Thanks, Senator McCain

Those few of us in the not so vast neutralist conspiracy owe a debt of gratitude to John McCain. Yes, he is arrogant and cranky and wrong about most things, but I am grateful to him for making a mistake that was beneficial to the cause of not getting into stupid wars. Not that it will in the end be of too much help. Still, we must be thankful for even the small victories that come our way.

There were all the lower tier candidates being ignored on the CNN Youtube festival of silliness when McCain, without really needing to, went after Ron Paul for the sin of causing Adolph Hitler.

We allowed (Adolf) Hitler to come to power with that attitude of isolation

I suspect the congressman from Texas might not have been alive or certainly only a child at the time Dolph started to rise to power. No matter, it gave my boy Ronnie a chance to try and undim the Senator by explaining his position,

I want to trade with people, talk with people, travel, Paul explained. But I don't want to send troops overseas using force to tell them how to live.

This is a good shorthand explanation of neutralism. As to what brought about Hitler and WWII, the Neutralist has explained it all before. If you have John's phone number and want to explain it to him, you can read to him from America's greatest 20th century victory, relevant passage here,

There was WWI, The Great War. I've wondered about that name, "The Great War." It is doubtful that the lads who spent all those years in the trenches would have thought it so great. We got into it because the president at the time, Wilson, wanted to "make the world safe for democracy" by fighting "the war to end all wars." Now sober reflection - an endeavor, I used to avoid like the plague - would tell one that such comments were moronic. Certainly, history has proved Mr. Wilson wrong. Still, it led our country to send enough men over to pull the Allies' chestnuts out of the fire. Wilson, fresh from a rhetorically successful Mexican adventure gave a war message that went something like this, "Oceania is at war with Eurasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia." No, well close enough.

Did our country get anything out of this? Of course: war dead, left where we had no compelling national interest. Worse, while our troops were overseas, the early twentieth century version of the soccer moms managed to slip through a constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale and use of alcohol. In a way, this brought about a continuation of World War I on the home front (Let me digress a second, religious Jews were allowed wine for certain holidays. I can see the handwriting on the wall. Maybe someone will want to join me in starting a new religion with bacon and other high cholesterol foods as sacraments so we can be ready when the health Nazis ban them.)

There were other results from that "Great War" including Hitler. Yes folks, without Woody, Dolph would have probably spent his declining years raving in a Bavarian old soldiers' home. By demonizing Kaiser Bill and getting rid of the Imperial German Government we insured instability in Germany. Maybe an Allied victory did not lead to Hitler in an algebraic equation (Allied victory + German defeat = Hitler) but it is impossible to imagine the Third Reich, the holocaust, etc. had the Kaiser stayed in power after a peace of exhaustion.

Please let John know we are here for him. We don't want to see him ever again make himself look as silly.