Kev's Book Rants

Ep: 2 - Deception at the Helm: Operation Northwoods and the Cuban Crisis

• Kevin • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Can a war be justified by deceit? Imagine a world where strategy games like Crusader Kings provide a unique lens into political machinations and ethical dilemmas. This episode takes a chilling turn as we dissect Operation Northwoods, a plan proposed by General Lyman Lemnitzer to President John F. Kennedy to fabricate reasons to go to war with Cuba. By diving deep into the historical context provided by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, we uncover America’s longstanding ambitions in Latin America and how these ambitions culminated in this audacious scheme. Drawing insights from "Operation Northwoods" by Charles River Editors, we explore the moral implications of such deceptive strategies.

As tensions simmer, we move to the fervent atmosphere of the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro’s rise to power, the nationalization of American businesses, and the alignment of Cuba with communist Russia created storm clouds over US foreign policy. We dig into this tumultuous period, highlighting the strain between JFK and his Defense Department. The catastrophic Bay of Pigs invasion left an indelible mark on US-Cuban relations, causing an internal rift that showcased the complexities and missteps of the Cold War era.

In our final segment, we reflect on John F. Kennedy’s steadfast commitment to peace, even when faced with immense pressure. His approach during the Cuban Missile Crisis and his profound American University speech demonstrate the power of living by one’s values. We discuss the personal cost of such principled leadership and the broader implications for our own lives. This episode challenges you to engage in deep introspection and live a life guided by clear, intentional principles, inspired by historical figures who exemplify the enduring power of staying true to oneself.

Speaker 1:

I love playing strategy games. You know the ones where you're running a whole country or an empire or something like that, and you're managing resources and you're expanding that empire and you're leading your nation to success. I'm talking about the games like Civilization or Age of Empires or Warhammer Basically the games where you're commanding armies and building cities. Now, one of my absolute favorite games in this genre is called Crusader Kings. Now, this game, to me at least, is on a whole nother level right. It's this medieval political simulation game where you play as the king of a nation and your job is to rule through multiple generations, and it gives you all kind of options on how to rule. Right, you can rule however you want to. You want to be a pacifist economic powerhouse that focuses on wealth and trade Cool, you can do that. You want to be a religious country that spreads its faith across the world Cool, you can do that. Or maybe you just want to go full-on conquest mode and take over the world with war and violence Cool, you can do that too. You can play that game however you want to play it.

Speaker 1:

Now, the thing that sets Crusader Kings apart from all the other games in that particular genre is this mechanic where you can't just go to war. You need a reason, right, you need a justification for going to war, and the game won't let you go to war without it, like it won't let you send troops into the country, it won't let you declare war, it won't let you do any of that unless you have a legitimate reason to go to war. And this feature adds a layer of realism, because, in real life politics, or in real life geopolitics, like nations just don't go to war without a reason. And I think it's a matter of support, right, you need support. You need support from your allies, from the key figures inside of your country, and you especially need support from the citizens in the country, right, because they're the main ones who are going to be bearing the brunt of a war. So, with that being said, let's jump to 1962.

Speaker 1:

General Lyman Limnizer is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he goes to President John F Kennedy with this plan to trick the American people into supporting going to support this war. But he also knew that if he could fabricate a cause for war, he could really rally the American people behind this idea of going to war. But why, though? Why did America feel the need to invade Cuba? Why did the country's highest ranking military official feel the need to lie to the American people? And if they were ready to lie to the American people, what was the real reason they wanted to go to war? Well, that's what we're here to talk about. What's up everybody? Welcome back to Kev's Book Rant.

Speaker 1:

I'm Kevin, and today we're going to pick up right where we left off in our exploration of the 1960s. But we're going to switch it up just a little bit. Today we're going to talk about Operation Northwoods. Now, this was a wild plan by the US military leaders at the time where they thought it would be a good idea to stage terrorist attacks right here, on American soil in some cases, and they blame it on Cuba to justify war. So we're going to get into that and we're going to talk about the historical context that led to this particular point in history. On top of that, we're going to look at JFK's response to these plans and we're going to see if there's any practical lessons we can learn from that that we can apply to our own lives. And we're going to do all of this through the lens of the book Operation Northwoods by Charles River Editors. So without further ado, let's get right into it.

