The Discerning Texan

OK, I am going to say it: THIS is the guy who should be our President. Hopefully by 2012 it won't be too late--for all of us:

Welcome to Europe, circa 1936-38. Only now the threat is even greater.

Transcript here. And a sobering finish (emphasis mine):

We find ourselves crippled by political correctness and incapable of having honest conversations about meeting the threats around the world.

Portions of the recent guides prepared by the Department of Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center that instruct officials to avoid using Islamic terms in referring to terrorism are enormously self-destructive. If we cannot have an honest discussion about the nature of the threats against us we cannot develop strategies to meet those threats. It is simply suicidal to treat the al-Qaeda network as simply “an illegitimate political organization, both terrorist and criminal” while ignoring the radical religious foundation underpinning this and other groups that constitute an Irreconcilable Wing of Islam. Anyone blind to this should be dismissed from working in National Security.

The failure of the American intelligence and diplomacy system to detect that the North Koreans were apparently lying to us for years while helping the Syrians build a nuclear reactor in secret should alarm every American.

After a year of effort and more than $500 million of aid to the Lebanese Army, we stood helplessly by as Hezbollah showed its capacity to intimidate and dominate the Lebanese government. After all the talk about going after the Syrians for assassinating Lebanese politicians, after all the promises in the United Nations about dismantling Hezbollah in return for Israeli restraint, it is the Syrians and Iranians who are winning in Lebanon and America and democracy who are being defeated.

The consolidation of Hamas in Gaza is another victory for terrorism and defeat for decency and democracy. How our diplomats can talk about seeking peace between terrorists and Israel while the forces of destruction and evil gain momentum is one of the mysteries of our time. Only the willfully self deceptive can look at what is occurring and believe we are not running larger and larger risks.

In the poorest nations in the world a decade long campaign against scientifically improved food has led to a catastrophic decline in the food supply. In dictatorships, the absence of the rule of law diminishes the desire of farmers to produce. While the Europeans and their anti-science liberal friends attack scientifically improved agriculture, the poor pay with their lives for this anti-science fetish.

In the absence of a profound and serious national energy strategy, the United States has allowed supply and demand for energy to become decisively unbalanced.

This year more cars will be purchased on mainland Asia than in the United States. This historic first marks a dramatic increase in demand for energy as Chinese, Indian, and other people become wealthier and desire better lives.

The only practical answer in the next decade is to dramatically increase supply.

In the long run there are many potential technological breakthroughs but none of them will have an impact in the next few years.

The fact is there is a lot of energy to be found if politicians will allow it to be found.

In the last 18 months Brazil has found two large oil fields in the Atlantic.

These two fields are so large they will make Brazil a major oil exporter.

Today it is illegal to look for oil and gas in the Atlantic off the United States.

It is illegal to look for oil and gas in the Pacific off the United States.
It is illegal to look for oil and gas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

It is illegal to look for oil and gas in northern Alaska.
This is an irrational and dangerous policy.

At $20 a barrel Americans can afford to ignore their own resource potential.

At $100 a barrel it is dangerous for the economy and for national security for the United States to adopt a policy of deliberately allowing foreign dictators to define the world energy system.

Very expensive oil makes dictators more secure, more powerful, and more aggressive.

Very expensive oil weakens the economies of the democracies and strengthens the economies of dictators and autocrats.

Very expensive oil gives Russia and Iran a lot more resources with which to invest in competing with the United States.

Very expensive oil gives the Saudis much more money with which to subsidize Wahhabist extremist propagandizing on a worldwide basis.

The absence of an effective American energy policy is a strategic failure second only to the collapse of education in its long term implications for weakening America and making us more vulnerable.

Finally, because nuclear, biological, and information weapons are going to continue to spread, the danger of American being hit in a disastrous way are going to continue to increase.

We badly need a reality oriented, practical exercise hardened Homeland Security system sized to handle three nuclear events in three different cities on the same day. Our current Homeland Security efforts are too small, too bureaucratic, and too out of touch with the hard reality of implementation in a crisis.

These are among the key discussions we need if we are going to have the scale of reform we need to give our children and grandchildren the best possible chance to live in the most prosperous, freest, and safest country in the world.

This is a hard road of many fundamental reforms.

The road of self deception and self deception leading to strategic defeat is much harder.

Watch the whole video--there are contemporaneous remarks interspersed that really hammer home the points made in the transcript.

Where can I sign up for the Gingrich in 2012 Campaign?