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as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world. Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, bet

as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world. Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, better than the Roman and British empires! The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose denizens have proudly proclaimed it to be "the greatest country on Earth" or "the greatest nation in history", some beacon of freedom and humanism, throughout its existence: The farce that is American Exceptionalism.

GauntletWizard 13y ago
Have a good time chasing platonic ideals. You can sometimes achieve them in programming; People, however, are too broken to ever achieve them in politics.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mayneack 13y ago
  You don't always have to reach your goals to gain benefit from pursuing them.
foxhedgehog 13y ago
never a good idea to make the perfect the enemy of the good
rayiner 13y ago
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.
- oinksoft 13y ago
  Sure, but you'd hope he wouldn't deny that the other eye is out.
encoderer 13y ago
It's easy to forget that the American Revolution is what ignited the fire of liberty and republican ethos, and catalyzed all of today's democracies to end or augment monarchial rule. The world in the 18th century was not -- and today still is not -- able to grow and nurture a powerful country towards "absolute moral good." The world is still a primitive and dangerous place full of despots at worst in inequality at best. It's good to hold the US to a higher standard, but unfair IMO to critique with such loathing the way the OP did. Finally: It's certainly true that many of the ideals of the American Revolution were inspired by European writing on the subject. Not surprising considering most colonists in North America then were Europeans themselves. We can never know exactly how the 19th century would've unfolded had the British Empire not been so immature and insecure with themselves. They were a relatively young world power and they seem to have believed in the same age old "Domino Theory" that still trips up the US today. Had they been more wise in their choices, they would've granted the colonies freedom from Parliament's authority in exchange for full economic participation in the empire. Most likely you would've seen this unfold over the 19th century and quite possibly maintain itself to this day. Had America been a Sterling country, the British economic situation during WWI & WWII would be so vastly different that it's hard to even speculate. And if that were the case, how would that have changed the pace at which democracy unfolds across the European continent and around the world? I think it's easy and fair and accurate to argue that the spread of democratic and republican ideals was influenced and catalyzed by the 8 years of hot conflict during the American Revolution. I don't think you can over-state how inspiring a Saratoga or a Yorktown was.
- oinksoft 13y ago
  You're assuming the necessity of a great, essentially imperialistic power in the world. The source of the scathing criticisms you will often see coming from outside of the United States is the observation that misery was visited by some alien source. There's no doubt that villains abound .. the question is, does the world need a "global policeman"? The historical record shows that these powers, even when acting with the best intentions, usually lengthen suffering where they intervene by distorting local and regional power dynamics. And more often than not, the motives for selecting a given site at which to intervene are less than scrupulous (Britain in India, US in Iraq) or are perpendicular to the host's interests (Vietnam), in which case there is no excuse for the resulting fallout.
srumple 13y ago
>The reference point should be absolute moral good This is absolutely correct. However, that also applies to the rest of the world. So, what problem do we fix first? The USA's possibly illegal wiretapping, or state caused disappearances, state encouraged suicide bombings (on civilian targets), political prisoners, slavery, nuclear weapon development, attempted genocide? So, yeah, "greatest country on Earth" or greatest nation in history" may be going a bit far. But from what I can see, we should take care of the more egregious human rights issues first. It is the Law of Diminishing Returns. Preventing illegal wiretapping provides margin return compared to stopping the bloodshed in Syria. If we're going to have a discussion on how America is not a good nation, we do need to keep it in perspective, and build a priority list for how things in the world should change.

GauntletWizard 13y ago

Have a good time chasing platonic ideals. You can sometimes achieve them in programming; People, however, are too broken to ever achieve them in politics.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mayneack 13y ago
You don't always have to reach your goals to gain benefit from pursuing them.

foxhedgehog 13y ago

never a good idea to make the perfect the enemy of the good

rayiner 13y ago

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.

oinksoft 13y ago
Sure, but you'd hope he wouldn't deny that the other eye is out.

encoderer 13y ago

It's easy to forget that the American Revolution is what ignited the fire of liberty and republican ethos, and catalyzed all of today's democracies to end or augment monarchial rule. The world in the 18th century was not -- and today still is not -- able to grow and nurture a powerful country towards "absolute moral good." The world is still a primitive and dangerous place full of despots at worst in inequality at best. It's good to hold the US to a higher standard, but unfair IMO to critique with such loathing the way the OP did. Finally: It's certainly true that many of the ideals of the American Revolution were inspired by European writing on the subject. Not surprising considering most colonists in North America then were Europeans themselves. We can never know exactly how the 19th century would've unfolded had the British Empire not been so immature and insecure with themselves. They were a relatively young world power and they seem to have believed in the same age old "Domino Theory" that still trips up the US today. Had they been more wise in their choices, they would've granted the colonies freedom from Parliament's authority in exchange for full economic participation in the empire. Most likely you would've seen this unfold over the 19th century and quite possibly maintain itself to this day. Had America been a Sterling country, the British economic situation during WWI & WWII would be so vastly different that it's hard to even speculate. And if that were the case, how would that have changed the pace at which democracy unfolds across the European continent and around the world? I think it's easy and fair and accurate to argue that the spread of democratic and republican ideals was influenced and catalyzed by the 8 years of hot conflict during the American Revolution. I don't think you can over-state how inspiring a Saratoga or a Yorktown was.

oinksoft 13y ago
You're assuming the necessity of a great, essentially imperialistic power in the world. The source of the scathing criticisms you will often see coming from outside of the United States is the observation that misery was visited by some alien source. There's no doubt that villains abound .. the question is, does the world need a "global policeman"? The historical record shows that these powers, even when acting with the best intentions, usually lengthen suffering where they intervene by distorting local and regional power dynamics. And more often than not, the motives for selecting a given site at which to intervene are less than scrupulous (Britain in India, US in Iraq) or are perpendicular to the host's interests (Vietnam), in which case there is no excuse for the resulting fallout.

srumple 13y ago

>The reference point should be absolute moral good This is absolutely correct. However, that also applies to the rest of the world. So, what problem do we fix first? The USA's possibly illegal wiretapping, or state caused disappearances, state encouraged suicide bombings (on civilian targets), political prisoners, slavery, nuclear weapon development, attempted genocide? So, yeah, "greatest country on Earth" or greatest nation in history" may be going a bit far. But from what I can see, we should take care of the more egregious human rights issues first. It is the Law of Diminishing Returns. Preventing illegal wiretapping provides margin return compared to stopping the bloodshed in Syria. If we're going to have a discussion on how America is not a good nation, we do need to keep it in perspective, and build a priority list for how things in the world should change.