America like ‘the rest of the world’? Why not?
As you no doubt have heard by now, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio emerged bloodied and battered from the debate among Republican presidential candidates that aired on ABC-TV Saturday night. After being hammered relentlessly by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for being rigidly scripted and “a boy in the bubble,” a clearly flustered Rubio responded by repeating one of his talking points about President Obama four times, which Christie made certain to point out.
The gist of the argument Rubio was trying to make is President Obama has not been incompetent, as many Republicans contend, but he has been all too competent, “undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world.”
Make America more like the rest of the world? Goodness! Where are the smelling salts?!
By “the rest of the world,” we assume Rubio was referring to the rest of the developed world. And if that’s the case, there’s room to wonder why making America like the rest of the world would be such a horrific development.
We have become a less mobile society than many other nations, including our northern neighbor, Canada. Countries like Finland, Estonia and Canada, again, outdo our students in academic performance, and other nations have surged ahead of us in college completion rates. We put more of our citizens in prison than Russia or China, we pay more for health care and have lower life expectancies than many of our developed competitors, and our infrastructure leaves plenty to be desired, as we have recently witnessed in Flint, Mich. And we have a toleration for gun violence that leaves the rest of the world flabbergasted.
Yes, there are a lot of things that make the United States a special place – it has energy, entreprenurial zeal and openness you will not find elsewhere. But what’s so bad about making America like the rest of the world if it would improve the lives of most of its citizens? There’s nothing unpatriotic about that.