One of the most basic reasons the Founding Fathers fought for the 2nd Amendment is because they were extremely wary of the new standing armies that could be used to oppress the people.
I would say that issue is even more pressing now than when they made it law for themselves.
Standing armies have always been extremely expensive. But as commerce and thus state wealth took off in the 17th and 18th centuries, standing armies became more feasible for regents to maintain. Obviously, they deployed these armies against enemies external and internal.
The US may have by necessity later adopted a standing army as the world became truly international. But if the premise of the 2A was, from the beginning, to check the state army’s power vs its citizens, then when the US adopted a standing army, the 2A only becomes *more* critical.
When you have just the most basic understanding of history, and why these laws were codified by the guys who established the republic, the logic snaps into place immediately. Again, to undo the logic of the laws we live under, you have to erase the history that led to them.
One way to understand the American Revolution is that, even as colonies separated by an ocean, the increasing financial/technological power of Nations made them more and more vulnerable to what they thought they’d escaped from, at great personal cost. They were reacting to not just “muh kings” or whatever new age of progress the Fathers embodied, but also the “progressive” historical processes that allowed kings to suddenly wield more power than they ever had across the entire feudal era. So the Revolution can be seen as a reaction *against* this centralization of power. “For as long as you can keep it.”
A core part of that, from the very start, was that the ultimate body of force would lie not in the new King’s army, but in the people and its underlying will.
This might seem self-evident. But with just a bit of added history of the then very-modern standing army, that none of us are taught in school, all attempts to undo the underlying historical logic of *why* our Founders needed the 2A are seen in a very different light.
One that, applied to the conditions we now live within —under the largest standing army in the world, under the largest bureaucracy in the world, under the world’s imperial power— it becomes far, far easier to understand why the people who’ve since stolen control over all those conditions to insist the 2nd Amendment now has to be dismantled.
Since it remains the only real American right, alongside the 1st.
Excellent assessment.
From my personal lifetime of experience, the need for the Second Amendment has never been more clear than right now. We cannot allow the goons who have seized this country to succeed. They must be stopped. Do not comply. I sure as hell will not be thrown in any “Camp”. Alive, that is.
gwbnycMay 28, 2022, 10:08 AM
I have zero military experience.
Milley has already highjacked the executive once that we know of, and, honestly, just looking him over my common sense tells me he’d set federal troops on civilians.
We’ve heard the guy and his woke talk, he’s one of them, and he’s on tap.
To your remark, yes. A person would be crazy to surrender weapons at any time, especially now.
ghostsniperMay 28, 2022, 10:37 AM
I think of the 2nd amendment not as a right, for it is not, but rather a restraint. A barrier that demands the gov’t to “not go there”. Hands off.
The reason the constitution can’t provide rights is because they are inherent, you already had all your rights the moment you were born. Thus, “…the right of the people…”, the 2nd amendment acknowledges that right, then it goes on to demand that the gov’t “…shall not be infringed.”, to not tread on it. This is fairly clear stuff and it is not really possible for people with a basic understanding of the english language to misunderstand. I read somewhere that the entire constitution was written such that anyone with a 6th grade education could easily understand it.
I have always thought of my right to possess guns as a property right, which includes everything I own including my own body. It is my right to use or dispose of anything I own as I see fit and anyone that chooses to violate my property right is acting as a criminal and must be stopped at all cost.
There is no such thing as “the greater good”. A society is no more than the balance of all the individuals it comprises. If you violate the rights of the individual you have violated the rights of the society. The very notion of a “greater good” is a nullification of itself, a meaningless utterance.
Further, the right to own my own body includes the right to protect it through any means I choose. You don’t get to limit the means in which I choose to protect myself only to then attack me under said limit.
Therefore, any man that tries to limit my means of protecting myself does so under the idea of slavery in that they own me and have say over my life. They themselves would not prefer to live that way.
In summation, my right to my own life and everything I possess is inviolate and not dependent upon any words written by man on parchment. After all, it’s “…just a goddam piece of paper!”.
LagmanMay 28, 2022, 1:07 PM
ghostsniper,
I was also going to comment on Gerard’s use of “right” in the essay’s last sentence.
I agree with what you state but suggest that your use of the term “restraint” in your first sentence understates what the Second Amendment in particular and all ten in the Bill of Rights represent – explicit documentation that (not only are “rights” inherent in each sovereign citizen, flowing from G-d or “nature” – reader’s preference) the powers of the federal government are limited and granted by the People through their States. Hence the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
P.S. Gerard, Very good piece, notwithstanding your misuse of the concept of “right”.
