (click here), and violated human rights (click here). There have been times when, even by their own admission, they have not lived up to promises to work for peace (click here). This listing of Israel's misbehaviors are not put forth in order to paint an opposite black-and-white picture of the conflict; the Palestinians also have numerous faults and sins. But the listing of Israel's violations is there to show that the Republican view that Israel is innocent and only the Palestinians are guilty is not supported by the facts.

In addition, there seems to be little awareness of how past American actions including overthrowing of governments (Iran in 1953 and Iraq in 2003) and supporting dictators (Saddam Hussein during the 1980s, the current Royal Family in Saudi Arabia, and Mubarak and el-Sisi in Egypt) could cause friction with the Muslim world. And those actions do not include the US administration of UN sanctions that are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children during the Clinton and Bush II administrations.

The rhetoric to Cuba and its government is similar to the rhetoric to the Palestinians and the Muslims who hate us. One of the Presidential candidates lamented the fact that Obama apologized for past US actions against Cuba. Another candidtate complained about how Cuban harbors those who have committed crimes against the US and how they have provided a place for China to 'listen' to the US. Do those candidates know that, for a time period between Castro's overthrow of the US sponsored dictator Batista and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US conducted military attacks against Cuban civilian targets  and that the US has harbored those who committed crimes against Cuba? And, as during the Cuban Missile Crisis, do the Republican candidates acknowledge that we had and are still placing military bases on Russia's border (click here)?

And as the Republican candidates vented their anger against Russia's crimes in Crimea, did they also acknowledge American crimes against Central American countries during the 1980s and possibly in Honduras in 2009?

Not only is there no acknowledgement of American wrongdoing by the Republican candidates, they express anger at the implied acknowledgement of such that a mere apology provides. And all of that tells us one thing about all of the Republican candidates and their view of America's leadership roll in the world: they believe that we are entitled to rule the world. They call it leadership, but when no one is allowed to judge our past and present interventions, then we are no longer talking about leadership; rather, we are talking about the Republican view that the US not only has the right, it has the duty, to rule the world. And according to some of the Republican candidates, it is entitled to rule the world by virtue of the world's request. At least one of the candidates talked about how the world was looking to the US to lead and that Obama has utterly failed to provide the leadership. 

These candidates seem to be unaware of a recent 2013 poll that reported that the nations viewed the US as posing the biggest threat to peace in the world (click here, there, and there again).  Below is a global map showing which nations view the US as posing the greatest threat to peace (click here and advance to the 21 second mark of the video for the source with a country by country detailed report found there).

Note how this opinion of the US spans across the whole globe including Europe and much of South America. And it also includes the public opinion from our allies like Germany, Australia, and Sweden as well as Spain, Turkey, and Greece. Also note that this is not the opinion of world leaders, this is the opinion of the world's people and that this poll was taken in 2013 so knowledge of its results has been readily available for some time.

But none of the above facts matter to the Republican candidates simply because they believe that the US is entitled to rule the world. And the morality of those who feel entitled to something allows them to only recognize what others do wrong. And often what is judged wrong is any challenge to what the entitled believe is theirs. This is why those who feel that Israel is entitled to the land can only recognize Palestinian wrongdoings. It also explains why the Republican candidates believe that America has nothing to apologize for in its past.

We should conclude that a person with the moral compass described above is not competent to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. And while Obama has apologized for past US actions, his moral compass and that of the Democratic candidates are not different enough from that of the Republican candidates.

In the end, the control of the world that the Republican candidates believe is rightfully America's is the same kind of control they fear Obama is exercising over America especially with his use of executive orders. These Republicans call such control 'Socialism.' Since these Republicans believe America should exercise that kind of control over the world that they call 'Socialism' when exercised here, then we could say that we found a "Socialism" that the Republicans can like. But they not only do they like this kind of "Socialism," they passionately embrace it.

What Is It That The Republicans Really Want?

The seventh Republican debate took place without Trump, and that was helpful. The Republican candidates could focus more on the issues and less on name calling and thus the audience could learn more about the candidates (click here for the debate and click there for fact checking the debate). And the following is some of what I learned.

First, all of the Republicans in the debate said they want both small government and fiscal responsibility. But at the same time, most, if not all, of the Republican candidates claimed that we need to rebuild the military because of the damage Obama has allegedly visited on it.

We should note that a damaged military was also the complaint of the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. In his 2012 campaign, Romney compared our then current size of the Navy with its size in 1917. Such comparisons are not as revealing as some would hope since advances in technology have greatly increased the power of each ship compared to their 1917 counterparts. This is true for any non recent year the Republicans would want to use in a comparison.