Speaker 1:

To understand why America felt the need to start a war with Cuba, we've got to go way back to 1823. This was about 50 years or so after the US had gained their independence from Great Britain. So they were still trying to find their place in the world, or get their feet up under them, and as a new nation, they didn't want the European powers interfering in the Western Hemisphere because, I mean, this was their territory. Now See America. At this time they had ambitions and aspirations of becoming a dominant world power at some point, or at least on the level of all the other European powers at the time, and in order to do that they had to be able to call the shots in their own backyard. So having the European powers around meddling wasn't really going to fly. This is why they came up with the Monroe Doctrine. It basically said hey, europe, you know what you can keep, whatever colonies or territories or whatever but you can't have any more. They were essentially cutting off Europe. But even the part about hey, europe, you can keep what you got, that was more of a temporary thing, at least in the US's mind, because in the long term, america was still trying to figure out how they can get the Western Hemisphere under their influence, specifically Central America and the Caribbean. And it's this strategy that set the stage for them intervening in Latin American countries throughout the 19th and the 20th century, particularly in Cuba. They really wanted Cuba at that time. The problem was it was already a Spanish colony, so in order to get Cuba, they had to get creative to figure out how to get Cuba up off of Spain's hands.

Speaker 1:

And this is where America gets a little messy, right. And the best way that I can kind of describe this situation is if I give you a little bit of an analogy, right, it's kind of like if you had a crush on someone, but they were in a relationship with somebody. So you want to do the honorable thing, right, and you just want to wait until they break up so you can shoot your shot. Or if you're a real grimy dude, you don't even wait until they break up, you go ahead and start shooting your shot while they're still in a relationship. You might be going to an old girl, talking to her, telling her things like hey man, you know, you know, homeboy ain't treating you right. He don't deserve you. You deserve to be with the real man, someone who's really going to take care of you. You deserve to be with me. You see how messed up that is. That was the situation Cuba was in.

Speaker 1:

Now the thing about it is Cuba wanted to break free from Spanish rule. They were actually fighting a war to gain their independence from Spain. So while Cuba and Spain are over here trying to figure out their relationship and all of that stuff, here come America, old grimy behind, talking about some. Yeah, cuba, you know Spain ain't treating you right. You deserve to be your own country. You don't need Spain. In fact, you deserve to be free. Let me go ahead and help you out, right, let me help you because I believe that you should be a free country. So America goes ahead and jumps in the war, right, and it went from being the Cuban Revolution to the Spanish-American War. Now, how America got into this war is important. You remember what I said about needing a reason to start a war. Well, in 1898, america got that reason.

Speaker 1:

While Cuba and Spain are fighting, the US sent one of their warships into Havana to, quote-unquote, show support for Cuba during their revolution. They send in that ship in. And wouldn't you know it, that ship just mysteriously blows up and it killed like 250 or so American sailors. Now, as sad as this event is, how do you think they handled this? Do you think they went and investigated thoroughly to make sure they knew what happened, so they wouldn't hastily blame another country and cause us to go to war out of revenge? No, of course not. That's not how we Americans do things right we shoot first and then we ask questions later. And that's exactly what the US did. They immediately blamed the explosion on Spain and declared war on them. Now a lot of historians believe that this explosion was caused by internal accidents, something like a, something like a fire in the ship's ammunition bay, and some even believe it was intentionally exaggerated or manipulated to start a fight with Spain. Remember, you need a reason to go to war, right? So they got their reason.

Speaker 1:

Long story short, america won the war and Cuba was supposed to end up with their independence, which they kind of did, but not really. After the war was over and it was time for Cuba to drop their new constitution, america wanted to add a little something extra to it, and they basically came to Cuba and was like hey, man, you know, hey, since we fought this war for you and basically won it for you, how about we just go in and throw this amendment in here? You know it's no big deal it's. It just allows us to intervene in your country whenever we see fit to protect our business interests. But you know no big deal. Thing is it was a big deal, right. It pretty much opened the door for all of these American businesses to come in and just buy up a whole bunch of Cuban land at super cheap prices. Now you would think this would help the Cuban people, because all of these businesses that are coming in means more job and more wealth for the people, right? No, not really, because that's not how colonization works. All of that profit that was being made off of the Cuban people, off the Cuban land and all the resources in Cuba, all of that wasn't circulating within the country, it was going back to America. Obviously, the Cuban people weren't happy with this setup, right, they were getting hustled, and they knew it. This wasn't really what they signed up for when they fought Spain to get their independence right. They thought they were going to be free to determine their own destiny, but instead they just ended up being colonized by another country.

