COMMON SENSE; Revisited
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Foreign Relations
July 07, 2009 at 03:54 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedPost under:The words that best described the nation’s original foreign policy and the policy that should be pursued now were spoken by Thomas Jefferson during his first Inaugural Address in 1801: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”
Unfortunately, this is not the policy that has been followed in the last century.
Ever since the proponents of surrogate power took over the country, the government has grown in excess of constitutional boundaries on all levels. The nation is now involved militarily all over the world. Defense spending, added to all of the unconstitutional domestic programs, has bankrupt the country and made its people much more fearful and vulnerable to attacks.
As Douglas MacArthur said many decades ago, “Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war, hysteria, and an incessant propaganda of fear.”
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Admiral Eugene Carroll
July 07, 2009 at 07:46 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Eugene Carroll, before the First International Conference on US Military Toxics and Bases Clean-up (1997).In a mindless, criminally negligent process, we poured resources into military expansion both at home and abroad without any regard for the environmental consequences. Pollution was ignored on the grounds that ‘national security’ took absolute priority over all other considerations.
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Thomas Jefferson
July 08, 2009 at 04:12 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1807-1815 Vol. IX (1898) p. 520.I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.
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Benjamin Franklin
July 08, 2009 at 04:16 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
William Cabell Bruce, Benjamin Franklin, Self-revealed (The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1917) p. 168.The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked than the supine, secure, and the negligent.
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George Washington
July 08, 2009 at 04:21 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
George Washington, 5th Annual Message, Address to Congress (December 1793).There is a rank due to the United States among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.
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Michael Scheuer
July 08, 2009 at 04:24 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris (Potomac Books Inc., 2008) p. XV.U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a result, I think it fair to conclude that the USA remains bin Laden’s only indispensable ally.
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Hermann Goering
July 08, 2009 at 04:28 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Mark Gerzon, Leading Through Conflict (Harvard Business School Press, 2006) p. 22.Naturally the common people don’t want war. Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist disctatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
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Marcus Tullius Cicero
July 08, 2009 at 04:32 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero, Congressional Record, vol. 114 (April 25, 1968) p. 10635. This passage was reprinted in U.S. News & World Report (July 29, 1968) p. 15.The budget should be balanced. Public debt should be reduced. The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt.
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Thomas Paine
July 14, 2009 at 05:58 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Edwin Almiron Greenlaw, James Holly Hanford, The Great Tradition (Scott, Foresman and Company, 1919) p. 297.These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
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Ron Paul
July 14, 2009 at 06:49 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedQuote under:
Ron Paul, WTO Demands Change in U.S. Tax Laws (2002) http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul10.html.It’s hard to imagine a more blatant example of a loss of U.S. sovereignty. Yet there is no outcry or indignation in Congress at this naked demand that we change our laws to satisfy the rest of the world. I’ve yet to see one national politician or media outlet even suggest the obvious, namely that our domestic laws are simply none of the world’s business.
