https://x.com/nxt888/status/2061444560056967611
What the empire gave its citizens, more than anything else, was a story in which they were not the empire.
They were the resistance to tyranny.
They were the "arsenal of democracy."
They were the "last best hope of earth."
They were the "reluctant sheriff" called in when no one else could restore order.
Every empire tells its citizens a version of this story.
The British had their "civilizing mission."
The French had their "mission civilisatrice," same story, different language.
The Romans had their Pax Romana, the peace they brought to the world at swordpoint.
The story is always about what you're giving.
Never about what you're taking.
Never about who pays for the peace, and with what, and whether they were asked.
American citizens live inside the most sophisticated version of this story ever constructed, distributed through the most powerful cultural apparatus ever built: Hollywood, television, the internet, the university system, the news industry.
The story is everywhere.
The story is the air.
And fish don't know they're in water.
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