“...it’s only fair that the USA inflict same damage unto itself; … as they reap the benefits of our atonement. … fallacious hobgoblins of lost arguments and intellectual subordinates. … intellectual dishonesty.
Or just plain ignorance or facts.
Most likely both.” [JPJones, post 23]
Interesting words: I have to admit to curiosity as to just what an “intellectual subordinate” is.
Word choice aside, here’s a fact that JPJones and the other members of the forum may find unpalatable:
George Washington and the other Founders were moral, fallible persons, not Divinely inspired oracles. If we take every word they wrote, every phase they uttered to the bank, we are making big mistakes of our own.
What’s more, George Washington’s Presidential farewell address is not a “founding idea,” but an observation based on the President’s experience and judgment to that date (they could hardly be based on events that had not yet happened as he left office), of the practicalities - the ups and downs - of foreign affairs. Nothing then was what it is now, when it comes to the relative position of nations, in terms of power and foreign affairs. That includes our own United States. Falling on our faces in deference to “timeless truths” and “unchanging verities” takes us nowhere - though chanting those terms over and over can comfort children, the ignorant, and the lazy.
It’s another mistake to say that the USA inflicted damage on itself, by intervention in the World Wars and the Cold War. The damage was inflicted by adversaries: US personnel were killed in action by hostile personnel, not by our own people. To insist otherwise is not “America First,” it is “nothing exists but me” - a level of egotism approaching insanity.
I’m not often intrigued by another forum member’s screen name, but JPJones has chosen one that stirs the curiosity a little. If he can tell us why John Paul Jones wasn’t the foremost American naval hero of the American War of Independence, and how he came to be so regarded, I might consider taking those accusations about ignorance of facts more seriously. At least a little.
“George Washington and the other Founders were moral, fallible persons, …” [my post 24]
Talk about word choices … my inept typing turned “mortal” into “moral.” Though - if I had to bet - I’d rate the Founders as owning the edge in being moral, compared to we Americans now living. If indeed comparisons have any validity.
“George Washington and the other Founders were moral, fallible persons, not Divinely inspired oracles. If we take every word they wrote, every phase they uttered to the bank, we are making big mistakes of our own.”
And yet you are the biggest perpetrator of that “big mistake”:
“The USA was founded as a trading nation;”
Again, intellectual dishonesty or stupidity on display.
“Falling on our faces in deference to “timeless truths” and “unchanging verities” takes us nowhere - though chanting those terms over and over can comfort children, the ignorant, and the lazy.”
The only “timeless truths” I keep hearing are from the likes of you: “Free trade” you cry over and over.
I find no comfort there, although it’s clear you do.
“I have to admit to curiosity as to just what an “intellectual subordinate” is.”
No problem google: Dunning-Kruger.