Bandow on Isolationism
Doug,
I believe that you, like Ron Paul, are simply incorrect about several of the so-called"Founding Fathers," such as George Washington being"Non-interventionists," or"Isolationists," whichever term you prefer to use.
The General very much wanted an American Empire, and after the 1775 attack on Canada failed, tried, in 1781, to launch another attack, using the Vermont MIlitia. Ethan Allen told his emissary, LaFayette, the Militia would require three things: "Double Pay, Double Rations, and [Imperial?] Plunder." Those demands ended that fiasco. This came at a time when the Revolution was supposedly under severe stress in the South.
The whole notion of our Revolution's success being very much in doubt, fostered by people today like David McCullough, is essentially nonsense, when viewed from the perspective of what we know of contemporary Insurgency Theory. The British had to leave Boston and later Philadelphia because of the strength of the American forces. They controlled only New York City for most of the War, and that was convenient for American farmers to obtain British gold.
The Brits seldom ventured out in less than battalion force. Twice they sent armies into the interior, and lost them both as predicted by Tom Paine. A third of the Hessian mercenary force, the Blackwater of that day, 5,000 men, went over the hill, urged by Americans, usually to marry American women. This happened as well later to the Japanese Army bogged down in China for 8 years, but on an even more massive scale.
Finally, American privateers took over 1,500 prizes during the War, which drove Brit insurance rates sky high and caused many to seek an end to the fighting. That "loot" was a major factor in financing the emerging Industrialization in New England.
Creating this notion of an American Revolution in "Crisis" has been an important background aspect of building a similar Myth today, that our very existence is threatened by some "Terrorists," hiding out in the hills of Afghanistan, and which necessitates our spending about as much on "Defense" as the rest of the world combined! To the extent there was ever a Crisis in our Revolution, it was because Washington, with the exception of Trenton, insisted, on the whole, of fighting a conventional 18th century war, rather than the guerrilla, partisan warfare tactics advocated by some of his officers. The strength of the Revolution was so great, it succeeded in spite of these at times erroneous tactics.
Even in the 1750s, Imperialists such as Franklin wanted an American Bank to compete in paper money with the Bank of England. The boys who brought us the "Fed" in 1913 were, no doubt, aware of Franklin's ideas. He, and others such as Paine, certainly frightened the Brits with his idea that the Empire should be increasingly ruled from "across the Pond," where, given the land mass, the population was growing rapidly. The Brits had responded by the Proclamation Line of 1763. Later, when in 1778. George III solicited advice from British intellectuals, Adam Smith told the King that truth, although that leter was not discovered until 1934.
If Washington was such a "non-interventionist," rather than a "Unilateral" Empire builder, how would you explain his intervention in the Revolution in Haiti in the 1790s; $726,000, when that was considerable "foreign aid," in an attempt to help keep the Creoles in power, rather than allow the Black slaves to achieve independence? Here we have the prototype of US Counter-Revolutionary doctrine from then right up until today, certainly evident from the Philippines adventure in 1898 and after.
These Empire Builders, such as Washington, hated the Second Amendment and the Militia about which it was written, the latter quite obviously during the American Revolution itself, precisely because they couldn't be ordered around to do his bidding, then or later. As, Richard Kohn has noted, Washington attempted to "Murder" the Militia system in the 1790s as well, and in 1906 Elihu Root finished the job, when as the primary policy architect for the Imperial Party after 1898, as both Sec. State & Sec. War, he essentially organized the guidelines of the Empire along the present lines we still see in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
I think both you, Ron Paul and others, who talk about the "Founders" as you do, are simply wrong about some of them, especially Washington! You play into the hands of the Empire advocates today by continuing such errors! I have written a great deal on all of the above, most of it available on the Internet for anyone who is interested in a dissenting opinion to what has become, apparently, "Libertarian doctrine."