There was a time when the world looked up to America as a benevolent big brother, teaching its siblings through example that no virtuous goal was beyond their reach.
Posted by Adam King on July 27, 2011
The American empire must fall. How it falls is up to us.
July 27, 2011 – There was a time when the world looked up to America as a benevolent big brother, teaching its siblings through example that no virtuous goal was beyond their reach. But almost everywhere you go in the world these days that image has been irrevocably tarnished.
Throughout history the end times of every great empire has been characterized by a sense of entitlement and a presumption of superiority over other nations. Driven by an insatiable lust for power they continually expand their sphere of influence, self-righteously proclaiming their conquests to be in the name of the greater good. Inevitably they expand far beyond what their economy can support and their military can defend, and the empire falls.
It is happening now in America, but we stubbornly cling to what The Daily Reckoning’s Bill Bonner calls “the imperial agenda.” We are running the economy into the ground trying “to maintain troops all over the globe, to run Homeland Security, participate in 3 wars… and all the other things that go into being an empire,” Bonner says.
With a long overdo attitude adjustment all of the hullabaloo over the debt ceiling and balanced budgets would be rendered moot. “Congress and the president could simply announce that they no longer believed the empire was a worthwhile project. Presto, the budget would be balanced. Problem solved.”
There is, of course, a hitch: America is emotionally addicted to being king of the hill. Any talk of redefining our military’s purpose runs smack into a wall of ignorance. Out come the flag waving fear mongers, decrying any cuts in defense will expose our tender underbelly to marauding terrorists and global wannabes. That’s bunk.
A huge portion of our defense budget is spent sticking our nose in other peoples’ business. Arbitrarily imposing our will abroad succeeds only in making a whole lot of people very angry with us. And that makes us much less safe. As Bonner so succinctly says, “the truth about the terrorists [is] they were over here because we were over there, not the other way around.”
The government has created a culture of fear and hatred in America, however, and uses that to pursue its imperialist agenda. Even as we teeter on the brink of ruin, the ranting drowns out reason. The choice is ours: let reason bring about the rebirth of the republic that our nation was intended to be, or let ignorance precipitate our demise. Either way, the empire must fall.The American empire must fall. How it falls is up to us.
Stewart Lawson
Senior Staff Writer – Certified Gold Exchange
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