How to Get the World to Like Us -The Case for Isolationism
The presidential electoral cycle is upon us. That means conventions. Conventions have platforms. I propose a platform that will make the world like us again. Just like they always did.
It may take 12 steps to get clean and sober, but only 6 to make the world realize just how super the U.S. can be.
1. We can start by helping the Arabs retake Andalusia. Having conquered it once, it belongs to them forever. This goes for most of the Balkans as well as Austria up to the gates of Vienna. All infidels should convert to Islam. This is inevitable as Islam means “submission.” Needless to say, we should all follow the code of Sharia. It’ll work wonders. No need to tie up the courts with gay marriage cases; we can just kill all the homosexuals. How much better will our soap operas be when the cheating wives get stoned to death?
What’s wrong with honor killings of women? Or keeping them uneducated or illiterate? Why can’t heroism be defined as hiding behind women and children while trying deliberately to kill women and children? Able-bodied men should be free to dance and march in the streets, burn flags, shoot guns into the air and contort their faces into grimaces fueled by impotent rage because they are victims (all 360 million of them, let alone their 1.2 billion co-religionists) of the 13 million Jews who run the world (see Chavez, Walt and Mearsheimer). Notwithstanding sitting on more than half of the world’s oil reserves and the massive wealth they have, it is only proper that the rest of the world be responsible for and pay for the Palestinians not given citizenship in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the 20 other Arab countries.
Not everyone should be made to feel they can contribute by becoming doctors, philosophers, teachers, artists, engineers, etc. What’s so wrong in educating your child to hate, and if you’re a real lucky parent, persuade him or her to kill themselves before they reach puberty? Parental pride takes different forms and we should not presume to judge. Because all cultures are good.
Now I know this will offend many in my own community. Hollywood, as we know, is very sensitive to the mistreatment of women, and women’s rights, first amendment protections, separation of church and state and the usual menu of American values like diversity, pluralism, dissent, free press, unfettered artistic expression and all the other BS we try to foist on the world. But what happens in America should stay in America. If filmmakers are killed in Holland, let the Dutch decide if it has a chilling effect on free and unfettered, robust debate. Cartoons that may be offensive should not appear in mainstream news outlets if they are deemed offensive by anybody, not simply the people we’re afraid of because they’ll kill our children and us. All the news that fits ideologically will be printed.
2. Let’s remove our troops and fleet from the Pacific. China is a great country-props to being able to control Google, even Bill Gates can’t do that-and what the hell are we doing in that part of the world anyway? I’m sure, without our meddling, China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan and Taiwan in addition to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore as well as Indochina (forgive the nostalgia) will finally be able to get over centuries of enmity. Also let’s face it – Tibetan culture couldn’t have been so great if it’s that easily annihilated while the International Community, excuse me, the family of nations, didn’t notice in their stampede to joint ventures in the Shanghai rush. Isn’t it our fault Dear Leader is investing in rockets instead of feeding his people? Let them all re-arm. Remember, more nukes are good nukes.
3. Disband NATO-the French never really liked it anyway. Didn’t their legendary WWII resistance leader, De Gaulle, fighting a rear guard action from London (he lost the one battle he engaged in) when he started yet another Republic, the 4th or 5th since the Reign of Terror (it’s hard to keep track), once pull out of NATO and called its force ‘crapp?’ I know France is back and Sarko is good, but protecting Europeans all these years was not a good idea. They are far more sophisticated than we will ever be and they know how society can be organized and we all can live the good life. They don’t need us to tell them how to deal with Persia and Putin.
Granted budgets will have to be adjusted. The Europeans will now be expected to pay for and provide for their own defense. No worries. Without the Soviet Union to worry about they don’t need anyone to protect them and, as Chirac had noted, if anyone attacks France, France will respond with nuclear weapons. Proportionally, of course. And with U.N approval. I’m sure the Myanmar junta will approve.
4. South America and Mexico and Canada are easy. Open our borders. Green cards are so ’87. And whatever Hugo says, goes. He seems to have a grip on things
5. We should not act unilaterally in Africa. Africa is not our responsibility (its Bono’s). We should leave it to the international community, with its many indispensable nations, Russia, China, the EU and Principe and San Tome to take the lead. With the able assistance of the Great African Leaders of Sudan, Chad, Somalia and Zimbabwe, Kofi Annan who was head of peacekeeping for the U.N. during the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, and as Secretary General, presided over the massacres in Darfur can help his former colleagues work it out. Kofi might want to think of starting a new international organization with a different organizing principle that that of the League of Nations or the anachronistic 20th century vehicle he headed. Maybe a body with rules for membership that might include treating their own people with a modicum of decency. Just because you grab power and plant a flag it doesn’t get you into our new organization.
