Now, if you believe these rights are universal human rights, then that clearly forms the basis of your views on foreign policy. It leads you to reject moral relativism. It causes you to recoil at the idea of persistent moral indifference toward any nation that stifles and denies liberty, no matter how friendly and accommodating its rulers are to American interests. ~Paul Ryan

I have read this section of Ryan’s speech several times, and I keep trying to come up with a word to describe it other than fanatical, but that is the word that springs to mind each time. Consider the sort of agitated, puritanical mentality that one would have to have to believe what Ryan is saying here. This is the sort of destabilizing zealotry that is very good at promoting disorder and upheaval, but not good for much else.

Minding our own business isn’t moral indifference, and it comes from having a clear understanding that a government’s duties are to its own people, and that these duties don’t extend to other nations. Failing to mind our own business often leads to inflicting injustices and injuries on other nations, and it is small consolation that these have been inflicted with good intentions or in pursuit of high ideals. Not interfering in the affairs of other nations is not an endorsement of the social and political conditions in other countries. The decision to interfere not only takes for granted that there are universal human rights that all states must respect, but that our government has a responsibility to penalize states that fail to do so. Ryan also seems to show no concern for whether or not “promoting our principles” leads to better or worse outcomes than the status quo. In this respect, he is an unusually reckless Wilsonian.

Ryan’s speech suffers from the enduring contradiction of hegemonism when it is joined to democratism. Ryan would have the U.S. remain the global hegemon (the world would become a chaotic mess otherwise), but he would also insist that it be U.S. policy to undermine major allies that facilitate that role and push for democratization in those allied countries ruled by monarchs and dictators:

For example, we share many interests with our Saudi allies, but there is a sharp divide between the principles around which they have organized their state and the principles that guide the United States. Increasingly, we hear voices in the Kingdom calling for reform. We should help our allies effect a transition that fulfills the aspirations of their people.

“Help our allies.” This is amusing phrasing, since the allies in question want no such help, and would very much prefer it if our government stopped encouraging such ideas. As things stand now, relations with most of the Gulf monarchies have deteriorated significantly, and they started deteriorating rapidly when the U.S. merely encouraged Mubarak’s fall from power. Pushing allied governments to accept transitions that will mean the end of their tenure or radical change in their political systems is a good way to lose allies or to replace them with new governments that are far more likely to be neutral or aligned with other states. No less important, the states that are pushed into such transitions might turn into failed states, or the new governments might prove to be even worse for the people living under them than what they have now.

Ryan goes on to say:

We have a responsibility to speak boldly for those whose voices are denied by the jackbooted thugs of the tired tyrants of Syria and Iran.

Why? It’s not at all clear that “we” have any such responsibility. It may or may not be the wise thing to do. If “we” speak boldly for oppressed people in those countries, is the encouragement that provides more important than giving those governments additional pretexts for portraying their dissidents as foreign-backed? If speaking boldly provokes even worse treatment of dissidents, are “we” doing them any favors? Ryan seems oblivious to the possibility that “promoting our principles” may backfire to the detriment of other nations and the U.S.