Why is this important? Murray Rothbard explains: "Some readers might ask: why?  What's the point?  Isn't this just a raking up of old coals?  Aren't we merely pursuing an antiquarian interest when we examine in such detail what happened over a quarter-century ago?  The answer is that this subject, far from being antiquarian, is crucial to the understanding of where we are now and how we got that way.  For America's entry into World War II was the crucial act in expanding the United States from a republic into an Empire, and in spreading that Empire throughout the world, replacing the sagging British Empire in the process.  Our entry into World War II was the crucial act in foisting a permanent militarization upon the economy and society, in bringing to the country a permanent garrison state, an overweening military-industrial complex, a permanent system of conscription.  It was the crucial act in creating a Mixed Economy run by Big Government, a system of State-Monopoly-Capitalism run by the central government in collaboration with Big Business and Big Unionism.  It was the crucial act in elevating Presidential power, particularly in foreign affairs, to the role of single most despotic person in the history of the world.  And, finally, World War II is the last war-myth left, the myth that the Old Left clings to in pure desperation: the myth that here, at least, was a good war, here was a war in which America was in the right.  World War II is the war thrown into our faces by the war-making Establishment, as it tries, in each war that we face, to wrap itself in the mantle of good and righteous World War II."