As the article we're discussing states, this is a different World than it was centuries ago. WE may want to be isolated, but will others allow it? If not, we must be prepared to deal with issues that arise, and if those issues involve war, then they're better served 'over there' than 'here'.
As for 'every little pissing match', insofar as that definition fits, I'd agree. But 9/11 cannot be considered a 'little pissing match'. Nor can the rightly named "War On Terror". These people want to destroy the West and our culture, and turn everyone left into Islamists. Unless we understand this completely, and take this war THEY began to them, that is exactly what will happen should we become the isolationists Paul envisions.
"I would like to pull back and cut all foriegn aid."
America has used foreign aid not just to prop up governments, but to maintain our interests abroad. If we are to curtail all such aid, we become just another country among many, and turn over control of events to whomever sees themselves the arbiters. And rest assured, they will be there. And they will not, necessarily, be friendly. What you're advocating is isolationism, pure and simple, my friend. And in today's World, that a recipe for disaster.
And if Ron Paul isn't astute enough to understand that, he has no business running for President.
“America has used foreign aid not just to prop up governments, but to maintain our interests abroad. If we are to curtail all such aid, we become just another country among many, and turn over control of events to whomever sees themselves the arbiters. And rest assured, they will be there. And they will not, necessarily, be friendly. What you’re advocating is isolationism, pure and simple, my friend. And in today’s World, that a recipe for disaster.”
Turn over control? I am not sure we need to control other governments and dictate terms to other cultures and societies. I think we run into problems when we do. Using foreign aid to “maintain our interests” often involves propping up regimes and manipulating the foreign policy of other nations by threat of cutting off said aid.
My hero Milton Friedman once spoke of our policy of aid during the cold war. We gave aid to governments and they would disperse it to the people. Governments are political in how they disperse that aid. In this process, we encouraged people in foreign lands to become dependent on a central government. Friedman warned that our foreign policy in this way tended to create governments that more closely resembled the Soviet Model than our own free capitalistic system.
Let’s take agricultural subsidies and foreign aid. We buy up food to support the price for our farmers. We make that food more expensive for ourselves in that process. Then we take all of that excess food and dump it on foreign markets. We call this foreign aid. Now I know that we may have benevolent intentions of feeding the worlds hungry, but we also destroy private markets. What happens to the local farmers when our food gets dumped on their shores? Farmers are often some of the most successful people in the third world. We destroy these entrepreneurs and their markets when we dump the food. If they can’t make money, they will go out of business. Then they will be dependent on the central government for their food. Consider Egypt. The Nile river valley was once considered one of the breadbaskets of the world. Now Egypt can’t even feed its own people without US Aid. It is a welfare state of the United States government.
And what do we get in return for helping Egypt? They hate us. Their farmers hate us because we dump on their markets. Their people don’t like us either even though we feed them. And that aid also helps keep the idiots in their government in power. What in the hell is it all worth?
I do not consider myself an isolationist. I want to open up our markets to everyone and allow free trade to make this world a better place for all involved. I want to engage other countries through trade and free enterprise. I want us to lead by example.