A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

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ajax
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A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by ajax »

J Reuben Clark:
J.REUBEN CLARK,JR.:
POLITICAL ISOLATIONISM REVISITED
MARTIN B. HICKMAN AND RAY C. HILLAM
http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-conte ... N01_39.pdf

A few snippets:

[pg 38]"[W]e have entered into new fields to impose our will and concepts on others. This means we must use force, and force means war, not peace."

[pg 38]"meddlesome busybodiness"

[pg40]Given man's fallibility, therefore, it ill behooves any nation to seek to impose its ways upon the rest of the world. The desire to do so, Clark believed, was "born of the grossest national egotism," and the result could only be an "unholy tragedy"

[pg 40]"What we do to others, we must permit others to do to us"

[pg 43]"If we are to be the Savior of the world," he wrote, "we must come to our task with the spirit and the virtues of a savior"

[pg 43]He reacted to our plans at the end of World War II to occupy and reconstruct our defeated enemies on the basis of the Atlantic Charter by asking the hard question, "Who is going to occupy us to see that we keep the standards?"

[pg.45]The American mission, he believed, was not to impose its solutions upon the world but to set an example of justice, freedom, and peace which would be a compelling attraction to other nations. For the United States to seek to impose its will on the rest of the world was to resort to force and abandon moral principles, a course which would be a denial of the mission itself. Clark, therefore, accepted the oft-repeated maxim that no matter how good the end, it does not justify the means. He seemed to sense clearly that if the United States insisted on being Rome it would require its citizens to be Romans. He saw a higher goal for Americans: not to be Romans but Christians.

[pg 45]"We must come to the task of decision that now [1944] faces us, with the purest motives. Avarice, greed, selfish ambition, the thirst for power and place and dominion, must all be thrust from our hearts. We must come with the loftiest patriotism, with a single allegiance, undivided, unshared, undefiled, for the Constitution under which we live—so in effect runs the oath of office of each of you who grace the Bar of this commonwealth. Our hearts and hands must be clean of all foreign isms and alien political cults. The Constitution and its free institutions must be our ensign. For America has a destiny—a destiny to conquer the world,—not by force of arms, not by purchase and favor, for these conquests wash away, but by high purpose, by unselfish effort, by uplifting achievement, by a course of Christian living; a conquest that shall leave every nation free to move out to its own destiny; a conquest that shall bring, through the workings of our own example, the blessings of freedom and liberty to every people, without restraint or imposition or compulsion from us; a conquest that shall weld the whole earth together in one great brotherhood in a reign of mutual patience, forbearance, and charity, in a reign of peace to which we shall lead all others by the persuasion of our own righteous example."

Silver
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Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Silver »

After reading comments like those, I am reminded of President David O. McKay's sentiment that Section 121 of the Doctrine & Covenants is the greatest revelation ever given by God to man.

Can we Americans please just stop the all unrighteous dominion, flinging missiles and taking over territory just because we can?

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ajax
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Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by ajax »

Please note there is a difference between political isolation and economic isolation.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." - Thomas Jefferson

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Robin Hood
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Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Robin Hood »

ajax wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:11 am Please note there is a difference between political isolation and economic isolation.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was wrong in my view.
It is not possible to have one without the other in some form.
Neither is it desirable.

Silver
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Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Silver »

Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:27 am
ajax wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:11 am Please note there is a difference between political isolation and economic isolation.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was wrong in my view.
It is not possible to have one without the other in some form.
Neither is it desirable.
Says the guy where the expression, "The sun never sets on the British Empire," was born.

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ajax
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Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by ajax »

Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:27 am
ajax wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:11 am Please note there is a difference between political isolation and economic isolation.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was wrong in my view.
It is not possible to have one without the other in some form.
Neither is it desirable.
Sure it is. I conduct peaceful commerce with foreigners all the time. It gets rocky only when a 3rd party busybody know-it-alls look over our shoulders and imposes their rules. I suggest you read more Cobden.

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ajax
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Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by ajax »

George Washington, Farewell address
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing

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Robin Hood
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Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Robin Hood »

Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:55 am
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:27 am
ajax wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:11 am Please note there is a difference between political isolation and economic isolation.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was wrong in my view.
It is not possible to have one without the other in some form.
Neither is it desirable.
Says the guy where the expression, "The sun never sets on the British Empire," was born.
And your point is?

Silver
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Posts: 5247

Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Silver »

Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:24 am
Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:55 am
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:27 am
ajax wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:11 am Please note there is a difference between political isolation and economic isolation.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." - Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was wrong in my view.
It is not possible to have one without the other in some form.
Neither is it desirable.
Says the guy where the expression, "The sun never sets on the British Empire," was born.
And your point is?
Your opinion is influenced by your culture.

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Robin Hood
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Posts: 13110
Location: England

Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Robin Hood »

Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:37 am
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:24 am
Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:55 am
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:27 am

Thomas Jefferson was wrong in my view.
It is not possible to have one without the other in some form.
Neither is it desirable.
Says the guy where the expression, "The sun never sets on the British Empire," was born.
And your point is?
Your opinion is influenced by your culture.
But yours isn't?

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Silver »

Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 1:03 pm
Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:37 am
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:24 am
Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 9:55 am

Says the guy where the expression, "The sun never sets on the British Empire," was born.
And your point is?
Your opinion is influenced by your culture.
But yours isn't?
Of course it is. It's just that God Himself seems to like the principles espoused by Thomas Jefferson & James Madison more than empire-building as witnessed by the revelations in the Doctrine & Covenants so I'm going with TJ over RH.

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Robin Hood
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Location: England

Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Robin Hood »

Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 2:36 pm
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 1:03 pm
Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:37 am
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:24 am

And your point is?
Your opinion is influenced by your culture.
But yours isn't?
Of course it is. It's just that God Himself seems to like the principles espoused by Thomas Jefferson & James Madison more than empire-building as witnessed by the revelations in the Doctrine & Covenants so I'm going with TJ over RH.
Thomas Jefferson is dead.
I'm alive, and I don't have any slaves.

Silver
Level 34 Illuminated
Posts: 5247

Re: A Reminder of What a Real America First Foreign Policy Would Look Like

Post by Silver »

Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 3:35 pm
Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 2:36 pm
Robin Hood wrote: April 12th, 2017, 1:03 pm
Silver wrote: April 12th, 2017, 11:37 am

Your opinion is influenced by your culture.
But yours isn't?
Of course it is. It's just that God Himself seems to like the principles espoused by Thomas Jefferson & James Madison more than empire-building as witnessed by the revelations in the Doctrine & Covenants so I'm going with TJ over RH.
Thomas Jefferson is dead.
I'm alive, and I don't have any slaves.
God is not dead, fortunately. Neither has his endorsement of our Constitution changed.
It's hard for debt slaves like you and me to own one for ourselves. Not that I want to, mind you.

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