So here’s a political opinion I think a lot of people have and usually don’t express outright, but it underlies a lot of things:
The US could take over the world, but we’re being too nice.
Not the entire world–we don’t need to annex Denmark or Micronesia or whatever–but anyone who gives us trouble. If we’re threatened by Iraq or Afghanistan (or Iran or North Korea), we shouldn’t try to make peace and encourage a friendly democratic government; we should go and steamroll the place and declare it a permanent US territory. And the only reason we don’t do that is that we hold ourselves back with liberal guilt about “oh no, my Racial Studies professor says it isn’t our place to interfere with their culture” and “oh my dear, according to NPR that’s technically a war crime.”
But if we had the will, we’re strong enough–shit, we’ve got nukes! there’s nothing stronger than that!–that we could just take whatever we wanted and no one could stop us. And even though it would look ugly while it happened, wars would be over quickly and we’d profit vastly from the victory. And we’d all get to cheer in the streets and have ticker-tape parades in Times Square and it would be great. Too bad liberals are afraid of definitive victory. Afraid to just go in and not hold ourselves back and win.
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Do I have to clarify that I don’t believe this? I don’t believe it at all. It’s not just morally wrong, it’s also impossible and would lead to horrific worldwide chaos.
But I think that’s the semi-secret thought underlying a lot of frustration with our foreign policy. There’s a lot of people who would like it to work like a game of RISK, and imagine that it’s only petty ideology that prevents us from putting 99 armies in Kamchatka and ruling the world.
Thoughtfulfangirling 