Posted on 10/08/2007 10:16:52 AM PDT by Eric Blair 2084
Any response to this paper's Friday editorial on my foreign policy position must rest on two fundamental assertions: first, that the Founding Fathers were not isolationists; and second, that their political philosophy -- the wisdom of the Constitution, the Declaration, and our Revolution itself -- is not just a primitive cultural relic.
If I understand the editors' concerns, I have not been accused of deviating from the Founders' logic; if anything I have been accused of adhering to it too strictly. The question, therefore, before readers -- and soon voters -- is the same question I have asked for almost 20 years in Congress: by what superior wisdom have we now declared Jefferson, Washington, and Madison to be "unrealistic and dangerous"? Why do we insist on throwing away their most considered warnings?
A non-interventionist foreign policy is not an isolationist foreign policy. It is quite the opposite. Under a Paul administration, the United States would trade freely with any nation that seeks to engage with us. American citizens would be encouraged to visit other countries and interact with other peoples rather than be told by their own government that certain countries are off limits to them.
Rep. RON PAUL (BOB LAPREE) American citizens would be allowed to spend their hard-earned money wherever they wish across the globe, not told that certain countries are under embargo and thus off limits. An American trade policy would encourage private American businesses to seek partners overseas and engage them in trade. The hostility toward American citizens overseas in the wake of our current foreign policy has actually made it difficult if not dangerous for Americans to travel abroad. Is this not an isolationist consequence from a policy of aggressive foreign interventionism?
It is not we non-interventionists who are isolationsists. The real isolationists are those who impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders. The real isolationists are those who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.
I do not believe that ideas have an expiration date, or that their value can be gauged by their novelty. The test for new and old is that of wisdom and experience, or as the editors wrote "historical reality," which argues passionately now against the course of anti-Constitutional interventionism.
A Paul administration would see Americans engaged overseas like never before, in business and cultural activities. But a Paul administration would never attempt to export democracy or other values at the barrel of a gun, as we have seen over and over again that this is a counterproductive approach that actually leads the United States to be resented and more isolated in the world.
But the Founding Fathers would be smart enough to adjust their views based on technologies like transoceanic air flight, nuclear and chemical weapons, nuclear submarines, intercontinental and sub-launced ballistic missiles, the internal combustion engine, global oil markets, etc.
They probably would still bear a certain fondness for the tricorner hat though, if that's any consolation to you.
If it weren’t for those European “sissies” and their foreign policy intervention on our behalf America would not exist. What if France and Spain hadn’t come to our aid with their British Naval blockade?
I guess it’s a good thing for us there weren’t any non-interventionist isolationist leaders of France and Spain in 1778.
’ hate to point this ou, but the world has change in the past 200+ years. I wish it were not what it is, but we have to have a strong military presence on the world stage. ‘
Yep, but since that isn’t written in the US Constitution, Ron Paul won’t acknowledge it....(chuckle)
200 plus years ago, it took three months to get from Europe to America. It took three months, plus whatever time the postal system added in that era, to receive a letter from the same point.
Now it takes mere hours, and the method of getting from ‘there’ to ‘here’ has been co-opted into a large cruise missle by those that would kill us all.
For some reason, Ron Paul believes you can ‘negotiate’ with religious fundementalists that believe 100% killing Americans in large numbers will result in an immediate ticket to ‘paradise’.
And thats simply insane given the available data.
Obviously individual embargoes can be the fruit of wise policy or flawed policy.
However, that is of no concern to Ron Paul for whom embargoes in general are just a bad thing. He doesn't qualify his opposition to embargoes in any way.
Clearly the Founders had no objection to them in principle.
Eric, get prepared for the obligatory photo of Marshall Applewhite.
The world is not as it was, and the pretense that we would all be safer hiding like ostriches is an ineffably stupid one.
So, Ron Paul hired John Edwards to channel the dead founding fathers and predict what they ‘would’ have done, even if it completely contradicts what they actually did?
You know you aren't supposed to confuse them with facts, they have to be free to relish in the Paul rhetoric, for his words tickle their ears and promise 72 Georgan-era virgins.
RINO Ron Paul is such a joke.
Yes American Citizens, with Ron Paul, you now can send as much money as you want to North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria, its all good.. In the Ron Paul world, there are no enemies, just fluffy bunnies, faeries, and lollypops..
But, according to the Ron worshipers, all Republicans are RINOS, Ron In Name Only..
That’s an excellent and well thought out point reagan_fanatic.
If the British had succeeded in blocking the straits of Gibraltar before the French made it through, than the French foreign intervention on our side during the Revolutionary War wouldn’t have been possible. Something Ron Paul forgets.
Well done.
he would be about 200 years behind the times then.
Perhaps he advocates powdered wigs too...
Having followed the Founders' vision for the US in the world, the nation was completely unprepared for WWI -- no guns, ammo, troops, or anything. It took us months to get to a place where we had a credible Army, and we had no shipping to get them to the war, and no artillery to use once they got there.
Following the war, Americans attempted to revert to the Founders' vision once again. We disarmed and pulled back ... and the world became ugly once again. Not through our fault, necessarily, but we ignored what was happening. The one great thing FDR did, was to move in time ... to start the wheels of war moving before we were actually pulled into the war. But we still weren't ready when the war came, and it was a much closer-run thing the second time around.
We almost fell for it again, except that Mr. Truman did the one thing that really mattered, and acted to counter Soviet expansion in Europe. So much for the Founders' vision: real world events had rendered it moot.
What we learned, then, was that the Founders' vision worked fine when the nearest enemy was 2 months away by ship. It was a rather different world when the enemy was 30 minutes away by ballistic missile. Our presence in Europe made sense during the Cold War, and it even makes sense now, though for less pressing reasons. As it does in South Korea.
And now we're in a world the Founders could never have imagined: one where what happens in a place like the Middle East has profound effects on the US.
Mr. Paul does not inhabit reality. Instead, he apparently inhabits a world where everybody plays nice-nice, and nobody has nefarious aims. If the past century taught us nothing else, it taught us the utter stupidity of that assumption.
The Founding Fathers sent an expeditionary force to fight the Barbary Pirates and fought an undeclared naval war with France.
They had NOTHING in common with the pathetically ignorant Neo Isolationist dogmas of the like of Ron Paul
Although it would be nice to be able get my hands on some good Cuban cigars without jumping through hoops.
That’s reason enough to support his foreign policy. We can enjoy a nice cigar as we get killed by islamofascists.
It really is too bad Ron is an unrealistic pacifist on foreign policy. I love his libertarian domestic policy. He’s even pro-life and pro-borders.
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