Let's Revive An Old Trait by Charley ReeseYou might have noticed that, other than one column pointing out that Arnold Schwarzenegger, a successful businessman, is qualified to be a governor, I haven't written anything about the California recall election.
That's because I don't live in California. And for all of us who don't live in California, it's none of our business.
Minding our own business and not sticking our noses into other people's business is an old American trait now out of style. We need to bring it back. It's a very good rule that can save us all a lot of trouble.
We have become a nation of busybodies, meddling in affairs both domestic and foreign that don't concern us. I've seen environmentalists who don't even live in a town appear before a town council and attempt to tell the elected officials what they ought to do in their town. People are always trying to tell property owners what they can and can't do with their own property.
The federal government, naturally, is the worst busybody, sticking its nose not only into every aspect of our lives but also into the lives of people in foreign countries. This is the most dangerous form of meddling possible and has already cost us hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars while not improving the world one whit.
Old John Quincy Adams had it right when he said of America: "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."
That was the traditional American foreign policy — armed neutrality. The imperialists slandered that policy by calling it isolationism, though it never was that. It was just the plain, sensible decision to mind our own business and not get involved in other people's quarrels and wars. We spent thousands of American lives in Korea, which remains divided, and in Vietnam, which went communist anyway. Now we are wasting American lives in Iraq, not to mention billions of dollars, when that country should have been no concern of ours at all.
The idea of intervening in the internal affairs of other sovereign nations is both stupid and hypocritical. It is stupid because we always lose more than we gain. It is hypocritical because we are far too cowardly to intervene in the internal affairs of really powerful nations. Despite all this hogwash about Saddam Hussein, the greatest mass murderers of the 20th century were the governments of the Soviet Union and communist China. They murdered millions. Did we launch a humanitarian war against them? Heck, no.
Even super-belligerent, "Bring 'em on" George Bush is dancing delicately around North Korea, because North Korea, unlike Iraq, has the military power to make us pay a high price for a war with it. One of the main reasons we went to war against Iraq was because we knew we could roll over the Iraqis. It was a political stunt to make the world think we are more powerful militarily than we actually are.
How much better it would be if we told the world, "We wish you well and we desire fair trade with all, but we will not interfere in your internal affairs, nor will we participate in any way with your quarrels with other nations or with your own people."
The fact is, our own country is falling apart, both morally and structurally. The stupid government in Washington is trying to build a world empire from a rotting base. Our own abortion mills have murdered more people than Saddam Hussein could have ever hoped to kill. Our own infrastructure is getting old and dilapidated while our emperor has committed us to rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.
Until we relearn the valuable lesson of minding our own business, the future of this wannabe empire will be dicey, to say the least.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
posted September 10, 2003 12:10 PM
posted September 10, 2003 03:11 PM
