Happy Eurocentric Imperialism Day!

Iron Age, meet Stone Age. I cannot lament Europe's rolling over the New World's speedbump indigenous peoples as might some apologetic, bleeding-heart liberal. Fuelled by lust for land, riches, and trade, European kings and queens sent their fleets across the Atlantic to stake out their place on the New World Gravy Train. Their best and bravest conquistadors slaughtered and enslaved entire civilizations who could not imagine such a thing as the wheel. They raked untold riches from the peoples of both American continents and bloated the treasuries of Europe, mostly to fuel wars among themselves. Conquering and developing the new lands required manpower. Besides the bravest men, people with nothing to lose embarked on the perilous westward one-way journey. Religious and political dissidents, criminals, and adventurous entrepreneurs packed the boats. Things might have worked out okay for Europe, except that they took women along with them; not whores to keep the workers placated, but wives to make homes in the New World. With the first generation of New Worlders born, settlers began to lose an iota of identity with the Old World. Dissents with an ax to grind with the Crown rolled these lost iotas together--it took centuries for them to reach critical mass(achusetts) south of the St. Lawrence. Finally, the bravest and brightest of the New World schemed to create a government free of the wrongs of Europe and wrested it from the hands of King George.

They took America out of the Empire, but couldn't take the Empire out of America. The fecund 13 States busted out of their seams with explorers and settlers. Heading west and south, they put the squeeze on Spanish and French and later Mexican colonials, and exterminated those aborigines who wouldn't assimilate. They bought off the French and Russians, repelled the English/Canadians, and chased the Spanish out of their colonies. Now America has the luxury to have compassion for the Native Americans and the power to earn the fear, if not respect/friendship of Europe. But they should not hate us, because they made us what we are. If they look too hard, they might see the genes of their own bravest and brightest, long bred out their own anemic pool of socialism.