Nothing to do with America. This is how the world works.

Again, you started by talking about consent.

This pivot to brute force exposes the hypocrisy not in the world, but specifically in America, as represented by the American citizen I am talking to.

It's also not "how the world works", it's how the world works while America has the power to make it work that way.

Thankfully, it is a self-defeating approach.

Those with power setting the rules is the way the world worked long before America. It never changed nor could it, as anyone with power would eventually tire of being told how to live

I think you are desperately trying to universalize the particular as a way to reconcile the two conflicting ideological frames you're trying to uphold, and I think your country exhibits the same ideological crisis.

As a simple counterexample to this universalism, think of the European Union. Germany and France could impose their will on smaller neighbors (and did, in less enlightened times!), but they don't, because y'know, they actually believe in rule of law, consent and consensus.

Or as an example closer to home - the Canada / US relationship before recent American aggression.

Things don't have to work by unilateral aggression. It is a specific ideological choice, it is not a law of nature. Now I understand it might feel different while enveloped in said ideology (it literally determines what we perceive to be possible after all!), the same way a Muslim fanatic would attribute everything to Allah's plan, but I'm not really interested in self-justifications.

> Germany and France could impose their will on smaller neighbors

and do...

For example Hungary is being fined daily for attempting self-determination https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clww729180po

It is hilarious that you think they WANT to be fined.

My dude, Hungary being fined by the club it signed up for makes your point only if your point was that the library dominates you with their late return fees. Not only did Hungary consent to these rules, it could've at any point withdrawn consent through Article 50.

Additionally, this is from 2024, Hungary has since democratically elected a government on the express platform of getting rid of the dictator that got fined.

What is hilarious is that out of my whole detailed argument you reached for this, as if the presence of a penalty settled anything about the relationship between power, institutions and agreed upon rules.

You've mistaken the mere existence of enforcement for domination, just like you keep mistaking ideological preference for natural law.