Doomed To Repeat History

Accuracy in Academia ^ | December 12, 2016 | Spencer Irvine

[Academiadotorg]

Paul D. Miller, associate director at the University of Texas-Austin’s Clements Center for National Security, spoke at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation to discuss his book, American Power and Liberal Order: A Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy. Americans, and historians in general, "overthink" and "overlearn" the past and apply those interpretations of history lessons to the present, he argued

"The problem in trying to learn lessons from history… We have a tendency to overlearn from history and swing the pendulum too far in the other direction,” Miller said. Rand Paul, he avers, exemplifies this tendency. Similarly, President Obama, said Miller, speaks like a liberal interventionist but, "when you look at his deeds…you see the instincts for restraint" come through. For example, President Obama's withdrawal of American troops from Iraq came at a time when negotiations would have kept them there for a longer time period. "Liberal internationalists adopt a naïve approach to how things get done in the world," said Miller. He continued, "Liberal internationalists put a tremendous amount of faith in treaties, diplomacy and institutions and I think that’s misguided."

[Academiadotorg]

To the Left, in foreign policy, the answer is more treaties no matter what the question is.

[pgkdan]

the answer is more treaties no matter what the question is.

More globalism...

[oh8eleven]

President Obama ... "when you look at his deeds…you see the instincts for restraint" come through.
Surely you jest. The only thing he restrained himself from was going through Congress.

[loveliberty2]

"When you see his deeds, you see the instinct for restraint. . . ." (referring to Obama). One must ask, "Restraint from what?" Certainly, plunging the nation into debt went "un-restrained."

Perhaps a look at the history of nations, as well as the noble ideas which motivated and ennerved America's Founders and Framers of its Constitution for government might be instructive in examining this "Professor's" analysis:

"I am not among those who fear the people. They...are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds...our people...must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they (the British) now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.... This example reads to us the salutary lesson that private fortunes are destroyed by public, as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from the principle in one instance, becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the 'bellum omnium in omnia,' which some philosophers...have mistaken for the natural, instead of the abusive, state of man. And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." - Thomas Jefferson

[Redleg Duke]

I’ll stick by George Santayana, Doc.

[KarlInOhio]

Treaties? Maybe agreements made with neither the advice nor consent of the Senate, but not many ratified treaties by either party’s presidents recently.

[Steve Schulin]

"... obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers..."

We're at an especially perilous time, jobs-wise. Technological advances are coming so quickly that most of today's jobs won't be needed very soon. Our schools have failed miserably in preparing children for the world as it has been. The failure soon-to-be-apparent will be much, much worse.

One thing I've been studying over the past year is blockchain technology, including cryptocurrency and other applications. I'm hopeful that getting involved in this will help my children and me avoid the occupational fate that Jefferson described.