The What "IF'" in American History .

I would like my readers to ponder a little about our  nations "history" .  In 200 years or so . Our so called great nation had a lot of issues,  that maybe our Founding Fathers left  those issues in the lurch for future generations to deal with . As questions go, it is monumental . We have had too many consequences . Here below are some major examples , after a quick list of minor ones that are too long to comment , but a summery is needed.

"What if?"
*****

The question of slavery .

The American civil war , tragic , bloody . Was not
just about slavery , but one of the
errors of the foundation of
this nation .

 As examples , that if the founders of our nation would have done away with slavery first  we would never had a civil war . well, despite what people think the entire world would be different. (1.1)>>~700,000 Americans died fighting the Civil War. No one, to be sure, could rightly dispute the powerful role that more than 250 years of black enslavement in America has played in shaping the nation's character and culture.At the time of the founding of the Republic in 1776, slavery existed literally everywhere on earth and had been an accepted aspect of human history from the very beginning of organized societies. With everyone bearing in mind that we're speculating on a hypothetical alternate timeline of history, I could think of a few things. Let's assume that the West Africans that were slaves (remember a lot of them were slaves before they ever had white masters) were simply never picked up and shipped to the colonies/United States.There would be significant societal and cultural differences between our world and that world. Yes, there could had been such a different America . Conversely, the culture war would be far different as the left wouldn’t have a large, impoverished minority group to lead it. All of the racial issues we see today also wouldn’t exist due to no large minority group for the left to create friction with. How could the framers of the constitution have missed this ? Obviously many of the founding fathers grappled with the notion of slavery . George Washington in his many letters discussed freeing the slaves as early as (1)>>1787. How would America been culturally ? This nation as such would be totally unrecognizable as it is today. There would be no jazz, no Civil Rights Movement, etc., etc., etc.  like many European and Asians did. I don't think slavery did anything to advance the African race. You can make the arguments that "chains or not -- we got them here to the greatest nation on earth." Yeah. Bull.    In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson tried to blame King George III for using the Atlantic slave trade to impose slavery on the colonies. , just look at a society which did not have its own form of exploitation, hierarchyor slavery… I can’t think of one of the top of my head - as far as I am aware there isn’t one [on this planet anyway lol].From ancient societies – based on the exploitation of legally tied slaves (e.g. Ancient Egypt, the European colonial era)… fast forward allllll the way to this capitalist society, laborers exploited by the capitalist class. It seems like its just ‘human nature’ to exploit an underclass for benefit/gain. Equity and equality – they seem like unsubstantiated ideologies and impossible concepts rather than something which can ever truly be achieved… But that’s just my opinion

 Women's right to vote 

Besides the Civil War , another American problem was (2)>>the right to vote for women , it vary much   runs parallel with the question of slavery . AND WHY and WHY it was like this for women ? .Voting rights in America in the early 1800s was a complex process because many politicians and government leaders supported slavery, limiting voting rights to those who were legally free. Women weren’t treated as equals with men, so their civil liberties, such as the right to vote, didn’t receive a fair amount of attention. Socioeconomics and land ownership were also big factors in determining who could vote, so the poor working class didn’t have many political freedoms either. Voting privileges were primarily granted to wealthy, white men. Also of notice that black -African American "men"  were ahead as in voting rights over women , both white and black. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1870, granted African-American men the right to vote. The Amendment states that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” However, some Southern states imposed poll taxes and literacy tests that made it nearly impossible for black men to qualify for voting privileges. Black women, regardless of their ability to pass voting prerequisite tests, were not allowed to vote. ODDLY enough before the American Revolution,  women in colonial government had some "rights" to vote .  Although women had been voting in some states since the colonial era, other states denied women that right. As early as 1756 in Massachusetts, Lydia Chapin Taft cast a ballot in the local town hall meeting in place of her deceased husband. However, she and other women lost the right to vote when the new Massachusetts state constitution took effect on March 2, 1780. Women also lost the right to cast their ballot in New York in 1777 and in New Hampshire in 1784.  

