Kevin McCarthy Unlocks New Level of Embarrassment With Claim That America Never Acquired Land Via War
Kevin McCarthy Unlocks New Level of Embarrassment With Claim That America Never Acquired Land Via War
The former House Speaker appears to know very little about U.S. history.
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The United States didn't buy The Philippines or Puerto Rico. It did buy the Western States.
It bought some of the western states. It flat out stole the rest.
It bought them all, but Mexico was really poor so they got it cheaper. The US was willing to pay $50 million.
No. It did not.
The US did offer to buy the territories, Mexico said no, then the US invaded and took them. During the peace process after the war, the US then paid less than half of the initial offer for the territories that it was never going to give back.
Later, the US bought a sliver of land on the border for a slightly inflated price, but that was its own thing.
But you can't really call an armed invasion, and then a pittance paid out in damages, to be "Buying them all".
The United States could have just taken all of Mexico, but it didn't. It paid for the land. The population of the western states was made up of Americans anyhow, less than a thousand Mexican citizens lived in those areas at the time.
How generous of you to call the natives American after the fact.
That is actually addressed in the purchase agreement.
If a guy takes your car at gunpoint, and then hands you a fiver, he did not just "buy your car".
A peace treaty at the end of a war of conquest is not a "purchase agreement".
You are assuming a lot, especially that Mexico had a functional government even before their Army slaughters settlers in Texas.
Moving the goal posts now?
It was okay to launch a war of conquest because the Mexican government was weak?
All because a bunch of American slave owners invaded Texas and started a war of "independence".
But there's more to the story. Mostly Santa Anna. He became a national hero for beating back attempts at conquest by both Spain and France. He became president and then sparked a multi-front civil war by centralizing power in his own hands...
But yes, he also killed some slavers. Boo hoo.
Someone: puts a gun to your head and says "I'll give you $4 for your car".
You: "This is a free and fair trade."
That wasn't the case, the Mexican government was run as an oligarchy. The United States threat was to threaten to turn over their lands to the public.
The US took most of the land from Mexico that was worth taking. There's little viable agricultural land south of Texas. Also, it put a lot of land in between Mexico and New Orleans, which is an incredibly important international port. With that secured, no foreign army would be able to threaten that port without major logistics challenges, much less fighting through the US Army and every local citizen with a gun.
The US grabbed what it wanted and let Mexico keep the scraps.
That is looking at it from today, not from how it was viewed then. The main reason Mexico was fine with selling was the massive desert that separated the two areas and the extremely violent native population that inhabited the region. That reason didn't become peaceful until the 1920s.
The US bought the Philippines from Spain for $14 million. Then fought a war with the Filipinos.
Well, Spain didn't ask them.
Spain was loosing influence in the Philippines at that time so to cut their loses they offered the Philippines to the US. They even fought a mock battle where Spain "lost".