Another aspect of the book that fascinated me was his allusion to the Massachusets bay Colony seal. The seal depicts a native american man, saying, "Come over and help us." This symbol signifies how the Massachussets bay colonists believed that the natives "needed" them to give them education, christianity, and other things they believed were essential to life.
Because of this belief, they tried to make friends with the natives, not so that they could be allies or so they could understand each other's culture, but so that they could force their own customs upon them. How kind of them. They also wanted to kill them and take their land as well, but we'll leave out that fact because there weren't enough settlers in America to do that yet.
This is another one of the points that Sarah Vowell makes which I agree with. And she goes on to say that in recent times, America still wants to "help" other countries to make them more like us. Like Iraq. If they were a democracy like us they wouldn't be the way they are, dagnabbed!
This all shows how Americans seem to think that it is our destiny to spread our culture around the world. It seems very bad, but it's true. And the world would definitely be so much better if other people just polluted and got obese like us, wouldn't it?
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