Here's my email that I sent back to my close, loved, and very very respected and hard-working friend. If you have a friend like this, pass it on. It might at least cause them to stop and think for a minute.
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YES, we could really turn into a socialist (1st step) and then a communist (2nd step) country. It can be done - it IS being done. Socialism has taken over Canada and England - and they don't have their freedoms of speech that they used to, and their health care rots, etc. I have done lots of research about communism (Marx, Gramsci), and the communist-founder of American "Community Organizing," (Saul Alinsky) etc., and it's scary how our society has fallen into the game plan of the 1919 stated, documented objectives of the Communist Party. [Attached is a document w/some of the research, with a list of many sources at the end.]
I don't care about what the rest of the world thinks of us. And I don't think America should either. That's a very co-dependent attitude (i.e. I should change my behavior and try to appease those others who don't like me because they don't like me - RATHER THAN, I should change my behavior because I've done some soul searching and my behavior rots. Peer pressure v. personal growth). The rest of the world hates us (and always will) as long as it's convenient for them (and serves their purposes - eg USA foots the bill for oh so many of their needs/objectives, etc) to do so - and as long as lots of Americans, and the American media promote the image that the rest of the world is justified in hating us - which has been the mantra of Americans & the media for a while now. They will stop hating us when we come to their defense. Others may be jealous and point the finger and blame us for all their woes, while we continue to be a leader in every positive movement in the world, but they will really be in great despair if we become weak b/c then they will feel the void (and the vulnerability) that a dictatorship could easily come in and fill. What would have happened in WWII if we hadn't been POSITIVE (about our good will and our good intentions and our good actions) about the USA, and been strong (mentally and financially and armed-forces) or gotten strong? If we had convinced ourselves that we were to blame for it all, we would have been weak & Hitler would have won. It was the BELIEF in ourselves that motivated the charge on DDAY to be a SUCCESSFUL one.
If your dream is for others to view USA as a Great Nation, then I would suggest that we start w/ourselves, each individual, viewing USA as a Great Nation. Not perfect, but Great. And we've been Great for a very long time - and we still are. We have led the world in EVERY ASPECT of society - for the last 200+ years - environment (US was 1st in the world to have EPA standards about anything, everyone else followed), child labor laws, civil rights, individual freedoms, industry standards, improvement of protection of innocent lives/collateral damage in war, war relief to displaced persons, criminal prisoner/pow rights, free enterprise, fair trade, manufacturing, innovation, etc.
What you say is the "scariest" scenario (i.e. that McCain doesn't have an "exit" strategy), I believe is really trying to evaluate current & future probs by looking in a rear-view mirror. That might have been the issue that led to the Vietnam failure (or there might have been other bigger contributing causes to the failure there, such as the lack of belief/support by Americans), but it's not the issue today.
Without an Iraq victory (and btw, I considered it a victory, by the definition of war, when we captured the country's ruler, the rest is post-war management, which the US has been doing since WWI, in better and better ways), there will be no stability in that region - which is the region of the world where the Islamic extremism starts. Even if you take out Al Quada in Afghanistan (so, yes, Obama will still be waging one or more wars - Afghanistan plus whatever else happens), Iraq (w/o a strong domestic govt/police/army) will be subject to radical control - and thus, Islamic terrorist control. There's a reason why Iraq is key.
You were young when the Iran hostage situation happened. Hundreds of our citizens were hostages for about a year in Iran (they had been @ our embassy there) b/c radical Iranians didn't like the US & took over our embassy there. (And let me just say, if they didn't like the US under Carter, they AIN'T NEVER gonna like us.) It took someone strong (Reagan) to win the 1980 election & to say, we aren't negotiating & we aren't messing around, for them to get released.
Then 10 years later, Iraq invades Kuwait & gets slapped with UN sanction after sanction after sanction, and still the world sits by watching an evil dictator accumulate terror and power. (a la 1930s - w/the then-Brittish Prime Minister Chamberlain supposedly successfully negotiating w/Hitler and promising the world "We will have peace in our time" - just so that Hitler could laugh & spit in their face and do whatever the heck he wanted to do - thank God that Churchill (new Brit PM) came along & said "never never never never give up" and FDR came along and said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.")
Then, the 3 or 4 attacks on US soil/army/embassies happened in the 1990s under Clinton - who didn't respond authoritatively - or whose response was a failure - eg Black Hawk Down.
