Thankful for American democracy

By: Neil Albstein

Posted: 11/20/08

In a class earlier this week, we watched a video in which the speaker went through a long list of problems plaguing the modern world. To me, the single most noteworthy aspect of the list was that not a single item on it applied to the United States. This realization, coupled with the approach of Thanksgiving, leads me to think about how lucky we are to live in a nation like this. Of course the U.S. has its share of flaws, but, no matter how seriously we take them and how much time we spend trying to fix them, we should never lose sight of the fact that we are largely exempt from the most serious problems people face in the world today. Yet we still spend inordinate amounts of time complaining. It seems as if the more we have to be thankful for, the more we have to complain about.

I'll start with the big picture. Earlier this month we elected Barack Obama, a black man, as President. Whether we agree with his policies or not, we can be thankful that we have moved on from the past eras of discrimination and slavery. The Civil War is over. This also means that President Bush and most of the Republicans whose policies many Americans detested have been forced out of office. Our democracy works. President Bush is now going out of his way to help President-Elect Obama transition smoothly into office. This is a striking contrast to elections in other nations, such as Zimbabwe, where the reigning president resorted to violence, rather than risk losing his stranglehold on the struggling nation. Throughout President Bush's term, Americans frequently and publicly expressed their disapproval of his policies using political protests, news media and even comedy. This is possible, because we consider our right to free speech sacred, while others in certain places around the world would fear to be heard expressing the "wrong" views. Of course we use this free speech to complain about how restrictive our country is.

On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists who resented our way of life flew four of our own planes into three of our most important buildings and one open field. Since then, there has not been one successful terrorist attack on American territory. So we complain about the length of the security lines at our airports.

We are currently experiencing one of the worst economic collapses in our nation's history, but the vast majority of us fear only the loss of certain luxuries. We expect that we will still be able to provide for our basic needs. Though consumption is likely to decrease, the era of prosperity we enjoyed recently means that unprecedented numbers of Americans have been able to indulge in luxuries unknown in other parts of the world. Our streets are filled with men, women and children wired to the hilt. Cell phones are almost standard equipment for Americans. We listen to music piped in through tiny headphones from miniscule devices. Virtually all of us have Internet access, putting us in touch with the entire world at speeds unimaginable a mere decade ago, yet we still complain about how slow our connections are, and, horror of horrors, that the technology is advancing so fast that our gizmos and gadgets are outdated the same month we purchase them.

The auto industry in this country may be in danger of fading from existence, but a new system has been devised that has a new test car driving itself around the streets of New York. The cars available to the public get better gas mileage than ever, yet still produce enough energy to use signals from satellites in outer space to give us instantaneous directions at every step of our routes, in addition to hundreds of channels featuring all forms of radio programming. Naturally, we are still complaining that it costs too much to put gas in the car.

In past eras, going off to college often meant losing touch with old friends. Not anymore. We can now keep track of the most minor events in the lives of all of our acquaintances, as well as keep them informed of our own actions. Now we complain that it's too easy for people to track us.

People used to carry bulky cameras with limited rolls of film in order to capture important moments in their lives. Film cameras have been replaced with digital ones that store a thousand pictures at once in a smaller size than ever seen before. No sooner did this technology appear on the market, than we suddenly had cameras built into our cell phones, allowing us to capture magic moments without worrying about forgetting the camera at home. Of course, we now complain that, with all the cameras around, there's less privacy.

We love our sports leagues and have many of them. Naturally, every game features questions about the legitimacy of officials' decisions, so every one of the major leagues in this country implemented electronic instant replay. Now we complain that replay slows down the game and the referees are still wrong (Apparently, the Pittsburgh Steelers won their game this weekend by the wrong score.)

All in all, I'm very thankful for all of our opportunities to complain. Just think how boring life would be if we were ever content!