I judge conservatism by principles.
Since you do not agree with non-interventionism, nor interventionism, please explain what you do believe.
Ok. That's fair.
Ha ha. Good point. But, his son had common beliefs; his daughter did not. Regardless, Ron Paul's principles and Goldwater's aren't very far apart at all.
I'm actually not a huge fan, either. Don't get me wrong, I think he is a very good man, but I don't ascribe to anarcho-capitalism.
Hardly. He was interventionist as far as Communism goes, it's true. But, I never heard him advocate policing the world or empire-building.
Oh, I do. Absolutely.
Pray tell, what in the heck are you talking about?
I don't view conservatism as an ideological philosophy of government, that lends itself to axiomatic explanation or abstract reasoning. It's significant that Burke's "Reflections on the French Revolution" are so different from Marx's Manifesto or Rawls' Theory of Justice. It's a reaction to a concrete event happening in a concrete, discrete, place and time; not a systematic exposition of ideas and prepositions to be universally applied to the political questions.
I think that in foreign policy is the area in which these tenets of conservatism as a hostile attitude towards theoretical reasoning and ideological prescription shines more obviously. I see this entire dichotomy between interventionism and non-interventionism as a bogus modern creation with no attachment to a foreign policy guided by a conservative mind. Each side implies that there's some sort of rationally deduced first principles that can be codified in some abstract principles upholding some sort of logical consistency. In my view, circumstances trump all that; and at the core of a conservative foreign policy is careful judgement guided by necessity of protecting Americans from foreign aggression, not doctrine.
The idea that the consistent exercise of doctrine of non-interventionism will lead to some sort of perpetual peace (see Ron Paul's remarks on how 9/11 wouldn't happen if people had followed his advice) sounds just as bizarre to me as the idea that international crusadeism will yield the same results (democracies don't wage war against it each other, etc). Rothbard always believed in the theory that any attack on America was a blowback from some previous American interventionist aggression - this doesn't sound any less metaphysically mad than the idea America has some sort of identity, vocational, active duty, a pathos, to spread her republican principles, the seed of Liberty, around the world or emancipating the slavish part of the world (although I do agree that ethos exists inertly - as Madison and Washington did).
Washington said in his Farewell that "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."
I think this choice is strictly one of prudential judgement that shouldn't be constrained by any sort of preconceived principles except the necessity of national security, survival and self-preservation . Sometimes war is necessary - even preemptive military action, even military alliances in time of peace (I reckon none of these remedies would be necessary with the military technology of past centuries) and it should be waged. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's wise to settle for something in the middle. Unfortunately there is no abstract prescription to guide use effectively in this type of decision. As Burke said "circumstances are infinite and infinitely combined; transient and variable" so "the science of constructing a commonwealth ... is not to be taught a priori".
(ps. not sure this is the right subforum to have this conversation, at least my side of it - and it seems it's the only remaining point of contention. Maybe we should move it to some other thread? If a mod wants to delete this post and put it somewhere else, feel free).