We get attacked on 9/11 & we say we're doing it right this time, and we are told it will take time - and a lot more time than we, the-instant-disposable-30second attention span-Americans are used to. And we say, right on! go get em! And then a few yrs later, after we've successfully and swiftly dethroned the evil dictator, we say, hey this installing stability in the most terrorist-filled region in the world has a price tag that we don't like, let's just buy ourselves some (temporary) comfort by doing something else somewhere else.
The US could've taken that route in June 1944. The Normandy beaches are too hard. There'll be more American boys who die on that one day than all the American soldiers who will die in a 7 year long battle w/Iraq in 2001-2008. Let's not do it - let's do something else, like help the Russians, or invade Italy, or help defend England, b/c really, England's most like us. We, and the whole world, would have lost to Hitler, if we didn't face the problem head on.
And, there was no "end date" - and there NEVER was an end-date promised to the post-WWII clean-up/stabilization. The "clean-up" in WWII was just different - it was the Cold War - and it lasted almost 50 years - until the Berlin Wall came down (under Reagan - who revved up our military, after another appeaser - Carter - tried to dismantle it). The other way it was different? The winners divided up Germany & the other countries & then the USA (again, out of the goodness of our heart - yes, us "meanies") rebuilt Western Germany, et al. So, our adversaries weren't blowing up the new W German armies/police/infrastructure, b/c they were busy rebuilding their piece of the spoils. So, yeah, it's different this time.
I don't want our kids to get drafted anymore than those Moms & Dads in 1942 wanted their kids to sign up for war. But, aren't you glad that both those families and those young people made that sacrifice? In 1942, no one knew about the concentration camps. It was just a matter of, is this guy really after the USA or just a few small countries in Europe that don't even speak English? and if the latter, why should we go?
I don't agree w/China "gobbling up relationships" - no dictator has relationships. And when you are a very strong country like the USA, you don't need to worry about weak countries socializing w/the wrong crowd affecting you - until they wake up and find that the wrong crowd is, once again, taking advantage of them and they're dialing 911 to the USA for help. But, France being an ally of China and an ally of the USA simultaneously is what France does - it's weak. That's just its political nature. The people are La Resistance! But the govt is weak. We'll always be saving their butts from the bullies that they foolishly trusted.
I know this is probably more than you wanted to consider, but I thought you might want to know.
Also, as to the domestic issue of wealth redistribution, you DO know that it's already happening right? Under the EIC, part of my taxes to the IRS ALREADY get paid (from the IRS as a "refund") to someone who has paid 0 into the IRS. You DO know that that was started under Clinton and that Obama wants to expand it, right?
When you "look at where the country is today," remember high school - do you want to be the geek or insecure chik in the corner saying, "I wonder if they'd like me better if I wore an Izod shirt tomorrow instead of this plaid one?", OR do you want to be the confident benevolent football captain, of whom some are jealous, of whom some maliciously/wrongfull accuse of being mean, but who is a leader - academically, in student council, in competition, socially, and who has confidence in himself - not b/c he's surrounded by a throng of so-called "friends," but because he knows he is a health/smart/good/centered person, and not b/c others tell him so? It's strength of character.
I believe that the more that the media & the Dems try to convince Americans that America really isn't that great anymore, that it's bad and mean, and that it's our own supposed wrong-doing that is spurring the other countries' resentment against us, the weaker our character gets . . . the more we become that geek in the corner.
When I look at where the country is today, I see a country that hasn't been attacked in the last 7 years - unlike Italy, unlike England, unlike France. I see a free, prosperous, innovative republic that comes to the aid of others as much as we support ourselves. I see a country that brought a democratic elections to Afghanistan, and deposed an evil dictator who committed genocide of his own people and who regularly tortured young children in front of their parents in order to "recruit" their militant iraqi-gestapo. I see a country who gave the Iraqi people the heretofore-never-seen opportunity to volunteer for their own army and police - despite the likelihood of being killed within the year. I see a country whose economy hit a roadblock with the dot-com bubble burst in the 2000 stock-market drop, and who was viciously attacked a year later, and whose economy recovered in about 1 year - unprecedented. And whose economy - even after this Fannie/Freddie debacle (as it will come to be known) - even after the Dow is down to mid-8000 - has STILL gained 400% in the last 20 years. Again, unprecedented. There are more millionaires and billionaires in the USA than there were 20 or even 10 years ago. The USA, as a world-class-leader, continues to pull everyone up on its coat-tails, and continues to give everyone an equal opportunity to make their own coat-tails.
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