A Tea Party Foreign Policy?

Marion Smith / June 08, 2011

The Tea Party has had an extraordinary effect on American domestic policy. They have raised interest in policy debates, rallied public opinion, and given it a voice on various spending and constitutional issues.

On foreign policy, though, the Tea Party has been largely silent. But with the United States currently involved in three wars on foreign soil, the Tea Party needs to think about foreign policy.

Silence on foreign policy issues has allowed isolationist voices to claim to speak on the Tea Party’s behalf.  That’s unfortunate, because those voices discredit the movement’s relevance to American diplomacy.

Ron Paul, for instance, advocates a strict non-interventionism.  (Non-interventionism means that America would not be politically or militarily involved with other countries affairs.) He claims that to be the Founders’ foreign policy.  It isn’t. (more…)