Speaker 1:

And here's where Fidel Castro comes into the picture. Right At the time, he was this young, charismatic lawyer who had this ability to inspire people to revolution. Right, he saw all the discontent and the the anger amongst the cuban people because the president at the time and I'm a butcher his name guys valencio batista. He understood that Batista was pretty much a puppet for America. Batista was the one who allowed all of these American businesses to exploit Cuba's resources. So Castro was able to take all of that anger and frustration and discontent and in 1959, castro was able to overthrow the government.

Speaker 1:

Now here's where the problem for the US came in. Right, castro was a communist, and this was at a time where the US was still in the midst of their Cold War with Russia, a communist country. And again, we talked about in the last episode how the Red Scare and this fear of communism caused America to do all of these crazy, sometimes unethical things. But for Castro and for Cuba, the problem for the US had to do with money, right, because when Castro came in, he was tired of seeing Cuba being exploited. So he started nationalizing all of the American owned businesses, taking back the land and redistributing that land to the Cubans Right. He really started to implement his communist vision and this promptly pissed America off. The US had all of these investments in Cuba and Castro's actions directly threatened America's economic interests in the country. So you can imagine how, at this point, how salty America was right, because, in short order, after Castro took over, first of all he messed up the money for the rich folks, and you know, when it comes to America you can't mess up the money. That's a problem, right. Number two he was communist and with that he started aligning Cuba with communist Russia, again at the height of the Cold War. So that was a problem. Number three Castro challenged America's influence in the Western Hemisphere, again, something that the Monroe Doctrine was supposed to prevent a hundred or so years before that. So you know, something had to be done. You knew America wasn't going to stand for this. So here's where things get even more interesting, at least on America's side of things.

Speaker 1:

Right, in Kennedy's administration, in JFK's administration, there were different ideas on how to deal with Castro and the Cuba problem, and the thing is, these differences led to serious tensions and conflict between the president and his defense department. Kennedy wanted to find a diplomatic and strategic way to try and deal with Cuba without escalating to a full-blown war. But the Defense Department and the intelligence community, they were all about this war thing, right, they wanted to be direct and decisive and they just wanted to straight up send in the military, shoot up the place, kill Castro and just be done with it. Jfk wasn't that big of a fan of that. Right, he was down for getting Castro up out of there. But he wanted to keep things low key because, again, his mind was trying to avoid World War Three. Right, he was trying to avoid a direct fight with Russia at all costs. At all costs.

Speaker 1:

Now, to be clear at this point, cuba wasn't an official ally of Russia's, but they were moving in that direction and America really wanted to get Castro out of there before they can make that relationship official. So in April 1961, he approved the Bay of Pigs invasion. And this Bay of Pigs plan was supposed to be America secretly training a bunch of Cuban exiles to go and invade Cuba themselves and overthrow Castro. And the idea was that these exiles would do the majority of the work while keeping America out of it, at least publicly. Now here's the problem JFK's military advisors at that time left him out to dry. They didn't tell the president that they didn't think the plan was going to work. Like the leaders pretty much the military leaders knew this plan wouldn't work, but they didn't tell the president that this wasn't going to work and the plan started to fall apart and fail. Jfk would be forced to order in American troops to prevent the operation from failing. They thought they were going to trick the president into a war. Problem is they misjudged Kennedy?

