My Thoughts on Hot Presidential Debate Topics

I’ve been watching the September 12th, 2019, Democratic Debate. Here are my thoughts so far:

1-On Gun Control) Those who want to take away the guns will bump into something called the Second Amendment. The Founding Fathers did not create the Second Amendment so Americans can go hunting or protect themselves from a would-be thief or home invasion. The purpose of the Second Amendment was so that the citizens had the means to overthrow the government. That means until the people repeal the Second Amendment, people will have assault rifles, and there will be assault rifle homicides as a result. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, yet it has sky-high gun homicide rate. You won’t be able to regulate your way out of gun violence.

2-On Health Care) Medicare for all is an unaffordable, government and hospital bankrupting non-starter. The best bet is incremental improvements to the Affordable Health Care Act, aka Obamacare.

3-On Immigration) The wall may slow some people down, but it is not a foolproof solution if you want to solve illegal immigration. Changing the laws of what happens after you get here illegally and streamlining how you can get here legally is required to solve the immigration problem. Keep one thing in mind regarding immigration; you cannot solve the problems of everyone in the world by bringing them here.

4-On Climate Change) First keep in mind that a prosperous country is far better equipped to deal with climate change than an impoverished nation. A poor government will do whatever is necessary to scrape by regardless of environmental consequences. Carbon credits are probably the most sensible way to steer people and industry towards climate-friendly behavior. Keep in mind, that if the system imposed to become carbon neutral is so harmful or oppressive to the economy that it causes economic depression, then that nation will revert to doing whatever is necessary to survive, environmental consequences be damned. 

5-On Endless War) We can withdraw our military from Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow if that is what the people want. However, three types of people will fill the void when we leave. Those three types of people are bad people, more bad people, and worse people. The people in charge will deny women education, and 10-year-old girls will be forced to marry. Ultimately (and it is only a matter of time) those wicked people will export their badness, and it will come here. Wanting the war to stop, being tired of it, wishing it to stop, praying for it to stop and leaving the Middle East, so it stops; will not stop the bad people, it will not stop the war. The bad people have not surrendered, the bad people want it to continue. It will only change where we wind up fighting the bad people.

6-On China and the Trade War) Everyone says they don’t like the tariffs and wants to negotiate with China without them. We’ve been talking with China since Nixon. All that talk resulted in China ripping us off to the tune of billions every year. I think the people of Hong Kong knows the Chinese better than we do, and they know that talk alone will not work. China will do whatever China wants to do regardless of American or international opinions until they are forced in some way, shape, or form to do otherwise. The tariffs are causing American businesses to move their supply chains out of China. China is losing jobs as a result. When the Net Present Value of economic losses due to declines in Chinese manufacturing and exports starts to outweigh the NPV of economic gain from ripping off U.S. intellectual property...then and only then will China sign a deal. With that said, all these businesses that say they cannot move their supply chains out of China are poppycock. Granted, the affected companies cannot do this overnight, but if they were to start now, I guarantee they could find another location before the trade war is even close to ending. This moving out of China also goes for farmers who need to find new markets for their crops. There’s a whole big hungry world out there that needs to eat.

I want to talk briefly about the three worst things:

• Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
• Capitalism and free markets are the worst way to distribute wealth, except for all the others. 
• Tariffs are the worst way to wage a trade war except for all the others.