Are empires inherently evil?

[raccoon]

I think they are. Empires are like bullies; they bully because they can.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." --Lord Acton

[atreides1]

1. Not Initially

But eventually it becomes that way.

[liberal N proud]

2. This nation was not until after WW II

We were the good guys. We didn't invade on a whim as we have in the last several decades. We were the ones who came to the worlds rescue.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. Indians, Mexicans, and Filipinos would have disagreed on that

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

6. Not until WWII?

What about the Spanish-American War and the Phillipine-American War?

What about the Northwest Indian War?

Hell, what about King Philip's war? This shit has been going on since before the United States existed as a soverign nation. The truth of the matter is that we have always been expansionist, and when we ran out of land into which we could expand, we turned to economic expansionism.

As for whether empires are inherently evil... Empires are just a form of government, comprised of humans, inheriting all of the moral rightness and wrongness of humanity. Humans have never created something that is purely moral. It's impossible to even define that term in a way in which everyone agrees on it.

[cali]

3. I avoid using the word evil

I don't think it really explains shit. I do believe that empires almost invariably collapse of their own weight.

[Larry Ogg]

11. Could it be that evil doesn’t explain anything to you because

You have difficulty with syllogisms, and are basically dependent on non sequiturs to form you world view?

Just asking! :shrug:

[lynnertic]

4. The corollary: powerlessness corrupts, absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.

someone other than me thought that one up. it works, though.

[bryant69]

7. i don't know if Balkinization works much better

it's hard to say. Certainly America's history as an empire is better than some.

I wonder about the theory that we, as Americans, have stopped bringing lands that we take into the nation fully - rather we keep them as territories at best (and at worst, well, Iraq) - and it seems like territoryship is no longer a stepping stone towards full statehood.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Uncle Joe]

8. Yes, because with that power comes a growing fear,

fear of independent thought and fear of others, thus with that fear comes a growing ignorance, ignorance becomes exalted and fear promoted all in service to the empire, as they view everyone not of the empire, against it aka: "you're either with us or against us". The empire's great mental energy is wasted on trivial thoughts, such as did that person insult Caesar by not bowing and where is his flag lapel pin?

For so long as a nation, people or empire live by this maxim of exclusion and the inherent right to rule over the rest of Earth, no matter how remote, the world can never be one, for the rest of Earth will only grow to resent this hubris and this resentment will inevitably perpetuate war so long as humans exist.

In short if you believe war, murder, death of innocents, rape, and environmental degradation are evil, empire is evil.

I believe the only solution is a world government respecting the rights of all the people, the trillion dollar question is how to get to it without destroying ourselves? I believe should the Earth reach such a state as having a respectful world government, peace will reign until somebody discovers intelligent life on another planet.

Thanks for the thread, raccoon.

[LanternWaste]

9. I don't think any form of government...

I don't think any form of government, whether expansive and dynamic or simply stagnant or even diminishing is inherently good or evil.

Empires have done both good and ill in this world, as have even the smallest, most ineffectual nations.

[Prophet 451]

10. Not necessarily

I think empires are a little like benevolent dictatorship: Works in theory. While I can't think of any real-world examples, it's theoretically possible to assemble an empire through non-exploitative means. Say, a trading empire with mutual defence (although admittedly, the difference between that and an alliance is small).

In practice, empires always lead to abuse because humans never know when to stop.