This was a paper I wrote for history; got extra credit on it...go me!

IS AMERICA AN EMPIRE?

“I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves. But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.”~ MARK TWAIN
I stumbled upon this quote in my search to form an opinion about something I knew very little about, I know it is long but I also know I could not have said it better then Mark Twain himself.
The founding fathers believed that there are certain inalienable rights that all men should have out of respect for human life. America was based on such notions as: equality, freedom, and an entrepreneurial spirit. I believe that the founding fathers truly believed that through these rights and freedoms we could lead other nations to treat their people as human beings. Who have a say in what their government is doing.
It seems there is a fine line between liberating a country to help it become a democracy, and crushing its heritage. This has happened repeatedly throughout history, we start out with the most noble of causes and our politicians in their enterprising greediness, shred all dignity and tradition from the native people we claim to be helping, and force our western ideology on them. In the case of the Philippines we helped them establish a democracy, fragile and volatile though it may be. We did some damage to their culture and way of life, however we did leave. They are not a state, nor do they wish to become a state. They are a commonwealth with their own constitution, and leaders. I believe this action of simply trying to help, and then when things have settled down, coming home, is why we cannot be an empire.

It is true, we rule by force…but also fairness. Such is a democratic society.