I don't think our disagreement amounts to one of principle, but I'll hold off final judgement on that until I understand your position on whether intervention, when the moral benefits are high and the costs low, can be justified. You say, "how the other guy feels about [our actions] is an inevitable part of the equation." I agree that it deserves a good deal of consideration–but it should not, by itself, be determinative.

To play around with your metaphor, is there nothing we can do about hornets' nests? "Poking around" is only one method of intervention.

If I said it is unwise to poke a hornets' nest, would that be allowing the hornets to dictate my actions? In reality, how the other guy feels about it is an inevitable part of the equation. It is part of the assessment of the risks and benefits. It is within the very nature of man to object to rule by others and to desire rule by one's own. There is good reason to believe this is encoded in the DNA. Part of the very nature of man. Part of the natural (and Divine) order. Most people would rather be governed poorly by their own than well by an unwelcomed invader. This was the lesson of imperialism. It is without a doubt that many places were better governed in many respects by the Imperial powers, but they were never happy about it. (Except those people that benefited directly.) They were less well governed when the Imperial powers left. But if the Imperial powers offered to come back and take over again, how many would say OK? None would, of course. Understanding this absolutely essential element of the human condition is essential to understanding the flaw of American foreign policy esp. the neocon expression of it.

Americans are a particularly patriotic group. As someone who has lived overseas, courtesy of Uncle Sam, I know this is true. This is especially true in some conservative circles. The idea of America the super virtuous and American exceptionalism is enshrined dogma. Many conservative can not fathom that other people don’t agree with us or question our motives. When the neocons babbled that the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms, paleos just scoffed. All that is required to know that would not be true is a basic understanding of human nature. The Sunni’s wouldn’t like it because they had a good deal under Saddam. The Shiites might like that we overthrew Saddam, but they would then expect us to immediately leave. And the Kurds liked it because they don’t like being governed by Arabs, even fellow Muslim Arabs. Go figure. But we have basically left them alone and Kurdistan is basically governing itself. If we went in there to set them right, then we would immediately become the enemy.

So interventionism, especially the “exporting democracy,” “nation building,” “creative destruction” aspects, is inherently destabilizing. I don’t think some neocons would even object to that statement. They want to destabilize first in order to bring about liberal democracy later.

I object to interventionism on moral, practical and constitutional grounds. I will try to answer your other question more thoroughly later.

But I understand the temptation to get your back up at the suggestion that we should change what we are doing because they told us to. That is part of the same instinct that I mention above. But one way to look at it is that we change policy because of how they reacted. Another way to look at it is that how they reacted is a predictable consequence of our flawed policies, so we should change course and try to correct the policy.

"They want us to stop doing something we shouldn't be doing anyway."

What I object to, mainly, is Ron Paul seemingly saying that we shouldn't intervene because they don't want us to. If he said what you said–that irrespective of what other people want, intervention is wrong–and then made the moral case for this position, I'd be much more receptive.

But I emphasize that the proposition that we shouldn't be intervening as a matter of principle isn't self-evident to me, and it requires an argument. Elsewhere, I asked you if you believed that the United States has any positive moral obligations to other peoples at all. My own position is that such obligations do exist, but they are difficult to define. Sometimes I favor intervention, and sometimes I don't. One has to balance many considerations (national interest, the principle of sovereignty, effect on relations with other countries, the gravity of the moral wrong we seek to right, the cost to us in righting it, etc.)

I am still curious as to your position on this.

When Paul traces the history of the Republican Party's support for non-intervention, I do believe he is stopping at the inter-war Old Right. Lincoln was clearly not a non-interventionist. And you are right that the Democrats used to be more aligned with non-intervention prior to WWI, because the Democrats were really the more conservative party prior to then. It is more accurate to say that non-intervention is more the historical conservative position than the historical Republican position.

But America's history is definitely tainted by expansionistic wars such as Spain/Cuba, Philippines, Hawaii, etc. I am not sure that is a mantle anyone wants to claim. "We are the party of imperialism and empire." Do you?

Also, the Muslim terrorist want us to stop intervening in the Middle East. They want us to stop doing something we shouldn't be doing anyway. That is not the same thing as your example of Israeli terrorist demanding we start paying aid again. There they would be wanting us to start doing something we shouldn't be doing. I can guarantee you that Paul or any other non-interventionist would not go for that.

"If Dr. Paul could be reasonably certain that the cessation of American intervention in the Middle East would satisfy the jihadists and end the jihad, he might have a reasonable argument. But to believe that this would be the outcome, rather than invention of new demands to feed the would-be successful jihadist movement, would be to completely ignore everything we know about how Muslim terrorists operate. When, for instance, have concessions ever helped the Israelis?"

