The United States Should Set a More Constructive Example for Future Superpowers

Thank you for accepting my challenge. Good luck! I did indeed assume that the U.S. is setting an example. It is folly to believe otherwise. I did NOT assume that other nations will "copy" our actions. Even so, our actions DO set precedent for how other nations will interact. I will take your response in two parts. First, you essentially claim that we charted our own course as a nation from the beginning. This is both true and false. Certainly we made our own decisions, and we chose to do things in ways that had not been done before. It is false, however, to claim that we did not follow precedents of any kind. We followed precedents from England's common law. We stole whole cloth from ancient Greek and Roman ideals. Did we "copy" any one system? No. But our founders, and we, were HEAVILY influenced by past nations. Second, you claim that it is absurd to say that future superpowers will follow in our footsteps. This is absolutely false. Never before has the global community been so close-knit. Never before have nations had so much information about each other. Never before has there been such scrutiny of nations' actions. Yes, China's people have a different culture. Yes, they will make different decisions as a nation than we have made. My point was that we have set dangerous precedents as to how a superpower acts. You ask when a superpower has copied another superpower. There have never been superpowers like ours before. Never before have nations wielded such a magnitude of military and economic power. Rome, for all its glory, could not have wiped the planet clean of the human race; we can do so with the push of a button. So, we are the first nation in history that in indisputably the most powerful nation on the planet. We are one of only a few nations with ultimate destructive power, and the only one with the means to truly implement it. We have entered a new stage of human history, and we are the first power to sit atop the world's throne. But, if you want examples of nations copying other powerful nations in the past, you might look at Europe during the 15th - 19th centuries. The powerful European nations took cues from each other constantly regarding what was acceptable and not acceptable. You also confuse the intention of my argument. You continually talk about political structure in reference to your arguments; e.g., how the Romans had a "Senate and an Emperor, while the Persians had just one ruler." I could care less about the political structure of superpowers; I refer only to how they act. You are hung up on the word "copy." Nowhere did I state that any power would "copy" our actions. My argument is that what we do now, as the world's first true, modern superpower, sets precedent for how superpowers will act in future. My argument stands: our actions have set a dangerous precedent. We must change this course, for the sake of the world. Finally, I cannot leave your gross historical misunderstanding without comment. You talk about Rome and Persia in the context of "copying." Rome certainly did not "copy" anything Persia did. Roman leaders primarily attempted to emulate ancient Greek (Trojan, actually) ideals, until the time the Roman Republic started to become the Roman Empire (it was NOT always an empire). Once Octavian Augustus became Consul and gathered power to the Consulate, the senate lost all of its real power. So in practice, the Roman Empire was an autocracy from its inception - as was the Persian Empire.