America Lasters
by Bruce Walker (7/20/08)
The Folly of America Firsters - In the early days of the Second World War, there were isolationists, “America Firsters,” who felt that America should not soil its hands by intervening in the affairs of the rest of the world. The attitude of the America Firsters was epitomized by Senator Borah who, when the Nazis invaded Poland, famously said: “Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” Borah did not fancy Hitler was benign, but rather the senator thought that the superior wisdom and virtue of America could have saved the rest of the world from its own vice and folly.
America Firsters did not favor helping France and Britain resist Germany or Japan. The Japanese atrocities at Nanking did not nauseate them enough to demand that American foreign policy oppose the militants within Japanese government. The hideous anti-Semitism of the Nazis did not cause them to open America to Jewish refugees or to make defeating Nazism a moral crusade. Their naiveté was based upon the idea that the rest of the world was bad and that the function of America was to remain alone and free without taking sides.
America Firsters had some threads of an argument. Imperial concerns influenced British policy. France was chilled by the prospect of a strong, militant Germany. Poland – which could have prevented the trigger of war by conceding to Nazi demands - mistreated its minorities and held a silly attitude about what Hitler and Stalin might do. But all nations, even the best, have imperfections. Equating British venality or French selfishness with Nazi evil was absurd. It was in the interest of America and the civilized world to bring down Hitler as soon as he came into power. He was Ahmadinejad or Kim Il Jong writ large. When Hitler made common cause with Stalin, the poles of good and evil in world politics should have been obvious to all but the numbest human conscience. But during this very period, during the Battle of Britain, the America Firsters were strong and loud.
The world cannot be safe if Iran or North Korea has nuclear weapons. How less safe can it be if a Nazi superpower or a Soviet superpower has nuclear weapons and empires of captive peoples? In a hot war and in a cold war, the interventionists in America pronounced the strategic policy of America towards evil. Ronald Reagan, the penultimate interventionist, stated this policy succinctly: “How about this? We win. They lose.” The Gipper was not an American Firster. It is the goodness of Reagan and, yes, of Bush, that they have tried to defeat evil without a hot world war. Winning a war without firebombing Hamburg or dropping fission weapons on Hiroshima is very good – spending money and political capital in place of blood is a special greatness – but it is imperative, by whatever means, to fight those wars against vast evil which must be won. Reagan and Bush have taken the highest possible moral position: Liberty, humanity and democracy are not divisible; this world cannot long endure half slave and half free; the Kulak in the Gulag, the Jew in the concentration camp, the Afghan terrorized by the Taliban – these are our brothers and sisters in the world today. Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot, and Bush is trying to win a second global war with as few innocents hurt as possible. God and history will judge them well. Both men have believed that America is the last, best hope of mankind, but both have believed that while malign serpents slither across the globe, stout hearts of good intentions must slay them. These presidents rejected the arguments of the America Firsters.
The America Firsters were poor prophets. The Old World could change, at least enough to prevent another hot war. Those nations we liberated and supported after the Second World War are often limp allies. The number of European battalions in Iraq and in Afghanistan ought to be equal to the number of American battalions, yet the ratio is not even close. But Germany and Japan are our allies and not our enemies. Their lackadaisical attitude towards great moral issues resembles those America Firsters of 1939. But this is viewing the cup as half empty. If all nations today were Germany, Japan, or Italy today, we would not face a battle for survival. The whole character of those Axis nations was transformed not only by American military might but by American nation building, which worked better than anyone really hoped it might.
Our Soldiers of Hope
The best Americans today – perhaps the best Americans since Valley Forge – those volunteers who understand the dangers the world faced after September 11, 2001 and who responded by placing their bodies between us and evil, these very Americans are now nation building in Iraq and preserving an imperfect democracy in Afghanistan. These men and women grasp perfectly the goodness of America, the evil of our enemies, and the morally craven but not immoral rest of the democratic peoples. Our noble soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are not America Firsters, but Freedom Firsters. They understand that the liberation of the Iraqi people liberates people everywhere and that the closing of Hussein’s torture chambers makes the whole world more compassionate.