Speaker 1:

Kennedy was determined to stick to his core principles of not escalating things. He was about peace and preventing World War III. He did not want to go to war with Russia. Despite the fact that his military leaders and everybody around him was just itching to go to war, kennedy was like no, we are going to avoid this at all costs and he let that plan fail. He let the Bay of Pigs fail and it was a real big problem for him because it was. It was embarrassing for him and his presidency. It was also embarrassing for the country too as a whole, because it was supposed to be a secret but it got out and everybody found out about it. So it was a big embarrassing moment for the president and for the country as a whole. Now, to add insult to injury, not only were the president and the US embarrassed, but it also deepened the distrust between Kennedy and his Defense Department, also deepened the distrust between Kennedy and his defense department. Kennedy didn't like the fact that his advisors that were supposed to be helping him make the best decision for the country. He didn't like the fact that they tried to trick him into starting a war, and the military thought that Kennedy was too weak to be a leader.

Speaker 1:

So let's recap how did we get to this point right here? Right, we started with the Monroe Doctrine, which was America's strategy to keep European influence out of the Western Hemisphere, because it was theirs. Now they wanted to control this side of the world and they wanted to be the main ones running things over here. Then, when Cuba decided to revolt against their colonizer Spain, america took that opportunity to jump in and, quote-unquote, help Cuba earn their independence. But really they just wanted to take over. They basically did take over through what was called the Platt Amendment and Cuba's new constitution, and this pretty much allowed them to exploit Cuba. The Cuban people weren't happy with this, so they supported Fidel Castro, who came and overthrew the American-backed government and he started moving Cuba toward more communist Russia. So America tried to get Castro up out the paint through the Bay of Pigs. But not only did they fail, but the secret got out and they got embarrassed. All caught up. Good, let's keep it moving.

Speaker 1:

So, after all of that foolishness with the Bay of Pigs, they still had the original problem, which was Castro. They still had to figure out a way to get rid of him. So they went to Plan B, which was Operation Mongoose. Now, operation Mongoose was the CIA's turn, or the intelligence community's term, to get in there and get rid of Castro. But they were trying to do it in more covert ways. And, man, when I tell you, they tried everything to get him up out of office. I mean, they sabotaged Cuba's infrastructure, they launched propaganda campaigns, they fueled anti-Castro groups. They attempted so many assassinations right, it was something crazy like 600 or so assassination attempts and every single one of them failed, like they could not take this man out.

Speaker 1:

So at this point, after all of these failed covert attempts, the military was like hey, man, y'all playing too many games, just just send us in, send in the military, we'll take care of things. They were still thinking along the lines of war. They thought war was the way to get rid of Castro and really they thought war was the solution to any problem back then. Now the problem with the military strategy was they knew the American public wasn't going to support a war with another country, especially while they were still in Vietnam at that time. This is where Operation Northwoods comes into play. So I know it's taken a minute to get to this point, to the actual operation itself, but I think it's important to understand why and how the military got to the point where they thought this was a good idea. See, operation Northwoods was again this desperate move to get public support for military action, and again we see how public support is crucial for any sustained major military operation, and if you don't have that, you're pretty much in trouble. Look at Vietnam, for example. Vietnam didn't have strong support for that war and you see how it turned out. To this day, vietnam is still considered one of the only major failures in US military history, and most of that is because of the lack of support here on the home front.

Speaker 1:

So Operation North was the document that was presented to the president himself, right, this document which is now declassified. I'm going to actually put the link in the show notes so you guys can check it out. It's only 15 pages long, so it's not that deep of a read. You can get through it in about five minutes, all right, but I want to go through. There were nine total plans and I want to get through this pretty quickly so you can get an idea of how wild these plans actually were. All right, so let's get to it.

Speaker 1:

The first idea was to do military exercises near Cuba, right, but they were actually trying to provoke Cuba into throwing the first punch, cuba into throwing the first punch. They were hoping that Cuba would freak out and respond aggressively, thereby giving the US a reason to say, hey, cuba attacked us first, we're just defending ourselves, right. So basically, they're trying to coax them into throwing the first punch. The second plan was to stage attacks on Guantanamo Bay, which was a naval base in Cuba, and America was going to use Cuban defectors working with them to stage these attacks, right? So they were going to actually, you know, have these Cuban defectors fake the attacks? They were going to fake, capture them, right. And they were going to use even more defectors outside of the base to cause riots, and they were going to set up more attacks. Right, they were going to set fires. They were actually going to launch mortars into the base and fake all of these deaths and fake these victims, and they were even going to hold fake funerals, guys, for these fake victims. They were creating fake stories that they were going to publish in the newspapers and in magazines back in the US to try and drop all of this anger and frustration toward Cuba.

