The 80s Want Their Foreign Policy Back, Part II, or, Romney Was Right

Let’s stipulate that both Republican and Democratic administrations have made their share of foreign policy blunders over the years.  The House of Representative’s vote this week to provide billions in assistance to Ukraine has the feel of a sea change, an admission of one of the biggest blunders of recent times and the correction thereto. 

We all had hopes that Russia, after its disastrous experience with communism, would align itself with the West and begin the long march to peaceful prosperity.  Barack Obama’s devastating put-down of Mitt Romney during the 2012 election that the 80s had called and wanted their foreign policy back epitomized the attitude of many folks in the U.S. and Europe.

Tragically, Romney was right.  He and his advisors (and conservatives in general) had already figured out that the project to heal Russia had failed.  Under Putin it had reverted to its historic norm of insular paranoia.  It was determined to re-establish the Russian Empire, with a buffer of client states in Eastern Europe to protect it from its purported enemies in the West.  In true Russian fashion, the cost in human lives and moral corruption was of essentially no concern to the nation’s dictators.  In true Russian fashion, the people would acquiesce and provide all the cannon fodder needed, the alternatives being a bullet in the head or a slow, cold death in Siberia.

In Ukraine we have an opportunity to cage the bear.  It may work, it may not.  God help us if it doesn’t.  But at least Congress has given Ukraine, and the West, a fighting chance. The obstructionists who tried to prevent it have been shown to be a stupid, loud, obnoxious, and tiny minority.  The voters of their districts deserve better representation, and we shall hope that, at the next election, they will take the opportunity to get it.  Those in the media who gave them a platform, knowing full well that they were a stupid, loud, obnoxious and tiny minority, have some soul-searching to do.

The saying once was that partisanship ended at the ocean’s shore.  Perhaps, belated but very welcome, that principle has been rediscovered.

Yes, there really is a crisis at the southern border

Even progressive Democrats are beginning to realize the dimensions of the disaster they have created.  Just ask the mayor of any big city you care to name.  Eric Adams of New York City would be an excellent choice.  He is begging for help and demanding the federal government do something to end the onslaught.

I welcome immigrants and appreciate the almost-wholly-positive contributions they make to the nation.  At the same time, I realize that there are limits; not just everyone is welcome, a few truly dangerous people are getting in, our purse is not bottomless, and there is an unknowable point when migration becomes invasion.  That’s a common-sense position that, I’m pretty sure, puts me in the majority.  What disturbs me is that it’s a majority rapidly shrinking toward being a discredited and irrelevant minority.  Patience is running out, and when it does, the backlash will be venomous, possibly like what happened in the 1920s, when concerns over 50 years of almost-unconstrained immigration led to severe (and blatantly racist) restrictions that lasted into the 1960s.

The onus is on the progressives to agree to reasonable reforms to the system, and to do it soon.  If they don’t, they really aren’t going to like what they’ll get instead.  The longer they wait, the worse it’s going to be.  Tick tock.

No, tolerating homeless derelicts is not compassionate or smart

Even here is East Tennessee, which is culturally about as far as you can get from the Left Coast and still be in America, there is a growing problem with homelessness and everything it brings with it.  Many of these people – the numbers I’ve seen say 60% – 70%  – are good but troubled folks down on their luck who need a helping hand to get themselves back on their feet.  We can help them in good conscience, because the help won’t be wasted.  Let’s do what we can – and we can do a lot.

The rest, though, live in a waking nightmare, lost in a bizarre world of addiction and mental illness.  What’s appropriate for the majority of homeless won’t work for them.  All the temporary shelters, hot meals, training in life skills and social workers in the world can’t help them.  Their illnesses defy any straightforward solutions.

An uneasy consensus is taking shape that what we’re doing isn’t working, and leaving people on the streets, living in tents and under bridges, “free” to shoot up and defecate in public, panhandling, stealing, starving and freezing to death, is making life miserable for everyone.  My sense is that we haven’t quite hit rock-bottom yet, but we’re close to the point that public opinion is going to force a change in how we address the problem.  Tolerating homeless derelicts on the streets is not compassionate or smart, it is the opposite.  Compulsory treatment, including confinement in mental hospitals (not jails) and mandatory administration of medication, is coming, probably sooner rather than later.  Yes, this is contrary to our national ethic of maximum freedom and individual agency, but life is full of difficult tradeoffs, and in our far-from-perfect world, it’s better than the awful alternative.

• Kenneth D. Gough © 2024