If There Were No America...

As Obama completes another successful “I’m sorry for America” tour, I began to wonder as George Bailey did in the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” what if America did not exist? America, like any great person, has sins and regrets but having to overcome faults is what makes a person great, and likewise, makes a country great. To be sure without America, there would have been no evil white people destroying the planet, no Viet Nam war, no black slavery on this continent. But what else?

If there were no America, would there be a Europe? Or would 9/11, 2001 have been a massive military invasion by Jihadist. As France begged for peace, would their women have been massacred for not covering their heads? Or would Soviet communism long since have locked the continent in malaise and oppression. Perhaps Hilter would have taken Britain down without hope of rescue from a non-existent America, gripping the continent in cycle of paranoia and violence. Without the example of throwing off kingly malfeasance for liberty and justice perhaps Europe would have continued, as it had for centuries, conducting wars of hegemony every time a spoiled prince got it in his head that he needed to conquer another plot of land, wars that spread pestilence and death to millions. Without America would there be a Europe?

If there were no America, would there be an Africa? Without countless billions of dollars in aid, would Africans have long since died from hunger and disease? Would apartheid still grip South Africa without America’s voice of conscience? Would Africa still be a patchwork of colonies, dominated, exploited and fought over by European powers? Without America overcoming its sin of slavery, and making slavery illegal world-wide, would African tribes still be enslaving each other? Would Obama have ever been born or would his ancestors have long ago perished? Without America would there be an Africa?

If there were no America, would there be a Middle East? Would there ever be cars needing billions of barrels of oil per day, a trading partnership that has relieved millions from the hardships of nomadic life. Would Saddam still terrorize Iraq? Would Israel exist as a shining democracy or without US-supplied weaponry would she have been destroyed by her tyrannical Arab neighbors? Perhaps the Nazis would have wiped out all the Jews in the first place. Would Britain have even ever allowed self rule in the region if America had not set the example of a mighty nation without imperial colonialism. Without America would there be a Middle East?

If there were no America, would there be an Asia? Or would communism have spread throughout the land, unchecked by the non-existent US? Would Malaysia be able to call on Belgium when struck by typhoons and tsunamis? Would Sweden keep China from invading Taiwan? Or would imperial Japan still be in charge, slaughtering anyone it sees as a threat or ethnically impure? Without America would there be an Asia?

If there were no America, would there be a Western Hemisphere? If Columbus never came, would native tribes still roam and raid, killing each other and enslaving one another? Would blood sacrifices still be offered to non-existent deities? If colonists did come but never revolted, would kings still vex the land with their whims? Would Spain still rule and oppress South America if Latin people had not seen there was a better way without the mother land? Would Santa Ana’s decedents still rule Mexico with an iron fist? Who would protect Canada from invasion as their liberal peaceniks sang “Kumbaya”? Or where would they go for medical care when dyeing in the clogged queues of their universal health care system? Without America would there be a Western Hemisphere?

If there were no America, would there be Internet, medicine, airplanes, cell phones, cars, steam engines or a myriad of other inventions contrived through or improved by the unleashed potential of American capitalism? In a world whose historical scrap pile include the likes of Rome, Assyria, Babylonia, USSR, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and a host of other failed empires, the United States of America stands as the only super power to ever question the morality of conquering everything in sight and wondering, instead, if helping its global neighbors for free might be a nobler endeavor. As George Bailey discovered that without him, the mighty Mr. Potter terrorized the once sleepy Bedford Falls, I wonder without America, what horrible monster might have risen in her place? Without America Obama might not have anything to apologize for but who would be left to apologize to anyway?