It's because of the American separatist mentality. Your average gun toting, freedom loving American sees the world through a very polarizing lens. Not long ago, I read the book American Sniper by Chris Kyle [1], about a Navy SEAL who is the most successful American sniper of all times. The good guy/bad guy dichotomy is very apparent throughout the book. He claims his life's priorities are "God, Country, Family", in that particular order. Reading this can be a bit uncomfortable to a liberal minded individual. And when Chris Kyle fought and killed all those insurgents, I have no doubt he was doing it in the name of freedom; but the freedom he was seeking was freedom from Muslims.
A person like this - and his viewpoint is not alien or even radical in America - sees the USA as a nearly sole force of good, the home of the free and enlightened. Logically, someone like that would not wish to place limits on the military capabilities of the USA, as he still sees the world in a confrontational light.
Put simply, a large part of the American public sees the world in a confrontational way and doesn't wish to reign the military capability of their government.
Under the ideas of capitalism, gun rights and the constitution, such Americans feel they are serving an enlightened, balanced mechanism, and they want it to go on.
TL;DR Americans want freedom from you; they take the freedom from their government for granted.
That's an incredibly one-dimensional reading of the American worldview. The culture that you are describing exists, but it's hardly representative of the country as a whole. It is not very well represented in, say, the White House or the editorial board of the New York Times. The so-called American Establishment, which has an outsized influence, is well-educated and not particularly religious (and often not Christian). A relatively low percentage have served in the military.
It goes deeper than that. The White House plays off the ignorance and emotion of this group to do their bidding. This is what these people are dying for - giving us cheap fuel and preventing China from getting their hands on it.
Now ask yourself - do you agree with the decisions of these non-religious and well educated people? Yes, it started with Bush and Obama largely pulled them out. But Obama has failed in bringing order and instituting a functional society. Whether that country is even culturally capable of that after the trauma they've been through is debatable. But that's where we're at.
Why did nearly 4500 soldiers die in Iraq? To provide cheap fuel and block China? Yes. But I'll leave the mathematics of the total estimated amount of oil in the ground and preventing China from getting it to someone else.
As ISIS has demonstrated though, we're not even competent at maintaining an imperialist vassal state.
Seems like a lot of money for what's in the ground.
First, I apologize if that came across as one dimensional, but it's a very complicated issue which is difficult to really cover in a single HN comment. I also don't lean one way or the other - I think the American hegemony has served humanity very well, and an intelligence advantage is critical to that.
But, on the other hand, just as there are countries "on the brink of nuclear capability", which posses the technology and material and can develop a bomb in few months time (like Japan for example) - so is USA approaching an "on the brink" police state, with huge surveillance capabilities, militarized local police and a whole lot of armed federal agencies and national guard units. These capabilities, in the wrong hands or at a time of crisis, can lead America down a very dangerous slope.
So I definitely don't take this issue as a simplistic one.
However, more to your point:
1. The "American Establishment" is part of the problem, not of the solution. It's a classic case showing failures of checks and balances and of a shady power grab in the executive branch. The support of NSA activities is not a partisan affair.
2. In the Snowden case, a significant part of the media chose to label his actions as treason. Some did so directly, and others through adopting the official White House line. It was even worse with Manning.
3. The constitution, free market and gun rights lend America the notion of the "land of the free". That resonates across a significant part of the American public, and that's certainly a common perception (not necessarily a hawkish one). Freedom is a concept that's rooted deeply in the American mind. It's easy for an ordinary citizen to assume that a country placing so much emphasis on freedom would act in good faith to uphold it.
If you survey Americans about "what is the most free country of the world", they would say USA. They wouldn't believe you if you told them the USA has more monitoring measures to track its own citizens in place than any other country in the world, North Korea, China and Russia included.
So while my post was a bit one dimensional, so I say is the perception among the American public, and this good faith the public has in the country has given each administration a blank check to do as they please.
