Fisking Ron Paul

One of the reasons I was glad to leave the Cato Institute was that I found their foreign policy simultaneously naive and morally disgusting.  Ron Paul's apologetics in this editorial embody it all its faults:

Any response to this paper's Friday editorial on my foreign policy position must rest on two fundamental assertions: first, that the Founding Fathers were not isolationists; and second, that their political philosophy -- the wisdom of the Constitution, the Declaration, and our Revolution itself -- is not just a primitive cultural relic.

With respect to foreign policy, nobody thinks that "the Constitution, the Declaration, and our Revolution... is just a primitive cultural relic."  Rather, circumstances, including (a) the decline of a benign Britain and the rise of more dangerous powers in its place, and (b) the vast increase in our relative national power, call for a new approach.  Ron Paul is attacking a straw man.  Either he knows it, in which case he is a liar, or he really believes it, in which case ideology has strangled his common sense.

If I understand the editors' concerns, I have not been accused of deviating from the Founders' logic; if anything I have been accused of adhering to it too strictly. The question, therefore, before readers -- and soon voters -- is the same question I have asked for almost 20 years in Congress: by what superior wisdom have we now declared Jefferson, Washington, and Madison to be "unrealistic and dangerous"? Why do we insist on throwing away their most considered warnings?

Jefferson, Washington, and Madison were not "unrealistic and dangerous."  But it is unrealistic and dangerous blindly to adhere to the foreign policy that was suitable to those times in a radically changed world. 

A non-interventionist foreign policy is not an isolationist foreign policy. It is quite the opposite. Under a Paul administration, the United States would trade freely with any nation that seeks to engage with us. American citizens would be encouraged to visit other countries and interact with other peoples rather than be told by their own government that certain countries are off limits to them.

Like Sweden kept trading with Hitler's Germany.  Yes, perhaps "isolationist" is an unfair epithet; collaborationist would be more apt.  Paul doesn't even stop at saying we can't justly coerce Americans to stay out of Iran and North Korea; he wants to "encourage" doing business with totalitarians and tyrants...

The hostility toward American citizens overseas in the wake of our current foreign policy has actually made it difficult if not dangerous for Americans to travel abroad.  Is this not an isolationist consequence from a policy of aggressive foreign interventionism?

Care to cite any facts?  I have traveled in Africa, western Europe, and the former Soviet Union in the wake of the Iraq War with no difficulty.  International opposition to the Iraq war has not made it harder for Americans to travel.  But the arms races and border wars that would break out if America withdrew unilaterally from its role in providing the generalized credible threat of intervention to prevent aggression abroad certainly would make it harder for Americans-- or anyone else-- to travel.

It is not we non-interventionists who are isolationsists. The real isolationists are those who impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders. The real isolationists are those who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.

There is, of course, no contradiction between overthrowing the occasional dictator or genocidaire and "seeking change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example," which of course we are already doing in any case.  On the contrary: if we're pre-committeed to "non-interventionism," our diplomacy would be impotent, because we would have neither sticks nor carrots to offer.  Again the question arises: is Paul very stupid, or is he lying?

I do not believe that ideas have an expiration date, or that their value can be gauged by their novelty. The test for new and old is that of wisdom and experience, or as the editors wrote "historical reality," which argues passionately now against the course of anti-Constitutional interventionism.

More blowing smoke.  The US has pursued an interventionist foreign policy for most of the 20th century, beginning with World War I and continuing through World War II and the Cold War, through Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War and many smaller engagements.  Paul's foreign-policy ideas are a radical break with three generations of history-- indeed, even in Jefferson's time the Marines implemented a regime change in Tripoli.  To the extent that Paul's ideas are attracting attention it is because of their weird novelty.  He should at least have the decency to admit that.

A Paul administration would see Americans engaged overseas like never before, in business and cultural activities. But a Paul administration would never attempt to export democracy or other values at the barrel of a gun, as we have seen over and over again that this is a counterproductive approach that actually leads the United States to be resented and more isolated in the world.

Over and over again, he?  Was it counter-productive for us to impose democracy on Germany and Japan?  Ron Paul's contempt for the lessons of history is breathtaking.

Comments

[Brendan]

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On behalf of the 1,581 Democracy 2.0 survey respondents, 47 participants of
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[Nato]

I would like to point out that we didn't invade Germany or Japan to impose democracy.

[Nathan Smith]

Regime change was an objective in WWII as in the Iraq War. Being who we were, that meant imposing democracy. To "export democracy or other values at the barrel of a gun" was exactly what we were doing in WWII.

The difference is that in WWII we were physically attacked, whereas in Iraq we only had vague intelligence and inference-- false, as it turned out, but that's irrelevant since we could only act on the information we had at the time-- that Saddam had some WMDs and was pursuing more. If one wants to differentiate between WWII and Iraq, one can argue that we should only wage war in self-defense, when our country is physically attacked. That's a sucker's foreign policy, but not completely depraved: there is a deontological case for it, not ultimately cogent I think, but one which an intelligent person might sincerely hold. Ron Paul doesn't want to go there because anyone can see how impractical it is in an age of nuclear weapons and terrorism. So instead he claims, contrary to the historical facts, that promoting democracy never works.

[dsylexic]

LOL. all world improvers find ron paul's non intervention to be naive. really nice. carry on hauling the white man's burden