4 ms·
American were crazy since 1920!, well, since forever
by lotux 13y ago
American were crazy since 1920!, well, since forever
- pcvarmint 13y agoMainly since Woodrow Wilson, who gave us involvement in WWI, The Federal Reserve, The Income Tax, The Federal Trade Commission, The Clayton Act, The 17th Amendment direct election of U.S. Senators, The Espionage/Sedition Act. Ever since Wilson, we've been imperial.
- aaron-lebo 13y agoWilson gets criticized a lot, and I get that. But wouldn't you have to say that the imperialism at the lastest started during McKinley's administration and continued into Roosevelt's (consider for example Roosevelt's actions towards Colombia to get the Panama canal). But let's be fair, Wilson held out for a long, long time as far as WWI was concerned. Teddy would have got into the war 2 years earlier. I am interested in how the direct election of U.S. senators ties to imperialism?
- ewoodrich 13y agoI am interested in how everything but the Espionage/Sedition Act makes us "imperial". The FTC, really?
- Avshalom 13y agoWe've been explicitly imperial since at least Monroe, but really the US has been in the empire business since it was still a colony.
- jballanc 13y agoI've often wondered if history textbooks 500 years from now won't view the US as just a later off-shoot of the British empire, much as modern history books treat the Byzantine empire as a continuation of the Roman empire.
- philwelch 13y agoThe Byzantines considered themselves a continuation of the Roman Empire. That's why they were none too pleased when the Pope started crowning new Emperors in the West (first Charlemagne and later the Holy Roman Emperors).
- jballanc 13y agoIt's funny you mention that because in some respects the Ottomans, following the fall of Constantinople, also took up the mantle of "new new Roman empire". So, granted, after 200 or so years since separation most American's don't necessarily identify with the British empire, but who's to say what attitudes will be in another 200 years? (Also, I feel it's worth pointing out that if you asked most American's: "whose language is 'English'?", they would assert without a hint of irony that English belongs to America.)
- msh 13y agoManifest destiny is a bit older than that.