I have just two words for you.  Write them down.  Stop It! — Bob Newhart

Stop It!

I’m a patriot.  All three of my sons are patriots.  Two are Sergeants in the United States Marine Corp.  Both of those sons served in Iraq.  They are both out now.  One did four for the Corp.  The other did eight, including service guarding the American Embassy in Damascus, Syria.  He helped shutter that operation when President Obama cut off diplomatic relations with the ancient Middle Eastern nation.

On my way to the office this morning I learned that Iran dropped a dozen or so missiles on two of our military bases in Iraq.  Before I started writing I was not able to determine if the Iranian attack resulted in American deaths.  While I would be sad for the families, American casualties on those bases would not change what I think right now.  I know what it means to have to live as a patriotic family member of a soldier who is in harm’s way.  We sign up for this eventuality, praying that our leaders do the right thing.

And Rand Paul is doing the right thing now.  He is demanding that nothing further happen until Congress declares war.  His is absolutely right.  America and the world MUST hit pause.  There needs to be a full examination of all that has gone before that feeds into this current reality.

A friend showed me a short clip from an old Bob Newhart comedy a couple months ago.  Playing the psychologist he counsels a woman who is afraid of being buried alive to just “Stop It!”  He told her to stop worrying about it, stop thinking so much about a non-event.

According to everything I see in the news America is now a net exporter of oil.  We produce enough for our needs, and then some.  There are enough Americans awake now to the corruption associated with our chattering class and the military industrial complex to threaten the old second world war order with a new order based on truth.  The days of Israel maintaining the richest and most powerful foreign national lobby in OUR nation’s capital are over.  The light of reason and the Gospel is replacing the gloom and doom Zionism of American Evangelicalism.  The future is bright indeed.

We must STOP talking, thinking and fretting so much about war.  Israel needs to grow up and take their place among the nations of the world.  With a level of support from America that could only result in codependence they’ve established themselves on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean.  They need to come to terms with the Palestinian families they displaced.  America needs to move on from the Middle East.  Close the bases in Iraq.  Bring our boys home.

Put them on the border with Mexico.  We need to stop thinking of ourselves as this obscene porn pushing “shining” city on a hill that exists to make the world safe for democracy.  How about some humility.

It’s going to take some real focus on our own domestic problems to solve issues related to the destruction of the American family and radical fiscal/economic irresponsibility.  We can start by responding positively to Rand’s clarion call.  Let’s make this year’s Presidential contest about whether we declare war in the Middle East or not.  What’s the rush?

Is even one American living in our homeland threatened by what is happening over there.  Shoot, none of us even begin to understand the difference between Sunni and Shia.  Maybe we could start our deliberations over a declaration of war with developing a broader public understanding of that profound division within Islam that goes back centuries.  Why is that our problem?  Why would the politics and intrigue of the Middle East be cause for any of us to sacrifice our son in war?

Like I said, I’m a patriot.  Just like the famous early twentieth century flier Charles Linbergh who headed the original “America First” political party in the 1930s I will support our nation if war is declared.  But we haven’t engaged in a constitutional war since WWII.  We’ve allowed our military and executive branch to become untethered from reality.  They need to be reeled back in by the either the people or the politicians, or both.

The world is too important a place — it’s home to all of us — to allow the super rich to continue playing their game of utopian globalist Risk with the rest of us.

I’m with Bob Newhart this morning in response to this escalation.  STOP IT!

Selah.