We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.
Ronald Reagan
Ditto.
This is the correct response to Ron Paul’s foreign policy.
Pretty words. But if I recall correctly, wasn’t taking shelter across the sea, and rushing to respond after freedom was lost exactly what we did in WWII, and we won that one? Seems the lesson we can take is that responding ONLY when necessary is the prudent course. Of course, one’s man’s optional is another man’s necessity.
I also recall another great statesman warning that we should not go about the world searching for monsters to slay. His name currently escapes me.
I would note that I posted this merely to make my own views clear and not as a critque of Bonchamps’ post on Ron Paul’s foreign policy. We obviously differ in our views, but commenters should address our posts as separate and not attempt to engage us in a duel which is not my intention. This is a group blog and contributors are occasionally going to have different viewpoints, not a rarity actually at TAC.
“Pretty words. But if I recall correctly, wasn’t taking shelter across the sea, and rushing to respond after freedom was lost exactly what we did in WWII, and we won that one?”
400,000 dead Americans later cmatt, with a world wide death toll of around 62,000,000, not to mention of course that we could have lost that War if events prior to our entry had played out differently. If we had been isolationist for a few more years we might well have ended up confronting Nazi Germany, victorious over the Soviet Union, armed with nuclear tipped ICBMs. We and the world were quite lucky as to how WW2 turned out; history could have very easily taken a much darker path.
With all due respect, Donald, you were the one in previous posts here at TAC who called Ron Paul “Dr. Delusional.” Now you say that yours and Bonchamps’ are simply different points of view. The derisive term “Dr. Delusional” (with which I happen to agree) bespeaks of more than simply a different point of view.
Either your point of view is correct and Bonchamps incorrect, or vice versa. Either Reagan is correct in his speech above and Ron Paul incorrect, or vice versa. This “ain’t no dictatorship of relativism.”
I guess now my comment is going to get me in trouble. Again, no offense is intended towards either you or Bonchamps (who is indeed a great writer). But one can’t discuss Reagan’s foreign policy in today’s post without considering Ron Paul’s foreign policy in yesterday’s post (and vice versa – darn, used that word too much!). That the two are published so close together means something.
One of the purposes of TAC Paul is to allow each contributor to write about whatever issues they wish to write about and to proclaim their views. Too much back and forth between contributors in the comboxes can negate that purpose. Bonchamps has set forth his views ably on foreign policy in his thread, and I have given my agreement with the views espoused by Reagan. Contributors are free to comment on each thread, but it is not my purpose to debate Bonchamps on his views on foreign policy but rather to merely assert my own.
In fact, Hitler wanted to wait until he had defeated Great Britain to draw the U.S. into the war. For this reason, Germany had mixed feelings about the Japanese attack n Pearl Harbor. Having split the alliaince between would ahve been devastating for the U.S.
Sounds like a walk softly but carry a big stick president. What countries did Ronald Reagan create more perpetual occupation? How about W? I rest my case.
Rest your case? You haven’t even made your case! Try again.
Indeed, we hurt for another Gipper to appear; our present political landscape is sadly bereft of anything larger than the occasional bump in the plain.
He was absolutely right. The Soviet Union (and its puppets) was our enemy and it had an overt and stated goal of World Communism. Our backs were against the wall and 15 years of Liberal Democrat appeasement had cost us a war, 52,000 needless deaths and brought us to near desperation. Thank God – literally – that RWR, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II were where they were. We would not be here had they not been there.
But that threat in that form is gone today, for the same reason. Strategies wrought in the Cold War dichotomy aren’t needed today. So, read his words carefully: “We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.”
To obviate: “tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent”
Which government best fits that description today?
Again, which government – including the one that attacks religious liberty at home, exports $70 billion a year to Mexican criminals as well as millions in taxpayer funded weapons, supports its cronyist supporters through whole-cloth fiat bailouts, abandons freedom fighter abroad, appoints “czars” and wages intrusive wars while ignoring Congress, supports Social Fascist protestors who occupy and destroy private property, puts its own ideology before Constitutional process and perpetuates generations of poverty and ignorance through redistributionist programs, just to name a handful of egregious crimes – which government best fits that description today?
Ironic, no?
“We have met the enemy, and he is us!”
“Which government best fits that description today?”
Iran. Next question?
“Which government best fits that description today?”
“Iran. Next question?”
Perhaps a better question would be “which governments [plural] fit that description”
In addition to Iran, you can add China and Russia and a few others to that list, all of whom are dictatorships that have Obama’s lips surgically implanted on their backside.
What isolationalists/non-intervetionist like to throw around the “The U.S. cannot be the world’s policeman” fail and/or refuse to understand is that is we are not, these tyrannical regimes would be more than happy to step into that breach. In fact, they are trying to do just that. I shudder to think of what the world would be like if they are ever successful in that endeavor. A United States willing and able to unapologetically defend its own vital interests is the only thing that stands in their way. Reagan understood this very well.
In his “Shining City on a Hill” speech, Reagan quotes Pope Pius XII:
“The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.”
What isolationalists/non-intervetionist like to throw around the “The U.S. cannot be the world’s policeman” fail and/or refuse to understand
Is that the sums readily attributable to the ‘world police’ function are a modest fraction (~6%) of total military expenditures since 1953.