I sat on my couch the night of the US election, paying more attention to various Facebook posts than anything CNN had to offer. I knew Ohio had gone Obama not long after it was officially announced, ditto Colorado and New Hampshire. By adding those three together, it became clear Barack Obama would remain the 44th President of the United States.
The things people say are truly disturbing. Some become Nobel Peace Prize winning economists and talk about the coming competitive decline of America. Others suddenly become world travelers, expressing a desire for international job search, normally to countries twice as socialist as our own, as if those countries and their visa requirements would actually welcome them in at all (trust me, I know). If you want an accurate view of the world, The Economist speaks to this best in a luke-warm endorsement of our current president. Both sides had a chance to inspire a nation, and either a mediocre political system or faulty candidates, and probably both, led to the choice of one over another with a serious swamp to muck through along the way. It was messy, sure, but there was a correct choice in this election and we made it. Saying both candidates have faults, that you do not like either one, does not relieve you of a duty to decide.
I find the conversation around this election, and all the American elections I remember, to be quite sad, because the money saved between a 32% and 34% tax rate will not make you happy. Looking at government and its President has remarkably little to do with if we are better off, or happier, than four years ago. It simply doesn't. If I had to guess, I would say blaming those things are safe, they are distant, and we can talk freely about them, because actually addressing the issues that determine our happiness is something uncomfortable and best left locked in the attic.
But in so many minds, the issue is so much deeper than a tax rate. I sat up the night of the election reading messages insinuating that gays and freeloaders and the 1% and apology tours and Muslims and abortion doctors and big government and food stamps and Democrats and Republicans and the President are bringing this country down, and I want to hold up the biography of Jerusalem I am currently reading and pound it into their heads by osmosis and say, "no, my friend, history has shown that it will almost certainly be you and your obsession with your own exceptionalism, that will eventually bring this country, or any country, at any point in history, to its knees."
I am certainly proud, most of the time, to be from the United States. I defend its values to a reasonable extend abroad, will accepting its deficiencies. By most accounts, we are not the best country in the world. We aren't the richest, or the poorest, or the safest. We are just another country with freedoms, like many other countries with freedoms, that exist in the world and provide a place for people to live. The happy part is yours to create. That is that, and so, in terms of the election, now something historical -- get a grip, people.
The things people say are truly disturbing. Some become Nobel Peace Prize winning economists and talk about the coming competitive decline of America. Others suddenly become world travelers, expressing a desire for international job search, normally to countries twice as socialist as our own, as if those countries and their visa requirements would actually welcome them in at all (trust me, I know). If you want an accurate view of the world, The Economist speaks to this best in a luke-warm endorsement of our current president. Both sides had a chance to inspire a nation, and either a mediocre political system or faulty candidates, and probably both, led to the choice of one over another with a serious swamp to muck through along the way. It was messy, sure, but there was a correct choice in this election and we made it. Saying both candidates have faults, that you do not like either one, does not relieve you of a duty to decide.
But in so many minds, the issue is so much deeper than a tax rate. I sat up the night of the election reading messages insinuating that gays and freeloaders and the 1% and apology tours and Muslims and abortion doctors and big government and food stamps and Democrats and Republicans and the President are bringing this country down, and I want to hold up the biography of Jerusalem I am currently reading and pound it into their heads by osmosis and say, "no, my friend, history has shown that it will almost certainly be you and your obsession with your own exceptionalism, that will eventually bring this country, or any country, at any point in history, to its knees."
I am certainly proud, most of the time, to be from the United States. I defend its values to a reasonable extend abroad, will accepting its deficiencies. By most accounts, we are not the best country in the world. We aren't the richest, or the poorest, or the safest. We are just another country with freedoms, like many other countries with freedoms, that exist in the world and provide a place for people to live. The happy part is yours to create. That is that, and so, in terms of the election, now something historical -- get a grip, people.
hmmmm...
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