USA Wuz Here

American Imperialism is a term that the United States has been trying to shake for over a century now. It became popular after the Spanish-American War and has subtly lived on for decades through the United States' national egotism and "Holier than thou" attitude towards the rest of the world. It is known that America is the first country to step in when controversy arises, whether it is a global skirmish or a disaster area in need of rescue and as long as it is for the right reasons stepping in is correctly justified. While I agree that sometimes it is necessary to help fellow man I do have a problem with the United States NASA program discovering the “new frontier” for only the benefit of boosting its own national pride. Ever since the late 60's when J.F.K. announced we were going to land a man on the moon, America found refuge in an otherwise problematic time in history for the relatively new country. But while we were gaining new ground in civil rights here in the states we could not adopt these ideas into a secular notion. Rather, we reverted back to our capitalist ideologies when venturing into space. It then became a race to the moon with only two countries in the race, the USA and the Soviets. To the “winner” gets the spoils of national acclaim and newspaper headlines.

Never have I seen addressed the irony in the famous quote," One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" spoken by Neil Armstrong. The first man on the moon then place a giant American flag on the surface like a space-age Spanish Conquistador landing on the Americas for the first time. If this achievement truly belongs to the human race why would we find it necessary to nationally tag a world only visited by twelve Americans. Our idea of ownership should not be brought onto other worlds. Earth is our planet good or bad, and while I think it’s necessary to explore space through national programs (for funding), I believe it should be for the benefit of knowledge and understanding our own planet as a whole not for the benefit of a singular country. Have we not learned our lesson of claiming land that truly does not belong to us, and are we doomed to repeat history yet again? If we are fortunate to discover some other life form on a distant planet, are we going to learn from their culture, wine them, dine them, just to ultimately destroy their land just as Europeans slaughtered the Native Americans?

America is one of the best countries in the world when it comes to opportunity and equality and nothing can change that. I celebrate my freedoms everyday and I am a proud American and it is not my intention to down patriotism. In fact, I would like to further a global patriotism especially when it comes to space travel, we should be joined together in the cause of pursuing knowledge and resources in order to make everyone's life a better one. If we succeeded in this we could finally shake our imperialist title in at least one facet of our countries' history.
-James Battle