The older I get, the greater appreciation I have for the marvel that this country is. I can remember a re-occurring theme taught me through out my early schools years, our origins resulting in a "melting pot" of a country.
Our population consists of people from all walks of life, all shapes and colors emigrating from anywhere to participate in the American Dream.
We are not a melting pot, we are a pot boiling at high temperature at all times. Not one aspect of our lives is left untouched by this tumult. Politics, economics, technology, industry, medicine, science, and literature are all constantly subject to revolutionary change.
In the last 100 years we have seen much in the way of change across the globe. Many a revolution has taken place that promised a new way of life, demolition of the status quo and a Utopian existence for the victorious. The victorious get to write their version of history but eventually reality breaks through. The Bolsheviks, Chairman Mao, the Viet Cong, Castro and the Iranians to name a few have all promised the masses a higher standard of living and less exploitation by the ruling class. In reality they have resulted in chaos and oppression and backsliding and a new ruling class more violent and malevolent than their predecessors.
Now that the earth has taken on a more village like atmosphere in some quarters we Americans are viewed as the entrenched leadership, oppressing the masses and seeking global domination for the kings and queens of capitalism. Some accuse us of raping and pillaging the earth, attacking and destroying people of color, enslaving the people to our culture and our religion and exploiting their labor and resources. We needn't look to France or other critics, when we can read it for ourselves right here in our country.
This point of view frequently expressed by some of our own major media and political opposition, which by the way is the most vigorous of any nation in the world. How many of the afore-mentioned revolutionary regimes allowed for the leader to be called a bumbling idiot, or on vacation to long, or being in top physical shape but allowing for the nations children to be fat? One can only imagine what happened to the opposition party chairman in China (if there was one) who said "I hate Chairman Mao, he's a loser, he never worked a day in his life".
We have our own Krugman's who hold up some European examples of models surpassing our own. Compare those unemployment rates, GDP growth and productivity and scientific accomplishments and then choose which
system you would prefer to live under. Can you name the last ten life changing blockbuster drugs developed in France? Perhaps you know the inventor of the French or German Ipod or internet? Was it a Frenchmen who revolutionized the Tour De France?
It is not hubris or arrogance but a simple statement of fact. American capitalistic democracy is the global revolution and it is coming faster than global warming or rapture. World security and the well being of individual global inhabitants depend on it.
There will be the inevitable back-lash. The Neanderthal movements headed up by the likes of Bin Laden will always be on the fringes of global society. There will still be flat worlders or the devout of some cult or another preaching world destruction but in the end they will go the way of the Dodo.
The American Revolution isn't over in fact it may only be beginning.
