America. One nation, under God?

[Roadkill Quiche]

Exploring the issue with hypotheticals:

Religious: Bush campaigns for his party on a platform of spending tax money to build cathedrals. Result: 20% of the populace is thrilled, the rest vote in a Democratic congress.

Militaristic: To supplement his chest-thumping over Iraq, Bush reinstates the draft. Result: 5% of the populace is thrilled, the rest vote in a Democratic congress.

Scientific: Bush campaigns on a platform of spending tax money on higher education and the funding of basic research. Hmmmmm. Sounds like a winner.

Commercial: Bush campaings on a platform that commercial enterprise should be free to conduct itself in whatever it sees fit. Arthur Andersen is thrilled; the rest of the country votes in a Democratic congress.

Expansionist: Bush campaigns on a platform of admitting Alberta and B.C. to the United States. The Canadians are alarmed, while the domestics are trying to find those provinces on a map.

Industrious: Bush campaigns on a platform of opening ANWAR to oil exploration and diluting environmental regulation to promote domestic industry. Sound familiar?

conclusion: Scientific and Industrious

[One_Brow]

Perhaps we are taking "expansionist" too narowly? Just becuase colonies don't work doesn't mean civilizations like the USA are vigorously expansionist. It's just that they are tryingt o expand their culture and values instead of their government.

I think America is expansionist not only because of the "manifest Destiny", but also because in this century it has continually tried to get other countires/cultures to adopt its values. This would be quite similar to countries like England and the USSR, and very different from France and India.

I think this type of cultural push is the modern equivalent of "Expansionist".

[Serb]

Absolutely agreed.

[gsmoove23]

Originally posted by Roadkill Quiche
Scientific: Bush campaigns on a platform of spending tax money on higher education and the funding of basic research. Hmmmmm. Sounds like a winner.

or Bush limits government spending on certain research that is offensive to certain religious groups and promotes school voucher systems, which I've never been sure exactly what they'll do . Thats familiar.

Originally posted by Roadkill Quiche
Commercial: Bush campaings on a platform that commercial enterprise should be free to conduct itself in whatever it sees fit. Arthur Andersen is thrilled; the rest of the country votes in a Democratic congress.

or Bush places a tariff on foreign steel to bolster the domestic industry, supports opening ANWAR to oil exploration in support of massive commercial interests backs out of Kyoto to protect the economy and again those massive energy interests... very familiar.

Originally posted by Roadkill Quiche
Expansionist: Bush campaigns on a platform of admitting Alberta and B.C. to the United States. The Canadians are alarmed, while the domestics are trying to find those provinces on a map.

or Bush conquers a troublesome nation after 9/11 and supports a new leader who just happens to be a former executive of a US oil company. that might go under a couple of categories...

Originally posted by Roadkill Quiche
Industrious: Bush campaigns on a platform of opening ANWAR to oil exploration and diluting environmental regulation to promote domestic industry. Sound familiar?

Sounds commercial...

[sabrewolf]

rating america of the past 50 years (F-15 time, e.g.), two traits fit the best:
commercial (no explanation needed) and
militaristic (no presidency without at least one war, NEVER defensive wars, in the cold war extremely powerful army, today still the strongest)

of course, the industious and scientific traits also fit, but not as good as the first two.

[sabrewolf]

oh... however, in lincoln-days, expansionist (colonize the west) and religious (all the religious christian fanatics and ultra-orthodox believers left europe to live in northern america...
so in those days: expansionist / religious

[Beren]

Sabrewolf is linking militaristic to agression once again and I don't blame him, but I disagree with him. What you should look to is military spending, which is high in the USA so America should be militaristic judging from the last half a century.
And about all these wars recent presidents fought, well I think they always stood for democracy (tendancy especially big during democrats) and corparate interests (tendancy especially big during republicans, but both of these political groups have a bit of both). Most important point: the USA didn't do all that just for corporate interests and its own interests.

[Serb]

Are you absolutely sure about this?
Personaly I can't remeber a single war where USA didn't fought for its own interests.

[sabrewolf]

beren,
i didn't say these wars where wrong, because that would be off-topic. i was purely going by the fact of those many wars and - as you said - by the fact of those incredibly high spendings.

i know the US is democratic (allthough more a republic imho) and the least wars where for corporate interests (vietnam, korea, etc.), but they were wars after all...

you said you disagree about militaristic = agressive. let's have a look at the civ3-militaristic civs:
Celts, Vikings, Mongols, Germans, Rome, Japan --> these all were agressive in real life.
Zulu were considered as primitive and agressive civilization.
that leaves us china and aztecs. of the latter i don't know enough, but i do think the chinese (even though they fough a lot) deserve imho scientific, industrious or commercial more than militaristic. but then, i'm looking at the ancient china.

what i actually wanted to say: in civ3, militaristic civs were mostly agressive civs --> militaristic = agressive Q.E.D

[gsmoove23]

How high is America's military spending compared to its GNP? If it were judged relatively I don't think you could call it militaristic. Neither does the US have a very military culture compared to military civs, certainly not after the Vietnam war.

