AnimusRex
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Joined: 5/13/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: sappatoti
quote:
ORIGINAL: AnimusRex
... The original vision of America by the Founding Fathers was exactly that, an America that was peaceful, restrained, and content within its borders, and America that was a good neighbor and cooperated with the world community. ...
Interesting. Could you cite some historical references to where this is stated as the original vision for the US? I have read through the usual documents (Declaration and Constitution) as well as the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, and the Anti-Federalist writings and have never read or perceived that to be the original vision for the US.
Being the giver that I am, I am happy to oblige:
"The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress." - George Washington
"If there is a sin superior to any other, it is that of willful and offensive war" - Thomas Paine
"The executive has NO right, in any case to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war." - James Madison
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." - James Madison
"It is our true policty to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world" - George Washington
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare" - James Madison
"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." - Thomas Jefferson
"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force." - Thomas Paine
"Preventive war was an invention of Hitler" - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy" - John Quincy Adams
"I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind" - Thomas Jefferson
"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war" - John Adams
"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism" - George Washington
"America is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own" - John Quincy Adams
Yeah yeah, I know, Ike wasn't a Founding Father, but he was one of the best Presidents we have had, so I left his quote in there.
But bumper sticker slogans aside, our nation WAS in fact conceived as a peaceful, cooperative citizen of the world. Part of this was pragmatic- at the time of founding, America was small, weak, and incapable of aggression. But more, the Founding Fathers were born and grew up under the greatest Empire in the world, and despised it.
The idea that their nation would resemble the British Empire, with 1,000 military bases spanning the globe, where the sun never sets on the American Empire, where the Americans ponder which foreign governments we want to allow to stand, and which we want to topple, would be an abomination to Washington and Jefferson, et al.
Check out Daniel Larison's writings at Eunomia
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/
Read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"- sample quote:
"Monarchal governments, it is true, are never at rest; the crown itself is a temptation to ruffians at home; and that degree of pride and insolence ever attendant on regal authorityswells into a rupture with foreign powers, in instances where a republican government, being formed on more natural principles, would negotiate the mistake."
In other words, a little more cooperation, a little less belligerence.
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