that my friend, is absolutely laughable. the idea that one man can be solely responsible for one huge country and another continent is ridiculous.
Explain to me how Washington is responsible for Europe existing as it does today?
I wonder how so too, given that US was not the first country to become democratic in mankind's history, nor the first democracy of its time.
As usual, some more usual US propaganda.
And as per libertarian rights & constitutional rights of the individual- thats a rather laughable claim, since in the US only the whites had any rights. Europe went the civilized way ( of abolishing slavery) before US did for most part and if we are to only consider 'constitutional rights of the individual' only for one section of the society (white people in US), i don't see why it rules out Europe or Asia either, given that nobility in most countries around that time ( 1700s/1800s) also had many 'constitutional rights'.
IMO, US doesn't qualify as a democracy till civil war because of its hypocrasy with slavery.
But yeah, IMO, Abe Lincoln was the greatest US president of all, not only because he was far more civilized for his time than Washington, but because he held the north together very well in face of a richer confederate 'nation' during civil war.
And lastly, as per 'winning WWII' comment, US was largely a small fish in the European sector. Soviet Russia gets 90% of the credit for beating Germany and the US gets 90% of the credit for beating Japan.
One part of WWII history that is often overlooked in the US is that it forced Japan's hand to go into war with the US- Japan was deadlocked fighting in China at that time and US was its
only oil supplier. US cut off oil deal with Japan while Japan was still busy China, effectively severing its lifeline- Japan was forced to do a Pearl harbour and expand into South-East Asia looking for oil ( vietnam provided a good substitute) to secure enough oil + built up its military in the window of opportunity that post-Pearl Harbour rebuilding delay presented. However, the British & ANZAC harried the Japanese enough and America won the last-ditch-to-stay-competetive-in-pacific critical fight at Midway and won, thus effectively making Japan's 'rock and a hard place' even worse.
But as far as Europe goes, its 90% Russia/Soviet Union. Not only was the eastern front active for longer than western front in terms of actual fighting ( after Germany took over France, western front died till D-day- little or no combat except for air raids to britain, even then most of Luftwaffe already transferred east, along with German infantry divisions), it was also three times larger at any given time.
The bloodiest, biggest and most gruelling fights were along the Eastern front. Plus Germany didn't try its damnest to stop the American-British onslaught after Operation Cobra. They realized that the war was lost at that point(because by August 1944, the Red Army had already crossed the Vistula in massive drive and were bearing down on Berlin) and it is a commonly acknowledged fact in history circles that Nazi Germany had virulent hatred for Communists ( categorically proven in their virulently hateful anti-Jew and anti-Commie propaganda in the 1920s/30s) and would've much rather fallen to the British than the Communists. Partly because German attrocities in Russia was far worse than German attrocities in western Europe and it was genuinely afraid of total annihilation at the hand of soviet union.
Which is why the Sigfried Line was hardly defended by the Germans and after they lost Operation Cobra, they transferred huge amounts of their mechanized infantry and SS to the eastern front, to put far more effort in the western front.
So all in all, WWII in a nutshell :
Germany + Italy(largely a non-factor/burden) : Got a few boats sunk by US-UK, got beaten mostly by USSR with medium (by WWII standards) fighting on the western front.
Japan : Got defeated by ANZAC and USA, with US getting 90% of the credit.
Hitler = moron to attack Russia. Moron for several reasons, primarily because he couldnt stick to letting his Generals run the war and keep himself to giving amazingly stirring speeches that captivated his audience.
Stalin = ultimate defender (though a bit of an idiot for killing off most of his officers before Germany started Operation Barbarossa).
US = opportunistic in war/trying to preserve Anglosphere's hegemony
UK = dying world power ( WWI took out a lot, plus India, the prime source of british world power in victorian/WWI power started drying up financially thanks to Gandhi's agitations) who lived because of its naval superiority and Hitler's fatal mistake of letting hundreds of thousands of British soldiers escape at Dunkirk.(As i said, Hitler = moron)
Italy = good industrial power at first, utterly incompetent army, more of a burden to Germany than an ally after the initial stages.
France = Idiot for not extending Maginot line along the Belgian border. Had they done that, they'd have actually put up a fight instead of gifting the Maginot line to Germany.
Japan = expanding into China, America snags its power, forced into high risk battle strategy with Americans, loses out. The Burma Road idea of the Brits hurt them incredibly.
I will say this though, again, a lot of what you say I agree with. Stuff about the government making us have many of these permits, especially building stuff for yourself or not being able to cut trees of your own land without a permit.
