A Brief History of Pacifism and Isolationism vs. Interventionism in the Republican +party

The Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) is spearheading a return to the non-interventionist policies of Robert Taft of the 20s to the early 50s. Taft was defeated at the 1952 Republican National Convention for the nomination by Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is telling that Barry Goldwater attended that convention as an Eisenhower, not a Taft delegate. The neo-non-interventionists are destined for far more success in the Republican Party than any economic libertarian will ever find in the Democratic Party. As usual, history is instructive. Our Wars of 1812, Mexican-American and Spanish-American were strictly imperialistic. Our entry into WWI was engineered by none other than one of the most important progressive presidents of the twentieth century, T. Woodrow Wilson. That was the war to make the world safe for democracy and it led to the American Exceptionalism hubris that with domestic policy has left us nearly bankrupt. We saw how safe it made the world for democracy as Germany sent Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin to Russia in a sealed train to foment revolution to take Russia off its Eastern Front. The Treaty of Versailles laid the groundwork for Adolf Hitler & his National Socialist German Workers Party. After WWII, our leaders assessed the supposed surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (PH) and said, horrors, we have to prevent another. That led to Truman and a split Congress to found the CIA over the objections of Taft and fellow conservative Republicans, on the grounds that it would allow the Executive to establish foreign policy without congressional oversight; Congress is supposed to establish foreign policy while the president pursues, or executes, it. As we now know, as it was rumored right after the PH attack, the FDR White House knew, almost down to the day and hour, that the attack was coming. FDR rebuffed Japanese peace offerings time and again and left them no other choice but to attack. The administration ordered the fleet in San Diego moved to PH over the objections of the fleet commander who stated he could not defend the fleet properly there. He was fired. The FDR White House, especially the State Department (no surprise there) was shot through with Stalin sympathizers and FDR’s wife, the redoubtable Eleanor, had a huge emotional stake in his survival. An attack was what they needed to get us into the war to ensure it. It was only when the CIA began to topple communist governments, their spiritual kin, that the progressives in the Democratic Party began hollering, “Foul.” I am sure everyone remembers the mantra. American government allies were corrupt, Battista, Chiang, Diem, Khanh, Thieu, Rhee, Suharto, etc. There was an unspoken assumption in those blatherings; Castro, Mao, Ho, Kim, Sukarno, etc. weren’t and were some kind of liberators, rescuing their people from oppression. But those communists were corrupt and the progressives played that card well as many in the American media and most of academe ate it up. The interventionists had their roots in the Democratic Party and after 1952, the non-interventionists, were routed from any influence and consideration in the GOP. The battles since have been between the big government Republicans typified by the New York State party of Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, Kenneth Keating, Jacob Javits and George Romney (Mitt’s father; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree) and the economic libertarians/interventionists typified by Barry Goldwater, William F Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan. Non-intervention has not been on the table until Ron Paul, who has made it respectable again.

Non-intervention has not been on the table until Ron Paul, who has made it respectable again.

Was it ever respectable?

Caddis the Elder

I have nothing to do with Ron Paul ... so I don’t speak from that perspective. What I will say is that getting into too many wars, willy-nilly and without good chances for success and without it being directly threatening to the USA and it’s interests ... will turn a lot of people into isolationists.

"FDR rebuffed Japanese peace offerings time and again and left them no other choice but to attack.

Baloney. Japan had a number of choices. If she had chosen to cease its aggression against China, the U.S. would have sold Japan all the oil she needed. You make Japan sound like ashe was a victim, when in reality Japan was a vicious military dicatatorship bent on conquest.

Japan’s incursions into China were none of our business, nor was Germany’s into Poland, etc.
Trade with all, ally with none.

Should we have stood by idly when Japan invaded the Phillipines? How about Guam? Hawaii? Pacifists like you lack common sense.

