Who do you support for US President?

[Herbert Spencer]

Who will get your vote?

Interesting how quickly the political landscape can change. Your poll was topical when you posted it just over three months ago. You left off Newt and Santorum, you included Perry, Cain and Bachmann. If we get a brokered convention can Palin be ignored?

Paul is an isolationist on foreign policy, or as he puts it, a "non-interventionist." Whatever you call it, this is a problem when the country is being attacked by foreign terrorists. There's a difference between "avoiding foreign entanglements" and protecting yourself.

Thought of this thread when I read this today:

Mythbusting Isolationism
Ron Paul supporters have re-launched an old ad promoting the old idea of American isolationism. “We now are a nation known to start war,” Paul is quoted as saying. “We feel compelled because of our insecurity that we have to go over and attack these countries to maintain our empire.” The message here (and repeated elsewhere) is that Paul’s isolationism (or non-interventionism, as some people prefer to say) is aligned with the Founding Fathers and “what is truly American and truly constitutional.” This tired refrain is a gross misrepresentation of American history and dangerously misleading guidance to a nation that faces serious challenges at home and abroad.

The myth that our Founders were isolationists who sought to withdraw from the world and focus solely on the home front is tempting, considering the international fatigue and anxiety about America’s future. But labeling the Founders as isolationists is simply untrue, and perpetuating this myth about the Founders prevents America from facing today’s security challenges.

The Founders rejected modern approaches in American foreign policy—whether power politics, isolationism, or crusading internationalism. Instead, they designed a truly American foreign policy—fundamentally shaped by our principles but not ignorant of the place of necessity in international relations.

The classic statement of this is Washington’s Farewell Address, sometimes wrongly read as isolationist dogma. Yes, Washington rightly warns us against “the insidious wiles of foreign influence” and yes, Washington correctly states that in extending commercial relations we should have as little political connection with those nations as possible. But that’s common sense not isolationism. Washington explains the objective: “to gain time for our country to settle and mature its recent institutions, and to progress, without interruption, to that degree of strength and consistency, which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, command of its own fortunes.”

Washington distinguishes between the principle of sovereign independence and the specific policy prudence dictates we follow:

"If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by justice shall Counsel."

Rather than trap themselves in some absolute and permanent doctrine of non-intervention in the world, the Founders advocated a prudent and flexible policy aimed at achieving—and thereafter permanently maintaining—America's sovereign independence. Such a policy enables Americans to determine their own fate.

Necessity dictates that the United States must be ready to fight wars and use force to protect the nation and the American people. Hence Washington often liked to use the old Roman maxim: “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of promoting peace.” The Founders made sure they were prepared and were not reluctant to use force. How else can we choose peace or war, as our interest guided by justice shall counsel?

National security is a challenge for all nations, but particularly for democratic political systems dedicated to the limitation of power. Maintaining security sometimes requires the use of force in ways that are more secretive and less open than democracy prefers. Likewise, national security sometimes requires restrictions and sacrifices that would be inimical to personal liberty were it not for significant threats to the nation. Indeed, even though massive government spending and constitutional overreach are on the chopping block, the core and undisputed constitutional responsibility of the United States government to provide for the common defense is not up for negotiation.

The solution to these dilemmas is not to deny the use of force or to make it so onerous as to be ineffective. America must be able and willing to defend its liberty. The solution, then, is a well-constructed constitution that focuses power on legitimate purposes and then divides that power so that it does not go unchecked.

At a time when we should be seriously thinking about our strategy and commitments anew in an increasingly dangerous world—doing so in the context of unlimited government spending and uncontrolled debt that threatens to force us in to national bankruptcy and undermine our very sovereign independence—we should be wary of claims, however tempting in the moment, that the naïve ideology of isolationism has a place in the pantheon of America’s principles.