Speaker 1:

Then there's the remember the pain part too, which was, you know, essentially the recycled idea that they used to get into the Spanish-American War. Right, they were going to send in a ship near Cuba, possibly Havana, and they were just going to blow up the ship and from there it gets even crazier, right, you know, one plan was to plan terror attacks in American cities, in cities like Miami and DC and New York. They were going to set off bombs and do all kinds of crazy stuff on their own soil. That's crazy talk to me. Another idea is they were going to use US planes disguised as Cuban planes and they were going to attack neighboring Caribbean countries. And they were going to attack neighboring Caribbean countries and they were going to make it look like Cuba was the one being aggressive and it was going to cause America to be like, hey, we can't just have Cuba out here attacking other Latin American countries, we've got to step in, we've got to police the region. And there's a few more. I'm not going to go through all nine of them got to police the region, and there's a few more. I'm not going to go through all nine of them.

Speaker 1:

But all of these plans were going to be used to just drop anger, to drop fear, all of these emotions, and stir up all of these emotions in the American public to get them to say, all right, it's time to go to war. And again, these are the military's ideas. Right, this is General Lemnizer, the same guy who tried to trick President Kennedy into starting a war in the first place with the Bay of Pigs incident. And so now I want to talk a little bit about JFK's response to all of this craziness. Kennedy straight up rejected this stuff. In fact, he was horrified by it. And I mean, can you blame him? All of this stuff, all of those plans, that was some next level shady stuff. He basically looked at those plans and was like, no, absolutely not. This is not what America is about. So he wasn't going to do that. And I think this was a defining moment for Kennedy, when he stood firm against the military advisors who were really pushing to be more aggressive, right, and he basically told them hey, listen, guys, we are not doing this. You guys got to find another way to get this taken care of.

Speaker 1:

The thing that I like about Kennedy which I'm learning now on the back end as I read other books outside of Operation Northwoods, but just learning more about Kennedy right, he was really committed to the idea of peace. He wanted to avoid war at all costs, especially with the Soviet Union, and he definitely wasn't down for trying to deceive the American people again. And this dedication to peace wasn't just a one-time thing, it wasn't just a political talking point that he used to get reelected. This is who he was throughout his presidency. He consistently pushed for peaceful solutions throughout every crisis or situation he found himself in Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis he found himself in Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis Instead of listening to his advisors who said, hey, you should just go ahead and bomb Cuba because Russia's got nuclear weapons there. Instead of doing that, he called the president of Russia and was like, hey, man, can we figure out something? Can we figure out some peaceful way to handle this right?

Speaker 1:

In one of the more famous speeches in American history, jfk came out at American University right, he was giving a commencement speech there and he basically goes and in front of all of the country, in the midst of this Cold War, in the midst of everybody being afraid of nuclear war at any moment, he comes out and says, hey, listen, you know what. We need to figure out a way for peace. Right, we need to figure out how to get these nuclear weapons down a little bit, because, at the end of the day, like we're all human, we all have, you know, things that we want to accomplish in this life. And even though you might be communist and we might be capitalists and we think your system of government is just oppressive and all of that, we still understand that everybody just wants to live and I can get down with that, like I can appreciate that level of thinking.

Speaker 1:

Now, did this make him popular with the military? No, no, of course not Like they. They saw him as weak before this and even more so now. They had seen him as even more weak because the way they saw it, you don't deal with Russia with peace talks, right, you deal with Russia and you deal with communism by force and you keep that. You have to keep that pressure on them. And the thing that's interesting about that is that Kennedy really didn't care, right, he wasn't going to compromise his values for the sake of war, for the sake of pleasing or appeasing his military. He wasn't about that.

