Posted on 08/14/2008 8:51:50 AM PDT by maquiladora
As for those on campus pushing collectivist procedures, usually they're advocating withdrawl, defeat, America is always wrong in whatever it does, run-and-hidism. Verrrry similar to what you advocate. Not exactly the same, I admit, and perhaps from different motivations, but still very similar.
I'm going to give you a problem, a hypothetical.
China takes over other countries/regions in the following order.(Remember this is a hypothetical, I'm not predicting anything about the future.)
Taiwan.
South Korea.
Japan.
Malaysia.
Philippines.
Indonesia.
Australia.
Siberia.
On that list, where do you draw the line and fight? Or at least are willing to enter into alliances with the remaining countries? Or is there nothing on that list you are willing to fight for?
"The fundamental principle that a Government's duty is entirely the interests of its own people, does not. We have gotten into an Alice In Wonderland pursuit of changing other peoples, which is as immoral as it is insane."
Ok, quick yes/no question - a regime patterned after Nazi Germany is freely elected in Mexico. They immediately assure us that they have no intentions of doing any harm to the US, in fact they take real steps to help stop the flood of illegal immigrants crossing the border.
They also immediately begin opening up the concentration camps and firing up the ovens for all the usual political prisoners - Jews, homosexuals, etc.
Does the US take military action, yes or no?
YES or NO?!?!?!
Weapons are most definitely the issue. The weapons available determine proper strategy and tactics. You wouldn't (ok, maybe you would, that's your argument, but I wouldn't) use strategy conceived in the time of muskets and smooth bore cannon, in a nuclear age. New weapons call for new ways of thinking about how to fight wars. Change or die. If we follow your ideas we don't change, and we will die. How and why will be something to be dissected by future historians, who no doubt will speak the language of our conquerers.
The subject was meddling in other nations affairs, not tactics. Of course, the available weapons--the firepower, methods of delivery, etc.--will influence battle tactics, etc.. That is hardly an argument for our seeking to confront other powers with high tech weapons, on the other side of the world.
It was a test. Because nativists usually hate free trade, hate foreigners and hate overseas involvement. Certain responses would have told me volumes about your mindset, and whether you fall into the category of people I don't waste my time on, like nativists.
That begs so many questions, makes so many intermediate assumptions as to make you look less than just silly. As a Jeffersonian, I am hardly likely to hate free trade or anyone else. It is entirely out of respect for others that Jefferson recognized the fundamental principal of the Law Of Nations, that each Nation must be the judge of its own affairs. And the term "Nativist," is generally only used by those on the Left who seek new World Orders, and immigration policies that do not consider the compatibility of the immigrants, nor the rights of a nation to its own space & resources.
You go on to pose hypothetical questions, which display a fundamental naivete, simply because they take no account of future variable--always present in any situation--which may not be those that you so simplistically imagine. There are certainly times for us to go to the aid of allies and friends, but each situation--except where we have entered into a treaty commitment--calls for evaluation at the time of action. For example, given the complex of our involvement with Kuwait, I favored the first Bush policy, in going to the rescue of Kuwait in 1991. On the other hand, our meddling in the Serbian Civil War in the late 90s, was an outrage, under principles of the Law of Nations, that governed traditional American thinking.
Traditional American foreign policy was not "isolationist." It was based upon understanding what is one's business and what is not. It was based on offering the rest of the world, trade, friendship and respect. In turn, we demanded respect back. If we did not get it, we responded appropriately--at times, to paraphrase Jefferson, it was necessary "to punish the first insult," but we never imagined it was our business to meddle in other people's cultures. We were willing to lead by example, if someone wanted to observe our example, but that ultimately was their business. Ours was--and still is--the fundamental ongoing interests of our own people, down through the generations.
The Dean Rusk foreign policy (1961-1969) advocated promoting major change in other lands. The present Administration has revived that. You apparently think that well and good; but it is difficult to see how it differs from the Communist and Nazi policies of the last Century.
Your hypothetical situation, with respect to Mexico, is a pipe dream, which shows profound ignorance of the nuances of both German & Mexican societies, as well as the actual dynamics that brought and kept the Socialists in power in Germany (1933 to 1945), as well as the origins of the demonization of Jews by German Marxists. (By the way, FDR's "New Deal" was far closer in many respects to the Nazi approach in Germany, than anything in Mexico. Policies must be based on real situations, not pipe dreams.)
If you think we are supposed to be the world's policeman, I would suggest you find some rational argument for our being such. Your wish to have intervention against all evil is not a rational argument.
For a more detailed statement on foreign policy:
William Flax
Your refusal to see that weapons drive strategy and tactics, and attempt to crown philosophical ideas as superior to reality is wrongheaded and dangerous. Obviously you see this differently than I do.
My China hypothetical was attempt to move our discussion into an area I would find interesting: at what point would you be willing to enter into “entangling alliances” and your reasons at that point. Since you decline to respond to it, I have to presume you have no criteria, or at least none that you can articulate. I find this wrongheaded and dangerous as well. And again you see this differently than I do.
I see no need to continue this discussion. Good luck to you in the future.
There are too many real, current & vital, issues, to engage in fantasy conjectures, such as you find interesting. There are certainly many situations, where we would be forced to act in ways that we would prefer to avoid, if possible. But we are being embarrassed, right now, because of the poor judgment of many in this Administration, who have mouthed off, when they should have held their tongues.
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