When I first read Walter Russell Mead’s seminal work Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, I felt less that it was telling me something I didn’t already know than that it was casting what I did know in a fascinating new light. In this book Mead characterizes the forces or influence that have created American foreign policy throughout her history naming each influence after a president or figure who at least symbolically is its type.

Hamiltonians (economic nationalists) believe that American foreign policy exists primarily to further business interests. A highly Hamiltonian slogan: “what’s good for General Motors is good for the USA”. Wilsonians (idealistic internationalists) are missionaries. Think of “making the world safe for democracy”. A Wilsonian wants to spread American ideals and methods and institutions of government and economics throughout the world. Jacksonians (populist nationalists) are patriotic, have an honor culture, tend to be isolationist, and have no problem using force in defense of the country: “don’t tread on me”. Jeffersonians (isolationists) believe strongly in American exceptionalism and have no problem with protecting American commerce with tariffs. A fundamental Jeffersonian aphorism is “hands off the Western world”.

In Special Providence Mead showed how Hamiltonians, Wilsonians, Jacksonians, and Jeffersonians have influenced and shaped American foreign policy. His thesis is that it is the interplay or debate between these four forces that gives American foreign policy its force and durability.
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In his recent post The Three Musketeers Wretchard of Belmont Club calls attention to the accomplishments of Margaret Thatcher, John Paul II, and Ronald Reagan. I’ve always suspected that the Cardinals elected John Paul II because he had demonstrated a shrewd ability to keep the Church alive within a Communist system while archbishop of Krakow.
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I won’t attempt to make any profound comments about the passing of Ronald Reagan. Others much more capable than I have done this for me. I wasn’t a Reagan fan during his presidency; I never voted for him.

But one thing that I respected in him was that it was very clear that he didn’t merely want to be President, he wanted to do President—he wanted to accomplish something. Compare this with Bill Clinton who I believe is a type of my generation, the baby-boomer generation. Bill Clinton wanted to be President but he had no vision, no dream. Doing the job was apparently less important to him than wearing the outfit. Consequently his list of accomplishments as President are meager indeed.

There’s an old Texas wisecrack about someone being “all hat and no cattle”. Reagan had the hat and the cattle.

These are three of the faces that watch me go whenever I leave the house and greet me whenever I return. Qila, our boy, is on the left. His cousin, our girl Tally, is in the middle. On the right is our just-under-one-year-old puppy, Mira

No good can come of this.

China welcomed India’s support in its bid to secure affiliate membership of the International Cricket Council and said it will look to have “bilateral exchanges” with India on the cricket field to give the fledgling game a boost in the country.

“We have noticed the very friendly attitude of the ICC on China’s affiliate membership issue. We also warmly welcome the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) president’s statement that India will propose China’s affiliate membership in the ICC,” Director General of China’s Sport General Administration Hu Jianguo said.

“We are speeding up the preparation work for securing the affiliate membership of the ICC,” Hu added.

Where will this madness end?

Dean Esmay points us to an interview with the last surviving military leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising (translated from Polish). This is a man who gets it.

Interviewer: But the Americans aren’t going too well with introducing democracy in Iraq.

Edelman: That’s true, but it’s a difficult war. The Second World War went for five years. Democracy tends to be structurally weak. Dictatorship is strong. Hitler was able to mobilise several million people and chase another few million into gas chambers or slave labour. But only democracy saves the humanity and saves millions of lives. The more I see people getting murdered the more I believe that we need to put a stop to that. The murderers understand only deeds.

Memorial Day or Decoration Day as it was originally called was, as I’m sure all of you know, a commemoration of all of the Americans who lost their lives in our Civil War. It has grown to give honor to all those who have served their country through military service and paid the ultimate price.

At least two of my great-great-grandfathers fought for the Union in the Civil War. They were spared or I probably wouldn’t be here today. My other great-great-grandfathers were either too old or too young or just weren’t called.

Since then neither I nor any of my ancestors have fought in war. They’ve either been too old or too young or rejected (like my dad) or not called (like me).

So I am that much more grateful and that much more respectful to those who did serve like my father-in-law and my wife’s uncles.

This not a day of division. It is a day of reconciliation. Let’s take this opportunity to forget our differences—at least for a day.

The Religious Policeman has posted a new entry. Go. Read it.

For the first ten or more years of the more than fifteen years we’ve lived in this neighborhood of Chicago we never flooded and rarely even saw much runoff in the gutters when it rained. Even in the floods of 1987 when the city of Des Plaines was literally an island we had no real standing water here.

Then THEY came. The City of Chicago in its neverending quest to improve our lives installed what are called Stormblocker drains—or swirlies as I prefer to call them. The stated purpose of these new, improved drains was to slow the draining of rainwater from the streets into the sewage system as a method of flood control. The idea was to reduce sewers backing up into our basements—not that they ever had. Our streets were torn up for weeks while they installed them.
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