Kevin over at lean left had this to say on July 4th:
America is not a nation, not in the traditional sense. Yes, there is a geopolitical designation with borders and armies and whatnots, but that isn't the real America. America is an idea - all men are created equal, that all men shall be judged as they deserve, not as their fathers deserved. Citizenship is granted, not by the fortune of being born on a particular piece of dirt, but by the choice to live by that idea. Every Saudi woman who wants to walk down the street without fear, every Venezuelan peasant who wants his voice heard, every Sudanese slave who dreams of a life without masters, every person anywhere who wants nothing more than to be accorded the simple dignity due them as a human being - they are all Americans.
I posted a comment, suggesting that Kevin's idea made American intervention in sovereign nations inevitable, since we would be obligated to protect the rights of our fellow Americans, regardless of their geographical location. Kevin replied:
Rich, you have to be kidding, right? I mean, seriously, you aren't really suggesting that the only two choices are invasion or nothing, right?
Nowhere did I state that invasion is the only alternative. I only pointed out that, if all freedom loving people are "just as American" as you or I, then certainly their oppression deserves more from us than a limp condemnation before an incompetent and ineffective UN. If there were real American citizens being slaughtered like the Tutsis in Rwanda, we would have invaded, and been justified in doing so. Kevin says we should have stopped the massacre, but is he agreeing that we should have used military intervention, or was he saying we should have used some unspecified, less confrontational tactics? If the former, then he accepts the argument he characterized as "silly." If the latter, then he demonstrates that even he doesn't really believe his statement about the nature of being American.
So, which is it? Is he silly, or a hypocrite?
The answer, of course, is neither. He oversimplified my argument in order to avoid dealing with it, and found himself trapped in an artificial paradox. Obviously, there are more ways to intervene than direct military invasion, but the fact remains that they are still interference in a sovereign nation's internal affairs, something not lightly undertaken. Are we justified in trying to impose our core values on other cultures just because some members of that culture agree with us more than their countrymen? Put another way, would Soviet Russia be justified in interfering with American internal policy because we have a Communist Party?
In my comment, I went on to note a curious comparison, where liberals tend to favor domestic intervention to help people, while favoring a hands off approach internationally, while conservatives are the exact opposite. Kevin responded:
They are investments in the social and physical capital -- investments that made this country great.
Oddly, those investments he mentioned didn't really kick into gear until the 1930's and the New Deal Is Kevin suggesting that America's greatness didn't begin until then? History says otherwise. American greatness was forged long before the New Deal. Social investments did not make this country great; self reliance, independence, and a limited government get the credit for that.
However, let's take a look at the actual spending numbers for some very interesting revelations.
In 1940, human (Welfare, Medicare, Social Security, education training etc) and physical (WPA, CCC, TVA, Interstate Highways, etc) resource spending totaled 68.1% of the budget, with human resource spending holding a 2:1 edge. Now remember that this was deep into the New Deal, prior to our entry into WWII. The federal government was spending every dollar it could to lift people out of the depression.
Now, fast forward to 1950. The war was over; and the economy vibrant. H and P spending totaled 42% of the budget, with human resource spending holding an almost 4:1 lead. It was the highest level that would be seen for that decade, yet despite a gradual decrease in social spending, the 50's saw tremendous growth in the US and strength in the economy.
At the end of the 50's H and P spending begin to rise again, maintaining about a 3:1 ratio, still favoring human resource spending. This continues throughout the sixties, except for an interesting change. In 1969, total H and P spending reached 42.7% of the budget, but now the ratio was 6:1 human verses hysical resource investment. H and P spending increased throughout the 70s, reaching 63.9% of all outlays in 1979. Throughout the decade, the ratio remained between 5 and 6 to 1, still favoring human resource spending.
Which brings us to the evil 80's when Ronald Reagan robbed from the poor to help out the greedy rich bastards. Except that h and p resource spending hovered between 56 and 64% of all government spending throughout the 80s. In short, during the 80's, a time of economic strength, we were spending the same percentage of our total budget on social spending as we did during the Great Depression.
What's wrong with this picture?
But wait; it gets worse. By 1998, 67% of the federal budget went to social spending.
I'll say that again. Two thirds of the money spent by the US government in 1998 went for human and physical resource spending.
If you think that's unbelievable, you might want to sit down for this next bit. The ratio went from 3:1 in the 40s to 5-6:1 in the 60s to a preposterous 17:1 in 1997! Physical resource spending dwindled through the 80's and 90's while human resource spending bloated like a rotting corpse on an August afternoon in Alabama. I can make a very strong argument that the lack of government spending on infrastructure was due entirely to out of control human resource spending.
And nothing has changed. The estimate for 2003 shows a total of 70.9% for H and P spending.
And have we received good value for the money we've invested? According to most liberals, who think this country is headed directly into the toilet, with a terrible economy, poorly paying jobs, untrained workers, undereducated students, and so on, blah blah blah, the answer must certainly be "No, we haven't" yet their answer is to spend still more money.
Why keep pissing our money away? As an investment, this ranks right up there with a Pyramid scheme; it's great if you're the one collecting all the dollars, but it sucks for the rest of us.
Finally, Kevin adds this little bit:
if you love the country only because it was where you were born, then you haven't the first clue about what is important.
Show me where I said that. What I object to is the automatic bestowing of American status on anyone anywhere simply because they love freedom. It's hyper-romantic bilgewater. America is a nation, defined both by its physical borders and its ideology, and even more importantly, by a shared culture and history. Love of freedom is only one small part of what it means to be an American. The ideas are important, but so is the culture, the history, the shared experience, and yes, the land itself. Americans were shaped by this land every bit as much as we shaped it. To say that a man who has never seen America, never lived there, never tasted the freedom we take for granted can truly be an American is simply wrong. America is more than just a physical location; but the physical location is integral to the ideal. You can't have one without the other.