The term "isolationist" entered the American lexicon in the late 19th century when the ardent militarist Alfred Thayer Mahan used it to smear opponents of American imperialism. The potency of the slur

It's a drab taxonomic term, not a word with the punch of 'child molester', or, come to think of it 'imperialism'. They drama queens.

I'm with Art Deco on this one (I think). Who really cares where the term Isolationist came from?

It is short hand to describe the incredibly naive belief, that the US can somehow disengage from the larger world, keeping all the good things in life,without doing the grunt work to keep the world stable enough for all those good things to exist.

Feel real good about 'touring' Cairo these days and taking a peek at the pyramids? Why the hell not?

The foreign policy of restraint is particularly appropriate in the modern era as threats to the United States have waned

Waned? Iran. Nuclear materials. Some assembly required.

That will destabilize an already unstable and quite volatile region. The Arab gulf states will either embark on their own special weapons project, purchase nukes from Pakistan, or most likely: both.

A nuclear armed Arab world: what could possibly go wrong?

Not to mention that little dictator up in North Korea.

Ordinarily, I'd say we should mind our own bidness, but when someone can deliver several kilotons of destruction to any where in the world in 35 minutes or less, such isolationism doesn't really work.

Do they say anything about "The World's Policeman™"?

'Cause that's all f*cked up, too.

This is one of those things for which the kids at Cato had best be prepared to lose... Human nature doesn't work that way. You can be as principled as you want, but when you're principles are countervailed by human decency and by a literally planet full of practical interests, then you, as a nation, don't have the option of staying home in a big fluffy sweatshirt to masturbate, eat ice cream, and watch game shows.

Your. Sorry. Just woke up. Literally, alarm sounding as I type.

"There are a number of articles on this at the link."

And somehow the number of articles that explain Cato's concept of 'isolationism light' bolster the truth of that argument even though they all rest on the same incorrect premise about human nature.

Got it.

> The foreign policy of restraint is particularly
> appropriate in the modern era as threats to the
> United States have waned

☑ What Agg said in response to this, and also:


To the extent that threats have waned, they've done so because we've woven two-thirds of the species into capitalist-, feminist- and democracy-trending patterns of trade and accountability.

There's as much bad stuff in the hearts of middling nations as there's ever been... But when the United States is the superpower, it's cheaper for your society to compete economically than militarily.

Economically, the United States and her allies will help you: Investment & defense & education & nutrition and all the rest... Including access to our markets. [!] (That's really important: [!!])

But militarily, you got nowhere to go: You'll have no worthy allies, and no prayer of resisting our warmaking prowess.

Wanna read books about this? I have a few. Global longevity and well-being are exploding. Adult-onset blindness has been cut in half in a very few decades. In your adult life, Guinea worms have been eradicated through our stunning generosity and noblest humility... Essentially, in silence.

The list goes on and on... And it reads best of all for women... That's basically how human progress is defined.

So a fraction of the world population hasn't caught up... As you'd expect, it's the fraction least geographically, materially, and culturally equipped to flirt at our party (and that sequence of characteristics is tightly related).

Nonetheless, they have access to us through all the fragile miracles that technology brings to modern life. They can send murderous assholes in airplanes, and they can send lethal microbes in pork.




When you, Amy Alkon, speak admiringly of "restraint," what do you even mean?

Do you think we're not in fundamentally intimate contact with everyone on the planet, friend or foe, by shared environment no less than by policy?

(Above stolen from Barnett, Kagan, Kaplan, Pinker and Lomborg.)

& Easterbrook.

I'm re-reading Jonathan Perkins' "Secret History of the American Empire"-- it is cringe-worthy stuff, detailing the numerous ways US corporations crush Third World societies in order for us to buy ever-cheaper cr@p at WalMart. Nike, for example could double the pay of its Indonesian workers and it would only be about 1.7% of their advertising budget. Corporations push for infrastructure improvements in places like East Timor, so that oil, logging and mining companies can ruin the environment. None of the "foreign aid" money actually goes to the target location-- it goes to other US firms, to be rapaid by the target country. When the locals try to gain independance, we provide the Indonesian military with all the tools to put a stop to that.
There's a big difference between isolationism and restraint.

