novaemilitiae - St. George Brigade (Blog)

I Wrote a Letter to President Putin Tonight. . .

which you can do through the Kremlin's website: www.kremlin.ru/eng/

Dear President Putin:

I am an American citizen who very much loves his country and the ideals on which it was founded. I am a conservative in the tradition of Edmund Burke, who nevertheless voted for George Bush in 2000 and 2004. I am also an Orthodox Christian.

Sadly, I must say that I now regret those votes for President Bush, though neither Gore nor Kerry would have ever been an option for me. However, it's not just the Democrats and the Republicans who have lost their way, but the West as a whole. Mind you, sir, I do not say this out of some sense of Orthodox anti-Westerness. I am and will always be a man of the West. But strangely enough, I am beginning to think that maybe hope for the West lies in the East.

I am writing you, President Putin, to encourage you to stand your ground on Kosovo, the missile shield, and American "unipolar" meddling in the affairs of the world. I write also to praise Moscow for its stance against public displays of sexual perversion. It is hard for me to go against my country on these matters, but as the famous English writer G. K. Chesterton once put it (I paraphrase from memory), "To say 'my country right or wrong' is like saying 'my mother drunk or sober.'" Western expansionism is wrong and at odds with the vision of America 's Founding Fathers, who warned against excessive "foreign entanglements". Our meddling in the Balkans is wrong. (That is your sphere of influence, not ours.) Our attempt to force our version of liberal democracy on the world is wrong. Our libertine excesses, the fruit of our version of liberal democracy, are wrong. Someone needs to tell George Bush, "Nyet". I commend you, sir, for your apparent willingness to do so.

My prayer is that one day America will return to her senses and become the truly great nation she once was, returning to that kind of toughness against vice and other enemies of the public order that she used to display, and which Russia still does. I pray also for the healing of Russia, that she too may continue to be a great nation and a corrective to Western errors and excesses, just as I pray Russia may learn from the good West has to offer (as she has historically shown she is willing to do).