Yeah. It's sometimes easy to forget that Europe went through the same thing. Europe was colonized by Rome. Same things. When Rome pulled out it was 500 uears of dark ages, poverty, gender and religious violence, no education, sanitation, or healthcare to speak of.

Because that's what colonialism does. No matter who's doing it to whom. It was the same when Egypt was an empire. The same when the Ottomans were an empire. The same with every empire.

Now that we (hopefully) know better, I hope colonized countries don't do what we did when finally threw off that yoke. We idolized Rome. You can see it in our buildings. We wanted to become the new Rome.

And we did. On all points.

Don't idolize the Western empire or the American seat of that empire. Have the courage we didn't have. Find your way back to wholeness as a people.

Yeah. Manifest destiny doctrine did a real number on our psyches. The rest of the West have their own versions of this too.