Isolationism or Common Sense?

One of the arguments many prefer in challenging libertarian views is calling them isolationist, and I don’t think my views are particularly isolationist.  I have tremendous concerns about our current foreign policies regarding Europe, the near east and the far east, Our standing army in Europe is standing because of … well, because they’ve been there since the start of the cold war, back in 1945.  The argument for keeping them there is to support our aggressive armies in the near east.  Sounds like someone forgot to get off the round-about.

Free trade agreements are far more self serving than militaristic bullying tactics.  Self preservation is very important, obviously, to any nation, and mutual aid agreements such at NATO have that as their basis.  So why did we invade Iraq?  Why did we invade Afghanistan?  If our real purpose was to protect economic interest of American business, think oil, and many believe that, then wouldn’t the proper thing to do would be to establish a government friendly to our concerns?  You know, replace one dictator with one friendly to our economic concerns?

After World War Two, as our armies cleared out the Nazis in Europe, we went out of our way to establish rightful governments in most of the devastated countries and return them to economic and political stability.  The Marshal Plan worked well in most of Europe, and today many of those European countries are economically stable.  Not so in the near east and far east because those areas were dominated by European colonists.

As we chased the Japanese armies out of country after country, we simply turned the areas back over to the original colonizing entities:  Dutch, British, French.  Two completely different foreign policies, one for Europe, one for the far east.  And in the near east?  After World War One, Persia and Arabia became a dozen or more countries based on some British bureaucrat drawing lines on a map.  Complete tribal groups, having control over their homelands for hundreds of generations, dispersed.  This is Iraq now, not Kurdistan.  It became American foreign policy as well.

A bully picks a fight because he knows he can.  He’s bigger, stronger, has an impressive swagger to his walk and never challenges one who might fight back.  Our government is a bully in every sense of the word.  Did you read “The Ugly American”?  Age has not made him adorable.  In foreign efforts to build and protect American economic interests our state department often uses threat more than efforts at free trade agreements.  We often support governments led by deranged fools for economic reasons, then bully those fools to the point they become enemies, then invade. 

This form of foreign policy has stood the test of time, dating back to the years following WWII.  Our treaties with some of our so-called allies need to be examined in detail.  We are committed to defending nations that are in no way committed to defending us.

We attacked Iraq because: _______________________.

We attacked Afghanistan because: ________________________.

We want to attack Syria because: _______________________.

In one thousand words or less probably not one of our last five presidents could answer those questions in such a manner as to convince a majority of Americans to vote for him.

America is the strongest nation in the world at this time, probably will continue to be for another couple of generations, and probably not much past that if we don’t pull in our horns and work toward what made us strong in the first place.  Business, strong business making excellent products, hiring millions of educated and willing workers, producing products that were offered worldwide.

And that business thrived in freedom, our labor force thrived in freedom, our citizens thrived in freedom.  Government snooping into private enterprise wasn’t talked about because it didn’t exist.  Government spies listening in to our telephone conversations?  Come on, be serious.  Presidents telling congress to go jump in the lake, he’ll do whatever he wants, and just try and stop him was rarely a topic of conversation not too many years ago.

We need to put order back in our house, drive out the dust devils, rats, and bugs, use our military to protect the United States and its interests, let those that are not a threat to our lives and livelihood live their own lives, protect our business interests without the use of tanks and bombers, you know, by way of “the art of DIPLOMACY.”

It’s time to put common sense back in our way of dealing with foreign and internal interests.  Common sense tells us that corporations are not individuals, so why should corporations have the political rights that they have been given?  We need to reinterpret how International Corporations are taxed and regulated as opposed to purely local businesses.  If a corporation expects the benefits of being a U.S. corporation, it shouldn’t be allowed to hide its assets overseas.  Simple common sense.

Okay, you’re right, one shouldn’t say common sense in the same dissertation in which politics is discussed.  One shouldn’t suggest something as foreign as common sense when talking about bureaucrats.  Or the current state of the judiciary.  Or congress.  Silly me.

Have a great day, read good books, and stay regular.