Good as far as it goes, however:

If you don't want to shop Wal-Mart, don't.

There is zero, ZERO reason to trust your judgment about the distinction between enriching consumer goods and "crap." Your eagerness promptly float the sarcastic koan suggests mostly that you're eager to signal your presence to other lefties, who will (I am certain) share your teenage petulance about American misconduct, and nourish each other's baseless fantasies about the simplicity of righteousness... As if you could or should tell Nike how much they should be paying workers on foreign shores... As if you had any international manufacturing experience at all, but I bet you don't. A richer texture in your snark comes from the implication that you've furnished your home with things that are NOT crap, handcrafted artifacts from the Amish and Mennonites... People like your friend Jacob with the zipperless cotton pants and horse-drawn carriage, who built the laptop upon which you typed that comment.

"Ever-cheaper," you say, never explaining whether cheapness is an indictment of a gentle price, or of low quality. You win, implicitly, either way! You think your taste will protect you.

> improvements in places like East Timor,
> so that oil, logging and mining companies
> can ruin the environment.

No, you blithering idiot, they push for infrastructure improvements in place like East Timor so they can get the oil out more readily. It is profoundly stupid to say the intention is environmental despoilment... But these teenage impulses make that language irresistible to you. You're confusing yourself.

> None of the "foreign aid" money actually
> goes to the target location-- it goes to
> other US firms

"None" of it. That's your description of international affairs... "Foreign aid" in irony quotes. And when those nations have their debt forgiven in the cycle so familiar to us all, do you speak up? When you do, are you demanding more or less authority for government? Because I'm not getting a libertarian vibe out of this.

Yes: Developed nations exploit local labor elsewhere, often enjoying casual environmental protections and all the rest. Per Barnett, they pay on average twice as much as the best indigenous industries, enabling all the other social development which (again) has raised the standard of living indisputably.

It's demented to fantasize, as you apparently do, that you could walk into a board meeting at Nike and casually insist that they cut the marketing budget to goose up wages overseas.

I just hate your comment so much. I grew up around people like you, and they were so full of shit. Then I figured out that the problem was that it was a campus, which meant the students were never going to think like adults... by definition.

And that their teachers were never going to think like adults, either... by choice.

I'm still pissed off. That was just all fucked up.

Y'know, smart people know that government power has been criminally intertwined with commerce. This has been a particular problem in the Obama administration: In his first term, he spent more time fund raising than his last five predecessors put together... And three of them were two-termers. And he's kept up the pace as a lame-duck.

This is a problem RIGHT NOW, ok? Wednesday morning.

But when you, jefe, share your daydreams of making the world a better place, you speak of strutting smugly into a paneled boardroom and telling Nike how much of their money should be spent on marketing versus how much should go to the factory lines. (As if you have any corporate budget experience at all. As if you can pretend even for a moment that your motive is the well-being of the company, upon which many thousands are counting for a paycheck. As if you've EVER been an integral, responsible party in an enterprise like that.)

And as you fantasize this way, by what strength do you imagine issuing the command?

Government authority, of course.

You're a big part of the problem. You don't give sloppy dicksuck about wages in Indonesia, or about the price of shoes anywhere else. ("Crap"!)

You just want to nourish this sense of self-righteousness. And you'll enable the worst people in the world, the ones doing their God-damnedest to inflict the distant damage you claim to deplore, so long as the chatter flatters you locally.

Back to the subject of a 'better' less interventionist foreign policy.

I wonder how the Cato Kids plan would differ in any respect to what Obama has done for the past six years?

Or would it just magically work out better because 'smarter people' would be in charge?