My Own Disillusionment

So I'm drifting towards a viewpoint that I have opposed as long as I can remember caring about this topic. Interesting isn't it how one's opinions and convictions morph with time and events?

This article has prompted my lasted tirade.

I increasingly believe that since we are viewed as the source of the world's problems and seem to be on the defensive even on our own borders, the world doesn't deserve the continued involvement of Americans.

I'm becoming an isolationist. Yes, it is horrific. It is something I could never have imagined myself feeling. But since there are no advocates for our way of life outside our borders, and indeed there seem to be a decreasing number inside our borders, perhaps we should begin to look to our own internal needs and to hell with a world that despises us and everything we stand for. Bound and tied by supranational artifices such as the UN or World Court that seek to restrict America by claiming some sort of ultimate authority that supersedes our own laws, actively opposed at every turn by nations that only exist today because of the thousands of American graves that litter the world's soil, under attack for daring to believe in notion of God or outrageously claiming that not all views in this world have moral equivalency or foolishly arming ourselves because the mere concept of self defense, ignorantly opposing unlimited state socialism in the form of massive government programs designed for wealth redistribution and instead stupidly trusting the market and entrepreneurship to address social ills; these are views that while certainly not universally held in this nation, are ideas that define what American values are. And these ideas are held to be nonsense in most parts of this world.

My recent fall stay in Europe has totally convinced me that while we come from a common cultural, religious, legal, political and linguistic background, we think differently than Europeans. They think about things from a completely different viewpoint. I hold up as an example how I was ridiculed, by friends mind you, for suggesting that the State doesn't have the right or moral authority to require women to abort fetuses that may lead to children with developmental problems. Their belief (and this topic came up because of local polling on the subject that suggested a vast, vast majority felt this way in the low countries) is that such women have the social obligation not to burden the rest of society with handicapped children. Yes. Sixty years after the Nazi's and eugenics is alive and well in liberal (small 'L') Western Europe. The mere notion of State-mandated abortions horrifies me.

The world rejects our ideas, they reject our policies, they reject our lifestyle, they reject (and ridicule and minimize and trivialize) our culture, they dismiss our history as too short to count for much, they oppose us everywhere we try to act and they completely reject our leadership.

This isn't new. If you read historical documents and research this topic, you will find that dating back into the 19th Century the world has held these views. From the moment the Great White Fleet heralded our Great Power status, we have been the object of derision, the subject of onerous opposition and the target of insidious backstabbing. Only the emergence of the bipolar world and the threat of Soviet domination won us friends. Baby boomers who look to the fictional happy, unified West of the 60's and the illusion of utopia represented by the JFK generation delude themselves. Most of the world sided with us because we were the lesser of two evils, and only a little bit lesser. That and the fact that we had a nuclear umbrella.

So to the naysayers who claim that everything was happy until the 2000 elections are simply wrong. A system of smiles and yesses and nodding and cordial agreement existed that was a thin veneer over the vast reservoir of disdain, dislike and disapproval. A veneer held in place by the realpolitik of nuclear annhilation at the hands of the Soviets. The first signs that this veneer, this crust, was cracking came almost immediately after the Soviet Union fell. Clintonian international politics was not much different than George W Bush's. Despite what you may think. They both opposed the World Court, they both rejected the claimed supranational authority of the UN over the US Constitution, they both used covert practices (like those we call 'torture' since a Republican has been in the White House), they both supported Israel without reservation, they both sought to contain China, they both claimed and supported the concept of American exceptionalism. The difference is that Clinton did everything with a goofy smile, a pat on the back and was politically correct.

So given the threats we face to our very existence, given the bad faith of 'allies', given the active opposition of most of the world, I say to hell with them. They don't want us around? Fine. We have other things to do. I am an increasing believer in taking our proverbial ball home and letting the world burn itself to the ground. The Iranians want a nuke? Let them have it. North Korea wants a nuke? Fine. We don't really care what they do, provided they don't lob them our way. Naturally our enemies must be put on notice that we will simply obliterate them and erase their people from history in the event that a radiological device comes our way. I'm aware of the dangers involved in such a track. But we cannot take on every other nation and that nation's public opinion and expect that we will be successfull, or liked, or respected. Our military has been in South Korea and Germany for 50 and 60 years. We paid to rebuild both nations from scratch. We gave them their forms of government. We constructed their nation states out of our own pocket. And their feelings after all this? They still hate us.

They don't want us? They believe they're better off without us? No problem. We need them a lot less than they need us. So bring the boys home. Pull up the drawbridge. Post the guards on the watch tower.

As told by Christo on October 24, 2006 @ 09:20

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