Posted on 08/25/2006 6:25:35 PM PDT by B-Chan
This is extreme... I doubt this is what Buchanan has in mind. There is a whole spectrum of possibilities between where we are now and what this guy is suggesting.
I believe all we need to do is just be more discriminating as to whom we do business with. Simply returning to an era where we controlled the borders and allowed in only those we felt helped the country would go a long ways in fixing the problems.
Not to mention the incorrect characterization of the Tokugawa Shogunate as a "hereditary line of prime ministers" and oversimplification of the period as:
"It began as an attempt to re-impose order, after a long period of civil war, using an ideology of Neo-Confucian hierarchy to support a feudal four-layer caste system. At least at the beginning, the regime was anti-commercial; it famously limited foreign trade to a minimum. It also undertook to suppress Christianity as a disruptive foreign influence."
A really utterly absurd bit of fantasy nonsense.
Isolationism FAILED in the 1930s. Give the way technology has even shrank the world father since the 1930s, this Neo Isolationist fantasy is really hysterically stupid.
To achieve this you would have to stop being the United States and become an economically crippled, third world style police state. Doubtlessly that would make the afraid of their shadow crowd happy but for the rest of us, we would live lives of misery on the borderline of poverty in a an oppressively intrusive police state. This plan also has the flaw of being utterly futile as well.
The USA is the dominate military and economic superpower in the world. Like the Cut and Run Democrats, the Run and Hide Reactionaries would throw all that strength away in a counterproductive grasp for a mythical security. They would sacrifice the the very font of the USAs power to hide from mythical boggy men that exist ONLY in their feverish imaginations. Growth in the US Economy is LARGER then the ENITRE Chinese economy. The way to maintain this is NOT to hide, not to stop, but to run forward harder. We have he greatest political and economic system currently available in the world. It would be idiotic to spurn that military/economic edge we own for they mythical blessings of Isolationism.
The historic analogy this author SHOULD be looking at is not Japan, who, btw, was dragged kicking and screaming into the 19th century by a technologically more advance US of A, but at the Chinese of the same era.
Under the Ming(?) China had a globe trotting fleet that had sailed as far as east coast of Africa and a world class military. But because the Chinese bureaucrats could not micromanage this political power base, the Bureaucrats convinced the Emperor to disband the fleet and pass laws restricting the Chinese to their own coastal waters. The result of this was an inward looking policy in China that caused them to become a technologically and economic cripple the play thing of any rapacious western power with a navy and a lack of scruples. Finally from a Military stand point it is also absurd. Fredrick the Great said it best. "he who would defend everything defends NOTHING". NO matter how harden the target is made, anything the mind of man can create the mind of man can figure a way around. The Afraid of their own Shadow crowd should quit being so screamingly ignorant and cowardly. this is Americas moment. Instead of cowering with their fears, they should take council of our strengths.
Patrick Henry said it best.
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
"Mutually Assured Destruction" is not going to work on these guys. It's nice to know our guys in the 'boomers' under the ocean would kill them for us after we're dead, but that's not really what we want.
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