Dire Consequences

We actually had a peaceful Sunday morning. Normally it's chaotic as the kids struggle to wake up, and we all scramble to get dressed in time for Sunday School. My wife's approach to discipline has always been passive/passive; she hopes that being sweet will eventually encourage the kids to take responsibility for their own appearance so we aren't having to get them dressed as well as ourselves. My approach has always been (when I can) aggressive/aggressive. Offer the threat and the reality of punishment, until you eventually find something that works.

What it finally took was having whoever is not ready assigned the worst chore in the house for a full week.

"But that's so harsh!" my wife complains.

But, we finally had a peaceful Sunday morning. It took two of them testing the new rules and complaining through a week of extra chores before they did, but they finally took it serious and did what we expected of them.

It seems to run counter to what we are taught civilized people should do, to resort to the threat of "dire consequences" to force compliance with a reasonable request, but then these are kids we're talking about. And even the threat wasn't taken serious until they'd tasted the reality a few times.

Our foreign policy, especially under Democrats, has been a lot like my wife's approach to discipline; be sweet and hope they eventually decide to do what we want. Although, in reality, the Democrats' approach has been, treat them like idiot children, offer them bribes (foreign aid) and manipulate them into doing what we want regardless of how it affects them. Republicans have had a mostly different approach, but not since Reagan have we treated it the way it should.

I was in college during the bulk of the Reagan era. I remember sitting at a lunch table surrounded by mostly foreign students and a handful of Americans. I was the only American that actually understood Reagan's approach to foreign policy, and the foreign students confirmed that.

"Why do so many other countries hate Reagan?" one American student asked.

"We don't," was the somewhat surprised answer.

"But all those other countries are always complaining about Reagan," the confused American then wondered.

I interrupted.

"But that they're free to do that means a lot to them," I said, "Most of these cultures thrive on haggling for what they need and want, and Reagan approaches them as equals and with the attitude that they are smart enough to know what's in their own best interest, and that they know he's after the best interest of the US. He treats them with respect, and the complaints are part of that. Carter treated them as naive children that needed parenting, and held up foreign aid with one hand, military might with the other and told them what to do. "

"Listen to him," added another foreign student pointing to me, "He's got it right. We hated Carter, but Reagan we like."

There are some nations that act like children and throw fits. Those we need to treat like children and offer dire consequences. Other nations simply want to be respected, because they deserve respect. Often the response from both will seem the same, but nations like the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Kim Jong Il's North Korea or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran are like snotty little kids that will never listen to reason and haven't the slightest care what suffering their own people must endure. The only language they'll listen to is the reality of dire consequences. We demonstrated those consequences to Saddam Hussein and I don't think even he got it even as his feet flew out from under him and he felt the noose snap tightly around his neck.

Then there are the rest of the nations that deserve respect, and will only feel they have it when they are free to criticize the US. Unfortunately our media tends to misinterpret that to serve their own agenda, so the American people get the wrong message.

Japan and Germany were once like those little, snotty kid nations. They experienced dire consequences, decided compliance with reasonable relations was in their best interest and both nations have enjoyed peace and prosperity ever since. The longer we molly-coddle juvenile and bloody dictatorships, the more we are allowing the people of those nations to suffer, and the more danger we ourselves are in. At the same time we need to treat other nations with the respect and deference they deserve, which means we let them stand up for themselves and not treat them with paternalistic condescension.

Posted by Danny Carlton at March 10, 2008 7:59 AM