Tucker on hot war with China and Russia

Huh?

Putin’s despotism cannot be “irrelevant” to a moral, economic, geo-political, diplomatic or military analysis of the US obligation to provide assistance to the Ukrainians in a defensive war which Putin started.

If Tucker Carlson wants to say that Putin’s takeover of Ukraine is none of America’s business - that we have no legal obligation to Ukraine or no national interest in helping Ukraine preserve its sovereignty against Russia - then he should make that case, without incoherent moral judgments about pimp Zelensky or Ukraine as a rogue nation. I have yet to see him address the relationship between the US and the Russian Federation (Putin), the international order, the necessity for America’s superpower to a “balance of power”, a tri-polar world (China, Russia, the US), what American national interests are and how they can possibly just stop at its boundaries. I have yet to see him take a serious look at the international economic and political consequences for America in allowing Putin to expand the Russian Federation. Enabling Putin was a major achievement of Obama-ism.

The statement, “the US should not be pouring money down a bottomless pit of war while we are trillions in debt, and facing not only financial, but civilizational collapse at home” does not establish a case that the US has no interest in the outcome of the war. There is no attempt to evaluate the economic and “civilizational” costs of enabling Putin’s despotic imperialism. I have yet to see an argument explaining how America’s turning inward to focus on it own “civilizational collapse” will either prevent further collapse or restore the Republic to civil health.

The civilizational collapse is a global phenomenon, and the ideology corrupting governance world-wide is corrupting the Constitution. But it is through constitutional procedure that the American civilization must be restored. (Unless you are advocating counter-revolution) The corrupting ideology manifests itself locally in myriad way - BLM riots, critical justice, race and gender theory, tranny story- time, DEI, climate rules, electoral manipulation, abuse of office, politicization of the bureaucracy, demoralizing and weakening of the army, expanding government control of the economy, the national debt, inflation, censorship. Turning back the ideological tide from every institution - federal, state, local, corporate, public and private - will take a lot more than voting for politicians who will vote against sending American aid to Ukraine’s defense in the coming election.

Tucker is working to heat up Republican voters to get behind candidates for political office who promise to stop authorizing aid for Ukraine so that those aid funds will be redeployed to fix domestic ills. Tucker likes to think that aid funds for Ukraine’s defense of its borders can be use to control America’s borders. In practical political terms, Tucker is reducing - ad absurdum - the Ukraine war to a budget item. How far will the aid funds go towards building the wall, reducing the debt, curbing inflation, reassuring bank depositors, bailing out banks or generally fixing the government created-distortions of the market? Our economic troubles are inextricably linked with our (Obama’s) global energy policies. Aid to Ukraine has always been calibrated with the foreign policy posture towards Russia (Putin). Obama accommodated Putin’s despotic imperialism and aid to Ukrainian was non-lethal.

What does Tucker think a faction of no-aid-to-Ukraine Republicans can do to rectify America through the budget process? The new brooms he wants to see elected cannot clean up the financial, economic, civilizational mess through the instrumentality of their budget vote (yes, no, present or abstention). Does Tucker envisage their holding up budget, debt-ceiling raises and government-funding bills unless aid to Ukraine is stopped? What if legislative extortion can only manage to bring about a budget that reduces but does not eliminate aid? (The likeliest scenario). What would Tucker want a President DeSantis or Trump or Biden to do, sign or veto the budget? (There is no line-item veto). It is nonsense to think that budget politics define America’s vital national interests and with the right tweaking, the national budget can turn back woke ideology. Discretionary spending is a small and decreasing percentage of the total budget. The legislature’s powers (the “power of the purse”, the power to declare war, the power of oversight of the agencies) are weak and getting weaker, even if a party can be elected with a veto-proof majority.

To restore civilizational health to America, the first order of business would be to reverse the Democrat perversion of Constitutional power checks and balances to create a one-party state. The budget process is a small cog in the machinery of those checks and balances. It is not the lever by which we can move the nation. The one-party state is a stepping stone to the one-world regulatory state modeled on China. We are less likely to reverse that process by ignoring the Ukraine war, pretending that we have no interests in the power of Russia and China and the intentions of Putin and Xi are irrelevant.

