Ben Shapiro is Wrong on Ukraine

It’s easier to persuade my side to be better than to persuade the other side to cross over so one key area I’d like to help us be better on is the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The Great Ben Shapiro (peace be upon him) recently wrote…

Ukraine is becoming a litmus test for Republican candidates because of the bad-faith argument that if you think we must fund Ukraine in its war against Russia, you don’t care about American poverty. This is wrong. The two issues are not connected.

First off, pouring money into poverty-ridden areas does not result in prosperity. That has nothing to do with Ukraine. “Government spending means prosperity” is a lie. Half the people now promoting that lie know it and have spoken out openly against it in the past. You can be skeptical of Ukrainian military aid while STILL being in favor of entitlement reform.

Ben Shapiro (peace be upon him) wants to spend more money on Ukraine and less money on the American poor.

He justifies cutting money to the poor by seemingly only considering the downsides of our large welfare state, which he’s correct in highlighting that giving evermore money to people on the condition that they stay poor isn’t a recipe for prosperity, but this isn’t the only way to spend money on them.

We’ve spent money on the poor via public education, infrastructure projects, Homestead Acts, Social Security, and providing employment opportunities in a variety of national services (army, navy, coast guard, peace corps, etc).

We can also spend money on the poor so-to-speak by taking less of their money such as by abolishing the payroll tax, sales taxes on necessities, and improved land value taxes.

Now, this isn’t to say that I think Ben doesn’t care about the poor, but I just wanted to highlight that there’s many ways in which we can use the money we’re currently sending to Ukraine to help our poor that doesn’t involve increasing welfare and entitlements.

Second off, the notion that America has no interests in Ukraine is untrue. We have an interest in the Russian military being defanged so they do not invade surrounding nations, thus threatening global supply chains and strengthening American opponents. We have an interest in deterring China…