The American Empire - Again??

There are a few things that get me really, really ticked off. Complaining about the "American Empire" is one of them.

If you look at my other site, you'll notice that most everything I have for sale is related to a real empire. The Romans knew how to run an empire. Even the Byzantines had a pretty decent empire for a while. But the United States has never even come close to acting similarly.

We are not out conquering for pride. We are not out conquering for tribute. We are not out conquering for food. We are not trying to support the social structure of a failing state.

The author contends that every empire has some great cultural idea to spread. That is false. The spread of a cultural idea is just a side effect of empire building. Rome didn't conquer Egypt to spread the idea of Republicanism or aqueducts, they conquered Egypt for food.

Food, tribute, security and pride are the foundations of any empire. The US has food, has the ability to provide for our own security (if we would ever put our minds to it), we don't need tribute - we actually pay other states, and if pride were a real issue for us we would have completely conquered the entire Western Hemisphere by now.

But we do have a great cultural idea to spread, one that is relatively unique in history. Liberty.

Not democracy. Not republicanism. Liberty.

Our great idea is more powerful than Islamic fundamentalism. It is more powerful than communism. It is an ideology that believes in humanity. Instead of trying to repress certain traits or to make everyone equal in outcome, liberty allows every person to make their life the way that they want. The other ideologies all presuppose that man is evil and must be given rules and controls to prevent him from hurting himself or others. Liberty presupposes that man is good and able of making rational decisions that will benefit both himself and others.

Neither absolute is completely true, but I believe that the basic assumptions of liberty are closer to the truth. And so do most other people. If man is evil, why would Iranian students be calling for liberty's twin sister, freedom? Fundamentalism runs contrary to the human spirit; liberty quenches the thirst of the spirit.

We must remember that our great idea is not a form of government. Our government, our economy, our way of life are all derived from that basic idea of liberty.

As I read the article on Free Republic this morning, I was reading through the comments after the post and noticed that some people were keying in on this phrase:

"...but democracy is a vehicle for resolving disputes. It is not an ideology like communism or Islamic fundamentalism..."

Democracy (by which most people actually mean republicanism) is a product of our idea - liberty. Liberty and totalitarianism don't go together. A liberal form of government is required to most fully realize our idea. Therefore, we ended up with republicanism as the best way of protecting our liberty from the whims of tyrants and from the tyranny of the majority.

When we engage in nation building around the world, everyone looks at what tangible traits we bring to the table and then they decry of imperialism. They never realize the power of the intangible we bring. If liberty is such a bad thing, why do the nations of Europe still have, for the moment, representative forms of government? Why hasn't Japan reverted back to the reign of the Emperor? Why did the nations of Eastern Europe all change to representative forms of government?

Because liberty is a more powerful idea than communism, fundamentalism or any other -ism that's out there. Liberty speaks to the soul. The -isms speak down to the mind.

In Iraq, they are just beginning to find out about the idea again. They have not reached the point of unfettered liberty yet, but economically, they're experiencing it. And they're loving it. Their standard of living is already on the way up. But notice, that they are currently paying no taxes. What real empire doesn't collect taxes (also called tribute)?

We are not an empire. To become one, we would have to sacrifice our national foundation - liberty. As a people, we're not ready to do that.

We want to spread our idea because we, as a people, believe in the basic goodness of man. But we cannot impose it, we can only expose it. It is up to the other party to embrace liberty as their own.

Iraq was/is an exercise in ensuring our security. Afghanistan is also. Iran, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, wherever our travails take us next, we will bring our idea with us. If the people decide that they want to embrace it, we will support them in every way possible. If they don't want to, we will let them go the way of Western Europe, allowing them to establish a non-representative government. The choice is theirs, just as it always has been.

The American Empire. Great expansionist emperors like Augustus, Vespasian, Trajan and Hadrian would laugh at the "American Empire." They would be amazed at the empire building potential of the nation. They would be dumbfounded that we could let a little idea like liberty stand in the way of total domination of the known world. They didn't. They knew how to build and run an empire.

Like the author of the first article, they would never comprehend that we don't want an empire.

America is an idea, not an empire.