Oh yeah. I know America is very bad. I hear it all the time here. Oh dear Lord, why did you bring America upon us? Let's see how much better the world would be off without it (yeah, I'm not a fan of "what if" scenarios either, but this one is pretty straight forward):
There would probably still be monarchies all over the place in Europe. But this is too complicated to grasp, or might even not have been bad in some places, so let's fast forward a bit more:
1. 1945. Probably more like 1948 / 49: All of Europe, with - probably - the exception of the British Isles, would be living in the Stalinist dictatorship. Or maybe - but far less likely - in Nazi dictatorship. The whole of Europe, starting at least from France, would probably be a Communist dictatorship.
2. There would be no free press as a result of that.
3. No free elections either.
4. No free people, responsible only to their God. Instead, only confined people under the state.
5. No access to a free internet for free citizens. No OTH posting anti-american crap, no Dowly posting boobies, no Tribesman posting about the religion of peace, no Skybird posting about the next crusade. The internet would be read-only - if it at all existed - to further the proper education of the collective.
6. No free media. Media would only be the mouthpiece of the political bureau, be it Nazi or Communist.
7. Lots of dead heroes no one would have ever heard of - those people who would try to change all the above into something better, but have neither an outside source of support, nor sufficient means for support from within to achieve that. And if anyone would ever hear about them, it would be once they were dead, disgraced by the state run information and media system as traitors to the greater glory of the state.
This is a very realistic scenario. France was conquered, and England was isolated. It WOULD have been either Communism or Nazism for all of Europe (with maybe the exception of England).
And yes, maybe at some point enough people would have stood up against all odds, and get crushed, and stood up again decades later, and get crushed again, and MAYBE would have stood up once more and MAYBE would have even re-acquired FREEDOM after all, in some countries. But that would have been a long time into the future and would have cost a lot of lifes.
But it didn't happen like that. Instead, some people from across the pond got involved. People who had gone over there to win freedom in the first place. And then, when they came back, they didn't "just" crush Nazism and kept communism at bay, but they also enabled the free people of Europe - including their former enemies - to live as free individuals in a free world. And then, after another several decades, through steadfastness - AND brave people in those other countries - this free world was extended to other countries that hadn't seen freedom since 1939.
And by God, the Americans are around when freedom happens til today. People who were formerly forbidden to educate themselves can now do so in Afghanistan. People who could not vote in Iraq can now do so. Including those whose existence previously was limited to getting gassed by chemical air attacks.
The Americans don't do it because they love mankind so much. They do it because their system - including the outside periphery - can only work when people have freedom. That's what makes it probably the best system mankind has ever come up with (and the Americans didn't invent it, but they re-introduced it in modern history, and with force). The system itself is Freedom. Is it perfect? No. Because man is not perfect.
But say whatever the **** you will - never in the history of mankind has there been a time when so many people have been living so free under fair law, had so much education, and so many possibilities.
No, America is not the Messiah. America has a lot of power, and so much power can be dangerous. But the very essence of the idea of America is that this power, in the end, is not in the hands of parties or the state, but of THE PEOPLE (and it is designed to protect that very freedom from outside offenders who would love nothing more than see America be gone).
That's why I would hate to ever see America, politically, moving into the direction of the EU or any European country. Because those countries are putting too much faith into the state, and too little trust into the citizens. If America would ever do that, it will be the end of it, and it might end up destroying the whole damn world. Because the first thing the state tries to do, once it has gained a critical mass of power, is to secure that by taking the rights from the people and dumbing them down so they stop asking questions. And once it has done that, there's no telling where this new found power is planning to stop, if at all.
But as of now, America has been the opposite: It is a country where THE PEOPLE are bearing arms and say that whenever the state gets too loud, we will shoot its ass up. Or we will impeach our President. Or we will throw our Governors into jail. And they DO IT, too. And THAT is what makes the difference. For all the bad things America might do, it is still kept in check by the only sound kind of collective there is: A collective of FREE PEOPLE. And in this imperfect world, this is the closest thing to perfection you could ever hope to achieve.
All this Anti-Americanism, which is kinda "trendy" these days, only goes to show how dumb mankind can really be. Today we are living in a world that most people in history could have only dreamed of. And it wasn't Russia, China, India, Finland or France who brought that about in recent decades. And no, it wasn't "America" either. It were the FREE PEOPLE of America. We can be as free once we get over our Anti-American inferiority complex and take care of our own countries instead of bitching about American politics.
God Bless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqlJl1LfDP4
And God damn me if the above is not part of the best music in the world.