That is why I say Tucker is offering no serious political point of view. He is rabble-rousing his audience to make himself and his show matter in the election campaign. I admire him for using his platform to seek justice for individual victims of official abuse or neglect (the Jan 6th protesters, East Palestine residents.) His bringing official scandals to the attention of his viewers that are ignored or falsified by the leftwing press and social media is praiseworthy. I do not need UFOs to be brought to my attention - especially to make that case of some sort of government conspiracy to suppress the mysterious “truth” of possible extraterrestrial, possibly alien, possibly hostile, but definitely superior technologically, intelligence. Government suppression of the truth of mysterious objects flying around, is not on the same level as suppression of the truth of viruses floating around. An explicit agenda among woke globalists to profit from climate-change fear-mongering is not the same as a secret conspiracy among woke Western leaders to profit from (expand their social control over populations) provoking a real World War 3. Tucker seems incapable of making sensible distinctions, and he relies on his followers not making them either.

You do not make a distinction between Zelensky’s “fighting for his life” or Ukraine’s fighting for its sovereignty against Russia, and "our [who? Republicans? Americans?] fighting for our life against our own government [Biden administration? Deep State?]. Why? To keep yourself in lock-step with Tucker?

I thought I did make a distinction. Zelensky is fighting the Russians with American taxpayers money, that Biden is giving him, while we, the taxpayers, are fighting, through judicial and political means, to prevent Biden from destroying our own nation. Biden’s spending has already put the nation in a financial crisis - our priority should be to prevent it’s total collapse, not escalate our involvement in a foreign war, which exacerbates it.
Negotiations could prevent a continuation of the war, saving billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and restore the “balance of power”.
I don’t think Tucker - or anyone - actually thinks that if Biden wasn’t giving money to Zelensky he’d be using it to protect our borders. We know that Biden is deliberately destroying our borders, and our sovereignty as a nation. If he’s that reckless with our own national security, he can’t be trusted to make rational decisions about Ukraine and Russia, either. But our equally reckless intelligence agencies are happy to fill that vacuum, by using Ukranians as fodder to accomplish their goal of regime change in Russia. I think there will be many unintended consequences to this.

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"I think you are wrong about Tucker and I believe you are clueless as to the reasoning of Americans, who agree with most of what he says."

Huh? I am an American. I don’t agree with Tucker on the Ukraine War. If I am clueless as to his reasoning, it is not for want of asking for clues. I have never received them.

I do think that the Ukraine War is too important a topic for a casual drive-by and a friendly wave. If you continue to link to war deniers, I will continue to leave comments seeking to know why and pointing out the irrationality of war denial. I have a duty to the forum to do so. We have many readers, American and foreign. I would not want them to get the impression that populist war denial was the orthodoxy of this site. No point in feeling bullied. You do you. I call 'em as I see 'em.

"Anti-War is not Pro-Putin. Asking that the U-R War end with negotiations over territory is not Pro-Putin. Not wanting to strangle the US any further is not Pro-Putin. Saving our country at the risk of negotiations by Ukraine and Russia on territory is not Pro-Putin. Ending this war to keep from having a global war is not Pro-Putin."

Enough of this.

In a war, when the one side cannot defend itself, the other side will win. If you demand that America stop arming Ukrainian defense forces, then you are willing Putin to win. That means that the anti-aid lobby is anti-Ukraine and therefore, pro-Putin. Negotiations over territory which Putin is occupying without fear of being militarily removed from favor Putin. Calling for such negotiations is pro-Putin. America turning its back on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine - for whatever reason - is pro-Putin. Enabling Putin’s imperialist grab of Ukraine for fear that defense of Ukraine will provoke a global war is 100% pro-Putin.