Speaker 1:

Kennedy was committed to peace at all costs and that likely made him some powerful enemies within his own country and within his own government, really enemies within his own country and within his own government really and a lot of people think that it contributed to his assassination, and I'm one of those people. Honestly, I I think that we'll just leave it at that. We're going to talk about that in another episode, because that is a whole the conspiracy, the, the jfk assassination conspiracy, is just a rabbit hole. That might take five or six episodes, honestly, and I don't know if I've got the energy to do all that. But the takeaway here that I really want you to get from this book is Kennedy's dedication to peace, piece right, the values that he had, that he had came up with on his own right and that he decided to live by, no matter what the consequences were, and in this case it was great because it cost him his life and I think he really showed that.

Speaker 1:

Sticking to your values, even when it's tough, even when you've got everybody against you, even when it's embarrassing or everybody's going to look at you a weird way, even when you've literally got the fate of the entire world on your shoulders, it's important to stick to your values and your principles, no matter what. Like Kennedy wasn't perfect, but in the face of all of that pressure, man, he chose to do what he believed was right, and that's something I can respect and I think that's something we can all learn from. See, when you have principles right, when you've decided this is who I am, this is what I'm about, right, it simplifies life a lot. Feel right to you. You can just go back to your values, to your principles, to the things that you've decided about yourself, and you could say, hey, you know, does this line up with who I am, does this line up with who I want to be? And if it doesn't, then just don't do it. Or at the very least, you could put yourself in a situation to where you can act in accordance with your principles, with who you are.

Speaker 1:

So many people go through life without stopping to put some serious thought into this stuff. They don't ask themselves questions like who am I? What do I value? What's important to me? What do I see as right and wrong? Where do I get the ideas that I have about right and wrong? And when people do that, it puts them in a dangerous situation because then they end up doing things that go against their true selves or, at the very least, the people that they want to be right. It keeps them from being the best version of themselves. And what do I mean by that?

Speaker 1:

Think about it like this have you ever made a decision that didn't feel right to you but you couldn't quite put your finger on why it didn't feel right? Or maybe you did something and your conscience is nagging at you, but you couldn't quite put your finger on why it didn't feel right. Or maybe you did something and your conscience is nagging at you, but you aren't really sure why. See the person who finds themselves in that situation a lot.

Speaker 1:

I think those people don't spend time thinking about their principles and their values. They haven't deeply considered spend time thinking about their principles and their values. They haven't deeply considered what they see as right or wrong or good or evil, right, they haven't thought about what are the things that govern their view of morality. So they don't have a clear set of values. They don't have a clear set of principles that they themselves have come up with. Instead, they have this vague sense of superficial morality that's been given to them by society, the person who spends time thinking about this stuff, and they try and figure out their own values and their own principles.

Speaker 1:

They don't find themselves in this situation often because, number one, it's easier for them to avoid following the crowd or doing things that go against their conscience, because they've identified the line between right and wrong, at least in their mind. Right. And if they do mess up, if they do something that goes against their conscience, they know exactly what they did, because it's easier for them to identify hey, I said, I am this person, I have identified this principle that I will not do this or I will do this and I have gone against that principle. And once they've identified that and once they find that, it's easier for them to come up with the plan to not do it again or, at the very least, it gives them a starting point to reevaluate their values. Maybe there's something that they need to change about themselves. Maybe it's something that they have picked up, a value that isn't really theirs and now they're trying to be somebody. They're not, and I know this might sound a little complicated, and I really hope you're following me here, because this is really important.

Speaker 1:

This is about learning about yourself, right, this is about figuring out who you are, but I don't think a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out themselves, because society, the media, politics, all of that does that for you. Society will easily put you in this box based on your political affiliation or your race or your sex or whatever, and then they give you your values, right. They tell you, hey, because you're this person, you should value this, or because you're this, then you should think this is right and wrong. Think along the lines of oh, I'm a black man, so I should be voting Democrat, or I'm a Christian, so I should think this way, or I should think this is right and wrong. I live in this part of the city, so I should think this way.

Speaker 1:

Society right now is trying to put everybody in a box and then hold you to those principles, and if you're not careful, you could take those principles on and you could take those values on yourself without you even putting any work to figure it out for yourself. And I think when you live like this, and I think when people live like this, it really limits their potential to be the best version of themselves. And I think the way you become the best version of yourself is when you yourself intentionally take the time to figure out your own values and principles, right, your own ideal version of yourself, and you orient your life and you live life according to those principles, according to those values, according to trying and be that ideal version that you have taken the time to figure out. I think that's what life should be about. That's what should be our goals in life is to figure out who the ideal version of ourself is and try and be the best version of that person and try and reach that goal. That's why I think it's important to take some time and figure that stuff out right, figuring out your value system and your principle and I know I've said that 50, 11 times so far in this short podcast, but it's really, really important that you take the time to figure that your value system out, and it's hard and it's going to take a while, because it requires you to ask all of these really deep and difficult questions, questions like hey, do I believe in God? Does God dictate what some of my values are? If I don't believe in God, what governs my view of right and wrong and good and evil? All of these questions are vital into figuring out your conscience, figuring out how you see the world. And once you've gotten through that first step right, and once you've figured out what your values are, then the real tough question right, I know that question, those questions are tough in and of itself Then you have to follow that up with how far am I willing to go to protect my values and my principles and my conscience? How much am I willing to sacrifice to live according to the highest ideal version of yourself? It's not easy but, man, it is so worth it because I feel like true freedom comes from living according to the standards you've set for yourself. True freedom comes from living your life and being able to look at yourself in the mirror and not be ashamed of who you are or who you've become.

Speaker 1:

So many of us feel empty or hollow or ashamed when we look in the mirror, because we're trying to live according to somebody else's values, according to what somebody else says. You should be right, for example, in today's society, right, everybody says, okay, you should be trying to live the American dream, right, you should have a job that has six figures, you should have the family with the two and a half kids and the white picket fence and all of that. And when we don't live up to that, when we don't accomplish those things, then we feel empty, we feel hollow, we feel less than. There's a quote from a book that I'm reading called Technofutilism, and it has nothing to do with Operation Northwoods or whatever, but here's the quote. It's one thing for our dreams to go unfulfilled. It is quite another to sense that our unfulfilled dreams, our frustrated desires, have been manufactured by others. We can't allow other people to dictate what we see as right and wrong. We can't allow other people to dictate what we think our values should come from. And I think it takes us sitting down, turning off all of the distractions and leaning into those really deep and tough conversations with ourselves that we try to avoid because it's uncomfortable. So here's how I know, and this is what I've done, and actually this is what I'm still in the process of doing, right?

Speaker 1:

I ask myself often if I lose everything, if I lose all the money, if I lose all my family, if I lose my health, all of my worldly possessions, if everything is taken away from me, all the things that the world and society says that makes me great or valuable or worthy, if all of those things are taken away from me, could I still look in the mirror and say to myself I am proud of the person that I am and I am proud of the life that I'm living. Am I still living a life of virtue despite not having success in the eyes of the world? Am I still worthy of dignity despite not being blessed or successful in the world's eyes? Because, at the end of the day, the world can take all of this stuff from you your money, your health, your worldly possessions, everything but they can't take your dignity.

Speaker 1:

Dignity is something that you develop within yourself when you have decided to live by a set of values that you have intentionally put in place. Dignity, virtue, self-respect all of those things are way more important than money, wealth and power and even health. It's more important than health because, at the end of the day. All of that can be taken away from you and you can't control whether you have it or not. But dignity and living a life of virtue, that is something you will always have control over. Nobody can take that away Now. You can give it away and you give your dignity away. When you decide to live by somebody else's set of values, don't forfeit that. Don't forfeit your dignity.

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Jfk certainly didn't, and he was at the highest level. He had the highest stakes on his shoulders. If there was anybody who you can understand folding and going against your conscience and going against your values like jfk is that guy. But even he didn't right and he possibly paid the ultimate price for that. But you know what he maintained he may have lost his life, but he maintained his dignity. He lived a life of virtue, and I mean at least when it came to war and peace. I mean he has wildlife outside of that, but he had a set of values when it came to peace and he lived by it.

Speaker 1:

So my challenge to you is to do the work. Lean into those uncomfortable conversations with yourself, ask those questions, find your values, find your principles, find out what the ideal version of you looks like and then work hard to become that ideal version. Work hard to live by those values that you intentionally set up for yourself. Live by those values that you intentionally set up for yourself, and when you do that, you might not save the world from nuclear annihilation, but you might just save your soul. Anyway, that's my rant. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.