Plus the wars we were engaged in in the last 50 years, most of them were fought in the context of a wider conflict, the Cold War where we were arguably not aggressors. After the Cold War I believe most of our wars were conducted with the cooperation of the UN, so calling them aggressive is a little iffy although still possible. I don't think militaristic works for even the last 50 years, at least not as one of our top 2 traits.

[gsmoove23]

The militaristic civs you mention all had very strong warrior cultures or warrior cults that had a great influence on their society, except perhaps China, I'm not sure. This is whats missing in American society.

[Apep]

I would say the US is militaristic, the citizens might not be, but the foreign policy is.
For example the US declaed something similar to the Civ III Trade Embargo on New Zealand because we refused to allow any type of nuculer ship into our waters.
(Personally I feel it's totally unnessecary to have nuke ships at all)
Also, it has been pointed out that if you took 1% of the US yearly military budget, it would be enough to feed all the starving people in the world for a year (This was said in 1997, so it's probably not quite true any more). It is said that the USA is a superpower, and this is definatly not because of Religion, Comercialism (That was the British Empire) or Indusrialism (I'd say that is more China, notice how much is 'Made in China').
That said, a historic building down the road was just knocked down to make way for the American Fast Food Franchise, Mc ******s so that might make a case for commercialism.

[Beren]

Originally posted by Apep
Also, it has been pointed out that if you took 1% of the US yearly military budget, it would be enough to feed all the starving people in the world for a year (This was said in 1997, so it's probably not quite true any more).

What do you mean? Poverty might have expanded and the sheer size of the world population, but so has America's military spending.

[Bos]

I would narrow the choices down to Militaristic, Commercial, and Expansionist.

I suppose only picking two, it would be Commercial and Militaristic.

My reasoning:

----------------------

EXPANSIONIST

America has not directly spread out across the world, as past empires have done. For example, the British Empire spread out across the world by sending its explorers, settlers, and military directly to those regions. The military subdued the local ethnicities while the settlers brought in their own. Such was the common trait of the Colonial Era.

America, however, has rarely used direct military action in order to gain masses of land, except before continental America was unified and also during wars where the other side made the first strike (ex: Pacific in WWII).

While America is not expansionist directly, the are very powerful in using dilpomacy and economics to control their interests. Latin America has been very dependent on America, as evidenced by the "banana republics" which are nations mostly run by American businesses.

America also has military bases (arranged diplomatically or through past wars) in many nations throughout the world. How many German, British, or even Israeli military bases do you see in America?

All in all, I decided not to choose Expansionistic because it is more a result of America's power in economics and military, which then leads to its power in diplomacy. That means: Commercial and Militaristic.

COMMERCIAL

Little needs to be said here. While nowadays nearly every corporation in America is owned by a European or Asian conglomerate, many of those corporations began in America. The nation's culture is everywhere: music, clothes, and even food. Case in point: McDonald's. Also, to lead into my explanation of my next trait: oil corporations rule America.

MILITARISTIC

Skimming through the previous posts, it seems the trend was for Americans to decline that their nation was militarisic; while non-Americans were agreeing with this statement. With America's new military spending plan, America's military budget will be greater than that of every nation in the world combined. I noticed someone mentioning how in relation to the GNP, the spending is not that large. America's GNP is not equal to the rest of the world.

From the viewpoint of those that are not Americans, it is seen that America's power in diplomacy is largely due to its military strength. While President Clinton was in power, I would have seriously rethought having Militaristic included; but with the return of someone like W. Bush in office I feel such a trait is needed.

Regime change is illegal, as ruled by the Treaty of Westphalia. There have been numerous cases of military coups occuring to overthrow a ruler, as backed by American forces: Chili, Cuba, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and possibly Iraq -- just to name a few.

Also, military bases established back in the two World Wars still exist, with I believe France being the only nation so far that was willing to stand up and get rid of them.

----------------------

Americans: I apologize if I insult you, but these are all events that have occured. However, they are often downplayed in American media, because why would American media insult its biggest supporter? I do not speak for every person in the world, but this is how many people outside of America see your nation.

I suppose you could say it is fear. America has the power to take over the world -- will there be a President that decides to use it? Hitler was democratically elected. The greatest of evil gain power because they are excellent at tricking people into believing in them. "A good diplomat can tell you that you are going to Hell, and make you look forward to the trip."

[siredgar]

America is definitely Expansionist and it hasn't stopped being so.

Louisiana Purchase
Florida
Texas (give it back to the Mexicans! take Bush, too!), Western Frontier
Alaska
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Hawaii (it should be independent!)
Guam
American Samoa
Northern Mariana Islands
Midway Island
Philippines
Panama Canal
Japan (GI's: stop raping Japanese schoolchildren!)
South Korea (GI's: stop raping/killing Korean women!)
West Germany
Spain
Turkey
Greece
U.K. (America's *****)
Italy
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
etc. etc. etc.

And this is just in terms of territorial occupation. The U.S. media, entertainment, and commercial arms are attempting to make the rest of the world conform to its standards. We don't follow the metric system, but we expect others to think, watch, and eat what we do???

Now the U.S. is trying to get Iraq's oil fields (one of the largest reserves in the world). No wonder so many people hate us.