dragongirlafro

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Femperor
@Femperor

It seems hypocritical that Disney's theme parks simultaneously sell attendees both an idealized version of monarchy and an idealized version of the United States. For the cost of admission you can be within walking distance of both kind, caring princesses and headstrong presidents. You can have lunch on an americana-saturated Main Street and buy souvenirs in the nearby castle. Surely the ideologies that formed these kinds of governments would not be as close to each other outside of Walt Disney's showmanship. But the fact is that anti-monarchy sentiments dropped quickly after the U.S. won their independence; never again to rise to the levels of revolutionary days.

Today the average american calls a politician they disagree with a tyrant and cheers when their candidate bypasses checks and balances. The British royals are venerated less in the U.S. than in England, seen closer to the way americans view celebrities. And even as Europe's governments became more representative, the nations have overall been unable to surrender the image of the fairy-tale utopia that made Disney a household name. For an imperial power to fully condemn its past would be nothing short of hypocritical. Despite the number of nations who wrestled independence from the hands of imperialism, exploitation has continued; merely slowed and requiring a minute level of obfuscation. The thinnest, most sheer veil is enough to calm the minds of citizens from the imperial core.

I don't like generalizing americans as ignorant (partially out of bias). But like the housewife to an inattentive husband, we risk assigning a lesser flaw to mask a major one. Americans thrive on willful obtuseness. They know who makes their clothes and picks their fruit. Americans joke about how many goods have "Made in China" stamped on them, then they joke about the conditions of the factories that make those goods, then they joke about how often the workers of those factories try to kill themselves. The first person who suggests buying fewer of these goods is then labeled a communist; with an exception for nationalist rhetoric worried that China has too much money already.

Every time a nation becomes a global superpower, the existing superpowers are terrified. They'll list any number of reasons to view the new power as a threat, but the truth is simple: a country with that much power can no longer be exploited to their content. How much profit is lost when you have to make fair trades with your neighbors? How much is industry growth limited when a government has more power than the company who wants to build on its land? Capitalism is a system of winners and losers. The fewer losers and the less harshly they are defeated, the fewer rewards there are for the winning team. Americans are smart enough to understand and fight against that.


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