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America is an empire, I know that's stating the obvious but at its core it's no different than many others throughout history. The wealth of this country raised the level of the concept of a "private life" for each American in the latter half of the twentieth century to an unparalleled degree. Millions in the third world lead lives whose main preoccupation is actual physical survival, where the threats of famine and war or entrenched caste systems are literally a matter of life and death. The wealth of this country has been a great pacifier, even for those at the very bottom of the economic ladder. It's also been a device in hiding the glaring inequalities in terms of education, health care and justice within the American class system. The whole notion of a "private life" allows us to remain transfixed on our own lives, our friendships and love relationships, our personal finances, the bits and pieces of popular culture we cling to tenaciously as part of our own identity. How many posters here know somebody who wouldn't know a political concept if it hit him in the head but suddenly got religion when gas prices began to spike upward? Just as "Romanized" citizens of the Roman Empire enjoyed a level of token personal freedom unequalled in antiquity, Americans on the "right side of the law" have more personal freedom than most of the world's population today, but it comes at a price. All empires, including this one, have a rapacious evil at the core of their being, a guaranteed self destruct switch. The good old USA is no different.
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