The American Empire

I just read a fabulous article at National Review Online entitled "If America Is an Empire, then Why Is Gas So Expensive?--Imperial considerations" by Thomas F. Madden. Here is a teaser:

"America has become an empire. Everyone says so.

This is a surprise to most Americans, since few imagined that they were building such a thing. But, as historians such as Walter Nugent and Robert Kagan have recently taught us, Americans have been at this imperialist expansionism for quite some time — really since the beginning of the republic. How else to explain that the United States has gone from a handful of agrarian colonies to a world-spanning colossus in the space of only a few centuries? As you read this, American military might is deployed across the planet. The U.S. Navy is literally larger than all of the other navies in the world combined. The United States military accounts for almost one-half of total global military expenditures. Never before in human history has there been such a disparity in power among sovereign states.

So, I have a question. If America is an empire (and everyone says that it is), then why is gas so expensive?"

Go read it. You will get a chuckle and you will also learn something.