The War of 1812.

The War of 1812 was a unnecessary war
in American history . What if  our new
nation lost the war ?

The many what ifs' . What if there was no war of 1812 , or even worse , if  the United States lost the war of 1812 ?In the immediate aftermath of the war, American commentators painted the battles of 1812-15 as part of a glorious (3)>>“second war for independence.”  Had the British won, they likely would have maintained a policy of forced exclusion from the Louisiana Purchase for white settlers. They would likely have discouraged immigration from other European nations--or at least declined to encourage it as the Americans did. The British wouldn't have seen much purpose in fighting Mexico to gain the Rockies, as their colony would have comprised their original American territory, the Lousiana Purchase, and Canada. Mexico would have been the beneficiary of the gold rushes in California and the Rockies. Slavery would have ended earlier and without a war.  As the 19th century progressed, this view changed into a more general story about the “birth of American freedom” and the founding of the Union.In 1812, Congress declared a war that the nation was unprepared to fight, and, in many actions, U.S. forces outnumbered the British enemy but still failed to win decisively. The final outcome was a stalemate that resulted in a negotiated peace for the nearly bankrupt and divided nation. The results of the war also demonstrated that the nation's founders and their successors had seriously miscalculated the efficacy of American military institutions as they had evolved in the years 1783-1812. At the opening of the War of 1812, U.S. forces invaded Upper and Lower Canada. Americans expected a relatively easy going; the notion that Canada represented the soft underbelly of the British empire had been popular among American statesmen for some time. Civilian and military leaders alike expected a quick capitulation, forced in part by the support of the local population. But Americans overestimated their support among Canadians, overestimated their military capabilities, and underestimated British power. Instead of an easy victory, the British handed the Americans a devastating defeat.American forces (largely consisting of recently mobilized militias) prepared to invade Canada on three axes of advance, but did not attack simultaneously and could not support one another. American forces were inexperienced at fighting against a professional army and lacked good logistics. This limited their ability to concentrate forces against British weak points. The Americans also lacked a good backup plan for the reverses that the British soon handed them. None of the American commanders (led by William Hull, veteran of the Revolutionary War) displayed any enthusiasm for the fight, or any willingness to take the risks necessary to press advantages.The real disaster of the campaign became apparent at Detroit in August, when a combined British and Native American army forced Hull to surrender, despite superior numbers. The British followed up their victory by seizing and burning several American frontier outposts, although they lacked the numbers and logistical tail to probe very deeply into American territory. The other two prongs of the invasion failed to march much beyond their jumping off points. American forces won several notable successes later in the war, restoring their position along the border, but never effectively threatened British Canada.The failure of the invasion turned what Americans had imagined as an easy, lucrative offensive war into a defensive struggle. It dealt a major setback to the vision, cherished by Americans, of a North America completely under the domination of the United States. Britain would hold its position on the continent, eventually ensuring the independence of Canada from Washington.As it was, the US stopped its goal of conquering Canada, Great Britain was able to move much-needed forces to Europe to finish things over there, Canada didn't get the privilege of being part of the US of A and the whole affair would probably be forgotten now if the British didn't burn down our Presidential home and then get defeated by some pirates an cutthroats down in New Orleans. The War of 1812 was a questionable conflict that ended questionably and probably would best left as the minor footnote in history that it was.
What if September 11th , 2001 never happened ?

We would have had a slightly different picture
if the September  attacks never
were .

