Is America # 1?

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
-Thomas Jefferson.



No. 1?

BY MICHAEL VENTURA

Letters at 3AM

No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the
notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are,
in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1."

Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political
suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American."
We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a
manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its
competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable.
We're No. 1. Well ... this is the country you really live in:

. The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (The New York
Times, Dec. 12, 2004). The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries
in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

One-third of our science teachers and one-half of our math teachers did
not major in those subjects. (Quoted on The West Wing, but you can trust
it - their researchers are legendary.)

. Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the Earth. Seventeen
percent believe the Earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week,
Jan. 7, 2005).

�The International Adult Literacy Survey ... found that Americans with
less than nine years of education �score worse than virtually all of the
other countries�� (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European
Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the
American Dream, p.78).

. Our workers are so ignorant, and lack so many basic skills, that
American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT,
Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

. "The European Union leads the U.S. in ... the number of science and
engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D)
expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest
producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The
agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21,
2004).

Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28% last year.
Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in
three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year
Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56%, Indians 51%,
South Koreans 28% (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.

The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in
terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was] ... 37th." In
the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United
States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in
the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the
world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The
European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a
"developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.

Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American
deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.)
(NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the
developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81).
Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the
only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.

Twelve million American families, more than 10% of all U.S. Households,
"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves."
Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last
year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores
higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

Women are 70% more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe
(NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder
(CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

>>29
Respectfully, in my opinion what happened to Rome was so complex that entire very thick books have been written about it.  Does the name Gibbon mean anything to you?

Rome's ruling class had indoor plumbing and running water, set up with lead pipes, so a lot of the decisions toward the end were being made by people with moderate to severe lead poisoning damaging their brains.  New foreign religions and superstitions, including one called "Christianity," ate away at the Hellenistic rationalism which was the core of Classical civilization.  These new foreign superstitions also captured the minds of the masses, reducing their loyalty to the state, which was by the 4th Century already at a low ebb due to the corruption and brutality of generations of, first, insane inbred Emperors like Caligula and Commodus, then venal, greedy "barracks Emperors" who took and held power only as long as they could bribe their own bodyguards to not kill them and elevate another ambitious general to the throne, as well as unjust and unequal distribution of wealth.  Rome allowed foreigners to come in and buy Roman citizenship, which they conferred on people who had absolutely no loyalty to Rome or Roman ideals.  Rome allowed hundreds of thousands of barbarians to immigrate, few of whom were willing to fight the Huns when they came.  And so on.  Gibbon wrote hundreds of pages on this, and he wasn't the last.

We study history in the hopes that we, as a civilization, can avoid the worst mistakes of the past.  Of course, George Bernard Shaw said, "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."