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The Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) is spearheading a return to the non-interventionist policies of Robert Taft of the 20s to the early 50s. Taft was defeated at the 1952 Republican National Convention for the nomination by Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is telling that Barry Goldwater attended that convention as an Eisenhower, not a Taft delegate. The neo-non-interventionists are destined for far more success in the Republican Party than any economic libertarian will ever find in the Democratic Party. As usual, history is instructive. Our Wars of 1812, Mexican-American and Spanish-American were strictly imperialistic. Our entry into WWI was engineered by none other than one of the most important progressive presidents of the twentieth century, T. Woodrow Wilson. That was the war to make the world safe for democracy and it led to the American Exceptionalism hubris that with domestic policy has left us nearly bankrupt. We saw how safe it made the world for democracy as Germany sent Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin to Russia in a sealed train to foment revolution to take Russia off its Eastern Front. The Treaty of Versailles laid the groundwork for Adolf Hitler & his National Socialist German Workers Party. After WWII, our leaders assessed the supposed surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (PH) and said, horrors, we have to prevent another. That led to Truman and a split Congress to found the CIA over the objections of Taft and fellow conservative Republicans, on the grounds that it would allow the Executive to establish foreign policy without congressional oversight; Congress is supposed to establish foreign policy while the president pursues, or executes, it. As we now know, as it was rumored right after the PH attack, the FDR White House knew, almost down to the day and hour, that the attack was coming. FDR rebuffed Japanese peace offerings time and again and left them no other choice but to attack. The administration ordered the fleet in San Diego moved to PH over the objections of the fleet commander who stated he could not defend the fleet properly there. He was fired. The FDR White House, especially the State Department (no surprise there) was shot through with Stalin sympathizers and FDR’s wife, the redoubtable Eleanor, had a huge emotional stake in his survival. An attack was what they needed to get us into the war to ensure it. It was only when the CIA began to topple communist governments, their spiritual kin, that the progressives in the Democratic Party began hollering, “Foul.” I am sure everyone remembers the mantra. American government allies were corrupt, Battista, Chiang, Diem, Khanh, Thieu, Rhee, Suharto, etc. There was an unspoken assumption in those blatherings; Castro, Mao, Ho, Kim, Sukarno, etc. weren’t and were some kind of liberators, rescuing their people from oppression. But those communists were corrupt and the progressives played that card well as many in the American media and most of academe ate it up. The interventionists had their roots in the Democratic Party and after 1952, the non-interventionists, were routed from any influence and consideration in the GOP. The battles since have been between the big government Republicans typified by the New York State party of Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, Kenneth Keating, Jacob Javits and George Romney (Mitt’s father; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree) and the economic libertarians/interventionists typified by Barry Goldwater, William F Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan. Non-intervention has not been on the table until Ron Paul, who has made it respectable again.

Non-intervention has not been on the table until Ron Paul, who has made it respectable again.

Was it ever respectable?

Caddis the Elder

I have nothing to do with Ron Paul ... so I don’t speak from that perspective. What I will say is that getting into too many wars, willy-nilly and without good chances for success and without it being directly threatening to the USA and it’s interests ... will turn a lot of people into isolationists.

"FDR rebuffed Japanese peace offerings time and again and left them no other choice but to attack.

Baloney. Japan had a number of choices. If she had chosen to cease its aggression against China, the U.S. would have sold Japan all the oil she needed. You make Japan sound like ashe was a victim, when in reality Japan was a vicious military dicatatorship bent on conquest.

Your researches didn't include that excellent work, The History of Paragraphing?

We are going to have some kind of involvement with the outside world. That doesn't necessarily mean intervening in every conflict anywhere in the world, but it does mean not thinking we can bury our head in the sand and not worry about what's going on overseas.

FYI, Romney's father lived in Michigan and was the state's governor.