VanderleunMay 28, 2022, 2:19 PM
I have to underscore here that I didn’t write this. The 17cShytePoster did. Full link at the beginning under the illustration. I think I need to make it more prominent.
LagmanMay 28, 2022, 3:47 PM
Gerard,
Apologies. Noted. I mis read the title given the “by-line”.
Good choice “publisher / editor” notwithstanding misuse of the concept of “right”.
LagmanMay 28, 2022, 3:44 PM
Coincidentally, from another site I visited today (third sentence in penultimate paragraph):
“The natural law rights bestowed upon man by the Divine Creator are eternal, immutable, inalienable, and absolute.”
Since it remains the only real American right, alongside the 1st.
This is the issue that will be the essence of CW2.
And why the Left is desperately pushing “muh gun control” once again,
While stripping warriors from the military.
LagmanMay 28, 2022, 1:06 PM
ghostsniper,
I was also going to comment on Gerard’s use of “right” in the essay’s last sentence.
I agree with what you state but suggest that your use of the term “restraint” in your first sentence understates what the Second Amendment in particular and all ten in the Bill of Rights represent – explicit documentation that (not only are “rights” inherent in each sovereign citizen, flowing from G-d or “nature” – reader’s preference) the powers of the federal government are limited and granted by the People through their States. Hence the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
P.S. Gerard, Very good piece, notwithstanding your misuse of the concept of “right”.
FooMay 28, 2022, 11:54 AM
Heard by credible source anecdotally the USAFA graduating class has been RIF’d by half, per Biden Executive Order and
forbidden to comment about it.
On permanent hold, no pay, no benefits.
Anyone know more?
Casey KlahnMay 28, 2022, 1:15 PM
HolyFukkinShit, man. The standing army is by no means “the largest standing army in the world, under the largest bureaucracy in the world, under the world’s imperial power”. Wrong on all three counts. The US Army in 1945 was north of 8 million, while the whole US military now is just a scratch over 2 million all members active, reserve and sailors and airmen. The army is 1.1 million, I think. Not an empire, and bureaucracies have abounded in history but perhaps you might be right on just that one point.
Otherwise, I agree with the assessment that the 2A is a guarantee that we are always on the cusp of violent revolution: codified. The people are an irregular army in themselves, and anyone that deludes himself into this army not being a counter to the US Gubmint is mad.
Good job. Carry on.
PS: Milley said he was apolitical while shitting directly on Trump’s head. What he’s too stupid to realize is that he was shitting on our heads – the peoples’. Now, he’s bent at the hips for anything the progz want up to and including shrinking the military for political leverage. Now, think about this: the gubmint also doesn’t trust the standing army. That, Private Numbnutz, is sum shit.
Maybe I need more .308 and fewer eggs and bread.
VanderleunMay 28, 2022, 2:20 PM
Well, he did indeed exaggerate a bit for effect but what about this one?
KCKMay 28, 2022, 5:03 PM
Fukn A
I knew it was an outlink post, BTW. Yes, I do like exaggeration sometimes. I’d kill for a good Scotch RN.
ghostsniperMay 28, 2022, 2:57 PM
Not just hunters will be behind every blade of grass.
Throughout history armies have joined in revolution for the right reasons. The US military are crippled by not only standing orders and dumb fuck rules, they are led by truly inept men and woman.
That said never ever underestimate your enemy. This government is in fact my enemy. I have zero respect, I recognize the surveillance network that suddenly “ Popped Up”, was never designed to thwart bad guys, But every citizen in this nation.
Again, the wrong Americans are dying! We The People have whittled this options selection down to zero. Our last option, is in fact our final option.
Fight, Fuck, or go for your gun! are ALL tools of war. Comes down to how you best utilize the tools, the weapons the people who recognize this next double innings gonna be for all the marbles! Using sex as a Intel tool is as old as,,, well its an old tool.
ghostsniperMay 28, 2022, 5:41 PM
And we all know there is “No tool like an old tool.”
Tho 2000 miles away this dood is on my team.
