Share
Commentary

Ilhan Omar Posts Video That Proclaims the US Is 'Not Very Good at Anything' Except War

Share

A former refugee shouldn’t be so rude.

But Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar put her crassness on display early Monday when she posted an obscenity-riddled stand-up comedy bit from the late, legendary comedian George Carlin.

Omar, of course, wasn’t looking for laughs — she even captioned the video “It’s no laughing matter.”

What the Democrat was obviously, doing, though, was giving a platform to the liberal canard that the greatest country the world has ever seen is running out of the energy that made it great.

But as a refugee whose family found safety and a future in a country she takes for granted, Omar was missing the point.

The video was from an appearance Carlin made in 1992 at the formerly named Paramount Theater at New York’s Madison Square Garden (now The Theatre at Madison Square Garden).

“This country’s only 200 years old and already, we’ve had 10 major wars,” Carlin told his audience, according to a transcript of the show. “We average a major war every 20 years in this country, so we’re good at it! And it’s a good thing we are; we’re not very good at anything else anymore!”

While its blistering description of the United States is as offensive in some ways as the obscenity it contained, the bit was basically a rehash of the “counter-cultural” comedy Carlin built a career on, from mocking the Vietnam War right up to the second Bush presidency.

But that relentlessly negative outlook on America was doubtless what appealed to Omar the most.

Check it out here. (WARNING: This video contains obscene language that some readers may find offensive.)

Since there’s always a good chance of finding a fair number of knuckleheads following a Twitter account belonging to someone like Ilhan Omar, it’s no surprise that a lot of the responses thought this was just great.

Unfortunately for Omar, some in the audience weren’t biting at all.

Related:
Rashida Tlaib Gets Warned by House Sergeant at Arms for 'Disgraceful' Display During Netanyahu Speech

The problem with Omar’s post, aside from its obscenity — what’s appropriate for a stand-up comedian isn’t exactly the same for a sitting United States congresswoman — is that Carlin’s point is no more valid now than it was then.

Is the United States of America remarkably good at making war? Of course it is, which is the major reason there even is a United States of America, as opposed to some Balkanized collection of colonies under various European rulers.

Is that all the United States is good for? Of course not. A country that was good for nothing but war would not attract between a half-million and a million free human beings to become new citizens every year — including own Omar’s family.

Do you think most Democrats think about the country the way Ilhan Omar does?

A country that was good for nothing but war would not be a global economic leader that enriches its trading partners as much as itself.

A country that was good for nothing but war would not be the envy of every other country on the face of the earth – it might be feared, but it would not have the cultural impact that the United States does, on every aspect of civilized life from entertainment to consumer products to politics.

George Carlin was a supremely talented entertainer who used a gift for biting sarcasm and withering humor to amass a fortune worth about $10 million when he died in 2008.

Carlin was too smart a man not to know how lucky he was to be born into a country that was materially wealthy enough to reward his talents – and confident enough of its own worth not to be too insecure about the court jesters pointing out its faults.

Unfortunately, Democrats of the 21st century – the likes of Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others Rep. Dan Crenshaw on Sunday called the “blame America first” crowd  – are not in his class. (Crenshaw was appropriating a quote from President Ronald Reagan’s United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick.)

And a socialist hack like Omar – who stoops to recycling a comedy bit nearly three decades old to insult the country that gave her a new life and a new freedom she refuses to appreciate – never will be.

Truth and Accuracy

Submit a Correction →



We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Tags:
, , , ,
Share
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He's been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn't need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American




Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.

Conversation