COMPROMISING WITH INSANITY IS INSANITY | 2003-05-03
Conservatives and sometimes liberals like to say that America's foreign policy should be dictated by America's national interests. But the first thing you notice is that America is the only country in the world that pays little or no attention to its own self-interest.
South Korea hates our guts. The only time we get any response from South Korea is when we threaten to pull our 35,000 troops out. We get nothing out of keeping our troops there. In fact, as long as those troops are there South Korea, Japan and China will look on North Korea as our problem.
Our interest dictates that we make South Korea and Japan pay plenty for our troops being there or we pull them out.
Making them pay to keep us there would be a better strategy, too. Japan, South Korea and China can have an effect on North Korea, but they don't bother. American troops are in South Korea, so it's our problem. That could be fatal attitude.
So why, in the name of sanity, would a rational country never even seriously consider pulling out troops out?
Well, the problem here is that liberals would pull all troops out of everywhere when they threaten Communist countries like North Korea. Meanwhile, however much they mouth the words "national self-interest", respectable conservatives have to compromise with liberals to stay respectable. So Bush ends up begging the liberals to LET us keep troops in South Korea South Korea sees how to blackmail us, so Bush ends up begging them to please let us keep our troops there because they know we are desperate.
National self-interest would the best possible policy for a person who was genuinely interest in our self-interest. But we cannot consider that because we must compromise with liberals.
In other words our foreign policy represents a compromise between American self-interest and a compromise with liberals who hate America. They really do, though no respectable conservative would say "liberals hate America." Conservatives say that liberals "Blame America first." If someone said "Blame Jews first", don't you think conservatives would say they were anti-Semitic?
But to be a respectable conservative you have to insist that liberals are patriotic.
Meanwhile, back on earth, liberals are anti-American and anti-white..
So we have a compromise between those who hate us and those who claim to be in favor of our national self-interest, as any rational country is. So we get a sick foreign policy.
This is what is called compromise. This is what is called listening to both sides. This is what is considered moderate and adult.
Meanwhile back in the real world giving liberals half of the national dialogue is exactly like negotiating with terrorists.