What has America gained by veering away from the Father of our Country’s practical non-interventionist course? There’s no doubt that our young nation had enough to establish itself at home rather than becoming involved with Europe’s infamous intrigue. Time mixed with Europe’s inescapable drama has confirmed George Washington’s sound judgment.
Now, consider the contrast between that beginning age and America today. The overall benefit from today’s global network of international dependency is a mixed bag, at best! Yes, life is easier, but is it more gratifying, more meaningful? And yes, America would develop, renew, and change with time, but are these entangling alliances, which Washington feared, so essential to our country? Given our modern history of sacrifice overseas, one must wonder.
For over one hundred years, Washington’s policy was the order of the day, and one that brought peace and harmony to a young and growing nation. However, once yesteryear’s globalist pioneers veered from America’s proven course, it was just a matter of time before today’s mixture of domestic and global violence surfaced.
All events have an initial starting point. In the beginning and with only its theory for guidance, America’s history points to our 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which prohibited any intrusion into the “new world” by a foreign power. It’s a worthy premise that also meshed with America’s neutrality position, which Washington’s Farewell Address established. Soon, a well-meaning term, Manifest Destiny, became attached, but its word “destiny” would twist the doctrine’s original western hemisphere meaning and intent to include overseas.
What’s interesting is that in 1898, democrat Congressman Richard P. Bland warned of the down-the-road results that this expansionist shift would produce. This was when that party still upheld its pro-American stance. It would also be a time when America first became engaged in a foreign war, the Spanish-American War. The foreign lands America acquired afterwards echo back to Rep. Bland’s words of warning. Also interesting is the response generated, in part, by Republican Rep. James Stewart: “The silly argument of national isolation, the outgrowth of fear and timidity, is lame and impotent…” It appears that this sort of terminology has a bipartisan appeal!
Our world has changed since the days of Washington, but the change hasn’t produced a peaceful world, the condition that everyone desires. The fact that the age of invention was already underway certainly helped this change, but the overall merit of our original policy was and continues to be, unfortunately, lost within Europe’s infamous history of intrigue, jealousy, and distrust.
