Democratic regimes are notorious for the kind of swings we've seen in public opinion relating to US foreign policy over the course of the last two decades. The Founders were wise when they placed the overwhelming majority of federative powers with the Executive and the Senate, and not the House.

I'm reminded of Thucydides recounting of the debates leading up to the Sicilian Expedition. The Athenians, unable to decide between the divergent courses of action advocated by the bold Alcibiades and the cautious Nicias, make a typically democratic compromise: the city elected to split the difference and put them both in charge equally. The results were predictably disastrous.

Whether the current climate on the Right is legitimate yet delayed reaction against Bush's policies, or whether the distrust on foreign policy issues is largely colored by the current occupant of the Oval Office, is somewhat murky.

The 2016 primaries, I suspect, will see some fireworks on these issues--as well they should. 

Agreed. Paul certainly set out to do that, and he did so rhetorically at Heritage.

What's unclear to me, and not only to me, is whether Paul's distancing himself from "isolationism" is a tactical political maneuver to show he's his own man and to broaden his coalition of support in the run up to 2016, or whether he honestly disagrees with his father substantively over these questions. Not that we got brass tacks specificity from Romney or Obama in 2012, but nevertheless:

What is Rand Paul's position on foreign aid? On the United States' role in the United Nations? On whether NATO should exist, and what its role ought to be? On how to deal, not in platitudes but in policies, with the threat of political Islam, or the rise of China, or a resurgent Russia, or Iran, or North Korea? What is Rand Paul's position on sanctions, or  development, or on how and when to protect our interests if simply signing a free trade deal doesn't magically render opposition or non-state actors inert? It remains unclear.

Well done, Denise.

All of this has happened before.

Bilderberg attendees are hardly in the poor house. Pay your own way, or abide by the transparency requirements under the law for official events.

Autobahn style. Stat.

That is an excellent episode. One of the best ever done in any of the series. A favorite, and a classic.

I wish more of DS9 lived up to that episode.

Yes, but I'm not going to completely geek out on this on Ricochet. Favorite series are TOS, TNG, DS9 in that order.

Bill Whittle is right: James Kirk an American Adonis.

Here we agree, but we draw some different conclusions as a result. From my perspective, precisely because this is the case, precisely because the gospel's call is a radical call, it is necessary to supplement the gospel here below. It is often silent on the political implications of its moral teaching, or on the rearing of citizens.

A prominent critic of Christianity of some stature once observed that the defect of the teaching in the Beatitudes was that their central lessons contradict the lessons of our eyes and the lessons of our fathers.

The Greek teaching does not suffer the same defect. Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics sets out to describe and educate the sorts of men who will rule cities, both as citizens but especially as statesmen. Its crowning moral and practical virtues--that is, justice and magnanimity--are precisely the virtues most necessary for said endeavor. It also points beyond these to philosophic virtue, but that's a question for another time.

All told: precisely because we both agree that moral teachings have political consequences, we must be attentive to both the teaching and the consequence.

This explanation distorts Augustine. The City of God per se exists nowhere; it is a utopia--or, rather, it exists only after the Eschaton, or in Heaven. Only elements  of it, to a greater or lesser extent, ever penetrate any actual city. 

All existing cities, all cities here below, are cities of men. But Augustine deals with them more adequately than you state here. He is not lost in the clouds. These cities have nobility within them as well as self-aggrandizement. They are not simply exploitive, and any of them that is well ordered is not defined by self-gratification. They are imperfect, owing to the imperfections of the human soul. But they have also beauty and their own excellence.

The implication that some of these cities are cities of God comes close to immanentizing the eschaton. You must give politics, human politics simply, its rightful due and dignity.

Yes, it surely is. And this has been the Church's position since Rerum Novarum.

JPII's Centesimus Annus, however, improves somewhat on this sort of lanaguage. While condemning both of the tendencies listed by Katie above, CA makes a more resounding defense of capitalism. That is, it distinguishes between these two kinds. It does not reduce them or conflate them.

Francis's rhetoric is less clear, and this is why I've been critical of that rhetoric on other threads. I presume that Francis' views track with JPII's CA, as that is church teaching.

But it would be eminently helpful to hear the ringing defense of free markets as well as the criticism--the more the former is omitted, the more we suspect condemnation of all capitalism, or the inability to distinguish between "kinds".

The political-theological question is one that every believer with sufficient ken, in every faith and in every age, must wrestle with. That we're still discussing it rather suggests that the secular solution to this human longing is insufficient, and gives us good reason to turn again to classical and medieval political philosophy. 

The Pope is hardly the first prelate to speak the way he has above. I'm sure we could find examples from Congregationalists to Copts. The trouble is less with Francis himself then it is a fundamental tension within Christianity. Augustine pointed to it by his discussion of the two cities--that of God and that of man. 

The trouble for us is, of course, that until the coming of the Lord in Glory to judge the living in the dead, an act in which he will reconcile all contradictions, we're compelled to observe that as blessed and divine as the moral precepts of the Beatitudes are, it would be calamitous and ruinous to organize a polity around them simply. Said with names, we do better to turn to Cicero and Aristotle than to Origen or Paul in thinking about politics.

Quite right. All this and more.

Let's say that tomorrow the United States could become a net exporter of energy, and that the shale and fracking revolutions live up to their promise--something I think could very well come to pass and would be fantastic; for altogether too long we've dithered about exploiting our own energy resources.

There's a whole other aspect to these questions then oil. 

Does the United States want to continue to trade abroad with the expanding and up and coming markets in India and Southeast Asia? How is it, do you suppose, that our goods get to these markets? If you answered "by ship", then you surely know that the Suez Canal and the Straits of Malacca, just as two examples, are incredibly important strategic concerns. If you answered "by plane", just which airports do you think they'll be landing at en route in order to arrive securely?

I'm glad Ryan noted this idiocy and didn't just let it go. But, frankly, his response was a bit tame. Or, should I say," midwestern nice".

Don't mince words, Congressman. A Nigel Farage-esque barrage wouldn't go amiss when talking to some of these elected Democrats or their bureaucratic friends.

The resemblance is indeed stunning......

Hark!? Have you heard the Beastie Boys dubbed by cats?

The Hon. Mr. Paul and I have very divergent views on American foreign policy and what is necessary in our moment.

Nevertheless, we welcome him to Ricochet. He is a sparring partner worth having, and I have a suspicion we'll hear more from him.

Moreover, if his concern for the rights of American citizens on American soil puts him in some "wacko bird" caucus, well, it appears I'll join him in that corner on that issue.