Sorry for ripping your face off back then. I hope it has healed sufficiently. If not I know some talented plastic surgeons. ;-)

Thanks, no worries. It was long ago and far away, face healed without scarring, and I don't think about it except at times like this.

Good rewrite--you eliminated most of the blatant patronization while preserving the essential chauvinism.

I would have to answer yes to most of your quiz, simply because the leading questions force that answer. But it embodies some of the very contradictions at issue here. One could answer yes to both of:

2) Do nations have inalienable rights?
3) Do you believe the US has the best governmental structure of all nations?

and be faced with reconciling the paradox of the US forcing its superior form of government down the throat of a sovereign nation.

That leads to the broader question of the conflict between some religions and forms of government; most notably, of course, Islamic sharia law (and a lesser but still significant conflict with Christian Fundamentalist notions of "God's Law" and a "Christian Nation"). Do you think that there are any limits to our "right" to spread democracy at gunpoint? What do you do when the problem isn't introducing democracy into a political vacuum, but rather that democracy conflicts with deeply-held religious beliefs? How far can we go before the effort is simply self-defeating? And if we choose to overrule religious beliefs, how do we reconcile that with our principle of freedom of religion?

Religion is the big problem right now writing a Constitution in Iraq, not only the balance of power between various religious populations, but also the fear that the more fanatic sects will institute a theocracy. We may learn about the limits of the power of democracy as the all-purpose solvent, because Iraq is really very different from America in fundamental ways.

The American colonists were religiously homogenous, overwhelmingly Protestant Christian; and being colonists, tribal ties were effectively broken up by the ocean crossing and life in a new land--colonists are, by definition, people rejecting former national identities. The colonists formed new tribes aligned with their new nation. But in Iraq religion and tribalism are our prime challenges. I would seriously question whether democracy can work in Iraq, not because Iraqis are somehow defective and incapable of democracy, but simply because democracy stands in such basic conflict with their culture's deeply-held beliefs. I know that this is a controversial question nobody likes to face, but it's worth considering whether Saddam's strong man model might not actually be the only viable form of government for that particular people and nation.

Sometimes I wonder why we're not considering breaking up the country into more natural nations aligned with the three major populations of Iraq. Its boundaries aren't sacred--Iraq is a fiction created by the British for bureaucratic convenience, not out of any concern for organizing the people for their own benefit. Are we approaching Iraq with the same attitude as the British, and making the same mistakes?

Which leads naturally to the question of American imperialism, what with the unabashed imperial ambitions of the neocons being unleashed by events. Back in the heydey of the term "American imperialism", a more valid interpretation would be that the US was responding to an equally "imperialistic" Soviet Union, both of us building the 20th Century equivalent of empires through our networks of client states. But now that we're the lone superpower, what's the alternative explanation other than genuine imperialism? We try to give it a similar rationale invoking the "war on terror", but in the absence of another superpower grabbing territory and which we must therefore oppose by grabbing territory, how do we explain our own strategy of grabbing territory? Of what use is territory in a struggle against an enemy without a nation or territory of its own?

A global government is undesirable. A one-world government is impractical. For much the same reason capitalism spurs creativity, a world must remain culturally diverse.

I don't see why global government is either undesirable or impractical. If you scaled up the American system, what could possibly be your objection? America works well, and by design, as a hierarchy of governmental units, so why not add a layer at the top, as long as it's organized along the same principles of representative democracy? Where's your boosterism of democracy disappeared to when the question is applying it to ourselves?

The American political system is designed to preserve cultural diversity by, in theory, delegating as much power as possible to the most local political units. I think the homogenization of America that we see today has a lot more to do with commerce and business than it does with government. It's simply the consequence of the advantages of mass production and standardization, that consumer products from entertainment to fast food to clothing are mass-produced and the same all across the country. National media are even gradually levelling-out regional accents and dialect. Even education has become nationally standardized not so much because of Federal mandates, but simply because textbooks have to be mass-produced to be economical; no local or even state school system can afford to buy textbooks written specifically for their local subculture (well, to be precise, the very largest states, like Texas and California, have the market power to dictate what goes into all textbooks nationwide). Little of the American loss of cultural diversity can be laid at the door of government.

That said, the US has handed out free fish for decades with no thanks.

Now, many in the US realizes it must teach other nations to fish.

Yep, that's a TrueHomily™. Let's just be sure we keep straight the difference between teaching and forcing. People tend to learn the wrong lessons when you try to teach them at gunpoint; they remember the gun and forget everything else. (Have you ever had a gun pointed in your face? I have, and trust me, it's all you think of and all you remember. Nothing so focuses the mind like a 12-gauge shotgun.)