PowerSwitch

Anyway, about Trump, I've got to say that, if nothing else, "The Donald" is certainly glib, and a skilled television performer. One of his main characteristics is the extreme certainty he projects about everything - mainly because he says it, and therefore believes it.

It's disturbing that he might actually gain traction this time, for this very reason. In uncertain times, people want to believe in someone who is certain he knows what's right and what should be done. At such times they also want a strong, aggressive leader, and based on everything he said, Trump would go beyond aggression to being an actively belligerent leader. He wants to be the alpha chimpanzee.

L: I've brought up an ABC interview on YouTube - he certainly sounds like a bully to me. Maybe that's what it's come to in what little is left of America; we need a bully in the White House to make ourselves feel strong again.

Doug: He's a huge fan of the military. He'd likely be using it everywhere, spending absurd amounts of money creating more orphans and widows and future enemies.

He said that going in to Libya for humanitarian purposes would be okay, but that you'd have to get in and out quickly - a surgical strike to cut out the cancer at the top. But this is ridiculous. If you're going to sanction what amounts to regicide in Libya for the common good, you'd have to do the same in Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and so forth, and that's just for starters. It would be equally logical to do the same in most of the countries in Africa and Central Asia, plus a few more in the Western Hemisphere. It's as if The Donald watched South Park's movie Team America: World Police, and thought it was a documentary, not a comedy.

L: Maybe the U.S. should launch multiple surgical strikes on itself to cut off the heads of our home-grown hydra. It could be for the common good.

Doug: [Chuckles] Hey, turnabout is fair play. Going to war for humanitarian purposes opens Pandora's box; any government can say any other government is misbehaving and can then launch attacks, surgical or otherwise.

Look, Libya is in the news today, but why is it getting so much more attention than any of the other despotisms in the region? Of course Gaddafi's a criminal - someone the planet would be better off without. But, as criminally idiotic kleptocrats go, he's actually one of the better ones, from the point of view of the average man on the street - especially among the tyrants of Africa and the Arab world. But he spoke out, poked at the beast in Washington, and now he's being made out to be the worst bête noir since the last enemy du jour. That's the reality.

To his credit, The Donald says his only real interest in Libya is the oil. I thought that was refreshing candor. He says he's got no great interest in Iraq, except that we should keep their oil - this would repay us for freeing them from their tyrant at the cost of the blood of American soldiers. If he had a sense of humor - something he appears to lack totally - he would simply have said, "What's our oil doing under their sand?" This is the sort of fascist populism that's really dangerous. Their blood doesn't matter, but ours is sacred - never mind the lies about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction that were used to justify the Iraq debacle.

Anyway, the idiocy - and ethical paucity - of Trump's view that we should take other peoples' resources as virtuous plunder - justified by the price the U.S. paid intervening where it was not invited - is staggering. It's essentially the theft of resources, just because you want them, and you can. The man appears to have a basically criminal personality. I'd never do business with him if I could avoid it. Fortunately, I can.