An International Community?

April 5, 2009

In discussing foreign affairs, conservative pundit, George Will, although ten times brighter than that other conservative, Rush Limbaugh, made the mistake of speaking in absolutes, telling Arianna Huffington that "there is no community of nations." Arianna told George that "community of nations" is an aspiration and she suggested that an alterative to that hope would be a disaster. To abandon diplomacy, she said, leaves us with force. George responded, saying with irritation: "I didn't say abandon diplomacy."

Mr. Will added that liberals were inclined toward an old axiom that harmony is natural. Staying with absolutes he said that "conflict is natural." George was lecturing Arianna about something most if not all liberal intellectuals realize: that conflcts exist where there are at least two people: marriages, the nuclear family, local communities -- expressed at city council meetings. You name it.

Mr. Will resorted to an historical allusion. He spoke of Georges Clemenceau at the close of World War One responding to Wilson's question whether he believed that all men are brothers. Clemenceau exclaimed: “Yes, all men are brothers -- Cain and Abel! Cain and Abel!” Clemenceau was a liberal, or a leftist anti-pacifist, of which there have been many (Franklin Roosevelt among them). Clemenceau was speaking about the possibility of another invasion of France by the Germans. He and others botched the Versailles peace accords. But eventually would be a community of nations, called the Allies, that in World War II triumphed. And rather than than Europe being dominated politically by s single power the European Union came into being.