"Non-interventionism is not isolationism"

[Sparrowhawk]

In other areas of the intarwebs where I haunt, the topic of (moral) foreign policy and government continues to creep up. Recently, an article was printed on Mises.org from Republican candidate for President, Congressman Ron Paul. I've included a small section for example:

(This article appears as the foreword to A Foreign Policy of Freedom by Ron Paul.)

Ideology is such a powerful force that it has propped up policy inconsistency for more than a century. The Left has a massive agenda for the state at home, and yet complains bitterly, with shock and dismay, that the same tools are used to start wars and build imperial structures abroad. The Right claims to want to restrain government at home (at least in some ways) while whooping it up for war and global reconstruction abroad.

It doesn't take a game-theory genius to predict how this conflict works itself out in the long run. The Left and the Right agree to disagree on intellectual grounds but otherwise engage in a dangerous quid pro quo. They turn a blind eye to the government they don't like so long as they get the government they do like.

It's one thing for the Left to grudgingly support international intervention. It makes some sense for a group that believes that government is omniscient enough to bring about fairness, justice, and equality at home to do the same for people abroad. In fact, I've never been able to make much sense out of left-wing antiwar activism, simply because it cuts so much against the idea of socialism, which itself can be summed up as perpetual war on the liberty and property of the people.

What strikes me as ridiculous is the right-wing view that the same government that is incompetent and dangerous domestically — at least in economic and social affairs — has some sort of Midas Touch internationally such that it can bring freedom, democracy, and justice to any land its troops deign to invade. Not that the right wing is principled enough to pursue its domestic views, but I'm speaking here of its campaign rhetoric and higher-level critique of government that you find in their periodicals and books. The precise critique of government that they offer for the welfare state and regulatory measures — that they are expensive, counterproductive, and hobble human energies — applies many times over to international interventions.

But the Right always seems to have an excuse for its inconsistency. In the early fifties, many on the Right said that the usual principle of nonintervention had to give way to the fight against communism because this was a uniquely evil threat facing the world. We have to put up with a "totalitarian bureaucracy" within our shores (words used by W.F. Buckley) for the duration in order to beat back the great threat abroad. And so Leviathan grew and grew, and never more than under Republican presidents. Then one day, communism went away, the regimes having collapsed from self-imposed deprivation and ideological change.

Some people like to claim that because I lean libertarian (small "L" of course, when in reality you could call me anything from a Constitutionalist to an Individualist to a Jeffersonian liberal) that I'm somehow either conservative or neo-conservative; the kind of enemy the new united Democratic force of all those opposed to Bush and his wars hates. Sans Congressman Paul, the Republican party will hopefully (IMO) crumble and fall apart because of it - but then again, I would wish the same thing on the Democratic Party.

[hive_king]

Alright, you identify what you see as a problem, whats your answer and counterplan?

[Sparrowhawk]

Forcibly dismantle the Republican and Democratic party machines to end their collusion and two-party tyrrany for all time? Execute their leadership for treason against America (violating their vows as Presidents and Congressman to 'defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America') and promote a foreign and domestic policy as outlined by our visionary founders Madison, Jefferson and Franklin? Sounds about right to me.

[jotabe]

Necrocracy, sparrowhawk?

"Forcibly dismantle"? "Execute [...] for treason"?
Sounds awfully libertarian to me...

[Sparrowhawk]

Get a sense of humour.

[hive_king]

Should we follow the part of the founding fathers' ideals where I make my black friend farm on land I stole from my Indian friend?

[jotabe]

You weren't being humorous, not even sarcastic. You were just being exaggerated, because you know you will never have the power to do all you want to do.

[Sparrowhawk]

Should we follow the part of the founding fathers' ideals where I make my black friend farm on land I stole from my Indian friend?

Spare us from that tripe, son. Your only argument is slavery and Indian land usurption? Slavery was a more accepted institution than democracy for the previous 10,000 years before the Founders - and it was mere months from the creation of the country that they began the process of eliminating it, a process which took less than a century as compared to the 10 millenia of slavery's operation. And since Indians had no concept of land, private property, or property ownership, there's no way to say that "their" "land" was "stolen". Even if you were granted that these two things - slavery and the taking of traditional tribal lands - were occuring at the time of the formation of the American state, neither was a machination created by the Founders, and instead (at least with the former) their vision was to eliminate it as quickly as possible. As for the latter, your understanding, and therefore your opinion of Native Indian affairs and their relation to the federal state as it was at the time of the founding fathers is underwhelming at best.

[Yebra]

Why not talk about global trade, the internet, stem-cell research, space stations? We don't live in the founding fathers' world any more, why should foreign policy be written by them?

[Sparrowhawk]

Why not talk about global trade, the internet, stem-cell research, space stations? We don't live in the founding fathers' world any more, why should foreign policy be written by them?

I was hoping some yahoo would come along with this kind of arbitarily achieved 'counterpoint' to the Founding Father's ideaology.

