In Part II of this two-part episode, Emma and Brittany discuss President Biden’s decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan, why this has been such a big deal, and how the entire situation shows that, once again, Ron Paul was right about foreign policy all along.

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Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Emma: Hi Brittany.

Brittany: Hi Emma.

Emma:  We are back for part two of our series called was Ron Paul Wright. little spoiler alert if you’ve made it this far, you know, that we do think Ron Paul was right about pretty much everything. So we’re gonna keep talking about, sort of this idea that you should not, you should not occupy other countries and try to manage their affairs and try to control other parts of the world, even if it feels like it might be the right thing to do or it feels like it might be advantageous. So we’ve been talking about what’s going on in the Middle East. We’ve been talking about Afghanistan and sort of the 20-year saga that’s been going on over there. Yeah. Brittany, can you think of any ways that sort of this idea of, you know, not controlling other people might play out in maybe more like domestic stuff, so stuff that’s going on in our own country?

Brittany: Yeah. And actually, I’m gonna even put it a little bit broader than that cuz this is always a good, this is how it was explained to me when I first learned about like blowback. And that’s kind of what I think you’re talking about, right? Yes. In a way. So I always think of it as then I’ll get into specific ways, but like, you wouldn’t wanna swat a beehive, right? what would happen if you swatted a beehive?

Emma: You would probably get stung many times.

Brittany: Many, many times, right? And so it’s funny to me that we think like, and this is a little different, but we think we can control people and tell them what to do. But when you’re continually shaking a beehive, what’s gonna happen? The bees are gonna get angry. and people are not meant, well actually, I guess worker bees kind of do like to be told what to do, but, you know, we’ll suspend reality for a second. individuals I think at their core want to pursue their own happiness. You know that is why that’s such a major part of our country’s founding. They want to be able to do what they wanna do, you know, so long as they’re not hurting other people and they don’t wanna be controlled. And I mean, we’re living in an era of com unprecedented control, and I’m saying that as somebody who grew up during the nine 11, you know, post nine 11 scares. But yeah. Even then, I mean, having to make sure you have your mask when you go into a store, having to, every time I go I like to go dancing and I like to go to music festivals. I can’t go to those unless I show my vaccine passport, but not my vaccine or my vaccine card. So it’s very scary because it does feel like we’re being controlled in a lot of ways And we’re being told what to do and people don’t like being told what to do. And so to think that we can go into another country and do this so that it’s gonna be received well, but it’s not even received well here. Yeah. Is so silly to me.

Emma: Yeah. It is silly. And again, it, you know, not to sympathize with the terrorist groups that are hurting people, but when you look at it from a more broad perspective, if I were, you know, just a casual citizen in Afghanistan or in Iraq, and I looked over to an empty lot next to me in the United Military, was setting up a huge base and bringing in.

Brittany: Oh goodness. Yeah.

Emma: Tanks and guns and helicopters and lots of soldiers, it would scare me a little bit and it would make me feel like I was the enemy. And it’s not hard to see how people who maybe they already have existing cultural differences or existing problems that they have personally with America. If we go in and we set up shop there and we, you know, decide to come in with this strong, forceful presence, it’s not hard to see how people who already had, you know, some stuff against us would just say, you guys are my official enemy. You’re declaring war on me. You’re bombing my country. Yeah. And you’re setting up shop. So this, idea of blowback is basically that, you know, you’re stirring up that bees nest. You’re, you’re causing agitation. And, you know, again, that’s not to make excuses for people for violence. People have to choose violence on their own. That’s not something that anyone can force you to do. But when you’re a country as powerful as the United States, you have to think, what are the consequences of my actions going to be here? And I think that’s something that Ron Paul was really right about is he talked a lot about, you know, being, being peaceful with people and treating others the way that you want to be treated. And that’s the Golden Rule, right? A lot of us have learned about the Golden Rule. I don’t know if they still talk about that in school anymore or if that’s still like a common.

Brittany: Who knows what they talk about in school anymore?

Emma: Who knows. But, I know a lot of you guys do some different ways of, education, so hopefully, you’re still hearing this idea. But basically, it’s the concept, treat others the way that you would want to be treated. And when we’re, setting up shop with our giant military operations and we’re coming in and we’re, dropping bombs and we’re doing drone strikes, that’s not how we would want to be treated. And when other countries do that to America, we take it as an extreme act of aggression and we respond very swiftly and strongly. So it’s not hard to see how people can kind of be pushed into that. And, you know, the Golden Rule isn’t something that just applies to foreign policy. That’s what’s so beautiful about it is, it can kind of be summed up. Like when you think about being more of like a liberty-loving person, whether you’re a libertarian or you’re more conservative, it’s don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff. That’s, like a line that a lot of people love to say because it’s this thing where it’s like you’re respecting other people’s autonomy. You’re respecting who they are as a person. You’re respecting their ability to make their own decisions, but also don’t take things away from them. Don’t, rob them of their property, and don’t rob them of their space. And it’s, you know, it’s something that I think if our government was in line with that today, if everyone had listened to Ron Paul, I think things would look very differently right now.

