[Tolik]

Jonah Goldberg:

...Successful “hyperpowers” tend to be more tolerant and inclusive than their competitors. Despite its flaws, Britain was the first truly liberal empire. America has picked up where the British left off. Whatever sway the U.S. holds over far-flung reaches of the globe is derived from the fact that we have been, and hopefully shall continue to be, the leader of the free world, offering help and guidance, peace and prosperity, where and when we can, as best we can, and asking little in return. If that makes us an empire, so be it. But I think “leader of the free world” is the only label we’ll ever need or — one hopes — ever want.

Nailed It!

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[goldstategop]

We're good imperialists - at selling America. The rest is just anti-American envy.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[griswold3]

The more I see Naomi Wolfe talk about her book, the more worried I am for her sanity.

[alloysteel]

Certainly America is the strangest empire the world has ever known. Other empires were satisfied with merely stripping the resources of the tribute lands, while returning little or nothing of value to the vassal state.

America has done it differently, or at least, they used to. Various territories, won from Spain after the Spanish-American war, like the Phillipines and Puerto Rico, were governed in such way they could begin to adopt the culture and heritage of the United States, but free to follow a different path if they so chose. The Phillipines became an independent country, Puerto Rico chose to remain a commonwealth with the US. Japan was a much different situation, broken by the unconditional surrender terms forced upon them, but under the guidance of the American Viceroy, General Douglas MacArthur, they were given their freedom relatively quickly, and given the opportunity, re-emerged as a major industrial nation. The US once had a wide suzerainty over South America, to the degree that no less a personage than Teddy Roosevelt considered it his personal right to encourage some revolutions to get concessions from more compliant successors in office. That, too, has pretty largely lapsed, as the various entities indigeous to Latin America have taken up the exercise of their own affairs.

Even the Middle East, largely inherited from England as the British Crown was breaking up its own empire, was given considerable range in self-determination, to a degree that region had never known even back in Biblical times. Of corse, the British had done an extraordinary job of imposing their own forms of culture on the region, to the degree the common language in regions such as India is a form of English.

[Names Ash Housewares]

IF America wanted to be an empire, it could have taken the world being the only atomic power for years.

Spreading freedom? guilty as charged.

[steve-b]

Women got the vote largely thanks to World War I.

This claim is so absurd as to shred the author's credibility. The trend toward women's suffrage was well underway during the late 19th century.

President Truman, that consummate Cold Warrior, integrated the Army, and the civil rights movement escalated its successes even as we escalated the Cold War and our presence in Vietnam.

While not quite as risible as the author's previous assertion, it is a clear non sequitur (unless Goldberg has some evidence that the defenders of segregation were soft on Communism).