Kevin Barrett for Congress

Independent Minded Libertarian for
 Wisconsin's Third District

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Return to George Washington's Neutralist Foreign Policy
 

By Kevin Barrett 

My guiding light is George Washington’s Farewell Address to the American People, in which he warned against entangling alliances and passionate attachments to foreign nations. Here is a passage from that classic speech:  

The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. 

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.... 

Washington’s Farewell Address was the greatest single influence on US foreign policy from 1796 to 1947, when America ceased to be a Republic and became a National Security State. The following year, the creation of Israel led to the development of a whole class of “deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation)” with the “facility to betray or sacrifice the interest of their country without odium...” 9/11 was the final fruit of these two evil events—the creation of the National Security State in 1947, and the emergence of Israel and its American cheerleaders in 1948. 

We need to return to the principles of Washington’s Farewell Address. We need to stop meddling in the business of other countries, and deal fairly with all, showing favoritism toward none.  End the empire, restore the Republic! 

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