Question

Throughout history empires have portrayed their power and governance of others as benevolent and just. The US characterizes itself as a champion of democracy, human rights, and free markets but on numerous occasions it has abandoned these values in the name of national interest. Is the US just another Empire indistinguishable from past empires, why or why not?

Answer 1

The United state is not traditionally recognized as an empire, in part because the U.S. adopted a different political system from those that previous empires had used.

Starting Monday,The united states Human rights record will be subject to international scrutiny by the U.N.Human rights council.It may just be the perfect catalyst for the obama administration to make good on past and present wrong that should never be associated with a liberal democracy predicated on respect for human rights .

The world will be asking hard question of a country that considers it self a human right champion,and,as the UPR represents the final human rights review of the Obama administration ,it will be expecting meaningful answer and concrete plan of action.

The American experiment was unique and improbable in 1776, when Thomas Jeffersons penned the declaration of Independence and the American colonies defield Britain,the most powerful nation on earth at the time. As we look around the world at how difficult it is for democarcy and freedom to take hold and flourish ,America seems like a political miracle.

Americans have kept thier republic and built it to be strong but it will oinly remain so under constant vigilance.

President Bush's ambitious declaration of the advance of freedom and democracy to be his banner causes has run into a tempest of radical terrorist opposition in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, calling into doubt a once promising Iraq policy. Ironically, those on the left who in the past declared themselves democracy's champions have responded with cynicism to the goal of bringing freedom to oppressed nations. Advancing the American model of governance is regarded by some both here and in Europe as naive and imperialist.

Before 1780 the form of government in the US, a democratic constitutional republic with a severly limited central government had never been attempted before. During the war of 1812, there were significant doubts such a government could survive. The US consists of states, joined together. Nthe states have full (pleanary) police power. The federal government’s power is limited to 16 powers listed in the constitution. On top of that one branch of the government makes the laws, another branch intreperts the laws, and a third branch enforces the laws. Congress makes the laws. The president cannot make laws. Only congress. Congress actually has much more power than the president.

In the US, the citizens are considered soverign. Neither the federal government, nor the state governments are considered soverign.

The US is not a nation of people with a single culture, a single religion, a single ethnicity, nor any single belief. As a result, maintaining a citizen-supported government is very difficult. The nation almost split in 1860, an extremely bloody war resulted. The citizenery has never agreed on the things we consider immoral and unlawful. We do agree on the majority of items—but on the fringes, there is no agreement. For example there is wide agreement that murder and rape are immoral, but very little agreement on drug use or abortion.

The US started out as a never-before-tried experiment. We’ve been at this for 240 years. We still don’t know if the experiments will work long term. We hope it will.