Brittany: Well, I mean he was the only candidate for Peace, in both 2008 and 2012. And it was funny because you saw him influence, and just kind of change the Republican party or younger people who were politically undecided at the time. And then in 2012, you saw that there were even other candidates on the stage trying to mimic a little bit of what he was trying to say because they realized that the peace message, especially with the youth, with younger people, is so powerful, you know? Yeah. Kids today and even, you know, I was 15 when we went into, or 16 when we went into Afghanistan, and that is more than half of my life and for people being born all their life, you know, and that’s, I think what’s so crazy about this is that we’ve been there for 20 years and it all unraveled so quickly. Yeah. And imagine if we had sought peace, you know, that there’s that quote, blessed are the peacemakers. Yes. But we took an opposite route and we harmed other people and we tried to impose our beliefs on them. And that would be no different than me knocking on Emma’s door with a tent and some weapons Yeah. And saying, Hey, I’m capping out in your living room cuz I don’t think your beliefs are correct. So if you tried to tell me to leave, I’m gonna shoot you. And it sounds silly. Right? That sounds absurd. That’s exactly what we did over there. We came over with our, you know, our tent and our weapons and said, it is, we’re gonna, you know, we’re gonna make you believe what we want you to believe or else. And then it didn’t work and we’re seeing it didn’t work. And what scares me now is that if we don’t listen to Ron Paul’s advice, you know, from years ago and that he still gives now what’s gonna happen when the next conflict happens, you know, this isn’t just Afghanistan, this is something that keeps happening.

Emma: You’re so right. It’s not just Afghanistan. This is not gonna be the last time that we ever have a tough decision as a country on what we’re going to do about something. It’s not gonna be the first time that we come to a difficult crossroads. And our country is a world superpower. We are very powerful. We have a very strong military. And that is a lot of power to have and it’s also a lot of responsibility and for us to act like we are the world’s policeman, and we need to be out telling all these other countries what they should be doing and not only spending people’s money, spending tax money on doing that, but spending lives. That’s the other element of this. Yes. Is there are a lot of people,  just honest men, and women who have signed up for the military because they have a desire to protect and defend their country. And rather than, you know, being utilized to defend by the military, which is, you know, that’s the oath that they take. I have family, a lot of families that’s in the military, and that’s what they swear to do rather than being defenders, the government is using them as pons to, you know, promote a certain agenda or to accomplish a certain diplomatic mission, or not even diplomatic, but to go out and provoke people. And when you think about how wrong it is to them and to those people who have died, you know doing something that there was no clear mission. That’s really horrible to waste human lives in that kind of way. And there are so many costs to behaving like we need to be controlling the whole world and controlling everything that happens. There’s a human cost, meaning people who die for no good reason. it’s one of the most tragic things that could happen. There’s a human cost, there’s a financial cost, there’s the political cost,

Brittany: Mental health costs.

Emma: There are mental health costs. I mean, there’s been a huge spike in mental health problems even just this week for people who have served in Afghanistan and who saw horrible things and went through a lot of trauma there. And they were there because they believed that they were protecting their country and that they believed that they were doing something to help America and to protect the people that they love and protect liberty. And then they came back and they saw the government just completely mess up this really delicate situation. And they’re now dealing with feelings of, well, what was all of that for? What did I do all of that for? Was it worth anything? And my thing that I would say about that especially is that this was not about, this was not a failure of the people who were sent there. This was a failure of the people who were in control. Who were making those decisions from the top of the government? Because that’s another thing is, you know, people say, oh, if you’re anti-war, then you’re anti-military. But that’s not true. It’s actually the complete opposite of the truth because the best pro-military pro service member stance is one of peace because you don’t want people wasting their lives on something that has nothing to do with our liberties or nothing to do with protecting our country. So that’s the other element of this is you know, a lot of people who think that we should stay there say, oh, well you must hate the military. That was what John McCain said. Yeah. To Ron Paul. And it’s completely untrue.

Brittany: It’s funny because Ron Paul had so, excuse me, so many military members who supported him because for this reason because they went over there and they said, oh my goodness, we’ve made a huge mistake. Not them personally, but the government, the United States government. Yeah. And so, you know, there was so, many overwhelming support from the military for Ron Paul.

Emma: Yes. Ron Paul had, I believe, I can’t remember if it was 2008 or 2012, were both, I think it

Brittany: I think it was both.

Emma: But he had the highest rate of donations from veterans supporters.

Brittany: I believe it was both.

Emma: Yeah, and it makes sense when you think about it because if you go in and your experience, we can only understand so much about war having not fought in one before. But once you go through that and you see those things and you deal with the sort of the emotional effects of that, I think it really probably changes the way that you see conflict and the way that you see the United States on the world stage. So this is not, us trying to bash the military. This is not even us bashing America. We love America and we love what America stands for, but this is a huge failure of our government to see what its role is in the world. And it’s wielding power in a way that’s irresponsible. And that’s, that’s why we think Ron Paul was right, not because America sucks or not because, you know there’s all these problems with the military or because we, don’t think we should be able to defend ourselves. It’s that we believe the government is, very powerful and very much responsible for what it does, and Yep. And it’s been behaving very irresponsibly.

Brittany: Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Emma: Yes. Well, we are gonna wrap it up here today, guys. Thanks for listening to part two of this little series we’re doing about Ron Paul in the Middle East and all that good stuff. If you’re interested in learning more about the Golden Rule, go ahead and check out our, book on this, if you haven’t yet. It’s called the Tuttle Twins in the Golden Rule. And it talks about, sort of these ideas of not controlling other people and not trying to tell other people how to live or other countries. And there might even be a little cameo from Ron Paul as a camp counselor in the story. I can’t confirm or deny that but.

Brittany: You’re gonna have to buy the book.

Emma: Yeah, you’ll have to buy the book to see. But thanks for listening guys. We really appreciate it. And we will talk to you again soon.

Brittany: Talk to you later.