[pessimizer]

> That ended over well over an hundred years ago

What do you mean by this? The Philippine War started in 1898 in Cuba, and began US world expansion. If you're dating expansion over the continent as overlapping with that (which you should) you're agreeing that there was unbroken expansionism.

edit: and what does Spain's (or France's) empire have to do with anything? If I burgle the house of a burglar, it doesn't make me not a burglar. The question was whether the US was expansionist, not a moral judgement about the people who controlled the places it expanded to. You can't say that we weren't expansionist and also that they deserved it.

[0x457]

> and what does Spain's (or France's) empire have to do with anything? If I burgle the house of a burglar, it doesn't make me not a burglar.

To be clear it's not that you're in a burglar's house, it's that you're robbing the same place.

[steveoscaro]

Yes thanks, that was my point, that it's not like the Mexican government had a clear moral argument to that land over the US. Both were break-away colonies expanding over native cultures.

[thimabi]

> The Philippine War started in 1898 in Cuba, and began US world expansion.

That is not entirely true. The United States government and/or its citizens acting autonomously had global reach much earlier than 1898.

Throughout the nineteenth century, American expansionism was seen in various Central American countries, Ecuador, Liberia and Japan, for instance. In some cases, like in Japan and in Brazil, America’s aggressive policies were thwarted. But it does not mean that there was not expansionism.

[steveoscaro]

1898 was still well over a hundred years ago though.