Empire
Our next debate is November 16, again at the Pool and Yacht Club in St. Paul (or Lilydale if you prefer) with the topic
Resolved: Conservatives Should Embrace Empire!
(I am not responsible for the exclamation point. Is Harriet Miers punctuating our resolutions?)
Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard has posted a sobering article, not on the desirability of American Empire, but on its feasibility given the parallels between the pacifism of the British leftist elites following the British victory in WWI and the pacifism of American leftist elites following our victory in WWIII (otherwise known as the Cold War). In both cases, pacifism grew to become anti-patriotism. The parallels, while not perfect, are very troubling.
Resolved: Conservatives Should Embrace Empire!
(I am not responsible for the exclamation point. Is Harriet Miers punctuating our resolutions?)
Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard has posted a sobering article, not on the desirability of American Empire, but on its feasibility given the parallels between the pacifism of the British leftist elites following the British victory in WWI and the pacifism of American leftist elites following our victory in WWIII (otherwise known as the Cold War). In both cases, pacifism grew to become anti-patriotism. The parallels, while not perfect, are very troubling.
posted by Harsh Pencil | 10/21/2005 09:52:00 AM
There is a distinction between imperialism and protecting one's interests. A patriot could embrace both uses of power, and a pacifist could shun both. But a patriotic pacifist must agree that interests are to be protected, though that line becomes fuzzy in the definition of interests.
I thought the coumn was an attempt to rephrase the obvious, but in doing so, the column is wrong.
First, the British Empire is still with us in substance, because America carries on the basic same british traditions. In a sense America and Britain are one. Besides, economics and the rise of nationalism in the empire would have reduced the influece of the british empire eventaully.
It wasn't necessarily pacifism that reduced the british empire, it was more specifically the appeasment of Hitler, which resulted in World War II, and the rise of America and the USSR as opposing powers.
I don't think the pacifism in America is anything new. During the war of 1812, the federalists behaved similarly to many of the democrats today. They called the war "Mr. Madison's war." Many jeffersonian-Republicans accused them of treason. And some of the federalists did try to undermine the war both in Congress and even in recruitment. Does this all sound familiar?
Except that years after the war it started to be very unpopular to have opposed the war. This led to the demise of the federalist party.
There was plenty of pacifism in America during WWI and WWII, except we don't hear much about it because the press was for the wars and we were victorious.
Knowing this, it won't be pacifism that will bring down American Empire, it will be just general decay of our society. That is another subject.
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