Posted on 02/26/2005 11:16:52 AM PST by Ohioan
Moderator:
Welcome to our debate between the current President and the first President of the United States. The subject is, "Should The United States promote Democracy In Every Land?" George W. Bush speaks via his Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 2005. General George Washington speaks via his Farewell Address, September 17, 1796. Since Mr. Bush has proposed an increased involvement of the United States in the domestic affairs of other peoples, in variance to specific policies recommended by General Washington, he has the Affirmative, and will go first. Then General Washington will answer. After that President Bush will offer a summary, succeeded by General Washington's rebuttal.
You will note in the text, that President Bush's paragraphs have been numbered, General Washington's lettered. These designations are to facilitate the reader in following our comments and analysis of the quality of the two presentations, which will immediately follow the debate. Such designations did not appear in the original texts. Now, President George W. Bush.
(Excerpt) Read more at pages.prodigy.net ...
Still, it is our hope that this--which is the March Feature at my Conservative Resource Center--will stimulate analysis of where we are going, and whether we should in fact be going in that direction.
The President's remarks appear in full in the feature, General & President George Washington's are abbreviated from his Farewell Address, but appear in sufficient detail to make this a real debate, with the issues clearly joined.
Check it out. Even the present President's most enthusiastic fans may find it of interest.
William Flax, February 26, 2005
George Washington is the greatest leader our country has known. However, he didn't know about international air travel and airplanes big enough to destroy entire buildings.
In his time, leaving other countries alone and not going after them was one thing. I mean, what are they going to do? Sail across the Atlantic at an enormous cost?
FLying internationally costs a bit over $1,500 these days. It's cheap and relatively easy to get to places. The moral is, we have to get the terrorists before they get us, again. President Bush has shown quite an insight (IMO) on this issue. Not only is he knocking the terrorists back a notch or seven, he has brought free (or freer at any rate) elections to two countries (Iraq and Afghan), has stirred the Lebanese people into kicking the Syrians out and now there seems to be some election reforms in Egypt for an as yet to be determined outcome to their elections.
It's going well. I think the American Republic has been served and defended faithfully by President Bush.
It's easy to hold a current politician to the standards of a simpler past, but it's not smart to expect a real person to live up to the expectations of daydreams.
Mike. I think we need to cut the moderator a little Flax here.
I believe that we did go after the "Barbary" pirates, but that was probably after Washington's Presidential Terms.
Most certainly and the same can be said of Washington should he be here today.....
but to compare current times and events to the past really can't hold much weight. Especially when going back that far.
The pre-emptive attack against the Barbary pirates was under the Jefferson administration.
Grogoo the cave man would not have gone to war before heading back to the cave and consulting the cave paintings left by the invisible god. Then he would have used his club made from a wooly mammoth bone and...
Yeah that was either Madison or Jefferson and I think it was Jefferson myself...
You know...I wonder if the one who compiled this actually read Washington's words while they put them together here.
This quite aside from the non-sequitor between the question, "Should The United States Promote Democracy In Every Land?" and what the implication the writer clearly is arguing against is.
Further, there is the matter of the current situation having a context.
yeah maybe just a little... :)
From my personal "quotes" archives:
Most heard quote: "Nations have no permanent allies, only permanent interests." (America's number one permanent interest is the security of its people.)
Quote: "Alliances reflect specific circumstances, and when these circumstances change, the shared practical interests that are vital to the health and life span of alliances begin to erode. As the 19th century British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston put it, "There are no permanent allies ... only permanent interests." ~ Rajan Menon
So who said it first --- Lord Palmerston or George Washington?:
Quote: "We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." ~ Speech, Hansard, 1 March, 1848, col. 122. Lord Palmerston (Henry John Temple, Lord Viscount Palmerston), British politician, Prime Minister 1855-8, 1859-65. Partington, A. ed. 1992, _The Oxford dictionary opf quotations 4th edn., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Quote: "In his 1796 Farewell Address, George Washington noted that there are no permanent alliances, only permanent interests. The speech has often been used to justify an isolationist foreign policy. But in fact, Washington advised the nation to get involved in foreign affairs only when it is in this nation's interests to do so, while expecting the same from other nations. The original George W. didn't have a U.N. to proclaim irrelevant, so he simply said, 'The period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance . . . when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.'" ~ [as quoted by Brendan Miniter]
*
From my personal Charles Krauthammer archives:
Democratic Realism - An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World
By Charles Krauthammer @ AEI Annual Dinner (Washington)
Publication Date: February 10, 2004 -- Posted: Thursday, February 12, 2004
http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.19912,filter./news_detail.asp
The article he wrote previous to the above speech:
"A Farewell to Allies" - Krauthammer 01/11/2004
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/krauthammer/article/0,9565,570738,00.html
bttt
joke
ok....you had me there :)
I can't find it -- can you?
Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence. Madison was the author of the Constitution.
You also have to remember that we were just getting started. In Washington's opinion we were not ready to play with the big boys and likely would get creamed if we did. We were building something new and strange. Something that even we were not sure would work.
The New World was a surrogate battle ground for the Great Powers of the time. If you supported one side you had the other two gang up on you. The Monroe doctrine changed that for the Americas. Most of the European powers had been thrown out and we were strong enough to tell them to stay out and make it stick.
But he also knew that the U.S. was building a first-class Navy and that we would be able to project power in 20 years; and it was both his Sec. of State (Pres. Thomas Jefferson) and fellow VA advisor, James Madison, who pursued wars against the Barbary Pirates WITHOUT a declaration of war and specifically against ALL states who threatened us, whether they declared war against us or not (this is called "preemption") and without any European help.
Further, GW didn't CARE whether other nations were "democratized" or now---he, like Bush, looked at whether or not they were threats, and while GW would not have seen it as necessary to reduce the threat by democratizing them, GWB does. In the modern world, GWB is right.
I agree. World War II pretty much put an end to Washington style isolationism as something to be taken seriously. And, prior to World War II it was taken very seriously. I once came across a book in stack at the university library, title and author now long forgotten, written by a retired Army officer advocating we build a figuratively high wall between us and the outside world.
A more interesting debate, about which I've recently done a lot of reading, would be a debate between Madison and Hamilton: How to interpret the Constitution. That might have a bit more relevancy.
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