Kevin McCarthy Makes a Deal with the Devilish Far Right Allies of Antisemitism and Genocide
Cutting defense spending means paralyzing our nation's efforts to oppose the world's most evil and tyrannical states
This post is the twenty-fifth in an ongoing series on antisemitism and culture. See the previous installments here:
What It Means When the Leader of the Republican Party Dines With THREE Antisemites
When & Why Conspiracy Theorists Sometimes Stumble Onto the Truth
The JFK Conspiracy Theory Which Makes the Most Sense & Why It Matters Today
An Open Letter to Elon Musk Thanking Him for the Correct Decision Shutting Down Neo-Nazi Kanye West
4 Stupid Reasons People Don't Take Antisemitism as Seriously as They Should
Obsessing Over 'the Left' Sabotages the Fight Against Antisemitism
Elon Musk Brings Onboard 'How to Fight Anti-Semitism' Author Bari Weiss to Twitter 2.0
Even the Smartest Brains Can Become Infected with Antisemitism
Is Qatar the Most Terrible State in the Middle East? Or Is Iran Worse?
Indifferent to Racist Hate in America, Indifferent to Genocidal Hate in Ukraine
Please, My Jewish Friends: We Desperately Need You Here in America
7 Reasons This Christian Hippie Became a Zealot Against Jew Hatred
Bipolar Disorder Is Not an Excuse for Kanye West's Jew Hatred
Why This Bible Thumper Is Going to Keep Using Plenty of Profanity
These writings are part of my ongoing effort to overcome my PTSD by forcing myself to try to write and publish something every day commenting on and analyzing current cultural affairs and their impacts on politics, faith, and, well, everything. “Politics is downstream from culture,” the late Andrew Breitbart popularized among conservative bloggers while he was alive. I’d go a step further: Everything is downstream from culture. The cultures you embrace determine who you are and who you become. You become what you worship.
A former professional colleague of mine whose novel series I previously edited and pushed hard for publishing (even though my share of the royalties were stolen from me by the despicable far right publishers), Quin Hillyer, has drafted an erudite analysis at The Washington Examiner. This is a decent publication which has previously published my writings on Islamism in 2019 and I was once subscribed to before it generally got too boring and predictable for my tastes, Quin’s writings being a handful of exceptions.
Quin is rightfully criticizing the misnamed “Freedom Caucus” and the defense budget cut demands they made to which that craven coward Kevin McCarthy embraced in order to fulfill his narcissism to become Speaker of the House. It’s a decent piece filled with plenty of numbers, careful analysis, and Quin’s characteristic restrained rhetoric.
Quin, a fellow Reaganite defense hawk like myself, criticized the caucus’s demand - they really should be renamed Putin’s nationalist-populist coward caucus - to significantly cut defense spending at a time when serious enemies continue to threaten freedom:
But for defense, a return in fiscal 2022 spending would amount to a massive cut of nearly 9% from 2023 levels, not even including the effects of inflation that would make the effect of the cuts significantly exceed 10%.
Contrary to the domestic spending levels, which already were historically distended, defense spending, even after a big boost in 2023, still lagged behind historical practice. In other words, the huge cuts would come not from bloat but from a military that already is underfunded, even as the challenges to national security grow more pressing.
Quin rightfully explains that this is absurd, unreasonable and even dangerous. He runs down the list of our enemies which warrant our nation’s continued substantial military funding to oppose:
Additionally, consider what our armed services face now compared to 2012. China’s total military spending is at least a third larger now, even after taking inflation into account, and China has massively improved both the scale and accuracy of its anti-U.S. capabilities and added hundreds of ballistic missiles it did not possess back then.
Also, the terrorist group the Islamic State, which barely existed in 2012, is now reportedly reconstituting for a major attempt at an expected comeback this year. And all around the globe, instability is greater now than in 2012. Iran is closer to nuclear weapons capabilities than ever, North Korea keeps improving the deliverability of its nuclear forces, and Turkey continues moving in an Islamist direction, away from the West.