Concessions from Israel don't satisfy some of them because they want Israel pushed into the sea. They see Israel as illegitimate. Some are on record about that. There is very little that I have seen to back up the contention that America's destruction is their endpoint absent our interventionist policies. They commit terrorist acts against us because of our foreign policy. If our interventionist policies changed, there is substantial reason to believe that we would stop being as much of a target. There is really very little to suggest otherwise. Those who say they would keep it up or come up with new demands don't base that on modern intelligence. They base it on extrapolations about Muslim theology.

I find the ease with which some people routinely engage in two-minute hate against Muslims to be quite creepy. It is the demonization of the other. As I have pointed out before, there are some people on this forum who should realize that this kind of fear and hate mongering against a group of people is profoundly troubling.

For the record, as a Christian I obviously think Islam is a false religion. I am not arguing from the standpoint of ecumenism. But I am not sure it is inherently Jihadist, and even if it is, if they are over there and we are over here then it is not our problem.

The claim is that Islam wants to convert everyone at the point of the sword. But what many are arguing is that we essentially unconvert them at the point of a gun. Flips sides of the same universalist coin.

To further illustrate the point, imagine we did follow Dr. Paul's advice and immediately extricate ourselves from all Middle Eastern affairs not essential to our vital national interests. Imagine that is, that we stopped supporting Israel. Then imagine that, as a response, pro-Israel Jewish terrorist began setting off bombs in New York and Washington. Would Dr. Paul then say, "They attack us because we don't help them. If only we intervened on their behalf, they wouldn't hate us so." This philosophy gives violent and deranged people a veto power over any foreign policy we might choose.

If Dr. Paul could be reasonably certain that the cessation of American intervention in the Middle East would satisfy the jihadists and end the jihad, he might have a reasonable argument. But to believe that this would be the outcome, rather than invention of new demands to feed the would-be successful jihadist movement, would be to completely ignore everything we know about how Muslim terrorists operate. When, for instance, have concessions ever helped the Israelis?

I also want to comment on Dr. Paul's recitation of conservative intellectual history. It's very weak. The "conservative wing of the Republican Party," he argues, had a long, rich tradition of non-interventionism. Would that have been when Benjamin Harrison intervened in Hawaii? Would that have been McKinley in Cuba, and his successors in the Phillipines? Would that have been the Republicans urging Wilson to take on Germany even before 1917? The only period of Republican isolationism was during the inter-war period of Harding-Coolidge-Hoover.

In fact, a case can be made that non-interventionism has a much better history in the Democratic Party of Grover Cleveland and William Jennings Bryan, both of whom vociferously opposed our imperial adventures in the late-19th and early 20th centuries.

As for Robert Taft, he was not joined by most other conservative Republicans in his opposition to NATO. (Which he opposed, by the way, on the grounds that it violated the spirit of the UN Charter, which he supported.) But Taft was not a Ron Paul-style non-interventionist. He supported the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, opposed immediately pulling out of Korea, and urged American support for Taiwan. I don't have the link for this, but Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a very on-point piece on National Review Online.

In short, I think both Dr. Paul's substantive argument and his recounting of the history of American political thought are weak.

Just a little taste of the evidence. You do know what that is don’t you? It is often used by people to actually back up their arguments. Won’t see this in GOP liberal interventionist talking points.

"Michael Scheuer, the former Central Intelligence Agency specialist on bin Laden and al-Qaeda, has objected to simplistic suggestions by President Bush and others that terrorists are motivated by an ill-defined irrational hatred of the United States. "The politicians really are at great fault for not squaring with the American people," Scheuer said in a CNN interview. "We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live. And there's a huge burden of guilt to be laid at Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, both parties for simply lying to the American people.""

But he is just a CIA expert. What does he know? He should just listen to Rush and Sean and they will bring him up to speed.

The sound you hear in the background is the little fantasy world you have created tumbling around you.

There is plenty more where that came from, if you are interested in learning.

He hates us because we support Israel, but yet he doesn't hate us because of our foreign policy?

Supporting Israel IS OUR FOREIGN POLICY.

Your quotes prove my point. OBL does not say he will make war on America until we all convert. I have never seen a statement remotely close to that. If one is out there I would love to see it. Why does he single America out for hate and not 100 other Christian or otherwise "infidel" nations?

Oh yeah. I forgot to check my mindless group think talking points. He hates us because we are free. In the Bizarro World that is the pro-War “right” talking points trump real evidence. Only in the real world do intellectually serious people allow pesky things like evidence to confuse them.