Here is an even tougher question of "what ifs" . What our nation would have been like if (4)>>September11th, 2001 never took place. Imagine that the twin towers still dominated the Manhattan skyline. Imagine that the Pentagon’s western facade had remained intact. Imagine that there was no reason to build a memorial in Shanksville, Pa. And imagine that the numbers 9 and 11 meant nothing more than an emergency telephone call. Suddenly on that warm September morning, the US was struck with the most deadly attack on US soil in the nation's history.  The 24x7 news cycle brought the unspeakable horror into every heart and home.  Most vivid of the images were those of the individuals that decided to jump from great heights rather than face the flames.  The recordings of phone calls from doomed passengers were gut wrenching.  Let's go to the national state of mind on September 10, 2001:  The US media was obsessed with the disappearance of Chandra Levy and the possible involvement of Congressman Gary Condit. President Bush had been sworn in after the contentious 2000 election, where the candidate with the most popular votes lost in the Supreme Court.  Hence, Mr. Bush's detractors found almost anything he did to be an outrage [read: too much vacation time in Crawford, TX, etc.].  Without the catalyst of the attacks, Congress would not have undertaken the greatest reorganization of the national security bureaucracy since the Truman years, stitching together the Department of Homeland Security from nearly two dozen agencies. Airline travel would still have its annoyances, but massively intrusive security screening might not be one of them.No Sept. 11 means no invasion of Afghanistan, and possibly no invasion of Iraq. At most, we might have seen covert actions and more cruise missile attacks, such as those the Clinton administration launched in 1998, against countries harboring bin Laden and his allies. And terms such as “IED” (improvised explosive device) and “TBI” (traumatic brain injury) would not have become the defining reality for a generation of American troops.Without the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would have been no effort to reorient the U.S. armed forces toward counterinsurgency operations. No 9/11, no COIN. America’s defense planners might have spent the first decade of the 21st century focusing on possible high-tech naval and air combat in Asia, rather than on policing and nation-building in occupied Muslim countries.Had the attacks not occurred, George W. Bush might  still have won a second term.  He would be a much better President than he is remembered now If John Kerry had been elected president, we would deal  with the John Edwards VP presidential scandal ,  Barack Obama might still be in the Senate. That said, the best guess is that September 11th accelerated the effects of a dramatically changing international system. And today would not necessarily be safer absent September 11th.

What would America be like today if Mitt Romney had won the 2012 election?

Trying to paint an alternative picture for our country come to this last "what if" .Shortly before he lost his second U.S. Senate race in as many years, Republican Scott Brown presented a curious argument to New Hampshire voters: (5)>>if Mitt Romney had won in 2012, Brown said, “I guarantee you we would not be worrying about Ebola right now.”----so in 2016 we probably would not be faced with the obvious choices of Hillary R Clinton , or Donald Trump . Its hard to digest how the American voters were thrown a curb ball in reelecting Mr. Obama in 2012 . A whole lot had to do with the Occupy movement , the 99%er's against the 1%er's . Still a Romney presidency would have been difficult , with a Federal deficit , cuts would come across the board .VP Paul Ryan would have  made devastating cuts to education and social programs while advocating helping the poor. With no unemployment assistance, Affordable Health Care repealed, little help from food stamps, and no educational or employment opportunities available; many Americans, especially the young and poor, have nowhere to turn but the military. Flush with taxpayer cash, America’s armed forces always needs people lately, considering the multiple battlefields it’s fighting on. The Tea Party would have made inroads in Congress , perhaps the religious right . These are serious alternatives to consider if like what we have now in 2016 --- some of the alternatives had me cheering and some screaming , beating my head .  It is easy to speculate how much better off the country would be IF the Republicans had not done everything in their power to make sure Obama was only a one term president. The Loss of Mitt Romney is no apologies ......

OTHER "WHAT Ifs" that are too long .

I can go on and on with this on my blog , but I have other things to write about , so I listed them , wished that they never happened .

(1) .No  Rise of the Nazi's in Germany , no Holocaust . It's Like saying Hitler never born . But maybe he became a artist in Vienna Austria . if Hitler had taken a different turn in the arts . Oh well !
(2) No assassination attempt against John F Kennedy . President Kennedy lived , what a world of speculation here . The Cold war would have ended early , we probably would be still sending men to  the moon with our partners the Russians .

(3)  OJ Simpson admitted to killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown months after being acquitted of her murder claims the football star's former agent.In the final installment of the ESPN documentary OJ: Made In America, Mike Gilbert claimed that Simpson told him he had not planned to kill his wife when he went to her home on June 12, 1994, and that she might still be alive if she had not answered the door with a knife in her hand. Other wise if OJ would have not been so headstrong , he and wife would be still married . In this alternative , OJ would be  sportscaster on ESPN rather than being in sing sing . 

