So one of my college's required things to learn is American history. As soon as one stops, there is another. It doesn't matter whether it's Indians, slaves, or freaking rebellion over tax on alcohol. I swear I feel like I will pass the exam by just writing in every column the phrase "First was war, then some kind of peace that lasted five minutes."
by YOYO_Meiry
30 Comments
Mate, our entire country was founded by slaveowning aristocratic oligarchs who /really/ didn’t want to contribute anything to society or having a bigger fish in the pond than them. When you understand this, everything that has happened since makes a LOT more sense.
Just wait til you get to the 1234 Thumb War Declaration
At least it’s better than late Roman history, where all the wars were just about raw power and not about any higher ideals.
I love how all of this started because they didn’t want to pay more taxes, which is why they consider their tax system fair and respect It so much. You can almost do anything wrong in the USA but if you don’t pay your taxes YOU ARE SCREWED.
Edit: LMAO the dowvotes, have you forgot about “no taxation without representation” that was actually the MAIN REASON to pursue independence?
Yes, the Mexican-American War was totally about basic human rights.
That’s why the US immediately ended all slavery in Texas after they joined the Union.
Basicaly ALL human history is mostly wars and short periods of peace
America has always been the bad guy? Noooo wayyy!
America was born in a time of the fastest changes to society in human history, and it was founded by philosophers, if anything it’s a miracle we have only had one civil war so far.
Well, no. That trend effectively stopped in 1877; a lot of our foreign policy from there on was fighting in those wars over basic human rights against human rights, with an extremely notable and important-to-not-downplay exception from 1941 to 1945.
What? There are definitely wars we’ve been in that have nothing to do with anyone’s rights. WWI might be the most glaring example, another is Vietnam.
american history? damn it must be a short test lol
I mean if you look at who founded said nation, it makes sense. I’ll probably be downvoted, but it is the truth somewhat. American history is gray at best, as most nations. Humans are still animals let’s not put humanity in fantasy boxes of good and evil. There is good and there is evil.
And somehow you think this is unique to American history OP?
Guess you haven’t studied much history at all.
Ah yes the Basic Human Right to not be taxed by your home empire that nearly bankrupted itself in a pseudo world war started over the Ohio River valley that the British no longer felt able to claim due to said bear bankruptcy… so it was first declared Indigenous Territory that no one but the locals could have (without a Treaty) and then given to the newly stabilized and captured Quebec because the locals of the Ohio were more amenable to those new French subjects than the American colonists who have been champing at the bit to expand westward since George Washington himself was sent by the Ohio Company to claim it and kicked off the last war.
Revolution ensues as the final Intolerable Act was Quebec getting the Ohio region on paper but never getting to do so.
Like Queen Anne’s War and the War of Jenkin’s Ear.
Very much different from other countries that are the other way round.
Ah yes, the basic human right to not be taxed on tea…
There’s also the labor struggle which is like a secret war they don’t teach you about bc part of American curriculum is that the robber barons were good, actually
… THE AMERICA YOU WERE TOLD ABOUT IN 5TH GRADE HISTORY … NEVER WAS.
Wars over human rights? Always has been when it comes to liberalism.
(cough)
If you wanted to be bold you would mention how liberalism posited human rights. “God given” human rights was a compromise, but do you believe in human rights?
From where do human rights descend? Do they even come from above? Perhaps humans rights were created, and must be enforced, by the people who created them.
Shock, surprise, try it out, actually understanding something of enlightenment philosophy, since I suspect that has something to do with your college’s required things.
Baby wake up there is another redditor that doesn’t understand the american civil war
The problem is that history is written by the war fandom. You can study history through the lens of science, art, philosophy, or anything else.
Huh, I wonder where America learned these behaviors from? 🧐
OP is gonna break down right after WW2 is over, because then it only becomes wars about preventing human rights.
To be fair, also applies to world history.
Didn’t know expanding westward into indigenous territory was a “human right”
I mean, that’s also a lot of wars and conflicts elsewhere as well. And let’s not pretend that clamoring for basic rights didn’t often get people cruelly repressed or killed in other countries. America is not unique in having historical human rights violations
Americans go to war to protect our rights and others’. The rest of the world goes to war so that their prince/oligarch/commissar-in-chief can have a few more acres to hunt on. We are not the same.
So totally unlike the rest of human history…
/s
Not American, but are we really going to pretend that the history of European and Asian countries is that much more peaceful?