JONAH GOLDBERG on foreign policy and food stamps:

If you have a fairly limitless supply of food stamps but a very small amount of cash on hand, over time you will not only grow to believe, but will actually become quite self-righteous about, your conviction that food stamps should be as good as cash everywhere — including car dealerships, movie theaters, and casinos. In fact, it won’t be too long before you see food stamps as the only legitimate form of currency. . . .

The point here is that the Europeans, the Japanese, and — to a somewhat lesser extent — the South Koreans argue for talking through their problems because, like a thick wad of food stamps burning a hole in their pockets, talk is pretty much the only currency they have to spend. For nearly five decades, Europe and Japan have been, in effect, living off the military credit card we gave them. We subsidized their defense and, money being fungible, they took their savings and poured it into bloated welfare states. This policy was certainly in America’s interests during the Cold War, and I’m not suggesting our system of alliances is totally obsolete. But there are huge negative consequences to it.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: And read this by Stephen Green, too.