6. We need to speak with Persia. If they want nukes and their neighbors want nukes, who are we to say it’s a bad idea? Appoint Sen. Larry Craig our Ambassador.
Let Larry and Mahmoud discuss how the international community can liquidate the state of Israel. No Israel, no more problems. Not only the region and the world, but our university campuses will return to their pre-Israelite calm.
The world will shine all the brighter when it’s unburdened by American arrogance and banality. Let’s return to our roots. Good ole’ American isolationism. America, first, now and forever. Return our fleets in the Pacific and Persian Gulf to our shores. Get our troops out of Korea, Germany, the Emirates, wherever. There’s plenty to do here at home. Leave nation building to the Europeans who worked wonders and did their thing in the 20th century. Our beloved land will once again bask in the world’s approval. George McGovern lives, ‘Come Home America.’ To paraphrase the immortal words of one of my fellow artists, we can hold hands, open a Coke and say, “They like us, they really like us.”
From 1991 to 2000, Ron Silver served as president of the Actor’s Equity Association. He is now a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Hello Ron Silver!
The plan is doomed to fail, because I didn’t see a provision for redistributing the treasure the post-Enlightenment West as accumulated, or anything about rectifying the “institutional violence” brought forth by globalization.
And now, I must prepare popcorn and wait for all the readers that won’t appreciate the facetiousness.
Ron Silver for president!
Spot on.
Mr. Silver;
I hope and pray to see you write and speak MUCH more often!
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece!
Thank you.
WAY TO GO RON! Welcome remarks from a really, really good guy. Oh, yes, I concur with your recipe…er, it’s not satire, is it? heh…
Ron Silver is golden!
If only the democratic moonbats understood the complexity of our modern world we wouldn’t have to be writing these articles. Since they don’t I thank you for your salient observations about the dramatic challenges that we face now and into the future.
Good stuff, Ron. I worked quite a bit for a studio in LA, and back in 2004 found myself watching the debates with a couple co-workers. Once we were able to break the ice regarding our affiliations, it turned out all three of us planned on voting for Bush.
There are plenty of non-liberals in Hollywood, we just need more Ron Silvers to pull us out of the closet.
Seconded! Ron Silver for President! (great to hear you are doing blog here)
The Europeans who didn’t hate us during WWII have hated us ever since. That includes nearly everyone.
Wow, someone in Hollywood who can think. They must really hate you now.
Start by bringing the troops back from Kosovo. Talk about your illegal and civil wars. Someone originally must have thought splitting up Yugoslavia was a good idea. That person (those people?) should be tracked down and embarrassed publicly.
A tour de force. Kudos.
Oustanding! Cant wait for the next post.
That’s a hoot to read. But when the…excrement…hits the proverbial fan, the EU/UN/League of Yahoos/Hugo Chavez will turn to us to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.
A classic. You might have added that, not only do we return to our foreign policy of 1832, but we could also return to our technology of that era. The Kyoto cult would be delighted and…sigh…we will be liked again!
What I don’t understand is why is it so important for the world to like us to begin with? Who cares that Hillary wants to send Bill around the globe telling everyone who will listen that the U.S. is not being lead by a cowboy anymore? Why do we care? Why should we care? They still buy our airplanes and computers, and we still visit their over-priced tourist traps. So could someone tell me why I should even care whether some Euro elitist who knows nothing about our way of life doesn’t “like” us?
All joking aside—we must be blunt with our old European “allies” and no longer allow them to mooch of us. A little tough love is mandatory. These often childish individuals must learn to stand on their own two feet and embrace the responsibilities of adulthood. We should perceive them as similar to spoiled teenagers constantly testing their parents to see how much they can get away with.
“They still buy our airplanes and computers”
Airplanes, maybe, but last I checked, most of the computer components are made in China, Singapore, etc.
