"The man answers his own phone. Must be a Unitarian."
- Col. Sherm Potter
Great example of how misguided conservatives can be on war.
Believing that limited government is good for them, the nativism of the America first movement understood that it was just too bad if Hitler wanted to impose his particular view of statism on the entire world. America First conservatives would have fought Hitler if he had landed on American shores after that global triumph. But until that day, America firsters were prepared to sit the global war out.
In so doing, they were willing to be passive participants in the Holocaust— aware of the inherent tragedies of radical statism but being careful to do nothing about it.
That quandary infects us today. We will not use statist solutions [the american war machine] to stop radical statism [Afghan Talibanism, Liberian Taylorism, Sudanese Bashirsm or Iraqi Saddamism]. We must sit and wait— and perhaps read a few more tomes from Pat Buchannan.
Its rather sad. Hopefully, we have Left that past behind.
I am glad that people have engaged this post. I am also glad this book review was posted. The principals involved are no small matter.
I will admit that I did invoke the Holocaust because I knew it would raise the stakes. Nonetheless, the tragedy is what it is. The tragedy continues daily around the world.
The Adams quote is fantastic and the best rebuttal to my own sentiments. The fact that America does not seek monsters is part of her best character.
Despite its excellent nature, I think we do live in a powerfully linked global world. The agonizing lesson of World War II is that we will never return to the practices of Adams— even if we only have purely selfish reasons for doing so.
The America First movement delayed the American intervention in those affairs until the attack on Pearl Harbor. The consequences were two fold: 1) the Holocaust and associated horrors of Hitler’s vision gained greater fruition and 2) the political momentum necessary to freeze the dangerous leagues of monsters was 400,000 American men.
On this second point, Adams principal will be set aside. We will wish the world well and we will now engage it early on questions of monstrous statism. Engaging too early has little show in costs comparable to the death and carnage of world war 2.
The idea that America has become herself and imperial Monster is shown transparently ridiculous by the nature of her sword— an all volunteer army of half a million men and women. One of the foremost reasons we have for believing in the just nature of the Iraq war— despite the collaboration of conservative nativists and liberal reactionaries— is the decision of these volunteers to continually re-enlist in record numbers for their ‘evil imperial cause.’ Their 4,000 deaths since the war’s inception to stand as a monument to sacrifice while hardly signifying the colossal failure of war that could reasonably be attached to a war no one would ever dare name as such— World War II.
The more engaged stature of America today has not betrayed her restrained character nor jeopardized her belief in the necessity of limited government. If anything, the sacrifice of the American solider since World War II has emphasized that the dangers of over reaching government are more dangerous than even our founders professed.
Contradiction or paradox? history will judge.
MICKEY: “...It’s very well structured. Now I’m talking now, incidentally, about the-the, uh, against-school-prayer, pro-abortion, anti-nuclear wing.” — Woody Allen, ‘Hannah and Her Sisters’