In Praise of American Empire

I'm not looking for a debate or anything. I just thought I'd post this because I think it is interesting. In my personal opinion, it's pretty accurate.

that is why al-quada can suck it

never use the word American and Empire in the same sentence again.

Looking for empire's? Go do your history:

Rome
England
Spain

hmmmm

oh look no America

And in my view America is no more an Empire then russia was 50 years ago....

Geez why do Americans think they rule the world.... you don't.... get over it.


(yes I do realise that due to this post on a mainly American board I may suffer from:

Abuse
Argumentative comments
Being banned

)

Sounds like a plastic burger.

Oh look, no GREEK or PERSIAN empires (note also the lack of an apostrophe in "empires") either. If you're going to be sarcastic, at least do it right.

Since when was Span considered an empire?

France during the Napoleanic period came closer to being an empire than Spain. And it wasn't even close...

There was never an English Empire either if i recall correctly.

I would never consider France an Empire. Britain huge Empire - the saying went "The sun never sets on the British Empire". Spain did indeed have a large empire and there are many others that can be listed, as you're most likely aware of.

Yes ok I typed that in a hurry and punctuation was not my concern.

Initiating countdown to Mort-Hog's "America is horrible and Europe is the world‘s godsend" post.

LOL! Is Europe really much better then America.........?

I hold neither in great esteem.

LOL! leik ya tehy boht sux!

America is not an empire, at least not in the traditional sense. America has no colonies.

I agree with this statement!

Empire: A political unit having an extensive territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by a single supreme authority.

The territory included in such a unit.

Basically not America

THe US was far more an empire when it was expanding across North America than it is now (That's a great paper topic for history, BTW)

We are not a terrestrial empire, as such attacks on other countries would have far reaching political outcires.

America has a sort of psuedo political empire. We have become sort of a "world police", and people begin to more readily side with the United states in desicions.

I agree about how America often sides with the "lesser evil" and how we try to raise to "higher expectations" and influence in the world.

The british empire has been falling apart since the turn of last century, and why do the americans act like they rule the world, i reckon that america will collapse when everyone starts using hydrogen and other clean fuels, and if you lot are concerned about global warming too why dont you use unleaded petrol like europw have been using for years...

Well to be honest there is, of course, a lot America has no control over but wishes it did. I can see where your going with your opinion on America.

Not turning this into a debate or anything but surely America as a 'better' country won't last long depending on your next President! :p

So...the U.S. will collapse because suddenly we'll be able to ignore the middle east? And the U.S. hasn't used leaded fuel for a few decades.

Hmmm... before making a stupid post and risking looking like a jack-*** read the article, and then realize that you also left out a handful of the world's largest empires in your list:

Athens
Alexander the Great's
Charlemagne's

Or you could save yourself the time in reading the article and still refrain from making an *** of yourself by just checking the dictionary


Also, American colonies= Puerto Rico, Guam, Guantanamo

you may not think of them as such, but they are.

If you want to think of America as an Empire, it's more similar to the Athenian Empire. If you want to watch an interesting film, there is one put out by the BBC about the similarities of the Romans and Americans.

If America collapses because of its dependence on oil then the entire world will collapse because of its dependence not only on oil, but on America.

one note, America banned making new cars that uses leaded fuels many many years ago

And to think: America used to have a highly isolationist foreign policy. Sometimes I wish it would go back to the way it was. When I first heard about this policy in like sixth grade, I totally agreed with it. Aside from the economic aspects of isolationism, I think the United States could benefit from many of its precepts right now.

Although I have nothing against America, or American's.. Since I regard them as nothing more than people, like I am. I think it is time that america got its head out of its *** and stopped thinking it was the greatest thing to ever happen to the earth. You can argue all you want, but it's well known that american's think their country is the greatest, best, whatever you wanna call it. It's not.

I believe a comedian ____ Black from the show "Black on Broadway" put the scenario best.. (cant remember his first name)

"Think about it like this. If you worked in an office building, and every single day, a particular worker came into the room and shouted "I"M THE GREATEST HERE. AND ALL YOU SNIVVELING ****S WOULD DIE WITHOUT ME HAHA" you would have killed him by the first week"

/\ This in my opinion is the attitude that america has created. They are the worker, and the rest of the world is the people that can't stand hearing about it anymore.

America has done great things, and will continue to do great things. I'm not bashing america. But come on, you ARENT the greatest, you never have been, and you never will be. Whatever happened to world equality anyways.

Well, I would be very surprised if any major technological breakthrough that significantly lessens the dependence on oil won't have a strong American investment. The reality is, nowadays, that America is the world leader in amazingly many areas of technology. And they ARE investing in such energy research as we speak.

And unleaded fuel has nothing to do with global warming... The aim was to reduce the lead pollution of nature.

I agree with Freelancer.

It will never happen

Actually, England's empire did the world alot of good. It just didn't know when to back off.

It ended when more than one government or form of it existed in the world.



Calculating the end result of World War I had we followed our isolationist policy is damn near incalculable due to the endless number of possibilities.

However, I think the end result of World War II is fairly obvious: Hitler would have remained unchallenged in Europe, and Japan would have remained unchallenged in Asia. By the time we would have decided to attack (i.e., an assault on the mainland), the majority, if not all, of our allies would be defeated and under Axis control.

Yay, isolationism.

I know. Those dark ages...only set us back a thousand years!

yeah romes empire was way more technologically advanced with even running water to homes and a better understanding of science. Then along comes britain and they literally do take many many steps backwards. Being an american i do not think we are the greatest or any of that. Personally I believe we have the best army, but our society sickens me, being a fast-food nation it really describes are way of life with obesity everywhere. I went to france in feb and i do not recall seeing one person who was overweight. Also our cars for the most part are cheap and are made for lease purposes rather then purcahsing. Germany makes far superior cars that last much longer and use better engine designs. America is content with the V6, an engine it equips with almost every kind of car they make. It is mostly underpowered and eats gas. We're not the best but we do the most to try to be, and that warrants us a higher standing then most countries.

Werent the allies winning WW2 before Pearl Harbour and the american's finally decided to step in and involve themselves int he war?.... They might not have been winning by a long huge gap, but they were still winning..At least, that's what I was tought by my history teachers. American involvement helped, but wasn't really needed until that particular moment occurred?

Yes, millions of deaths with Russians and still more from the other countries...I call that winning. The only thing the Allies had going for them was Germany was making the great Napoleonic mistake, and it cost them.

Saying that america ISN'T an empire is ignorant. It's quite obvious that america currently plays the absolutelly largest part in the world as a whole. That's unignorable. Does that mean we rule the world? Absolutelly not. THAT is the idiotic american assumption.

JediKirby

Japan was overrunning Asia and was quickly advancing on Australia, France was a push-over, Russia was suffering hundreds of thousands of losses, Spain was abstaining (due to internal civil war), and Britain was suffering nightly bombing raids. Britain would have been unable to perform any kind of land assault like D-Day without the help of the U.S., and I question if it could have managed any kind of effective land assault at all.

This reminds me of an Anti-americanism article I read at this forum.

You're thinking of WWI.

Are you sure you're in hte right time period? The British Empire developed durring the Renaissance

Ah ok, I wasn't too sure about which war it was in.

The British Empire rose at the fall of the Roman empire. They overlap a couple hundred years. Trust me, I'm in the right time period.