Since You Brought It Up
Politics, current thought, not so current but pertinent affairs from an older guy’s perspective. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Dr King

Friday, March 17, 2017
A Single Decision
There sure has been a lot of Nazi talk in our recent debate. It seems to get that way when we start to not like each other much. Nazi this; Nazi that. Yeah, how bout ya Nazi this.
Anyway, it got me thinking about Nazis in literature and popular entertainment. One recurring theme you see is: What if the Nazis had won? There’s movies and books and episodes of popular TV series with just that theme. The real answer is that in 70 years we’d corrupt anyone and things would be pretty much the same. That’s what happened to the Soviet Union. We co-opted them. We did it to the Japanese, we are doing it to the Chinese and we will do it to the “Mooslems” if we can get the dumb-asses out of the way. Our culture is so seductive it just plows forward. That’s the demonstrated power of good ideas. But sometimes a single decision can change so much.
It got me to thinking about how things were and how they might have been. Until the beginning of the 20th century the big dog in American foreign policy was the British Empire. We had two factions: Anglophobes and Anglophiles. For the better part of a century war was confidently predicted to be imminent between we and the Brits. There were armed incidents on the Great Lakes from time to time; general friction. In ways it was kinda like our relations with the Soviets.
Wilson was an anglophile. It seems reasonable to say his conduct led to the decision to engage in the European War. What would have happened if we had followed Washington’s dictum and just sat it out?
Well, the indications are the two sides would have fought to an uneasy standstill. It’s easier to see what would not have happened.
There probably would not have been a Great Depression. That would mean there wouldn’t have been the great dislocation that led to Hitlerism. Thus, no WWII. Probably no FDR. Maybe no nuclear weapons. The Russian Revolution either would not have occurred or the Russian Succession wouldn’t have been so disruptive. Probably no Cold War. The end of the Colonial System would not have been so sudden and violent. The Vietnam War wasn’t just part of the Cold War it was a feature of the end of the Colonial System. Modern Africa would look a lot different. Who can say what China would look like without the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Those are large things. A couple small things here are Daylight Savings Time or War Time which became permanent. We still talk about that. Prohibition which was followed by more Constitutional methods in peacetime was an Executive Fiat in war. Wilson never thought it would work.
All of these things flowed from a single decision which went against the guiding principles of George Washington.
What does this mean? Well, there was no threat to the peace and security of the United States in the European War which became known as World War One. The results would indicate that is the only casus belli that makes sense. That’s what Washington thought. Actually, he thought it was a mistake to have an alliance of one country over another because it might lead us into a war without us having an interest or a war against our interests. I think it sounds like Iraq. That was certainly a single decision. I do like the concept of certain singular decisions. Certain moments in time.
I guess I can say these are the kinds of thoughts that inform me when I think about more specific things.
What have we learned? Looked at that way, Wilson sure doesn’t seem as smart as he’s been given credit for. It might be a better idea to let the force of our ideas progress than make war with a half baked aim.