[spencerflem]

Yes, other large imperial countries are doing imperialism.

Nobody complaining about western imperialism supports those things either, and the focus is on western ones because they presumably live in a western country and have more influence there than elsewhere. Its also a fair critism that the west is more hypocritical given its big talk about freedoms and liberties just for it to install dictators whenever it's politically profitable.

[mint2]

I don’t think it’s possible to have a nuanced debate on this topic.

I’m just saying as someone against strong armed empire building, arguments that ignore the increasing imperialism of certain countries in order to decry the historical and waning imperialism of others feels not like an argument with imperialism but more like picking sides in a team sport.

as someone against imperialistic takeovers that does anger me.

[spencerflem]

Yeah totally, that viewpoint (the US/west is uniquely bad, we should not try to prevent imperialism elsewhere) is not one I've personally encountered much but if you have I can totally see why it would be super irritating.

[mint2]

It’s basically the general opinion I counter online.

it’s pretty much always focused on western imperialism in vague terms. Chinese and Russian are on an imperialistic rise of late, but those that decry western imperialism seem to ignore those. But yes there are posts that overly index on the Chinese or Russian imperialism as well.

conversely The ones that actually do decry Chinese or Russian imperialism usually give western actions more of a pass.

Sure there’s some exceptions, but the typical posts are always overly fixated on one flavor, and it really gives the impression that it’s not imperialism that’s being object to, but rather the team doing it.

What is rare is any post that seems to be honestly against all of that type of behavior, not tied to their team.

[spencerflem]

I think you're totally right in your parent comment that it's not possible to have nuanced debate on imperialism, at least online with strangers on a forum.

Because so much of what we're saying is relative to what seems like the status quo. I assume at least a good bit of the Anti-Western-Imperialism group see the status quo as being anti china and anti russia and see it as unfair that the US gets a pass. This seems (to me) like a fairly common take in democrat spaces, so hearing such a big deal (correctly imo) made out of Ukraine but then nothing about our own support of colonialism elsewhere is frustrating and seems like it needs the record corrected. This is the take I see the most, personally. Or maybe its equally common but I notice it more because the takes of 'America should stop doing colonialism' feel inoffensive and 'America is fine, focus on what Russia is doing' are more annoying to me personally, coming in with the assumption that we all already agree that Russia sucks so it feels like a distraction.

And I assume conservative spaces which I know less about take it for granted that the other side hates America and wants to hammer home that other countries suck as well. So I can imagine if that was your assumption then the other type of comment would be more annoying and stick out more.

Which seems to be the general way arguments with strangers all suck- nobody knows nearly enough of the context to actually figure out what anyone is trying to say with any nuance. Like, if I call radiohead overrated that means wildly different things based on how much you assume other people like radiohead etc.

Anyways, it's pretty rare for a comment to come out and say "I support imperialism" which shrimp_emoji was doing here and that's why I jumped in to comment, because what an awful take that is. Totally agreed that people supporting only one side as a 'team' thing is awful too. In this specific instance, I don't think that's what thrance was saying and tbh it was what I originally thought your first comment in the thread was going for, actually.

[mint2]

“Western” imperialism vs “american” imperialism even has a bit of a different ring to it. The former feels more like a nebulous boogeyman in group signal, the latter not so much.

That could just be my impression, but western imperialism so like Ireland? Iceland? Greece?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard “eastern imperialism” to talk about China or Russia.

[spencerflem]

I think you might be reading into into it too much, or else I'm not reading into it enough.

To me, "western" imperialism includes older stuff like the British and Spanish colonies etc. and is a nice one word phrase rather than listing each specific country. In modern times it is really mostly just America so that would be the better term for talking about it, you're right. I think me and maybe others tend to kinda lump all of the NATO countries together as one unit since usually there's not usually big disagreements and other countries do participate some, like the other NATO counties that sent troops for the Global War on Terror.

You're right, I haven't heard the term eastern imperialism, but I have heard the term "evil empire" to describe Russia specifically.

I want to reiterate that I believe that while there is certainly some, I find the group that is anti-US conquest and ambivalent to Russian conquest somewhat relevant and awful, and the group that is anti-US conquest and pro-Russia conquest tiny enough in America to be basically non-existent. The pro-US conquest group is big enough that there are still lots of people (in my experience) that support Kissenger, the global war on terror, etc. especially in government. I totally agree that this is not a productive debate angle though because I don't think either of us will be able to convince the other what the 'general opinion' is. And frankly I don't really care because we already agree on all the important parts