[#352>US#133]:11.18=#[60x5+13] #0:'Hmn Democracy vs. Evil Empires'. US: Terrorism, McCarthyism; EU; Localism; US UK Literature. Book TV Sunday.

US War on Terror: http://tinyurl.com/9zc5h US McCarthysim: http://tinyurl.com/b5jm4 EU Enlargement: http://tinyurl.com/dzr3x Localism=DirDmcrcy: http://tinyurl.com/deus8 American Literature: http://tinyurl.com/82tmw "Bleak House" UK TV: http://tinyurl.com/9qbql Cloudy rain cool: Up 6:20, bed Sunday tv then Mei tv then vacuums bathrooms. BookTV: 05.11.3 R Florida on "The Flight of Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent", talked about 'localism: http://tinyurl.com/deus8 then 05.11.16 Sam Harris, "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason", talked about how moderate belevers enabling extremist terror: http://tinyurl.com/9zc5h now: H Johnson, "The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism" on McCarthyism: http://tinyurl.com/b5jm4 on McCarthyism Bank statements, Mei home late for her supper. 12:33am ready to go, bed 1:40. #1. "Human Democracy vs. Evil Empire #1004: Empire Factors & Evilness Compared: "" [Tsai 05.12.18=7 #1] Your definition of an empire as "a political unit where you have ethnic and political diversity that is held together by force of arms by the central government" is one for the traditional or D.'s "real" empire, I suppose. The factor of holding "together by force of arms" is certainly true, even for almost all traditional modern "state", I think. [[ M.:- Not always. The Swiss confederation for example, is multiethnic, but not held together by force of arms, but rather by a consensus. That makes them a country, but not an empire. The US on the other hand, has significiant secessionist elements that are unable to get what they want at this point, because the state is powerful enough to prevent it. The Mexican Revanchists are a good example of this. They are also to the US, what the Huns and the Vandals were to Rome and in the end, just as destructive to the existing state of affairs. And in the end, they may be more so, since their xenophobic mentality is expressed as a desire to ethnically cleanse the territories that they propose to remove from the US one way or another. ]] Another factor of "ethnic and political diversity" is a necessary but not a deciding one by itself. One outstading example is of course Switzerland. The size factor I mentioned repeatedly in not only a necessary but also almost enough one. [[ M:- As I noted earlier, unity by force of arms is a deciding factor. The Swiss are Swiss by consensus, not because somebody's putting a gun to their heads. And they make it work by a combination of direct democracy and the fact that the most powerful political subdivision in Switzerland isn't their central government, but rather the Cantonial governments. And don't forget that universal military service in their militia system is a strongly unifying factor. Full citizenship comes from being trained, armed and willing to defend their country. And their army is what creates their consensus, along with tradition going back to the Renaissance. ]] The enduring Chinese Empire has been based on: 1) overwhelming cultural "brainwashing" beyond the ancient Greek's and many other empires' definition of others as barbarians, uniting almost all "civilized" peoples as one, inducing other peoples to assimilate, in the mode of inferiority complex, with genealogy in China. [[M.- The successors to the Ch'in Dynasty's use of a pseudo Confuscian shell as the basis for social order, was pretty smart. Mao used Marxism-Leninism for the same thing. In both cases the real political doctrine was Legalism. ]] 2) nationality as family based on filial virtue, where not only all family members obey leaders willingly, but also to take care of old leaders staying in the family, producing inward civilisation of, for, and by itself. Leaving one's nation is a betrayal. Nation is self-sufficient, and expands only as nationality expands violently or peacefully for long times. [[M.- The irony there is that this structure was as a result of the Ch'in Emperor's police state. Mo Shu's system of mutual espionage as it was termed, along with what was left of Confuscianism after Mo Shu had killed most of the people practicing it, created the conditions for it to exist to the extent that it does. Survival depended on it. ]] The result is the continuity, but also unavoidable imperialism. because of SIZE, at least partially. Let's say, it's less evil than the new modern global empires, because of its inward nature, and its culturally rather than racially defined nationality. Would Americans protest violently, because someone else is less evil? Well, I think both A. and D. et al have always stated face it and live with it? [[M:- Not less evil, just less expansionist. Chinese emperors and their retinues have often been very twisted, brutal people. Systems with no individual accountability always produce such persons. ]] "" ------------------------------- "" M. wrote: Actually it's an oligarchy with vestigal republican institutions, and we become progressively more unstable in direct relation to how far things go in marginalizing those institutions. And we are on our way to becoming an empire and will be one even if we have no troops outside the bounds of the Continental US. A Nation is a political unit which has a common identity. An empire is a political unit where you have ethnic and political diversity that is held together by force of arms by the central government. All of this ethnic diversity instead of assimilation will put us in the position of being an empire, whether we have anybody overseas or not. And empires, are unstable. If they become militarily weak, or are attacked by somebody stronger, they fly apart. The current legal and political climate that encourages ethnic non-assimilation and multiple nangages, is quite likely to destroy what we've got. ""