{"id":2441,"date":"2011-01-20T21:26:25","date_gmt":"2011-01-21T02:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=2441"},"modified":"2011-01-20T21:33:52","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T02:33:52","slug":"jfk50-our-know-nothing-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/20\/jfk50-our-know-nothing-foreign-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"JFK+50:  Our Know-Nothing Foreign Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I received a copy of the March issue of the <strong>American Conservative <\/strong>in the mail today.  Here are some brief outtakes from a book review (totaling @ 2000 words) I wrote in that issue on the general theme of <strong>Our Know-Nothing Foreign Policy<\/strong> :<\/p>\n<p>*In the decades since John F. Kennedy\u2019s inauguration, foreign policy experts have become Washington\u2019s leading con men.   Even though Wiz kids and Dream Teams have dragged America into one bloodbath and debacle after another, the media and politicians still kowtow to the latest sanctified \u201cBest and Brightest.\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>*Regardless of policymakers\u2019 Ivy League pedigrees, U.S. foreign and defense policy routinely operates on a \u201cvillage idiot\u201d level of information&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>*The standards for decorum in discussing foreign policy practically guarantee that brazen liars will receive a pass,  regardless of how many people perish as a result of their perfidy&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>*WikiLeaks has revealed that U.S. foreign policy is far more venal and dishonest than the Beltway portrayed it&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>*Instead of relying on purported foreign policy masterminds, Americans should remember Emerson\u2019s maxim that \u201ccharacter is higher than intellect.\u201d  Washington is full of intellectuals more devoted to power than to truth.   Professors hungry for influence are no more trustworthy than second-term Arkansas congressmen seeking a seat on the House Appropriations Committee. <\/p>\n<p>*But even if Americans properly discount the pretensions of the next deluge of foreign policy sages, it is unlikely that the government will begin learning from its mistakes.   The only surefire way to avoid past follies is to vastly reduce U.S. interventions abroad.  Aside from that, the second best solution is to assure that it will be the pro-war \u201cexperts,\u201d congressmen, and political appointees whose blood is shed first.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I received a copy of the March issue of the American Conservative in the mail today. Here are some brief outtakes from a book review (totaling @ 2000 words) I wrote in that issue on the general theme of Our Know-Nothing Foreign Policy : *In the decades since John F. Kennedy\u2019s inauguration, foreign policy experts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[659,22,13,658,662,26,661,12,41],"class_list":{"0":"post-2441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"tag-attention-deficit-democracy","8":"tag-central-intelligence-agency","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-lying","11":"tag-terrorism","13":"tag-torture","14":"tag-war-crimes"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>JFK+50: Our Know-Nothing Foreign Policy - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/20\/jfk50-our-know-nothing-foreign-policy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JFK+50: Our Know-Nothing Foreign Policy - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I received a copy of the March issue of the American Conservative in the mail today. Here are some brief outtakes from a book review (totaling @ 2000 words) I wrote in that issue on the general theme of Our Know-Nothing Foreign Policy : *In the decades since John F. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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