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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