Posted on 06/28/2019 8:07:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today marks the hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Though the treaty ended World War I — supposedly the "war to end all wars" — it practically ensured future conflict and charted a course directly toward World War II. A century after its signing, it remains an object lesson reminding us what kind of disasters lurk when self-righteous progressives, who think they can run the world, get their hands on the levers of power.
The basis of the treaty was the progressive internationalism of college professor–turned-president Woodrow Wilson. Wilson had only two years of political experience as governor of New Jersey after leaving the ivory tower of Princeton when he became president. A self-righteous Presbyterian progressive, Wilson detested the grubby deal-making of practical politics and suffused religious moralism with academic idealism into his governing style.
Wilson was a political scientist by trade, but his academic specialty was constitutional government, not foreign policy. With the exception of two ill planned incursions into Mexico in 1914 and 1916, Wilson resisted military involvement in foreign affairs during his first term, despite constant goading from his warmongering progressive rival Theodore Roosevelt to commit U.S. forces into World War I in Europe. Indeed, Wilson won re-election in 1916 campaigning on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War."
It's not clear if that was a cynical ploy or not: on April 2, 1917, only a month after his second inauguration, Wilson asked Congress to enter the European war and declare war on Germany.
In fact, Wilson had no good reason to enter the war. No direct American interests were at stake. Ostensibly, his actions were motivated by Germany's decision to engage in "unrestricted submarine warfare," but Wilson clearly had bigger things in mind: he wanted to spread his progressive ideals
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
And still we don’t learn.
We have no business in the affairs of other nations unless or until we are directly attacked.
I’m not willing to spend one cent, or risk one drop of blood, and changing (or preventing the change) of any other nation’s leadership or helping them settle their wars.
Obvious exception- Islam, which is not a religion but a violent political system masquerading as one and should be eliminated, but even there, we don’t need to be world cop.
Not one damned PENNY spent beyond our borders until EVERY citizen has a home, and education and healthcare.
And unlike national defense, where are these items in the US Constitution? Don't get me wrong; I'm not for foreign intervention for the sake of intervention, but the Feds should not be spending money on any of those things you mention, either at home or abroad.
Oh, I get that. But if we have enough money to go playing around with regime change and alliances, then we have enough to do all that for our legitimate citizens.
If we can’t take care of our own (regardless of it being in the Constitution or not) we don’t have enough money to take care of who rules or fights in any other country.
*Obviously* if we had a strictly limited Constitutional Republic we’d be much better of in terms of taking care of everyone here than any socialist scheme could ever provide; my point is we don’t have enough money for our own, and here we are paying for AIDS education in Africa
Agreed.
My point is that the well-being of each and every Citizen is more important than the entirety of the population of the mid-east or Asia.
If we don’t have the money to take care of our own, we SURE as heck don’t have the money to play ‘Regime Change’ or intervene in European games.
Who's "we", Kemosabe? Fed.gov shouldn't be "taking care of" people; that responsibility belongs to private individuals and the civil society.
we SURE as heck don’t have the money to play ‘Regime Change’ or intervene in European games.
You're reasoning from a false premise. The job of Fed.gov is to protect and defend these United States against enemies foreign and domestic. I prefer to deal with foreign enemies before they land on our shores. Keep the "war's desolation" "over there".
That doesn't mean I favor every (or any) particular foreign war. Just that I'd rather do warmaking "over there" rather than "right here" if we have to do it.
You mentioned "AIDS education" in your post to the other guy. "AIDS education" is not part of Fed.gov's charter either here or there.
The political elite started WWI to protect their empires.
They set the stage for WW2 by crippling Germany so bad, there was only one way out.
The Muslims were hiding behind the curtain in both wars to get the West to fight each other.
We know for a fact that the Grand Mufti worked with Germany on the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Problem”.
We don’t have a clear connection between Palestine and Stalin but we DO know Stalin had a Jewish eradication plan.
Well said except for your last point.
I think RedStateRocker was criticizing AIDS education in Africa, not supporting it.
I think so too. I'm criticizing "AIDS education" being provided anywhere by Fed.gov.
Okay. I think we all agree on that point.
Too much has slipped into the Fed.gov due to the preamble “promote the general Welfare,” and basically buying votes with handouts.
Hitler was the only way out? Doesn't say much for the friggin' Germans.
The Muslims were hiding behind the curtain in both wars to get the West to fight each other.
It was the other way around. The Western powers got Muslims to fight each other in the First World War, and they didn't do it from behind a curtain.
This idea has been kicking around forever and it is largely false.
Germany has massive inflation early in the 1920s. Versailles was crippling them and causing great harm. That much is true. But the Weimar Republic largely recovered economically.
By the early 1930s, Germany had a number of Leftwing political parties all trying to control the government. Trade Unionists, Communists, Socialists, National Socialists, etc. The Nazis were brought into Hindenburg's government for political expediency. It isn't true that Germany was so desperately prostrate that they turned to Hitler to rescue them in their hour of need. Things weren't very bad, the establishment made a deal with Hitler because they figured they could dispose of him later. They didn't really take him seriously. His ruthlessness allowed to take much greater power, but the country itself did not hand itself to Hitler and say "Save us from Versailles!"
What Hitler actually did in the 1930s was reinvent the Germany economy by going around the central bankers. Hitler made the economy quite strong, and positioned Germany for a dominant role in continental Europe.
Where Hitler went wrong was his anti-Semitism and his expansionist foreign policy which did not shirk from violence. These were severe errors in judgment which have forever colored his regime.
But Germany didn't get Hitler because of Versailles. And WW2 wasn't started because of Versailles. These ideas are myths that have been around too long.
“General” Welfare is clearly differentiated from the “particular” Welfare of special interests. It was intended to prevent what we have seen, increasingly, since the early 1900s.
Woodrow Wilson: Proof that academics are unfit for public office.
Conventional wisdom is that the American refusal to take part in the League of Nations was a big mistake as if the League would have been effective with us in it. I never found that reasoning persuasive (like with the UN, the organization might be able to coerce small nations but the large countries do as they please). There was an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal several years ago arguing against the idea that the US failure to join the League of Nations was the reason why it was ineffective.
National defense is in the constitution. Foreign adventures for fun and profit are not. Neither is the idea that we must administer the entire earth by force. We are at a point where a small peninsula in the Black Sea area is deemed worthy of our full attention. Who rules obscure corners of Africa, the Government of Afghanistan, sand spits in the South China sea. We even claim jurisdiction on the moon and Mars.
Defense is in the Constitution. We are not engaged in “defense”. It is just as illegitimate as welfare.
Also NOT a constitutional responsibility or authority of the government.
They packed the Lusitania with arms, then sent her into the very most dangerous place, then withdrew the cruisers.
They WANTED her to go down.
Powerful forces had struck a bargain to get the USA into a war that nearly ALL Americans were eager to totally avoid.
MOST of the time we fight a war, it is owing to lies and false flag ops.
The business of America is business and we cannot recreate the Mid-West in the Middle East.
It’s just NOT going to happen.
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