(4). The American invasion of Iraq , the overthrow of Saddam Hussian . A Huge waste of American military resources . Called Gulf War 2 in some media . Unlike Gulf War 1 which was a "coalition of nations" to get rid of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait . For the most part of American wars , regime change , this war was farcical as it gets under both Bush's presidencies . It set the stage for our current amalgamated mess in our politics , it became the major catalyst  for the wide spread of terrorism in the middle-east . 

Any more what if's I guess not . Adieu !

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1.1)>>~700,000 Americans died fighting the Civil War. Recent scholarship has also cast new light on the scale and horror of the nation's sacrifice. Soldiers in the 1860s didn't wear dog tags, the burial site of most was unknown, and casualty records were sketchy and often lost. Those tallying the dead in the late 19th century relied on estimates and assumptions to arrive at a figure of 618,000, a toll that seemed etched in stone until just a few years ago. (1)>>1787.In the first US census there were 700,000 slaves and 3.2 million whites in the US in 1790, making slaves about 18% of the population. As almost no whites considered them equals it would have been almost impossible for them become more than paid servants and laborers to whites and a legal system of apartheid would no doubt have been introduced across the country. Some ex-slaves may have been relocated to Africa, and may have desired to do so as their experience in the America had at that time been relatively short lived and unpleasant. Waves of would immigrants would continue from Europe, further diluting American blacks as a percentage of the population. There wouldn't have been a Civil War.(2)>>the right to vote for women . At the time of the first Presidential election in 1789, only 6 percent of the population–white, male property owners–was eligible to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to former male slaves in 1870; American Indians gained the vote under a law passed by Congress in 1924; and women gained the vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. (3)>>“second war for independence.” Although the war was colloquially considered the "Second War of Independence," in all likelihood a British victory would not have resulted in the return of the US to colonial status. The British would have likely imposed some harsh reparations on the US to help recoup the costs of the Napoleonic Wars, and then perhaps limited the US' further expansion into the continent. Specifically, it might have forced the US to relinquish its claims on the Oregon Country, and then maybe forced the US to cede territory in an alternate Treaty of 1818 (and later hold on to the northern half of Maine versus negotiating an alternate Webster–Ashburton Treaty).Although, if it were a truly crushing defeat that was piled on with absolutely humiliating reparations and/or terms of peace, perhaps radical elements in New England could have forced the issue of secession in the US 50 years ahead of schedule.(4)>>September11th, 2001 never took place. There is no doubt that the September 11th terrorist attacks (or 9/11) changed the world.  It spawned the War on Terror, the invasion of Afghanistan, the Department of Homeland Security, the USA PATRIOT Act, the war in Iraq, anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, anti-American sentiment across the globe, Guantanamo Bay, mass surveillance of Americans by their own government...the list goes on and on.  Now a whole post-9/11 generation is starting to grow up, and to them this is all they have ever known.Many of the consequences of those attacks and subsequent U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the global war on terror have been tragic. Chaos in Iraq has infected Syria. An Islamic State (IS) that combines the most evil and vile elements of radical Islam has staked claims to great swaths of those states. Afghanistan totters on the brink of civil war. And massive amounts of American dollars have been wasted on these bitter and losing causes. (5)>>if Mitt Romney had won in 2012.   If Romney had won we would have had a competent, smart and moral leader. International leaders would have new respect for the USA. He wouldn't be complicating racial problems by speaking out on the Martin/Zimmerman case. Business would have greater confidence in the government. He would lead instead of blame. And he would be able to work with both parties. Obamacare would be dead. How, in the name of God, did half the country vote for Obama after his performance in the 2012 election! How the hell did those ignorant democrats not see exactly what every single republican saw in the election. All Obama did throughout the entire presidential debate was criticize every single foreign and domestic plan put forth by Mitt Romney. The basis of Obama's argument throughout the entire election was "That is not a recipe for America."