Let’s just hope that the truth isn’t ignored.

Here’s a link to the documents in question on the NYT.

Oh my goodness! Did you hear Tiger Woods is cheating on his wife!? Did you see Avatar!? I really like Johnny Depp! Check out my new iPhone!

We are in historic times for some pretty terrible reasons and it seems some people are intoxicated on pop culture society. We’re breaking records for bad things in America and the Oscars are the focus of our attention.

Honestly, when is the last time you saw a body count of our dead soldiers since the conflicts started in the middle east? Do you have any idea the thousands of American families who are torn apart from their loss? What about the estimates that show that over a million civilians are injured in Iraq? You may never face these people are your peers or neighbors but if you have a soul you have to know they’re as much human as you are. And when you did hear a tremendously high number pinned to blood, death, and pain, how much did you feel the pain?

I was watching an interview today where a talk show host asked a former congressman how to fix the corruption in Washington D.C. The answer wasn’t too surprising to me but it went something like this: “I have no idea!” A congressman spending six years eyeball deep in the politics that control the people (as well as condemn them to future debts, war, etc.) says the corruption is destroying the federal government and he has no idea how to fix it. Think about this… Is there truly a fix? All of our history books says empires always fall. No matter how great they were or how gracefully they fall, they always fall. With that in mind, guess what folks? We have a military base in more than 130 countries in the world and we’re worse than broke. Where on the timeline of an empire are we? Our people are glued to frivolous pop culture as our so-called leaders are looting our lives away at record breaking pace. If you were objectively estimating the future of the world, where would America be in 20 years?

America is getting worse yet apathy is growing. Where do these two intersect? Are we on a non-stop train pushing a cure for apathy with a prescription for pain? Do we really need the country to descend into darker and darker times before we even acknowledge a problem and fight for a fix? Is there any other way than wait for the pain to get so bad the it effects the masses enough to break their attention away from American Idol?

That being said, it is strange that so much can be going wrong with America yet the American machine keeps pushing through it. It just keeps going like an NFL running back with defenders riding his back. Just keep in mind that eventually the strongest running backs fall. We’ve got all of history’s lessons to prove that.

Are you still there? Eyes still in head? Jaw not on the floor? What in the world could I be talking about?

How about this, give me one good reason that the United States has the right to put a missile shield in someone else’s country where it could possibly attack its neighbors?
How about this, give me one good reason why we should be promoting an imperialistic America.
How about this, give me one explanation how you can be against high taxes, inflation, and big government and still be for the missile shield?

To the first question, we cannot be a country that goes to war without being attacked. We have seen where that leads us and hopefully now realize that we’re not the imperialistic bully of the world who makes the rules.

To the second question, it goes against the constitution and the way this country was founded. We are to be strong national defense in the sense that we defend our country and our countrymen. You cannot distort this into growing our military into the “Democracy spreading at gunpoint” machine. It is possible when focusing on small government, low taxes, and liberty.

To the third question, the war machine that we as a country have created is a tremendous part of our annual budget and increases constantly. When we’re a country facing a tremendous economic crisis, we don’t have a choice to keep spending our military across the world. The spending causes either taxes to be raised even more, inflation from borrowing to pay for the wars, and the infrastructure of a tremendously top-heavy federal government. Do not skimp on defense but do not distort offense into the perverted definition of defense.

What does all of this have to do with blindly accepting news you ask? Well one of the biggest talk radio and television host personalities, Mr. Glenn Beck, decided that we have sold out by getting rid of the missile shield. His train of thought connects the missile shield program discontinuation to the talks between GE and Putin… I won’t get into that and I can’t say either way which is right or wrong. I do know this, the missile shield would cost the country a lot of money it doesn’t have and increased the empire we have to financially and ideologically support. Not only do we have to carve our more of our GDP or add more to our debt, but we also have to be able to face the rest of the world and say, “We have the right to put missiles wherever we want to defend from anyone we please. It doesn’t even matter if it is our land we’re defending and it doesn’t even matter if it is YOUR country we’re aiming at. We can do it, but you can’t!”

Personally, I disagree with that mentality. I am tremendously in favor of having the world’s strongest and smartest military, but I cannot see a logical reason for pushing for imperial ideals, actions, and goals.

The ultimate reality is, the missile shield being canceled is a great thing. It saves us from more inflation, taxation, federal debt, and a few more coats of that imperialistic paint that we’re being covered with by countries and people with anti-American rhetoric. We cannot continue to have a “holier-than-though” mentality and wonder why people speak against us or why terrorists bomb us. To be the best, we must act like the best. This does not include being the global bully, democracy enforcer, Christian spreader, or any other role that we would reject ourselves. This simply does not pass the “What if they did it to us?” test. If Russia put a missile shield in Cuba, we would have a fit (and rightfully so). If China put military bases all over North America to “stabilize” our continent, we would have a fit (and rightfully so).

We cannot continue to lie to ourselves and promote ourselves as immune to the idea of liberty for other countries and regions or claim we’re operating under a different set of rules.

I cannot say that Beck would disagree my statements but I have to disagree with how he presented this. We have to be careful about how things appear and be very clear how we feel on things so we don’t inadvertently give the wrong idea. When we speak, we must be thorough and specific on what we believe to be the truth. If I were a casual listener to his radio program and picked up on this show, I might have reacted with something like “Well what in the world are they doing? We can’t appear weak! Put that missile shield up! Obama is making us less safe!”

On top of being very clear about what we speak, we have to be vigilant about what we’re reading, hearing, and seeing. We cannot let any one man or woman or show or network become the ultimate source of flawless information which should never be scrutinized. This creates an unbalanced and callous mindset.