“It’s good, actually, that the colonists displaced and genocided the natives, because they’re so much better at managing the land”
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The Marshall Plan is quintessential American exceptionalism
“the Tribes killing each other over land is better than outsiders doing it for reasons”
This post is bad for more than one reason.
You’re suggesting the reason colonists had in acquiring land was that they were more adept than natives? They just wanted efficiency? If the indigenous people were all peaceful, but good farmers and just wanted to keep to themselves, the colonists would have left and said, “at least the land was cultivated efficiently!”
And, the Bolivaran Revolutions (if you can’t follow - this is me referring to the post you responded to) weren’t conducted by 4th world tribal groups bereft of (then) modern technology. They were very similar to the US Revolution and were driven by wealthy republican land owners. The Bolivars were Spanish and were one of the wealthiest families in the Spanish Americas. A lot like George Washington.
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No, they took the land for conquest. Just like internecine Tribes did for centuries before. Washington was just a lot more effective at fighting than the Tribes.
That’s not what you said. You said
Are you just playing games?
Buddy, what do you think created the need for the Marshall plan:
Being fortunate enough to be an ocean away from the destruction is not “exceptionalism”
Now, if your point is that America is exceptionally capitalist and the purpose of the Marshall plan was to maintain Europe as an international market for American capitalists, then yes you and I would agree that it shows American exceptionalism. In a bad way.
Yes there were wars and surely genocides, but that’s been the case in many times and places around the world among every sort of peoples.
95% of indigenous peoples in North and South America were killed. That’s different.
It wasn’t European exceptionalism, I’ll tell you that much.
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USA helping rebuild Western Europe and Japan and not conquering them was pretty unique. It’s weird to say it’s “quintessential American exceptionalism” when it might really be the only good case of it. And, what it really was, was shockingly smart and extremely beneficial for the USA. Could be both smart and good natured, could have been just good natured and lucky, but, also could have just been smart.
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Actually, what is really American Exceptionalism (and it goes for all the Americas to some degree) is welcoming immigrants and birthright citizenship.
so much for that
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I think this goes to your point earlier about modern imperialism no longer requiring conquering, just spheres of influence. The Marshall Plan is a good example of that shift
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Should have said “in part” not “because”. Didn’t realize this was a thesis defense.
Nazis?
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I guess that’s correct in some technical way, so congrats on getting something right
Or Doctors Without Borders
Well, they’re French, so not the best example of American soft power, but maybe the French government uses them that way. I don’t know enough about them.
USAID is probably a better example of soft power pretending to have humanitarian aims, if that’s what you’re going for.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5452513/trump-usaid-foreign-aid-deaths
Study: 14 million lives could be lost due to Trump aid cuts
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I’m not going to tell you that there isn’t an ulterior motive behind American foreign aid, but it does seem like modern imperialism is better than the kind we had before.
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I’m not claiming that they don’t actually provide humanitarian assistance, just that providing humanitarian assistance isn’t the primary purpose. It’s the method of maintaining American influence.