For next March 3rd, Dan Gardner is going to present on the topic of U.S. foreign policy. We are going to look at a few different articles/videos which can be found here:
We will probably also get up another reading here in the next few days but go ahead and look at these to get the general idea of what we will be talking about.
Thanks!
Here are some additional quotes that Dan has asked me to put on the blog:
ReplyDelete1. We cannot clean up the mess in Washington, balance the budget, reduce taxes, check creeping Socialism, tell what is muscle or fat in our sprawling rearmament programs, purge subversives from our State Department, unless we come to grips with our foreign policy, upon which all other policies depend.
Senator Robert A. Taft, R-Ohio.
2. No one can think intelligently on the many complicated problems of American foreign policy unless he decides first what he considers the real purpose and object of that policy. . . There has been no consistent purpose in our foreign policy for a good many years past. . . Fundamentally, I believe the ultimate purpose of our foreign policy must be to protect the liberty of the people of the United States.
Senator Taft.
3. 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 the vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force… She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit…
John Quincy Adams.
4. By the policy to which we have adhered since the days of Washington…we have done more for the cause of liberty than arms could affect; we have shown to other nations the way to greatness and happiness…Far better is it for ourselves… and the cause of liberty, that, adhering to our pacific system and avoiding the distant wars of Europe, we should keep our lamp burning brightly on this western shore, as a light to all nations, than to hazard its utter extinction amid the ruins of fallen and falling republics in Europe.
Henry Clay.
5. Neoconservatives, the false conservatives who got us into the Iraq mess and pushed hard for war with Iran, continue to hold their positions of prominence. Why that is so is quite beyond me. Every last prediction they made about the Iraq debacle-e.g., it would be a cakewalk, the cost would be paid in oil revenues, the prospect of sectarian fighting was slim-has been resolutely falsified by events, and yet they continue to grace the pages of major American newspapers and appear regularly on cable television and talk shows. Instead of being disgraced, as common sense might lead us to expect, they continue to be exalted for a wisdom they obviously do not possess.
Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas.