I live in the California Congressional District 50 and my congressman is Duncan Hunter. I am totally embarrassed by being even remotely associated with this man.

Here he is, telling us that he would be in favor of using “tactical nuclear devices” in Iran.

I think a ground war in Iran with American boots on the ground would be a horrible thing and I think people like to toss around the fact that we have to stop them in some way from gaining this nuclear capability. I don’t think it’s inevitable but I think if you have to hit Iran, you don’t put boots on the ground, you do it with tactical nuclear devices and you set them back a decade or two or three. I think that’s the way to do it with a massive aerial bombardment campaign.

President Obama has recently unlocked the stalemate we have had with Iran for over thirty years and we’re finally able to THINK about talking with Iran again – what a concept! In this time of right-wing indignation, where the likes of Duncan Hunter are blaming the president for TALKING and are asking instead of using nuclear weapons, we should remind ourselves who Iran actually is.

As of 2012, there are over 75 million people who live in Iran. More than half of Iran’s population is under 35 years old, which means the oldest of that half was just born when the American Embassy hostages were taken. Those Iranians know nothing about us that isn’t distorted by the internal regime’s propaganda.

I know many people from Iran, albeit all of them from before 1980. Some of those people are still in Iran today and I have no contact with them, of course. But I must say that I have never met an Iranian (or former Iranian) that I didn’t like or respect.

Today’s Iranian government may also surprise you. According to this article in The Atlantic, Iran’s cabinet has more members with Ph.D. degrees from U.S. universities than Barack Obama’s cabinet does. In fact, Iran has more holders of American Ph.D.s in its presidential cabinet than France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, or Spain—combined.

So let’s face it, we are dealing with a large country, the largest population in the Middle East. The academic credentials of their highest level of government are impressive, and many of them have doctorates from prestigious American Universities. These guys have friends in our society. They have traveled next to us in our airplanes, and they have stood in line behind us at Starbucks.

The majority of Iranians are young, under 35, and they want: education, better lives for their children and families than they had, freedom to travel the world, food, shelter and security for their loved ones.

That’s what the Iranian people want. All we need to do is wait a few more years until the cranky old zealots all die off and we have a country that we can work with.

Duncan Hunter’s moronic statements are so out of touch, I am dumbfounded. How do men like that make it to Congress?