But there are other problems with the Republican emphasis on rebuilding the military. One of them has to do with the fact that the US under Obama still spends more on its military than the other top 7 to 9 other nations spend combined. In addition, the Navy now has roughly the same number of active ships as it did under President George W. Bush between the years of 2005 to 2008 (273 compared to 278 to 282, click here and there for documentation). In addition, a new generation of surface ships is being tested now as exemplified by the USS Zumwalt. The Navy has reduced the number of Zumwalt type ships from in the 30s to 2 because of the cost of each ship as well as concerns over its stability at sea (click here). In addition, there is a new class of aircraft carriers being currently produced. This is the Gerald R. Ford class carrier with two being constructed at this time and a third one is planned for the near future (click here). 

But there is another issue as Republican candidates promise to both reduce the size of the government while rebuilding our military. Since the military is part of the government, to increase the size of the military is to increase the size of the government. In addition, to increase the size of the military also increases government spending unless compensatory cuts are made elsewhere. 

The only proposed cuts made during the debate was Governor Christies guarantee that he would cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood if elected. Now it seems unlikely that cutting funding to Planned Parenthood's could make up for the increased military spending promised by the candidates. So one key and unanswered question becomes this, where will the Republicans cut the budget in order to keep their promise to be fiscally responsible? Will it be in Social Security which is not only self-funded, it is the largest holder of federal debt? Will it be in Medicare? Will it be in the EPA and, if so, how can the EPA plan to protect our environment from those corporations that pollute its surroundings? Will the EPA become impotent like the SEC was during the housing bubble days of George W. Bush?

In addition, to increase spending in order to rebuild the military, these Republican also want to hire more federal agents to patrol the border. And unrelated to spending, most of the Republican candidates want to incease the surveillance capabilities of the NSA as well as to take the handcuffs off of the military as it attacks our enemies overseas. The problem with this last proposal is that some of those handcuffs are made by International Law. So not only do these Republican candidates complain about the deficit and debt while proposing to rebuild the military, they promise a less intrusive government than Obama's government while most of them want to both maintain or expand NSA surveillance and remove the restraints that Obama has placed on the military--note that this is Obama the drone President.

While promising a smaller, less intrusive government at home, most of these Republican candidates seem trigger happy to increase or reassert Amerian power abroad to combat terrorism. And they do so with the same short-sightedness as they have in their approach to controlling illegal immigration. For in the immigration part of the debate, the problem starts with too many immigrants illegally entering our nation. Not once during the debate, did the Republican candidates even speculate why so many immigrants have been stealing their way across our borders for around 30 years. 

Here we should note that, as measured in 2012, the top 4 nations from which illegal immigrants come are nations where either American trade agreements or foreign policies have had a significant detrimental effect on the country. These top 4 nations consist of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras with the latter replacing the Philippines ranking in 2012 (click here). And whereas the effects of NAFTA  and Mexico along with past American interventions in El Salvador (1980s) and Guatemala (1954) are well documented, US participation in the 2009 coup  in Honduras and/or its aftermath has been speculative. However,  US participation in at least the aftermath, if not the coup itself, has been confirmed by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's own testimony (click here).

Of course, the Republican candidates tie their harsh immigration rhetoric to terrorist threats and ISIS. However, just as with the immigration problem, their genesis account of our battle against terrorism starts with what is done to us and excludes what we may have done to precipitate the attacks.  This practice goes back to George Bush and his claim that the 9-11 terrorists attacked us because of our freedoms, not because of our foreign policies. This is despite the fact that those policies included overthrowing democratically elected governments, supporting tyrants, supporting terrorists, and maintaining an unbalanced support for Israel against the Palestinians.

So without recognizing any accountability for what has caused our problems with immigration and the new terrorist threats posed by groups like ISIS, the GOP candidates are looking for more money and power to solve these problems. In the meantime, any discussion on new regulations needed to prevent the illegal actions of our financial sector which crashed the world economy in 2008 was never placed on the table in this or other debates. 

All of this is quite disturbing. While dressing in the sheepskin of small, less intrusive government, a majority of Republican candidates claim that a larger military and less rules for those with wealth and power are what the doctor is prescribing for a healthy future. And the only reason why their claim can seem credible to those remaining Americans who vote is the conjunction of  our two-party system and the formidable failures of the Democratic Party.