I’ve been ranting (pissing and moaning is more like it) for years. I wrote a rant about how the U.S. comes out in the middle of the pack in whatever survey they conduct: life expectancy, education, infant mortality, etc. It seems like we’re always portrayed as a second-class nation, far down most lists, just above Rwanda. Then Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, got me thinking. Not about building goofy walls and banning Muslims, but what it would take to truly make America a great country.
How do you define great? I didn’t know, so I looked it up: great – of an extent, amount, or intensity considerably above the normal or average. Okay, I’ll buy that. To make America great we need to make it considerably above what is considered normal or average for a county. What the hell is normal? Again, I don’t know, so let’s look around the world and see if other countries are doing country things better than us.
We do one thing really really well. We lead the world, by far, in military spending. We spend over 600 billion, that’s billion with a B, dollars on military stuff every year. That’s 37% of the world’s total. We spend more than twice the amount of China and Russia combined, and they run a distant second and third place. We are truly a Great military power. We’ve taken the long list all of the things that countries should do and put military power and spending at the very top of our priority list.
The question I want to pose is: what have we sacrificed or done without to become this planet’s dominant military force, and what we could do if we scaled our military back to some lesser level? What if we worried and cared more about our own citizens that those around the globe. We could design a military that could more than ensure the defense and safety of the U.S., close all of our bases around the world, bring our troops home, and focus our energy and money on improving the lives of Americans, not Afghans, Iraqis or Syrians.
Let’s take a look at how some other countries have focused their energies and see what we might do to Make America Great Again.
Years ago I wrote a story about Castro’s Cuba after seeing Roseanne Carter on TV. She and Jimmy had just returned from a trip to the island and she was blown away by some of the things she learned. There is no way that I want to defend Castro’s totalitarian communist regime, but he has done a couple of things well. Castro in his dinky, poor little country has dealt with and conquered some of the important social issues while we, in the richest country in the world, would rather wage wars in distant lands than deal with some of these most basic human rights. Maybe these things should be on our priority list?
Everyone, that’s everyone, in Cuba has a home. Castro cured homelessness while we have nearly a million homeless on our streets and in our parks every night. These Americans are homeless because of poverty, substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, or natural disasters. Shouldn’t we do something about them?
And Cuba’s literacy rate is 100%. 100%! Everybody can read in Cuba. They’ve solved a problem we’re probably too illiterate to even understand. Did you know that 46% of adults in the U.S. can’t read the labels on their prescription medicines, and that 85% of juveniles coming before our court system are functionally illiterate. And, three out of four people on welfare are illiterate as are 85% of our unwed mothers. Three out of five inmates in our nation’s prisons are illiterate. And, on and on.
Education at all levels is free in Cuba, from kindergarten through as many college degrees as you’d like to pursue. Have you checked the tuition fees at your state university lately, let alone our private colleges?
And healthcare in Cuba is free to everyone. Not only is Cuba’s healthcare free; they have the best patient to doctor ratio along with the highest number of locally accessible clinics in the world.
Enough about Cuba. Danes were found to be the happiest people on earth, way ahead of the U.S. The US came in 17th in the recent happiness rankings, just below number 16, Mexico. Mexico!
So how can Denmark be the happiest country on earth? To start with they have a “modern welfare system,” based on the idea that all citizens are guaranteed certain fundamental rights in case they encounter social problems such as unemployment, sickness or some other dependency. Healthcare and education are free and equally available to everyone and the government works with the employers to provide retirement. It’s socialism, but socialism with really happy people.
A capitalist country we might emulate is Switzerland. Switzerland has the highest standard of living on the planet. They have the highest GDP per capita, lowest government debt, lowest tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, lowest unemployment rate, lowest inflation rate, and the highest life expectancy.
Switzerland has a very, very efficient government. A government so efficient in maintaining a low debt to GDP ratio that its citizens pay less tax and receive services superior to those of other countries. Paying less tax gives the Swiss higher disposable incomes, and more freedom and flexibility with the use of their money. Having the highest life expectancy comes as no great surprise. Their government subsidizes the lower classes’ health insurance ensuring health care equality within the country.
The efficiency of their government, their low tax rate, their high disposal incomes, and having a government that takes care of its OWN people are the major factors in Switzerland’s high standard of living.
Both of these countries are small compared to the U.S. So, how do we become a little country so we can be happier, better off, and live longer? I’m not sure. But I do know that even the smallest change is damned near impossible in our too-big and too-diversified country. If we can’t all agree on the easy things like, healthcare for ALL our citizens, the right for all people to marry, a women’s right to decide, the value of education, the importance of fixing our crumbling bridges, or what to do with the millions of residents deemed “illegal,” how in the hell are we ever going to make the kind of changes required to make this a better place to live. So what do we do? Just give up and settle for being a second rate country.
I don’t buy that and you shouldn’t either. We need to do something besides grumble. But what?
Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen 