Try as I might to keep this really short, it takes a while.
Kook Perspective: The Pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution in Europe and made a perilous journey to a foreign land for the promise of Freedom, they were not saintly and they did war with the indigenous peoples some. More and more colonists came. The French and The British fought with various Indian tribes siding with one or the other to determine who had rights to the colonies. The British finally won. Their King was increasingly tyrannical and did not consider the lives of the colonists and so they declared the Independence from his rule. A bloody war was fought to form a new type of Government the likes of which the World had never seen. This Government was founded in Judeo-Christian beliefs, that God created all men equal and that there were certain unalienable God Given Rights. Individual Liberty to do as you wished and keep what you earned as long as you did not do so by hurting your fellow man was the rule. The eventually the leaders of the new nation formed a government that was weak and decentralized since History had shown them what happens when a government is strong and all intrusive. Certain compromises were made in order to get the diverse and very independent minded States to join. One of these was postponing the end of Slavery which the leaders thought was in direct contradiction to the stated goals of the country. Then we fought another war a few years later because of continued interference of the British. After this war the United States declared a Doctrine that Europe needed to butt out of our business and that the nation would go to great lengths to protect its’ interests abroad. This Doctrine guided the nation into getting into several foreign wars of dubious value and also of removing the indigenous people from their lands in what is now looking back a terrible thing to do. There was always a large abolitionist movement with regards to Slavery, which is probably this Nations single greatest sin, with the treatment of the Natives as a close second. However mechanisms were already in place within the framework of laws to aid in Slavery’s eventual end. This all came to a head so to speak when the issue of slavery, general power of government, a clash in lifestyles between the North and the South. We fought one of the worst wars in history to keep the Nation together and along the way managed to end slavery. Unfortunately it also began a process of giving the Federal Government far too much power which has progressed to near intolerable levels today.
Following the end of the Civil war the Nation became increasingly industrialized and modern. Huge Infrastructure projects were completed, fortunes were made, immigration boomed and by the turn of the century the nation was no longer a backwater nation.
About this time is when the wheels started to get woobly. There was an increasing divide again between the Rich and the Poor and the Educated and the Uneducated. The Modern Progressive era had begun. During this time America flirted with Socialism, Fascism, and Imperialism. This is when the USA conquered half of Mexico, took the Philippines, annexed Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. The USA tried to take over Cuba. On a positive note our Nation became one of the first to give women universal suffrage, prior to this going all the way back to the colonies women did have property rights and the right to vote in some areas of the nation, but it was made universal at this time.
WWI broke out and the USA was eventually forced into fighting. This promoted a surge in the size and reach of the Federal Government that would have been unthinkable to the Founders The USA was critical in securing the victory of the Allies and preventing Tyrannical Rule or Anarchy from Prevailing in Europe. Showing her characteristic loner streak and unwilling to become a completely socialist nation the USA did not enter the league of nations ensuring it was ineffectual.
The USA went back to being a loner for a period of time, the Progressives were still active though and passed Prohibition which lead to a crime wave and the rise of organized crime and eventually caused further expansion of the Government with the formation of the ATF and the FBI. The IRS was also created and made very powerful about this time. After several years trying to create a utopia through sobriety, Prohibition was repealed. During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity: farm prices and wages fell due to mechanization of farming; which encouraged the government to get involved to prop up the farm prices, while new industries, and industrial profits grew. The boom was fueled by an inflated stock market, caused by lax credit standards which to a crash on October 29, 1929. The Hawley-Smoot Tariff, the Dust Bowl, somewhat caused by government intervention in Farm Prices and the ensuing Great Depression led to government’s intervention and huge expansion to restart the economy with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The recovery was rapid in all areas except unemployment, a chief cause of creating the New Deal, which was high until the start of WWII.
We entered WWII in 1945, Fought a war on two fronts. Saved the Europeans from Anarchy…AGAIN, and made further technological leaps. The bankrupting of Europe emboldened a ruthless regime in the USSR to begin a plot to spread communism across the globe which lead to an arms race between the US and the USSR. This resulted in a cold war of high tensions which lasted for approximately 30 years. During this time the world was mostly split between NATO pact countries and Warsaw Pact Countries. This war of ideologies was played out in several backwater third world nations and eventually turned into an all out war of economies. The intervention of both Superpowers in third world tribal nations stirred up animosity in those places and also trained them to fight. After several Lackluster presidents Ronald Reagan was elected and while pushing the Nation to economic heights not seen since the early 50’s also had the vision to use that economy to bring about the defeat of the USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the US elected a weak president who appeased terrorists where Reagan refused. This emboldened the Terrorists and although normally they would not have been a threat to the Lone Superpower, the USA was growing sicker and sicker from within. While the USA was fighting a war outside our border the Soviets and other elements of Socialist thought were building on Traditions and sentimentalities that went back the the beginning of the Nation to create a small but tenacious minority of people who had as their goal the destruction of our society.
A good analogy would be a valiant soldier fighting a noble battle abroad only to be poisoned and die after he thought the war was won. After 9/11 a deeply flawed but morally honest president kept us safe for 8 years until, in a fit of temporary insanity and absolute denial in the existence of evil and the importance of Character, the US elected the worst president since Woodrow Wilson.
It is anyone’s guess where this story will end.
