Let's be more constructive, please

9/23/26:

Yours truly used to follow Ringer a lot more closely than lately. It seems that Ringer jumped on the never-Trump wagon, and I took exception.

The Iran War has gone on too long, sure. But Iran is getting a lot of help.

Anyway, I haven't visited Ringer site for awhile, and I returned. His next post after the one I took issue with sounds more like the Ringer I thought I knew. The trouble is, what if your crticisms are off the mark???

The criticism of the free traders is that tariffs are not the kind of thing we should be doing. The premise isn't exactly faulty, but the assumption of "free" is definitely faulty. As can be seen if one goes to the CTH site, which explains that the markets are being manipulated. It isn't free, therefore. It is awfully damned convenient for the lefties to have the markets go haywire just in time for the elections. It has happened before, and now it is happening again. However, if we have some luck, and if we explain ourselves well enough, we may be able to demonstrate that the markets aren't fee after all.

Therefore, tariffs are justified. The trade war with our "allies" is not something unwarranted, nor came out of the blue. If the markets aren't truly free, and are being rigged, then something must be done to make them more fair. Thus, you have tariffs.

I have never believe the Milton Friedman line that we should find it "wonderful" if other countries were willing to accept our dollars in exchange for goods. The thing that gets lost is our capacity to produce. This will have very bad results over time. The results have been a hollowing out of our economic base. Tariffs have been a means to redress that harm.

The doctrinaire opinion is that tariffs cause inflation. One thing that I still agree with Milton Friedman---inflation is a monetary phenomenon. It isn't caused by what they'd like to blame--the Iran War; but it IS caused by some entity that is rigging the price over the short term in order to manipulate public opinion, and to influence elections.

Therefore, raising interest rates are not going to help. In fact, it may well cause harm.

The FED is a problem too. Evidently replacing the FED chairman was not enough. The FED isn't pursuing policies that are in our interest. To the contrary, they are doing the opposite.

We need to question the conventional wisdom. It doesn't help to have sacred cows.

Ringer may have some, and it is not necessarily helpful at the moment.

6/7/26: The original post is below:

Just did a 'truth' on Truth Social. It is embedded below, with some additional comments afterward.



Comment on the "truth":

Yours truly has a few complaints about Ringer's complaints about Trump. Let me list them:

1) Duration of the war: response: The "war" has paused for longer than the actual hostilities took place. There's been a ceasefire for quite some time, but the detractors keep calling it a "war".

2) Trump is probably guilty of hyperbole. With regard to "no more targets left to bomb", this is probably a bit of hype. You could say the same about Ringer's criticisms. Does Trump have to be 100% accurate in every single thing he says. If he was, almost everybody will have to go out of business.

3) He has a list of other quotes that fit the same pattern. Point made. I think we all get it.



He does list some of Trump's achievements here, to be fair. I want to be fair. Maybe being a better communicator, we can all start by being fair with the criticisms.

There are indeed some good communicators. Maybe could say even GREAT ones. One of those is The Conservative Treehouse.

Some may think of CTH ( Conservative Treehouse) as a Trump shill. But it isn't. Even if you think it is partisan Trumpist, the points are quite often valid nonetheless.

Of course, I support Trump. Of course, I've had my frustrations. But the guy delivers more often than not. For that reason, I say 'criticism is okay, but be fair about it.' Sometimes, I've hyped the criticism of Trump myself. But I'm dialing the hype back. In constrast, the left doesn't tolerate any criticism at all. We should not be like them. But we shouldn't overdo it. Rein it in a bit, but don't go to war just over a relatively minor point.

The left is victim of its own groupthink. They aren't stupid. Indeed, groupthink can happen even among some very intelligent folk. There's more than one way to be stupid. Forcing yourself into groupthink is really dumb, ya'll.

Trump should explain his economic agenda a bit better. The American System has a long history in this country, so it isn't something Trump pulled out of his hat. It is more like a Hamiltonian approach to industrial strength. America has all but abandoned home-grown industry. That has to change, and Trump is doing that. That is one of the reasons I support the guy.

His speaking is easy to forgive because his faults are not that big of a deal to me.