Posted on 03/25/2023 7:05:01 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
That depends. If the opposite of isolationism is being world cop ...
Rand Paul is my big hope for the VP slot but it doesn’t cost him anything to advocate isolationism. With that you get Rwanda and the Khymer Rouge. There’s too many of them out there even with our taking the leadership role. Pinochet was guilty but the end justified the means in Chile. The Saudis just may be doing our dirty work in Yemen using our weapons. Saddam was stupid-now Iran controls Iraq with the Shittes majority.
Something tells me it will never stop.
Waging war for fun and profit.
Fun & big profits for the ruling class & the government contractors.
The killing & dying are left to the lower classes, mostly from Flyover Country.
There’s an AWFUL lot of space between “isolationism” and sabotaging pipelines, spending 20 years trying to democratize a place where almost none would even vote for democracy, and certainly not for decadent western sleaze that we were trying to impose as an alternative to tribal brutality.
There is an awful lot of space between “isolationisam” and having a military presence in 100+ countries.
There is an awful lot of space between “isolationism” and having a State Department, FBI and CIA who would coordinate to resist the lawful instructions from the U.S. President and Commander-In-Chief in order to make sure we don’t become “isolationist”.
I’m currently reading a book by Suki Kim, a Korean American who taught in North Korea. Pretty eye-opening but understandable. An all-out war has been prevented but can the result be peaceful reunification? Expensive. A breakup like the Soviet Union? I don’t think so. The Asian mentality is such that it took 2 bombs to get Japan to see the light.
Our first entry into an undeclared war was from 1801 to 1805, known as the First Barbary War. Entered into by President Thomas Jefferson without a declaration of war by Congress.
We need to make the world safe for perverts.
Forward comrades!
One way out: Mark Davis advocated us calling it quits in Ukraine when this year’s up. European issue and they aren’t stepping up-tribal issues again. Add Uncle Sugar and one gets lazy. I feel sorry for Poland. They’ve waited a long time for freedom, always dominated by someone.
“Isolationism” has never been tried in the USA, but needs to be.
If we keep our free markets and constitutional systems, we have all the land, manpower and natural resourses we need. We just need to stop welfare and birth control.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t trade. I fact we need a true/fair/non-corrupt international free trade system.
We have no vital interest in Ukraine; by arming them we are inviting a response from those we help kill.
Within a few miles of me are two sites destroyed by pro-German saboteurs during (but before our entry into) WWI (Black Tom Island and the Canadian Car & Foundry Co.); they rightfully knew we were violating neutrality when arming their foes while abiding by Britain’s blockade of the Central Powers.
Rand Paul for VP 2024 and POTUS 2028.
The Neocons never wish to address WHICH international interests are sufficient for us to go to war.
The closest they can come on Ukraine is “Domino Theory” or “preservation of the existing rules based order”.
Both laughable.
Isolationism was tried when Woodrow Wilson ran on it and won. Lasted what-2 years?
Welfare/birth control. All western nations-birth control. Welfare-who’s gonna stop it?
Non corrupt trade-impossible with the Loral’s out there. Trump as POTUS could fix it but there are just too many cultures out there where lying is accepted. It’s here too. Someone has to be the bad guy like Trump. The next guy will bot be someone to bet on. Wars get started for that reason.
Romans used slaves as gladiator entertainment. We have the NFL where all of them are millionaires. Fair? Ask Colin Kapernick. Plenty of targets not enough John Wayne’s.
I’m done with US interventionism. We have an invasion going on on our Southern Border that we could end for $10 billion dollars, and we spent Trillions of dollars protecting borders in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, and all of Europe and now Ukraine. We are pushing Russia into a corner and if that happens, all Hell will break loose.
Just seal up our border and get our house in order. We are the only nation on earth that could literally close out the world and still thrive.
In retrospect all the foreign wars we fought have accomplished little in the long run. Europe is turning into a Nazi fascist wasteland on their own. There are no liberties left there. Why are we guaranteeing their sovereignty when we won’t protect our own.
Piss on Ukraine. Piss on Russia. Piss on China. Piss on Europe. They need us. We don’t need them.
Excerpt from (https://www.thoughtco.com/the-evolution-of-american-isolationism-4123832): - "Isolationist feelings in America dates back to the colonial period. The last thing many American colonists wanted was any continued involvement with the European governments that had denied them religious and economic freedom and kept them enmeshed in wars. Indeed, they took comfort in the fact that they were now effectively “isolated” from Europe by the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. Despite an eventual alliance with France during the War for Independence, the basis of American isolationism can is found in Thomas Paine’s famed paper Common Sense, published in 1776. Paine’s impassioned arguments against foreign alliances drove the delegates to the Continental Congress to oppose the alliance with France until it became obvious that the revolution would be lost without it. Twenty years and an independent nation later, President George Washington memorably spelled out the intent of American isolationism in his Farewell Address: “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.” Washington’s opinions of isolationism were widely accepted. As a result of his Neutrality Proclamation of 1793, the U.S. dissolved its alliance with France. And in 1801, the nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, in his inaugural address, summed up American isolationism as a doctrine of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none…”
*Our first undeclared war was from 1801 to 1805, known as the Barbary Wars. Entered into by President Thomas Jefferson without a declaration of war by Congress.*
American merchants were being kidnapped and sold as slaves. Europeans did nothing about their seamen being kidnapped. The ‘ransom payments were too high for Jefferson to tolerate. He and John Adams met the Sultan in Paris who had a Koran with him. It was then he decided to go to war with them if he ever ran the country.
Was it a form of corporate welfare? Think James Baker. “oil at market prices”. Something to that effect. Can we count on our own oil and a finished wall on the border? Think again. We are at war with ourselves. Again, who’s gonna be the bad guy or the John Wayne?
Such bullshit. Essentially, this article compares what the French did for us to what we should do for Ukraine? Last I heard George Washington didn’t celebrate Bandera or Nazi philosophy. And he wasn’t an outright thief.
And I noticed the old saw about energy supply blackmail supposedly coming from Russia. It was our side that blew up the pipeline. It was our side that impounded their bank accounts and cut them off from swift to receive payment. It was our side that delayed the compressor shipments and refused to let them go, it was our side that refused to even let Northstream 2 begin operation. And to this very moment, Russia is delivering all the energy possible to Europe.
This article is just neocon romance. Also any debt we owe to Europe has been massively overpaid with World War I and World War II and the Cold War. We owe them nothing. And we especially don’t owe Ukrainian Nazis anything.
Neither the Rwanda and the Khymer Rouge affected my life in the slightest. You willing to get your son slaughtered for either?
You nailed it.
America has a major identity problem both on micro and macro levels. Just exactly who do we think we are and who do we want to be? These two questions when answered honestly determine where we fall on the spectrum of of isolationism and globalism.
I’ll forego a dissertation on the micro-level and any discussion of what’s the definition of a man or woman since I contend when when we decide what kind of nation we want to be it will require individuals to become the men and women to meet our goals. As a nation, we need to decide the roles we play in the world given our limited population (335m of 8b) and our national resources.
Do we want to be able to feed ourselves and be the breadbasket of the world?
Do we want to be the leader in medicine and producer of pharmaceuticals for our own use and the world?
Do we want to be energy dominant, meet our domestic needs and be a net exporter of energy?
Do we want to be the world’s leading exporter of manufactured and technological goods?
Do we want to be the most literate and best educated people in the world?
Do we want to be the most productive (in the economic meaning of the word) nation in the world?
Do we want to be the most nationally secure country in the world?
Do we want to be the most financially sound nation in the world and provide the world’s only reserve currency?
Do we want a unique American culture and embrace it?
Do we want to be the world’s most free and responsible men?
Do we want to be a principled and moral nation?
Answer each of these questions with the bias of how it benefits you, everyday Americans, our nation as a whole and the rest of the world. Seriously, pause right here and answer the above questions from the perspective of how they improve or diminish your life and the lives of your children and grandchildren.
Most of the above requires interaction with the rest of the world, not isolationism. Concurrently, most of the above requires significant inward focus that we do not have presently. It should be noted that focus requires efficient and effective uses of our treasure, natural resources, manpower, and application thereof for our individual and national interests.
If we choose to be the above, there is a point that we must limit our foreign aid to advice and our military use to defending America and our interests. I contend the latter is defined by how military intervention personally benefits the vast majority of American citizens, not just an elite few.
Personally I have no problem with America being the world’s leader, but we need to do that by being a model of success and not forcing others to be us. Others can choose to emulate or not. That’s their choice and their freedom to do or not do. They must take responsibility for themselves and live with the consequences of their choices. That goes doubly for us. We shouldn’t be so arrogant to think we have all this figured out. We certainly do not. We cannot even agree upon what we want to be as a nation, let alone agree how we get there.
“The U.S. originated as colonies of a global empire.”
And that is precisely what we rebelled against, and what George Washington warned us explicitly to not become involved in. It’s why the rattlesnake was out emblem. Deadly to tread upon, but doesn’t go out seeking people to attack. Wants to be left alone.
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