Was this Ron Paul campaign platform? (if he only had a sense humor)
I have to agree with Mr. Thomson. One of the major reasons I actually AM in favor of bringing our troops home from everywhere around the world is simply that I’m tired of the international attitude:
“We’ll accept your help in this, our time of need (and in perpetuity as long as you’ll keep giving it). We also accept your foreign aid, money, supplies, etc and so on. All we ask in return is that you do things the way we want you to do them, including in your own country, and you make absolutely no demands of us whatsoever, especially in our own country or in the way we treat you. And oh yeah, you suck.”
You accept my largesse, you accept it on my terms. It’s not a buffet, to pick and choose what you like and ignore the rest.
You forgot all those nasty, evil gun things, which we must all turn in to be melted down and transformed into a giant abstract sculpture symbolizing prostrate helplessness. I mean, that ‘right to self-defense’ notion is just so passe, you know?
Can’t we all quiet down and just love each other?
Of course this is just satire – but it’s almost verbatim to Rep. Ron Paul’s presidential platform. And that’s not funny.
Nice! Maybe we could have a rematch of the Battle of Tours while we’re at it.
Mr. Silver, stop spending so much time in Hollywood where they cannot possibly appreciate you and hang here more often. Outstanding! It is really pleasurable to see the dogma of the Left carried to its logical conclusions (rhetorically, of course).
Just kidding on the Hollywood thing. They need you and many, many more like you.
Great piece! There is only one answer left regarding the surrender lobby: ridicule(I’m tired of arguing with them)
Ron Paul Silver!
MR. Silver! That post RoCkEd! You are a triple threat – Great Actor, Public Speaker and Writer.
Please fire off another round soon.
CoUrTnEy
Scary that there are probably so many people in the USA and Europe that would actually propose these steps for real!
Love this guy. It ought to get a few heads to explode in Hollyweird.
Mr. Silver: YOU the man! Aside from being articulate, funny, and level headed, you got that bullseye 6 out of 6 times. You ever get out here to Va Beach, I’m buying you a brew.
-dt
Mr. Silver -
Excellent insights, well presented. Please do it again, frequently and publically.
What a cool combination–Ron Silver & Pajamas Media–good going guys!
Hilarious piece–yeh–let’s DO that, I wanna be loved again, just like Bubba’s Big Bubble Borderless Bordello back in the 90s–yeah, baby!
I wish I’d said that!
For of all you who may have been trying to comment on Ron’s article and weren’t able to, sorry. We have been in the midst of a PJM server migration (behind the curtain). You can go to it now.
A clear expression of Paul Krugman’s sense that “Most Americans have regained their balance.” (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/29/opinion/edkrug.php)
Even out here, I feel safer already.
Crazy like a Silver Fox! Bravo to PJM for their depth of perspicacity in giving you a venue to share your thoughts.
There is an old saying that has some relevance here, especially concerning Iraq:
You broke it, you fix it.
Way to go Ron. This will high center the Liberal deep thinkers right through the Primaries.
Nice! Glad to have you here Silver; I check this site every day.
Speaking of your theme, perhaps we should remind the anti-war/BDS public of how full of international hatreds the world truly is.
Who likes the Russians, besides the Serbs? Who the Japanese? Who the Arabs? Who the French, besides (half) the Belgians and perhaps the Swiss? Who the Germans, really? Who the Turks? And that’s just your high-altitude view. Get down to the street and goddamn is it a writhing cornucopia of political hatreds. We’re just getting in the game!
Before we depart as you advise, however, I for one pray for one last war – of annihilation, against the accursed tribes of the Hindu Kush, whose ability to warp world history ought to have everyone who doesn’t prize yerts, AK47s and ululating women slaves above all else up in arms and chanting for blood. I think even the BDS loons can be convinced that “many sons and a lot of guns” is not Quite a viable ideology, even in their promsicuous imaginations.
You have made a good start. But you forget a few important things. Remember, the world doesn’t just hate us for our imperialism. It also hates us because we don’t understand Marx.
We need to impose a 5-10% tax on all industry and all carbon based consumption in order to pay back our inordinate consumption of the world’s resources.
We also need to reapportion part of the country to the Indians, along with annuities for them to live in perpetuity.
Likewise, we should consider a total redistribution of income and social nets to finally eradicate the poor. Continuing education and work incentives aren’t necessary; we’ve already learned from Europe that the enlightened thing to do is just pay them enough to stay home where they can self-actualize. This may require a tax increase on the rich or perhaps just an increase on corporations. One idea might be to expand corporate taxes on commodity companies we view as environmentally dirty, like we do with cigarettes. We want to discourage them anyway, and they’re politically fair game. It’s a regressive tax, but our social programs will counteract it.
