“There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right”…President Ronald Reagan
This past weekend I watched the most incredible interview I have ever witnessed. CNN newscaster Brooke Baldwin interviewed Syrian national Kassem Eid. The reason for the interview was that Eid was a survivor of a 2013 chemical attack in Syria. I highly recommend that if you have not seen this interview, please watch it below.
It is clear from the onset of the interview that it was an attempt to cast President Trump as a hypocrite. After Eid praises Trump for his decisive action, Baldwin quickly tries to deflect by playing a clip of Hillary Clinton. Through this short clip, CNN opens the door for the best statement ever on the truth of liberalism – it is simply another word for moral cowardice. In the clip Clinton states, “We cannot in one breath speak of protecting Syrian babies and in the next close America’s doors to them.” Baldwin then returns to Eid to give his take on Clinton’s statement. Obviously, the expectation was for him to agree with the ex-presidential candidate and crush Trump for not opening the doors to Syrian refugees.
Instead, Eid crushes her by stating, “With all due respect, I didn’t see each and every person who was demonstrating after the travel ban, I didn’t see you three days ago when people were gassed to death, when civilians were gassed to death. I didn’t see you in 2013 when fourteen hundred people were gassed to death. I didn’t see you raising your voice against President Obama’s inaction against Syria.” He then explains why liberalism is nothing but fairytales of hope and a reality of oppression. “If you really care about refugees, if you really care about helping us, please help us stay in our country. We don’t want to come to the United States, we want to stay in our country…this is hypocrisy, if you really care help us stay in our country, we don’t want to become refugees…and if you could just give me a few seconds, just to tell President Trump once again, please sir, what you did was amazing. What you did was a powerful message of hope for a lot of people inside and outside of Syria.”
Eid unintentionally spelled out the problem with liberals. Liberals try to hide behind a feigned mask of love and acceptance. That is why they want to open the doors to refugees and allow them into our country. However, they only do this for themselves. It allows them to feel good without actually needing to make the tough calls or take an actual stand. President Obama, with his tough talk on the red line in Syria, was the personification of all liberals and their weak minded views on the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utEe1LLdB3k
It is easy to take in ten thousand refugees and then pat yourself on the back. Turn on the television and listen to the horror stories of the families that you have let in and you can wake up the next morning, look in the mirror, and say to yourself, “Look at me. I made a difference!” But did you really? If one wants to look at the facts, the answer is clearly no. The problem is that Syria is a country of approximately 22.85 million people. That means that our measly ten thousand refugees help only .04% of the population. Maybe in a liberal’s mind that can be viewed as success.
I have had the privilege of serving in some of those countries and seeing the truth of the pain caused by the tyrants who rule there. I have been able to see what really happens to the children in these countries. I personally have been to orphanages in Afghanistan where over one hundred boys were housed because their parents were slaughtered by either the Russians or the Taliban. I have been to the hospitals where mothers would carry their children who had lost appendages due to the land mines strewn all throughout the country. I know what the true face of suffering looks like, and it is not washed away by a handful of families brought into our country.
Here is what liberals need to realize. There is a term for compassion without action – it is called cowardice. This is the same cowardice that allowed the German people and Europeans of the 1940s to feel compassion for the gays, Jews, blacks, handicapped, and other undesirables who were being interned and slaughtered. Yet even with their empathy, they acted as complicit enablers of the horrors visited upon these victims. It was never their fault, what could they do? After all, to take a stand would require them to accept the consequences of their actions. They would need to accept that tyranny cannot be cured through tough language and empty threats. In the end, even though they may never have to pick up a weapon and fight, they cannot stomach the fact that others would have to do so on their behalf. It is easier to simply lie to themselves and believe they did something good and noble.
This is exactly what the Obama administration did when they claimed to have rid Syria of one hundred percent of it’s chemical weapons. They either knew and lied, or were ignorant to the point of criminal negligence. In either case, they get to carry the death of the children in Syria on their backs.
Unfortunately, this will never happen. For in the minds of a liberal, they always go back to the question of, “But what could I do?” To answer this, I will go back to what Kassem Eid stated. Don’t take a handful of people out of their country. Empower them to be able to live free of tyranny in their homeland. Accept that in this world, evil men exist, men without care or remorse. Men that, when in power, destroy the lives of others to empower themselves. One cannot negotiate with this evil. Neither can one persuade it to change. One must be willing to make the hard choices to confront and destroy this evil. That is the only way to give others freedom.
It is this very attitude that made America the beacon of hope throughout the world. Ronald Reagan stated it most simplistically when he said, “There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.” He was absolutely correct. What President Trump did in Syria sent a strong signal to the rest of the world that the days of a weak America is over. No longer will we take the easy wrong over the hard right. Once again, we will shine as a beacon of hope for those throughout the world – not as a refuge for the lucky few, or those with the money and power to assure their survival. We will be there as a warning to those despots who threaten the lives of their people. Be on notice – it would appear that the sleeping giant in America has once again awoke.