Can A Conservative Be An Isolationist? You Bet

In my lifetime, I have witnessed our United States involved in six major wars. Every one of them took place overseas. Here is the list. World War II, Korea, Vietnam (where I saw combat), Gulf I, Iraq, and Afghanistan. These wars consumed over a half million of our finest young men and women. Not once has our country been invaded by an opposing army (unless you count 9/11). Canada has remained a good friend and ally since our Revolution.  Mexico provides us with a continuing flow of workers and drugs, but so far, the ghost of Santa Anna has not re-invaded the Alamo. Nor is there faintest chance in hell that anyone, over the past 100 years, would have dared take on the Continental United States by invasion. So what the hell are we doing fighting all these wars all over the globe? The short answer is because we are the big dog on the street  and want to stay that way. An oft cited answer is that we must fight overseas to keep the enemy from our front door. A third answer often heard is that somehow, we have acquired the mantle of “The leader of the free world” and must act accordingly. All of which are pure bullshit, except for maybe the first.

We are a great, big, robust country that is the envy of the world, even to our enemies, for our wealth and freedom of our system and our citizens. Somehow, that has sunk in to our political sub-consciousness to the extent that we naturally believe that our country, our system, should be the model for the rest of the world. Somewhere along the way, from the American Revolution to the present, we lost sight of the fact that our original goal was to “Create a more perfect union” here  and not “A more perfect union” in the rest of the world.

Is there another country in the world that has been so involved in six major wars in the past half century? Not even close. I think it is time to take a hard look at what drives us to send our young men and women to die in some God-forsaken country. And, simply put, we ought to quit doing so.

This great country of ours has the ability to take care of each and every person living here. We raise enough food to feed every man, woman, and child of our population and still manage to be the leading exporter of foodstuffs. We are dependent on foreign oil but that is by choice, not necessity. If we really had to become energy independent, we have the resources and technology to do so. We have been held hostage so long to the big oil companies and cartels we have fallen for their propaganda and cheap oil.  We have the finest military services in the world--no one would dare attack us if our military was concentrated and based here, in the United States. We have become addicted to cheap products from Japan, Korea, China, and India. This country was once the leading manufacturing country in the world. We could be again, if we loose our addiction and pay a bit more for our own manufactured items. We can secure our borders, if we have the guts to do so.  Let me put it clearly, we don’t need the rest of the world to be the great country we are.

A good start would to throw that worthless tower of Babel called the U.N. out of the country for good, and let them continue their inane deliberations elsewhere. Next step would be to pull all our troops back home. All of them from every place we have them stationed. Germany, you are on your own. South Korea, your problem is North Korea--solve it. Japan, our guys have been there long enough. Iraq, you have the ball--run with it. Afghanistan, you want those crazy Taliban back, go for it.   Finally, get serious about energy independence. Open up all our areas for oil production. Fast track nuclear plants. Exploit our huge reserves of natural gas. Fund increased research on alternative technologies. Hint: We don’t have an energy problem, we have an energy storage problem. In five years we could break the backs of Big Oil and OPEC.

I have saved the best for last, so you may confirm your suspicions that I am certifiably a raving curmudgeon . Message to Muslim World. “If one of your Jihadist nuts manages to employ a weapon of mass destruction on one of our cities, Mecca will be vaporized.”

  Signed,
President of the New United States of America

(Oh well, its nice to fantasize every now and then)

JP