It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong - Andrew P. Napolitano [18]
The Military Presence Around the Globe Is Too Big Not to Fail
Once Paine finished with his case for why the colonies needed to fight for independence, his next task assessed America’s then current ability to gain independence. He started this off by asserting that the contemporary brewing question was not if America would separate from Britain, but when. There was no better time than the present (1776), he argued, because at that time America had more than sufficient manpower to form a powerful army, and plenty of resources that could raise a navy, which could be used to defeat the British. Paine affirmed that not only should the colonists create a strong navy for the purpose of fighting a war for independence against Britain, but in addition as a result of Britain’s navy being spread thin around the globe during this time in history, Britain was unable adequately to defend the coast of the massive continent from the possible threat of a foreign invasion. Paine thus contended that if Britain continued its rule over the continent, its ability to defend America would become severely deteriorated.
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America’s military is currently spread over 130 countries in the world and has more than 900 permanent military bases. The maintenance of this foreign empire is costing approximately one trillion dollars per year, as well as countless numbers of American and foreign military and civilian lives. Not only does this make America’s homeland defense extremely weaker (and, as we have seen before, it actually creates more enemies), it is also making America’s economy extremely weaker, and will inevitably lead to a collapse in the U.S. dollar. Will this scenario not bring about a “deteriorated” United States like Paine had worried about in Common Sense?
How Special Is Your Interest?
Paine’s urgency was his understanding of the long-term effects British mercantilist policies would have on the economy of the colonies. The passage of the Navigation Acts in 1650 permitted the colonists to trade only with Britain, and if they wished to trade with other nations, the goods traded must first be shipped to British ports. Through this system, Britain was able to force the colonies to focus on the production of raw materials, which were shipped to Britain where they were changed into higher-priced manufactured goods that were shipped back and sold to the colonies. This mercantilist system created large and successful business elites in Britain during this period. As explained in the Library of Economics and Liberty, “the mercantile system served the interests of merchants and producers such as the British East India Company, whose activities were protected or encouraged by the state.” It was Paine’s belief that the British government would just parcel out unused land and resources in the colonies to the same British elites, who were the beneficiaries of the British government’s mercantilist policies.
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Paine believed this land would be used much more productively by the colonists to do such things as pay down their debts and build a better society. What happens when the United States federal government pursues policies that favor and strengthen certain economic elites, and then parcels out lands and resources to these groups? Everyone certainly remembers the disaster that ensued in the summer of 2010 when the U.S. government gave oil giant British Petroleum (BP) the rights to drill into the sea bed on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. After the Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska in 1989 had been cleaned up and nearly paid for by Exxon, the oil companies lobbied the Congress for liability limits—maximum amounts that they could be held to pay in the event of a