Notes On American Foreign Policy

Jacksonian Tradition
* American public opinion supports waging Wars at the highest possible intensity
* American people are more religious than their western allies but they are also more military minded
* In 1998 US spent as much money on defense as NATO allies combined
* Warlike disposition is found in the Jacksonian tradition
* Jacksonians through the Truman administrationwere generally democrats, while they transitioned to the Republican party under Richard Nixon
* Jacsonians: suspicious of uncontrolled federal power, skeptical about prospects for welfare at home and foreign aid abroad, opposed to federal taxes but fond of programs to help middle class (social Security and Medicare)
* Jeffersonians and Jacksonians
* both are suspicious of elites,both prefer power in the hands of states and local governments, attached passionately to the bill of rights and the constitution, want to preserve liberties of ordinary americans
* Jeffersonians were more peaceful and Jacksonians were more warlike during Vietnam
* Jeffersonians focus on 1st amendment (freedom of religion and speech)
* Jacksonians focus on 2nd amendment
*Jacksonians are seen as most obstructionist
* Jacksonians are lest likely to support Wilsonian incentives for a better world
* Cutting foreign aid, starve un and imf, ban funds for population control abroad, etc.
* Jacksonians also least likely to support Jeffersonian calls for patient democracy
* Jacksonians also least likely to support Hamiltonian trade strategies* Jacksonian is not as much intellectual or political as it is an expression of the cultural and religious values of a large portion of the American public
* Jacksonian populism is community based in the Irish-Scott community, but has since moved beyond ethnic and geographical limits
* Scots-Irish were warlike people thanks to their bloody conflicts in Europe and the American civil warreproduced these conditions in America
* Jacksonian tradition was thought to be a phase and would die out but Regan proved the ideology was thriving
* As the traditional groups faded out there came the Americanization of new immigrants, creating Jacksonian individualism
* Jasonian image shifted from American farmer to the suburban homeowner with modest lawn, called the CrabgrassJacksonian
* Crabgrass believes she is entitled to her rights of church and state
* Regan owes much of his success with the ability to connect with jacksonian values
* Domestic and foreign policy both greatly influenced by Jacksonian America
* Jacksonian Code
* Honor above all
* Self-reliance: make your own way in the world, don’t rely on connections or welfare
*Respect comes with age (Jackson 61 and Regan 70)
* Equality
* Individualism: everyone has duty and right to seek self fulfillment
* Mandates certain social morals and principles: sexual decency, raising children “right,” honesty
* Credit as an opportunity
* Courage: Americans need to stand up for what they believe in
* Firearms and freedon to own and usethem
* African American society resembles American culture
* Underlying unity between afican Americans and anglo jacksonians shaped the course and success of the modern civil rights movement
* The avoided violence which would have cause a jacksonian out cry
* They were rooted in Christianity
* Showed personal courage
* Prime goals of schools
*Jefferson: liberty
* Support democracy in principal but are concerned that tyrannical majorities can overrule minority rights
* Wilson: moral values
* Don’t approve of political rough and tumble
* Hamilton: commercial and industrial policy
* Mistrust democracy
* Jackson: America should do everything in its power to promote the well being of the folk...