" Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. ...The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest." George Washington, Farewell Address, September 17, 1797.

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none should be our motto." Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801.

"Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality." James Madison, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1809.

"America well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit... She does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own," John Quincy Adams, Address, July 4, 1821.

So why should America be concerned with the current crisis in Egypt?  Why, when we have troubles enough at home, should our President have to be distracted by events that are the business of Egyptians and nobody else?  Citizens of a country five thousand miles away are struggling for rights that Americans have taken for granted for two centuries.  What is there for us to do but say, like the Aussies, "Good on you, chum"?

Practically everyone in America (except for an incongruous handful of hard-lefties and paleo-conservatives, of which incidentally I'm neither) seems to think you can stop any arguments simply by saying "Our world's very different, a lot smaller than in the Founding Fathers' days" or "We have to stabilize the Middle East." Or just by murmuring the dreaded word "Isolationism".

Balderdash.

Nobody can stabilize the Middle East.  The way things are, it's inherently unstable, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Trying to stabilize it is like the guy who had an unsteady chair so he sawed a bit off one leg and it still wobbled so he sawed a bit off another leg and by the end of the day he had a chair with no legs.  Worried about oil?  Tough titty.  We had our chance, back in the seventies when OPEC was formed.  If we'd gone for alternative energy then, we'd be laughing by now.  Learn to live with your mistakes.  Don't just keep making more.

As for the "this is a different world" argument, how is it different?  If it got smaller, how exactly did that change the way it worked?  Do you really suppose that by getting smaller, the world automatically lost all the dangers that the Founding Fathers so presciently warned us against?  Why aren't we still aware of those dangers?  Why aren't we doing anything about them?  Why isn't there at the very least some serious national dialogue on what America's foreign policy should be?

And as for the charge of "isolationism", that's a crock if ever I heard one.  Nobody wants isolationism.  We're talking about non-interventionism.  Just stop meddling in other nations' affairs like the Founding Fathers told us.  That would make us a lot less isolated in everything that matters, whether it's diplomatic relations, commerce, science, the arts, whatever.  Going on meddling, taking sides, entangling ourselves in other people's quarrels--that's what will really isolate us.

But I suspect I'm wasting my time.  America seems determined to follow Osama bin Laden's playbook--spend itself into bankruptcy fighting other people's wars, just like the Evil Empire did during the last Afghan affair.  And what can we do about it, those seemingly all too few of us who still cherish the dream of the free, independent republic, bound to none, benevolent to all, that the Founding Fathers envisioned?  Nothing.  Except weep.  Or laugh.  Or both.