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The truth of the matter is that there aren't any other kids on the block for us to play with. Everything we do is big and has a ripple effect on the world. This effect is often misinterpreted as "meddling" by those countries. If one of our businesses goes into another country it either is or becomes the biggest game in town. This causes jealousy and instigates others to work against us. As one of the posters said, our form of government has allowed us to become prosperous and enjoy freedoms others can only dream about. In short, no matter what we do, we will be a source of hatred for all time and in constant danger of attack. It will never stop.

Post # 9: You're right, El. The U.S. has the power to impose its paradigms on everyone else--does--and probably should. But nothing makes people madder. People will kill to protect their cherished paradigms.

Once in a Liberal enclave on the West Coast, during a silly game, the other players went into a frenzy, talked of lynching me, and refused to speak to me again (some never did to this day)--because I ignored the assumptions of their paradigm.

Americans love new ideas and foreign cultures; America absorbs them hungrily; but our basic values are the best. I realize that this is typical, classic American arogance, but I think we should go into the pockets of resistance and violence and say basically, "This is how it's going to be done," imposing just solutions. That's what we did after defeating the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire, and everyone's all the better for it.

Oh, I'd say we have more than a presence in the world. We've bombed another country on average every 2 1/2 years since WW II. Call me a bumpkin, but that's more than a mere presence. What we have is a different kind of empire, commensurate with the times and our resources. We don't thump folks to take them over, we thump folks so as to obtain/retain the resources to thump more folks to access more resources ... well, you get the drift. We don't export our values, we export the antithesis of our values. Is there a dictatorship in the world we haven't supported? The middle east is full of autocratic govs we're propping up. I wouldn't call that exporting values, well maybe I guess, if our values have changed a tad. And it seems they have, since I'd have a difficult time recognizing conservatives on any the boards of the republic, for instance.