Ben And Candace

 

All conservatives by now (11/18/23) know about the bitter dispute between Ben Shapiro, a brilliant and pious Jew and one of the owners of The Daily Wire, and one of his writers and podcasters, Candace Owens, a black, smart, strong-willed, free-thinking woman. Ben urged her to quit, and she is right when she told Tucker Carlson that Ben went too far, and is too emotional, and that conservatives need to respect honest differences of opinion without purging dissenting voices from their midst.

 

The issue is Ben wants US aid to be sent to Israel fighting for its life against the aggressor Hamas and murderous, genocidal Islamists. Owens seemed to accuse the Israeli government of genocide in Hamas, when it is the Hamas killers using their people as shields, and Egypt and Jordan refuse to allow the Gazan civilians to be refugees out of the war zone. Candace is wrong here, but she should be allowed her free opinion too.

 

Israel has to wipe out Hamas, but should do all it can to do so as carefully as possible to minimize civilian death in Gaza.

 

The deeper issue is that Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Vivek Ramaswamy--all naïve, too pacifist, neo-isolationists--and traditional Republicans like me were or are George W. Bush neo-cons on foreign policy. We made mistakes too.

 

We cannot nation-build and inflict democracy on peoples not ready for it or do not want it. It is true that we have sent in the marines too often. Better to provide aid and arms to peoples like Israel and Unkraine willing to do their own fighting, and these neo-isolationists like Owens, do not want aid for Israel, and they are wrong there. Shapiro was right to call her out, but not right in yelling at her in public and inviting her to quit The Daily Wire.

 

We must not let abortion rights or foreign policy disputes tear the MAGA  Republicans apart. We still need a strong military and strong navy, and there may be a just foreign war that we need to engage in. We need our ships off the coast of Israel, and we should have a submarines and carriers between Red China and Taiwan, being careful and prudent, but openly informing China that we will not allow them to take Taiwan, that we will defend this free people from the larger, imperial bully coming after Formosa.

Let Owens and Shapiro have their debate, work out a compromise and stay united against the Democrats and Leftists tanking America.