Posted on 01/28/2016 5:54:39 AM PST by fredericbastiat1
Dr. Victoria Coates: Well I mean, I don’t know who can channel Jeane Kirkpatrick best. It is interesting to me that many Establishment institutions in foreign policy — just as they have in every other branch of policy — have been deeply disturbed by Senator Cruz, and the kinds of approaches that he proposes because he has very little time for quote unquote “conventional wisdom.†And you have a lot of people whose sort of “bread and butter†depends on their position on editorial boards, their positions in think tanks, their appearances on television, and all of that is based on a certain way of thinking that they have been perpetuating for 20 years. Now the problem with all of that as cozy and prosperous as it may be, is it hasn’t worked. We’re not in a good place. And I don’t think either the Left or the Right has creatively approached the challenges of the 21st century in a way that will allow us to win this struggle. Because that’s what I want to do. I don’t want to mess around with it. I don’t want to nibble around the edges. I don’t want to placate it. I want to win. And we’re not in that position right now. So as uncomfortable as it may be for these intellectual bastions to have their wisdom challenged — and I’m sorry that if that makes them unhappy — I think we have to do it because as we’ve been discussing, there’s a lot on the line here.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Not to side track, but I thought we got these strange “character” type quote issues fixed??
Good article, worth reading in its entirety whether you favor Cruz or not.
To busy right now but this is a MUST READ. For later.
Bookmark for later
Looks like a good read. Ping for later ...
Peace,
SR
Great article! Thanks for posting it.
Dr. Victoria Coates:... It's apathy.
That's it in a nutshell, isn't it?
To prevent duplication, please do not alter the published headline, thx.
Good article. She’s a bright and sensible lady. There is so much that could be quoted. On Russia:
“What the Russians do is follow their best interests. And there’s absolutely no interest in human rights, or any of the ideals that underpin our society. ... They are what they are. And they have not changed over hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of years. So it’s unlikely they are going to change next year even if we have a new American President. ...
And that’s why actually Vladimir Putin ranks pretty highly on lists of people Americans admire. It’s not because they particularly like him, or they think the Russians are our friends, but they are impressed by the fact that there is a leader who will do what he thinks is in the best interest of his country.”
As to the 2nd paragraph, I’ve sometimes said that Obama and Putin are both thugs; one loves his country.
Who’d a thought. Substance.
On China.
“Well they’re pretty clear about it, that they would like superpower status. ...
Now, I don’t necessarily think that the PRC will be a wonderful actor in a superpower role, so I might be inclined to try to push back on that in different ways. We certainly have human rights-it’s always been just extraordinary to me that the first time Hillary Clinton went to China in February of ‘09, she announced human rights were off the table. We’re not even gonna talk about it. It’s incredible. Why would we cede the moral high ground to these people? It just, it makes no sense. I mean they hate it. Good. That’s a tool. I mean it’s a feature, not a bug. And so you can push back that way.
There are certainly a range of different economic tools. ...
And it also gets back to the military investment. If they know America is strong, if they know America has carrier groups that can be deployed, if they know we have long-range strike bombers that we can use, then they’re much less likely to behave in the way that we would find unpleasant because they know there’s going to be a repercussion. But if we refuse to make these investments, where this administration has, then they know there isn’t gonna be any retribution. And they’re more likely to act aggressively.”
Yes, apathy is the problem. The left assumes our freedom and prosperity and wants to move on to redistribution, which happens to be at odds with both freedom and prosperity.
More from the article:
“It’s apathy. And we have the most wonderful country. I mean it is extraordinary what the United States has achieved. And the more you know about the history of democracy, the more you are impressed by our country.
And the conclusion of the book is Tocqueville, and the notion that the hardest thing to do is to preserve liberty, and to do the very difficult work that is necessary to prevent lapsing into tyranny. And tyranny can come from within, and it can come from without.
And so I think what’s really beholden on the next President-whomever he or she may be-is to really summon our national will, and to remind the American people of the extraordinary achievements of the last 130 years, and what it means to preserve these for our country, for our children, and also for the planet.
So it’s not a single thing: It’s not a North Korean EMP. It’s not an ISIS attack. All of these things would be bad, but they are symptoms. And I think the greatest thing we can do, and our greatest challenge, is to preserve what we’ve achieved.
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