This headline ran as actual news this week: "Iran fires on US ships in Strait of Hormuz."
The Strait of Hormuz, just to be clear, shares a border with Iran—it's named after the Iranian port city of Hormuz.
Also, is anyone keeping a tally of all the times in the last few years we’ve had to double-check the source because real news is indistinguishable from The Babylon Bee?
The US Navy sent destroyers into the Strait as part of something President Trump called "Project Freedom," which followed a US-Israeli attack on Iran that began in February, a ceasefire in April, and an ongoing US naval blockade of Iranian ports that's been in place since mid-April.
So to summarize: we bombed Iran, blockaded their ports, and sent warships into their coastal waters, and our news outlets are now reporting (with a straight face) that Iran is the one being “aggressive” in this situation and threatening the peace.
In October of 1962, the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba—a mere ninety miles from the Florida coast—and the United States nearly went to nuclear war over it.
Literally.
We called it a provocation, an existential threat, and an act of aggression. But when we do the same thing to other countries (lots and lots and lots of other countries!) we frame it as benevolence, peacekeeping, or progress.
Ron Paul has been making this point for decades: maybe we ought to consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy. Something like, don't do to other nations what we don't want happening to us.
He actually said exactly that on a presidential debate stage in South Carolina in 2012, in front of an audience that was, by most accounts, mostly Christian.
They booed him.
That’s right. Ron Paul—invoking the Sermon on the Mount—was booed by so-called conservative Christians for suggesting the United States apply the teachings of Jesus Christ to its foreign policy.
The principle is really simple, but applying it turns out to be a lot harder than it sounds.
If a foreign country surrounded our coastlines with warships, blockaded our ports, and then launched a military operation to "guide" vessels through our adjacent waters over our objections, we would not describe ourselves as the aggressors in that story. Nor should we.
Most people can see the problem, but they really, really struggle to overcome the long-held American belief that when we do it, it’s justified, but when other countries do it, it’s not.
If we want our kids to inherit a peaceful and prosperous world, then we’ve got to start teaching them that war must be avoided at all costs, and that the media and government work hand-in-hand to manipulate us to believe that every act of aggression is necessary because this time, the situation is dire.
We wrote a whole book to help parents talk to their kids about this.
The Tuttle Twins and the Golden Rule is based on Ron Paul’s A Foreign Policy of Freedom and teaches important concepts like aggression, blowback, and yes… how the Golden Rule can be applied to international politics.
I doubt it will surprise you to learn that kids grasp this concept a lot faster than most adults seem willing to.
In the story, Ethan and Emily are at summer camp when competing teams start cheating and the whole thing spirals into a cycle of revenge and retaliation that nobody can win. “Chief Ron” helps them see that the question you have to ask before escalating anything is the same one that should apply to nations: What would I think if someone did this to me?
It's not a complicated question, but it does require courage to answer it honestly. Thankfully, kids possess that honesty because their sense of justice and morality hasn’t yet been corrupted by partisan politics and cable news.
That’s why teaching these ideas to them when they’re young is so important.
In honor of moms—who have largely always understood that war is the most expensive failure of every other human system—we're offering 20% off all bundles with code MOM20.
Our Golden Rule book is in there, alongside everything else we've built to give your kids the framework to think clearly about power, about who benefits from conflict, and about why it's worth asking a few hard questions before believing whoever is telling them who the bad guys are.
We’re going to keep giving you the resources to help with the vital work you’re doing to build a generation that will give us all the best chance at a peaceful and prosperous future.
You just keep having those dinner table conversations, and family read-alouds.
— Connor
