Pence Delivers Trump's Message to NATO -- Honor Your Promise to Raise Spending for Your Own Self-Defense -- and NATO Agrees

There's been a lot of stupid talk on this point from liberals their allies the neocon nevertrumpers, who claim that a demand that treaty partners honor their side of a bargain somehow undermines the treaty.

Here's the deal. Suppose I'm a tough guy at school, like Adam Baldwin in My Bodyguard, but with even more GAINZZZ. Suppose I offer my protection to a bunch of pussies, and say I'll fight their fights for them, if they help me with the things they're good at, like homework, playing a female elf cleric in Dungeons & Dragons, and failing at life.

I might have a big precondition for the offer of protection. Such as this:

* Kid, you gotta train in the basics of fighting with me a couple of times a week and do SQUATZZZ so that you're not such an easy target. Not only does this help you, Kid, it helps me, because the more you can act as your own deterrent system, the less bullies will pick on you, and then the less I'll have to get into fights on your behalf.

* Furthermore, in case I wind up getting into more trouble than I can handle, I'd sort of like you to be able to pitch in here and there. Maybe grab one of his arms so I can get in a clean punch, maybe just hold my beer for me while I choke a clown out.

Not that unreasonable, right? Since the protection being offered involves risk to the one providing it -- Matt Dylan was supposed to be a tough guy because he like carried a pack of cigarettes in his rolled-up t-shirt sleeve, and plus I've got a sweet motorcycle I'd hate to see thrown in a lake --it's not unreasonable for the person offering the protection and back-up for the protectee to take modest precautions and employ basic deterrent strategies to reduce the protector's costs in the bargain.

That was the deal that was struck. The Cassandra Chorus of the neocon nevertrump rump party thinks it's "weak" to ask treaty partners to honor treaty commitments and harden themselves up against a potential aggressor. That is, it's "weak" to demand that treaty partners take the threat of Russian invasion kind of seriously if they expect us to kill tens of thousands of our own servicemen protecting them from that invasion.

I think they also consider it kind of "low-class" to take a firm position on our getting our side of the bargain, because, apparently, it's "higher class" to just give away the store for free with no considerations received in return. I think you signal your upper income level by showing off how little fucks you give about return on investment and repayment of loans and stuff.

There seems to be a deep undercurrent of that in all the complaints about the America First idea -- that it's all a bit grubby and lower-middle-class to be so concerned about petty things like money. Someone who is very comfortably rich doesn't have to worry about money, and can afford to think only in Ideals without any consideration of pricetag, and I guess we're all supposed to adopt that attitude of the comfortably rich, even if we're not personally rich, and even if the country is not particularly fat with disposable cash at the moment.

Anyway, Pence delivered the demand, and NATO is at least providing lip-service to the idea of not being such bully-magnet pussies in the future.

I doubt that will ever happen, but the CRISIS IN NATO is at least on pause for a few days, until the poor dears start exciting themselves up all over again, drinking sugared soda and getting all fidgety on gummy worms.

I can't help but notice that "conservatism" has been transformed by our alleged intellectuals into a "market-based" justification for endless obligations of welfare to third parties, and in which it's considered unseemly and gross to ask for anything in return for our own exertions on other's behalf.

We're supposed to do all of this peace-keeping and international-justice-seeking, precisely as liberals argue, without any actual self-interest to vindicated (having any self-interest in these matters makes taints them with dirty, mercenary greed), and we're always just supposed to do for everyone out of the overflowing munificence of our global citizen heart.

"What heart?" -- Tom, Miller's Crossing

In Progress: Milo has resigned (probably with encouragement) from Breitbart, and is now giving a press conference, carried in a livestream.

posted by Ace at 03:06 PM

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