POTUS, not POU

What is more amazing? Seeing an American president and vice president stand up to a parasitic foreigner in the Oval Office, telling it like it is, or seeing half of America condemn them for doing the very thing they are supposed to do?

Ukraine–more accurately, Ukraine’s current government–is not important to American interests, yet it has sucked up something like $350 billion in various forms of aid, depending on whom you believe. Ukraine wants more. Russia, on the other hand, is a necessary partner for the US because of China’s exploding influence. We have done nearly everything we could to anger and disrespect Russia (not just Putin), and we have driven Russia into China’s eager arms.

I keep saying I have never seen anyone explain why we need to put ourselves out for Ukraine. This is still true. I check occasionally, and I have never seen Ukraine supporters provide a good rationale.

I will discuss some arguments I have seen.

1. Helping Ukraine weakens Russia’s war machine.

First of all, why do we need to weaken Russia’s war machine, and why do we call it a war machine? We don’t call the UK’s military a war machine.

Russia has no plans to retake Europe. It has disputes over little bits of territory, but that’s about it. It would have settled for small pieces of Ukraine had it been able to get concessions from Zelenskyy, and I’m sure Putin knows he will never get the entire country, which brings me to my second point.

Russia’s military doesn’t really need to be weakened. We have seen how it performs, and it’s a big relief. Barring the use of nuclear weapons, Russia is a feeble opponent. And if we had made Russia an ally, we would want it to be strong, not weak.

2. A huge percentage of the aid for Ukraine stayed in the US because it went to build arms here.

This one is really stupid. The arms left the country, so wealth left the country. Experts say the arms drain has left us vulnerable. It will take years to replace the stuff we’ve sent, and in the meantime, China is trying to find the best time to go after Taiwan.

No matter how you slice it, we have spent a ton of money that could have been saved or spent on our own citizens, who are the ones who have to work to pay our debt.

3. We need Ukraine’s minerals and helium and so on.

We can buy things from Ukraine regardless of who rules it. If Putin takes over, we ought to be able to outbid the Chinese. He’s not going to refuse to sell to us. Zelenskyy is refusing to give us access without ridiculous concessions that will further destabilize the region and alienate Russia, so it’s not like things are going great under his rule.

It seems to me that cutting Ukraine off would be very helpful in more than one way.

It would teach the warlike Europeans they need to learn how to get along, pay their own bills, and solve their own conflicts. It would save us money. It could save American lives.

We had no business entering World War I. A big inbred family ran Europe, and they had an internal squabble. They fought for childish reasons, and we shouldn’t have enabled them. We had to fight World War II, but that doesn’t mean we need to send men to bleed and die, or that we have to empty our treasury, every time far-off foreigners take the saber-rattling too far.

Germany is rich. Norway is rich. Switzerland is rich. Other European countries are doing well. The Cold War threat is long gone. Still, we send men and money to defend these brat countries which are perfectly capable of looking after themselves. We are increasing our debt in order to balance their budgets. That’s moronic and unfair. Think of all the hours you work every year. How many hours do you work for Germany? France? Italy? How many hours do you think their citizens work for you? Virtually none, in case you’re wondering. The USA receives nearly no aid, and this is considered fair.

We used to pay Europeans to side with us against Russia and China. We had to. Now the USSR and its dream of global domination are dead, and while China is a problem, it’s not planning on ruling the world. Why are we paying these people? They insult and libel America constantly for failing to solve the problems they create, and they don’t even like Americans on a personal level. They’re just not into us, so we need to stop dating. Maybe they’ll appreciate us after we turn off the breast pump.

Europe isn’t Africa. It’s not India. It’s not the pre-Columbian Americas. Europe created civilization, science, and engineering. It’s not populated by people whose grandparents were illiterate savages with a 50% infant mortality rate. It’s reasonable to expect them to look after themselves.

If Russia took Ukraine today, nothing bad would happen to America. In fact, we would be a lot better off. So what is Zelenskyy thinking, going to our White House dressed for a night at Hooters, failing to show any courtesy or gratitude, and lecturing our elected leaders for not doing enough for him?

He’s whining about being excluded from peace talks. Well, he has a point. Ukraine shouldn’t have excluded itself. That’s what happened. Ukraine was so lacking in good faith, Trump had to talk to the Russians ex parte. If you want to sit at the adults’ table, sit up straight and quit throwing food and chewing with your mouth open.

It would be great if the country that excluded Ukraine, which is Ukraine, had behaved better. I think we can all agree on that.

I’ll tell a story about my sister the addict.

After years of abusing my parents, and after secretly getting my dad to fund several deliberately-aborted rehab stints she could easily afford, and after ruining the house he bought her and forcing him to pay the property taxes, and after calling the police to his house and amusing them by claiming she was scared of a man in his mid-80’s, one day she barged into his living room and gave him an ultimatum.

I was there at the time. I was not visible to her, but I heard everything. I stayed hidden because it gave me an edge.

I heard the door open and slam shut. A woman’s heels banged across the hardwood floor. An angry voice yelled, “I’m going to give you ONE more chance!”

Then I heard two sets of footsteps moving in the opposite direction, and I heard her objecting to whatever he was doing. I heard the door open and shut, and then there was quiet. Precious, priceless quiet.

He had taken her by the arm and deposited her on the porch.

At the time, she had a splint on her arm. She had passed out in her kitchen and fallen, landing on a glass that broke in the process. The arm clearly was not broken, although she claimed otherwise, because it bore a simple splint held on with an elastic bandage.

Right away, I got a Bluetooth call from her filthy BMW 335i. She was going to call the Florida Bar and have his license taken. She was sending the police to have him arrested. He had re-broken her arm. She was in terrible pain. She wasn’t going to stand for it.

She had a habit of keeping a McDonald’s Coke in her hand as much of the time as possible. This is what cost her most of her teeth. She used to buy Cokes at the drive-through. She said other Cokes weren’t as good.

While she was yammering, I heard her order a Coke and pay for it. Through the window of her car and a McDonald’s window. After driving herself there.

Some broken arm.

I let her rant so I could gather information, and then she ended the call.

I told my dad she had threatened to send the police, and he said, “They’ll never take me alive.” We had a good chuckle.

My dad disinherited my sister in 2004 and again not long before he died, and she knew he had done it. She could have been reinstated. She just had to smooth things over and show him due respect. She never did it, so I got absolutely everything.

I stayed out of it. My mother threatened to disinherit her in 1997, and I talked her out of it. Biggest mistake of my life. I like money, but it wasn’t the issue. The problem was that the shared inheritance tied my sister to me after my mother’s death and made me miserable. When my dad surprised me by cutting my sister off, I told God I had learned my lesson, and I kept my mouth shut. Not my problem. Not my responsibility.

It has been fantastic, being free of her. I can’t describe the relief and gratitude I feel every day.

Zelenskyy is like my sister. He has no idea how negotiation works, while Donald Trump is the single most famous negotiator in the history of the world. Trump keeps telling him he has no cards, but Zelenskyy keeps treating him as though we need Ukraine.

I would guess he is in contact with a lot of deluded Democrats, and he probably watches left-leaning news shows. He may be under the grossly mistaken impression that Americans are going to rise up in arms if Trump doesn’t do as he’s told. Most of us won’t do it, and if we did, Trump wouldn’t care.

We need to cut Zelenskyy off so he can’t continue to drain us, encourage other countries to abuse us, and expose us to the risk of a needless third world war.

It is remarkable that there are Americans who don’t understand that our president is not supposed to represent the interests of foreigners against us. Imagine running a company that way. What if Ford, or for that matter, Burger King, kept sending employees to Chrysler, demanding subsidies?

Here’s something else I don’t get: Ukrainian “refugees” in other countries, including ours, whining on TV about how Trump is a jerk. If you care about Ukraine, why did you run away? Why aren’t you holding a rifle or sitting in a tank? Ukraine can’t find enough new soldiers. Why are you working at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Atlanta?

I include the women. You can’t be in the infantry? Boo hoo. You can work at a military hospital. You can pump gas into planes and vehicles. You can cook. You can clean. Get your entitled butt back over there. If your heart is still in Ukraine, we need to reunite it with your rear end.

The web says “refugees” are leaving Ukraine to avoid danger and poverty. How is that different from draft-dodging? Can someone explain it to me? If you want to send the kids, the aged, and the disabled out, fine, but why should anyone who can work run off and let others face the danger?

And if you’re an immigrant (which means a person who has abandoned another country in favor of America, not an invader who wasn’t happy with his country’s low-trust economy), you should be on TV pushing Trump to do what’s best for the US, not Ukraine.

When I was a kid, I lived in Israel for 4 months. I was a kibbutz volunteer. The volunteer program started because Israelis were busy fighting a war, and they needed people to pick fruit and shovel chicken manure while the Israelis fought. Americans and Europeans flocked to Israel, exposing themself to the perils of war. Why are Ukrainians fleeing their own country when it needs them the most?

Right now, Zelenskyy appears to face two likely alternatives: surrendering on very bad terms after losing hundreds of thousands more lives or accepting a generous, if not totally satisfactory, peace package from a nation that would be within its rights to cut all aid tomorrow. It’s not our fault he doesn’t want to eat his vegetables. We are doing more than enough. Probably too much.