Isolationism. It’s a dirty word. It evokes images of a head in the sand. It suggests detachment from the outside world, from the reality of what’s going on elsewhere. It implies callousness, indifference, or even stupidity. It’s also a common attack lobbed at libertarians.
In the political world, it is used to connote an opposition to military action in foreign lands, and as is typical in the political world, those who use it to denigrate others often imply that isolationists are absolute, that they’d have opposed America’s involvement in any foreign war, even World War II. It’s a nice straw man, because it can prompt the purported isolationist to go on the defensive. In common usage, however, (and with a hat tip to Cato.org) an isolationist is someone who supports even slightly less militarism than the accuser does.
In terms of real isolationism, though, libertarians take a very, very distant back seat to the folks who populate the Democratic and Republican parties. In the Big Two, we find trade protectionism, labor protectionism, “made in America” jingoism, jobs-based opposition to immigration, culture-based opposition to immigration, opposition to free trade, support for quotas, tariffs and domestic price protection, distrust of foreigners and foreign cultures, and so forth. All these contribute to isolation, to the blocking out of the rest of the world, and all of these are far, far more germane to the lives of Americans than a civil war in Syria is.
In the 15th century, driven by the tenets of Confucianism, the Ming Dynasty in China essentially withdrew the nation into itself, dismantling, burning or otherwise destroying hundreds of ships. China embraced isolationism, and not just the military sort. The world proceeded to pass China by, and as trade around the world flourished, as goods and services changed hands, as technologies were created and propagated, China got left behind. It is only in recent decades that China has started to catch up. How? By eschewing isolationism, in fits and starts and bits and pieces, in favor of trade and engaging with the rest of the world.
Isolationism is a bad idea, and it deserves its “dirty word” status. But lets not misuse the word. Calling an opposition to expending American resources and sending American soldiers and military might to whatever conflicts in other parts of the world someone in the government deems worthy is not isolationism. Walling out the rest of the world, economically, culturally and “human-ly,” THAT’s isolationism. Libertarians think that’s a bad idea. No, libertarians think that’s a terrible idea. Many Republicans and Democrats disagree, of course, which is why we get all the forms of isolationism I noted above.
Engagement, interaction, trade, exchange – all benefit societies and the people in those societies. All advance prosperity and better people’s lives. And, yes, there are times when military action is necessary. The “isolationist” slam asserts the false presumption or straw man argument that those accused of it oppose all military actions and responses. No rational libertarian, arguing in good faith and with acceptance of practicality, makes that argument. Certainly, there are armchair theorists who can be cherry-picked to disingenuously try and win an argument, but any political stance can be dishonestly attacked in this fashion. As I mentioned earlier, isolationist usually means the accused wants to get involved in 1 less war than the accuser.
Societies that are involved with each other are less likely to go to war with each other. Principles of liberalism (not the American left-right sort, but things we take for granted like basic individual rights and liberties, the rule of law, and an independent press) are contagious, as we’ve seen throughout history. We can’t cause or force societies to liberalize, but we can plant seeds by via interaction, engagement and trade. Those seeds may not always bear fruit, but sometimes they do. By contrast, economic isolationism hurts all but the privileged few who benefit directly by burdening others, and “human” isolationism is the opposite of the melting pot history that built this nation.
Libertarians are not isolationists. They merely refuse to see every conflict in the world as America’s business. In this they are different from Republicans and Democrats only in degree, since it is obvious that neither party urges involvement everywhere. The nation has sat out countless wars and conflicts in recent years, and if someone wants to bandy about isolationist as an epithet, he could easy do so by considering the nation’s non-response to, for example, the Rwandan genocide.
So, if you find yourself in need of hanging the isolationist label on someone, if you have a craving that will simply not be ignored, look inside the major parties. There’s plenty of isolationist sentiment in both to satisfy that hunger. Better yet, let go of labels, and advocate for expansion of the things that make things better. Freer trade, freer exchange of ideas, freer movement of people. The nation was built on these principles, and the sooner we elevate them back to the exalted status they deserve, the sooner we can get back on track to greatness.
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