Quote: I think it was the Glorious Revolution in England in the late 1680's that really advanced the cause of freedom. The king and queen chose to turn the British crown into a Constitutional Monarchy. There's this idea that the founding fathers rebelled against some horrible tyrants, but it really had more to do with taxes and economy than anything else.
No, it really had to do with Americans being taxed with representation in their own affairs. "No taxation without representation" might have even been a catchy slogan at the time...
Oh, and Gandhi might disagree with you about England advancing the cause of freedom...
Quote: Also, the American government fucked over the Indians pretty good. Sure, it was started by Europeon powers, but the first 100 years after the Declaration of Independence was spent on aquiring what was left of the Indian land on this continent.
Basically.
Quote: The US was one of the last big holdouts towards slavery (which ended due to a shifting economy base and abolitionist protestors).
That thing called the "Civil War" might have had something to do with it, also. I think more American lives were lost in that war, than any other.
Quote: The US didn't enter the WWs out of nobility. We entered out of vengeance for attacks that declassified information shows our own government allowed to happen.
"Vengeance"? That's a funny way to label the act of protecting ourselves. I guess we just should have asked the Germans to stop sinking our merchant ships in WWI, and we should have looked the other way with the bombing of Pearl Harbor in WWII.
And we did try to stay out of the wars, since we didn't want to be labeled "Yankee imperialist dogs" or something, but we did fund the allies in both wars, before we were drawn in.
Quote: Also, the US fucked over Iran in the 1950's (which layed the seeds for the anti-sentiment there today), helped build up Saddam, and pretty much started Al queda.
Iran fucked themselves over (really their leader did) by nationalizing the oil industry in the 50's. We are currently trying to undo our mistakes of trusting Saddam and helping the Afghans (who will later become Al queda) defeat the brutal Soviet invasion.
Quote: Meanwhile our "War on Terror" and "Enduring Freedom" has ignored Africa and countries with REAL WMDs.
If we expanded our scope, people would be bitching about Yankee imperialism. And we're good, but we can't solve all the world's problems.
