The United States of Amerempire?

I've been reading a boatload of history books about the question of America and empire, and so I could have made a long post about my thoughts on the matter. But, instead, I've devised this following poll because a) I'm lazy and b) I'm curious to see what other people's thoughts are on this. I'm especially curious about what intellectual but non-History-minded folk have to say (as in people who haven't sold their souls to the History gods and now read a handful of history books every week). (Of course you can still chime in, too, righteous_ani.) I'm also curious what the perceptions of our non-American members are. (After all, the U.S. did try to take Canada by force twice and by indirect means a handful of times! Canada successfully thwarted all such attempts!)

I've left this poll (not Pole!) intentionally vague. So, I won't be surprised if our ensuing discussion turns out to be semantic as much as anything else. If this goes well, in future, less-lazy, times I will make other posts relating to empire.

And now, without further ado: