I just listened to Trump’s full speech at the UN. There are a lot of “rah rah!” comments on the CNN YouTube post, and I suppose a lot of that is justified, sort of. Trump has an air of strength about him that is rare in a politician.

However…

…while he mentioned “freedom” a few times (not liberty), he concentrated more on “sovereignty” (of nations, not individuals). There were several holes in his speech, and they came up over and over; lots of vagueness and platitudes, but on balance it was better than just about anything I’ve heard in a long time at the moral cesspool that is the UN.

Trump’s now famous denouncement of socialism in Venezuela left me cold. Taken in isolation, the quote is a winner, but it comes from a man who advocated socialized medicine (so-called “single payer”*) in the United States during his presidential campaign, and I’ve yet to hear him retract, beg forgiveness and describe the inspiration for and the details of his rare, late-in-life paradigm shift.

“O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”

As pointed out in comments here, if we think we can be part libertarian and part socialist then we’re nothing but moral hypocrites and buffoons (if very popular buffoons, “balance” and compromise being revered over consistency). Being a house divided against itself, we believe the good treasure of the heart can be increased by gathering and piling on the evil treasure. That’s being “too clever by half”, as I’ve heard it said. America is just that, and always has been. Her unique promise in the world has yet to be fulfilled.

*True single-payer means you get treated and you pay for it. End of story. A proper government has no part in the transaction– It stays out of the way except to intervene in specific, individual cases of fraud or coercion and then it goes away again. Only then is there liberty (a word I did not hear in Trump’s speech) and only then can real prosperity grow. If politicians want to take credit for our prosperity as they always do,I even as they set up barriers to it, then they should endeavor to get out of the way and then take credit for staying out of the way (though none can). Instead, government has become the primary instigator of both fraud and coercion, and demands that we see the combination of the two as compassion.