Altruism, noun
1 : unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others

In what variation of the universe is a government headed by a convicted felon assisted by people who have benefitted the most and exasperated the earnings gap seen as saviors while dedicated career government professionals, FBI agents, and Judges are seen as the enemy?

Joe Broadmeadow

We are not a selfish people, and we have done great things for the world, but our success isn’t based on altruism. We are, above all else, a practical people. Our motivation is based on the fundamental urge to survive. If there is anything different about us, it is our disinclination to purposely taking advantage of other’s weaknesses.

But disinclination is not the same as absolute refusal.

In the 1700s and 1800s, most Americans were well aware of the horrors of slavery. Yet it took the threat of dividing the nation before we made it, at least in principle, a lynchpin of policy. The driving factor was economics and abolishing slavery, while a noble goal, benefitted more from timing than moral indignation.

In the 1930s, we were well aware of the situation in Germany with the pogroms against the Jews. We stood by when Germany invaded Poland, offering materiel and other support to England, and eventually the Soviet Union (with its own fair share of pogroms), yet it took a Japanese attack before we fully committed.

Once it was in our own direct interest, we entered the war.

And our determination and resources turned the tide. That was the honorable side of America, and it continued after the war.

When the war ended, we claimed no territory in Europe or Japan, except for just a few islands in the Pacific. One might argue our artificial division of Korea and our restoring France to its colonial power in Vietnam set the stage for future problems, but it was done with the idea it was in our best interests.

We crafted the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and similar, if smaller scale, efforts to rebuild Japan. None of which was purely altruistic.

An economically sound Europe and Japan was always in our best interest.

Over the years, after the Marshall Plan had run its course and Japan became an economic powerhouse, our mutual economic interests thrived. But we wisely maintained a strong NATO alliance which allowed us a vantage point on the doorstep of the Soviet threat.

Imagine how we would have felt if Russian troops, missiles, and airpower were in Colombia, or Argentina, or Mexico. That’s the advantage NATO gives us.

Just a brief recap of the validity of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD.) There exists today a reduced but nonetheless sufficient stockpile of nuclear arms among competitive nations to assure no country survives a nuclear exchange. This is irrefutable.

So, the only practical way to take over another country is invasion. Two oceans, Canada and South America, protect us from direct invasion, and there is no Russian or Chinese military presence. The Russians and Chinese have no comparably cost-effective protection against invasion from a determined NATO force.

Absent a decision to obliterate all of humankind, organizations like NATO, USAID, and others offer us the best protection from the threat of attack.

We learned the benefits of assisting others and developed programs like USAID to maintain our influence in the developing world. USAID offers more benefits to our stability and growth than it ever did in the countries where it provided aid.

And now our President sees fit to close it down. America First! The aid should be here not there!

The irony is none of any projected savings will ever be used to benefit Americans. This administration has made it clear it sees all aid, foreign and domestic, to be wasteful.

And the short-term savings will cost us in the long run.

Many among us will cheer the deportation numbers even as they ignore the actual human toll. They broke the law! Go home! They will shout in jubilee. That innocent children and young adults who had no say in how they came here will be caught up in the furor means nothing. They will sell their soul for a moment of misplaced righteousness. Sadly, many will never recognize what they’ve become.

They are the latest version of those turning their heads as the cattle cars roll down the tracks into history. Never again?

“Kill ’em all, God will recognize his own” is a valid philosophy in their eyes. And it may end up on our gravestone. The long-term damage to this once noble experiment will have been done.

The intoxication of victory still courses through the veins of Mr. Trump’s supporters. They are the obnoxious drunk whose team just won on opening day. It will linger for a few more months, but eventually, the bill for the minibar will come through, and it will not be pretty. America will wake up in the morning and hesitantly look out the window, hoping to see if the car is where it should be.

And it won’t be.

In what variation of the universe is a government headed by a convicted felon assisted by people who have benefitted the most and exasperated the earnings gap seen as saviors while dedicated career government professionals, FBI agents, and Judges are seen as the enemy?

Sadly, the answer is ours…1444 and counting.