[DanaC]

In my view, there's nothing here to not like.

And in my viewthere's plenty to like and plenty to dislike.

Oh, the same right by which you did, for the same reasons, and quite frankly in the identical spirit: you are of our ilk thereby.

The only right we had, was the right borne of power. We had the ships, the guns and the political will. That didn't make it right that we did what we did. Personally, I think we did a lot of damage and stunted a lot of cultures that had their own parallel path of development to follow. We also left behind several power-vacuums, a multitude of civil wars and innumerable grievances which continued to play out long after we retreated back behind our garden hedge:P

Also, whilst we may have spouted about our governance being 'for the good of the world' and whilst we may have claimed that we were 'civilising' the nations we took under our aegis, the reality was very different. In reality, we were acting entirely in self-interest, and didn't really believe the 'natives' could ever truly become civilised....not really proper people you see? What we in fact did, was tramp about the world, rape their resources, install ourselves as rulers and then redraw their maps and borders with gay abandon.

The just plain English idea that limited government is good government (and that government is best that governs least) is the core idea that we Americans try and spread.

Yes, we used to have that attitude. Then we realised that without some kind of safeguards many of our people were lving in poverty. We also realised that without some kind of proscription against it, many employers were abusing their role and their workers were remaining poor. We also realised that, if left to private enterprise many of the things we needed as a nation were taking second place to the desire to make profit.

In short, we changed our minds and decided that government has a role and a duty to ensure that all our people are provided for at least with the basics of survival.