The US founding fathers and neutrality.

[Machjo]

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."
George Washington.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto"
Thomas Jefferson

"I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government [to be] peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
Thomas Jefferson

How much do you agree with these basic statements?

Personally, I'd love to see Canada pull out of NATO, NORAD, and other alliances and just focus instead on friendly relations, very much as the US Founding Fathers had suggested.

More recent quotes on Neutrality from the US include this from Truman:

"We must make the United Nations continue to work, and to be a going concern, to see that difficulties between nations may be settled just as we settle difficulties between States here in the United States. When Kansas and Colorado fall out over the waters in the Arkansas River, they don't go to war over it, they go to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the matter is settled in a just and honorable way. There is not a difficulty in the whole world that cannot be settled in exactly the same way in a world court."

This is not unique to US history either though, as exemplified by Lord Tennyson in the following quote from his poem Locksley Hall, written in 1835:

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there raind a ghastly dewFrom the nations airy navies grappling in the central blue;Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,With the standards of the peoples plunging thro the thunder-storm;Till the war-drums throbbd, no longer, and the battle-flags were furldIn the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law."


Would a neutral foreign policy be a wise idea, or is it preferable for Canada to take sides by joining in alliances?
​

 

[WLDB]

I'd also like to have Canada pull out of NATO and NORAD. The Soviet Union is gone, get rid of the other cold war relics too.

 

[Machjo]

I'd also like to have Canada pull out of NATO and NORAD. The Soviet Union is gone, get rid of the other cold war relics too.

You're NDP and you agree with the US' founding fathers?! Don't let the party find out or you'll lose youre membership!

Just kidding.

Ialso like this quote from Thomas Paine in 1791:

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

 

[WLDB]

Well they had some messed up ideas like keeping slavery in place, not allowing women to vote etc that I don't agree with. But just because some people have messed up ideas doesn't mean they don't occasionally come up with something useful.

 

[Machjo]

Well they had some messed up ideas like keeping slavery in place, not allowing women to vote etc that I don't agree with. But just because some people have messed up ideas doesn't mean they don't occasionally come up with something useful.

Indeed. But we were no different. We had slavery in Canada too until Queen Victoria helped to stamp it out. To be fair though, should we not consider them within the context of their time?

 

[WLDB]

Actually slavery was made illegal in Upper Canada in 1810 by the Lieutenant Governor, and was removed everywhere in the British Empire in 1833. About five years before Queen Victoria came to the thrown. She was 14 when that law passed.

We could judge them within the context of their time. Jefferson claimed that slavery was evil, yet kept slaves and procreated with one of them. That makes him a hypocrite and a lousy person in any time period. Good writer though.

 

[ironsides]

Who ever first said "Freedom isn't free" pretty much sums it all up about the cost of our future. To many have died to get us in the position so that we can even think about a peaceful world. This world is not ready to give it all up, so don't even think of throwing in the towel and letting others do the work and formulate your future for you.

 

[Kreskin]

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."
George Washington.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto"
Thomas Jefferson

"I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government [to be] peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
Thomas Jefferson

How much do you agree with these basic statements?

Personally, I'd love to see Canada pull out of NATO, NORAD, and other alliances and just focus instead on friendly relations, very much as the US Founding Fathers had suggested.

More recent quotes on Neutrality from the US include this from Truman:

"We must make the United Nations continue to work, and to be a going concern, to see that difficulties between nations may be settled just as we settle difficulties between States here in the United States. When Kansas and Colorado fall out over the waters in the Arkansas River, they don't go to war over it, they go to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the matter is settled in a just and honorable way. There is not a difficulty in the whole world that cannot be settled in exactly the same way in a world court."

This is not unique to US history either though, as exemplified by Lord Tennyson in the following quote from his poem Locksley Hall, written in 1835:

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there raind a ghastly dewFrom the nations airy navies grappling in the central blue;Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,With the standards of the peoples plunging thro the thunder-storm;Till the war-drums throbbd, no longer, and the battle-flags were furldIn the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law."


Would a neutral foreign policy be a wise idea, or is it preferable for Canada to take sides by joining in alliances?
​

Well the Founding Fathers know what's best for the 21st Century.

so...

Move 'em on, head 'em up,
Head 'em up, move 'em out,
Move 'em on, head 'em out Rawhide!
Set 'em out, ride 'em in
Ride 'em in, let 'em out,
Cut 'em out, ride 'em in Rawhide.

 

[Corduroy]

Looks like you're confusing and conflating neutrality with world government.

 

[gopher]

''How much do you agree with these basic statements?''


100%

 

[Bar Sinister]

It seems to me that World War I, World War II, development of nuclear weapons, and numerous other historical events have shown the futility of US isolationism. Nations that attempt to live in isolation from world events; especially nations with world wide trading empires and a strong dependence on foreign controlled sources of energy and other key raw materials, are doomed to failure. The founding fathers of the USA could hardly have imagined the type of world that exists today. If they did it is highly likely they would have had a completely different view of the role of the United States in world events. After all, most of them were well educated and highly intelligent men.

 

[The Old Medic]

Macho, it is THRONE, not thrown. Thrown is the past tense of "throw".

The important thing is that slavery WAS perfectly legal in Canada at the time the USA came into being. And women could not vote in Canada (or Great Britain either), nor could people that didn't own property, etc.

The founding fathers of the USA were British in everything except loyalty to the Crown. They objected to being taxed, without the right to have any representation in Parliament. Had Great Britain allowed that representation, it is quite likely that there never would have been a USA.

 

[gopher]

numerous other historical events have shown the futility of US isolationism

more than anything else, it is war profiteering that has made isolationism impossible - see Eisenhower's farewell address as an example

 

[gopher]

by the way, isolationism is a conservative ideal