What's the title going to be? "I Duh'd it My Way"?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Bruce, Bruce, Bruce... do you REALLY think you've made a telling argument to the thoughtful people with this juvenile jeer? Please try to offer an idea I can respect.

I can't give you an idea you can respect until you pull your head out of your ass and see what's really going on in the world. Imperialism is not the way to go.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I can't give you an idea you can respect until you pull your head out of your ass and see what's really going on in the world. Imperialism is not the way to go.

Bruce, if you think the United States is imperialist, you've not understood very much of US history at all. We have a conspicuously anti-imperialist habit, we've had it all our nation's life, and about our only departure from it was the Philippines and this was a) quite light, and b) temporary; it seemed more our following fashion than trying for empire. We noticed early on just plain open trading worked a lot better than the mercantilist economic theory that led to empire-building, by conquest or by lesser violence. It can be said of our early nation that the thirteen colonies were the first modern anti-Imperialist league. Though empire was the foreign-policy fashion then and through the nineteenth century, viz., Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, China, and later, Japan -- an empire pretty much defined a first-class power. We knocked Spain completely out of the empire business -- nobody else did. That one was ours. We finished them off after a lengthy imperial decline.

If you think I'm some kind of imperialist, all I can say is you're not paying any attention at all. That's not something I can respect either.

You've been pretty thoroughly misled by Communist rhetoric about "imperialism," whereby they dissed it while unabashedly practicing it. So, in the end, what is there for me to respect, again? Let's just put it this way: I'll look for respectable ideas from you. Now might be a good time for you to have them. I know you're not stupid, but the idea of "US Imperialism" should be buried by now, and not taken seriously by you. With you throwing ideas like that one around, are you quite certain you know what's going on in the world?

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Bruce, if you think the United States is imperialist, you've not understood very much of US history at all.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh, yes, all those interventions at the request of United Fruit were just horseplay. We didn't really steal Hawaii, or crush the Philippines, or mess with Costa Rica and Haiti for 130 years.

None of that stuff actually happened. No, really.

[TGRR]

U.S. Intervention in Hawaiian Revolution
1893
Internal Rebellion & Foreign Intervention

The Spanish-American War
1898
Inter-State War

U.S. Intervention in Samoan Civil War
1898-1899
Civil War & Foreign Intervention

U.S.-Philippine War
1899-1902
Colonial War, War of Imperialism

Boxer Rebellion
1900
Internal Rebellion & Foreign Intervention
Chinese Government & "Boxer" Rebels

The Moro Wars
1901-1913
Colonial Wars
Philippine Muslim Rebels

U.S. Intervention in Panamanian Revolution
1903
Secessionist Revolution & Foreign Intervention
Colombia

The Banana Wars
1909-1933
Civil Wars & Foreign Intervention
Various Rebel Groups In Central America

U.S. Occupation of Vera Cruz
1914
Inter-State War
Mexico

[TGRR]

Let's not even get into the more recent trade shows, like Vietnam or Desert Storm. All but about 6 American wars (Revolution, 1812, Shay's Rebellion, Bleeding Kansas, WWII, Korea) have been at the behest of monied American interests.

We might not have had a colonial office, but our imperialism is just as real as England's or France's.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by TGRR

All but about 6 American wars (Revolution, 1812, Shay's Rebellion, Bleeding Kansas, WWII, Korea) have been at the behest of monied American interests.

Inasmuch as the only American interests there are are monied to one degree or another -- they are traders -- and they in their turn make even those Americans not employed by them monied also, so what? America's business is business, and about the only thing rulers can do with business is mess it up.

The monied interests are invariably your interests, in the grand scheme of things. And mine no less, of course.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Inasmuch as the only American interests there are are monied to one degree or another

Wow.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by TGRR

Oh, yes, all those interventions at the request of United Fruit were just horseplay. We didn't really steal Hawaii, or crush the Philippines, or mess with Costa Rica and Haiti for 130 years.

.

Sorry, TG, but that is ill-considered.

By comparison with actual, permanent empire building, horseplay is exactly what interventions in protection of US interests from things like expropriation by local-dictator men on horseback was. We'd go in, sort the matter more or less well, and then we'd take off. Look up how many times that happened -- it's a political act typical of Gap states.

,
That is not the action of builders of empires, and that is very much our actions for those hundred and thirty years.

The Philippines were not crushed. They developed. Remember, they had Spanish rule to remember. They don't like Spain as much as they do us, even today. That should tell you a little something. Will it ever?

"Steal Hawaii"??? What, do the Hawaiians want it back to establish an autonomous collective? [/Monty Python & The Holy Grail voice]

Seriously, TGRR, your idea of "imperialism" is largely at variance with the historical examples. See, you've been taken in by another dumb leftist idea, where I have not.

Try Max Boot, The Savage Wars Of Peace for a good look at the whole.

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Sorry, TG, but that is ill-considered.

By comparison with actual, permanent empire building, horseplay is exactly what interventions in protection of US interests from things like expropriation by local-dictator men on horseback was. We'd go in, sort the matter more or less well, and then we'd take off. Look up how many times that happened -- it's a political act typical of Gap states.

,
That is not the action of builders of empires, and that is very much our actions for those hundred and thirty years.

Tell it to Smedley Butler. He had a thing or two to say on the subject, and he has a bit more credibility than you.

And we didn't stay in Hawaii? What?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Meanwhile, In Pakistan... interesting doings in the Swat Valley.

Yeah, that Swat.