Jimmy's World

You've probably read that John Kerry declared in 1994 that the ultimate sacrifice of American troops is justifiable only if they're fighting under the United Nations -- rather than American -- flag.

From the front page of Tuesday's Wash Post: "Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, 'If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no.'"

Perhaps if the UN, that nest of dictators and thieves, had existed in the eighteenth century, our forefathers could have avoided all that nasty revolutionary stuff. No George Washington, no James Madison, no Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson -- at least not in their roles that gave them historical immortality. No Washington, DC, no National Mall, no White House. No Liberty Bell, no Independence Hall, no Betsy Ross (I'm only 25 miles from Philly, after all). No Star Spangled Banner, no Valley Forge, no King's Mountain or Germantown or Yorktown; no Paul Revere or Patrick Henry. Just millions of peace-loving, rational, secular, earth-hugging proto-Ghandis singing Kumba-ya as they sway around the campfire.

That seems to be the latest observation by our most embarrassing former president, Jimmy Carter. The other day he took the opportunity of a fawning interview with Chris Matthews, who's show only lives up to its moniker when he's dealing with Michelle Malkin, to say that our own Revolution was unnecessary:

"MATTHEWS: Let me ask you the question about—this is going to cause some trouble with people—but as an historian now and studying the Revolutionary War as it was fought out in the South in those last years of the War, insurgency against a powerful British force, do you see any parallels between the fighting that we did on our side and the fighting that is going on in Iraq today?

"CARTER: Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we‘ve fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.

"Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonial‘s really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.

"I think in many ways the British were very misled in going to war against America and in trying to enforce their will on people who were quite different from them at the time."

This is a remarkable statement for any American to make, but coming from the lips of a former president, it’s astounding. Skip for the moment the sheer ignorance on display regarding Revolutionary casualties as compared with those of other wars; that’s the easy part. Ditto the fact that India only gained independence after WWII. The real story here is twofold.

First, Carter’s principal regret lies not in the deaths of our brave Revolutionary soldiers over two centuries ago. Rather, like other pseudo-intellectual liberals, his real lament is the type of country the Revolution created. Far from a miracle in Philadelphia, for this band of siblings, America’s danger to the world today – a danger best expressed in the presidency of George W. Bush – results from our rugged individualism, frontier adventurism, hostility to hierarchy, embrace of religion, lack of landed gentry, and innovative, entrepreneurial instincts.

Remove our War of Independence, the Declaration, the Constitution, our tripartite federal government, and every other vestige of our Founding, and you’re left with a people who are less free, less adventuresome, less, well, less revolutionary. Less distinctive. Colorless, bland, suppressed. Risk averse. More like the Europeans. More like university professors, professional handwringers, and (at least in their public punditry if not their private or professional lives) Hollywood stars. More, in a word, like Jimmy Carter.

Call this country the anti-America, or Jimmy’s America, or John’s America. Call it what you will, but one thing’s for certain: It wouldn’t be the United States as it is today, and Jimmy, for all his historical ignorance, knows that.

The corollary to this imagined historical development, my second point, is that absent the historical development of America as she is today and has been throughout her history, where would freedom reign? Who would have stood up to the twentieth-century’s worst dictators, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao? With Florida, perhaps, and the Southwest, almost certainly, Spanish-speaking nations, no colossus would span the continent. Absent that, what could have prevented a Hitler or Stalin from taking over Europe and establishing spheres of influence here?

Not that we would have had to wait for modern tyrants to weigh in. Would France have kept their distance during the nineteenth century? They were in Mexico, so why not Colorado? Why would the Czars have stopped at Alaska? The list could go on.

So we’re left with a vision of America that’s every liberal’s dream-come-true: a small, weak country inhabited by meek people who lack the will or the means to influence anyone, anywhere. A people who “play fair” with the rest of the world, meaning that they’re kicked and punched like everyone else. A culture that punishes risk, stifles innovation, and rewards monochrome personalities. Cradle-to-grave welfare; nationalized industries; state-run hospitals. No Wal-Mart, no General Motors, no Pentagon.

But worry not; Jimmy’s world didn’t come to pass. We’re better and more blessed than that.

Captain Ed, Sean Gleeson, Betsy's Page, and Hindrocket at Power Line also have posts on this matter.