The "other half" of the Monroe Doctrine
Students of history know about the Monroe Doctrine's warning to Eurpeans to stay out of the affairs of the Americas. But very few historians, policy makers and educators seem to remember the other half of it's wise verbage, through which President Monroe set forth a policy that echoed the warnings of George Washington in his Farewell. Here are the words of the Monroe Doctrine:
The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so.
And Washington's clear warnings in greater detail:
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it - It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."
We didn't listen
Obviously, we can see from our current situation that we are deeply involved, and to our detriment, in all of these dangerous relationships, policies and operations. Like the Roman Legions and the French Foreign Legion, our worldwide web of permanent military bases and other military operations, along with military contractors which differ only in name from our own troops, is beginning to crumble from the weight of it's own financial cost as well as the moral toll from having our men and women shovelled to their far-flung posts without provocation and without the civilizing influence of home. Further, they are often without a clearly defined mission, and hence morale and unit cohesion suffer.
The Founders were not empire builders. They believed God had leg them to the "New Israel", a future"shining City" of a nation that would be independent, prosperous, and which would lead by example. Today we are hated by so many because we have turned our back on this vision. Americans at home and abroad have been targets of hatred and violence. We are trying, through brute force, to shape the world into a socialistic leviathan that our Founders never dreamed of, and if they did, it would have been a nightmare.
The story of our fall from greatness is detailed in a well documented book
Globocop: How America Sold it's Soul and Lost it's Way. By Mark David Ledbetter. This book catalogs the three periods of foreign policy from Protection, to Wavering, to Crusading, in which we always are going abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
The situation in which we find ourselves is dangerous, terribly expensive, and is actually changing the culture of America. Unless the people rise up and wrest the power of government from the hands of these global empire-builders, we are in for the same fate as the Romans.
Read the book. Share it's sobering ideas and facts. And get to work taking back America.
FRDMWRX
On Tuesday evening, the 16th, the group gathered in the hotel and screened the iconic - and prophetic - movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This film, starring Jimmy Stewart, illustrates the difficulty of standing up for foundational principles once they have been ignored and abandoned by most of the elected officials in Washington.
It was with this courageous example of a true statesman in mind that the invited guests, from across the US, walked through the mahogany-lined halls of the National Press Club in Washington DC to the Edward R. Murrow meeting room for breakfast and three hours of stirring speeches and Constitutional training.
After the morning press conference we spread out and hit the halls of Congress to deliver the Resolution to all 535 members of congress. The task of walking those marble halls was hard on the feet and legs, but it was a great experience, as we stopped in each office and delivered our resolution. We know that if tyranny comes to your door, it will probably be wearing a uniform, and we want the uniforms to be worn by Constitutional Guards who will not violate their oaths.
