Excerpts from “How do we want America to be?” by William McRaven

Now, a former president has been convicted by a jury in New York, and we have a choice to make. We can show the world that we are still exceptional and continue to lead the international community with integrity and pride, or we can prolong the onslaught of crassness, vulgarity, pettiness and righteous indignation and descend into national mediocrity, where there is nothing of value worth emulating.

[OCS: We are shitting on our military, pushing gayness over preparedness. We are shitting on our Allies. The choice we need to make is clear: Defense by massive offensive deterrence. We need to respond in kind as the only thing the progressive communist democrats respect is power and the will to use it to advance an agenda.]

I have been a vocal critic of the former president, but I took no joy in seeing him found guilty. He was the president of the United States. My president. Whether I liked him or not, he had been elected by the people, the American people — your neighbors, your colleagues, your friends and your family. If we are going to continue to be viewed as exceptional, then it is time for both sides to lay down their rhetorical arms and find a way to rise above.

[OCS: If conservatives lay down their rhetorical arms, they will be overwhelmed by progressive communist democrats and their quest for perpetual power. People who have no morals, no filter, no reluctance to use force.]

On the left, stop the gloating, the ugly memes, the public rants, the late-night roastings and the political vitriol. On the right, respect the legal verdict, support the jurors, fly your flag with honor and find a way to bridge the political divide. There are thoughtful, reasonable, genuinely good men and women on both sides. Let them speak for America.

[OCS: Is McRaven blind? You have a corrupt prosecutor. A corrupt judge. And a jury instructed to find Trump guilty of “whatever.” This is not justice, this is tyranny and the destruction of due process. I do not have to respect a legal verdict that is the product of a corrupt process by the same progressive communist democrats who created the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Wasn’t Trump widely excoriated and reviled by the left for the comment that “very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville? You cannot bridge the political divide by surrendering to those who would destroy you. Nobody is above the law except the Clintons, Obamas. and the Bidens.]

Abraham Lincoln once said, “My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of Earth.” It is up to us — all of us — to decide whether this is that place and time. Whether this is where we stand together and show the world that we can rise above, that we are exceptional, that my mother was right — that our goodness can transcend our hatreds and bring us together even in the most challenging of times.

[OCS: Bullshit! We can no longer live in a world that exists only in the minds and writings of high-minded individuals. You do not respond to the opposition’s political force with politeness, acceptance, and, finally, resignation when things go wrong.]

<To read the op-ed, in full and context, it can be found at the Washington Post.>