Neo Isolationism

Ever since I first heard about Post Modernism, back in 2001 or 2002, I have been wondering if it's still going on or if we had started a new age by now. What do you do after Post Modernism? Post Post Modernism? Neo Modernism? Neo Post Modernism? Being an old fashioned kind of guy, it occurred to me that we could call it "Neo Old Fashionism". That would be a reversion to old fashioned values without giving up any of the modern technology. Well, one thing we could give up is nuclear weapons. They cost a lot of money and it seems unlikely that we or anybody else is ever going to use them. It would be better to spend the money on something we could use, like deer rifles. That way, when there was no war going on, everybody could take their rifles home with them like the Swiss people do. The more I think about it, though, maybe a better idea would be "Neo Isolationism". As the Post Moderns rejected Modernism, we could reject Most Modernism. Then we could isolate ourselves from whatever goofy idea is coming next and just be ourselves.

All kidding aside, I'm not sure exactly when the U.S. trashed it's policy of isolationism. That would be a good thing to look up this weekend so that I would know what I'm talking about. Meanwhile, I'll just blunder on ahead, I can always recant it later. For starters. I would have kept our guys out of Korea and Vietnam, not because those wars weren't worth fighting, but because our leadership seems to have had no intention of actually winning them. Any former military man can tell you that you should never go into battle without a clearly defined objective and a clearly defined plan of how you intend to accomplish that objective. You also need something called an "exit strategy", so that you can get your people out of there with minimum casualties in case your initial plan doesn't work.

This isn't an isolationist thing but, while we're on the subject of wars, the Civil War never should have happened. If it was indeed about slavery, all they had to do was buy the slave owners out like they did in England. Our constitution says that you can't confiscate private property without paying "just compensation". Although the idea of human slaves being property was and is abhorrent to many people, the fact is they were considered to be property under the law at the time. You want to change the law, you have to compensate people who are going to lose their property in the process.

I don't think the Civil War was primarily about slavery anyway, I think it was about the Southern states seceding from the Union. The Constitution is strangely silent about whether or not states have a right to do this. They should have either said, "No they can't", or they should have provided an orderly procedure for them to secede without resorting to war. I find it hard to believe that none of the delegates thought of this at the time. Didn't it occur to them that, at some point somebody might want to get out of this deal? No contract is forever. Either it has an expiration date, or it provides a way for either party to terminate it if they want to. We'll have to be sure to remember that when we set up our Utopian New World Order.