They're clearly talking about since WWII. When the US has definitely picked up the tab to ensure freedom for Europeans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Koreans, and former English colonies throughout the world.
Sure, the US was somewhat imperialist a century ago, but that's long gone.
You are spouting nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism
I think we're in agreement about post WWII. The US was invited into Europe and paid a lot of money to hold off the Russians. It protected the Taiwanese, Koreans and Japanese. That's pretty much what I said.
> US picked up the tab to ensure the freedom of democracies while us Europeans stood aside
Cite! The US does anything it wants to keep corporate power corporate. We topple lots of democracies. US is squarely imperialist.
See my comment about Smedley Butler from earlier, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31469671