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Americans reasoned through newly introduced sciences and horses, such as Social Darwinism, “Though man has certain indisputable, God given human and municipal rights, our God condones our actions through our sacred text, which trumps yours because your level Of understanding is not as our own nor does your God/Religion/beliefs compare. Therefore, you are so far beneath us that you may work to build our empire as slave (or employees to our country/conglomerate), and we will do you a favor by granting the gift of assimilation; building Military bases, schools to teach our religion, culture, history, and language, and roads.
At the turn of the 20th century, how did U. S. Foreign policy apply these ideas? The imperialistic desires of America prompted the pursuit of Military, Economic, and subtle world domination. In efforts to maintain control and protection of their “island paradise,” they purchased Alaska and other territories while forcibly taking other (Bowels, M. 2011 Through the ideology of American Exceptionalness, foreign relation polices mimicked the mentality Americans held, “Our way or no way… Except war. ” In order to build the
Panama Canal, they must gain control of this land, and it was in America best interest to annex the country while monitoring and securing foreign travel and commerce. Whatever the Americans wanted, these ideas maintained they held a right by God to have it, no matter the cost. What do you see as the positives and negatives of American Imperialism? A positive of American Imperialism is its citizen’s military protection from all sides of the seas from foreign invades, in addition to success in expansion efforts.
To suggest these actions are more of a right than a choice uses stern religious practices to justify a level of greed; America’s need to control and seize those unable to defeat themselves and their homes. A negative quality of Imperialism is the blatant disregard to the homes, lives, livelihood, religions, and destiny of other countries, races, cultures, and societies around the world. America attempted to impose its will upon other nations, including Cuba, Puerco Rica, Guam, and the Philippines (Bowels, 201 1). A classmate mentioned that this appeared to be a form of bullying and must agree.
Much like (and I am an American Soldier, hurrah… But) my feelings towards invading Iraq and establishing military presence for so long, although we fought not an army, but inhabitants of the land, in attempts to seize control of certain goods, information, and services. Another negative is that the God identified in their religious texts do not appear sought out any longer in political, social and foreign policy matters, leaving one to wonder if it Manifest Destiny was a ploy to convince people to fight in the name of God and not man’s will.