Why should you even object to being called pro-Putin? Why do you take it as an insult? It is a fact. I am not insulted by your calling me pro-Zelensky, even though he is a nasty little despotic pimp in your book. I am pro-Zelensky. You believe we should not be helping the whining beggar to defend himself against Putin. If Putin wins as a direct, foreseeable result of not arming Zelensky, then you cannot claim indifference to Putin’s win. You are pro-Putin winning. You can scream and scream until you make your self sick that you won’t be bullied into admitting you are pro-Putin. But I know you are pro-Putin. And, most importantly, Putin knows you are pro-Putin.

“War denier”? Interesting phrase. Sounds kind of like “election denier”.
So anyone who wants to negotiate an end to this war is now an irrational, pro- Putin war denier.
Seriously?

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You are clueless to the reasoning of Americans, who agree with most of what he says. That is not saying that you are not American, but that there are Americans, who agree with Tucker, and that you are clueless to their reasoning about the U-R War.

I don’t think I have ever implied that you are Pro-Zelensky, Claire. I know for sure that I am not Pro-Putin or Pro-Putin winning. I have said that Putin is not THE BAD GUY and that he is not the ONLY bad guy in this war…and I include Biden/Obama in that group.

I have not said I feel bullied. I said I thought Yazmin was bullied. I am not screaming at anybody. I certainly do not feel that I am being bullied into admitting I am Pro-Putin.

I can only admit that I do not agree with you, Claire…not with your assessment of the war situation and not with your assessment of me.

But I know you are pro-Putin. And, most importantly, Putin knows you are pro-Putin.

You are becoming more bizarre in your tirades.

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Liz, I don’t think most people are aware of how quickly the US is changing or putting into play the drastic changes that will destroy the nation and our freedoms and rights. Neither do I think that people are aware of how fast the world is changing against the West, nor how quick a global war could come.

Or maybe they are, and simply do not see any connection between what is happening and planned …and the Ukraine-Russian War.

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My thoughts, exactly.

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You make no moral distinction between a people fighting and dying for their national life and a people campaigning for a change of government. You are equating the existential crisis Ukrainians face against Putin in the coming years with the political crisis du jour Americans face against the other Party in the coming election. That positions the decision to stop funding Ukraine’s defense as simply part-and-parcel of a broad America-First policy, offered in answer to the various America-Last policies of the global welfare-statist Democrats. America’s super-power “security assistance” obligation to Ukraine can revert the kind of sovereignty-cum-social welfare program that it was under Obama. The America-First lobby does recognize that the costs to the Ukrainians in withdrawing the sovereignty welfare program will be high, and therefore talks about stopping further Ukrainian deaths by “negotiations” (mediated by China). It makes sense for negotiations to reduce the sovereignty problem to a smaller and more manageable size. Russia can manage the rest. I can think of no more visible proof to the axis of despots (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea) that America is a failing state in a terminal civilizational crisis than America’s turning itself inwards to deal with itself, thereby clearing space for the axis countries to bustle in. This is how MAGA America-Firsters are seduced into joining the leftist America-Last cult.

When we are all living under Chinese-style governance, liberty-lovers may retrospectively recalculate the costs and risks of not sending effective long-range artillery and air-defense weapons to Ukraine. I believe Ukraine had, maybe still has, a good chance of driving Russia back from its territory, without spreading the war into Russia or escalating it into a global conflict. We should be wanting to elect a “strong horse” Republican, who understands deterrence, is tight-lipped on military strategy, decisive, prepared to defend its allies, including Ukraine and Israel, who is prepared to fight on all fronts of the hybrid war and to get NATO’s deterrence in working order. I will be skeptical of any politician who panders to the Tucker Carlson. I want to see a recognition of the importance of defending Ukraine against Putin. I think that the Ukraine War is the “tipping point” in the global civilizational crisis.

I am pro-Zelensky! Go ahead, call me pro-Zelensky! But don’t feel that is an order. You don’t have to call me pro-Zelensky.
I am unable to take your word for your not being pro-Putin. I just can’t. Sorry, but I can’t defy the rules of logic. It’s not who I am.
Those statements are not tirades, but I don’t mind if you call them tirades. Bizarreness is in the eye of the beholder - so feel free.