These remarkable people are soldiers of hope, not just for America and the interests of our national safety, but for the whole human race. They build schools and play with Iraqi children. They forego the pleasures of home and family, the safety and comforts of America, in order to change the world. John Kennedy dreamed of a misty Peace Corps, that would send agronomists and doctors out where there were none. Poverty, misery and hopelessly, however, do not exist because we lack the means to grow food or care for the sick. These maladies are the direct result of wicked men running their own countries like conquered lands.
Hope can never come to North Korea while Kim Jong Il rules his tormented kingdom. Look south, across the 38th Parallel, and there is the evidence for what a free Korean people can achieve. Hope can never come to Iran while mad and hateful mullahs persecute and oppress the great, diverse peoples of Iran. Persia unchained has been a civilization equal to any in history. Social workers do not liberate slaves. Soldiers of liberty and political leaders of tenacity – willing to live through mockery and venom at home – liberate slaves. Every Lincoln, every Churchill, every Reagan was despised before he was canonized. But each of these leaders needed soldiers of hope. Our soldiers of hope today are the best anywhere, anytime in human history. Food for thought (especially for those who view our culture as a downward spiral.)
The Grotesquerie of America Lasters
The best Americans ever stand in stark contrast to the worst Americans ever, the America Lasters. These dim minds, childish egos and selfish hearts live in the most blessed condition that a Blessed Creator could have conferred upon them: Living, at no cost in any way to themselves, in the freest, noblest and wealthiest nation in human history. Unlike the men of sixty years ago, these moral and mental drones are not even called upon to defend their happy and good homeland from harm. The volunteers who live and die to defend us today serve freely.
In the Second World War, Hollywood and similar elites recognized a profound obligation to those who fought and bled to defeat the forces of evil that threaten humanity, but Hollywood and the gutless elites of today hurt rather than help our unconscripted volunteers. These America Lasters are equivalent to Americans who hoped that Operation Overlord or the invasion of Okinawa would fail, because that would teach haughty America a lesson.
In some ways, these America Lasters are worse than Hitler or Stalin. Those two monsters at least had some reasons why they were monsters. They lived in chaotic times of civil terrorism and great poverty. They were surrounded by dangerous and vicious people. Wild wolves among wild wolves are likely to be pitiless and feral.
America Lasters, however, grew up in comfort, leisure, safety and peace. The only real virtue which America ever asked them was the bland, simple virtue of gratitude – the sort of virtue most of us exercise when we sing the national anthem or pledge allegiance to our flag. But the narrow minds and corseted spirits of these ugly souls cannot even exercise that most elementary decency. They were not drafted nor did they ever serve their nation. They do not go to Iran or North Korea and brave the true terrors of totalitarianism, but instead sit in cozy perches throwing rocks at those who fight evil. To cop a line from Churchill, they have nothing to offer us but “Lies, threats, spit and jeers.”
America Lasters cannot honestly believe that America is the greatest force for evil in the world. Everyone wants to get into America, not to live America. Jews, Poles and Gipsies wanted to get out of Nazi occupied Europe. Kulaks wanted to get out of Stalin’s Russia. The Bamboo Curtain kept millions of Chinese in Maoist China. North Koreans want to live anywhere but North Korea. Sane people run away from evil regimes. “Voting with their feet” was a maxim coined by Lenin himself, to describe how to judge a good regime from a bad one.
America Lasters stay here, like an abusive family member, trying to “knock some sense” into his family members, trying to tear down all that the rest of us believe and cherish, trying to savage the family of America “for our own good.” Like all other batterers, America Lasters have nothing good to say about the home they choose to live in or the family they choose to associate with. These abusers are polite and timid outside America – when they are not laughing at Americans or insulting its work – but once the door closes, the America Lasters start slapping people around, bullying those who wish to be left alone, and turning a home that everyone but them finds delightful into Bedlam.
We should ask for a divorce – and a protective order. If they believe America is evil, then why do they stay here? A family member who stays in a home he hates to torment those who live there is someone with a very guilty conscience, masking that failed conscience with the vengeance of relentless, mindless assaults. America Lasters have been blessed with one of the greatest blessings that God could give them: They were born and grew up in America. But their cold, iron hearts have thrown this gift back at their Maker. They curse their blessings. They hate their lives. They thirst for human misery. They are a living mockery to those millions who have found America the answer to their prayers.
Bruce Walker
http://brucewwalker.com/
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