Dialogues on Life During Wartime: Proud to be a "'Merican"

Fibonacci Blue, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Dave S., Mark O., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter

Buenas Noches Bots,

Was just talking to a couple locals about events in the US. From here in Costa Rica, much of the news coming out of ‘Merica seems almost surreal — extremist politics, mass shootings, trans rights and restrictions, brazenly corrupt and incompetent elected officials and journalists, a culture of self-righteous anger, social media and mainstream media madness, war-mongering, lawsuits on lawsuits, etc… –lotsa crazy shit that the locals here tell me they are completely baffled by. .

As much as I have tried to patiently explain our American ways to Ticos in my broken-ass Spanish, I have to admit that part of me has been somewhat dismissive of their confusion.

Perhaps my indoctrinated subconscious mind defers to American exceptionalism–to my loyalty to a brave land where the roads are better paved than here, Amazon delivers to your door, government websites are easier to maneuver, and people speak English goddammit.

But just now I stumbled upon a few websites that rank countries by criteria such as how fragile, how safe, how equitable, how democratic, etc., they are. Here’s a few of them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index

https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

Safest Countries in the World

Weird to see the US is sooo far down on these lists, consistently ranked well below Costa Rica, which is generally described as a “developing” or “second-world” country.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised; I’ve heard many American expats down here telling me that living in the US had become too dystopian and divisive and stressful for them. Expats from other parts of the world, even Israel, think the US is too violent for them to visit safely.

What do you bots think? Forgive the overly broad, seemingly simplistic question, but is America really toast? Is the era of so-called American exceptionalism over? Will there be a continued exodus of talent with the growth of on-line work capabilities? Will more Americans seek greener, perhaps gentler and kinder, pastures overseas?

BTW. You may notice that Iceland consistently ranks best on those lists. Ah well. Too bad Iceland is located in Iceland.

Hey bots,

Nice take on the state of the States, Dennis. It reminds of one night when I was working at the wine store and a group of college kids came in. We chatted and it turned out one of them was an exchange student from France. I asked her how she liked America. She said fine, but that her parents were scared to death about her coming here—they imagined (not mistakenly) that it was like the Wild West over here. It got me thinking about what the rest of the world thinks about the American fascination with Trump, guns, and racism plus our seemingly antithetical obsession with puritanical moralizing. They must think we’re fucking nuts.

It’s stunning to think that as a country we rank as less safe than Zimbabwe and just safer than Palestine. I’ve been working with a group of international teachers who were brought here to teach in MPS. They’re underpaid, overworked, and came here with not much more than a couple suitcases. They’ve had to negotiate our tax laws, work visas, cultural assimilation, and a new job. Many of them have been separated from their families. And yet one of them was just telling me how grateful she felt to be able to get a chance to teach in the U.S. Maybe we’re doing something right.

And it makes me realize how lucky we were as teens and young adults; we had affordable college tuition, a stable government (so stable we never even worried about it), rational laws, and a working democracy. Maybe it is time to go to Iceland. Norway. Sweden?

The entire American exceptionalism concept is pretty hard to justify. It’s an ideology and belief system, not a factual state of affairs.

But it’s pretty damn impossible for these rankings to distill an entire nation, especially one as huge and diverse as the US, into one “safety” or “stability” number. The rankings are suspect.

That’s not meant to discount our American issues. We’ve got intractable problems, and our political system has devolved to the point that we seem unable to address any of the major issues. Entitlement reform? Immigration? Climate change? Universal health care? Forget it. Those won’t be discussed seriously, much less resolved, anytime soon.

And I won’t discount the negative feelings expressed by your American and overseas friends. The news from the US is whack.

But the crazoo whackadoodle shit that is spewed by politicians, and dutifully reported by the media, just isn’t the lived experience of most Americans. Now, I do realize that I’m reporting from my comfortable safe suburban neighborhood, in my comfortable retirement. And had I been born deep in the inner city of Milwaukee, I’d probably have a different perspective.

But I don’t think you can beat this country for economic opportunity. Though I decry our overly capitalistic economic system, with its crappy safety net full of holes,that same wild wild West of an economy has made prosperity possible for almost anybody who is willing to work. And this is why the southern border of the US is clogged with immigrants trying any tactic to get in.

