Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
When we were clawing our way up from the obscurity of being a break-away penal colony of Great Britain we held to our principles and did not go about trying to impose them on others. There is great wisdom in the words of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt (1 and 2), and Wilson to name a few that is as relevant today as it was in their respective times.
Native Americans might disagree, as might Filipinos, and a few people in Latin America who saw the Monroe Doctrine from a side US history books don't generally portray. The Japanese might want to mention Commodore Perry sailing into Edo with warships and a few demands. That's off the top of my head, I suppose there are a few other examples around.

There is nothing wrong with an excellent principle, and one can have no better starting point. It pays, though, to be alert to the ease with which a bit of sophistry can twist the most admirable principles into justification for the most barbaric of acts.