Standing armies have been for 6000 years a function of empire. The first example we have is the army of Akkad under Sargon the Great (c. 2334–2279 BC). The reason for the lack of a standing army was due the economic basis for all early societies, agriculture. Men could not be permanently removed from food production. In a time of war citizens could be called up for a short time. These part-time soldiers had scarce any training, and so most armies from Sumer to those of Classical Greece relied upon a military phalanx of locked shield formations. This tactic needed but little experience to be effective.
There was hardly any change in the basic military structure for 3000 years. Even the early Roman Republic (509 – 241 BC) used the phalanx, and would call up men to make war on a temporary basis.
What led to permanent standing armies was due to 2 factors:
1. The change from agriculture to a limited international trade. This economic shift allowed a society to become wealthier and so freed up men to form a standing army. As soon as the Roman Republic acquired her first overseas possession—Sicily—she began the rudiments of a professional standing army, a necessary change in order to militarily control occupied territories. Athens had no standing army—her defeat of the Persians at Marathon (490 BC) was accomplished by a citizens’ militia–until her shift to empire under Pericles (495 – 429 BC).
2. The shift to empire. A standing army allowed rulers to engage in military adventurism, seizing foreign lands as they could, which required foreign military bases.
Of course, Sparta herself from her beginnings had a standing army. The reason was that the entire city-state of Sparta was a standing army. She was able to field every male citizen—at most 8000 men—because she forced 250,000 helot slaves to work in agriculture.
Not even the US had a real standing army until after World War II. Before then her military was remarkably small. Men would be temporarily called up to fight the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Mexican War (1846 – 1848), the Civil War, the Spanish-American War (1898) and World Wars I and II. Each of these wars saw massive numbers of volunteers as well.
It was after World War II that America made her shift to a world-wide empire. For that reason she has at this writing 600 military bases on foreign soil.
Incidentally, much nonsense has been written about the uses of citizen militias, especially in the American War of Independence. Washington spoke and wrote widely against them, believing that only a professional army could defeat a professional army. It needs to be said that the bloodiest victory man-for-man in British History was at Bunker Hill (1775). The Americans used primarily her militia. Also, the war in the south against Cornwallis was more or less based on American militia, a war that led to American victory at Yorktown (1781). The Battle of King’s Mountain (1780) is an excellent example of the use of militia to achieve military victory.
If I ever cease to write a lengthy piece of History for American Digest at least once a week, I am dead. Or in jail. Or in Detroit.
KCKMay 30, 2022, 12:28 AM
The large post World WarII military was necessitated by the Cold War, not a move of empire in or of itself. Forward posting: again, a strategic move. Where does America demand taxes of other nations?
The nearest thing I can think of that might support your theory has been our direct-action espionage, but you’d need to show intent to rule.
Still can’t understand why you insist on saying America is empirical. Of its faults, that ain’t one of them.
On Amazon there are 10,000 titles concerning “American Empire”.
We need not quibble over the meaning of the word “empire”. It is not the case that either America is an empire or she is not. But it is indisputable that the US in her foreign affairs acts and has acted exactly as other empires have in the past, especially the British, the Roman and the Athenian. If it talks like an empire, if it looks like an empire, if it acts like an empire…
During and after the American adventure in the Philippines (1899 – 1902) there actually was a national conversation in the US about the morality of the war, especially because at that time the American people were strongly averse to acquiring overseas territories inhabited by “little brown brothers”. Remember that after the US victory over Mexico (1848) she could have easily annexed one-half of that country but refused and withdrew her troops. This recalls the early Roman excursions into Greece during the 2nd century BC.
McKinley acquiesced in agreeing to US occupation and governance of the Philippines—and grabbed Hawaii in the bargain—echoing the manner in which the Romans expanded into the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 170 – 30 BC). The election of 1900 pitted the imperialist policies of McKinley against the anti-imperialist platform of William Jennings Bryan. The American people chose imperialism, and McKinley was handily reelected. This resembles the Athenian people choosing the out-and-out expansionist Pericles as “strategos” year after year, which marked the beginnings of the Athenian Empire.
But it was the uninhibited imperialist Teddy Roosevelt who really got the American Empire rolling. Besides his activities in Cuba and Puerto Rico, Roosevelt simply stole the isthmus of Panama from Colombia and created the Panamanian nation in 1903. Such actions would have greatly impressed any Roman consul worth his salt.
The adoption by Roosevelt of the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan in his “The Influence of Seapower upon History” (1890) led to the creation of the world-wide US navy, which Roosevelt sent around the world (1907) to secure coaling stations and overseas markets, and to maintain sea lanes for trade. Athens did the same thing—minus the coal—as she expanded into the Eastern Mediterranean after the election of Pericles (460 BC). It also resembles the British naval expansion around the world after the fall of Quebec (1759) in the French and Indian War.
