We are a political society primarily driven by our own, narrowly defined special interests. Not general principles.
Nowhere is that more evident than in U.S. foreign policy. We intervene in Libya to “protect civilians” and turn a blind eye to similar dynamics in Yemen because we consider that nation a reliable ally in the war on terror.
At some point, we need to develop some solid guiding principles, instead of relying on pragmatism to tug us around the international maze.
Over the last year or so, I’ve been struggling to redefine my views on foreign policy. As a former neo-conservative, I enthusiastically embraced the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I readily accepted the notion that military force serves as a legitimate tool for nation-building. And I still get goosebumps seeing projections of military power. I love fighter jets, tanks and big guns. Maybe that’s just a guy thing.
But it doesn’t take a doctorate in foreign relations to understand that U.S. policy has forged a tangled mess of contradictory alliances and obligations, and created a much more dangerous world. I’ve gradually come to accept that military intervention in foreign affairs typically causes more damage than good and that the whole concept rests on morally dubious grounds. Who am I to point a gun at another man’s head and demand he practice “democracy”?
This does not make me a pacifist. I believe in a vigorous defense. If attacked, respond with overwhelming force. As I tell my kids, avoid a fight if at all possible by every means at your disposal. But if you get forced into a position where you have to fight, fight to win.
This does not make me an isolationist. Non-intervention differs greatly from closing yourself inside a box and avoiding interaction with the world around you. I favor vigorous and open trade. This stands in direct contradiction to the concept of isolationism.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, I bought into the conventional wisdom on Ron Paul. He was pretty good on domestic policy, but a “nut-job” when it comes to foreign policy. But as I’ve really listened to what he says, as opposed to the media spin, and studied the world I live in today, I find he makes much more sense. Do I agree with him 100 percent? No. But I can no longer simply discount his foreign policy as quackery.
I hear this mantra all the time today. “I like that Ron Paul feller, except for his foreign policy.” I’m not even sure many who say that really understand his foreign policy positions. In fact, they line up pretty closely with stated positions of another president revered by most Americans – George Washington.
I wonder if Washington could get any traction in American politics today with this kind of foreign policy thinking? The following comes from his Farewell Address, delivered on Sept. 17, 1796.
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean,as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.









[...] Mentioned in this Show TenthAmendmentCenter.com/Tenther101/ Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution Books available in the TAC Store Rob Natelson’s article on the court challenges to Obamacare Tad DeHaven’s article on Government Stimulus Mike Maharrey’s article on seperation of powers http://www.usacarry.com/ Judge Napolitano on the Patriot Act Mike Maharrey on George Washington and Foreign Policy [...]
[...] Also joining the show to cover this topic further will be TAC National Communications Director, Mike Maharrey, who’s recent article, “I Love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy,” was featured here. [...]
[...] Source: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com [...]
[...] Also joining the show to cover this topic further will be TAC National Communications Director, Mike Maharrey, who’s recent article, “I Love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy,” was featured here. [...]
[...] “I love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy.” A great post that is definitely worth your time to read. [...]
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[...] document.write(''); OX.requestAd({"auid":"33503"}); Unlike Chicken Hawks and Draft Dodgers, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman… Ron Paul actually served in the military and is a Vietnam Veteran… it doesn’t take a doctorate in foreign relations to understand that U.S. policy has forged a tangled mess of contradictory alliances and obligations, and created a much more dangerous world. I’ve gradually come to accept that military intervention in foreign affairs typically causes more damage than good and that the whole concept rests on morally dubious grounds. Who am I to point a gun at another man’s head and demand he practice “democracy”? During the 2008 presidential campaign, I bought into the conventional wisdom on Ron Paul. He was pretty good on domestic policy, but a “nut-job” when it comes to foreign policy. But as I’ve really listened to what he says, as opposed to the media spin, and studied the world I live in today, I find he makes much more sense. Do I agree with him 100 percent? No. But I can no longer simply discount his foreign policy as quackery. I hear this mantra all the time today. “I like that Ron Paul feller, except for his foreign policy.” I’m not even sure many who say that really understand his foreign policy positions. In fact, they line up pretty closely with stated positions of another president revered by most Americans – George Washington. Read The Rest At: “I love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy.” – Tenth Amendment Cente… [...]
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[...] document.write(''); OX.requestAd({"auid":"33502"}); Originally Posted by BC1 Here's some. He's a stuttering, stammering, version-2 of Ross Perot. He will not be respected by world leaders. He's cartoon-like. He's willing to turn his back on countries like Iran. He's an isolationist. He's a lawmaker, not an administrator. He's managed nothing. No financial, economic or management track record. No experience. You're not gonna lose your gun rights by voting Romney. You're gonna lose them by writing in Paul. What the hell is wrong with people. I AM NOT putting an inexperienced lawmaker/doctor in control of the largest coporation in the world. Didn't America just learn a hard lesson by putting a community organizer in charge of this massive corporation called the U.S.? Gun rights? You want to see Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder or Rahm Emanuel nominated for Supreme Court Justice? If you're worried about gun rights you better act on election day. You'll be lucky to put food on the table if Barry gets re-elected. While I don't expect the average Joe to understand economics I do expect them to understand that this country is about go over a fiscal cliff and they're going with it. You vote for who ever will prevent that. You don't put a community leader back in charge. You don't put a medical doctor in charge. You don't complain and threaten to withhold your vote like some child palying kickball. This ain't kickball! You act to save your own future. You put a true executive in charge. Someone who has run and administered both private and municipal corporations. This isn't intro to municipal management 101. Jesus, and my wife wonders why I fired complainers. Squeaky wheels don't get oil. They get replaced… shown the door. It's over, move on. Save what's left of this country while you still can. I see you still have nothing but insults & innuendo… Here is something to pontificate on… FACT: Mitt Romney the so-called economic messiah created more foreign net jobs than U.S. net jobs while Bain Capitol was under his tutelage… FACT: Mitt Romney signed permanent Gun & Ammo bans into law that stand today… FACT: ObamaCare is the federal version of RomneyCare and RomneyCare is billions over budget and to-date over 20,000 people have lost their jobs due to RomneyCare and MANDATE MITT… FACT: Most of the consumers of RomneyCare are Illegal Aliens & out of state residents… FACT: Mitt Romney earned the nick-name "fee-fee Mitt" because he disguised tax increased as fees while governor… FACT: Mitt Romney supported the Obama & Bush bailouts… FACT: Mitt Romney supports the so-called Patriot Act & the NDAA of 2012 that tramples fundamental liberty as we know it… "A Tail of Two Mitts" – John McCain… "IF Romney gets the nomination WE WILL LOSE" – Ann Coulter I am glad you mentioned Ross Perot… because like Ross Perot has been proved 100% right on every issue he was ridiculed on so will Ron Paul… Sadly, when Ron Paul is proved right either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama will likely have done us in for good and we will be the next Weimar Republic and modern day Greece begging for handouts & bailouts from Europe & the rest of the world… Non-intervention differs greatly from closing yourself inside a box and avoiding interaction with the world around you. Ron Paul favors vigorous and open trade. This stands in direct contradiction to the concept of isolationism… “I love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy.”“I love George Washington. Except for his Foreign Policy.” – Tenth Amendment Cente… [...]