USA: Losing an Empire, yet to find a role...

[Coito ergo sum]

The Australian Empire is yet to rise, in all its glory!

First New Zealand, and then the world!

(cue fiendish laughter...)

If you guys or the limeys ever (re)take over the US, I might consider moving back there. Assuming you'd revamp the health care system, that is. Surely you would, eh?

I wonder how much property values have gone up since the Lousisiana and Alaskan purchases, and the Mexican and Spanish Wars. We can sell everything back for a nice tidy profit.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think that something that's not often clear is that the US doesn't want an empire. More than half of us are more interested in the internal fights about fetuses, jebus, gays, guns, immigration, and as always various hustles for various people to get richer, than in anything outside. We're content to trade, shipping our stuff and buying other peoples' stuff. Most people in the US read a local newspaper or watch a local newscast that gets more than three quarters of its news from within five hundred miles, and that spread is entirely within the country (though not the state). I am extremely unusual; I read more than five non-US papers every day. No local friend or acquaintance of mine, nor any member of my extended family, reads as much news as me.

What are the names of the 6+ non-US papers do you read every day?

[Schneibster]

... and never mind the whole, three-orders-of-magnitude-bigger thing, eh?

We'll just sweep that under the carpet.

The British Empire was never pretending not to be an empire. Plus I hadn't even mentioned most of the Mainland USA and the various means by which that was acquired.

Pretending, snicker. You've heard the one about how the Sun never sets on the British Empire because God doesn't trust 'em in the dark?

...And I'd still say that India is part of an empire, being at least one continent or one sea away no matter how you sail there, whereas Hawaii is adjacent, and so is Puerto Rico.

Morally speaking I can't see why it makes such a difference whether you're annexing your next-door-neighbours, or someone the other side of the globe. I know all the UN criteria for what imperialism is makes a big fuss over this distinction, but frankly the UN is full of shit a lot of the time.

Saw that light at the end of the tunnel and correctly IDed it as a train, eh?

[Schneibster]

I think that something that's not often clear is that the US doesn't want an empire. More than half of us are more interested in the internal fights about fetuses, jebus, gays, guns, immigration, and as always various hustles for various people to get richer, than in anything outside. We're content to trade, shipping our stuff and buying other peoples' stuff. Most people in the US read a local newspaper or watch a local newscast that gets more than three quarters of its news from within five hundred miles, and that spread is entirely within the country (though not the state). I am extremely unusual; I read more than five non-US papers every day. No local friend or acquaintance of mine, nor any member of my extended family, reads as much news as me.

What are the names of the 6+ non-US papers do you read every day?

The Times of India, Pak Daily Times, Dawn.com, Asia Times, and Guardian are the five on my favorites bar; I read from every source on my favorites bar every day. It always seems I find one or more stories that I have to follow out to another non-US source, AFP, or the Torygraph, or the IHT, or Al Jazeera, or something.

[amused]

There's also a division within the US between rural and urban areas. Most urban areas swing blue (Democrat) and most rural areas swing red (Republican). As long as oil is valued in petrodollars, the US will have a heavy hand on the world economy. Which is why we freak every time China says anything about changing that.

[Schneibster]

If the accusation were economic hegemony rather than political empire-building, I would have more trouble finding evidence to refute it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

General Patton offered the US it's only true choice and chance for an Empire and he was turned down. I can't help but wonder if the World would not have been a better place (well, for me anyways) if he was given the chance.

Patton was a military genius and political moron. He could have conquered a lot of space, but he could never have formed an empire.