I could write much more—especially concerning the actions of the US after World War II—but I have to end this tirade someplace.
ghostsniperMay 31, 2022, 4:52 AM
I have indexed 3 books on Theodore and he was an asshole to the core.
“The Golden Lad” demonstrates his mental abuse of his sons.
In the end, he cracked like a little gurl.
I also indexed books on Delano too and it seems the whole family was demented.
His wife Eleanor was his cousin.
Ok then. Rather than “American Empire” how about “American Hegemony”?
1. The predominance of one state or social group over others.
2. Predominance; preponderance; leadership; specifically, headship or control exercised by one state over another or others, as through confederation or conquest: originally applied to such a relation often existing among the states of ancient Greece.
3. Leadership; preponderant influence or authority; — usually applied to the relation of a government or state to its neighbors or confederates.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
The US may have by necessity later adopted a standing army as the world became truly international. But if the premise of the 2A was, from the beginning, to check the state army’s power vs its citizens, then when the US adopted a standing army, the 2A only becomes *more* critical.
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Excellent assessment.
From my personal lifetime of experience, the need for the Second Amendment has never been more clear than right now. We cannot allow the goons who have seized this country to succeed. They must be stopped. Do not comply. I sure as hell will not be thrown in any “Camp”. Alive, that is.
I have zero military experience.
Milley has already highjacked the executive once that we know of, and, honestly, just looking him over my common sense tells me he’d set federal troops on civilians.
We’ve heard the guy and his woke talk, he’s one of them, and he’s on tap.
To your remark, yes. A person would be crazy to surrender weapons at any time, especially now.
I think of the 2nd amendment not as a right, for it is not, but rather a restraint. A barrier that demands the gov’t to “not go there”. Hands off.
The reason the constitution can’t provide rights is because they are inherent, you already had all your rights the moment you were born. Thus, “…the right of the people…”, the 2nd amendment acknowledges that right, then it goes on to demand that the gov’t “…shall not be infringed.”, to not tread on it. This is fairly clear stuff and it is not really possible for people with a basic understanding of the english language to misunderstand. I read somewhere that the entire constitution was written such that anyone with a 6th grade education could easily understand it.
I have always thought of my right to possess guns as a property right, which includes everything I own including my own body. It is my right to use or dispose of anything I own as I see fit and anyone that chooses to violate my property right is acting as a criminal and must be stopped at all cost.
There is no such thing as “the greater good”. A society is no more than the balance of all the individuals it comprises. If you violate the rights of the individual you have violated the rights of the society. The very notion of a “greater good” is a nullification of itself, a meaningless utterance.
Further, the right to own my own body includes the right to protect it through any means I choose. You don’t get to limit the means in which I choose to protect myself only to then attack me under said limit.
Therefore, any man that tries to limit my means of protecting myself does so under the idea of slavery in that they own me and have say over my life. They themselves would not prefer to live that way.
In summation, my right to my own life and everything I possess is inviolate and not dependent upon any words written by man on parchment. After all, it’s “…just a goddam piece of paper!”.
ghostsniper,
I was also going to comment on Gerard’s use of “right” in the essay’s last sentence.
I agree with what you state but suggest that your use of the term “restraint” in your first sentence understates what the Second Amendment in particular and all ten in the Bill of Rights represent – explicit documentation that (not only are “rights” inherent in each sovereign citizen, flowing from G-d or “nature” – reader’s preference) the powers of the federal government are limited and granted by the People through their States. Hence the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
P.S. Gerard, Very good piece, notwithstanding your misuse of the concept of “right”.
I have to underscore here that I didn’t write this. The 17cShytePoster did. Full link at the beginning under the illustration. I think I need to make it more prominent.
Gerard,
Apologies. Noted. I mis read the title given the “by-line”.
Good choice “publisher / editor” notwithstanding misuse of the concept of “right”.
Coincidentally, from another site I visited today (third sentence in penultimate paragraph):
“The natural law rights bestowed upon man by the Divine Creator are eternal, immutable, inalienable, and absolute.”
https://www.ammoland.com/2022/05/corruption-unfairness-plague-nypd-firearms-license-division/#ixzz7UcoaGVns
Since it remains the only real American right, alongside the 1st.
