> not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union liberating lots of countries in no small part due to America and it's allies fight against communism.
Was it though? I've heard that repeated so often. If it was how come it was such a surprise to all the Sovietologists at the time?
The thing is, those that worked for the CIA thought they won because their spies did this and that. Those working for the Dept of State thought they won because this and that diplomatic trick. Those in Congress throughout the years thought they won because they enacted these economic sanctions and so they killed the "Bear".
The truth is probably that it would have collapsed with or without the help of anyone from outside.
So not sure if US should be thanked for liberating Latvia, Georgia and Poland , ironically, Soviet Union's polices and base system setup should be thanked because it was so rotten at the core.
But another thing is interesting, and it shows in your post. This thing is very dangerous and it is the very thing that many hate US for -- exceptionalism. It shows implicitly in your comment and it is often assumed in political debate. It is this idea that US is special in some objective sense. That it doesn't have to abide by rules. It shouldn't be judged by same criteria as everyone else.
Equating it to the Roman Empire. Attributing it wondeful qualities of slaying a the great Satan of Communism and so on.
> Is the US perfect? Far from it, but the implication that the US is some pox on the world is just as absurd.
It is good to find out if people judge US based on comparing it to other countries or to the propaganda image it presents of itself. I find the disconnect and hypocrisy that shows in in the latter is one reason people might dislike US.
In other words, it is because it tells others how "perfect" it is, that imperfections and transgressions that are excusable for other countries become very noticeably with US. Like say torture. Ok, Somalian government chops children's arms off say if they don't want to convert or something like that. It would not shock too many people to learn that for example. The fact that US engaged and probably still does engage in torture (even thought they've redefined it as whatever enhanced interrogations something) is very shocking and disturbing vis-a-vis the "we are the great human rights champions of the world" type proclamations.
> And after all the characters rattle off a long list of things the Romans have done, and no one seems to want to hate the Romans anymore, Reg says
I do. They raided and conquered the territory of my country, killed and destroyed many villages. Destroyed local culture and language and imposed theirs. It is easy to look back and say well ok, Romans turned out pretty ok. We had roads and wheels. How do we know that not having Romans invade would have turned out? Maybe it would have been even better? We can't quite run that experiment to check.
Anyway this comparison with the Roman Empire doesn't quite work well for me on multiple levels, as you can see, sorry ;-)