Oregon Strategist

Reinventing the Oregon Dream

Veterans: A “Thank You” Solution

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MarinesWe all know at least one: A grandfather, mother, friend, or sibling. These folks have served our nation, committed themselves selflessly for the preservation of American ideals and have sacrificed their health and well-being to bring folks on the home front a sense of security and an enjoyment of peace in their daily lives.

Yet American Military Veterans are also a segment of our population that, aside from the tributes and parades adorning Veteran’s Day, are often forgotten in the daily routine. And yet there is so much we stand to learn from our women and men in uniform that greater attention, love and care may help to surface.

We stand at a threshold of American military return from overseas as we wrap up our dealings in Afghanistan. What we take away from the last ten years of war must be a growing awareness of and response to the tragedies of war and its cost on the bodies, minds and spirits of these folks that battled the threat of extremists on the front lines. We are facing the return of a veteran population that will bear the scars and burden of these years of fighting. How will their struggles on their return to the United States become our struggles?

National Public Radio reported a shocking figure last week: there are twenty-two deaths from suicide amongst the veteran population every single day. In the wake of each of these deaths, is a line of family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances left questioning why, after all of the warfare, such a tragedy must befall this person.

With 23 million veterans in our nation, we must think everyday how to successfully bring these people back into civilian life. With such a sizable group making up 8.1 percent of our population, it is no wonder that so many go without care or face incessant bureaucracy and an endless paper chase. How can we possibly balance the budget and improve our care for veterans? Something must be altered.

Returning our soldiers to American soil and having them work and spend their money stateside is a start. Our assets must be restored and retained. Whether through border security or disaster relief, there is no shortage of useful efforts our military could engage in here in the United States. A smaller, more dynamic military could be a corresponding solution. This would boost the quality of care for veterans over time as more resources could be devoted on a per capita basis. Tax and entitlement reforms would also provide savings to the federal government that could allow us to focus more on the promises we have made to those who have served our nation.

Today we thank the veterans of our nation. Let us thank them equally tomorrow. Let us thank them by remembering their service not only by providing them the care they need to deal with the trauma of warfare, but also by being cognizant of the true losses of warfare and the true costs of war’s aftermath. Let us act and vote accordingly.

Youth and the Republican Party: An American Recovery

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Republican Elephant and Democratic DonkeyParty warfare and polarization of ideologies may be significantly to blame for the finger-pointing and squabbling in Washington D.C. Open primaries, term limits, and policies that suspend Congressional pay if shutdowns occur are just some of the answers to questions of how we must reform the internal mechanisms of our government in order to get back on track for being a proud and confident nation.

Yet, these policies may be some time away from now until young leaders are put in power that are willing to limit their own power for long-term objectives. Until that time, we must ask serious questions about how all of us – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – can come together to help shape the new Republican Party and bring back a balance of power to the system to check the unprecedented spending and waste in our federal government.

Every dollar our government spends today is a dollar that young people will have to pay back in their future. This is inherently unfair and unjust. Entrenched leaders in Washington D.C. continue to waste the money of future generations for their own political short-term gain. Our interests, the interests of those in their thirties, twenties and younger – are not being represented.

Young people have an opportunity to take over the Republican Party here in Oregon – be you Democrat, Republican or Independent. We have the opportunity to shape the party for ourselves and take back what is our future to spend – not theirs.

And conservative and progressive values, the real kind that is (as opposed to the kind promoted by the media), may be the kind we younger generations can embrace. We know what it is like to be under the weight of massive educational debt, not to have the employment opportunities we were told would be waiting for us on the other side, and to find ourselves unable to fulfill our American Dreams.

Our current leaders have failed us. We must now take up the torch and lead with real principles. That is, with self-sacrifice, courage, and pride in a future America we can own and love.

Entitlements are wasting our money. Military ventures are wasting our money. Centralized corporate-sponsored federal programs are wasting our money. Congress is wasting our money. This is our future. We want this future to be green, healthy, productive, and local.

To get back in the game we must go to work. We must find work in any sector. If it means working in an area we perceive to be below our educational level, we must work. We must reject anything handed to us. Only then can we hold our heads high. And we must hold our heads high in order to lead.

We will bring jobs back from overseas. We will go to the ports, find out what China is shipping to us, and make those products here. We will make them better and less expensive. We will encourage entrepreneurs. We will educate. We will stockpile. Our future will be one of great influence.

We will put our money into credit unions and keep our organizations nimble, flexible and local – like Privateers. We will execute a trade surplus and pay down our deficit. And we will not be reckless with the future of our next wave of youth.

We will reform Congress. We will take only one term in any given political office and will condemn political entrenchment and the establishment. We will limit our salaries because what we do is a service to our Great Nation, not a pillage of our Great Nation. We will give back, we will pay the way forward, we will unite, we will overcome and we will live mightily on our principles, work and love.

Timothy Crawley, a native son of Oregon, is a candidate for the 2014 United States Senate seat for Oregon.

Syria: Not Another War

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SyriaAgain we face military intervention in the Middle East, this time from a President who has come to Congress for authorization. 

There is no doubt that action by the United States, absent the formation of a coalition or joint resolution with other nations, would be an act of war against the Syrian government. We face no imminent threat from Assad nor from the chemical weapons he has chosen to unleash against his own people – horrific as these events are.

An act of war, at this time in our nation’s history, is perhaps the last thing we need. Who amongst us is still advocating international intervention of this kind? Are we not able to honestly reflect on our current capabilities as a nation? We have borrowed money to spend it again on our policing powers. Our trade deficits show we are now importing security. So what should our leaders do?

Any proposed military action by the Obama Administration or by Congress should be outright rejected. Our economy, while having shown signs of slight recovery, still drags its feet with 7.4 percent unemployment. The government programs that are still functioning drastically underserve their stated objectives – despite many of their objectives being too broad, too deep, and too overlapping. Our infrastructure is wearing and outdated. John Kerry’s words heard around the world two days ago declared “This is not the time for armchair isolationism. This is not the time to be spectators to a slaughter.” Mr. Kerry: By an act of war against a non-aggressor, you will be slaughtering our Nation’s future.

If strikes against the Assad regime were intended to be limited, as Obama suggests, then striking their chemical weapons capabilities would not be a scenario where “the punishment fits the crime.” On the other hand, a strike that cripples the regime and tips the balance of power in favor of the rebels (as the United States did for Libya) means the United States would be ushering into the power vacuum a proxy regime likely made up of al-Qaeda and other extremist groups.

For now, as the G20 Summit wraps up, world leaders are tremendously divided. China and Russia remain opposed to action against the Assad regime, while only France and the United States have committed to using force. Even the Pope has weighed in, urging leaders to put aside prospects for military action.

To make a dire situation enormously worse, Yale law professor Stephen Carter points out the “limiting lanaguage” in the Senate’s Syria Resolution is deceptively broad.

Finally, authorizing a strike to oppose Assad’s use of chemical weapons to massacre his own people is not morally superior to opposing Assad’s use of conventional weapons against his own people. The propensity of chemical weapons to inflict greater indiscriminate harm on civilian populations than their conventional counterparts originally led to their condemnation in the international community. However, in his use of both chemical and conventional weapons, President Assad has proved indiscriminate towards the killing of civilians and rebel fighters.