We’re Number…1???

First off, I live in the U.S. I enjoy some of the freedoms that living in the United States affords me. I would probably enjoy the ones that have been stripped away from the citizenry over the past few decades too. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with what used to be our Republic. I am not as deluded as some to think that I could not have a similar or more fulfilling life in another country. Just as some honestly feel that this is the best nation on the planet, there are several others that feel quite the same about theirs.

While there is a lot to love about this great country of ours, objective eyes and minds will tell you that there is a lot to hate as well. For example, the type of deluded people that will read an article like this and exclaim, “This is America, son! Love it or leave it!” (Is it just me, or did you hear “Dueling Pianos” in the background too?) The simple fact of the matter is that this country was founded on dissent. The original idea that has lost its meaning today was, “If you don’t like it, change it.” The fact of the matter is that we are all just too wrapped up in our meaningless lives to actually do something about it. One day, we find something that we are not pleased with in our government only to go back to to our homes to turn on the increasingly biased media, get wrapped up in popular opinion, drift off to sleep only to wake up with a gourmet coffee that drowns away the dissatisfaction of the previous day.

Just what are we number one in, anyway? Well, we’re fat…REAL fat. In fact, we’re numero uno when it comes to people over 15 years of age with a body mas index greater than 30. Lemme think….OH YEAH! Military expenditures. The world as a whole spent $1,470,000,000,000 in 2008. What will America spend in 2009? $651,163,000,000 which is just slightly less than half of what all of the world spent in 2008! Let’s see… We lead the world in oil consumption. With a population of just over 300,000,000 we consume over 20.6 million barrels per day. By way of comparison, China has a population that exceeds 1.3 billion people and consumes only 7.57 million barrels per day. We are also a leader in food waste with about half of the food in the United States going to waste. On average, everyone in the United States wastes about a pound of food a day. The majority of this waste ends up in landfills.

We should be leading the world in several areas. Health care, production, environmental causes, alternate energy research and deployment… The list is long. But we are not. And we will not until there are more of you that realize that it is not wrong to disagree and even loath current policies that are counter productive to the well being of the country. We need more people that are outraged by the way our government represents us and by the way corporate America dictates policy in order to achieve a higher profit margin and a  better stock price. We need more Thomas Jeffersons.