Since the US became the most dominate country (~1945) the world has never had a more peaceful, prosperous span of 60 years. That can’t be entirely (or even mostly) credited to the US but they are linked. Pax Americana.
Sure, but how’s that an argument against imperialism?
I would posit that our military adventurism has probably already reached its climax and that our geopolitical power is waning. We haven’t quite reached the gibbous phase, but we’ll get there eventually. We will eventually – maybe sometime in the next 10-30 years – return to a multi-polar political world in which we have regional powers. History suggests that’s not necessarily a good thing, either.
It’s not fair to judge a country based on what it did 50 or 100 years ago, but when we said country conducts an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq on one hand and declares economic warfare on countries like Iran, merely because they refused to bow to American interests, then we haven’t really moved on, have we? And that’s saying nothing of American interventions in Latin America, where we continue to meddle behind the scenes to this day.
Seriously? Yeah, Puerto Rico was a colony of Imperial Spain. But we didn’t liberate it, we made it our own colony. Calling that “liberation” is delusional.
The fact that their current status isn’t that of a conquered colony is irrelevant to the fact that they weren’t liberated when we conquered them.
The Philippines is an exactly similar case. We didn’t liberate them from Spain, we conquered them and made them an American colony, and fought a bloody and nasty war to keep them. Japan didn’t liberate the Philippines in 1942 either.
Again, the current status of the Philippines as a fully independent country doesn’t change the fact that we didn’t liberate them from Spanish rule in 1898. We liberated them in 1946, from American rule.
What were going to do with them, then? We made them into a territory so we could protect them from further European Imperialism. Kicking the Spanish out then saying “BYE!” just invite another nation in.
Wait, your argument is that we took them over, which is good, because if we didn’t, another country would have taken them over, and that would have been bad?
At the time that Puerto Rico was invaded by the US (it wasn’t in its shores that the USS Maine exploded, among other things), the political situation with Spain was actually advanced to the point that they were moving towards more autonomy (in terms of trade and economics, for example). In the immediate aftermath, the US regressed that. For some years Puerto Rico was not under civilian rule. Even then, all the major local rulers were appointed by the US congress. It wasn’t until almost 50 years later than Puerto Ricans could start electing their own officials (when they had appointed their own representative to the Spanish court centuries before).
Calling it a liberation is… false.
No, we freed them from Spain, which was Good. They were being brutalized by a corrupt Imperial power.
Then what do we do?
There were some tentative steps by one minister, eight days before PR was liberated. Spain did not voluntarily give up the last of it’s Empire until 1975. Until then Spain had not willingly given up any significant portions of it’s Empire. To think they would have done so in 1898 is laughable.
Some residents want to be a State, other want to continue the status qou, almost none want to be independent.
“The only registered pro-independence party, the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), usually receives 3–5% of the electoral votes.”
Well, we brutalized them in a war when they tried to declare independence.
Let them be independent? I mean, Cuba got their independence after the Spanish American War, and no foreign power (except for us in 1906) took them over. I mean, it was kind of a crappy sort of independence, where we made them give us a naval base and told them we could control their spending and intervene in their affairs, but it was sort of independence.
And I don’t even think Puerto Rico should be independent now…the people, as a whole, don’t want it. But it seems kind of off to say that colonialism is bad except when we do it.
Cite?
I think Rand is talking about the Philippines, not PR. I was confused too.
The Ponce Massacre might be a starting point.
I’m referring to the Carta Autonómica, which was approved before the sinking of the USS Maine (the event that precipitated the war of 1898). Here is a reference in English, under “Charter of Autonomy”.
Sadly, slowness in transport and communication and bureocracy being what it was, it was not fully implemented until shortly before the invasion, but this whole concept of granting the islands more autonomy and freedom had been happening before the war.
As to what up_the_junction mentioned, the local government imposed by the US and the one elected afterwards did kill, discriminate, and persecute pro-independence promoters.
Ley de la mordaza in 1948. It was repealed in 1957.
FBI and local police profiled and investigated those suspected to be pro-independence. FBI reference. A couple of Spanish links for the local involvement:
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These files were made public in the 1980s, and some people got their files already. Some didn’t want or care for them. Those files were made public last year. They are now part of the Archivo General de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico General Archive).
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Although they started with those files that had been left abandoned, the office opened the call up for others to give their files back to the Archive. Here is a call for it.
Terrible as that was, it was neither a war nor a response to a declaration of independence, though.
Yes, Philippines. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
Back to the OP.
Thing is if the US wasnt imperialistic, other countries would be. China is now doing this. Japan was doing this back in the 80’s. Russia is doing this.
Just because England, France, and Spain have quit doing this doesnt mean new players wont come into the game.
Now if the OP thinks there will come a day when countries will not seek to expand their influence, flex their military, or desire more territory - well good luck.