Why is justified for expansion of US beyond its borders after 1890?
470985
There wasn't much of a coherent argument. People were scared because of the Panic of 1893 that the US was running out of natural resources and capital, and businesses feared that they would need to have new land to be able to be competitive in the industrial world. The actual expansion that took place was justified by accusations that Spain was abusing its colonies, and so we had a moral obligation to come to their aid, but that's clearly not why we went to war with Spain.
399683
After we broke our isolationism and joined World War II.  We've always been imperialistic though, just look at Manifest Destiny and TR's Big Stick corollary to it.\n\nWe go to all these countries to help out and many extremists assume that we are there for other than alltruistic purposes.
227284
It mostly has to do with (1) US seclusion from the world political scene until the early/mid 1900s,(2) US Self-Sufficiency that was established as a result of that seclusion and (3) The fact that no one ever imagined something such as globalization a couple centuries back.\n\nSpecifically, the US was able to grow and prosper (although not without occasional difficulty) in a geographic location that was significantly distant (and difficult to reach; crossing an ocean on flimsy sailboats is not at all simple) from continental Europe, where people, nations, rulers, etc. were battling a huge amount of surmounting problems all brought along with things such as the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, Nationalism, Socialism, Liberalism, riots and revolutions, wars, famines, and urbanization. The difficulty of dealing with such new ideas, developments, etc. was heightened by the fact that Europe had had a long established system of doing/seeing things.\n\nThe US, however, was mostly distant to all these developments, and not having a long established system that was being challanged, it was easier for America to go along with what they were used to. Ultimately, this "being distant from trouble" helped the US establish its own system, grow, and of course, prosper. Thus, there came a time when people did not see what the advantage of changing systems would be when their system was clearly good enough to bring about such prosperity.\n\nThe metric system was established to bring unity to science, and thus to make it more "scientific" (for example, the meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second, the denominator of that fraction being the speed of light in a vacuum: 299792458 meters per second.). Countries outside Europe that adopted this system chose it, beacause they had no other choice. They were not significant contributers to science, and thus had to accept the established SI system, which was, not only practical, but also more precise and effective, and allowed scientists to draw conclusions, make hypotheses and establish relations more easily. The US, however, was a growing and potentially powerful country and did not necessarily need to "conform".\n\nAlthough the US scientific institutions do use the metric system today, the SI system is not widely established outside universities, institutions, etc.. Milk is still sold in gallons, and shoes in inches, for example.\n\nAt any rate, although it would theoretically be much easier for the American people to live with a system based on multiles of 10 and direct relations between units (1 liter of water is 1 kilogram, etc.), the US is now at a position where it is a world leader with an established system. It is now too late to change everything from road signs to education systems. The only link the general US has to the metric system is the fact that one yard pretty much equals one meter.\n\nBesides, like I have mentioned before, no one a couple centuries ago had or could have had imagined a phenomenon that we take for granted today: globalization. US businessmen, landowners, government, etc. probably just thought "I'm well enough the way I am, there is no need to rock the boat by forcing a new system, everyone that I do business with uses my system anyway, so what's the point?".\n\nAnyway, hope this answers your question.
691643
No, the boundaries aren't really visible, unless they are natural barriers such as rivers. People set the boundaries arbitrarily as the United States expanded west in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century.
392142
every country owns 100 miles out to sea, or half the distance to the next country if it's less than 200 miles away.\nThen the Leftover commies rule.
405280
baby_balla_gaby, Chell, spd2romero@s... and latin_hussla all need to go back to school and learn something. For starters the USA bought the land from the Mexican government and not steal it. Yes our ancestors who came here took the land from the Native Americans living here at the time. All civilization came up form the Africa and Middle East regions and spread throughout the world. Asians did come across from Siberia to what is now Alaska a long time ago. So many of you really need to go back to school yourselves. Majority of the people who live in north America today are dececndts from either the Spanish and Europeans. The Native Americans were here centuries before but their ancestors came from Asia. \n\nIt seems to me that many of the people supporting illegal immigrants want to get rid of all laws in this land and everywhere else. Tell me I am wrong here but it is the truth. Like what was said before their were no laws in the land until the mid to late 1800’s. So you can’t argue about the past but you need to start thinking about the future. If the Mexican people rely on the money that their relatives send home then they are making their lives worse every day with that mentality. Instead of  going to the US for a better life why don’t you work on getting your government to fix your economy and not rely on someone’s else.
