Submitted by Chaos, Aug 6, 2007 10:51

You mean that the past wasn't one of perpetual war? I don't remember the US or any nation having a period of total peace. The US usually hasn't managed to avoid major foreign conflicts for even a single decade, whether it be with the Indians, interventions in Latin America, or the wars you actually learn about in school. This romantic view of American history that you Ron Paul nuts have is just weird. The Founders of the Republic were clear that they thought their ideas should expand around the world - I think the argument that the "White Man's Burden" and "Manifest Destiny" have turned into "spreading democracy and protecting human rights" is pretty convincing. If you're an American patriot you're an American expansionist. After the first World War that means political and cultural imperialism instead of territorial imperialism. It's not something Ron Paul or anyone can stop. Iraq may quiet its power for a while - as arguments over the spread of slavery also quieted the power of "Manifest Destiny" for forty years, from the 1850s to the Spanish-American War - but it will always return until the world is Americanized or America declines as a great power. It is doubtful that America will decline lower than the status of a great power in our lifetimes so it's just something you poor neo-isolationists are going to have to deal with.

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