As I see it: Mussolini vs Lucrezia Borgia? There is an alternative

You accuse me of a lie when it is you who have committed distortion. You accuse me of a lie when all I have done is express an opinion. Are you arguing that I don't honestly hold the opinion?

You are the one who's distorting because you present a video as though it meant something 180° opposite of the context. We all know that Ted Cruz was fighting with every stratagem imaginable to stop the legislation of the Gang of Eight in the Senate. He was doing that by inserting poison pills which were routinely being voted down. The idea that this amendment, depicted in the video which of course was also voted down, was to smoke out the Democrats to show their ultimate aim was to grant illegals citizenship not just amnesty. The Democrats would not accept the amendment because they want to load the polls with illegals, otherwise defined as undocumented Democrats.

Sometime later Cruz went over to the House of Representatives and lobbied successfully to stop the Gang of Eight legislation there and, combined with the fortuitous election of Dave Brat, the dangerous bill of the Gang of Eight went down to defeat. While Ted Cruz was successfully fighting our corner on this and other issues Donald Trump was funding Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell who were doing everything in their power to passe this bill which would and conservatism for a generation.

Now we are supposed to believe the Donald Trump who seized on an issue that his paid researchers found for him to pave his way to the White House has had an epiphany, has repented of his sodomite fellowship with Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, and Mitch McConnell.

You might reconsider before you start throwing the term "lie" around. You can legitimately say my judgment is faulty, you can legitimately say I have my facts wrong, but to accuse me of lying for expressing an opinion, especially when the facts and context are on my side, is an outrage.

By your standards which of the two of us is a liar in this instance, the one who knows Ted Cruz actually fought against the bill or the one who believes Donald Trump who financed it has actually had some sort of epiphany and repents of his sordid associations? Who is the liar according to your standards?

Let's be careful, Cruz wrote an editorial supporting TPA. Yes, he voted for TPA when the vote was crucial and only voted against it when his vote could not affect the outcome. Since then, Cruz has explicitly stated he will vote against TPP.

It is perfectly believable that TPP can be defeated in the Congress. If it is defeated or if it is passed, it will be done in accordance with a procedure which has been in place in America for well over a century. There could be no trade at the levels we need for the economy without a trade deal and there can be no trade deal without TPA. It is not conservative to dismiss these facts as Trump and his supporters cavalierly do. 40% of the world's trade-amounting to trillions of dollars a year-are affected by this trade agreement.

An opinion which is predicated on the belief that international trade is absolutely essential to the American economy in the twenty-first century is a truly conservative position. The idea that any treaty or, in this case, statute, which advances American trade interests is somehow contrary to conservatism is preposterous. Again, who is lying? By your standards, you are.

You can interpret the facts the way you like but you cannot decently call somebody a liar because he interprets the implication of those facts in a different way. You can define conservatism as you like but it is not legitimate to claim that somebody else is a liar because he disagrees with your interpretation, or even Donald Trump's interpretation. In my view, you can distort conservatism all you like but it does not make the distortion conservative. To accept without criticism Donald Trump's dismissal of trade or to assume that Donald Trump himself and he alone is smart enough to make trade deals is to play the fool for Donald Trump.

I oppose Donald Trump to maintain my self-respect, I choose not to play the fool for Donald Trump, and I invite every open-minded reader of this forum to do the same.

The conundrums of trade cannot simply be dismissed by announcing a new dialectic. Because of technology we all now live in a globalist world whether we like it or not. We have allies around the globe. Our relationship with them depends to some degree on our trade relationship with them.

To the degree that an "American" position is a protectionist position, we might well frustrate our legitimate economic and security interests around the globe.

Moreover, we cannot even clearly define an "American" position on trade (as distinguished from a "protectionist" position or even from an "un-American" position) because virtually every trade arrangement affects positively or negatively some sector of the American economy. The example I often use, if the trade deal favors protecting Hollywood's output, it might necessarily require surrender of the interests of Detroit's output. That is not to say the trade negotiations are a zero-sum game, but it is to say that characterizing a trade deal as "American" is a fool's errand.

If you are protecting jobs in Detroit, you are hurting consumers all across the country when they set out to buy an automobile and find that the price of the Japanese car they actually want is increased by a tariff. Often times the goal of advancing American products because it advances the job count in America backfires. When the import of Japanese cars was restricted, the government had to back down because of the outcry from foreign car dealerships and their employees who suffered as a result.

Bluff and bluster, Donald Trump style, sounds good, gets the folks excited at rallies, but has very little to do with reality and is dangerous when done by a demagogue.

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