Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 16:03:25 -0500
From: txliberty@hotmail.com ("Terry L Parker")
Subject: [libs4peace] US Rep Ron Paul 'US Out of Middle East'
To: utliberty-owner@yahoogroups.com, LibertyList@topica.com, LibertyGeneral@topica.com, libs4peace@yahoogroups.com ("Libertarians 4Peace"), austindemo@yahoogroups.com, austinagainstwar@yahoogroups.com ("Austin War"), acpj@zopyra.com
Cc: tps@trailerparkshow.com, TheAustinReview@netscape.net ( "The Austin Review"), thc@eden.infohwy.com ("Texas Hemp Campaign" ), rep.paul@mail.house.gov ( "Ron Paul"), LibertyAction@yahoo.com ("Liberty International" )

Austin/Houston area US Rep Ron Paul said:  

April 15, 2002 
Were the Founding Fathers Wrong about Foreign Affairs?

Last week I appeared on a national television news show to discuss recent events
in the Middle East. During the show I merely suggested that there are
two sides to the dispute, and that the focus of American foreign policy should
be the best interests of America - not Palestine or Israel. I argued that
American interests are best served by not taking either  side in this ancient
and deadly conflict, as Washington and Jefferson counseled when they
warned against entangling alliances. I argued against our crazy policy of 
giving hundred of billions of dollars in unconstitutional foreign aid and military
weapons to both sides, which only intensifies the conflict and never
buys peace. My point was simple: we should follow the Constitution and stay
out of foreign wars.

I was immediately attacked for offering such heresy. We=92ve reached the point
where virtually everyone in Congress, the administration, and the media
blindly accepts that America must become involved (financially and militarily)
in every conflict around the globe. To even suggest otherwise in today=92s
political climate is to be accused of "aiding terrorists." It=92s particularly
ironic that so many conservatives in America, who normally adopt an
"America first" position, cannot see the obvious harm that results from our
being dragged time and time again into an intractable and endless Middle
East war. The empty justification is always that America is the global superpower,
and thus has no choice but to police the world.

The Founding Fathers saw it otherwise. Jefferson summed up the noninterventionist
foreign policy position perfectly in his 1801 inaugural address: "Peace,
commerce, and honest friendship with all nations- entangling alliances
with none." How many times have we all heard these wise words without taking
them to heart? How many champion Jefferson and the Constitution, but conveniently
ignore both when it comes to American foreign policy? Washington 
similarly urged that the US must "Actfor ourselves and not for others," by
forming an "American character wholly free of foreign attachments." Since 
so many on Capitol Hill apparently now believe Washington was wrong, they should
at least have the intellectual honesty to admit it next time his name
is being celebrated.

In fact, when I mentioned Washington the other guest on the show quickly repeated
the tired cliche that "We don=92t live in George Washington=92s times."
Yet if we accept this argument, what other principles from tht era should
we discard? Should we give up the First amendment because times have changed?
How about the rest of the Bill of Rights? It=92s hypocritical and childish
to dismiss certain founding principles simply because a convenient rationale
is needed to justify foolish policies today. The principles enshrined
in the Constitution do not change. If anything, today=92s more complex 
world cries out for the moral clarity provided by a noninterventionist foreign
policy.

It=92s easy to dismiss the noninterventionist view as the quint aspiration
of men who lived in a less complicated world, but it=92s not so easy to demonstrate
how our current policies serve any national interest at all. Perhaps
an honest examination of the history of American interventionism in the
20th century, from Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, would reveal
that the Founding Fathers foresaw more than we think.


 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2002/tst041502.htm


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