America, the Beautiful

There's a guy I work with who can complain about anything.

Last year our employer, right before Christmas, gave us what amounted to a bonus. Of course it wasn't actually a bonus, but we got money that we did not earn. That's a bonus in my book. Somehow this guy found a way to complain about it. It was amazing. A few months later he also complained that our employer re-painted one of the hallways white (yes, it was white before). Free money and fresh paint: yup, I guess that's worth complaining about. Some people can really make you think that life is terrible, and that the world is falling apart.

Thinking about that guy made me realize what a great country we live in. I haven't been to all the countries of the world, but I have god reason to ssuspect that the U.S. is the greatest country going. If you are spending your complaining time on free money, life must be pretty awesome.

If my co-worker lived in some other countries, here's what he could complain about (by country):

• China: those Communi--(insert mysterious disappearing here)
• Finland: free hospital lines are outrageous
• Canada and Europe: taxes
• Venezuala: white pai--(insert mysterious disappreaing here)
• Russia: the government "officials" glow
• Mexico: the lack of free transportation to my border crossing
• France: America
• Iraq: Those lousy Shi'i--(insert death squad here)

I guess things aren't so bad here after all. In fact, we have it so good we don't even know it. There is so much good here in the U.S., we are rolling in awesomness. To list everything that's great about America would take days, nay, weeks. But all we hear is how crappy everything is.

Several weeks ago, shortly before the election, I got to go to a special roundtable discussion with several professors, political operatives, lawyers (read: bastards), educational leaders, etc. The topic was the election and the state of our government. As it neared the end the tone became increasingly critical about our government structure. Particularly, they were complaining that our Congress is not representative enough of the people. As the tone dragged on I raised my hand and asked the group "if you were studying comparative politics, and you could choose America's government, or any one else's government, which would you choose? No one could suggest a government system that is better than ours.

For all our flaws, for all our crap, for all our poor, for all our inequity, it doesn't get any better than here. Sure, tell me about how great France's worker's rights are. I'll tell you about their unemployment and job growth. Tell me about Canada's health care, and I'll tell you about their taxes and the low quality of their care. Tell me about any one part of another country that's great, nay, better than America, and I'll give you that point. Show me another country's government that, on the whole, is better than America's. I doubt such a thing exists.

Perfect is not an option. No one ever said it was. We should never stop working to make this country a better place. But let us not lose sight of the big picture in our gripes. Life is not fair and never will be, but life, here in America, is great.