Who's an isolationist!!

 

Those of us who oppose the notion of 'endless war for endless peace' are often tarred with the label 'isolationist' for our desire to mind our own business.  If someone doesn't want to butt into other people's business, that's seen as something vaguely anti-social.  Only those who are willing to send other people's children to foreign countries (or to go themselves) in order to make those places fit for American corporations are immune to being called such names.

In truth, most people who hurl that epithet, isolationist, have no clear idea of what being an isolationist entails.  Possibly, they've heard others use the word and feel it's more appropriate than any they could gin up themselves.  But to be a real isolationist, a true isolationist, involves more than 'supporting the troops' or enlisting to be one yourself.  A real isolationist wants to put alligators in the moat and lift the drawbridge: nobody in, nobody out, I've got mine and you can't have any.

A real isolationist would stop issuing or would severely limit the issuance of passports and visas under the entirely reasonable premise that the world outside is populated exclusively by thieves, rapists, and murderers.  It's too dangerous to let them in, and we must protect our own people by avoiding all contact with those low-class types, including, let's not forget, business contacts.  After all, we have everything we need right here, right?

At this point, you may be wondering who in their right mind would hold such insane views.  I'll tell you: no one.  Calling your enemy 'isolationist' is merely a quick way of discrediting them enough to end debate, and it's often quite effective.  It works to leave 'invade West Wheresoever to depose a brutal dictator who threatens world peace' as the only position a rational person can hold — because it's the only position being talked about on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and most others.  Get your boots on; we're going to West Wheresoever.  Onward, Christian soldiers!  Mine eyes have seen the glory.

So, if those 'mind your own business' types aren't true isolationists, what are they?  Answer:  they're non-interventionists. And they're in good company, too.  George Washington's farewell address warned against 'entangling alliances' without suggesting we need walls at the border.  Thomas Jefferson, likewise, promoted a policy of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none".  Jefferson, you may recall, was not averse to sending the U.S.Navy to negotiate at gunpoint with the Barbary pirates when they implemented their policy of "tolls and tariffs for all foreigners, enslavement of any who won't pay".

Those non-interventionists who routinely get called isolationists aren't really isolationists because they think we should be trading our way to world peace, something a real isolationist would shy away from.

Almost all of those non-interventionists, by the way, share the opinion that trade is better than war.  Like everyone who gives it even the most cursory of thoughts, they recognize that in all the history of mankind, no nation has ever gone to war with a major trading partner.  Maybe if you give it some thought, you, too, can get yourself called 'isolationist' by those who haven't given it much thought.