We can all calm down now, Ron Paul has informed us that what is happening in Crimea is no big deal and has no affect on us. That’s good news, because it seemed like it wasn’t going very well for us.
Now, Dear Reader, I have a game for us to play. I would like you to stop reading for a moment…(not yet, I’ll tell you when) and look around at the things you can see. Since I am posting this on the internet, you must be using some electronic device to read it.
Look at that first and see where it was made.
Mine is an HP, so it is made here in the US, but my phone is Samsung from South Korea. I have my Sig Sauer rifle next to my table that is made by Germans and owned by the Swiss. My Mini Cooper is an English car and owned by the German BMW.
I’m sure you are not very interested in the origins of my belongings but I think you get the point.
We live in a world where everything is connected, and what happens in Europe or Asia does affect me and not just on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. From banking, consumer goods and energy it is impossible for us to escape the globalism that surrounds our entire way of life. The world is tied together tighter than it has ever been and when one country invades another and starts menacing it’s other neighbors, it does matter to all of us. But this isn’t a new occurrence. Sure, we may be closer than ever, but the world has been pretty small for a very long time now, we just didn’t have instant messaging. Ron Paul is pushing a utopian version of the world that could rival any that the Left cooks up. The world that Paul wants has not existed for centuries.
Ron Paul and his followers have made a profession out of quoting Thomas Jefferson and trying to emulate our third President, but I’m afraid that they have missed the forest of Jefferson’s life and are instead focused on the trees.
Any study of Jefferson yields a very interesting collection of quotes on the size of government and its danger to liberty. Thus, Jefferson has become the patron saint of the Libertarian movement, but he was more than those quotes we see on Instagram.
Did you know that Jefferson authorized the overthrow of a foreign government and dispatched agents to install a puppet regime backed by the US Navy and Marines? I know that sounds very CIA and Nixony, but it happened and had Jefferson’s approval.
The reason for this was that the Barbary Coast pirates had started choking off American shipping in the Mediterranean Sea, so Jefferson sent the Navy to fight these terrorists from the Barbary States of Africa and then dispatched his version of the CIA to attempt to replace the government.
Even in the early 1800’s the world was a small place and our most Libertarian minded president was forced to employ force to protect our interests. It’s not the kind of stuff you hear Ron Paul applaud, but Jefferson was a realist who knew that if you didn’t fight for your interests, you lose them. To read only Jefferson’s words and not compare them to his actions as President is to be intellectually dishonest.
Jefferson’s career is a study of the dual personality of an ardent Libertarian and a pragmatic Statesman. Let his true example guide us on how to navigate a complex world. You may have your beliefs, but once and while you must do what you find distasteful in order to do what you must.
We must never become so ideological that we view the world as we want it to be instead of how it is…then we would be a Leftist.
For those of you who haven’t spent much time on internet gaming forums, there is a rule observed there that’s called Godwin’s Law.
The law states that during an argument on the internet, someone will eventually call the opponent a Nazi or Hitler and by doing so is the loser of the debate. In my time as a gamer I can definitely say I have seen this law prove to be true many times, so I feel some reservation in making the comparison of Russian aggression with the Nazi’s in the 30’s. But the parallels are similar. Both preyed on weak nations at a time when the strong were unwilling to fight. The grand vision of past empires spurred on their aggression. With Putin it’s the USSR and Hitler had the First and Second Reich to encourage his advancing armies.
The West surrendered Czechoslovakia to Hitler and then he wanted Poland. In Asia we ignored Japan in China until they decided we would ignore them in the Philippines.
If we are not to be interested in the Ukraine, when do we begin to take interest? Russia is already shielding Iran as it pursues it’s nuclear ambitions and Assad as he poisons his own people. Will we act to defend Poland or help the rest of Europe become energy independent of Russia? How about South Korea, should be worried about them and North Korea or Japan and China?
Should we send our soldiers to Ukraine and prepare for war with a nuclear power? No. But we shouldn’t be ignoring it and abandoning those who overthrew an oppressive government. A firm hand is needed, instead we have the president acting like he is dealing with unruly students and Ron Paul preaching isolationism theory that was outdated during the Washington Administration.
How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel that has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.
Neville Chamberlain 1938
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