If there were two types of people in the world, they could be taxonomically classified into a few separate individual categories.
The first is what we like to call the impoverished, the degraded, or the poor. The majority of the people on this blue marble we call planet earth are the component of what we call normal people. The third, and most important as to the advancement of humankind, is known as the asshole class. This is the scientifically appropriate term. Christopher Columbus, James Cook, and Captain Vancouver can all be included in this class, wherein they are now to be referred to as assholes.
We all know the classic story of Christopher Columbus and how he came to America thinking it was Asia. There's your first indication that he was an asshole; he was so preoccupied with his own goal to see what was right in front of him. When he got to the "West Indies" as he jokingly (I mean literally, what a joke) called them, he decided that the native peoples were to be given the label "Indians." What a bitch. I mean, how in the world are you going to just give a name to an entire people without even consulting with them. We all know that he was just trying to find a nice present for his lover back home. Oh, yeah, and he was sleeping with the Queen of Spain. Asshole.
And where do we fit in? Mark Twain would say that we are no better off today as human beings then those conquistadors and Jesuits of an era long since forgotten. But have we changed, collectively, to become a society that no longer cares? Or does it simply take a bigger push to get us off of our asses? I'd respond to these accusations with the simple answer - STFU. Americans are now in a point in their evolution where there is a systemic spread of something called poverty. Poverty is now something that many Americans can affiliate themselves with. Although most would say that we are still blessed.
Who are the assholes of today's age? Would we take a leap so far as to say that there are no assholes in the United States of America? I'd say no. The number one aggregate of imperialism in this day and age is complacency and lack of education, by anyone. It doesn't matter if your 9 to 5 is the graveyard shift at the local AM/PM. Your voice still matters. You opinion still counts. When we get complacent, we ted to negate our duties to understand foreign and domestic policy of this country. Without a proper understanding, our first failure has presented itself. The second failure comes when a policy decision is made by the standing administration concerning a particular area, and you don't know about it. You tend to say that since it was your elected representative, that all of their actions are going to be hunky-dory. This is not the case. This is when a decent nation becomes a nation of imperialists. Not out of an extreme drive or ambition of the populous, but by a very moderate position that is left uncontrolled and put to public vote. This is how a nation is driven into imperialism.
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