However, maybe I am wrong.
I would love the idea of having the United States once again become an independent nation and able to cut the umbilical cord from the rest of the world. Currently we are looking at a global finance collapse if the Euro looses all value. And to have China and Japan own the majority of our bonds, making us dependent on their loans, is REALLY unnerving.
President George Washington, one of my utmost heroes, said in his departing address:
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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.
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George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796 @ Yale.edu (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp)
George Washington says in 1796 that we should not entangle ourselves with foreign governments do to foreign influence coming onto our shores. Well it would have been wise to follow this direction and I agree with him 100%. HOWEVER! We are a long way away from keeping that from happening. We have a completely different government and policies from when Washington was alive. We have been weak in this aspect starting just before the turn of the 1900s. The American culture is so inundated with foreign influence it would take me forever to list them all. There have been groups through out the past 100 years or so that say we should model American after Europe. That we should model ourselves after communism, fascism, socialism and here lately sharia law.
One has to wonder what our country would be like if we had followed Washington's advice and stayed away from European influence. With it being "our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world".
That utopia has far expired and it is fantasy to think we can turn back the clock on the world so that we may correct this colossal mistake of creating "permanent alliances" with foreign country(s) and having their influence inner twined with the American experiment.
There is a large group of people in our country that wants American to pull all troops from around the world and bring them home. To not be part of an influence that we have partaken in for over a 100 years. Roosevelt tried this during his presidency with isolationism in the 1930's, up until Japan bombed Perl Harbor. If we were to truly learn from past mistakes it would be from this costly mistake of thinking we could just pull out of the global activity and shut ourselves off from it. To "bury our heads in the sand". This allowed Hitler and his Nazis to slaughter millions of people (11,283,000 to be exact) with 6 million of those people being of Jewish decent. The rest where his own countrymen (men, woman, children) of all intellectual walks of life, ALL butchered with institutionalized killing. This does not include 5,200,000 German citizens and military war deaths. Nor does it include 28,736,000 that died in Europe trying to stop this mad man.
“How Do You Kill 11 Million People: Why The Truth Matters More Than You Think” by Andy Andrews (on Amazon.com)
So what now?
Isolationism does not work. It's an invite for power hungry psychopathic sociopaths to start thinking that America has become weak and possibly invade our borders. America is not immune to this type of action. If you say to yourself, “Ah that will never happen, we are America!” then you a true fool sir. It CAN happen in our country and there is nothing stopping it from happening. Terrorist got a hold of 4 fully fueled commercial aircraft and ended up being pretty effective in killing thousands of Americans just wanting to go to work or get to their destination. By the way this was CIVILIAN casualties, not military.
It really sucks that we have to have our men and women deployed around the world and yes we are used as Global policeman. Do I like it? Not really. But its a reality from Washington DC's bad policies.
Can we ever bring all of our military home? Tell you what, when you can get more than 10 million people to vote during a Federal election when there are over a 100 million registered voters, we might be able to change the course of this beautiful dream we hold on to called America. Until people start becoming more active in WHO is leading them then we are faced with the direction we are currently heading in.
I close with this last thought. When we were blessed to have George Washington as a leader the weapons used of his time were cannons and musket loaders to name a couple. I don't think George Washington, as brilliant of a man that he was, would have imagined a Nuclear tipped ballistic missile that could annihilate an entire metropolitan area with one blow. I think he would say that our current foreign policy, needs improvement, but that we should keep an eye on the rest of the world.
Thanks for reading my rambling. God Bless
