[Vision2020] Nation Building and Phil Nisbet's Misunderstandings

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

Phil addressed his most recent post to John D., but I was mentioned as 
well.  It was Phil who falsely called me an isolationist, but I came out of 
the closet as a supporter of Jimmy Carter. His position was that we should 
support human rights around the world rather than support any tin horn 
dictator as long as he could give any of our enemies a bad time.

Of course I believe in nation building, but you don't build a rogue nation 
by destroying it.  Rather you isolate it diplomatically and 
economically.  (As I stated in my response to Phil, Saddam was isolated, 
contained, and disarmed by two rounds of UN inspectors.) And another thing: 
You don't bring down the Burmese dictators by buying shirts and hats from 
them for the last Republican campaign.

We have limited resources and opportunities, so we cannot focus on every 
single tyrant.  We also have to be realistic.  I would love to see the 
Dalai Lama back in the Potala Palace in Lhasa, but he will not live forever 
and when he dies the Chinese will install their own Dalai Lama using their 
own Tibetans monks to "authenticate" the process.  They already have their 
own Panchen Lama in Beijing waiting to serve their future Dalai Lama as his 
right-hand man.

As an addendum, I forgot to add one more item to Phil's 
misunderstandings.  I did not call him a "biblical absolutist."  I said 
that he was like Doug Wilson in that he summarily rejects standard 
scholarship on Judaism just as Wilson rejects all biblical 
scholarship.  Similarity is not necessarily identity.

Nick Gier