Posted on 06/17/2014 10:46:42 PM PDT by TBP
I want to the start in a different place. The media keeps saying we are a nation that is being torn apart at the seams. In some ways, I agree with them, only because we are not looking for the things that bring us together. The left and right, we cant agree on anything, right? The only place we can find common ground is in the hatred of one another. Thats the narrative that everybody is giving you. Unfortunately, there is some truth to that, unless we decide to look for more.
We have been greatly divided. When the President burst out on the scene, he talked about how George Bush tore us apart with two wars and we had an economic disaster. A lot of people said, Hes right. We were a mess. We really, truly were a mess in 2008.
I dont think its gotten any better for the last five years. We have done nothing but watch our country and our families, our friends be ripped apart. We are deeper in debt. We are immersed in foreign wars. Our economy is much more fragile than it was in 2008. Racial tensions are higher than I have ever seen them. Im 50 years old. I dont remember an America that felt like this race-wise. We are far from reaching across the aisle. I shouldnt say that. The Republicans and Democrats are perfectly fine reaching across the aisle. They are not only reaching across the aisle, they are reaching across the aisle and fondling each other. Its just they are on the same exact page, and they will demonize. The Republicans are doing it, and the Democrats will do it. They will demonize anyone that steps out of line with the parties.
As bad as it has been, amazingly enough, lately, we seem to be finding areas where we all agree. There are things that are happening in America. For instance, the VA scandal. The VA scandal, Americans agree, is horrific. We need to plant our flag in some places where we know we are on the right side. Lets start planting our flags where we can have some victory. Thats one of them: The VA scandal. Lets start reaching across to people in our neighborhood, our friends who vote differently than us, on things like the VA scandal. Theres tons of blame. The President campaigned in 2008 on the VA saying that it was completely out of control. Now its much worse now, but thats the place we could start. George Bush screwed it up. I know. It was horrible. Good. Your guy didnt do anything, so lets fix it now.
We will be coming together to stop Common Core. I cant tell you how remarkable this Common Core thing is. When Bill Gates comes up and gives a speech: How about we call it a two-year hiatus? Just give it two years, see if it works. If it doesnt, well just give up. Lets do that. Really? Theyre letting Justina [Pelletier] go probably in the next couple of weeks too. Were on to you, Bill.
Heres the great thing: No matter how much money you are spending to sell us this load of bull crap, Americans arent buying it. It is not just the right. Its the left too. Its the teachers. Its the Chicago teachers union. Could we get any more left than that? The Tea Party standing side-by-side with the Chicago teachers unions? Thats fantastic. America is healing herself. I really want to talk to you about this compass I have been working on. I have said for a while that theres going to come a time when everything you know is upside down, when what you thought was solid would be liquid and liquid will be solid. Up is down, down is up. What was right will be wrong. Good will become evil. And there will be nothing that you recognize or can count on. I have said that for probably eight years. The time is here.
We are headed in exactly the wrong direction. We are at the polar opposite now of where we should be going. Thats not a conservative saying that. I believe thats anyone with any common sense. We should be doing more testing on our kids? Come on. You know thats not right. We should have more Islamic oversight in our Department of Homeland Security. You know thats not right. We should spend more money to get out of debt. You know thats not right. We should rush doctors and nurses and build emergency centers for the people who are coming across our borders, and they are coming here illegally and we are putting them on military bases. Meanwhile, we cant get the military to be able to get in to see a doctor for things like cancer. You know thats not right.
Maybe we could come together now on this nightmare in Iraq. From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasnt. At the time I believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein. I really truly believed that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists. We knew that. He was funding the terrorists in Hamas. We knew that he was giving money. We could track that. We knew he hated us. We knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It wasnt much or a stretch to believe that he would fund a terror strike against us, especially since he would say that. So I took him at his word.
There were also atrocities that were happening in Iraq torture chambers, mass graves. At the time, the unanimous belief even with Hillary Clinton and everybody else was that he had weapon of mass destruction. There was also the element and this is really what spoke to me of bringing freedom to the people of Iraq for the first time in their long history. I dont want to control Iraq, but I have a soft spot for people who are being tortured and just want freedom because I really, truly believe Democrats and Republicans are the same. Israelis and Palestinians are the same. Once you get the politicians to leave the room, once you can deprogram people from what the politicians and leaders have said, everyone is pretty much the same. Its like, I just want to be left alone. I just want to raise my family, have fun. I want a decent life. Then politicians get involved and program us to hate each other. You have to be carefully taught who to hate.
Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldnt get involved. We shouldnt nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldnt force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldnt have.
Now, if you believed those things, let me say: You were right. If you were just using it for political purposes, well, we dont have anything in common, But if you really believe those things, I would like to have a conversation with you now to find out exactly how you came to terms with that especially being a progressive. If you know the history of the progressive movement, it was Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson that started imposing democracy in South America. The reason why South America is just loaded with communists is because we put a lot of them in. Thats the progressive ideal.
