Let George Do It
George Washington warned us to avoid entangling alliances.
When I heard that Joe Biden and Britain’s Boris Johnson had agreed to a New Atlantic Charter, my blood ran a little colder than usual. As Alex Newman, writing in The New American, pointed out, “The document advances a dizzying array of internationalist Big Government schemes, including ‘sustainable development,’ entangling military alliances, man-made global warming alarmism, and the so-called rules-based international order.”
In his farewell address, George Washington warned us to avoid entangling alliances. He was even prescient enough to declare that we should avoid creating political parties because he foresaw that they would split the nation apart. He actually believed that politicians should serve the best interests of all Americans and not be motivated by partisan concerns.
Washington’s words were expanded upon by John Quincy Adams, who wrote: “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.”
To his credit, Trump was on the right track when he insisted that the members of NATO each pay what they had agreed to pay. The problem is he apparently heeded the advice of globalists and didn’t pull us out of NATO or the U.N. when he had the chance. Well, maybe next time.
The thing about treaties with foreign nations, whether they’re trade deals or mutual defense pacts, is that they’re usually not worth the paper they’re written on.
We had trade deals with China for years, but they continued to cheat by manipulating the value of their currency. Until Trump came along and began hitting them with 20% tariffs, there was nothing done about it.
As for mutual defense treaties, they always work to the advantage of one party and the disadvantage of the other. The other always being the United States, it seems. We went into Vietnam because we had a treaty with South Vietnam. But if we had been invaded by Canada, does anyone believe that South Vietnam would have come to our defense? Heck, we can’t even count on them to vote with us at the U.N.
The way I look at it, friendships often last the better part of a lifetime and only end with death. They don’t call for treaties or pacts or contracts. They exist by mutual consent.
It’s marriages, sanctified by the state and, in many cases, by God, complete with signed documents, blood tests and sacred vows, that often end in divorce.
Once you have to put something in writing, you’re simply asking for trouble by throwing open the doors to lawyers.
Frank, a neighbor, is my only black friend. He is very proper and would never say the word “ni**er,” at least not out loud. Instead, whenever he sees or hears about behavior by thugs and louts who bring shame to his race, he angrily mutters, “Ghetto.”
I suppose if the practice caught on, we’d all be expected to avoid saying it and, instead, refer to the g-word.
On top of all his other blunders, Biden is bringing inflation crashing down on all of us. It’s no surprise. Liberals love inflation for two reasons. One, it allows them to print trillions of dollars in Monopoly money, with which they can bribe those who don’t work, at the expense of the suckers who do.
Additionally, as our money becomes increasingly worthless, the Democrats get to call for raising the minimum wage. That always seems to be a winning issue for them with stupid people who don’t seem to notice that inflation inevitably rises faster than wages.
I guarantee that if Congress passes the six trillion dollar pieces of legislation that Biden and Schumer are pushing, the $20 minimum wage is waiting right around the corner. Prior to the 4th of July weekend, Biden bragged that thanks to his policies, the cost of the family barbecue would be 16 cents cheaper than it had been the year before when Trump was in the White House.
I don’t know how anyone figured out the average cost of a cookout, but as Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Alabama) responded: “Good news: you can save 16 cents for your cookout this year. Bad news: the gas to get to the store will cost you 42% more than last year.”
But what can we expect when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is cheerleading for Biden’s inflation-busting budget, insisting that “inflation would actually be a plus for society”? I suppose she could also root for Covid, pointing out that it’s thinning out the herd, mainly killing the elderly and those with weakened immune systems.
Some people just have the innate ability to see the bright side of things, turning other people’s hardships and tragedies into lemonade.
If there is one positive thing that will come out of the disaster that is the Afghanistan evacuation, it will be that a lot more people will discover how messy war is. It’s even messy trying to extricate ourselves from a war.
Most of us are lucky. Our experience with war is limited to movies and TV. But even when it’s news footage, we don’t find ourselves covered in blood — our own or someone else’s — see our friends being blown apart or smell the stench of burning flesh — our own or someone else’s.
Perhaps the final lesson of Afghanistan is to remind us not to go to war for any other reason than that we’ve been attacked, or our fellow Americans are being held hostage. And then our response should be quick, and it should be savage.
We should never hang around with the idea of turning sixth century loons into a nation of middle-class commuters who go to offices and come home to housewives who look like Donna Reed, and who pay their taxes and mow their lawns.
We wouldn’t care for it if the Chinese invaded us and started telling us how many children we can have. Whatever gave George W. Bush the idea that we should be telling Arabs and Muslims how to live? If Afghan women don’t like burkas or having to answer to a bunch of unwashed goat herders, they can try to get to a place where they can wear what they want and get an education. If they can’t or won’t, that’s their problem. It’s not ours. A great many people who don’t live under Sharia Law still live lives of quiet desperation. That’s life.
It recently occurred to me that it’s high time that we recognized that the masks symbolize muzzles.
After I wrote about John, the old friend who dumped me after I chastised his son-in-law for not replying when I asked him repeatedly whether or not he had decided to re-new his subscription, I heard from Dan Parker.
He wrote to say: “I understand family loyalty, but this is ridiculous. If he can dump you for such a small thing, he was no friend in the first place. Apparently, he didn’t stand up for you when his son-in-law complained about your emails.”
I replied: “To this day, I don’t understand why it never even occurred to him to tell his relative to simply get back to me and say he was no longer interested in receiving the articles. Out of curiosity, I would have asked him why. But I wouldn’t have been angry, whatever his reason. As for my erstwhile friend, I saw it as a rare example of a Conservative behaving exactly like a Liberal.”
Bob Hall asked me if I would consider writing an article about climate change. Actually, I have mocked the nonsense ever since Al Gore started yammering about global warming a quarter of a century ago.
Inasmuch as the icebergs haven’t melted and the oceans haven’t risen and the polar bears haven’t disappeared, even though seal cubs pray they would, I would have thought people would have stopped promoting the silly notion that humans can control the weather by this time.
Mr. Hall went on to ask, rhetorically I imagine, “Did climate change cause Hurricane Ida? Did it cause our inept withdrawal from Afghanistan, etc., etc.?”
I replied: “It all depends on who you ask, Bob. If it’s the folks at the asylum, the answers would be yes, yes and yeses to all the etcetera’s.
Nancy Bradley, in honor of Rosh Hashanah, wished me "a happier New Year than the last two.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “I’d say it can’t get worse, but I’ve been saying that ever since they cheated Trump out of his victory, and they somehow keep proving me wrong.”
I will leave you with six words that I suspect ring true for every person over the age of 70. Courtesy of novelist Ann Beattie, who is 74: “People forget years and remember moments.”
You can email Burt directly at [email protected].
