This usually relates to one of my kids’ friends going abroad and coming back with stars in their eyes, my absolutely favorite being the one who was sure that socialism couldn’t be bad, because look at all the great palaces and monuments France has. Yes, he got an history lecture about no matter what you might think of feudalism, it was not socialism. And how most of what socialist France has done involves things like trying to develop a video phone system that worked … well… like the net. And failing.
There is worse, though.
Most people in the US don’t get how safe or how prosperous we are, not only in relation to most of history, but in relation to most of the world. They just don’t. The concept is impossible to comprehend if you’ve lived your entire life sheltered and fed in the US.
Which honestly is why so many people go abroad and then come home and work to destroy the US because they think that the only way we can be that prosperous is if we’re stealing from others. Their guilt sends them into stupid global redistributionism, without their having any clue of what really causes the foreign immiseration.
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...and we no longer teach history or civics.
ReplyDeleteMost U.S. citizens haven't seen poverty real and up close. They should, just for perspective.
ReplyDeleteI have been abroad in Africa with the poorest of the poor. Americans have no clue what living conditions are like. I spoke to villagers who asked many basic questions about America. ALL of them would give limbs to come to America and live in the most extreme poverty we have here. Frankly and interestingly, most people in places I have experienced only want empowerment charity. Basically help to get them clean water or a food source that they can own and be empowered to maintain and grow themselves. Unlike the US where we give handouts and train those individuals not to empower themselves to flourish from that one act, but to expect it over and over again. After experiencing living conditions abroad, I cannot understand why our broken system continues. It is illogical plain and simple.
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