Long live the Constitution of the United States
columnist: Dee Ann Patterson

Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
The Lasting Scars of WWll and What Republicans Can Learn From “The Greatest Generation”

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Recently I have been discussing politics with my father. I am an avid Ron Paul supporter and he is not. Republicanism runs strong in my family. In fact, it goes clear back to Lincoln himself.

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by Dee Ann Patterson
(Libertarian)
Sunday, February 3, 2008

There was a strong friendship in my family line with Lincoln, and in fact, one of my relatives built the first courthouse in Springfield Illinois, Lincoln's hometown. Lest you think that my blood is all Yankee, Mom hails from the Deep South. My family is the ultimate example of peace after the Civil War.

Each of us is the sum of our experience. Generational differences are based in the experience of one generation compared to another. There are many generations in the Republican Party. My grandfather's (He is 94 years old.) generation, was the generation of the "Roaring Twenties", the "Great Depression", and WWll. My Dad was small during WWll, and then lived through the tremendous growth and comparative peace of the fifties, and subsequently raised me during the sixties and seventies.

History is both more clear when someone is currently living through it, and muddied, because it lacks the perspective that time and distance lends to any viewpoint. In discussing politics with Dad, I run up against his viewpoint having lived through history, and he runs up against my viewpoint looking back on history with that desirable time and distance. Neither of our views is necessarily wrong, but they are definitely different. Throw into that, the natural desire for respect on both our sides, and political discussion becomes quite a challenge for both of us.

My most recent discussions with my father have been about Ron Paul's foreign policy. In our discussions I have discovered some very interesting facts about republican generational differences that I think are having a tremendous effect upon the current election cycle. In fact, I would go so far to say that these generational differences are sharply responsible for the current disparity in the field of candidates. Interestingly, Ron Paul lived through the same experiences as my father, and yet came out of those experiences with a totally different viewpoint. Of course, Ron Paul is also older than my father, and his memory of WWll is different from my father's because his age was greater at the time it was happening. Therefore Ron's viewpoint on WWll is both from remembered as well as learned experience, whereas my Dad was mostly told about the War by his parents and in school. In fact, Dad's cognizance came almost on the heels of victory in WWll, so it would be natural for him to hear about the war in the most glowing of terms.

The generational differences, like those I have with my Dad, are going to effect this election cycle in a huge way. Many older citizens are more likely to vote than younger citizens. Our nation is getting older, not younger. This means that in order for a republican candidate to win the majority, and move onto the Republican National convention and nomination, we must dialogue with older Republicans. Which means we must deal with republican citizen's like my Dad, who view the world from a WWll perspective. That is what I am attempting to do here (Dad, you know I love you. Don't be angry at me for borrowing our discussion topic and you for my article. How many sermons have you used me in? Turn about is fair play!).

We often hear the WWll generation referred to as the "greatest generation". That is a hard distinction for me to give any generation, because it assumes nobody will be better or wiser in the future. We are all put on this old earth to do the best we can. I can look back over the course of history and see the good in generations that have come before. I can also see the bad in my own generation. I have a harder time seeing the good in the present generation simply because of the lack of time and distance, as I mentioned before. It takes time in order for the truth of goodness or greatness to play out over the generations. It takes time for perspective to be complete.

Because of my discussions with Dad, I have taken the time to look back on WWll and tried to ascertain whether, as my father asserts, a non-interventionist foreign policy would have meant that Hitler would still be roaming the earth unstoppable in his attempt to rule the world, had the United States not intervened. Of course, as with any look back it is not guaranteed how history would look today had we done things a different way. However, we can look at what led up to WWll, and study the circumstances that moved us into a world war.

Keep in mind, that for many in our country, the idea of questioning the decision making of past generations is anathema. I certainly mean no disrespect, neither to my father, nor to any Veteran of WWll. I do however, think that in order for this country to move into the future we must look back and see how our path into the future has taken an undesirable track. I think we must look back at history for what it was, and examine exactly where we made our mistakes. This is the only way to correct our course, and insure liberty for our children and grandchildren. It is in that light that I feel I must examine WWll, because many, including my father, are still basing their foreign policy ideas on 1939-1945.

So how did the United States end up in WWll? Better yet, how did the world end up in WWll? Would an interventionist foreign policy have stopped the war? Would the United States still have dealt with Hitler if we had pursued the non-interventionist foreign policy the founders intended?

First of all, both Japan and Germany declared war on the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II Japan did this first with an act of aggression. Germany declared war on the United States four days later. Ron Paul, nor I, believes in pacifism. My father declared that if we had pursued non-interventionism as Ron Paul suggests, that Hitler would have still been "running around Europe" taking over other nations. I believe there are many public schooled republicans who are under the same impression. Unfortunately, history, in perspective, shows that non-interventionism would not have been a problem in fighting WWll. A non-interventionist, such as Ron Paul, and myself would still have been dragged into WWll, by virtue of the fact that we were attacked at Pearl Harbor!

In fact, if we look we can see how non-interventionism might have prevented the United States from becoming involved in WWll. Pat Buchanan does a wonderful job explaining why Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor here:? http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25637

Contrary to the view that a non-interventionist foreign policy would have left Hitler running around Europe, we can see at the link above that non-interventionism just might have prevented 418,500 ( ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties ) American citizens from dying needlessly. Not to mention all those that died as the result of the two atomic bombs that ended the Asian conflict.

We mustn't allow ourselves the luxury of viewing history through rose colored glasses if we expect for our nation to become the light of freedom to the world she once was. In the current election cycle, it is critically important that republicans ask the tough questions when we hear a candidate like John McCain say that he wants to leave troops in Iraq for 100 years. Interventionist foreign policy is the policy that helped create WWll. It is the policy that created the tremendous loss of life in Vietnam. Republicans have a duty to their party and more importantly to our nation at large to return to a non-interventionist foreign policy. America can only be a light of freedom to the world, if she espouses freedom before the world.

World War ll also has other lessons that we can learn from. No other time period in recent history can teach us more about the cost of imperialism. No other time in recent history can teach us more about what happens to a nation when evil men come into leadership. Hitler and Stalin were symptoms of a larger problem, the wholesale destruction of liberty. When we as a nation begin to deny our citizens liberty, to deny our citizens privacy, and property, we as a nation create the very conditions that lead to WWll. We place ourselves in danger of destroying all that our nation was founded upon. The road without liberty always leads to the same place. It always leads to tyranny.

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2008 Dee Ann Patterson, all rights reserved.
Published: Sunday, February 3, 2008
Last modified: Sunday, February 3, 2008

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