The Peace Candidate
Friends,
I’ve been the peace candidate since 2014, when I was our party’s nominee for the United States Senate, something that still gives me a great deal of pleasure to say. Anyway, one Sunday morning late in the campaign, about 4 am, I am up and hear my phone buzzing. I ignore it, but it won’t stop, so we go check it, and we are being bombarded with texts and phone calls. Our campaign’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were humming, too: an organization had sent out robocalls and had mentioned my name.
What was interesting was that my name wasn’t mentioned until the very end of the 90-second message, when the caller announced, “Gaylon Kent is the only peace candidate on the ballot.”
True enough, and we’ve called ourselves the peace candidate ever since.
Now, this doesn’t mean America huddles in a corner. Far from it. It means we have a strong defense, the strongest we can afford, frankly. But it also means we give other nations the dignity of conducting their affairs without the benefit of US interference.
More than anything, it means we do not fight any wars that have not been declared by Congress. This is mandated in the Constitution, though the proviso could not be more ignored if prizes were issued for non-compliance, because Congress hasn’t formally declared war since World War II. Every war waged by every president since has been illegal, and in some cases, immoral.
Our war with Iran is an immoral war. They pose no imminent threat to us. The war was not declared by Congress. We’re bombing schoolgirls now, a war crime that someone should be held accountable for.
War has been man’s calling card since time immemorial. It’s the way the world is built. And there are times when the US must defend itself. But this war with Iran is not one of those times.
Thank you for reading,
