Have we made mistakes? Good Lord, yes! We had what some call "America's Original Sin" with slavery with its horrible aftermath of bigotry, we had a murderous policy against the native Americans, and we imprisoned thousands of American citizens for no other reason than their ancestors happened to be Japanese. Those are just a few of our sins.

However, we've also done a lot of good. We could've acted all moral like Switzerland and sat out WWI (we did until 1917). In the end, was our entry into that war a good thing or a bad thing, especially when you consider it had no end in sight and was killing millions of people? After the war, we forgave billions in foreign debt to several European countries.

We could've stayed neutral in WWII, allowing Japan to subdue all of Asia and Hitler to take over much of the rest of the world. Like Switzerland, we could've sold stuff to the combatants but refused to get involved ourselves. We could've refused to set up the Lean-Lease Program so Britain would've been on her own following the fall of France. Would the world be a better place today had we sat out that war?

After WWII, we could've told Europe to pound sand instead of spending billions on the Marshall Plan to help them rebuild. We could've insisted that the countries pay us the billions in debt they owed us. We could've refused to help Japan and many other nations rebuild, leaving them mired in poverty and turmoil. Several of those countries would likely have gone communist had we done that. Given the history of mass murders in virtually every country that went communist, would the world be a better place had we not helped?

Much of our foreign policy has a mixed track record. We've supported tyrants and dictators when it served our purposes. We've given out foreign aid to corrupt officials who put much of it in private bank accounts. We've (and so has Europe) implemented agricultural policies that were aimed at protecting our own farmers but had a devasting effect on poor farmers in 3rd world countries.

We still have a lot of room for improvement, but on the balance, I argue that the world is overall a better place because of America and our policies. All it takes is some historical perspective to consider the alternatives.