Empires

Thinking about the conflict over South south Ossetia in Geogia got me thinking about larger multi-ethnic states that focus on democracy, trade, and peace, and why so many people are anxious to break them up in the name of race. I know it's not a very good analogy, but it did get my thinking about a great article I once read by Jonah Goldberg called "At Peace with Pax Americana".

His article is an analysis of the word empire, and whether all empires are bad. I've always been intrigued by empires- it seemed like the Roman Empire, Byzantium Empire, Ottoman Empire, British Empire, and now the "American Empire" have all been rather good for the world- not perfect by any means, with lots of warts yes, but on the whole better than anything before or after for promoting peace, stability, and prosperity.

I've always appreciated multi-ethnic states that seek to promote peace within and without their borders, and always been rather annoyed by people who without hesitate embrace breaking up states into smaller and smaller units- I feel on some level that these people don't like people, and don't want to associate with them on any level. For example, it seems like hysterical anti-socialism like this is always coming from those people over at Lew Rockwell (side note: big surprise, those loonies totally support Russia on this conflict).

It seems like there are either two types of people- those who want to roll over and let the Russians do whatever they want, or those who want to fight back.