Should we have stood by idly when Japan invaded the Phillipines? How about Guam? Hawaii?
Yes. The only reason we had been those places was due to our imperialistic venture called The Spanish-American War that was stoked by the Hearst newspaper organization in a manner that led to the term yellow journalism.

Pacifists like you lack common sense.
I lack a lot of other things, too but one thing is not an appreciation of history.

Your researches didn't include that excellent work, The History of Paragraphing?

We are going to have some kind of involvement with the outside world. That doesn't necessarily mean intervening in every conflict anywhere in the world, but it does mean not thinking we can bury our head in the sand and not worry about what's going on overseas.

FYI, Romney's father lived in Michigan and was the state's governor.

You don’t know real history. You know the Howard Zinn “People’s History of the U.S.” version of history. I see you’ve learned how to use the Marxist phrase “imperialistic”. An appreciation of history? You certainly have a Marxist appreciation of history. You think like a Marxist and repeat their jargon like an adolescent college student.

I never read Zinn’s book.

What word would you use to describe the things we’ve done in placing our military in more than 100 countries? And how would you describe Thomas Jefferson for his advice? And John Adams? And most of The Founders or were they Marxists also, as you apply the term. ?

George Romney was widely hailed by the mainstream Republicans and media of the time, 1964-1968, as a man who would lead the GOP out of the wilderness of Barry Goldwater. He had a foot-in-mouth problem, though, that let him refer to Charles Percy, otherwise an ally in liberal Republicanism, as an opportunist.

That was nothing next to the comment that torpedoed his campaign. When he came back from a fact-finding tour of Viet-Nam where he was escorted by military brass, he said that he’d been ‘brainwashed.’ His polling plummeted & he never recovered.

He had tried to mend fences with Goldwater was a prelude to his campaign, pointing out, in a letter, that he’d never been part of a Stop Goldwater movement in 1964 but Goldwater asked where was he when the chips were down.

An aide later said that deep down, he was shallow.

You have absorbed Howard Zinn’s thinking my osmosis. You use Marxist language quite naturally, though you don’t know where or how you got it.

1.Our military forces are in those countries by the express invitation of those countries. Many of them are allies by treaty.
2. Thomas Jefferson was pro-Jacobin.
3. John Adams and the Federalists built a navy capable of projecting American power on the other side of the world. You are against this.
4. You are the one who applies the word “imperialist” to America, not me. Just tell me one thing - why do you accept and amplify the Marxist critique of American foreign policy by using the Marxist phrase “American imperialism”? When you use the enemy’s language, you implicitly accept their arguments.

If I am a Marxist, then you must place Patrick J. Buchanan, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell and Laurence Vance in the same boat. Please advise them so and let me know their responses.

Other than for this, I am ending this stream.

Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell aren’t Marxists. They’re just kooks.

I was going to cease commenting in this link but have changed my mind.

FYI, just about everyone today agrees that our entry into WWI set the stage for the Treaty of Versailles that was unfair to Germany which in its turn, led to Adolf Hitler’s ascendancy with his German National Socialism. Without the war, we would never have had WWII along with the horrors of German National Socialism. In its turn, the war led to Soviet Socialism which led to Chinese, Viet-Namese & Cambodian communism. The conflict itself, led Germany to send Lenin to Russia to foment revolution to take Russia off Germany’s Eastern Front.

Even FDR’s most ardent supporters agree that his maneuvers before the attack on Pearl Harbor were calculated to provoke it. Japan tried multiple times to negotiate some type of settlement and The White House rejected each & every one.

Not too long after WWII, one of our prior allies, The USSR, was our committed enemy and our former enemies, Japan & Germany, our allies against that former ally.

At least one of the attacks at the Gulf of Tonkin didn’t happen. After the protracted war, Viet-Nam, led by those victorious enemies from the north, has us as one of its biggest trading partners.

The list goes on & on & on. I must be a kook also but at least I know when I’ve been scammed.

So in your view America is always wrong. You’re one of those San Francisco Democrats!