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  #51  
Old 07-05-2007, 10:46 PM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

Well he said, "Every territory outside of the original 13 colonies represents imperial expansion." I don't think the U.S. itself is an empire, and where admission of new States is provided for in a Constitution - by Congress, the elected branch - which is meant to establish not an empire but a republican democracy, his claim seems a bit silly.

Whether the U.S. itself, no matter how many individual States it comprises, has sometimes acted as an imperial power outside its bounds is a separate question, I think. I just question whether the growth of the U.S. from 13 to 50 States is an example of "imperial" expansion.
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  #52  
Old 07-05-2007, 11:16 PM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

I don't think that the admission of new states is imperial expansion per se. Rather it can be argued that the process by which the territory that those states exist on was acquired was a form of imperial expansion.

From my perspective, the settling of the American west doesn't look very different from the British imperial acquisition and subsequent settling of my own country, which happened concurrently and was motivated by similar forces, with a similar ideology and similar results for those people previously in occupation of the territory acquired.

The provisions for the addition of new states may well have not been intended to create an empire, but that doesn't mean that they can't amount to a formalisation and organisation of one that had been acquired.

I admit my knowledge of US history is mostly broad outline stuff, but all I'm trying to argue is that the claim doesn't seem completely ridiculous at first sniff.

Last edited by fragment; 07-05-2007 at 11:37 PM.
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  #53  
Old 07-05-2007, 11:22 PM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

Especially the war with Mexico and the expansion as a result of that and the way the native populations were driven out seem pretty similar to what was happening in Siberia or Africa at the time or is happening in Tibet and Chinese Turkestan right now.
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  #54  
Old 07-06-2007, 12:28 AM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

Having thought about it, are you reading that JREF guy as suggesting that any possible expansion of the US beyond the 13 original States would have been necessarily imperial, no matter how that expansion happened? If so, I agree that such a claim would be ridiculous, but I don't think that's the argument he's trying to make.
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  #55  
Old 07-06-2007, 12:32 AM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

Holiday is over.
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  #56  
Old 07-06-2007, 01:39 AM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

But the blood feud continues! :sisfight:

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  #57  
Old 07-06-2007, 01:46 AM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

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Originally Posted by ChuckF View Post
But the blood feud continues! :sisfight:

Them two Hatfields in the middle of the back row seem to be having a blood feud betwixt themselves. "Jesse, quit pointin' yer pistol at yer cousin."
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  #58  
Old 07-06-2007, 01:54 AM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

Not to mention the blood feuder standing up on the right protecting his nads from the yuge rifle pointed right at them.
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  #59  
Old 10-10-2007, 03:41 AM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gypsy Davey View Post
Well he said, "Every territory outside of the original 13 colonies represents imperial expansion." I don't think the U.S. itself is an empire, and where admission of new States is provided for in a Constitution - by Congress, the elected branch - which is meant to establish not an empire but a republican democracy, his claim seems a bit silly.

Whether the U.S. itself, no matter how many individual States it comprises, has sometimes acted as an imperial power outside its bounds is a separate question, I think. I just question whether the growth of the U.S. from 13 to 50 States is an example of "imperial" expansion.
I personally think he/she has a point. However, I do think that they have construed it far too narrowly. It should read "Every territory, including the original 13 colonies, represents imperial expansion."

I'd go into it in detail, if you'd like, but I don't think of it as a particularly controversial point, particularly if you manage to keep in mind peoples like the Cherokees, Shawnee, Osage, Sioux, Blackfeet...and so on. More than 500 nations were obliterated by European expansion.

Also, it's not the "state making" process (as outlined in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the Constitution), but the process leading up to it (claiming the territory, settling it, and then displacing the peoples who were already there, or subjegating them), which was "imperialist". Cultural imperialism is still imperialism, and it's usually followed by some type of political settlement which establishes the political imperialism aspect of the expansion.

As fragment noted earlier in this thread:
Quote:
I don't think that the admission of new states is imperial expansion per se. Rather it can be argued that the process by which the territory that those states exist on was acquired was a form of imperial expansion.
Exactamundo!
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  #60  
Old 10-10-2007, 04:06 AM
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Default Re: Independence (Mark Steyn)

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Originally Posted by Sock Puppet View Post
Damn, at least get some real drugs, Abdul. Huffing and posting don't sort well together.

Excellent advice, but exposure at skepticalcommunity has already rotted his brain. Huffing and posting seems endemic over there.
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