558230
DEAR HEAVENS!!  To the person who said something about forefathers, your logic is not flawed ~ it is non-existent!\n\nWhen the SETTLERS came here, they came to SETTLE.  Did they do the indigenous peoples wrong?  After a while, without question they did.  However, that is not the point right now.\n\nThe point is that there was, at *that* time, ROOM here.  People could go carve their world out of pieces of wilderness, risking life and limb on a daily basis.  They could worship freely; they could hunt and feed their family without fear of being sentenced to death for it; and on and on it goes.\n\nWe no longer NEED any more people here.  We're loaded to capacity as it is.  Every Country should do its best to improve itself and the citizens of that Country should HELP ~ not go elsewhere and burden another Country.\n\nIn answer to the actual question:  I don't think we should keep our borders open.  In fact, I think they should be closed until our current crises are repaired.  Once repaired, we could re-open our borders with more stringent and specific laws.  As another Responder said on another question, if we need an example of how to limit immigration, we need look only so far as the Mexican Constitution and their requirements for citizenship.\n\nTO TOPCAT420:  Amen!  I have difficulty justifying "fixing" things for other Countries when we have so much fixing we need to do right here!  I have long been a believer in restoring more lands to the Native American people, along with any and all mineral rights thereto.  And that's why i said we are loaded to capacity as it is!  We have enough for now.  We need to right a whole list of wrongs committed against the Native Americans, we need to stop children starving here in the U.S., we need to clean up our own interurban areas .. we have a LOT to do at home, for ourselves and by ourselves, before we can consider re-opening borders and helping others.\n\nThe U.S. has helped others until we've helped ourselves right into a hole.
249417
Parts of Canada have considered joining the US occasionally. For example, the reason that the rail line going to British Columbia was built was because BC was considering joining the US if it was not built. \n\nThe US had hoped to annex parts of Canada in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and the "Patriot War" of 1837. The phrase "Manifest Destiny" was sometimes used as a shorthand expression for the notion that the United States should occupy all of North America. During the Polk administration, the slogan "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight" was used to describe where the Americans wanted the border with British North America to be drawn. In the Oregon treaty of 1846, the border was placed at the 49th parallel instead for most of western North America (except for some confusion around Angle Inlet, on the Minnesota-Manitoba border).   \n\nCanada and the US have very different cultures. Being a dual citizen, and having lived half my life in one of the two and half my life in the other, I can say this with a lot more authority than Canadians or Americans who occasionally visit for vacations or for business or for shopping, or know the other country from watching TV and movies. The two countries are quite different in many ways that are not immediately apparent unless you live for an extended period in both. The citizens of both countries have huge misconceptions about the other country, both positive and negative. I suspect that the cultures of the two have never been the same, and are not really getting any closer with time, even in the era of easy travel and communications. I think a merger would be very difficult for this reason.\n\n- - - - - - - - \nmoreacidthanalkaline, you are incorrect. The US has gained territory by invasion, or attempted to, repeatedly:\n1. it seized land from the indigenous peoples\n2. all of the American Southwest acquired from Mexico after an invastion in the Mexican-American war. \n3. the invasion leading to the Aroostook War (on the New Brunswick-Maine border)\n4. repeated invasions during the War of 1812, the Revolutionary War and the Patriot War of 1837\n5. Hawaiian acquisition might be viewed as the result of an invasion of sorts \n6. Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philipines were annexed as the result of the Spanish-American War; not exactly an invasion, but still aggressive action\n7. American Samoa\n8. Florida was acquired after an American invasion\n\nAnd many other more minor examples. There are plenty of examples of aggressive American action in the past, some that resulted in the acquisition of territory, some that resulted in the acquisition of influence, power, markets etc. \n\nI do not think the US wants to acquire Iraq. I would say that would be one of those most unlikely events ever.
1002802
No, as some things are expanding faster than we are.
251358
no it is not justified..the only reson we ewnt to war in the first place was for oil. and i think everyone knows that. This is wat war is all about, thorughout history form ww1 war was about natural resources liek oil. defiantely not justified
256219
To expand capitalism globally.
1077615
Yes, absolutely.  it's man's nature to expand his horzons.We have the whole universe to colonize/ Can you imagine, no more overcrowding??
687761
I feel America does not want to control territory as such.It only wants to maintain its supremacy and balance of world power.Controlling new territories is not good for the USA instead it is troublesome for them to hold on to foreign countries.
350078
There are a lot of categories in which we're not behind.  Consider for example medical and other scientific research, high quality universities, social mobility, and overall economic health.  It would not be unreasonable to argue that the American people (notice I didn't say government) do more to advance civilization than any other people.
382637
Because this is the US and we are expected to furnish the rest of the world with what ever they need. I am an immigrant who came here legally. And that's the way it should be.  I have seen what's happened England with open borders. The country is now a financial mess.
415632
Sure, Sam Houston beat the Mexican Army back in 1836, then the US military had beaten them again 1848. There is plenty of oil there to help out with growth not to mention the labor pool that has improved their skill in the past 30 years.  Mexico being added to the US would do wonders for the economy, then 70% of the poorest of the population would increase their standard of living into the modern world. But we would have to sink in tons of money in Federal programs to break up all the corruption, that in itself makes it not worth it.
941526
Multilaterialism is great when we can, however an elected governments first obligation is always to serve the best intrest of it's own people first. But name one instance when the US acted unilaterally we have always had at least some support from other countries. Vietnam is probably the closest you can get but even in that case we had some support from the rest of the world and the French basically created the mess.