There’s one hugely negative change that I’ve experienced in my lifetime, and which is something accurately represented in these rankings. I am now looking over my shoulder in every movie theater, store, outdoor festival, baseball game, and what have you. The arming of the US has proceeded, on steroids, in our lifetime. We really aren’t as safe. There was a mass shooting in my town (Oak Creek — the Sikh Temple)– and a nephew of a neighbor was shot in the Batman movie massacre in Aurora, Colorado. Sometimes I feel that they are closing in on me.

Yeah Geoff, those sad stories of American gun-totin’ zealots with itchy trigger fingers are precisely what people down here were asking about. I must say, the Latin Americans and the Europeans here have been extremely polite about their enquiries to me about guns, perhaps sensing that as a 65-year-old American white man, I fall into a certain demographic – the Armed, Angry, Scared Senior (modified acronym – Armed A.S.S.)

I thought they were being all nice and polite because they thought I was cool. But (sigh) maybe they’re just treading lightly around a potential Armed A.S.S –best to be nice and careful around the pissed-off, pistol packin’ American white geezer who fears how weak he feels compared to how he once was, whose erections are not quite a firm as they once were (ahem, not actually me of course)-–that guy who sees imminent dangers from all sides and who will pull that concealed .38 Special out of his ass and start firing away at perceived threats such as those goddamn kids who traipsed right across the goddamn lawn on their way to so-called “wrong addresses” and those cheerleaders acting all sweet and innocent as they lure him into their trap.

Ah, sorry for the weird tangent. For sure there are way too many guns in America, but more than that, I think guns have become kind of an addiction, like crack, or booze, or heroin, or porn (not weed, though, you can’t get addicted to weed, man).

Good points, Mark M. For sure, lists like that don’t come close to telling the whole story, but it kind of reaffirmed my misgivings about the recent state of our government when I saw the US pegged as a “deficient democracy” –lumped in with Bulgaria, Mongolia, and Botswana, rather than listed as a “working democracy” like Ireland, Denmark, or even Costa Rica.

And, as Geoff pointed out about the safety list, “It’s stunning to think that as a country we rank as less safe than Zimbabwe and just safer than Palestine.”

Re. safety and gun violence in the US. As Mark said, there’s a “looking over your shoulder” kind of reality in the US now. And Geoff can attest to the constant “active shooter in the school” drills that have become more common than the “fire drills” we did in school back in the day. A rather chilling “new normal” in America.

Non-Americans (or as Marjorie Taylor Greene describes them –“Un-Americans”) down here in Costa Rica read about the daily mass shootings and (very politely) ask me what’s up with Americans and guns.

“Let’s say I got lost and asked for directions in the US, could I possibly really get shot?” Mateus, an Argentinian guy, (politely) asked me.

“Of course not, it’s not like that,” I was about to reply, but then I stopped myself.

Mateus has a strong accent and dreadlocks and wears kind of bizarre colorful clothes. Jeez, I thought, this poor fucker actually could end up dead meat for asking for directions in small town Texas. I pictured it in my head,,,

“Officer, he charged at me with that wild hair flying around, speaking some kind of crazy jibber jabber. What the hail was I supposed to do?” would say Randy Billbob, the shooter of Mateus. “Plain and simple, the man needed killin’ ”.

A jury of Randy’s peers would agree with him – and he would be declared “not guilty” –exonerated under the “Needed Killin’ Clause” enshrined in the Texas constitution…..

Soooo, I had to tell Mateus that it would be best for him to “stick to the touristy areas where there is good security and they are used to foreigners”, (which, btw, is exactly what they warn people to do in “failed nation-states” like Sudan, Venezuela, Somalia, or Florida.)

My wife, Jean, taught at St. Francis School District for several years. Prior to the 2018-19 school year, the district brought in a consultant to show the teachers, for two full, gloriously detailed days, what to do in an active shooter situation.

The consultant, some kind of off-duty or retired law enforcement, was knowledgeable. The teachers learned to apply a tourniquet and stuff cloth into bullet holes. One tip that stood out: as a teacher, please resist the urge to stick your head out of the classroom door into the hallway to see what’s going on. That invites trouble and gets you and your kids shot.

Amazing stuff. Thousands of dollars spent on the new version of “duck and cover”, instead of on actual, you know, education.

Great topic Dennis! I’m late, waiting for an image—and now MM beat me to that punch—Jean’s school classroom training story, (attached nonetheless—from my (former) workplace….out IT group does this planning work. Also this video (4 minutes but you’ll get it in 15 seconds.)

