Posted on 04/21/2020 10:13:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
After the Great Pandemic has passed and we emerge from Great Depression II, what will be America's mission in the world?
What will be America's cause?
We have been at such a turning point before.
After World War II, Americans wanted to come home. But we put aside our nation-building to face the challenge of a malevolent Stalinist empire dominant from the Elbe river to the Barents Sea.
And after persevering for four decades, we prevailed.
What, then, did we do with our epochal victory?
We alienated Russia by moving our NATO military alliance into the Baltic and Black Seas. We launched bloody, costly crusades for democracy in the Middle East that, invariably, failed. We exported a huge slice of our manufacturing capacity and economic independence to a coddled China.
Historically, blunders of such magnitude have undone great powers.
Even before COVID-19, Americans had begun to realize the folly of decades of mindless interventionism over matters irrelevant to our vital interests. "Unsustainable" was the word commonly associated with our foreign policy.
But if our foreign policy was unsustainable during President Trump's economic boom, with unemployment at record lows and a bull market to rival the Roaring '20s, can an interventionist foreign policy be sustained after the losses of this major depression we have induced to kill the pandemic?
If the Democrats win in November, we know their priorities: national health insurance, carbon taxes, the Green New Deal, open borders, amnesty, reparations and wealth redistribution to reduce social and economic inequality -- an agenda costing trillions of dollars.
And Democrats will be looking at the defense budget as a slush fund to finance this new progressive era.
If the Republicans win, given the influence of hawks and neocons among the party elite, interventionism may get another run in the yard.
Having been exposed as naive beyond belief for their indulgence of China from the Bush I days to 2016, some Republicans are looking to make amends by casting China in the Soviet role in Cold War II.
There is talk on Capitol Hill of refusing to pay off U.S. bonds that Beijing holds and of suing China for the damages done by the coronavirus, as China failed to alert the world the pathogen was loose.
Americans should think long and hard before defaulting on U.S. government debt and consider the consequences if we open a door to claims against sovereign nations for past sins.
Iraq was invaded in 2003 to force it to give up illicit weapons of mass destruction it did not have. Baghdad could have a case in international court against America for the unprovoked war waged against that country.
While the U.S. appears determined to bring back manufacturing -- especially of products critical to the health, safety and defense of our nation -- there seems to be no stomach among the public for a war with China.
But again, with the democracy crusades now repudiated, what is America's cause, what is America's mission in the world?
Preventing climate change, say our liberal elites. Yet, even before the pandemic, global warming ranked near the bottom of national concerns.
The situation in which America will find herself after the virus passes and depression lifts will be almost unprecedented.
We will have the same treaty obligations to go to war on behalf of dozens of nations in Europe and Asia and at the same time, we will be running deficits on the order of $3 trillion a year with a shrunken economic base.
If Trump wins, borders will be tightened. The U.S. withdrawal from the Mideast will continue. U.S. manufacturing will begin to be repatriated. Transnational institutions will be downgraded, ignored and superseded.
The watchword will be what it has lately been: "America First."
In a second Trump presidency, there would likely be even less concern for how other nations rule themselves.
Does it matter to us if Russia is led by an autocrat not unlike a Romanov czar, that Hindu nationalism wields the whip hand in India or that Hungarians have rejected Earl Warren's ideas about liberal democracy?
In recent decades, the U.N. General Assembly has seemed to resemble the bar scene in "Star Wars." But is how other nations choose to rule themselves any business of ours, if those nations do not threaten us?
In the 19th century, when the Hungarians had risen up against the Hapsburg Empire and sought U.S. intervention, Henry Clay opposed it:
"Far better is it for ourselves ... and for the cause of liberty ... that we should keep our lamp burning brightly on this western shore, as a light to all nations, than to hazard its utter extinction amid the ruins of falling or fallen republics in Europe."
Not only President Trump's preferences but also events seem to be driving us toward such a destiny.
To borrow from the title of historian Walter A. McDougall's classic work, America's future is as a promised land, not a crusader state.
