As a child of the 1980s, I grew up watching movies such as “Rambo,” “Red Dawn,” and “Missing in Action.” I voraciously read “G.I. Joe” comics and military-themed magazines like Soldier of Fortune and Take Off. I played military simulations on my Amiga and Commodore 64 computers. I won World War 3 many times over. I vanquished the Russians, Libyans, and Iranians with ease in my Microsoft flight simulations and SSI turn based strategy games. I stopped the Russians and their allies at the Fulda Gap; I sunk the Warsaw Pact battle fleets in the Kola Peninsula and near Iceland. I wondered, how hard could doing the same thing be in real life?

I knew the secret to beating the Russians and creating a Pax Americana that would spread freedom, democracy, and “American values” around the world: Peace through superior firepower. America is the greatest country on Earth. The real problem is that the rest of the world has not yet been made aware of this self-evident fact.

Wednesday evening’s CNN Republican debate featured childish thoughts such as these, thoughts that normally are discarded long ago by reasonable and mature adults, instead now being offered as serious policy analysis from people who want to be President of the United States.

One of the 15 people on stage Wednesday will represent one of the two major parties next year. That’s frightening…