Posted on 03/25/2008 5:54:10 PM PDT by TradicalRC
The “Isms” That Bedevil Bush
by Patrick J. Buchanan
On reading George Bush’s discourse to the New York Economic Club last week, Cicero’s insight came to mind: “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.”
With Iraq entering its sixth year, the dollar sinking to peso levels, the economy careening into recession, and 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens roosting here, Bush alerted us to what really worries him:
“I’m troubled by isolationism and protectionism … (and) another ‘ism,’ and that’s nativism. And that’s what happened throughout our history. And probably the most grim reminder of what can happen to America during periods of isolationism and protectionism is what happened in the late—in the ’30s, when we had this America First policy and Smoot-Hawley. And look where it got us.”
Let us try to sort out this dog’s breakfast.
First, America was never isolationist. From its birth, the republic was a great trading nation with ties to the world. True, in 1935, 1936 and 1937, a Democratic Congress passed and FDR signed neutrality acts to keep us out of the Italo-Abyssinian and Spanish civil wars. And FDR did say, “We are not isolationist except insofar as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war.” But how did staying out of Abyssinia and Spain hurt America?
As for Smoot-Hawley, it was a tariff enacted in June 1930, nine months after the Crash of 1929, which occurred, as Milton Friedman won a Nobel Prize for proving, when the stock market bubble, caused by the Fed’s easy money policy, burst. Smoot-Hawley had nothing to do with a Depression that began in 1929 and lasted through FDR’s first two terms. This is a liberal myth, probably taught to Mr. Bush by New Deal Democrats at the Milton Academy.
America First was an organization of 800,000 anti-interventionists formed at Yale in 1940 by patriots like Gerald Ford, Potter Stewart and Sargent Shriver, backed by John F. Kennedy, to check FDR’s drive to war. Herbert Hoover supported it, and its greatest spokesman was the Lone Eagle, Charles Lindbergh.
But America First did not make policy. FDR did. And it was FDR who, by cutting off Japan’s oil in July 1941, rebuffing Prince Konoye’s offer to meet him in the Pacific or Alaska and issuing a virtual ultimatum on Nov. 26, 1941—to get out of China—that propelled Japan to its fatal decision to attack Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7.
Isolationist is an epithet used to smear those patriots who adhere to Washington’s admonition to stay out of foreign wars, Jefferson’s counsel to seek “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” and John Quincy Adams’s declaration that America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”
Does Bush regard these statesmen as blinkered isolationists?
Protectionism is the structuring of trade policy to protect the national sovereignty, ensure economic self-reliance and “prosper America first.” It was the policy of the Republican Party from Abraham Lincoln to Calvin Coolidge. America began that era in 1860 with one half of Britain’s production and ended it producing more than all of Europe put together. Is this a record to be ashamed of?
Compare protectionism’s success to Bush’s record.
Since 2001, he has presided over the seven largest trade deficits in history, the loss of 3.5 million manufacturing jobs and the collapse of the dollar, and added but one-fifth of the private sector jobs Bill Clinton created. Gold has gone from $260 an ounce to $1,000, oil from $28 a barrel to $100.
“Nativism” is another smear term, dating to the early 1850s and the Know-Nothing Party, which sought to halt immigration after millions of Irish flooded in after the famine of 1845. It carries a connotation of xenophobia, or the fear and hatred of foreigners.
Thus does Bush tar critics who deplore his dereliction of duty in failing to defend this nation’s borders against a Third World invasion that may turn this republic into a Tower of Babel.
From 1924 to 1965, there was indeed little immigration. Does that make Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Kennedy knuckle-dragging nativists? When JFK took office, we were as united and strong a country as we have ever been. How did we suffer from not having 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens here?
In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those who wish to stop the invasion, halt the export of factories and jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the last true conservatives in his party.
Which is understandable. For after the judges and tax cuts, what is there about Bush that is conservative? His foreign policy is Wilsonian. His trade policy is pure FDR. His spending is LBJ all the way. His amnesty for illegals is Teddy Kennedy’s policy.
Two-thirds of the nation says we are on the wrong course. Two-thirds rejects NAFTA and amnesty. Two-thirds wants out of Iraq. Two-thirds rejects Bush. Bush says that people are being misled by those wicked old isolationists, protectionists and nativists. At least he and Poppy will have something to agree on in retirement.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE
I loathe Father Coughlin.
And of course whenever anyone around here suggests they might not vote for McCain, the only arguments that the know-nothing GOP supporters can come up with is we have to vote for McCain to keep our taxes low and keep the Supreme Court conservative.
Eight years of leadership and these are the only two thin strands they can rest their arguments on!
Funny how when you renounce the Republican Party and try to split them and cost them elections, no one much cares what you have to say about Republican Party policy. Sorry, Pat.
I loathe George Soros.
wow!
First he defends the Germans in ww2 now the Japanese !
Sorry japan. We had it coming.
President Bush. Stop provoking others.
Listen to pb.
Bush's Daddy split the party and cost Republicans losses, now Junior insures that history repeats itself and neo-kool-aid drinkers are still gonna call Pat the Bogeyman. Sorry, neos, I'm not drinking.
You must be under the impression that FDR did NOT want us involved in war.
Wow!
No mention of the War on Terror.
Would you and Pat recommend surrendering to Bin Laden and Saddam?
Sorry we put you two out on fighting back.
You spend lot of time in the graveyard doing so.
Tricky.
FDR wanted us in a war, so he lead us into one.
In reality, Japan was really quite benign and Pat’s family had good jobs in Germany.
What’s not to like?
When are Americans going to wake up and realize what a moral farce World War II was.
Its good we have political commentators like Pat to help bring the truth to light.
My greatest disappointment with the essay is that it is written in English rather than German. That’s rather insulting.
“Does Bush regard these statesmen as blinkered isolationists?”
PJB is brilliant as always, but even he has a few blind spots. When the country was founded isolationism wasn’t a choice, it was just a fact. We were geographically separated from everyone; I wonder if he realizes that two centuries of technical progress has changed things quite a bit.
You're the one who renouced his religion and identity, not Buchanan.
Ahem Nanking Massacre /Japanese genocide in china.Ahem
I agree that the US should stop being the worlds rent a cop
But that comment by PJB is historically and intellectually dishonest.
Smell ya later. Have fun hating brown-skinned people and wallowing in superstition.
Would you and Pat recommend surrendering to Bin Laden and Saddam?
Ah yes, the "War on Terror". We are very serious about keeping terrorists out of America with our porous borders aren't we?
Molly Ivins, is that you?
Pat’s not the bogey man, he just hates jews. He also supports the PLO and the mullahs in Iran.
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