Posted on 02/11/2012 8:12:33 AM PST by lbryce
History shows that world orders, including our own, are transient. They rise and fall, and the institutions they erect, the beliefs and "norms" that guide them, the economic systems they support—they rise and fall, too. The downfall of the Roman Empire brought an end not just to Roman rule but to Roman government and law and to an entire economic system stretching from Northern Europe to North Africa. Culture, the arts, even progress in science and technology, were set back for centuries.
Modern history has followed a similar pattern. After the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, British control of the seas and the balance of great powers on the European continent provided relative security and stability. Prosperity grew, personal freedoms expanded, and the world was knit more closely together by revolutions in commerce and communication.
With the outbreak of World War I, the age of settled peace and advancing liberalism—of European civilization approaching its pinnacle—collapsed into an age of hyper-nationalism, despotism and economic calamity. The once-promising spread of democracy and liberalism halted and then reversed course, leaving a handful of outnumbered and besieged democracies living nervously in the shadow of fascist and totalitarian neighbors. The collapse of the British and European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark age—though if Nazi Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might have—but the horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way, just as devastating.
Would the end of the present American-dominated order have less dire consequences? A surprising number of American intellectuals, politicians and policy makers greet the prospect with equanimity. There is a general sense that the end of the era of American pre-eminence, if and when it comes, need not mean the end of the present international order,
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
This country greatly damaged its mission when it began to ignore God. The ONLY way our restoration can occur is to repent and honestly and sincerely turn back to God for his help, protection and guidance.
Just so. Kagan’s analysis is very good, but he might have spent a little time on the real meaning of “liberalism.”
It has come to mean secularism and even Communism. But originally, it referred to freedom.
Freedom has its roots in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. But what brought it together and passed it down to what became Western Civilization was Christianity. Even in the medieval monarchies, there was more real freedom than there has been in most other places in most other times, and the rule was less arbitrary. There were peasants, but slavery as an institution gradually disappeared for the first time in history. Remember, even democratic Athens at its height had slaves.
Secular Democracy had its roots in Christian freedom. And as Christianity is shoved out of public life and the public square, freedom is inevitably dying. A free society requires self discipline. Otherwise the police and the state will arise and provide the discipline, and the tyrants will return.
“...And as Christianity is shoved out of public life and the public square, freedom is inevitably dying.”
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Indeed! The whole foundation of this country had to do with freedom of religion at its base. This is why, as I recall, the woman who questioned Benjamin Franklin about what had occurred during the convention was given his answer, “You have a republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”
Our Founding Fathers were very clear about the importance of religion to this nation.
Cicero you really know your history. Unfortunately, the ruling elite are drunk with power and arrogantly assume they know better than the wisdom acquired by two thousand years of Christianity. Just hope all of us don’t have to pay the price for their folly.
They are fools and explain why we are in this mess. It will be anarchy as each nation jockeys for position or decides who to suck up to. America is a work in progress. Once we go down, the world goes dark. I can remember arguing with liberals in the '60s, who claimed "Communism in America would be an interesting experiment." Deer-in-headlightd reaction when I told them that unlike most experiments, there was no Do Over. If we go down, it is Game Over, No Replays as far as freedom of the individual goes.
When the Greeks lost their freedom to Philip of Macedon, an event very much in the minds of Madison and the other authors of The Federalist Papers (they referred to it more than once), it was 2100 years before they recovered it, by which time they barely remembered they were Greek.
The hybris and self-consequence of the "Atlantic elite" blinds them to consideration of how badly they missed the mark both on the eve of the Great War, and during the confrontation with totalitarianism between the wars. In 1940, Harvard University had the largest Nazi Club in the nation, and in the 1960's "the best and the brightest" sold Lyndon Johnson the package of "modulated conflict" and "staying the course" -- then turned on a dime after Tet, and left him to contemplate by himself the burden of being the first U.S. president to lose a war.
The clerisy failed repeatedly, and never moreso than when their ranks, in the 40's and 50's, filled with appeasers, trimmers and outright KGB assets.
What the author of this article really means when he says...”we may discover then that the U.S. was essential to keeping the present world order together and that the alternative to American power was not peace and harmony but chaos and catastrophe—” is that the U.S. has some sort of obligation to spend it’s treasure and it’s young people defending the “present world order.” But he fails to answer a more basic question: why should we? What is in it for America? And if he can’t answer that on a very basic level, he can kiss it goodbye.
We have neither the money nor the political will to continue getting involved in other people’s conflicts absent some sort of practical payback for doing so.
The author over-emphasizes the need for democracy in the world. More important than governments being democratic is them being just and protecting freedoms. An autocratic government that protects the rights of citizens is to be preferred to a democratic government that does not. This is important to keep in mind in the Islamic world, where more secular and moderate strongmen should be preferred to the Islamist regimes that may be elected by the people.
Democracy is not the preferred method of governance. It is simply mob-rule where I can confiscate your property and trample your rights if I can get enough people to agree with me.
The constant call for ‘democracy’ is simply the anarchist manipulating the simple-minded.
“why should we? What is in it for America? “
So, basically, you missed the entire point of the article.
And now I see from your tagline that you support Ron Paul.
That explains it.
Note: this topic is from 2/11/2012. Thanks lbryce.The locked topic of this Robert Kagan op-ed is here.
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