“...history repeats her tale unconsciously, and goes off into a mystic rhyme…”
— The Christian Remembrancer, Vol 10, p. 264
I started drafting this last night in a hotel in Pierre, South Dakota. The subject I had planned was a quick campaign update and the news that Paramount Global won its bid to acquire Warner Bros.
As regular folks I’ve met at seven town halls so far know, as an Independent, I’m a huge fan of competition, so I was going to use the Paramount deal to talk about consolidation of corporate power, antitrust law, and what it means for working Americans.
That article is going to have to wait.
Before I get into the big news of today, I want to reiterate the new poll results and my experience hosting town halls with voters. Three polls so far all show the same trend: Mike Rounds is vulnerable; his job approval is underwater, as are his re-elect numbers. Once voters hear biographies for Rounds and me, I am either tied or in the lead.
Last week, we kicked off a statewide town hall tour. This afternoon, I was in Mobridge, South Dakota, across the Missouri River from the Standing Rock Reservation. By the time this article goes out, I’ll be holding a town hall in Aberdeen, where I used to live when I taught at Northern State University. Eight down, eight left to go.
I am hearing the same thing over and over again: people feel Washington does not listen to them. I wanted to tell you more about the stories I heard, but that too will have to wait.
I want to be a Senator who gets things done. Not like Mike Rounds, a cable news Senator tuning in 1400 miles from the state he “represents,” but a Senator who actually shows up for South Dakota.
But then I woke up this morning to the news that the United States bombed Iran. That changed everything for me. It changed the subject of this article, and it has raised the stakes of this campaign.
As someone who wore the uniform for more than two decades, I cannot read headlines like that and move on. I won’t treat it as just another political development to be spun and digested. I see the faces of the men and women who will be asked to carry out whatever comes next.
This feels hauntingly familiar, and that makes me angry.
I didn’t expect to make a career as an Air Force JAG when I started, but after 9/11 I felt a duty to do so. Twenty years ago, the American people were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That lie cost 4,500 of my fellow service members their lives, with more than 35,000 wounded. Trillions of dollars were spent, destabilizing an entire region. Families across this country still carry the weight of those decisions.
Americans were told that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “obliterated” just eight months ago. Now we’re being told that Iran was weeks away from building a nuclear weapon. Which is it?
The American people deserve answers before we send another generation of sons and daughters into harm’s way.
Let’s not bury the lead: these actions are unconstitutional. The Constitution is clear, only Congress has the authority to declare war. If Washington believes this military action is justified, then Congress should have the moral courage to debate it openly and hold a vote.
That includes Senator Mike Rounds.
Senator Rounds, if you are going to support this path, then stand up and vote for it. You are a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, so you should understand what that position means. If you break it, you buy it. You own the consequences. You own the names etched onto memorial walls. You own the folded flags handed to grieving families. The American public is tired of regime change leading to forever wars in the Middle East.
Career politicians who have never worn the uniform owe our troops more than political-speak excuses.
I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That oath did not expire when I retired. It did not dissolve when I became a candidate for U.S. Senate. If anything, it compels me more to speak up at moments like this.
This campaign has always been about accountability, about making sure that the people we send to Washington remember who they work for. “Service over self.”
We’ll talk about media mergers next week, but right now what matters most is this: before we stumble into another endless conflict, the American people deserve a vote.
South Dakotans deserve leaders who understand the cost of war. We deserve leaders who will exhaust every diplomatic option before resorting to military force. We deserve a government that tells them the truth. If nothing else, we deserve a Congress that will uphold the Constitution.
We need leaders with the courage to say that war is not a talking point, it is a last resort.
When I have the honor of serving as South Dakota’s next United States Senator, I will never forget that.
Thank you for reading.
Brian L. Bengs, Lt Col (Ret)
Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate
Col. Bengs, it goes without saying, but thank you for your 20 years of service to our country. More importantly, though, thank you for running for the Senate. We clearly need leaders like you in the Senate.
Now, I am hoping that you or a member of your staff will read this comment. I agree with all that you said about the recent events in the Middle East. I just want to add one more point that I am hoping you might share in your town halls.
I am a retired CPA and an “amateur” historian. I suspect very few of you constituents will know that in 1945, the end of WWII, the highest individual income tax rate was over 90% - the tax rate paid by the most wealthy. In addition, corporations paid an excess profits “war tax”. The greatest generation PAID for their wars. But more importantly, EVERYONE sacrificed something for the war effort - even the wealthy who might be able to avoid military service (think bone spurs).
In my mind, when 9/11 happened the U.S. experienced another Pearl Harbor. Indeed we declared war on terrorism and went to Afghanistan and later Iraq (a mistake but nonetheless we were at war). In 2002 the federal government CUT income taxes for the most wealthy. Ever since, for the twenty years of war (and continuing) the federal government rain major deficits - the entire war effort was put “on the credit card.”
My point here is that the only people who sacrificed for that war were the men and women who fought it (you for one) and their families (the folks who got the folded flags). WE DIDN’T EVEN PAY FOR IT! The wealthy paid less tax and many made no sacrifice whatsoever (again, think bone spurs).
If we had a war tax whenever we sent men and women into harms way, perhaps the wealthy elite might think twice about going to war. When we go to war, everyone should sacrifice something otherwise don’t go to war.
What THE PEOPLE, WE THE GOVERNED need is WHAT EVERY TRUE DEMOCRACY NEEDS, the power to RECALL, VETO. IMPEACH, AND DIRECTLY AMEND THE CONSTITUTION by Petition, Proposition and Plebiscite like we have in California and most of the other modernizations of the Constitution that I proposed in A MORE PERFECT DEMOCRACY: MODERNIZING THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 26 months AGO!!!! BETTER late than never.