Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

By The Erudite Redneck

First: Woo hoo. I'm 622 words (10 footnotes and about 40 separate sources, all but two from my personal library; I am a sicko) into my 1,000-word history of my home county. Just now hitting statehood, in 1907. Plenty of room left.

Numero two-o: Go by and see Dr. Erudite Redhead's growing series on a weddin' she and Bird went to awhile back. Question: As, um, Peyton Place-slash-country musicish as both of our lives have been, why the hell don't we-can't we write fiction! Sigh. I am investigating "autobiographical fiction." That sounds like something I might could pull off.

Numero three-o: From a reader ...

DEAR ERUDITE REDNECK:

(In a rant about Congress's intervening in the Schiavo case) you quoted John Quincy Adams, "“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 will
recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the
benignant sympathy of her own example. She well knows that by once enlisting
under banners other 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,ambition, which assumed the colors and usurped the standards of freedom. The
fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to
force. … She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer
be the ruler of her own spirit.”

That quote caused me to stop and think about our nation's foreign policy, not
the Schiavo case. The Schiavo case has obviously brought many of us weigh
in with our opinions. Which we have, can and will continue to bring forth in
heated debate. But not here!

Back to the JQA quote. I had never thought of our foreign policy in that
way. I must say that my opinions have shifted ever so slightly. At least
the quickness of agreeing with the actions our country has taken overseas.
I think it is obvious that we are viewed as the bully or dictatress in some
areas of the world. Justified? I don't know.

Question to you.... If JQA had been faced with the vast amount of weapons
of mass destruction as we see today would he have modified his statement, at
least to some degree? If he had seen a dictator such as Hitler and
witnessed the results of allowing him to go unchecked would JQA been so
quick to take the same position going forward?

Now I am starting to wander from his point...

ERUDITE REDNECK'S REPLY:

The nut of my thinking at the time, I think, was this:

It's all hubris. We in this country tend to think we can do as we damn well please in the world, and that idea extends increasingly to domestic stuff, too, no matter what the supposedly conservative Congress claims.

It was hubris that caused the GOP to think it could, and should, act to reach over into the legal-judicial affairs of Florida, and further into the personal affairs of the Schiavo family.

We tend to mistake our scientific and technological prowess, and business acumen, for the ability to change the world "over there" and to micro-govern internal affairs "over here." Same spirit is at work: arrogance.

On your point about Hitler.

The US, as a whole, didn't give a shit about Hitler, although FDR and other thinkers did. It took Pearl Harbor to get the America First crowd to shut the hell up, and for Congress, as was then the style, to act. We did kick the nextgen Huns' ass, but it was the Nips who got us into it.

Not too unlike it was Osama who provoked us to attack the Taliban, and then, apparently, Dubya et al., figgered we might as well take out Saddam while we were at it.

I still say Iran and Syria better watch themselves. The spirit of "Manifest Destiny" has been reawakened among lots of powerful folks in this country, and I think it still has some ass to kick.

How would the Founding Fathers have dealt with WMD? I am reminded of a story I heard someone tell about how Marse Robert E. Lee woulda handled it:

Hitchin' an A-bomb up to Jeb Stewart's saddle horn and slappin' some hindflesh, he said, "Jeb, drag this thing to Washington!"

I think, like Truman, they would've used the weapons they had at their disposal and like every American administration since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they'd used an exquisitely fine balance of military power and diplomacy to continue to promote our interests "over there" and defend ourselves "over here."

END