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Comment by oinksoft | Hacker News Reader

  as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most
  benevolent such entity in the history of the world.

Well, that's some real comfort. You heard it here, better than the Roman and British empires!

The reference point should be absolute moral good, not third-world dictatorships. The whole "city on a hill" idea and what have you. That is what the top-level comment is getting at: Blatant hypocrisy from a state whose denizens have proudly proclaimed it to be "the greatest country on Earth" or "the greatest nation in history", some beacon of freedom and humanism, throughout its existence: The farce that is American Exceptionalism.

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It's easy to forget that the American Revolution is what ignited the fire of liberty and republican ethos, and catalyzed all of today's democracies to end or augment monarchial rule.

The world in the 18th century was not -- and today still is not -- able to grow and nurture a powerful country towards "absolute moral good." The world is still a primitive and dangerous place full of despots at worst in inequality at best.

It's good to hold the US to a higher standard, but unfair IMO to critique with such loathing the way the OP did.

Finally: It's certainly true that many of the ideals of the American Revolution were inspired by European writing on the subject. Not surprising considering most colonists in North America then were Europeans themselves. We can never know exactly how the 19th century would've unfolded had the British Empire not been so immature and insecure with themselves. They were a relatively young world power and they seem to have believed in the same age old "Domino Theory" that still trips up the US today. Had they been more wise in their choices, they would've granted the colonies freedom from Parliament's authority in exchange for full economic participation in the empire. Most likely you would've seen this unfold over the 19th century and quite possibly maintain itself to this day. Had America been a Sterling country, the British economic situation during WWI & WWII would be so vastly different that it's hard to even speculate. And if that were the case, how would that have changed the pace at which democracy unfolds across the European continent and around the world?

I think it's easy and fair and accurate to argue that the spread of democratic and republican ideals was influenced and catalyzed by the 8 years of hot conflict during the American Revolution. I don't think you can over-state how inspiring a Saratoga or a Yorktown was.

You're assuming the necessity of a great, essentially imperialistic power in the world. The source of the scathing criticisms you will often see coming from outside of the United States is the observation that misery was visited by some alien source.

There's no doubt that villains abound .. the question is, does the world need a "global policeman"? The historical record shows that these powers, even when acting with the best intentions, usually lengthen suffering where they intervene by distorting local and regional power dynamics. And more often than not, the motives for selecting a given site at which to intervene are less than scrupulous (Britain in India, US in Iraq) or are perpendicular to the host's interests (Vietnam), in which case there is no excuse for the resulting fallout.

And yet when approached by Ho Chi Minh in the late 40s about supporting the end of colonial rule in Vietnam and instituting a constitution similar to the US's, the US decided to reinforce French dominion instead. The American Revolution was indeed a watershed moment in history, but it can't be claimed that everything descended from it is inherently an action towards freedom and democracy.

Nobody ever claimed that it was.

Mea culpa - I have projected on you. Usually when the US and freedom or democracy are being discussed, the thrust is that those things are some gift that the rest of the world has only through US benevolence. Your overgeneralised first sentence had a bit of this, but coloured the rest of your comment for me. Sorry.

History is important.

After WW2, the US wanted a united front against the USSR. France used their membership in a Western European military alliance as a bargaining chip for the recapture of their Indochina colonies.

The US felt supporting France in Indochina was a lesser evil than letting Western Europe fall to Soviets.

It's easy to forget that the American Revolution is what ignited the fire of liberty and republican ethos, and catalyzed all of today's democracies to end or augment monarchial rule.

Switzerland has been a republic since 1523 at the latest, 1291 at the earliest. The Most Serene Republic of Venice was founded in 421 and lasted more than 1500 years. But France has a much, much better claim than either to have founded the modern republican movement. The idea that the US had more influence on early modern republicanism is risible.

Proto-republic ideas can also be seen in the formation of the Holy Roman Empire - a large collection of independent states with a loose body for oversight, in which the states have a say in how it's selected.

Quite. We also shouldn't forget the Greek city and Roman republics. They are pretty universally and manifestly the earliest.

> It's easy to forget that the American Revolution is what ignited the fire of liberty and republican ethos, and catalyzed all of today's democracies to end or augment monarchial rule.

Chill with the historical revisionism. The American revolution was a very important historical event. But it was NOT the first example of a western Republican government. Both The Netherlands and Switzerland preceded it. The process of moving the west away from monarchic rule was a long one with many important steps along the way. One of these was the American revolution. Which IMO was less influential than the French revolution in ending monarchy.

I was under the impression and correct me if I'm wrong that the French revolution was much inspired by the American revolution.

You are not wrong. The French revolutionaries did take inspiration (and occasionally direct support) from the American revolution. So did the Italian unification which named streets in Rome for George Washington. Even in England the revolution saw the first election of a Liberal government.

England was governed exclusively by parliament (although the king remained in title only) in the 13th Century, and became a true republic after the English Civil War in 1649 (although only for a decade).

Have a good time chasing platonic ideals. You can sometimes achieve them in programming; People, however, are too broken to ever achieve them in politics.

You don't always have to reach your goals to gain benefit from pursuing them.

>The reference point should be absolute moral good

This is absolutely correct. However, that also applies to the rest of the world. So, what problem do we fix first? The USA's possibly illegal wiretapping, or state caused disappearances, state encouraged suicide bombings (on civilian targets), political prisoners, slavery, nuclear weapon development, attempted genocide?

So, yeah, "greatest country on Earth" or greatest nation in history" may be going a bit far. But from what I can see, we should take care of the more egregious human rights issues first. It is the Law of Diminishing Returns. Preventing illegal wiretapping provides margin return compared to stopping the bloodshed in Syria.

If we're going to have a discussion on how America is not a good nation, we do need to keep it in perspective, and build a priority list for how things in the world should change.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.

Sure, but you'd hope he wouldn't deny that the other eye is out.

never a good idea to make the perfect the enemy of the good

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