America

Isn't being Christian and being socialist rather contradictory? You have a couple of famous communists in your signature image, and the communistic view of religion is that it's unnecessary. Please don't take offense, I just felt like pointing this out.

About the US empire collapsing, I remember hearing something about some giant tsunami that is predicted to drown the east coast of North America in 500 years or something like that. That will probably be the end of USA as we know it today.

Philéas wrote: Isn't being Christian and being socialist rather contradictory? You have a couple of famous communists in your signature image, and the communistic view of religion is that it's unnecessary. Please don't take offense, I just felt like pointing this out.

jalas wrote: I Am a socialist and a Christian and a history buff apart from being a prog head.  I love history and I love finding connections in recent times.  It is a known fact that history repeats itself.  This is why we must learn it.  With that said,  I would like to remind everyone that all empires fall.  Don't ask why because they all just do.  I am not happy about this, especially since I live in the US, but this empire will fall.  How do you all think this will happen?    Don't deny the truth.   Peace.

The sky lights up above America
The world is lost but loves America
When the eyes of children
See the ones left standing
And the rest begin to finally understand
The hand of God defends America
And who would not defend America?

Australian wrote: Let’s not forget that if we all paid back what we owe to Japan the entire world would be bankrupt…

These notions of "empires" are very much a thing of the past when much of the globe was undiscovered by European civilization. The world will become much more global and is reapidly doing so, so the notion of one country controlling everybody--in my mind--is not probable. Indeed, the US isn't even an empire. Sowing seeds of democracy in the middle east hardly counts towards being an empire if you're talking about Iraq. Inserting a government sympathetic to the US interests is only logical, since the US spearheaded the operation, but it's more of a Western interest-oriented government than a US-specific interest government.

Forgotten Son wrote: I think America will probably commit more and more troops to secure it's foreign interests and in doing so will over-extend itself. I'd imagine the collapse of the United States' empire will occur along similar lines to that of the fall of the British Empire.

stonebeard wrote: These notions of "empires" are very much a thing of the past when much of the globe was undiscovered by European civilization. The world will become much more global and is reapidly doing so, so the notion of one country controlling everybody--in my mind--is not probable. Indeed, the US isn't even an empire. Sowing seeds of democracy in the middle east hardly counts towards being an empire if you're talking about Iraq. Inserting a government sympathetic to the US interests is only logical, since the US spearheaded the operation, but it's more of a Western interest-oriented government than a US-specific interest government.

Maybe a US "empire" doesn't exist overtly, but in practice, under the heading of democracy, the United States has cut itself out of considerable covert empire. It's such foreign policy practices that have seen a popular backlash aginst the US both in the Middle East and Latin America.

As for estern interests, I'm not sure that's strictly true of any nation beyond Britain. Western Europe hasn't been particularly close to America in quite some time (if ever in the case of France) and the EU is trying to distance itself from the US. The US has reciprocated, making it clear that those nations that didn't want to join the US in it's paragon of humanitarianism in Iraq wouldn't reap it's "benefits."

sleeper wrote: I'm confused, isnt Socialism different to communism (one being more left than the other).

    
Yes, they are different. Although, I don't think a true communist government has ever existed because the "revolutionaries" end up becoming totalitarian like the government they overthrew. Socialism is successfully employed by several European countries. I, by the way, am a socialist also.

Briefly, the days of empires being overthrown are over.  History may, indeed, repeat itself but regimes in the past fell because of lack of communication and misunderstandings more than anything else.  The new age of global economies and information exchange prevent world wars more than anything else.  Empires may change and evolve and even decline but they don't get toppled anymore.