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Cause and effect go the other way. Actively pursuing a dominating international position was caused by the shift to more federal power. That came about mostly d

by burfog 8y ago

Cause and effect go the other way. Actively pursuing a dominating international position was caused by the shift to more federal power. That came about mostly due to: 1. the Civil War, establishing a new level of federal supremacy 2. the 16th amendment, establishing a federal income tax 3. the 17th amendment, which stopped states from choosing senators who would rein in federal power Other factors may be: 4. abuse of the commerce clause, with West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish and the end of the Lochner era. 5. ease of movement and communication (rail, cars, radio, TV) reducing feelings of identification with individual states 6. the speed and complexity of modern war making it necessary to continuously maintain an active-duty military with an active weapons supply industry

wahern 8y ago
I didn't mean to imply the direction of causality, only that they were related and that the relation elucidates the factors (e.g. how identity is defined, how interests are aligned) we should be looking at to better understand and categorize the behaviors. Colonialism and imperialism are labels that imply particular motivations and dynamics. Just because America did some [horrible] things that resembled the things other powers did doesn't mean the same narrative can or should apply. American exceptionalism is real. We're just not always exceptional in the ways we think we are. And we're not exceptional in being exceptional. China is exceptional. Western Europe (and now Europe) is exceptional. Imperialism and colonialism is reflection of Western European (and Japanese, in so far as they deliberately imported it) exceptionalism. It makes no more sense to use colonialism and imperialism to describe American history as it does using Manifest Destiny to describe European history. Likewise with slavery--you're not going to get very far in terms of addressing the legacy of slavery by lumping the American slave trade in with the European slave trade, despite the obvious and substantial and, indeed, causal relationships. There are infinite parallels to draw, but doing so doesn't contribute much to understanding what happened and why it happened. The law of tort distinguishes cause in fact and proximate cause. A proximate cause must be a cause in fact, but a cause in fact isn't a proximate cause. Scholars can identify all sorts of causes of fact about American occupation. And they can show how those causes of fact are identical to the causes of fact in colonialism and imperialism. But so what? Broader historical narratives aren't based on a set of causes of fact, but on higher-order dynamics--the proximate causes of why things happened the way they did.

by burfog 8y ago

wahern 8y ago

I didn't mean to imply the direction of causality, only that they were related and that the relation elucidates the factors (e.g. how identity is defined, how interests are aligned) we should be looking at to better understand and categorize the behaviors. Colonialism and imperialism are labels that imply particular motivations and dynamics. Just because America did some [horrible] things that resembled the things other powers did doesn't mean the same narrative can or should apply. American exceptionalism is real. We're just not always exceptional in the ways we think we are. And we're not exceptional in being exceptional. China is exceptional. Western Europe (and now Europe) is exceptional. Imperialism and colonialism is reflection of Western European (and Japanese, in so far as they deliberately imported it) exceptionalism. It makes no more sense to use colonialism and imperialism to describe American history as it does using Manifest Destiny to describe European history. Likewise with slavery--you're not going to get very far in terms of addressing the legacy of slavery by lumping the American slave trade in with the European slave trade, despite the obvious and substantial and, indeed, causal relationships. There are infinite parallels to draw, but doing so doesn't contribute much to understanding what happened and why it happened. The law of tort distinguishes cause in fact and proximate cause. A proximate cause must be a cause in fact, but a cause in fact isn't a proximate cause. Scholars can identify all sorts of causes of fact about American occupation. And they can show how those causes of fact are identical to the causes of fact in colonialism and imperialism. But so what? Broader historical narratives aren't based on a set of causes of fact, but on higher-order dynamics--the proximate causes of why things happened the way they did.