For more than 20 years I have been warning that neoconservative interventionists and hawks were going to wreck our country, via their twofold strategy of “invade the world, invite the world.” In other words, the U.S. meddles in countless foreign conflicts we don’t fully understand and cannot control, while leaving our borders porous and absorbing countless low-skill immigrants from cultures incompatible with our own, in need of massive public benefits we cannot afford.

All this to prove … that America is some kind of Marvel Universe superhero who can solve every problem on earth and absorb limitless shocks to its system without even flinching. A Superman in a universe where Kryptonite doesn’t exist.

A Golden Calf with Feet of Clay

Unless … just hear me out please … such an imaginary “America” is a golden calf with feet of clay, which our Founders never intended and which can no more endure than Napoleon’s empire in France or the Soviet empire in Russia. Which of course is sadly the case, as Donald Trump was rude enough to point out in 2016 — so rude that now he faces the prospect of prison.

At the height of President George W. Bush’s crusade to eliminate “terror” and democratize the Muslim world, back in January 2003, I played the dead rat in his punchbowl. I wrote a sober essay called “America the Abstraction” that predicted the outcome of such grandiose fantasies. Please brew a cup of coffee and go read it, remembering when it appeared: before the first U.S. soldier had set foot in Iraq, and before the genocide of Christians that our troops were ordered not to prevent.

In that essay, I pointed out that in order to win the Cold War, neoconservatives such as were running the Bush administration had abandoned the defense of tradition, religion, and America’s particular institutions and culture. Instead, they had stripped down “Americanism” into an ideology for export, a set of slogans and maxims every bit as bloodless, ahistorical, and secular as the Marxism we fought. The problem with such ideologies is that they poison the countries which try to live by them. Just ask Russians such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Jeb! in a Dress Wants to Bring Gaza to Peoria

Now presidential candidate Nikki Haley is proving my point. For more on why Haley exemplifies more than any other GOP candidate what’s wrong with that party, read Gavin Sample here.

And Haley has stepped forward with the most insane response so far to the appalling terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas: Bring Hamas’ voters here, to the United States:

WATCH: Candidate Nikki Haley argues for bringing Palestinian refugees to the U.S.

According to Pew polling from 2013, 62% of Palestinians support suicide bombing against civilian targets.

We cannot import foreign peoples who do not share our culture & values! #AmericaFirst pic.twitter.com/dGO9Ty5hYe

— Citizens for Renewing America (@amrenewcitizen) October 17, 2023

Because we can really never have enough cities like Dearborn, Michigan, can we?

⚠️⚠️⚠️

Dearborn, Michigan

They live amongst us! 😳pic.twitter.com/RNsJciuRjP

— DK🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸 (@1Nicdar) October 16, 2023

Ron DeSantis rightly shot back at Haley’s bonkers idea, and she seems to be back-pedaling even now — aware that she has overplayed her hand in this game of national Russian Roulette.

What Motivates This Madness? Not Concern for Jews but Hubris

But we need to think long and hard about how such a crackpot idea could even flicker through the brain of a supposedly conservative Republican. I’m not going to indulge in some Alt-Right speculation about Haley “putting Israel first.” I never thought that pro-Israel sentiment was the central factor driving neoconservatives, anyway. It doesn’t explain why they blow smoke up Muslims’ caftans about Islam being really (despite all its scriptures and history) a “religion of peace.” Or why they insist on an open border with Mexico.

No, the heart and soul of neoconservatism isn’t Israel but Babel.

Drunk with hubris and Vainglory, they want to rebuild that Tower. They’re as cocksure as any Marxist ever was that we can construct the kingdom of heaven right here on earth. They just want to use slightly different materials and methods than Lenin or President Xi. They think that the Big Pharma, military contractors, and energy companies in their stock portfolios and donor lists will do the job, instead of the proletariat. But the Gospel, the natural law, and the American Constitution play no role at all, except as convenient fig leaves.

If You Won’t Build the Tower You’re a Bigot

And if you won’t go along with them, they start hurling every kind of accusation at you. You’re a “racist,” an “isolationist,” a “xenophobe.” You’re a selfish, blinkered appeaser of foreign dictators, and the blood of the innocents they spill is on your hands. You “hate” refugees, are “bigoted” against foreigners, and probably secretly blame Jews for inclement weather and cast doubt on the Holocaust. Those are the kind of accusations NeverTrumpers hurled at Donald Trump and his supporters.

The point wasn’t to persuade their fellow conservatives, but to terrorize them into silence — exactly the tactic employed by the radical left.

Some solid conservatives such as Pat Buchanan responded with courage, adopting the sensible slogan “America First.” That’s fine, but it isn’t enough. In fact, on a gut level it concedes the moral high ground to the maniacs. It sounds as if you’re advocating a cold-eyed, cynical, godless national selfishness — like those Americans in the 1930s and 40s who opposed taking Holocaust refugees. You seem to stand for egoism, pessimism, and callousness. At least, that’s how the ideologues will smear you, and it might stick.

How About National Humility and Wisdom?

Instead, I propose that we think and speak about “national humility” and “sober wisdom.” We admit that America might be exceptional, but it’s still just a country — not a world historical mechanism for transforming human existence. We’re not bulletproof, can’t leap tall buildings with a single bound, and don’t have X-ray vision.

Yes, we’ve accomplished some very impressive things in the past, such as conquering Nazi Germany and militarist Japan, and transforming them into democracies. We have also tried seemingly lesser challenges and fallen flat on our face. Here’s a short list of the projects that grandiose ideologues convinced their fellow citizens to attempt, which ended in ignominious failure:

• Defeating the communists in South Vietnam, and “building a Great Society on the banks of the Mekong River.”
• Eliminating poverty, and building a Great Society right here in the U.S.A.
• Replacing the Shah of Iran with a democratic regime that respected human rights and was friendly to the U.S. and Israel.
• Guiding Russia’s transformation into a prosperous free-market democracy that wouldn’t threaten its neighbors.
• Replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime with a secular, pro-American democracy that protected the religious freedom of Christians.
• Replacing the Taliban in Afghanistan with a secular, pro-American democracy that wasn’t allied with China.

It seems that we’re failing in Ukraine to do much but prolong a bloody quagmire, whose intent is to fight Russia’s influence to the last dead Ukrainian.

We Can’t Adopt the Whole Planet

If we meddle in Israel’s righteous quarrel with its genocidal neighbors, the only thing we’ll accomplish is to tie that country’s hands with our sniffy scruples and hysterical virtue signals … and maybe accept a few hundred thousand genocidal anti-Semites in American cities. If Haley has her way.

We should reject the framing of patriotic, rational, humble policies as selfish or narrow. Instead, we should insist that we’re practicing prudent, sane, responsible statecraft, of the kind the Gospel demands.

No, every Christian dad who doesn’t adopt 15 emotionally disturbed children isn’t being “ungenerous.” Maybe he just loves his own kids too much to pretend that he’s a superhero without any real-world limits. Likewise a Christian citizen who loves his actual neighbors too much to play Russian Roulette with their futures.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”