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What we learned from the past eight years.
19-Jan-09Just to be clear: there’s nothing wrong with isolationism, and its intellectual form, willful ignorance and concentration on one’s own affairs; these are normal in human life. Everyone knows their own business and is ignorant about other people’s. This is why self-determination is good.
But isolationist ignorance and aggressive imperial intervention can’t be mixed. This is the Bush administration. (And would have been a Palin administration, as well.) If America is going to be the de-facto world government, it had better be governed by people who know the world. Just knowing Wasilla well will not be enough. Even if you wanted isolationism, by this stage we are so enmeshed in every other country that it would take someone who knows the world inside and out just to be able to semi-competently oversee an American disengagement.
And that’s not going to happen. America is not, as a country, going to let go of the power it has acquired. The only question now is how well it can be used – whether this country can contribute something to humanity that will be worth the cost of its imperialism. For this there will be an almost infinite need for intelligence and competence. It makes you wonder why anyone would want the job. It will be nearly undoable.