Authors Of Constitution: Men Of Faith; American Empir-ish

As usually is the case on July 4 a vigorous debate about what the Founding Fathers meant in the wording of their writings.

Specifically, the part about inalienable rights and where they stem from.

To me, this was always the most straightforward part. The authors of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution were men of faith. They were enlightened liberal minds but with a conservative posture.

They simple believed the rights of man flowed from the authority of God.

End of story.

An atheist may ask, "why do you believe in God? Give me proof!" To which I can retort, "show me proof he doesn't exist."

Or. Preferably.

Fuck you because I say so.

The other argument is whether the U.S. is an empire. That's a debate that rages among historians, political scientists and general folk alike.

There's no conclusive answer. One difficulty is that its leaders never really defined themselves as such. The British and French had no issues describing their politics as empire. Shoot, the British welcomed it with their 'White Man's Burden' theory. Talk about pressure.

To me, America is empirish. But it's not technically an empire in the classical sense or how we've come to know or learn it. The Americans are not colonial or imperial America doesn't operate countries like England did with, say, India. Nor do they, relative to their immense military power, command that many bases. I believe Rome at its peak had more.

One way to determine, I reckon if there's an empire, is to set a clear demarcation line marking one. For example, we know what the empires of Mongolia, Rome and the Ottomans looked like.

I like to call them 'Owner-occupiers.' Americans are not that into nation-building - nor are they particularly good at it. 

With empire comes, also, subjects. Can we say at any point America had more subjects acquired through empire than its own citizens like past empires? Outside taking over Spanish colonies in the Spanish-American war, who can we classify as American empire subjects? Was Westward expansion with the conquering of various Native nations 'empire building?' That would be a stretch in my view because plenty of nations in world history expanded this way and aren't considered empire.

True, China became modern China through a campaign of aggressive expansion and was seen at one point as an empire but not today. It's a nation-state that grew from expansion.

So, it's not so clear. We know Americans operate in many countries and engage in many proxy wars but is that empire or just plain nation-state interests at play?

An argument I've read is that America wants to protect its oil interests and as such do have an empire - a financial empire. There are indeed commercial interests not unlike what we've seen in history.

But that's not sufficient in my view.

An empire, again, if we use (selectively) the British model will already contain financial power. It comes with the territory - excuse the pun.

In any event, it's not an open and shut case. An argument to the contrary could be just as, if not more, valid.