Motus Mentis

Prior to the takeover of U.S. foreign policy by Progressive world-savers, American statecraft followed the wise course plotted by George Washington and John Quincy Adams: to refrain from meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations, and to avoid being drawn into their external quarrels, whether by treaty or simple ambition.

Adams (who was arguably the most intelligent and cultured man, and surely the greatest diplomat, ever to hold the office of President), put it thus:

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence, has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not 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 example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners 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, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of Freedom and Independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

Adams knew that the duty of American statesmen was to the nation and people whom they served, and to no other. But he also knew that alliances and treaties tend to embroil nations in war far more often than they act as prophylactics against it, and understood that the domestic and international prospects of the United States would best be served by frankness about our national interests, by friendly cooperation with other nations to the extent that our interests allowed or favored, and by honest conversations with foreign nations to seek to bring our interests and theirs into alignment.

Briefly put: to the extent that any two nations’ interests are aligned, treaties are unnecessary. To the extent that their interests diverge, treaties are worthless.

Even more briefly put: words are wind. And this is especially true for democracies and democratic republics, in which the mercurial moods of the mob, and the inconstancy of sovereign power, make it impossible to guarantee that long-term promises will be kept.

Until the beginning of the 20th century “America First” was such a self-evident axiom of American statecraft that it hardly needed mentioning; to imagine any other basis for foreign policy would have been an obvious absurdity. Now, though, the phrase is used by our Progressive elites as a bludgeon for “deplorables”, and for the Right more generally.

Lest it seem that i’m just an old geezer yearning here to roll back the clock to a time when the world was a simpler place, I’ll offer you this passage from Erik von Keuhnelt-Leddihn:

The true rightist is not a man who wants to return to this or that institution for the sake of return; he wants to find out what is eternally true, eternally valid, and then either to return or reinstall it, regardless of whether it seems obsolete, whether it is ancient, contemporary, brand new, or ultramodern. Old truths can be rediscovered, entirely new ones found.

– Leftism Revisited, p. 26

The world may have changed since John Quincy Adams’ time, but the truths of human nature, and of war and diplomacy, are no different than they were in remotest antiquity. We ignore them at our peril, and to our shame. We used to know better.