Can Ramaswamy function as Commander in Chief of the US Military?

Not to poo-poo the question, which is compelling, but does he even have any chance of being the nominee, let alone winner of the general?

 

You’re thinking of Jainism.

 

As someone who was raised a Hindu and lived the first twenty years of my life in India, Hindus don’t have a problem driving. I eat all kinds of meat (although I’m an agnostic now).

Hindus also don’t have a problem with war. In fact, one of the central teachings of the Bhagawad Gita (the Hindu holy book) where Lord Krishna preaches to Arjun (who is hesitant to fight his evil cousins) is that duty and morality come first even before family and one shouldn’t hesitate to fight to protect righteousness and Dharma. I can’t stand Ramaswamy but I’m sure he has no pangs about going to war because of religion.

Jains on the other hand are non violent, avoid root vegetables so that they don’t kill bugs when those are uprooted and some even brush the path they walk on to avoid killing bugs.

 

Has he spoken out about Russian violence and killings? I know very little about Hinduism, but as far as I can tell, India is about 80% practitioners of Hinduism and still has capital punishment, for example.

 

The enemy once he drops Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov references during negotiations…



He’s an isolationist and has strong libertarian roots learned from his piano teacher. Not sure if his religion says anything about leading America to a dark corner of the world and retreating from Woodrow Wilson’s imagination of the world.

 

Ramaswamy definitely has a good Libertarian streak which makes me want to support him. I also think it's far past time we stop being the world's policeman. What's it really done for us post World War II? Deeply in debt and with crumbling infrastructure meanwhile the world saves billions of dollars that they get to spend domestically.

Look at Hurricane Idalia. The federal government could rebuild every single house, building and road without the homeowner and insurance company spending a cent and it would be 0.1% of what we have spent for the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. The federal government wants to push electric vehicles. The federal government could buy an electric vehicle for every U.S. adult citizen and it would be a fraction of what we've spent in Ukraine. I mean sure it would take 20 years to produce all of them but they could still do it. We have absolutely no business doing anything in Ukraine.

You can be against unnecessary wars and proxy wars without being a full on isolationist. And if it's one or the other, I'd far rather be an isolationist than a country that is involved in everyone's business.

Ramaswamy has no chance of being the nominee but being younger and a minority I do think he would be a strong Vice President candidate.

 

Looks like there are wide range in estimates of the percentage of Hindus in India who are vegetarian - I've seen anywhere from 20% to 45%. There are some various breakdowns of the numbers here that are interesting. Degree of religiosity seems to play a role as do differences in regions as well as social expectations in reporting.

That said, I looked it up, and Ramaswamy has said he's vegetarian.

10. Religion and food

The myth of the Indian vegetarian nation

Vegetarianism by country - Wikipedia

 

What if he’s a running met who ascends the office if something happens to Trump? Probably his best shot at seeing the White House.

 

Rommy Swammy needs to answer for making his money by defrauding investors in his start up long before he gets the nuclear football.

 

His goal this time around seems to be winning over MAGA, but who knows about 2028. Trump was the first U.S. president who'd never held elected office nor served in the military. The public service expectations seem to be gone. Ramaswamy already has the money and is working on the celebrity factor. I do wonder if he has a somewhat low ceiling given that he's non-Christian and vegetarian. Trump at least claims to be Christian and we know he loves his American fast food. So even putting aside whether the issue of race matters, there are cultural signals that I'm not sure Ramaswamy would be able to navigate to even win the primary.

 

No, best to leave it in the hands of a frail and demented octogenarian.

 

I’ve met a lot ‘vegetarian’ Hindus that love chicken and seafood.

 

I have several Indians in my close group of family/friends. Most of them pretend they don’t eat beef and some pork (but most make exceptions).

 

“Mr. President, please don’t push that button. Please don’t … Mr. President!”

 

Did he ever say why he paid to have the reference of his mrna vaccine mentor deleted from his wiki page?

 

I can't speak about Hindu doctrine or theology. But I find it especially dangerous to judge someone's qualifications as a potential leader based on a very superficial understanding of their belief system, especially how it relates to leadership.

Catholics had to answer to ridiculous assertions about Papal primacy based upon a very deliberate ignorance of true doctrine.

I will say that in early Christian theology, Christians were considered to have a responsibility to never resort to violence. Like many of the original belief systems for individual conduct, those doctrines had to be revisited once Christians assumed leadership of more than a purely Christian community. St. Augustine was the first to formulate a just war theory, which Aquinas worked on further, as well as many other Christian philosophers. Very crudely, it is the equivalent of a responsibility to protect. While an individual has the right to observe pure individual pacifism and accept the consequences in regard to their own life, once they have responsibility for others, they have an obligation to protect.


Reinhold Neibuhr also wrote extensively about this issue. He was a pure pacifist in the 1930s and then came up with his version of Christian realism after seeing the horrors of Nazi-ism and the need to fight back and protect against such horrors.


In any event, I don't pretend to know Hindu belief, but I wouldn't doubt that a Hindu could capably lead our nation. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there are parallel doctrines. It's not like India does not have capable Armed Forces and the ability to project force.