Truth, Justice, and the Neocon Way!

Let's totally forget about domestic policy for awhile, and consider foreign policy.  What is the rule?  What should guide a nation's foreign policy?  No, it's not truth or justice, or morality, or political correctness, or any other touchy-feely idealistic stuff.  The goal of any nation's foreign policy should be the interests of that nation, nothing more or nothing less.  How machiavellian, you say?  No.  This is the rational answer.  Now, obviously, one can disagree about what the interests of a nation are, and even if there's agreement about that, there's still disagreement about how best to advance those interests.  But never mind that. We have a fundamental problem with people who don't think our foreign policy should be about our interests, but should serve other, more elevated (to them) purposes.  You might say that this started with McKinley, because to some extent, the propaganda in favor of war with Spain was all about "liberating" the Cubans and Filipinos, etc., in other words, it was about our foreign policy serving somebody else's interests.  Two problems with that.  First, if our government is serving somebody else's interests, then, to at least some extent, to do so,  it's taking resources away from serving our interests, and can be said to be behaving treasonously. The second problem is that our leaders, however wise they are (pause till laughter tapers off), they just aren't smart enough to be able to determine just what is best for Cubans or Afghans or Tutsis or whoever.  And when we spend a lot of blood and treasure "liberating" some group or another they all too often use their new freedom to lob grenades at us.

I say it started with McKinley, but it really got on line with Wilson, one of those brainy college professors who led us into World War I to make the world safe for democracy and self-determination and for French and British politicians to plunder the defeated Germans till we got into the next war fought for all sorts of etherial ideals.  In both those wars, our participation was for the sake of other nations, not ours.  Since then, we've devoted our foreign policy explicitly to coming to the rescue of South Korea, South Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Kosovo, etc. etc.  Always for the sake of foreigners, not Americans.  This superhero meme permeates the left and the right.  The left wants us to cruise around overthrowing what they perceive as right-wing dictators, while the so-called right wants us to save the Israelis, or teach the Afghans how to vote, etc.  In reality, your basic Democrats and Republicans agree on all of this, with minor quibbles about details, which is why we're fighting somebody around the world all the time these days, while we ignore our illegal alien problem.

And that's a good one right there.  Of course, the immigration traitors, both left and right, keep saying that importing millions of third-worlders is actually good for us, but since only an idiot could actually believe that, they add that it's "unfair" or "unjust" to keep these people out, because they "just want to make a better life for themselves and their families."  Hell, people rob banks to make a better life for themselves and their families, too!  Why not encourage them to do that?

So, the immigration mess is just another example of how running foreign policy for the sake of foreigners is self-defeating and downright stupid.

I was on a forum pointing out that our entire involvement in the Middle East is not in our interest.  One guy, who no doubt thinks he's a conservative, argued that even if it's contrary to our interests, we should do it anyway, because helping other people is "What America Is All About."  In other words, Jimmy Carterism is now central to the ideology of a lot of self-proclaimed conservatives.  Genuine conservatives agree with John Quincy Adams, not Jimmy Carter:

Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives on Foreign Policy (July 4, 1821)

John Quincy Adams

AND NOW, FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.

She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right.

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be.

But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.

The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit....

[America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.  (from the MILLER CENTER)

For some deeper analysis of what our foreign policy ought to be, see what THE GOLEM has to say."