Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is an America First politician not one of the pretenders to that label. Recently Massie was smeared by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) over his vote on House Resolution 771. Why? Was it because Massie supports the raping of Israeli women? No. Was it because Massie thought that burning women and girls alive was a good thing? No. Did Massie fail to condemn the killing and beheading of babies? No.
It was because Massie voted against the resolution and told everyone why. This infuriated the AIPAC that demands that all US politicians support Israel in every possible way. Any debate about the efficacy of doing this or that is tantamount to calling for the extermination of Israel in the eyes of the AIPAC. Massie was smeared as antisemitic despite the fact that bias for or against Israel and their current difficulties was not part of Massie’s position on HR 771.
Massie stated for the record what his position is:
I condemn the barbaric attack on Israel and I affirm Israel’s right to defend itself. However, I will not be voting for House Resolution 771 today because:
1) It calls for sanctions on a sovereign country. Sanctions are a prelude to war and hurt the citizens of the country more than the government of the country that’s being sanctioned. And ultimately, sanctions create laws that will be used to prosecute American citizens (who engage in trade), not citizens of the sanctioned country. In short, sanctions do not achieve their stated purposes but do breed resentment of our country abroad.
2) It asserts the necessity of foreign aid commitments which I have voted against. Our country is going bankrupt and we can’t afford to borrow money to send overseas, yet this resolution states that we should.
3) It contains an open-ended promise of military support that is so broad that it could be interpreted to commit US soldiers to the conflict. US troops should not be engaged in this conflict.
4) It tends to broaden the conflict to other countries when it would be better to keep the war contained geographically.
Now one could debate Rep. Massie on the merits of his arguments. Did the AIPAC do that? No. The AIPAC responded by saying “charges of dual loyalties are antisemitic” whatever that was supposed to mean. They also claimed that such charges of “dual loyalties” insult millions of Americans. Again the lack of any logical progression in the AIPAC’s response betrayed a certain hysteria over his opposition to what he perceived was an open-ended checkbook like we have seen with Ukraine.
This is despicable. It is particularly so because the AIPAC is a political action committee operating in a foreign country and, it seems, smearing congressmen when the AIPAC does not agree with their policy positions. Whatever happened to reasoned debate?
It does not matter what your position on the Israel/Hamas issue is. These kinds of ad hominem attacks do nothing to resolve difficult realities. If one disagrees with the position of a politician, use logic to refute what that position is.
That’s America First.