I was neither offended by your logic nor by your sentiment: I am also proud of what the US has done to further free markets and free people, both at home and abroad. I just don’t think it’s pragmatic to fight purely for the sake of foreigners’ freedoms, as desireable and idealistic as that concept sounds, and methinks that some people are blinding themselves to this simple fact and as a result, are supporting some policy that they would otherwise not support. In particular, it needs to be said that sometimes, it is not possible to pursue this course of action even as a secondary objective (I believe that Afghanistan is one place where this is not possible).

whether or not he would have sent troops into Europe to stop the Holocaust, *not* to wargame WWII or whether our entry into WWII was valid. I don’t honestly know what his answer to the latter queries would be, nor do I care to: I’m sure that they would disappoint me (to the extent that that is possible w/Ron Paul), and fail to surprise me, but they are not the queries Paul was asked.

Here’s the question he was asked: “if he were President of the United States during World War II, and as president he knew what we now know about the Holocaust, but the Third Reich presented no threat to the U.S., would he have sent American troops to Nazi Germany purely as a moral imperative to save the Jews?”

I’d say that his answer to this specific question was actually in the mainstream of our foreign policy, and rightly so, if I remember debate on Kosovo, Rwanda, and other humanitarian missions accurately. Heck, I remember a President getting elected based on his desire for a “humbler foreign policy”. Whether you agree or disagree, this specific answer from Paul is not outside of the mainstream, and is a response that is sagacious in many cases and contexts, including WWII (where Roosevelt and Churchill conveniently ignored the Holodomor and other Soviet crimes for the duration of the conflict) and the Cold War (where many of our allies were hidebound scum made better only by comparison with the rulers of Soviet).

It’s about whether or not the purpose of the US government is to stop injustice wherever it occurs. The US government is bound to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens, and to supply justice when the real world doesn’t meet this expectation. Accomplishing this task for the 200 million within our borders is a daunting task; one that our government falls short of quite often. (This is the case with all governments, of course.) Adding to this the other 6,800,000,000 inhabitants of the planet Earth would up the difficulty from “daunting” to “impossible”, especially when these other 6,800,000,000 either did not ask for our help, or are unwilling/unable to pay what is required to meet even the bare minimum for what would be required to effect justice in their circumstances. While it would be barbarically unfair and unkind to demand payment for people who are being raped, slaughtered, etc wholesale, it is also a fact of life that the manpower, logistics, etc to effect justice come at high cost, and that someone has to pay it. Indeed, the financial cost is the least of it: the lives lost are not nearly as replaceable as coin. It becomes clear, then, that having one nation bear the weight of the rest is both unfair and impractical.

Consider the following: it is certainly true that the skills of an American plumber would be of more service, and save more lives, in Central America than in the United States. It is also certainly true that a Central American plumber’s trade would save more lives in an impoverished Asian country than his homeland. In turn, the Asian plumber must concede that sub-Saharan Africa has more need of experts to maintain and create septic systems than whatever country he hails from. However, it would not be insane to point out the absurdity of forcing each plumber to go to the lesser country to fix their problems; even if it is moral to do so, it is hardly practical to eschew incentives so thoroughly, and would ultimately result in less progress than allowing for people to use their talents voluntarily to achieve less ambitious, but attainable, goals: an American plumber going with his church on a mission trip to Mexico to help with the plumbing, for example. Likewise, helping where we can in the process of achieving our own goals abroad is ultimately more practical and attainable than attempting to achieve justice everywhere — and as examples in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, some level of cooperation and volunteerism is necessary for such ventures to take hold permanently (a fact that we should be more cognizant of).

“having an open door to political refugees (or even helping Jews leave between 1933 and 1939) would have been a good way to do this for far less cost in blood and treasure than an invasion.”

I do agree with this. IMO, the great shame of it is that the Allies could have absorbed the 6 million slaughtered in the Holocaust, and would have been the better for it.

I also think that Sudanese people and others around the world who want a more welcome environment free of that kind of oppression should be at the top of the list for immigration.