Free childcare is also becoming a concern, what with so many mothers living on the poverty line. We could just require all corporations to provide it, but what would we do with all the mothers who don’t work? It’s probably better just to impose taxes and expand the government educational system.
If we keep our fingers crossed, affirmative action should eventually work for blacks and other minorities, although we may need to beef them up a bit.
This should give us a good start at communal ownership through governmental taxation, while requiring capital to pay its fair share for the world, an area where capitalism absolutely comes up short. While we’ve learned that communism is difficult to manage, Europe has shown us that governmental socialism is an effective means of controlling market based externalities such as poor workers and pollution that really are out of control.
Ron Silver,
I take back half the things I said about you when you were a knucklehead Clinton lover.
Tantor
Life is so much easier when you follow the Five Pillars of Islam instead of worrying about hard stuff like the inalienable rights of man.
Ron,
Great article.
I never knew you were so talented in the art of saracasm. I enjoy a well turned phrase.
I’d love to see a “If I was President” article on dealing with the Sons of Allah and their quest for global domination.
Wow! Ron, you really need to market this speech as a 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing. Sell it in the lobby of every college dorm in the country. It contains more wisdom than any professor could ever share with our students. You are my hero!
A sane voice in LalaLand!!
Ron Silver on Pajamas Media? What a great combination! This reminds me of when I once bumped into Larry Luckinbill at a CD-ROM conference. By the end of that year, CD-ROMs were in the waste basket, and so was Luckinbill’s career.
From Hollywood no less.
Ron, you remind me of…me!
Except that, unlike you and Elvis, I don’t get better looking every day.
Great stuff.
Ron Silver, you stole my idea!
Yours is a bit more elucidated, I must admit. Well said, but you left out the part where I prescribe we re-deploy all of those misspent military and “foreign aid” dollars by standing an armed serviceman at ten foot intervals all the way around our southern and northern borders. Then we can perfect missile defense, the hydro fuel cell, and throw a big party all at the same time and still have several hundred billions left over for new roads, bridges, schools…WOW! It’s all so simple!
I second Paulus Cooper’s idea – quote: ” market this speech as a 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing. Sell it in the lobby of every college dorm in the country. It contains more wisdom than any professor could ever share with our students. You are my hero!” – end quote
Add a downloadable mp3 audio version too.
Looking forward to reading your blog, Ron.
Excellent, excellent, excellent!
Wow, the title threw me off. I almost didn’t read this. Judging by politicians and the media, I had begun to think commentary regarding the religion of Islam was not allowed to be this honest and direct. Well done Ron.
Ron,
I guess you have kids too. I was once a happy go lucky die hard liberal, long hair, trouncing around the country to see the Grateful Dead. Now I am a conservative laissez-fair businessman.
My constitution tells me to take care of my family, my loved ones, my neighbors. Government’s role is to make sure that I can do that. I applaud your sarcasm, though I doubt that it can reach through the muddled minds of most ‘liberally minded’ peoples that I encounter today. Keep up the good thought provoking commentary. Looking for more.
No mask on this man!
A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty “Hi Ho Silver- Away!”
All puns aside- great piece, Ron! I tip my hat!
Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron.
LOOOOOOOVE IT!!!
Please consult with Robin Williams, he is of good like mind.
Punditizing by Hollywood celebrities? When did PJM turn into the Huffington Post?
Mr. Silver is a lone voice in the midst of the liberal idiocy that is Hollywood. If the Rosie O’Donnell’s, Sean Penn’s and Mike Farrell’s of the world ever actually listened to what they said, their heads would implode.
Keep up the good fight, Ron, we need more voices like yours bringing the truth to America.
Funny but open borders is rather the opposite of isolationism even reductio ad absurdum. This one doesn’t belong.
You are a lousy writer, Mr Silver. Isolationism? If this is an attempt at satire, it would help to stay on topic and to actually understand the subject of which you are writing. Isolationism is very poor policy to practice, and one that our country has NEVER espoused.