For all these reasons, it would be foolhardy, indeed irresponsible, for House Republicans to demand defense cuts back to 2022 levels. Weakness invites foreign aggression. The results could be disastrous.
Quin identifies four antisemitic ideological threats to global peace: the Islamic State, Iran and its ally China, and a Turkey which is starting to return back to Islamist ideology. (I would have added Russia to the list too.) I had optimistically hoped Turkey’s antisemitic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan was abandoning Islamism out of a sense of pragmatism. It appears my hope may have been misplaced.
A recent op-ed today at The Algemeiner by Morgan P. Muchnick explained “The Devolution of Turkey,” a few highlights from the piece I found especially relevant to include:
During the many, many years since his ascendancy, Turkey has, instead of being the ‘Muslim nation on a Hill’, followed the disconcerting trend of too many Muslim nations in the past; that of a repressive, one-party pho-democracy. Ironically, as nations such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Morocco, Egypt, and others are moving quickly toward a more modern approach to geopolitics and rights for its citizenry, Turkey has devolved…
Moreover, Erdogan has deep roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, and has often met with the leaders of Hamas, which is excessively repressive towards the rights of women, homosexuals, and religious minorities, and which strains the relationship between Turkey, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. While Turkey is certainly not as repressive as Afghanistan, it is most definitely on the similar path of moving backward.
For example, Turkey is ranked as the world’s worst nation for press freedoms, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), worse than both China and Iran. Since 2010, Turkey has become less free every year, and has steadily increased that trend following the attempted coup d’é·tat in 2016. According to many in the human rights sector, Turkey accounts for nearly 1/3 of all arrested journalists in the world. In short, over the past decade, Turkey has become the world’s capital for censorship, political pressure on journalists, and journalist imprisonments.
I admit that I had grown more optimistic on Turkey because of its improving relations with Israel which Muchnick notes here:
Turkey, hungry for a resumption of the lucrative Israeli tourism industry, is beginning to thaw its relations with Israel. In October of this year, Turkey appointed a new ambassador to Israel, Sakir Ozkan Torunlar, and in December, Israel sent a well-known emissary back to Turkey.
But let’s be straight: this is likely a cynical ploy for greater economic gain, not any sort of genuine, principled allying with the Jewish people.
As Quin was sending around his article for his right-wing kin to consider I praised him for it but employed my my now frequent profane rhetoric which I employ to express my fury at political idolatry honestly.
Quin, I would amend your conclusion:
For all these reasons, it would be foolhardy, indeed irresponsible, for House Republicans to demand defense cuts back to 2022 levels. Weakness invites foreign aggression. The results could be disastrous.
Here is how I would revise it:
For all these reasons, it would be foolhardy, indeed irresponsible, OUTRIGHT EVIL, AND FUCKING MORALLY REVOLTING for House Republicans to demand defense cuts back to 2022 levels. Weakness invites foreign aggression FROM GODLESS SLAVE STATES. The results could be disastrous AND DRENCHED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT.
Iran, Russia and China are fucking evil genocidal slave states, committed to exterminating Jews, Ukrainians, and Uyghurs. To in any way weaken ourselves so these tyrannies can increase in power is akin to allowing the Soviet Empire to grow around the globe during the Cold War or for the Nazis to conquer Europe during World War II. Yes, when we’re talking about states engaged in genocide then Nazi comparisons are entirely appropriate and morally necessary. NEVER AGAIN means NEVER AGAIN.
Anyone who advocates such naive and ignorant neo-isolationist policy is aiding and abetting evil; they are supporters of the rape and torture of children in Ukraine by evil Russian motherfuckers. Such people are deserving of condemnation in the most forthright terms.
The populist-nationalist coalition which now dominates the GOP is a deeply evil ideological movement - as were its predecessors Patrick J. Buchanan's paleo-conservatism and Dr. Ron Paul's paleo-libertarianism.
Moral conservatives must speak loudly and with righteous anger to condemn them and to continue to advocate for freedom for the Ukrainian people, the Chinese people, the Persian people, and all humans oppressed by tyrannical regimes around the globe.