But it shouldn't end there. You love your family, I get it. I love mine too. But "they" love theirs too, and they have all the power right now. If it's all about families and dynasties then they will win. And we'll all be locked in our houses and wearing masks to hide our "mongrel" faces (to them since we aren't in their great and divinely ordained families).
If we don't widen our scope beyond our small circles we will always lose.
There's a reason it goes "God, Country (and here I insert the idea of America), and then family.
They have it backwards. Family first for them. Is that how you want to be?
Because, if so, you're no better than them. They're just winning and you're not.
That is one of the reasons America was and is great in the first place, and always has been, and will be for as long as it exists. (although it could definitely use some reinvigoration. Go Trump!)
We're not an empire. A United States of Planet Earth is a dangerous concept because our values, outlook and Constitution are culture-specific. Any dilution of that culture will result in the death of the US as we know it and the impoverishment and marginalization of its bedrock citizenry who make up its military might.
The Roman Republic is our greatest historical example of what happens when a compact state with a free citizenry and a clear understanding of republicanism grows to encompass myriad peoples with a plethora of languages and cultures. It resulted in the transformation of Rome into an empire, and the diminution and ultimate elimination of its bedrock citizenry's hard-won constitutional rights.
How? As Rome grew into an Empire, it did two things: first, it gave all of its conquered peoples Roman citizenship; and second, it recruited those newly-minted citizens into Rome's burgeoning legions. It proved to be devastating to the Latin countryside's 'bedrock citizenry': the land-owning and arms-owning militiamen of Rome--the Plebian Class of 'free farmers' who'd always made up the bulk of Rome's legions. These citizens who'd fought to acquire a constitution, political representation and civil rights in 505 BC had, by the time of Christ, become a pitiful, marginalized and ghostly minority in their own homeland. By 500 AD, These Plebian 'free farmers' would be further degraded into peasants and serfs.
The Plebians were gradually overwhelmed by the polyglot foreign element which had no connection to the history or culture that had made Rome great during the period of the Republic. These newcomers didn't know what constitutionalism was--nor did they care; they didn't know what freedom meant (since they came from capricious and rapacious despotates); they had no use for citizenship other than it seemed to be a lucrative gravy train of gimmees.
I never said America should be an empire. Nor that it should have control over any other people. Much less give citizenship to it’s “conquered peoples” as you say Rome did.
I wasn’t arguing for conquering or controlling anyone at all. I was arguing for sharing a set of ideas.
If America cannot share and spread her ideas. And is only as you say “culture specific” and trapped in that one specific paradigm then America will pass away just as all cultures eventually do and as they always have.
And everything you say about culture specificity would have applied equally well when we were only 13 colonies.
From federalism to the concept of limited government and individual freedom we are the furthest thing from the aspirant grasping empires of the past. That is what American Exceptionalism is all about. In all of history America is the exception!
America is not Rome. And we have nothing to fear from the historical example of the failure of Rome’s hegemony. Because America does not seek hegemony. We seek freedom from hegemony!
But it shouldn't end there. You love your family, I get it. I love mine too. But "they" love theirs too, and they have all the power right now. If it's all about families and dynasties then they will win. And we'll all be locked in our houses and wearing masks to hide our "mongrel" faces (to them since we aren't in their great and divinely ordained families).
If we don't widen our scope beyond our small circles we will always lose.
There's a reason it goes "God, Country (and here I insert the idea of America), and then family.
They have it backwards. Family first for them. Is that how you want to be?
Because, if so, you're no better than them. They're just winning and you're not.
No one mentioned bombs. I specifically said in this very comment thread before you even posted that this is a war of ideas!
You're right, they are our ideas. (Americans)
That is one of the reasons America was and is great in the first place, and always has been, and will be for as long as it exists. (although it could definitely use some reinvigoration. Go Trump!)
If it's family first, then someone has to win. And someone has to lose. But in freedom (the American Idea) we all win.
We're not an empire. A United States of Planet Earth is a dangerous concept because our values, outlook and Constitution are culture-specific. Any dilution of that culture will result in the death of the US as we know it and the impoverishment and marginalization of its bedrock citizenry who make up its military might.
The Roman Republic is our greatest historical example of what happens when a compact state with a free citizenry and a clear understanding of republicanism grows to encompass myriad peoples with a plethora of languages and cultures. It resulted in the transformation of Rome into an empire, and the diminution and ultimate elimination of its bedrock citizenry's hard-won constitutional rights.
How? As Rome grew into an Empire, it did two things: first, it gave all of its conquered peoples Roman citizenship; and second, it recruited those newly-minted citizens into Rome's burgeoning legions. It proved to be devastating to the Latin countryside's 'bedrock citizenry': the land-owning and arms-owning militiamen of Rome--the Plebian Class of 'free farmers' who'd always made up the bulk of Rome's legions. These citizens who'd fought to acquire a constitution, political representation and civil rights in 505 BC had, by the time of Christ, become a pitiful, marginalized and ghostly minority in their own homeland. By 500 AD, These Plebian 'free farmers' would be further degraded into peasants and serfs.
The Plebians were gradually overwhelmed by the polyglot foreign element which had no connection to the history or culture that had made Rome great during the period of the Republic. These newcomers didn't know what constitutionalism was--nor did they care; they didn't know what freedom meant (since they came from capricious and rapacious despotates); they had no use for citizenship other than it seemed to be a lucrative gravy train of gimmees.
Learn from Rome. Empire is never a good idea.
I never said America should be an empire. Nor that it should have control over any other people. Much less give citizenship to it’s “conquered peoples” as you say Rome did.
I wasn’t arguing for conquering or controlling anyone at all. I was arguing for sharing a set of ideas.
If America cannot share and spread her ideas. And is only as you say “culture specific” and trapped in that one specific paradigm then America will pass away just as all cultures eventually do and as they always have.
And everything you say about culture specificity would have applied equally well when we were only 13 colonies.
From federalism to the concept of limited government and individual freedom we are the furthest thing from the aspirant grasping empires of the past. That is what American Exceptionalism is all about. In all of history America is the exception!
America is not Rome. And we have nothing to fear from the historical example of the failure of Rome’s hegemony. Because America does not seek hegemony. We seek freedom from hegemony!
F Yah Fren !!!! I like it.
This is an ideological war