@Dinh AaronMk
Ironic criticisms aside. Most of your responses seems to factor on world war 2 being the literal only reason, we are powerful and well off...and then you seem to imply we somehow did something wrong in the process...I feel I don't even understand your reasoning behind that, so I can't argue to counter your point because I'm almost not even sure what your point is...same thing with how much it just seems you don't respect and acknowledge what the US troops have done for foreign aid around the world. Can't change minds when perspectives are that far apart...
Disregarding the rest to make a point here, but to briefly address what sounds like personal moaning: if you don't like it, why do you partake? It's like what Dynamo's been saying: if you claim you don't like it, why are you here? Are you a masochist? If you are, it's OK; but just be honest about yourself there and I'll be happy to meme "Read Bookchin, luddite" or "Read Stirner, spooked man" at you all day.
But here's to the point: Because basically it boils down to our geopolitical situation after the Second World War.
We were a rising economic power prior, but we didn't really come into our own after the First World War when we were able to turn Europe into debtors of America and hold the first sway over them, when in the prior century it was often European powers banking on things in the US. And the US had to undergo the demographic and geographical growth to obtain the manpower and resource diversity to get there. Basically: America's growth isn't actually responsible to Capitalism. The Workers could have made such sweeping and absolute victories during the Labor Movement period in the post Civil War to Great Depression era that they conquered the factories in which they worked and at the least established an Anarcho-Mutualist economic model to run the factories and the farms in worker democracy in competition between each other as if in a quasi-competitive state and because Europe was so degraded and Asia such a clusterfuck that when the Second World War rolled around we would have or could have stepped in.
I am not denying America isn't a great country to live in, but the interests of the country I feel are misplaced. You could go about saying the American military marches about the world protecting freedom, but whose freedom are they defending? We weren't protecting Mexican freedom when we invaded Mexico to secure Texas, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and so much more from the Republic of Mexico. We weren't defending Cuban, Filipino, Guam, or Puerto Rican independence when we went to war with Spain and occupied all those Spanish possessions we took over (two of which are still direct territories, one of which was stolen from us by 28 plucky partisans, and the other actually went through a planned path to self-determination but was ultimately scooped up Japan for a while). We weren't defending the numerous democratic interests of central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars period. We didn't get involved in the First World War or even the Second World War because we felt we had some great moral incentive to combat imperialism; we only got involved when the 'evil' side of history attacked us first (the torpedo'ing of a passenger liner for the First World War (overlooking a history of diplomatic drift to the UK since Teddy Roosevelt), and the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan for the second). And all through the Cold War we didn't act in the direct democratic interests of the countries we defended; given we ostensibly backed people who were as big a cunts as the Soviets themselves backed.
Time and time again throughout history we either acted in the selfish interest of ourselves through nationalism or commercialism. Either it was Manifest Destiny to force the change of national allegiance of vast territory or populations, or because some fruit company said we should (looking at you United Fruit Company).
Even into the modern era with the invasions of Afghanistan on the basis we're removing an unpopular dictatorial regime who just happens to be harboring Al-Qaeda we weren't operating on the actual moral rule of defending Democracy since as Noam Chomsky openly observed: we didn't invade Uzbekistan as well because they have a government as bad as or worse than the Taliban. If we invaded Iraq to depose a dangerous dictator in the name of Democracy, why didn't we turn around and remove the Saudis as well?
If you're going to use the point that America is the world guardian of justice and democracy and that the military defends the world and these qualities then you have to stop and realize for a moment that to actually fulfill this goal we need to practically invade everyone and enact regime change on a near global scale. From Russia to Africa and from China to the Middle East. It's just not a realistic or even valid point to make, it's a propaganda claim put out to enhance our feeling of self-worth.
Don't get me wrong, I know where I am and that I was born here and I feel a lot better about that I was in comparison to somewhere like Russia. But we need to reshape ourselves, and if we need to be realistic drop the whole notion we're the police of democracy unless we want to finally act on it; irregardless of the possible geopolitical direction our new democratic regimes will go when the people elect their own leaders post dictator or monarch removal.
