Quote:
|
My only concern about Paul is whether he is too much of an isolationist; I think you can go too far in the other direction.
|
But he's not an isolationist. An isolationist wants to build a moat around Fortress America. An isolationist rails against not only foreign military intervention, but foreign trade -- a la Patrick Buchanan. Ron Paul is a non-interventionist. He is against military intervention unless our national security is directly and immediately threatened, and is against foreign entanglements, such as giving foreign aid to Israel or Pakistan. But he is not against trade; on the contrary, he is the most strident proponent of free trade you will find in Congress. He is not against diplomacy or travel.
Interestingly, China, who VERY seldom bestirs itself to go abroad and deal with some problem, is never accused of being isolationist. In fact, the accusation most commonly hurled at China is that she is being provocative and overly militaristic, by virtue of the fact that her defense expenditures have increased. If the United States retrenched, as Ron Paul advises, we might still, realistically, spend several times more than what China spends on defense. That we would then be called isolationist is truly perplexing.