USA EXCEPTIONALISM? YOU BET -- NOT!

Exceptionally high prescription drug prices, the highest in the world, even higher than the many developed countries who have single payer health care systems.

Exceptionally high infant mortality rate, the highest among wealthy nations.

Exceptionally well educated graduates who can’t read cursive handwriting

Exceptionally high private gun ownership…the highest in the world

Exceptionally proud to be the number one nation in the world in the number of gun related homicides

Exceptionally violent…more than anywhere else in the world

Exceptionally inclined to mass murder, much more than anywhere else

Exceptional by the fact that the USA has more crime by far than any other country

Exceptional by the fact that the USA has more people incarcerated than any other country

Exceptionally proud that our life expectancy at birth is a resounding 49^th place on the charts of the world

Exceptionally obese.  Number one in the world, in fact.

Exceptionally poor public mass transit infrastructure

Exceptionally driven to meddle into the affairs of others, at home and abroad

Exceptionally weak Commander in Chief who always consults the “Generals” rather than commanding them

Exceptionally weak Head of State who seems to fear to dare the opposition to cause senseless havoc

There has been a lot in the news lately about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government to kill some of its citizens.  That is certainly not a very nice picture.  There is also another ugly picture to contemplate right here in the USA.  We also have a government that wages chemical warfare.  We don’t get gassed, we just die because we can’t afford the chemicals we need to survive.  I’m a lucky one.  The prescription I can’t afford is not a cure or a control for a terminal condition…painful, but not terminal.  So, I do without.  But there are people who choose to die because they cannot afford the astronomical prices of some of the “miracle” drugs that are for sale, all the while being unavailable because of price. 

There is also another crime that kills our fellow citizens in this country and that this the legalized bribery practiced between politicians and special interests.  If politicians had a moral compass they would stop taking the standard “campaign contribution” and “lobbyist” bribes and start to protect the citizens of the country with common sense health care and gun control laws.  The canard of the second amendment is just that, canard.  There is nothing in the second amendment that says that the government doesn’t have the right to protect innocent citizens of the country. 

Yes, the USA is Exceptional.  It has constructed the best legalized bribery system known to humans on this planet or any other one where humans may exist.  The immorality of this ingenious system has succeeded in substituting the authority of the government with the power of the special interests.  This displacement of truth and honesty has despoiled the franchise held by the citizens of its guiding force.  The citizens vote, the politicians get washed downstream by the flow of the bribes.  Along with the politicians goes the will of the vote only to go over the Niagra and fall into the churning miasma of unrest and unrequited expectations for a decent, well organized, productive life in an honesty based land. 

No, I don’t live in Russia.  No I’m not a bleeding heart liberal, nor am I a tight-sphinctered conservative.  I am a hard working, 76 ½ year old who still holds a job and has experienced life in many places in this world.  Given my internationally grounded experiences, I can fearlessly say, yes, even along with Vlad Putin, “Get over yourself, America, you’re just as ordinary, and in many ways just as bad if not worse as anyone else.”