My musings on: America

America has a curious combination of values - we exalt industry and indolence, conformity and creativity, progressiveness and reverence for our past, wholesome family values and ultimate sexual freedom. Perhaps our greatest attribute is our schizophrenia.

The point of our society is to make sure all people are equal, not that all people are identical. Everyone should be able to do the same thing, but everyone will do the same thing a different way, and this should be encouraged. We should spend less time teaching people WHAT we think they should learn, and more time teaching them how to know HOW they learn.

This country is founded on 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Think about that: the PURSUIT of happiness. That means that America wants to make sure you're always chasing AFTER happiness; nowhere in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence or on the Statue of Liberty or anywhere else, nowhere is it written that Americans have a right to BE happy. They'll allow you to chase after the cart, that's all they're saying; the cart could be going 250 miles an hour and you could be on stilts, and you'd still be in 'pursuit' of the cart. That's why, being a big believer in living as if the world was the way it should be, rather than having to deal with the depressing truth of how it actually is, I like to pretend that America is actually a land dedicated to life, liberty, and the BEING of happiness. Happiness should be something we all believe exists, even if we've never seen it. Like God. Or Sasquatch. Or an honest politician.

The government of the USA is a compromise between having a single tyrant who rules by whim, and the impossible task of involving all our millions in democracy. We select a bit over 500 people to more or less enact the will of the people, and they set about making things work for the benefit of themselves and their constituents, in that order.