In my opinion, the American empire isn’t anywhere near close to being killed. Like Dracula, only a stake through its heart can kill the empire. Its political heart is the Constitution since every part of the empire’s power has been built up by Congress, the President and the Supreme Court while working under the U.S. Constitution. Without a vast reduction in what is seen by Americans as the legitimate role of government and its legitimate power, the empire will not die by political means. The empire’s economic heart is its ability to tax the wealth of Americans and regulate their wealth-production. That economic heart might be pierced by the empire’s financial and economic excesses, fed by the hubris of its leaders.
The support of Americans for the empire waxes and wanes, but if the Vietnam War couldn’t kill their support, what can? The empire has grown after the demise of the Soviet Union. That too didn’t dim the support for government power and the often blind enthusiasm for its application.
When Biden tells Delaware graduates (from an AP article that distills his speech), that “they’re stepping into a rapidly changing world that presents profound dangers and challenges…”, he’s advertising the empire and American interventionism. When we read “Biden says the threats the world faces include international terrorism, pandemic disease, climate change and global inequity,” he’s laying out new justifications for U.S. government “leadership” and interventions led by the U.S. government.
In this day and age, the potential justifications for foreign and domestic interventions by government are unlimited. The DOD speaks of natural disasters as justification for American military alliances across the world.
In this age when so many Americans do not place limits on government power or question it or fear it, government’s agenda is infinitely expansible. When any item on anyone’s wish list is a candidate for government interference, the potential applications of government power are endless. It is only a matter of forming a coalition, convincing enough voters, persuading enough politicians and getting one’s program or pet law passed.
Apart from the libertarian analysis, there is no serious questioning of government power, or at least none that rises to the status of being aired by main stream intellectuals and media. They are intent on squelching any such debate, which is why they so frequently smear libertarianism. Individual issues, programs, laws, wars may come in for debate, but never the heart of all the issues, which is government power.
Supporters of the empire relegate all such issues of power to the status of having been settled by constitutional rulings years and decades ago, never to be revisited or reopened. The Supreme Court ardently protects the walls it has built around government power. The empire needs a stake through its heart, but it has built defenses against getting near the beast or cutting off its supply of taxpayer-blood.
6:26 pm on June 1, 2014