#1: Helping Arabs retake certain territory is NOT isolationism, it is just another extension of the policy of INTERVENTIONISM; the very policy that has made most of the world despise us to begin with. So you are totally off base with that one. Then you go on about women’s rights and their treatment in the Arab world and their children. That’s all none of our business, period. A policy of true isolationism regarding this matter would be simple, remove all our troops from the region and recall all our diplomatic personnel and whatever happens after that would be up to the people of that region of the world. The preferred course here is non-interventionism, not isolationism. We SHOULD remove all of our military presence in foreign countries, but maintain full diplomatic relations and free and open trade.
#2: You’re a little closer to true isolationism here. What happened to Tibet is a tragedy. If they had one of the world’s largest oil reserves, do you think we would have intervened? Still, what happens in that part of the world, is the business of the people who live there. As non-interventionists, we would still maintain a strong navy with bases on our Pacific island possessions, but we would not interfere in matters that do not directly threaten our national security.
#3: DISBANDING NATO is not up to us, but WITHDRAWAL from NATO is what we should pursue. NATO, without us, would still be a very formidable force capable of standing up to any threat.
#4: Once again, you’re way off on this one. Isolationists would completely seal off the borders and not allow travel in either direction. The best course here is to maintain very secure borders and to control immigration.
#5: You actually almost get this one right, with the exception of the statement: “We should leave it to the international community…”. We are still part of the international community. Earth is our community, and we, as a nation, are but one member of this community, but again, Africa is another region that does not directly affect us.
#6: Wrong, again. If you advocate isolationism, there would be no dialog with any nation. We would not have ambassadors, either. As far as nuclear weapons, who is any nation to tell any other nation whether they can have them or not. Israel would do what it felt necessary to defend itself. As non-interventionists, we wouldn’t pick sides.
You should probably stick to acting. That way, you don’t have to take the blame for bad writing.
Thom1776:
A minor point. In your first point, you say that we would maintain diplomatic relations and free trade. In your sixth point, you say we wouldn’t have any ambassadors.
Now for the major point: the fact that most of these policies are not, in fact, isolationist just underlines the absurdity of the whole thing. If you want to have a serious dispute, you came to the wrong place. I’m hoping you aren’t ACTUALLY advocating isolationism, but if you are you should post elsewhere because you’ll just get flamed to bits here.
I believe Thom’s point is that if you’re going to erect and then demolish a straw man, you should first make sure your straw man is not made out of corn husks, or fiberglass, or toilet paper, or some other substance that is patently not straw.
Straw-man arguments are bad enough, but straw-man arguments that make no kind of sense whatsoever are just sad.
I hope Thom will seek whatever treatment is currently available to the irony-impaired. Irony. He was prrobably confused by the iron in it.
Math_Mage said,
“Thom1776:
A minor point. In your first point, you say that we would maintain diplomatic relations and free trade. In your sixth point, you say we wouldn’t have any ambassadors.”
Please re-read what Thom1776 wrote in point #1 more carefully…
ISOLATIONISM:
“A policy of true isolationism regarding this matter would be simple, remove all our troops from the region and recall all our diplomatic personnel…”
Thom1776 appears to support non-interventionism, NOT isolationism, and goes on to explain the difference…
NON-INTERVENTIONISM:
“The preferred course here is non-interventionism, not isolationism. We SHOULD remove all of our military presence in foreign countries, but maintain full diplomatic relations and free and open trade.”
Very, very, different policies, and I thought Thom1776′s stance was made quite clearly here. Maybe the fact that both policies have an “i” in them confuses people into thinking they’re the same thing. They are not.
Ron:
Yeah, let’s turn the moral compass over to the Europeans, who did a nice job protecting 6 million innocent people circa 1933-1945.
Wow!!
A person from Hollywood who can make a valid argument!!
I really enjoyed it Ron; you found your calling.
Welcome to the blogoshpere. You can write as well as you act!! Hope to read much more.
Obviously judging from her last debate performance the anointed one is just the miracle we’ve been needing to save us. Sandy will make such a great National Security Adviser, again. Their love of democracy and America is truly something to behold.
Dear Mr. Silver
You made my day,my week,my month. Thank you and keep it coming. It would appear that some people can’t recognize or appreciate things like satire,irony,sarcasm and the like. I wonder how many conservatives there are in Hollywood who are afraid to come out of the closet? Cheers and Kudos.
Enjoyable read. Glad to see you in PJM.
Superb!!!!
Brilliant, insightful and most of all funny.
excellent article Ron. you hit the nail on the head. haven’t seen you in the movies lately – wonder why.