Petraeus, the War, & Faulty Thinking

As I write this, General David Petraeus is trying to convince ever skeptical democrats that the surge in Iraq has worked and that progress has been made since he last addressed them in September of 2007.

His time is likely to be wasted since nothing to date has been able to change the mind of the most stubborn skeptics.

On and off the air, I hear people saying things like “You can’t fight a war on “terror” because you can’t fight a war against an “idea” or a broad concept such as “terror”!”

Oh really!

Then why have these same lefties spent TRILLIONS of our dollars on the WAR ON POVERTY?

Poverty is pretty broad, too, isn’t it? And in America, as I have endlessly argued, it is largely a concept that is self created. Poverty is largely, I believe, a “malady of the mind”. We do not have famines in America. We do not have government regimes plowing through our farms and stealing our property and pride.

So, why have they condoned spending so much money on this futile fight? Do we not still have poor people today? Is there any evidence that the policies of LBJ make millionaires out of the poor and oppressed? Who has really been helped? And at what expense?

These are the questions you are not allowed to ask, lest you be labeled a heretic by the Left.

But honestly, if we wanted to really “solve” poverty, why not just write a check to every poor person in America. Maybe for $100, 000 each? Or maybe $500,000 each. Hey, why not ONE MILLION DOLLARS?

Because that wouldn’t end poverty. It might end someone’s short term financial problems, that’s for sure.

But a person with “impoverished” thoughts will never be rich. It is against every law of the universe.

That’s why reckless and irresponsible people can win the lottery or sign a $20 million baseball contract and still be asking for a handout in a matter of years, if it even takes that long.

So if you can’t fight a war on “terror”, how can you fight a war on “poverty”? And why aren’t the costs of the latter EVER allowed to come up the way we are nickle and dimed with countless studies on how much “the war” is costing us?

Sorry. I forgot. You aren’t supposed to ask stuff like that.