Tag: arrogance

The President Speaks: Custer

I’m standing in the rolling hills of the Little Big Horn in Montana. 147 years ago, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer went down here in the most famous defeat in America’s history.

The nation was shocked. How could a man with such confidence, talent, stamina, courage and luck be defeated? How could a man so in love with life and America, a man who personified the energy and optimism of our nation be defeated? America was on the rise, but the man with the greatest spirit and the free flowing hair was dead.

Unfortunately, today’s Americans are cynical. Many people are glad Custer was killed. They see arrogance rather than courage. They see selfishness rather than patriotism. Not only are these people glad Custer was killed, they are glad America is degenerating and cannot wait to see it defeated or decompose.

This troubles me. We, as a nation and as individuals, can and must learn from Custer’s big headedness. Up to now we have not seen it as an omen of what can happen to a nation because of the overconfidence of a president or Cabinet member. It is imperative that we move cautiously through the world and that as the nation’s leader, I do not have the hubris that has been recently exemplified.

Even so, Custer is one of America’s great men. Nobody loved being a soldier to the extent he did. This created envy among his colleagues who joined the Army to please their family or to avoid working.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? We work at jobs we cannot stand, only to be envious of our colleagues or bosses who love being there. In all our clamor for meaningful work, we should admire Custer for his love of soldiering before fulfilling careers were fashionable.

Another reason I think people love to denigrate Custer is because he was free. Americans today do not feel free, especially on the left. Someone who really does feel free, like Custer, who loves America and will die for it like Custer, is a threat to millions of unhapy Americans.

I know a lot of people criticize America’s Indian policy. They say Custer deserved to be killed and that nobody should complain. I am not complaining about his death. Neither would he.

What I am pointing out is that he was to people in the east in the 1870s what baseball players were to Americans in the 1910s. He had a job in a mythical arena, pursing a career most people did not have the ability to pursue.

He dealt with death yes. But death and violence are what make myths and stories and heroes. People love to look up to violent heroes or to heroes killed by violence.

Custer is heroic because he was free in one of the most unfree organizations: the military. He was a rebel who paid dearly for his rebellion during his career.

Freedom and rebellion no matter what the price is what made Custer great. It is also what should inspire we Americans to remember him, to mythologize him, to grow our hair long and wild, to live with relentless freedom and purpose.

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko

The President Speaks: Nuclear arms

I want to take this opportunity today to address one of the most controversial issues regarding foreign policy. That issue is what countries should be allowed to have nuclear weapons?

Most countries do not develop nuclear weapons with the intention to strike first. The weapons are usually developed for defensive purposes.

With so many countries developing nuclear weapons, we must ask why is there so much mistrust between countries? What is each country doing that scares other countries?

Americans usually address this issue in the wrong way. We ask why are so many little countries developing nuclear weapons?

Part of the reason is they want to use them against each other. But a bigger reason is to protect themselves from the United States. They have perceived us as eager to take over the world, or at least prevent them from governing themselves without American intimidation.

Is America justified when we intimidate other countries? No we are not. Can we justifiably complain when other countries seek or are developing nuclear weapons? No we can’t. Should America be concerned that so many countries are as eager to develop nuclear weapons as we have been to control the world? Yes we should.

But it is important for us to remember that now we know how they feel. We still have more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world combined. Yet we always worry that someone will have what we have, though we have plenty, or someone will take back what we’ve stolen, though we will still have plenty.

We should worry that these countries will use their weapons, if not against us, then against some other country. The environmental disaster would be great. There is the possibility that the United States would become involved.

They might start something that we will finish. Then there will be no world for anyone to govern.

We cannot say that only we have the right to have and use nuclear weapons. When we do, other countries fear us and do not appreciate having to live in fear of us.

America must admit that we have far more nuclear weapons than we need. I have begun a disarmament policy with the Pentagon. The United States will reduce its nuclear arsenal to 10% of what we have.

90% of our nuclear weapons will be dismantled and recycled. We will still have plenty of weapons to defend ourselves from any nation trying to invade us or trying to physically take over the world like we have tried to financially control the world.

This means we will also reduce research funding for weapons by the same amount. A lot of people claim that if we reduce funding for weapons research, we will be vulnerable to another more ambitious country.

Yet America is so rich and has so many first rate research facililties, we could reignite a weapons program if we have to. But we won’t have to.