This is the issue that will be the essence of CW2.
And why the Left is desperately pushing “muh gun control” once again,
While stripping warriors from the military.
ghostsniper,
I was also going to comment on Gerard’s use of “right” in the essay’s last sentence.
I agree with what you state but suggest that your use of the term “restraint” in your first sentence understates what the Second Amendment in particular and all ten in the Bill of Rights represent – explicit documentation that (not only are “rights” inherent in each sovereign citizen, flowing from G-d or “nature” – reader’s preference) the powers of the federal government are limited and granted by the People through their States. Hence the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
P.S. Gerard, Very good piece, notwithstanding your misuse of the concept of “right”.
Heard by credible source anecdotally the USAFA graduating class has been RIF’d by half, per Biden Executive Order and
forbidden to comment about it.
On permanent hold, no pay, no benefits.
Anyone know more?
HolyFukkinShit, man. The standing army is by no means “the largest standing army in the world, under the largest bureaucracy in the world, under the world’s imperial power”. Wrong on all three counts. The US Army in 1945 was north of 8 million, while the whole US military now is just a scratch over 2 million all members active, reserve and sailors and airmen. The army is 1.1 million, I think. Not an empire, and bureaucracies have abounded in history but perhaps you might be right on just that one point.
Otherwise, I agree with the assessment that the 2A is a guarantee that we are always on the cusp of violent revolution: codified. The people are an irregular army in themselves, and anyone that deludes himself into this army not being a counter to the US Gubmint is mad.
Good job. Carry on.
PS: Milley said he was apolitical while shitting directly on Trump’s head. What he’s too stupid to realize is that he was shitting on our heads – the peoples’. Now, he’s bent at the hips for anything the progz want up to and including shrinking the military for political leverage. Now, think about this: the gubmint also doesn’t trust the standing army. That, Private Numbnutz, is sum shit.
Maybe I need more .308 and fewer eggs and bread.
Well, he did indeed exaggerate a bit for effect but what about this one?
Fukn A
I knew it was an outlink post, BTW. Yes, I do like exaggeration sometimes. I’d kill for a good Scotch RN.
Not just hunters will be behind every blade of grass.
Throughout history armies have joined in revolution for the right reasons. The US military are crippled by not only standing orders and dumb fuck rules, they are led by truly inept men and woman.
That said never ever underestimate your enemy. This government is in fact my enemy. I have zero respect, I recognize the surveillance network that suddenly “ Popped Up”, was never designed to thwart bad guys, But every citizen in this nation.
Again, the wrong Americans are dying! We The People have whittled this options selection down to zero. Our last option, is in fact our final option.
Fight, Fuck, or go for your gun! are ALL tools of war. Comes down to how you best utilize the tools, the weapons the people who recognize this next double innings gonna be for all the marbles! Using sex as a Intel tool is as old as,,, well its an old tool.
And we all know there is “No tool like an old tool.”
Tho 2000 miles away this dood is on my team.
Standing armies have been for 6000 years a function of empire. The first example we have is the army of Akkad under Sargon the Great (c. 2334–2279 BC). The reason for the lack of a standing army was due the economic basis for all early societies, agriculture. Men could not be permanently removed from food production. In a time of war citizens could be called up for a short time. These part-time soldiers had scarce any training, and so most armies from Sumer to those of Classical Greece relied upon a military phalanx of locked shield formations. This tactic needed but little experience to be effective.
Here is the phalanx from ancient Sumer (3600 BC):
https://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/geog_sumerian_phalanx.jpg
Here is the Greek phalanx 3000 years later:
https://www.greece-is.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Hoplite-Phalanx.jpg
There was hardly any change in the basic military structure for 3000 years. Even the early Roman Republic (509 – 241 BC) used the phalanx, and would call up men to make war on a temporary basis.
What led to permanent standing armies was due to 2 factors:
1. The change from agriculture to a limited international trade. This economic shift allowed a society to become wealthier and so freed up men to form a standing army. As soon as the Roman Republic acquired her first overseas possession—Sicily—she began the rudiments of a professional standing army, a necessary change in order to militarily control occupied territories. Athens had no standing army—her defeat of the Persians at Marathon (490 BC) was accomplished by a citizens’ militia–until her shift to empire under Pericles (495 – 429 BC).
2. The shift to empire. A standing army allowed rulers to engage in military adventurism, seizing foreign lands as they could, which required foreign military bases.
