Not looking for a fight, but none of these things are new.
Initiating armed conflict: Spanish-American War, various invasions into Mexico, to some degree Vietnam
Wartime screw-ups/atrocities: MyLai (sp?), firebombing of Dresden
Extraordinary rendition: probably the basis of every other spy novel for the past 50 years. Nothing new except for the outrage
We still make things people want -- we have creativity and ideas that the rest of the world desires. Take a look at Hollywood, or the electronic games industry, or the advances in microcircuitry.
We were supposed to be a model democracy, yes. But democracies are made of people, and people do bad or boneheaded stuff. The trick is that we have a system where we make mistakes and then learn from them, not that no mistakes are ever made.
I just wouldn't be too pessimistic. I'm more concerned with the rise of people who think they can use some sort of social engineering to make the world perfect than the foibles of our current reality.
I'd highly recommend Fareed Zakaria's "Post American World". Give gives good insight into how America rose to power. WWII helped, but it wasn't the defining moment. It was the huge industrial advances at the end of the 19th century that shaped our economic leadership in the world. Before even WWI, we were the top producing nation in the world, with double digit growth rates year after year.
Comments
Not looking for a fight, but none of these things are new.
Initiating armed conflict: Spanish-American War, various invasions into Mexico, to some degree Vietnam
Wartime screw-ups/atrocities: MyLai (sp?), firebombing of Dresden
Extraordinary rendition: probably the basis of every other spy novel for the past 50 years. Nothing new except for the outrage
We still make things people want -- we have creativity and ideas that the rest of the world desires. Take a look at Hollywood, or the electronic games industry, or the advances in microcircuitry.
We were supposed to be a model democracy, yes. But democracies are made of people, and people do bad or boneheaded stuff. The trick is that we have a system where we make mistakes and then learn from them, not that no mistakes are ever made.
I just wouldn't be too pessimistic. I'm more concerned with the rise of people who think they can use some sort of social engineering to make the world perfect than the foibles of our current reality.
You make some good points, but America didn't obtain any real power until after World War II. Our fortunes are actually quite recent.
I'd highly recommend Fareed Zakaria's "Post American World". Give gives good insight into how America rose to power. WWII helped, but it wasn't the defining moment. It was the huge industrial advances at the end of the 19th century that shaped our economic leadership in the world. Before even WWI, we were the top producing nation in the world, with double digit growth rates year after year.
Recent in terms of what? That's over 60 years ago. Unless the average human has started living to 100 or more, 60 years is a generation or more.
And I bet if you really looked at it, total GDP probably really took off during the industrial revolution, some 50 years before that.
How much of that is due to the safety we provided for European intellectuals?