Don’t like Ramasmarmy.
vivek needs to be hardened to take on the deep state... four years along side donald trump will do that.
Ramaswamy also did a Darkhorse podcast with Bret Weinstein. Once you get past Bret trying to define certain words, the conversation gets interesting ... last hour I would say, is especially good.
https://rumble.com/v2w3dsa-bret-speaks-with-vivek-ramaswamy-on-the-darkhorse-podcast.html
Vivek is a smart guy, has some good points. But he supports mass legal immigration. At this time in American history, we need to shut down immigration, legal or illegal. So I can’t support Vivek.
ping
I thought that he couldn’t become POTUS, legally! This wasn’t asked of him?
Jordan Peterson also recently did an interview with Vivek Ramaswamy.
Also recognize that we change our views on things as we receive more perfect information. For instance, I’m willing to bet that a significant percentage of Freepers thought Dick Cheney was great some 20+ years ago. I bet the vast majority of Freepers were just chomping at the bit for the Iraq war to begin. How many of you think those were good things today? We learn and we change.
Ramaswamy admits that he’s still learning. Christ, most of us look up stuff regularly when we post things on FR and I even attempt to learn several significant things each day.
It seems the people who don’t like him are getting stuck on little things like the “gay gene” thing or buy into the narrative that he’s some he’s a Soros stooge because he accepted a scholarship from George’s brother’s foundation. That doesn’t bother me the least bit since I accepted a rag tag bunch of scholarships to help pay for my college. I wrote essays that I thought would get me scholarships and catered to what I thought they wanted to hear from me. It had nothing to do with my beliefs. In fact, I was particularly proud of one scholarship because it came from a very liberal old woman in Philadelphia. I was proud because I got it and some liberal kid didn’t. And yes, I was to the right of Attila the Hun when I was a teen.
The thing that impressed me the most in the Tucker interview was Ramaswamy explaining his thoughts on Taiwan. He set up his own flip flop in the future. Some simpletons will call it exactly that, a flip flop. First, he’ll defend Taiwan and then he won’t. But he gave his reason and what he’s going to do about it. When have you ever heard any politician do that on such a significant issue. The thing is, I have the same basic policy model and it is not a new idea. I’ve had it since I was a kid, although I have upgraded the idea over time.
The policy model is very simple but tends to be very difficult to implement. The meta model has the following components: 1.) A nation or region that has something we need very badly. It was oil when I was a kid in the 70’s.
2.) The nation or region needed our economic assistance or military support due to some threat.
3.) We had the ability give them aid or military support, but it would cost us and we didn’t want to do that forever.
4.) We had the resource or product in some quantity but currently lacked the ability to produce it to meet our needs.
5.)We had the potential to produce a quantity of the resource or product to be self sufficient or better yet, become an exporter of product beyond our own needs.
The policy implementation is you provide aid or military support in the short term while developing the ability to be domestically self sufficient. Then you eliminate that aid or military support. It’s a pure business transaction with nations that we really have no other interests than the product or resource they can provide.
Back in the 70’s that was oil and it came from the Middle East. I personally don’t give a damn about what they have other than oil. I have no desire to go there, be their friends, or help them prosper when there a more than enough problems we needed to solve at home. And yes, we had problems that needed to be fixed at home in the 70’s, and we had budget deficits and a growing national debt. Back then I thought we could develop oil sands in Colorado to be self sufficient. It turns out the solution was fracking in Texas, the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia as well as opening access to oil fields in Alaska and offshore. Trump proved it could be done some 40+ years later simply by getting government out of the way. What he didn’t do is withdraw economic and military support for the region. Quite honestly, we should have started moving our military focus out of the ME to SE Asia back in 2018.
Ramaswamy essentially described the same thing in the Tucker interview except it was with Taiwan and becoming chip-independent instead of oil-independent. All the same elements of the model exist. I’ve never heard a politician so clearly express this in an honest manner. He put it in clear terms so that most people could understand. Most importantly, he expressly said that we would not fight for Taiwan after we become chip-independent.
Now all the neocon war mongers will have problems with that and will cry democracy this and democracy that. I don’t give a rats ass about Taiwan. I’ve worked their in the past. But I don’t want to go there again at the expense of maintaining a military to fight the PLA.
By the way, I think removing our dependence on Taiwan it actually lessens China’s desire to unify by force with Taiwan. Their prize asset is the chip business.
Becoming chip-independent doesn’t solve all our problems with China. We are dependent on mainland China for many other things, most importantly pharmaceuticals, rare earth metals, and steel, followed by all the crap people buy at box stores. To solve those problems we need to be energy dominant so that we have extremely cheap energy to fuel American industry. That lowers the price of what America manufactures which will make American businesses a net exporter and dominant in the world once again. Next we need to get government out of the way so we can use the other bounties that our land provides: mining for rare earths, iron and other metals needed to reinvigorate our dying steel production for instance.
When we are self sufficient it completely changes foreign policy. It allows us to make decisions and policies without be held hostage by our most basic needs. When neocons go on about peace through strength, they actually mean endless wars because they think war is strength for some queer reason. I don’t think Ronald Reagan had war in mind when he brought forth the notion of peace through strength. We are strong when we do not have to rely on others and when we can withdraw more and more of our military to DEFEND OUR BORDERS.
I am through with the idea of sending our sons off to endless wars where they die, become crippled or psychologically damaged. We don’t need to waste our treasure on places where we have no national interests. We can limit and eliminate the places where we have national interests by becoming self sufficient.
Now sit down for this. There is a significant dividend to all this that people will resist. We can substantially cut defense spending. I’m positive there’s enough waste and useless crap right now to cut military spending by 10% to 15%. So it’s not a stretch to have self sufficiency dividend of 50% to 60% AND be more secure than we are today.
To conclude, I don’t know if Ramaswamy is going to be a political force in the future, but some of his ideas and solutions ring true. You get that from candidates that don’t have a lifetime of government experience building absolutely nothing. Quite honestly, every presidential candidate pales in comparison to Ramaswamy and Trump. They are not the swamp. They both want to eliminate the administrative state. They both know how build things. Trump will get my vote and I hope some Ramaswamy’s ideas become mainstream as they are a clear extension of Trump’s first term.
I watched the video on X, formerly Twitter. I think it’s worthwhile to listen to his ideas.
He claims that we are almost totally dependent on Taiwan for semiconductors. If mainland China takes over Taiwan, they will have a gun to our head. He thinks we may have to branch out to Japan and Korea as we rebuild domestic US capability.
Intelligent international trade can be mutually enriching. However, sometimes trade must take a back seat to national security. We should not be totally dependent on others for vital resources or technology.
His other comments are interesting too.
It’s become commonplace to disparage the war in Iraq. I think even President Trump has done so. I think I caught a little of this from Tucker, but Vivek did not take the bait.
There are a few prominent omissions from the consensus understanding of the war in Iraq. Under President Clinton, Congress funded a program of regime change in Iraq. That was an act of war. How many people realize this?
We warred against Hussein under Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Bush. Congressional language was always similar. As I recall, it cited support for terrorism and genocide, failure to comply with treaties, and efforts to develop WMDs.
As to the attack on the World Trade Center, we should remember that it was the second attempt. The first occurred in 1993. With a few more sticks of dynamite the results would have been more devastating than in 2001. Even after all these years, I don’t think we know who was behind these events. I don’t think we can justifiably rule out Saddam Hussein for one or both events.