But I agree with you: You cannot force democracy on the Iraqis or anybody else. It doesnt work. They dont understand it or even really want it. They may be too immersed in their own belief of Sharia Law to embrace liberty or at least at this time. If people vote for Sharia Law, they vote for Sharia Law. We tried. What can we do? We have lost thousands of American lives. We have lost thousands of lives on the Iraqi side and tens of thousands have been wounded. We have spent $2 trillion say that again $2 trillion, and upwards of 200,000 Iraqi citizens, aid workers, insurgents have been killed. Thats the conservative number. Liberals will tell you its almost 1 million people. I dont know what the number is, but after all of that, hundreds of thousands of lives, $2 trillion, the best minds in the world trying to do it, its about to fall apart.
Terrorists of the most radical kind maybe the most radical we have witnessed since Nazis are now poised to overrun the capitol city. All of our effort, all our sacrifices, all of it is gone. $1 billion embassy, which I contend, I have nothing to back it up except my gut, thats not an embassy. It is a listening station. Theres something wrong with that embassy. You dont build something that big in Baghdad. How many of us are going, Im going to vacation in Baghdad. Hope they have a nice embassy? What do we have it there for? Why is it that big? Something is wrong with that.
But, anyway, all of that is gone. And yet, this is something I think that we can come together with, on the right and the left. And its this I have more of a chance of hacking off my loyal listeners and audience by saying this, but so be it: Not one more life. Not one more life. Not one more dollar, not one more airplane, not one more bullet, not one more Marine, not one more arm or leg or eye. Not one more.
The people of Iraq have got to work this out themselves. Our days of being the worlds policemen, our days of interventionists is over. If we are directly attacked, so be it. But this must end now.
Cant we come together on that? Are we not all a people that can come together on that? Wedont want our sacrifice to be a waste. Let me ask you this question: What good will one more life do? To waste one more life, what good will it do, to waste another dollar, let alone another trillion? And conservatives, is there one that believes this President will prosecute a new war in Iraq properly? When the biggest hawk of them all, the Darth Vader of the entire galactic empire, Dick Cheney and George Bush didnt prosecute it right? No. In the end, the result will be the same. Another group of radicals will pop up again. It is like a never-ending game of whack amole over there. The only way to prevent Baghdad from being overrun eventually is stay there and continue to fight this militarily in perpetuity. Are you willing to do that?
Dont even start with me on your oil an gas. Guess we should have thought about that earlier. Maybe if we use our own oil and gas, we wouldnt have to worry about this. Liberals, you were against it in the first place. How could you be in favor of more intervention now? How could you possibly be for that after everything you have said about how its going to fall apart in the end was right? Everything I said that we could hold it together was wrong.
We need to pull out and end the long nightmarish involvement in this mess. We need to do the same in Afghanistan, once and for all. I remember back in the 1970s, we were going to the moon and liberals at that time would say, We have bigger problems here on earth that need to be taken care of. How much more is that argument correctly applied to todays situation?
Finally, there are some things we can agree on. Finally, there are some things we can come together on and clean up our own house. But if we do to the liberals what they did to us and George W. Bush and make it just about politics, we will be divided more. This cannot become about the President. It cannot become act the Democrats. This has to become about the principles because in the principles we all agree. Enough is enough. Bring them home, period.
Not for us, but because each of them claims to be the legitimate caliphate. They fought for years before we came in.
No, they never fought each other to any significant degree, otherwise they would not have had the chance to reproduce as they have done. One side will emerge victorious, and will unite the rest of the factions rather than emerge weakened.
No, Glenn. We didn't win World War II by going around saying or even thinking stuff like that.
Beck's quit. He's finally beaten. He's giving up.
Have some cheese, Glenn.
No. Shoulder the load, kill them all, and finish it. Let God sort them out. Don't try to punt and play odds. That's what losers do.
I would train their pilots for pay and I would sell them aircraft for pay.
Those who truly want freedom, who are sitting on marketable oil, have the money to pay and WILL pay.
We have found that fighting other people’s wars doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean we don’t care who wins.
Today (Wednesday), Michael Medved was ranting about how this is all Obama’s fault and it wouldn’t have happened if he’d listened to the majority of Republicans who wanted to intervene in Syria.
That’s a blatant lie. It’s 100% backwards. And Medved knows it. I guess the war mongers figure if they call Obama enough names, conservatives who don’t pay attention will assume they’re telling the truth.
What’s their game? Seriously.
Col. David Hunt of Fox and Col. Oliver North are on record saying we should not get in the middle of this.
Kurd is Arabic for Contra.
You're proof we live in an instant gratification society. You don't get it -- the threat of Islamic terrorist isn't going to cease unless the terrorists are destroyed. We have to remain in the middle east to combat these terrorist group as long as it takes to eliminate the threat or they will be attacking us on US soil.
You’re not addressing the question at hand. What good will more bombs, more boots, more bucks, more arms, legs, eyes in Iraq do at this point, with this leadership, in the civil war it now really is in (as opposed to the prior claims of liberals), especially given that you have ISIS on one side and the Mudering Mullahs of Teheran on the other?
Either way, the winner is an enemy of ours who is determined to destroy us. Are we not better advised to allow them to tie each other down for a while, weaken each other, then deal with a weakened enemy when we’re prepared to do it right?
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