[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Patrick Henry, however, was a man fighting a "constitutional" (not really, perhaps parliamentary would be a better term) monarchy of the same general national origin and far, far milder goals. Had he lived through Stalin's time, I wonder what he would have said.

Well I wouldn’t go that far. The Nazis and Soviets may have only said they wanted to conquer the world, the Nazis even tried but the British did. All under the pretext of bringing civilization to the "savages" of the world- "The White Mans Burden". Now the British didn’t massacre large numbers of people based on race, but they certainly were expansionist and imperialist and gave no or limited rights and repsentation to the Americans.

Remember, “the sun never sets on the British Empire” (but now adays I’ve hear it’s never sets on the Golden Arches, scary what the world is coming too).

I think it's equally sad that Americans and those following their ideological basis - naturally given their history - look at the rest of the world and are in shock at how all these people aren't hot for the fundamental ideology of liberty, democracy and all the other nice things. I mean, how could they?

But think of it the same way as your reaction to when people - like some on this forum - accuse America of imperialism, your president of being a terrorist, and other nasty things of the sort. I go to Russian forums occasionally, and you'd be surprised at the sort of stuff they say about America!

But why do they? Very simple. Just as you can't see why they don't buy these high enlightened ideas of liberty and democracy, they can't understand why you buy something so superficial and unreal. People live in very different worlds. And there are billions of people in this world who'd rather have some potatoes than liberty.

No I do understand a bit why they don't care so much about Liberty and Democracy, (oh no here is another -ism) Nationalism. When the USA was founded it was basically cut off from the direct influence of most of Europe, the founding fathers even went so far as to distance the language from British English when ever possible. The entire slate was wiped clean for us, for the rest of the world that slate has never been wiped totally clean every time a nation gets close something happens to remind them of their past. Take France for an example they get rid of a Monarchy that’s been busy fighting wars with its neighbors for centuries with a man who starts off by doing some good (“the accused is innocent until proven guilty” for one)- but then he decides to try and conquer all of Europe. They finally move past Napoleon only to be sucked in to both World Wars and then the Cold War. Or then of course there is Russia, for a few centuries the Tsars went around conquering and fighting until Lenin and crew take over. Then WWII happens and they are fighting an invader. They finally win and then they are worried that the West is going to drop the A-Bomb on them. Eventually the Soviets go bankrupt and a Democracy starts to form until… well check back a few decades, maybe Aliens who knows. They just can’t move past a half dozen centuries of one way of life no matter how hard they try, something or someone just drags them back.

PS - Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness is, essentially, right. But only in that order. Happiness means nothing without liberty, and liberty means nothing without life. Sure Hitler's regime gave happiness. But what does a Russian care for that happiness if he's not allowed to live?! Likewise, what's liberty in public life to anyone if they can't put food on the table?

With out liberty you may have life but its not yours. With out liberty whose to stop the goverment from just coming in and taking your food and sleeping in your beds and stuff (way to go little known 3rd amendment and the always quoted 4th & 5th amendments).