“On Tyranny” - Chapter 8: "Stand out"
We’ve heard, possibly ad nauseam, that history repeats itself or that it rhymes or that it echos. In any case, we are witnessing a scenario that played out across the twentieth and seems to be playing out again in the twenty-first; the fall of democracy across the planet. We are also experiencing the fall of an empire. Make no mistake, US foreign policy has been built on the idea of “Manifest Destiny” and this was assumed to be a universal axiom. It began as justification for the Western movement in the nineteenth century with all the acquisition of native lands possible and land grabs from Mexico and Spain, not to mention the crazy bargain basement buy-out of the Louisiana Purchase. Post Civil War, we see the U.S. expansionism begin across the globe, very often via armed takeover, but later in the twentieth century, by way of “soft” and not-so-soft, power. With increased globalization, it’s obvious there would be those who would challenge US hegemony, but realistically, it’...