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

[Aliantha]

UG, the fact that you can't agree that the US has employed imperialist policies historically is precisely how this imperialist behaviour is propagated.

Somewhat in the favour of the US though is the fact that every world power has committed the same mistakes. There's not one ever that didn't try to promote what they saw as the best way to live to the heathen natives.

I guess that doesn't mean the US is better. Just the same. No different to the British or the French or the Greeks or anyone else.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

UG, the fact that you can't agree that the US has employed imperialist policies historically is precisely how this imperialist behaviour is propagated.

That does not follow.

The United States in a sense began as the first anti-imperialist league, putting teeth in that league during the war 1775-1783.

While European powers vied to lay hold of tracts of land outside Europe, stimulated by the economic ideas that came to be called "mercantilism," we, having been on the short end of the mercantilist deal as colonies, adopted instead a free-trade capitalism and spent the entire nineteenth century developing it and its full ramifications.

At the end of the nineteenth century, and the height of many European global empires, we came late, halfheartedly, and frankly scantly, into imperialistic ambitions, taking over a few remnant shards of Spain's empire, and leaving at least one, Cuba, completely clear -- Cuba was running its own affairs soon enough after the Spanish-American War of 1898. Our relationship with Panama once it was detached, with our well-known connivance and support, from Colombia, was only quasi-imperial at its worst. More of a special relationship -- and as temporary, in the end, as our getting into the Philippines. Note that neither Panama nor the Philippines got plundered, used as cash cows, or as gold mines.

What I call our doings in those times is an aberration from our fundamental habit, which is now once again in force, and has been for several decades. Running an empire does not mesh with capitalism or with free trade. This is why we left those places to their own devices within decades.

Turning our attention to the case of Hawaii, let's see: were the Hawaiians somehow wrong to petition, in the due and proper form, for statehood, and to vote to join the Union? Sugarpop, one can always find malcontents, can one not? Now really, are they anything but?

TGRR, your disbelieving laughter does not constitute a successful rebuttal, nor does it even attempt a counter-argument. It is, however, a solid indication that you are not a businessman, and are quite ignorant of business. A knowledgeable business man would not have laughed. We're traders. That's business. Nothing happens in economy until somebody sells something. Turns out what's good for business is good for humanity at large, though it is always possible for businessmen to misunderstand where the good actually lies. We see that happen so often that we must expect it to crop up in almost every case, and be prepared in every case to sort the matter out.

To return to the top of the above paragraph, merely annoying me does not validate you. Do something better. And it's okay if you take your time and think it out.