American Exceptionalism

russ_watters

Er, did you read it? What was so bad about it?

ThomasT

Yes.
I don't think it's worth discussing. Rush has a certain view about things. A view that I consider, for the most part, to be overly simplistic and obviously biased, to a fault. I mean, would anybody call Rush Limbaugh an objective commenter?

mheslep

Cool make-money-at-home web site (though it says nothing about Kuwait drilling under Iraq).
http://www.thefinertimes.com/write-for-us.html

apeiron

The story is widely reported....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait

The incident may of course have been the excuse Iraq was looking for.

But the general point about American exceptionalism here is that it is not some noble, religious, self-sacrificing deal. The US is an empire managing its world in a pragmatic fashion.

Just consider the other land grabs that no one ever talks about much...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indones...US_involvement

mheslep

There has been no "general point" made, only an assertion of your opinion.

Yet the US has no 'land' in Indonesia. Empires in any historical sense of the term do not pack up and go home, maintaining the same borders for years. The US is a powerful nation and has faults, but it is not an empire.

Drakkith

I don't think there's any real doubt about whether or not the U.S. is an empire of some sort.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_empire) Many people see it as an empire in the sense that while we no longer invade and take over land we do impose our will upon large parts of the world. The bigger question in my opinion is if you are ok with this. Unfortunately I don't know nearly enough about the details of history to really say either way. I wish it were as simple as "leave people alone and let them do what they want", but that is naive thinking in my opinion as everyone in the world is interconnected. I try to keep an open mind and see both sides, but that is difficult with so much biased 1 sided opinion out there. It's hard to sift through all the nonsense and find out what's really going on.

mheslep

Interesting - there is no wiki 'American Empire' article, it redirects to American Imperialism, which is correct term for what you describe.

apeiron

How are you defining empire?

The wiki definition is:

Err...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...military_bases

I guess by your definition there was no Soviet empire either?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Empire

But so you don't misunderstand my own opinion, I judge the US empire a good thing to the extent it is a stepping stone to planetary level governance - some integrated world system. And bad to the extent that the developing machinery gets hijacked for self-interested purposes - and really bad when it gets hijacked by irrational religious belief systems.

There is definitely a side to the US project that was exceptional (or what ever other flattering term you prefer) because it was based on good rational principles. Ones that balanced the natural forces of competition and co-operation that are basic to healthy human society.

Many still believe in these kinds of ideals, they just don't tend to be in positions of actual power.

Then there is the realpolitik of empire - the pragmatic self-interest to do with oil, trade, etc. I don't like it much, but at least it is understandable and predictable. Still rational in its more limited and local fashion.

It is the irrational faith-based approach to empire that I find most disturbing, the moral fundamentalist thinking that just creates a mess wherever it goes.

So to me, the claim of exceptionalism was about a more rational design for society - one based on an understanding the win-win that results from properly balancing the forces of competition and co-operation (or short term and long term thinking).

The UK empire spawned quite a number of such nations, born out of a common political philosophy. The US just happened to be by far the biggest in population and resources. So if you like, you could call it doubly exceptional. It has both rationality and scale.

Though while its scale seems secure (the US is unlikely to fracture into its separate states for a while yet), the rationality is what observers might now question.

mheslep

As I said, historically. Roman, Austrian, British, Byzantine, Soviet. I don't have much use for wiki on this, which for all anyone else knows you or I wrote. What's wrong with the dictionary?

What is that supposed to indicate? The US has too many bases abroad, which adds credence to charge of imperialism? Ok, I agree. But those are hardly the 'land grabs' of an empire. Almost any of those nations* may ask the US to give up the base, and have at times. In several of those cases other UN or NATO nations, like the the Canadians and New Zealand, have military installations there too, but neither are those nations empires.

As you know, the Soviets like all the other historical empires extended their borders around numerous other countries (Balkans, Ukraine, Georgia, all the middle asian 'stans', etc) and vanished them from the map of political independence. They did not establish a 'base' but occupied the entire country by force. They subjected their people to the empire's law and drafted those peoples into the empire's military. Once there, the empire did not hold popular elections, then freely choose to pack up and leave.

*Guantanamo Bay might be the exception.

SixNein

I'm talking about the us history classes people have to take through grade/high school. The entire program is essentially an indoctrination of US ethnocentrism.

WhoWee

Care to offer any kind of support?

lostcauses10x

I can not argue this, yet it has been a long time ago that I whent through such. I doubt it has changed.

russ_watters

That doesn't appear to have anything to do with your post or my request...

Jack21222

As is pointed out in a later post, Kuwait's slant drilling underneath Iraq is a well-documented event. That you've never heard of it, and prefer to believe that Iraq was war-mongering for no reason whatsoever is a fault of yours, not mine.

mheslep

Then drop the strawman and document it with a primary source.

Jack21222

How about you do your own research into well-known history? I'm not your history teacher.

Here, since you can't be bothered to educate yourself, let me help. Is the New York Times a good enough source for you? Or do I need to build a time machine for you so you can witness the slant drilling first-hand?

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/23/op...pagewanted=all

mheslep

Just follow the rules ("primary sources should be used whenever possible"). I've seen the NYT piece and heard the story before. The NYT is reputable, but "there is evidence" is not a primary source.