Fellow Salon blogger Rob Salkowitz welcomed the New Year from a vantage point across the border in Canada; his perspective in a recent post makes it clear that Canada and America have drifted quite a distance apart in their values.
Rob drew a share of the negative element in payment for his observations and comments. In reference to his love for America, he was bashed for being the kind of person who would “love it to death”, another euphemism for being unpatriotic. Making comparisons to other developed countries like Canada as well as France and Sweden surely means that one hates their country, yes?
What unmitigated crap.
I take issue with this attitude, in part because it’s a ploy intended to distract us from America's failures and opportunities to improve, in part because it’s a statement of utter denial from those who are only too willing to tout the right’s “Culture of Life”.
If this country were truly doing well by its citizens and embracing that so-called "Culture of Life", if it were truly doing better than the developed countries held up to ridicule by the right, then we should expect to be healthier and safer, down to the least of us, yes?
I’d certainly like to think so, but the numbers tell me otherwise:
|
Info by Country from UNICEF* |
France |
Finland |
Sweden |
USA |
Canada |
|
Net primary school enrolment / attendance (%) (1996-2003) |
100 |
100 |
100 |
93 |
100 |
|
Life expectancy at birth (years), 2003 |
79 |
78 |
80 |
77 |
79 |
|
GNI per capita (US$), 2003 |
24770 |
27020 |
28840 |
37610 |
23930 |
|
Annual no. of under-5 deaths (thousands),2003 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
34 |
2 |
|
Annual no. of births (thousands),2003 |
772 |
55 |
92 |
4262 |
319 |
|
Total population (thousands),2003 |
60144 |
5207 |
8876 |
294043 |
31510 |
|
Infant mortality rate (under 1),2003 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
7 |
5 |
|
Under-5 mortality rate,2003 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
8 |
6 |
|
Under-5 mortality rank |
170 |
170 |
192 |
157 |
162 |
I don’t know about you, but I would have expected the richest free market economy in the world to be heads and shoulders above the rest of the world on life expectancy and infant mortality.
Based on the GNI figures above, you'd think we could afford to do better than these other despicable mixed-economies...
Or aren't these priorities here in America?
And I suppose I am un-American and unpatriotic for making these comparisons and demanding better of my homeland?
* See Link: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ for more details.
1:48:29 PM 
