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"High taxes, we are told, are somehow good for us, as if, when government spends our money it isn't inflationary, but when we spend it, it is."—Ronald Reagan, July 17, 1980 |
Sentry Over America |
National SecurityEmpire? What Empire? Global Welfarism is Antonymous to Imperialism Reading what two commentators have recently penned would make you think that the United States is pursuing a course of imperialistic domination over planet earth. That's OK. Sometimes the best seller list shows books at the top of the heap that are fiction. We can let some commentators dabble in fiction also, can't we? I prefer facts. So President Bush, an acting moderate in 2000, who Republicans hoped would be a conservative, but who started showing liberal leanings early on in 2001, and who is now a full fledged socialist on fiscal and social issues, with not the least bit of nationalistic tendencies, has these two calling him an imperialist? Oh, I forgot. Fiction, fabrications, and fallacies must get equal time in commentator land. Bruce Fein, in a Washington Times article, "A Republic if we can keep it", asked "but aren't we, the people, in danger of losing it to an imperial presidency?" Just what is imperialistic about the agenda of the United States? We have been funding the United Nations so 180 or so countries can kick America in the teeth at every opportunity that they can get. If we were imperialistic, we would be kicking back, taking over their countries, and pursuing a course of America first on international issues. What we have done is just the opposite. On May 3, 2001, the UN spit on America by voting the United States off the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Now what peace loving, generous, and fierce fighter for human rights was voted in to replace America? The Sudan—a perennial yearly favorite by the Vegas bookies to earn the "Human Rights Violation of the Year Award". If we were imperialistic, we would stop having the UN sucker punch us week in and week out. The UN drums up some conference every month to sell the sob story of some country or cause for the sole purpose of getting X millions of your hard earned dollars to go to some unknown place for some unknown reason without any accountability for the spending of your sweat money. The United States usually agrees. Global welfarism is antonymous to imperialism. How about checking the definition first, Bruce:
What foreign territories have we acquired? We bombed Iraq into oblivion in 1991, then helped them financially to get back on their feet, only so they can prepare to go to war with us again. If we were imperialistic, we would have taken over their oil fields and used that money to pay for the cost of the war—and then some. Now that would have been an exercise in imperialism. What "economic and political hegemony" do we employ over other nations? We don't drain assets from other nations to America, we open the spigots and flood other nations with your hard earned overtime and vacation pay dollars. I don't think Bruce knows which way the money pipeline is flowing. In a recent article at Ether Zone, Novakeo, in an article titled "A Failure to See the Empire" called into question "the establishment's policy of operating an empire to the detriment of the remaining elements of this republic" and said that our foreign policy has been "imperial, brutal, self-serving and belligerent." Now I ask you, Novakeo, how brutal do the following quotes sound?
So how "imperial, brutal, self-serving and belligerent" was all that? Before you can even consider imperialism, a prerequisite is nationalism. If we were nationalistic, President Bush, who seems to forget about the 7 trillion dollars in lost stock market wealth by every day Americans, would take care of us first before sending that $500 million to Africa to teach the tribes their ABCs. Bush opens the checkbook to various global welfare programs even while Americans slave to pay their taxes and watch their 30 years of saving and investing wither to nothing. If Bush were the least bit nationalist, he would at least send some strings along with the check, send some IRS agents to monitor how it is spent, and ask for some payback or agreement. Instead, he continues the fine American tradition of sending checks without the strings. Nationalism? If Bush were a nationalist, he would chuck all these foreign lottery bonanzas and take care of his own citizens in his own nation, protect his borders without a concern about international political correctness, and kick the UN in the teeth by kicking them out of his country. It is mostly a global hangout for anti-American thugs. Any serious researcher who combs through the data of global welfare spending and studies America's military actions in foreign lands could only come to one conclusion. We are not imperialistic—quite the opposite. We have so many self-inflicted wounds that we are bleeding our country dry. Our "leaders" don't have a gram of imperialism in their agenda. The Republicans seem to be making a training video for the benefit of the socialist Democrats on how to diminish the stature of America even further during the next Washington power shift. That is hardly imperialistic. Both of these writers could not have missed the mark by a wider margin. Empire? What empire? |
I
have proposed a 50-percent increase in our core development
assistance over the next three budget years. Eventually, this
will mean a $5-billion annual increase over current levels.
. . We should give more of our aid in the form of grants,
rather than loans that can never be repaid. . . Developing
countries receive approximately $50 billion every year in
aid.—President Bush. March 22, 2002|
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