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I'm a republican (carefully note the small 'r'), although I'll admit I sometimes have trouble justifying my support for the existence of the state in some form to actual anarchists. Even those who ostensibly 'benefit' from empire are really having something stolen from them: Their ability to...

Empire is evil by nature. Anything which abrogates the natural moral autonomy of every human being is evil, in part. That doesn't mean Empires cannot do good. The US has done more good for more people than any other Empire in history. It's just also done a whole lot of bad. But Empire...

Man, do you guys just go for the 'Reply' button without even thinking about reading subsequent posts?

It's cool.

Isn't it funny how you make this literally right after the one I make calling the British Empire evil? The British evil was a benign kind of evil, less intentionally evil and more negligent. Evil nonetheless. And you realize you're making my argument for me when you list other major Soviet crimes?

You'll never find me claiming the British Empire wasn't evil in some ways.

I dunno, they definitely have the kill count. And the Nazis don't have the strange distinction of purposefully starving millions of their own people in order to keep up grain exports. I think, if the USSR had fallen in the 40's or 50's like the Nazis, the Soviets would be remembered as the same...

The point is that a 'foothold' is dominating, maybe, the Eastern seaboard and capturing some cities there. That isn't even owning a majority of the land and population of the US. That's not an invasion and occupation of the US, that's an invasion and occupation of some small part of the US...

It's not plot armor. I would also say it'd be impossible to invade and occupy Russia after a certain point. Whether it be because of geography, demography, hydrology, whatever, some things are just not possible under any reasonable twist of history. Sometimes the changes that need to be made...

In both cases, there was no invasion of a single power by another or a group of others. In India, there were small invasions of disunited territories and then slow, gradual conquest over years as the local great power declined. In China, it was a several step conquest of multiple independent...

I'm not saying Signs isn't an incredibly stupid movie with an even dumber premise, just wanted to point out that Lower Bucks County is not the boons like the movie makes it look. This is a pet peeve of mine as I'm originally a native of the area. Bucks county literally borders on Philadelphia...

To be fair, Lower Bucks County (where Signs takes place) is a half hour or less from Philadelphia, an hour and a half from New York City, and about the same from Washington DC. And this is all by car. If the Signs aliens had any transport whatsoever, they're at the very center of the BosWash...

If the British had just given up on Europe in 1812 they could have conquered and held most major population centers, especially along the coast, but the interior cities and hinterland are going to be unattainable. The main problem with conquering the US at any one time is that, in time periods...

Anytime after about 1820 or 1840, no, it can't be done. Nobody has ever invaded and occupied a continental power, ever. Forget about it when that continental power was across two of the biggest oceans in the world.

That's certainly part of it, but I don't think it's possible to scientifically discriminate between the amount of safety the US has had from coup de tat from having only a very small standing army (although, let's remember, this is only relative to other powers and the total population --...

Naturally. The belle epoque was the period of the First Globalization, something that was, in ways, deeper and more thorough than the one we've been experiencing since the 1970's. You'll actually find, if you look, that all the rapidly developing nations in the 19th century were debtor...

I'm not referring to the Presidential orientation of the Federal government, but rather the Federalism itself. Up until relatively recently in our history, the states have been very independent and any coup in Washington would be ignored in the state capitals at worst, reversed at best. In...

For the early 1900's it's not that bad. Remember, as technological change advances, the speed at which economies can be developed increases. The US growing at 4% annually in the 1920's was considered blazing fast, comparable with China today. Starting from such a low as it did, Imperial Russia...

Well, the argument could be made that the US does have a unique political system that is extremely difficult to turn into a dictatorship, at least far more so than comparable unitary democracies. It's not so unique anymore, of course, but in the 30's there was Canada and Australia that even had...

That's strange, considering how Mussolini himself expressed admiration for the policies of FDR.