Comments
It's because of the American separatist mentality. Your average gun toting, freedom loving American sees the world through a very polarizing lens. Not long ago, I read the book American Sniper by Chris Kyle [1], about a Navy SEAL who is the most successful American sniper of all times. The good guy/bad guy dichotomy is very apparent throughout the book. He claims his life's priorities are "God, Country, Family", in that particular order. Reading this can be a bit uncomfortable to a liberal minded individual. And when Chris Kyle fought and killed all those insurgents, I have no doubt he was doing it in the name of freedom; but the freedom he was seeking was freedom from Muslims.
A person like this - and his viewpoint is not alien or even radical in America - sees the USA as a nearly sole force of good, the home of the free and enlightened. Logically, someone like that would not wish to place limits on the military capabilities of the USA, as he still sees the world in a confrontational light.
Put simply, a large part of the American public sees the world in a confrontational way and doesn't wish to reign the military capability of their government.
Under the ideas of capitalism, gun rights and the constitution, such Americans feel they are serving an enlightened, balanced mechanism, and they want it to go on.
TL;DR Americans want freedom from you; they take the freedom from their government for granted.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Kyle
That's an incredibly one-dimensional reading of the American worldview. The culture that you are describing exists, but it's hardly representative of the country as a whole. It is not very well represented in, say, the White House or the editorial board of the New York Times. The so-called American Establishment, which has an outsized influence, is well-educated and not particularly religious (and often not Christian). A relatively low percentage have served in the military.
It goes deeper than that. The White House plays off the ignorance and emotion of this group to do their bidding. This is what these people are dying for - giving us cheap fuel and preventing China from getting their hands on it.
Now ask yourself - do you agree with the decisions of these non-religious and well educated people? Yes, it started with Bush and Obama largely pulled them out. But Obama has failed in bringing order and instituting a functional society. Whether that country is even culturally capable of that after the trauma they've been through is debatable. But that's where we're at.
Why did nearly 4500 soldiers die in Iraq? To provide cheap fuel and block China? Yes. But I'll leave the mathematics of the total estimated amount of oil in the ground and preventing China from getting it to someone else.
As ISIS has demonstrated though, we're not even competent at maintaining an imperialist vassal state.
Seems like a lot of money for what's in the ground.
First, I apologize if that came across as one dimensional, but it's a very complicated issue which is difficult to really cover in a single HN comment. I also don't lean one way or the other - I think the American hegemony has served humanity very well, and an intelligence advantage is critical to that. But, on the other hand, just as there are countries "on the brink of nuclear capability", which posses the technology and material and can develop a bomb in few months time (like Japan for example) - so is USA approaching an "on the brink" police state, with huge surveillance capabilities, militarized local police and a whole lot of armed federal agencies and national guard units. These capabilities, in the wrong hands or at a time of crisis, can lead America down a very dangerous slope.
So I definitely don't take this issue as a simplistic one.
However, more to your point:
1. The "American Establishment" is part of the problem, not of the solution. It's a classic case showing failures of checks and balances and of a shady power grab in the executive branch. The support of NSA activities is not a partisan affair.
2. In the Snowden case, a significant part of the media chose to label his actions as treason. Some did so directly, and others through adopting the official White House line. It was even worse with Manning.
3. The constitution, free market and gun rights lend America the notion of the "land of the free". That resonates across a significant part of the American public, and that's certainly a common perception (not necessarily a hawkish one). Freedom is a concept that's rooted deeply in the American mind. It's easy for an ordinary citizen to assume that a country placing so much emphasis on freedom would act in good faith to uphold it.
If you survey Americans about "what is the most free country of the world", they would say USA. They wouldn't believe you if you told them the USA has more monitoring measures to track its own citizens in place than any other country in the world, North Korea, China and Russia included.
So while my post was a bit one dimensional, so I say is the perception among the American public, and this good faith the public has in the country has given each administration a blank check to do as they please.