Of course, Sparta herself from her beginnings had a standing army. The reason was that the entire city-state of Sparta was a standing army. She was able to field every male citizen—at most 8000 men—because she forced 250,000 helot slaves to work in agriculture.
Not even the US had a real standing army until after World War II. Before then her military was remarkably small. Men would be temporarily called up to fight the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Mexican War (1846 – 1848), the Civil War, the Spanish-American War (1898) and World Wars I and II. Each of these wars saw massive numbers of volunteers as well.
It was after World War II that America made her shift to a world-wide empire. For that reason she has at this writing 600 military bases on foreign soil.
Incidentally, much nonsense has been written about the uses of citizen militias, especially in the American War of Independence. Washington spoke and wrote widely against them, believing that only a professional army could defeat a professional army. It needs to be said that the bloodiest victory man-for-man in British History was at Bunker Hill (1775). The Americans used primarily her militia. Also, the war in the south against Cornwallis was more or less based on American militia, a war that led to American victory at Yorktown (1781). The Battle of King’s Mountain (1780) is an excellent example of the use of militia to achieve military victory.
Like a mini history lesson. Keep em comin’!
If I ever cease to write a lengthy piece of History for American Digest at least once a week, I am dead. Or in jail. Or in Detroit.
The large post World WarII military was necessitated by the Cold War, not a move of empire in or of itself. Forward posting: again, a strategic move. Where does America demand taxes of other nations?
The nearest thing I can think of that might support your theory has been our direct-action espionage, but you’d need to show intent to rule.
Still can’t understand why you insist on saying America is empirical. Of its faults, that ain’t one of them.
Otherwise a nice report.
On Amazon there are 10,000 titles concerning “American Empire”.
We need not quibble over the meaning of the word “empire”. It is not the case that either America is an empire or she is not. But it is indisputable that the US in her foreign affairs acts and has acted exactly as other empires have in the past, especially the British, the Roman and the Athenian. If it talks like an empire, if it looks like an empire, if it acts like an empire…
During and after the American adventure in the Philippines (1899 – 1902) there actually was a national conversation in the US about the morality of the war, especially because at that time the American people were strongly averse to acquiring overseas territories inhabited by “little brown brothers”. Remember that after the US victory over Mexico (1848) she could have easily annexed one-half of that country but refused and withdrew her troops. This recalls the early Roman excursions into Greece during the 2nd century BC.
McKinley acquiesced in agreeing to US occupation and governance of the Philippines—and grabbed Hawaii in the bargain—echoing the manner in which the Romans expanded into the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 170 – 30 BC). The election of 1900 pitted the imperialist policies of McKinley against the anti-imperialist platform of William Jennings Bryan. The American people chose imperialism, and McKinley was handily reelected. This resembles the Athenian people choosing the out-and-out expansionist Pericles as “strategos” year after year, which marked the beginnings of the Athenian Empire.
But it was the uninhibited imperialist Teddy Roosevelt who really got the American Empire rolling. Besides his activities in Cuba and Puerto Rico, Roosevelt simply stole the isthmus of Panama from Colombia and created the Panamanian nation in 1903. Such actions would have greatly impressed any Roman consul worth his salt.
The adoption by Roosevelt of the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan in his “The Influence of Seapower upon History” (1890) led to the creation of the world-wide US navy, which Roosevelt sent around the world (1907) to secure coaling stations and overseas markets, and to maintain sea lanes for trade. Athens did the same thing—minus the coal—as she expanded into the Eastern Mediterranean after the election of Pericles (460 BC). It also resembles the British naval expansion around the world after the fall of Quebec (1759) in the French and Indian War.
I could write much more—especially concerning the actions of the US after World War II—but I have to end this tirade someplace.
I have indexed 3 books on Theodore and he was an asshole to the core.
“The Golden Lad” demonstrates his mental abuse of his sons.
In the end, he cracked like a little gurl.
I also indexed books on Delano too and it seems the whole family was demented.
His wife Eleanor was his cousin.
Ok then. Rather than “American Empire” how about “American Hegemony”?
1. The predominance of one state or social group over others.
2. Predominance; preponderance; leadership; specifically, headship or control exercised by one state over another or others, as through confederation or conquest: originally applied to such a relation often existing among the states of ancient Greece.
3. Leadership; preponderant influence or authority; — usually applied to the relation of a government or state to its neighbors or confederates.