Posted on 07/03/2009 9:11:35 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
There is no area in which Republicans have further strayed from our traditions than in foreign affairs.
Generations of conservatives followed the great advice of our Founding Fathers and pursued a restrained foreign policy that rebuffed entangling alliances and advised America, in the words of John Quincy Adams, not to "go abroad looking for dragons to slay."
Sen. Robert Taft, the stalwart of the Old Right, urged America to stay out of NATO. Dwight Eisenhower was elected on a platform promising to get us out of the conflict in Korea. Richard Nixon promised to end the war in Vietnam.
Republicans were highly critical of Bill Clinton for his adventurism in Somalia and Kosovo. As recently as 2000, George W. Bush campaigned on a "humbler" foreign policy and decried nation-building.
But our foreign policy today looks starkly different.
Neoconservatives who have come to power in both the Democratic and Republican parties argue that the U.S. must ether confront every evil in every corner of the globe or risk danger at home. We need to "fight them over there" they say, so we don't have to "fight them over here." This argument presents a false choice. We do not have to pick between interventionism and vulnerability. The complexity of our world is exactly why the lessons of our past should ring true and demand a return to a traditional, pro-American foreign policy: one of nonintervention.
Moving forward, I suggest that we as Americans adhere to these five principles:
1. We do not abdicate American sovereignty to global institutions...
2. We provide a strong national defense, but we do not police the world...
3. We obey the Constitution and follow the rule of law...
4. We do not engage in nation-building...
5. We stay out of the internal affairs of other nations...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Ron Paul threads bring out all the lunatics. What a waste of time.
Where do you get your political arguments...Williams Ayers? Or do you hold stock in a company that produces white flags?
So you refuse to answer my questions or discuss the issue, huh? You revert to name-calling instead. That’s typical.
But really—if you think it’s OK for our Armed Forces to police the world, why should it bother you to Defend Your Neighborhood in like manner? It’s the same principle, therefore if one is OK, or if one is nonsensical & futile, so is the other as well.
Ping
Yep. Look at you for example.
***If we must fight, we should do so with overwhelming force, win as quickly as possible and promptly withdraw.***
Makes it sound so easy. Just go in and “win.” No prior planning necessary. Letters of marque should do it.
Deb, I DID volunteer and DID pick up a rifle. I have family members who did, too. I imagine you do, too.
But in any case, I’ll repeat your words that bear repeating, since “hero” doesn’t think you have a right to say it:
“Ron Paul is a blithering fool and he is willing to gamble with the lives of 300 million Americans.”
What Deb doesn’t take into account is that the government (originally, anyway) derived its legitimate power on the authority of We, The People. It was tasked to do several things in our names and on our behalf. BUT NO LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT can legitimately do ANYTHING as our agent that we ourselves cannot properly do for ourselves. We, in America, created government, as its principals, to be our agent in certain matters. NO AGENT MAY PROPERLY DO anything his principal may not properly do, nor may that agent exceed his authority to do MORE THAN he is hired to do.
And We, the People, may NOT properly wander into others’ homes, staying there, eating them out of house and home, in the name of protecting them, nor may we PREEMPTIVELY burn out the neighbor down the block, then shoot him and his family, just because he MIGHT do something bad.
Somehow these distinctions are lost on a lot of folks who call themselves “conservative,” yet are anything BUT that when it comes to making war. We have a Constitutional Republic, NOT an Empire. We would do well to remember that.
There are plans in the Pentagon to invade Great Britain, I’m sure. The military ALWAYS has plans. What gives you leave to suggest that a just war, using Dr. Paul’s vision, would not be a well-planned, well thought out and well conducted affair?
No, the blithering idiots are those who refuse to listen to notions and ideas that contradict your preconceived “thought” patterns. You and yours are more than willing to see our kids engaged in perpetual war for an always elusive perpetual “peace.”
And DO NOT EVER try to tell me that our Constitution, which does not permit such activities, does not take into account modern “geopolitics” or whatever is the excuse du jour for ignoring it, just as the OTHER wing of the liberal establishment does. That dog SURE don’t hunt. We do NOT have a “living” document, subject to whatever interpretation you or the other liberals want to put on it, as the Supreme Law of the Land.
I don't fully agree with Ron Paul on this. Bush SR had it right. Intervention is about oil and our economy and as proof China is building a powerful military to protect it's economic empire WE used to have.
But economics rules out adventures like Iraq. Unfortunately GWB and friends like Levin/Hannity turned Iraq into a Holy war(a moral quest) , part of Sept 11. And the small core of believers still hang on to that. If Reagan bankrupted the USSR then GWB and Obama bankrupted the US destroying us as a world power as predicted in this late 1980s book:
The Great Reckoning: Protecting Yourself in the Coming Depression
Tell that to Putin. Russia and China are allowing their surrogates Iran and North Korea, both of which have leaders so completely lacking in pragmatism as to be suicidal, to be the thorns in our side.
And the answer to the question is what?
Mutually Assured Destruction is not a deterrent to these folks as it may have been to the Soviet Union.
Your point is?
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Are you suggesting it’s impossible to go in with overwhelming force when we are attacked, defeat the enemy, and then come home?
Sorry, but that's rather kooky.
Yes, OBL was right...once we were sucked in, there was little need to continue here as he foresaw we’d bankrupt ourselves overspending to fight his far smaller “investments” in our downfall.
So you're one of those "truthers" who believes that Desert Shield/Desert Storm were created on a Hollywood soundstage?
What I want to know is how you could come up with the charge that I am a truther after what I said on this thread?
You can include your explanation in your apology before things get really ugly.
I agree wholeheartedly... secure our borders, then go after the ones who perpetrated the 9/11 assault! And since 15 of 19 were Saudi subjects, that would seem to be one snakepit to clean out early on!
No apology needed....you can believe that 9/11 was before Desert Shield/Desert Storm, if you wish. Doesn’t bother me.
ping
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