Let's say you're right - that because we don't live in the same world, with the same technologies and boundaries as they, that their beliefs should be ignored and/or rejected. If, by reason of their unknowing of our current events, their beliefs and philosophies are no longer valid and applicable, than what other beliefs and philosophies of the past are no longer valid? Some people like to say that because we no longer live in an era of just-post-Renaissance, that the 2nd amendment is no longer applicable to our lives. By that reasoning, does the 1st amendment, rooted in the same philosophical argument as the 2nd and conceived by the same men, also no longer have relevance? By your logic, it doesn't, and wouldn't. What about other beliefs, then? Does the Aristotlian philosophy of individuality no longer apply because we don't live in the same world as Aristotle? Since we no longer live in the same era as the Founding Fathers, who believed a representative republic was the best way to govern a nation, does the philosophy of a representative republic no longer best employ the means to govern a nation? Of course not you nit. New knowledge, new nations and new understandings don't change the truth. Our ability to execute the actions of the logical extrapolation of the truth changes and hopefully improves with time, but the truth is always the same. Even if you were the bearer of truth in this instance, what the f*** does the internet have to do with non-interventionism? Stem cells? Space stations? Are you just f****** retarded and feeling contrarian? Thanks for the input, dickweed.

Or, as someone else said without my charming personality:

"Of course we frequently hear the offensive cliché that, "times have changed," and thus we cannot follow quaint admonitions from the 1700s. The obvious question, then, is what other principles from our founding era should we discard for convenience? Should we give up the First amendment because times have changed and free speech causes too much offense in our modern society? Should we give up the Second amendment, and trust that today's government is benign and not to be feared by its citizens? How about the rest of the Bill of Rights?"

[hive_king]

You misunderstood what he was saying, AB. He's not questioning whether or not thes rights still exist. All this ranting about th first and second amendment is totally irrelevant to what he was talking about. If you would actually read what he said instead of using as an excuse for some prewritten rant, you'd see he was talking expressly about the realm of foreign policy, which has nothing to do with your post.

Things have changed a lot on the global stage, changes which mean that the views of some men in the 1700's might not be relavent. George Washington warnd against entangling foreign alliances, but he never foresaw the rise of Fascism, an ideology so dangerous that we had to get involved in one of "europe's wars" to keep the disease from spreading. Washington never foresaw the rise of Soviet Russia, a communist state that was anathama to many crucial ideas America was founded on, and which was armed with weapons capable of destroying all life on the Earth. I doubt many people would argue that America shouldn't have formed NATO to keep communism from dominating Europe, even if it was an entangling foreign alliance. If we had followed George Washington's words, even if they were extremely prudent in his time, we'd probably be speaking German or Russian right now. Now it can be argued whether or not the current war is a good idea, but to blindly follow foreign policy advice from over 200 years ago is just stupid.

[Yebra]

[blank]

[Guest]

George Washington warnd against entangling foreign alliances, but he never foresaw the rise of Fascism,

Right, because monarchys, military dictatorships, fuedalisms and most of the governmental systems prior to that era were totally NOT a form of facism. This is really the only point I'm going to bother with. Since the other guy apparently wasn't making any kind of point anyways, I guess my work here is done.

[hive_king]

Oh, we both made points, you're just ignoring the parts that you have no answer to, as is your MO.

While Monarchism and Fascism have some similarities, Monarchism does not have the drive to conquer the world and exterminate people in death camps like fascism. I doubt that Washington foresaw that part. Do you really think Washington would have warned aginst the alliance that took down Hitler?

[Sparrowhawk]

Oh, we both made points, you're just ignoring the parts that you have no answer to, as is your MO.

No, I'm just ignoring pretty much everything you guys said, regardless of any point you may have had.

[jotabe]

Oh, we both made points, you're just ignoring the parts that you have no answer to, as is your MO.

While Monarchism and Fascism have some similarities, Monarchism does not have the drive to conquer the world and exterminate people in death camps like fascism. I doubt that Washington foresaw that part. Do you really think Washington would have warned aginst the alliance that took down Hitler?

Actually i don't see it that way. Monarchies had, for long, used the same kind of policies, and promoted the same kind of behaviours than Fascism. The only difference was that at that time, that kind of behaviour was completely acceptable. Well, that plus the technological capability.
Monarchies have used the assassination and the death penalty to deal with dissidents. Monarchies have commited genocides (progroms are as old as monarchies, to be precise... but by then, nobody cared. The last monarchic genocide, that i know of, could be the Armenian genocide commited by the Ottoman Empire). Monarchies have driven world-conquest wars (if they couldn't do so, it wasn't because of lack of ambition, but because of lack of technology for a proper supply line). Monarchies were totalitarian in their conception of power (except, maybe, England... at least since c.XVIII).

The Nazi Germany would have been a completely normal country, but no, it would have been a country with a lot of freedom and equality and prosperity for all respect the rest of the world... if you would insert it in the c.XV)

[hive_king]

Typical. Run away when you're losing the debate.

[Jebus]

My understanding of what set Fascism apart from just any other plain ole' totalitarian regime was that the extreme propoganda which brain-washed people into believing that theirs was a superior race and that their leader was infallible created a hysteric nationalistic cult which was easily manipulable.

[jotabe]

That's true. But after all, it was in that time also when the technology required for propaganda began to exist. If i am not wrong, the first "scholars" of propaganda were nazis themselves.

The method had appeared earlier. Even Napoleon himself acknoledge the importance of speaking to the hearts, the feelings of their troops. The religion wars appealed to the same kind of feelings as nazism, only that it was religious superiority more than racial (but the racial element was there, after all). Still, they lacked the resources to extend that early propaganda nation-wise, so it could only be used to indoctrinate soldiers right before battle.