Saturday, July 12, 2014

No US in WWI

"You've been given a great gift, George--a chance to see what the world would be like without you."
--Clarence Oddbody (It's a Wonderful Life)

David Stockman suggests many unpleasantries that would not have occurred had the US stayed out of WWI. German hyperinflation (Weimar) and Hitler's subsequent rise to power. The US boom/bust of the 1920s/1930s. WWII. The Holocaust. Atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The Cold War. US empire-building.

I would add domestic policies birthed during the period including Great Depression. Social Security. Oppressive government regulation. Fannie Mae. Various Federal Reserve actions.

In the classic film It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is allowed to see how different life would be had he not been born. We have been given a similar gift, reason, that we can apply to historical events and gain insight into the negative consequences of past acts of aggression.

Our challenge is to use this gift, and to apply what we learn.
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1 comment:

dgeorge12358 said...

I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defence but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.
~Woodrow Wilson, April 2, 1917

July 12, 2014 at 6:42 PM

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