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I went back and forth about it, but since the Vietnam War is a natural starting point in the discussion, and Kennedy kicked that whole thing off, starting somewhere later felt too arbitrary. Anyways, why did I make this illustration? My point the list was intended to illustrate was that foreign policy rarely coincides with fundamental worldview. It's like an orthogonal axis of political belief. Most presidents find themselves taking foreign policy positions due to circumstance rather than an affirmative/assertive foundational worldview! You'd think, for example, that because Reagan was all "small government best government", that he'd feel the same way about the military, but nope! Neither does "big government best government" do anything to predict how a president might act foreign-policy-wise when in office. Or really, any other of the classic left-right axes, but that one usually is the most natural when comparing Dems and Reps.
Perhaps it might be better to ask you to define what you mean by "liberal beliefs". Why would "blank slatism", which as I understand it is the "nurture >> nature" philosophy, necessarily be a militant ideology as well? Why would classical liberalism's emphasis of strong individual rights and the social contract have anything to do with foreign policy either?
And relevant, but a side-bar: I disagree that 2024 Democrats are more "anti-war" than 2024 Republicans. What does anti-war even mean? Hatred of war in general? A stronger predisposition to use diplomacy first, force last? A total renunciation of military action, or the military? Or simply, weighted-average less likely to get involved in a war-level conflict? Are limited military strikes war? What about funding foreign combatants? Not only are these not the same question, but also, there is no common agreed-upon answer yet for the question of whether the US is best served by peace-through-strength or peace-through-dialogue.
I agree with this take. I would extend this from foreign policy to policy in general. The fundamental compass for most politicians is their own personal power. That's why you see revolutionary groups like the Bolsheviks flip from anti death penalty to extremely pro death penalty the second they gain power. Neither party in the U.S. can claim an anti-war mantle. If the Republicans are peaceful now it's only because they don't hold the reins of power. A younger me believed that anti-war Democrats had actual principles. It was blackpilling for me to learn that they don't, and disgusting to see them celebrating the death and destruction in Ukraine.
I didn't say it was, but I actually do believe that, if strongly believed, blank-slatism must become militant. Why? Because it's wrong.
The blank-slatist believes that all races have (somehow) exactly the same IQ. Therefore any group differences must be explained by racism. Based on this flawed worldview, they make policy prescriptions to fix the problem. But it never gets fixed because all races don't have the same IQ. Convinced of their erroneous belief, they double down and take stronger actions, which still don't work. Etc... Etc...
If your belief set is that
Racism is the most important problem that trumps all else
Any differences in group performance is caused by racism
Then you will tear the world apart trying to fix what cannot be fixed. It's similar to how Communists, confronted with the failure of their ideas, blamed it on "wreckers" and resorted to totalitarianism.
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