[lionhearted]

> Thanks for jumping in to pointlessly defend some giant institution. ... your starry eyed tone is quite unearned.

First, up your civility a bit there. The snark is unnecessary and counterproductive to good discussion.

Second, my argument wasn't, "They did some good things too."

It was, "They were overwhelmingly the largest force for good in all of history."

Seriously, check out Heaven's Command. It's pretty balanced and covers every significant battle, controversy, and hypocrisy. And factoring all of that in, the Empire still comes out as the nation that's done more for humanity than anyone else.

[thisuser]

I'm not asking you to continue to defend the Empire. I'm asking you to analyze the multitude of institutional forces that contributed to the structure Empire in a way that lets you causally analyze which forces produced which outcomes. This is a discussion of what the structure of our institutions ought to be. To answer that we need to be a little more subtle than evaluating the Empire as a singular, whole unit.