We won’t have to because if we cut our arsenal and our research we will be showing that we are fearless and have good intentions. Other countries will not fear us.

They can forget their plans to attain nuclear arms or stop the expansion of their programs. Our country and theirs willl be able to direct money from weapons of death to useful things for life.

But death is only part of what the world’s lust for weapons is about. The other aspect is fear.

Building so many nuclear weapons breeds fear. The increase in fear means that people or goverments will want more weapons to compensate for their fear.

This fear building makes people afraid to speak out against government policy. When they do speak out, it spreads animosity among Americans – one group saying the other group is aching for a fight, the second group claiming the people in the first group are naive or cowards. People lose the trust in each other that democracies are supposed to encourage.

Though it isn’t the image Americans have of ourselves, we have traditionally been aching for a fight. Most of the times our actions were cowardly. We are naive to think other nations do not have the right to protect themselves from us.

What I have done with my disarmament program is show that America no longer aches for a fight, that we will take the chance that other powers and nations be allowed to develop as they see fit.

But most importantly, I want America to be happy to the extent we are wealthy. It would be nice to spend money on hospitals, railroads, public transit, airports and seaports that went to researching and constructing nuclear weapons.

Our prosperity will increase noticeably. What will increase drastically is the trust, openness and good will that have been dormant for so long in America.

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko

The President Speaks: Animal Rights

I am eager to talk today about animal rights. This is an important issue because it reveals a lot about us as a nation.

People who advocate for these rights are zealous. They understandably oppose hunting, slaughterhouses and the use of animals in research.

Advocates feel they are progressive in their zealousness. They assume America will have progressed when it has more respect for animals.

But animal rights advocates do not seem willing to listen or to admit they might be wrong. They do not acknowledge that maybe hunting is a wonderful way to be outdoors, that people enjoy meat and should not be forced to do without it, that researching on amimals helps science develop new medicines.

Advocates respond saying hunters murder. They say that there are other things to do outdoors besides hunt. They also say animals are in prison waiting to be slaughtered and that scientists are sadists torturing amimals.

Adocates think that they shine the light of morality and spirituality on American selfishness. They don’t. Their vision, like a lot of our American passion, is fashionable. They love to claim Western culture and science have destroyed the world – if only we were like the Hopis.

If somebody else is humbled by passion in The Bible, terrified of the hatred the Athenians and Spartans had for each other because it reminds him of ours and disgusted because previous presidents tried to transform our republic like Ceasar did his, animal rights advocates will smile at him. They well say those things are irrelevant today.

They will say we need to get beyond them. The person marvelling at Western history and culture will be told he needs an imagination cultivated by anything not Western.

A person listening to the advocates feels small. The person feels small because he is talked down to and because the advocates are narrow.

Nobody wants to feel small. When somebody makes someone else feel small, it is because that person is small himself.

Animal rights advocates do not ask themselves why they feel small, why they use their right to free speech to insult people, but do not form unions to give themselves rights at work and do not knock on doors to invite people to oppose our police state and the decreasing number of rights we have.

When animal rights advocates talk about animals in zoos as being in jail, the advocates forget that millions of American men need rights and guidance so they do not end up in jail.

Advocating for animal rights would be noble if it was based on respect for animals. As it is, advocates hate big business, hunters, meat eaters and any group of people who succeed in our system, more than they love animals.

Some animal rights advocates have gone to jail for their actions. They are proud of it. But it would be more courageous and a challenge or inspiration to others, if you were fired for starting a union at work, arrested for speaking against the Patriot Act and hated for saying most of our prisons should be closed and our young men provided jobs and job training.

Then you would be making people feel small in a proper way. They would feel small because they realize what they are up against. They would feel small because they are not doing anything to fight for themselves.

The world does not need to be conquered to be improved. I’d like to see animal rights advocates find out where the barking dogs in your neighborhood live, then force the owners to keep them quiet. You would benefit yourself, your neighbors and the dogs.

Think how good it would feel knowing that you kept cool while infuriated, that you did not speak rudely though you were determined to win. Think how proud and how strong you would feel.

Think of the example you would set, that you weren’t rude like the rude neighbor, that the neighbor, if he hated you, would hate you for your maturity. You would inspire others to feel big, and to seek the spiritual power that you have.

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko