Posted on 06/05/2010 9:16:49 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
Many Americans are anxious about the U.S. losing its supreme-superpower status. But in an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Peter Beinart says we need not dominate the world to enjoy it.
An excerpt from the conclusion of The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, forthcoming by Peter Beinart, about learning from American history that America can live safely and profitably in the world without dominating it.
What America needs today is a jubilant undertaker, someone—like Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan—who can bury the hubris of the past while convincing Americans that we are witnessing a wedding, not a funeral. The hubris of dominance, like the hubris of reason and the hubris of toughness before it, has crashed against reality’s shoals. Woodrow Wilson could not make politics between nations resemble politics between Americans. Lyndon Johnson could not halt every communist advance. And we cannot make ourselves master of every important region on earth. We have learned that there are prices we cannot pay and burdens we cannot bear, and our adversaries have learned it too. We must ruthlessly accommodate ourselves to a world that has shown, once again, that it is not putty in our hands.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
With such a prerogative title, one gets the impression Bienart doesn't really mean it. Sadly, it's clear that he does.
Prerogative = provocative. bad spell checker, bad.
“Let’s End American Dominance”
Let’s End American Socialist/Democrat/Obama Dominance
When considering Beinart, I wonder if there is some procedure to introduce excessively high levels of uric acid into a person’s body. It would seem that Mr. Beinart should not be denied the delightful pleasure of having severe gout, for the rest of his days.
I thought this is part of Obama Agends
The last time America didn’t dominate the world as a superpower, 50,000,000+ people died in a world war.
This time it will be far worse.
This argument is so foul, so fundamentally evil, that words are not the proper response.
You do not make such an argument without being the commandant of a concentration camp.
If you make such an argument without being a commandant of a concentration camp, you deserve what you get.
Actually, if Vietnam had fallen easily in 1974 instead of later, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia would all be communists.
But never mind. He is spouting left wing talking points, and knows nothing about history.
These people feel nothing for this country.
I skipped to the end.
Journalism professor.
Enough said.
See...there is something we can agree on...
Ok, lets let the Neo-Soviets (Putin and Co) and Chicoms dominate the world.
Yes, let’s end American “dominance”.
Who needs America when we can enjoy such regimes as Lenin’s Utopia, or Hilters, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Amin, Baby Doc, Pot, Castro, Chavez.....
In case anyone’s wondering, I am being sarcastic in post #14.
lol slam
Liberal=Vichy
I guess we can file this one under “Don’t know much about history.”
I don’t know what Bienart was doing before 1989 that makes him remember the Cold War as a desirable state of affairs.
The century between Pax Britannica and Pax Americana was the bloodiest in human history. That Bienart is nostalgic for more tells you all you need to know about this lunatic.
You said it right. Unbelievable.
Liberal = Vichy = Traitor = Must Be Exterminated
Beinart is the author of a book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again (HarperCollins, 2006). Drawing upon the work of the mid-century American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Beinart argued that, paradoxically, the only way for America to distinguish itself from the predatory imperial powers of the past is to acknowledge our own capacity for evil. Acknowledging our own moral fallibility, Beinart argued, would lead America to embed its power within structures of domestic and international law. This, Beinart argues, was the great accomplishment of early cold war liberals like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Reuther and Harry Truman. The Bush administration, by contrast, carried on the tradition of right-wing anti-totalitarianism—exemplified by cold war intellectuals like James Burnham—which warned that recognizing America’s fallibility would lead to crippling self-doubt.
Too bad these cold war liberals didn't acknowledge their moral fallibility when it came to domestic policy. Sure, it resulted in a few trillion dollars wasted and the destruction of the black family...but they meant well, right?
Also, although Burnham was a co-founder of National Review, he never renounced his earlier anti-totalitarian leftist beliefs. He left NR because of his opposition to the Vietnam war. So how does that amount to "right wing anti-totalitarianism"? Jeanne Kirkpatrick would probably be a better exemplar than Burnham of this policy.
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