Manifest Destiny

Man is beset by fantasy 

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Manifest Destiny : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

We should eschew this bullshit from our politics, from our children’s text books and call it what it is: a perfect example of winners writing the history books.

This rhetoric is still used today by US politicians when they say it’s our job to encourage other countries to embrace democracy, and then so justified they send our young people off to war. It’s appealed to by so many for so long because it makes people feel good, it gives them a reason to love their country and ignore some of the US’ more despicable moments. It has allowed the rationalization of so much violence and it hooks into the religious sense of righteousness too.

When someone uses this rhetoric to justify US imperialism, I say inwardly “Bullshit! Someone wants to get paid, someone’s got an angle on this that will make them rich and that’s the real reason why we’re going to war!”

Now that’s not to say that our democracy, or rather republic (I mean oligarchical republic), has not inspired some to build their own democracies, - it certainly has helped, but often our imperialism makes the US look like a nation of used car salesmen. Always smarming our way in and manipulating things to our advantage, making the deal happen but strategically being elsewhere when the bumper falls off the super lemon dud we sold the unwitting recipients of our supposed beneficence. Why no indeedy do!, we didn’t set that up! No sir! you must of forgotten to fire that up the right way.. .

The fact is the democracies that actually survive are the ones that were the hardest won. Freedom can be assisted but not purchased, unlike Tyranny. Nope, Tyranny and dictatorships seem to thrive on selfishness and greed so if you’ve got the money? No problem! You can buy the country.

And why not, it’s not as if you can’t find something good to say about life in a dictatorship – a benevolent dictatorship might actually result in more change that benefits everyone, like food and other necessities being readily available for the destitute. However, people’s individual freedoms suffer the most in dictatorships, and it’s extremely likely that the benevolence will disappear at some point. Then you’re just left with Tyranny.

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