I am afraid the Left is going to leave us with no choice but to deal with them harshly. Their behavior has been so bad in the last few years, it has become clear they want to destroy our nation as it exists, and they don’t care who dies in the process. If not directly caused by the Left, they make each and every problem this nation has exponentially worse - COVID-19 included. Their hands are saturated with American blood. They study evil all the time. When do we stop tolerating their serial acts of murder and sedition?
Hopefully it will be to eradicate the presence of the DemocRATVirus from our society, once and for all. Talk about a deadly, debilitating disease!
Our next cause will be isolationism (until it isn’t).
Isolationism works well before the fact. It also works well after the fact. But it is simply untenable during the fact.
I wish we could write out our own story by ourselves, chart out our own destiny. But inevitably, along comes provocation too egregious to ignore, and we respond; we’ve been dragged into something we didn’t want. We were doing just fine. We win (or at least hold serve).
Afterward, the isolationists will posit that the offense would’ve gone away if we’d have just kept out of it. That is such a facile argument. I’ve long held that prevention is the second most thankless job in the world. That is because when you’ve prevented something from happening, detractors can easily say, “No you didn’t”.
Beat China! Free Tibet,Rebuild the cities! Free Cuba. Finish the wall. A bold new plan to re-build America.
Beat China! Free Tibet,Rebuild the cities! Free Cuba. Finish the wall. A bold new plan to re-build America.
The isolationists are here, today. They already make the excuses you see in the future.
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
Iran has some hot women also. 8>)
Oriental nations have some hot women as well. 8>)
Spain, Italy and France, ditto. 8>)
Germany not so much, LOL. 8>)
And, let's not forget Scandinavian women either. 8>)
We know, from the first lady, that Slovenia has hot women also. 8>)
Aw heck, let's just let only young hot women in the country, and we American men start working on developing a fountain of youth, for men only. 8>)
Oh they will, guaranteed, regardless if they want to join ranks with the U.S. or not.
“What will be America’s cause? “
Why that’s easy - impeaching Trump again.
We could fight 'progressive ideas' with the same zeal we used on Communism....
We will go through a depression and the rest of the world will participate. Sen. John Kennedy told an interviewer on Fox the other day that if our economy collapses, so will the rest of the world's.
A complete overhaul of our educational system from top to bottom, K thru university. Emphasis on independent studies, homeschooling, private and school choice. At university level remove all federal funding and loan guarantees , encourage online degrees in useful subjects, ( tech, business, medical, writing and communication) make laws that universities are responsible for paying back any loans of kids who can’t find jobs ( thus ending motivation to approve loans for underwater basketweaving gender feminist socialism studies ) Encourage trade schools for those not interested in the pared down hard core offerings at universities.
In high school, true History, free market economics and US civics / constitutional law being taught again, teachers have to be US citizens and take a loyalty oath before being allowed to teach those subjects.
Low gas prices will kill global warming and windmills ans solar. Racism is about all they have left. They may find an asteroid that will kill us off again.
We don’t need a cause, except to get our own house in order.
I don’t want one damned dime for foreign aid, one soldier risking their life, or one illegal alien getting anything besides an ass-kicking, a non-removable tattoo identifying them as a criminal and deportation measured in minutes, until every last veteran, indeed every last citizen has a house and all the education and health care they want and need.
I don’t care where they are located, the entire population of any other country is not worth the life, or two cents from an American citizen.
The ONLY goal of our government, the only reason it is allowed to exist, is to ensure OUR freedom and prosperity.
Yes! This! ^^^^
AMERICA FIRST. Tighten up entry; make it difficult to get in and really hard to stay. Cut out all foreign aid to everyone; restore it on a case by case basis only when it renders a proven benefit to the United States. Render emergency aid to those in trouble, but do not fund any ongoing projects to upgrade other nations. Allow charity freely given to handle that. If/when attacked, crush the attacker thoroughly, to discourage others from trying it.
Oh, I forgot: Next time Germany gets to KEEP France!
Bump
MAKE AMERICA GOOD AGAIN
Restore Love of The creator, the family and neighbor and our country.
Restore Love of learning, truth and beauty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.