Bigger battles

This time around, I spend a little time chiding those who are my ideological compatriots. So often I see in blogs, on Twitter and Facebook, such petty attacks against liberal targets that I think it diminishes our impact. In this episode, I note a couple of those that I’ve seen a lot of lately, and hopefully demonstrate that we have much bigger fish to fry.

Mentioned links:

Why You Need to Read and Care About the Name of the Al-Qaeda Group That Just Gained Strength in Iraq

Why Obama’s use of the term ISIL instead of ISIS is actually really important

Levant [Wikipedia]

Conservative Media Freaks Out Over Obama’s ‘Latte Salute’

Getting some shopping done? If you're going to shop at Amazon, please consider clicking on my affiliate link. Thanks!

You can listen to “Consider This!†on the Blubrry Network if you like. You can find podcasts and save them to your MyCast list, and come back anytime and listen to the latest episodes.

Similarly, Player.fm allows you to subscribe to podcasts and play all the latest episodes from your browser.

The Stitcher Network is another possibility. Again, you can find podcasts, add them to your favorites, and then either listen to them on the web site, stream them to your smart phone, or to some snazzy GM, Ford, and BMW car. If you do download Stitcher to your phone, please use the promo code “ConsiderThis†to let them know where you heard about it.

Of course, you can always subscribe via iTunes as well. And please leave a comment letting them know how you like it. I really appreciate listener ratings on iTunes, which can also lead to having more listeners, and more ratings! Keep the ball rollin’!

And if you have some other podcatcher or RSS reader, click here to get the direct feed and paste it wherever you need it.

I would love it if you would spread the word about the podcast! Click the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg or LinkedIn icons below (or all of them!) to recommend "Consider This!" to your social media audience.

Show transcript

I want to take this episode to talk mostly to my fellow conservatives. Liberals, I think, will get something useful out of this, because this is a non-partisan issue, but right now, it’s us on the Right that need to deal with something at the present moment.

The issue is: Mountains vs. molehills.  I’m going to cover the most recent examples of this on the Right, the first being the ISIS vs ISIL quote-unquote “controversyâ€. If you’ve watched the news at all lately, you’ve heard reporters question someone from the White House or the Pentagon, and the report uses the acronym ISIS, and the spokesperson responds by talking about ISIL. What’s the difference? To-may-to, to-mah-to?

The translation you usually hear is that the final S refers to Syria, while the final L refers to “The Levantâ€, an area covering Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Israel.

Glenn Beck would like you to think that there’s some dastardly reason that the Obama administration is using this term. I have a link in the show notes to an article about, and a video of, the Glenn Beck Program from this September, on his site called “The Blazeâ€. In this, he discusses this, and suggests that they’ve changed their name from ISIS to ISIL and that somehow, the President’s use of ISIL is supposedly hiding the fact that they want a caliphate from Syria and Iran to Egypt, including Israel. If he was hiding it, whichever acronym he used would be just a opaque! In fact, using ISIS to suggest they only have designs on Iraq and Syria would be hiding it even more!

But here’s the thing. An article I found from last January explains that the final S really stands for “Shamâ€, a word that meant greater Syria; Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. It’s an area that was defined before the colonial powers came in and carved up the place. So replacing “Sham†with “Levant†is a more accurate translation of the name they refer to themselves as.

Oh, and where did I find this article from January? The Blaze. Ya’ gotta’ wonder if Glenn Beck reads his own website.

OK, so that’s my first example of a mountainous molehill. We should certainly have much bigger issues to talk about than some acronym that the media and the government can’t agree on. And yes, we do.

—

Ever since Ronald Reagan started the tradition, Presidents have saluted back at the military personnel who salute them getting off of aircraft. It was not done before Reagan, and with some good reasons. Since the President is the civilian Commander in Chief, he really shouldn’t feel required to salute back, and in fact, some could infer a sort of militarization of the civilian post he holds. But whatever; it has come to be a tradition.

A tradition that, unfortunately, we have come to over-emphasize and who’s importance we’ve exaggerated. It can be seen as respect for those who have escorted him, but shouldn’t be given some sort of elevated purpose and meaning. Respect for the military comes from many more important decisions that he makes. Again, there are bigger issues.

President Obama got off a helicopter recently and saluted the men with his hand holding the coffee he was carrying. Some considered this offensive and disrespectful, and they dubbed it the “latte saluteâ€. The thought was, the President couldn’t even be bothered to put the coffee in his other hand to manage a reasonable salute, which just proved his disdain of the military.

No, it didn’t. Now, pulling troops out of Iraq before the job is done which then requires us sending them back after all our gains are squandered and against the council of his predecessor; that’s disrespecting the troops. Telegraphing to our enemies what lengths we will and will not go to in order to defeat them; that’s disrespecting the troops. A caffeinated salute? Yeah, not so much.

There’s a link in the show notes to the Talking Points Memo site, which is something I almost never do given their politics, that shows some of the overreaction on this particular kerfuffle. Please folks, we have bigger fish to fry. Or perhaps I should say, we have more grande lattes to frappe. Or something; I’m not a coffee drinker. Mountain Dew is my caffeine deliver system.

—

Now as I said, this applies to both sides of the political aisle. Posting an article about how this or that member of the Right or Left said something stupid today makes it sound like that’s the biggest problem we face in this country today; people who stay dumb things. Ya’ know what? We’re never going to be free of that sort of silliness, so let’s just skip the cheap shots, and go for the issues.

I prefer to point out when people say things that adversely affect our country as a whole, or misrepresent their positions. You know, things like “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan†just before writing a law that prevents that. Or “Iraq is sovereign, stable and self-reliant†just before you unadvisedly pull all our troops out and demonstrate that it isn’t any of those things. Or “No veteran should have to fill out a 23-page claim to get care, or wait months – even years – to get an appointment at the VA.â€, right before ignoring the VA system and letting wait times kill our vets.

Those, ladies and gentlemen, are awful things that were said that we should be highlighting, over and over. Come to the website, considerthis.ctpodcasting.com, and share the show notes with your social media crew. Even if they don’t listen to the show, the transcript will fill them in. Stop making mountains out of molehills; we have plenty of real mountains already.

Related posts:

1. 
   
2. Episode 87: Going Back to Iraq
   
3. Episode 53: Capitalism vs Aid, and the Rise (and Fall) of the Anti-War Movement
   
4. Episode 10: The Paul Ryan Pick