Sheltering in The Classroom

But first a couple things “On Language”:

In the NBA D game the other night (not the Lakers, not the Knicks….) the 4^th string announcers opened up—and they were good, but the lead guy asked color man Grant Hill for his opening remarks…a simple question, not one laden with a lot to comment on and he robotically said: “That’s a lot to unpack”. I guffawed. There was nothing to unpack! Nothing against Grant, granted we all try on chic lines, he was going to open with that no matter the question. (Lean in, is another one I check off when playing office bingo.)

The second one is a bumper sticker—Fuck Cancer. More on both, below.

Well, Dennis, that is a lot to unpack.

Fragile States Indexes link 1. (this one is almost total bullshit.
Initially I was going to go contrary and speak up for this wondrous melting pot, this country where even Sean Penn goes to dangerous Haiti to help storm victims, where volunteerism is still strong (no facts to support this but I’ve been active lately—thus on a high horse—maybe I’ll share yet another ppt—but not now), where we fund so much of the world’s defense budget, dole out millions, almost daily for disasters all over. We lead the world in research (no fact checking here, going on Si Valley (aka Tech) which is obvious, I think we are still dominant in Health Care Research—the human genome project started with Crick and Watson (DNA) and the more recent stem cell discovery was done here (in Madison—Jamie Thompson) , I think immunotherapy is another big one, quantum computing, even fusion has some new hope I hear….) I doubt very much any of those indexes factored in the amount of giving that the good ‘ol red white and blue does. If it did we’d rocket to the top of most lists (or bottom in the case of link 1).
As I look at the first link’s list—best are at the bottom—the fallacy is obvious—the dark green (best) countries on the map show this fallacy in picture form. The secret is geography—the more isolated you are (Iceland, Canada, OZ, NZ, Scandos….the higher your quality of life. Big whoop. Look no further than the UK—famous for ACCEPTING immigration (until recently) and though an insulated island country, they rate similar to the US. Hmmmm….shoulder the world’s ills and you have ills of your own. Shocking. We should enroll the “top rated” countries into the universities of leadership/selflessness..
BTW: This only reinforces my depression re Brexit. The EU so needs the Brit’s leadership. The center of the EU does a lot to shoulder immigration—this is border driven. But countries like Switzerland, somehow manage to not share equally in the burden.The UK, like Germany and France is a strong leader. The Economist keeps pleading for the UK to return. It might happen—let’s hope Trumpian isolationism was a fad.
MM went slightly in this direction noting the difficulty to distill so much into an index.
I did inspect the footnotes/credits to make sure it wasn’t Mother Jones staff ‘research’ one beery evening. Was not, sources seemed robust. And they were all interesting. Woke me up a bit.
But one more furthermore before I get on board with my overall stinging comments. Furthermore, these other countries are not lilly white. When in England the locals tell me the Scando countries don’t do shit in terms of shouldering immigration. Their distance insulates them but they do nothing to bridge that. Planes and boats do exist. And—this one needs fact checking but I’m told their health care system is going bankrupt—partly related to lack of immigration, lack of birth rate and aging demo in need of more and more care. And what about smoking? My quick check says smoking related deaths in the US out number gun deaths 10:1. Not searching for one for Europe (too broad and Europe isn’t the only “other”) but we all know smoking is still crazy high in Europe and “the eastern bloc”. How much weight did this quality of life get in the indexes? Smoking is more deadly than guns.
Ok, but sigh, I was nodding mostly in agreement. First guns, (not a divergent thread by the way—is one of the big factors for US’s poor standing in those charts). I’ll predict that things are going to get worse before they get better here. Not exactly brilliant, I know. But, then change will come, but unfortunately it is going to take a lot of bloodshed and some of it to some major players loved ones before the straws break the camels (elephants) back. Basis for my exponential gun deaths/shooting leading to gun reform theory
First of all one needs to verify that gun deaths are going up. I know they cycle up and down in big cities, especially homicides. But I’m going to ignore that for now. One thing is certain, active shooter incidents are exponential—at least per the Pew Research—chart below.
Obviously the proliferation of guns.
The ever widening gulf of haves vs have nots. This is big—IMHO—big root of this thistle.
The ever widening gulf leads to more children born to unwanted homes and more lack of role models and more paths to all the ills and eventually a gun death.
The abortion ban isn’t helping item d, but maybe, in some “opposite of the intended result effect”, it will….things are very dynamic out there as things play out at the state level—there certainly is much more awareness of the effectiveness of Mifepristone.
And lack of a stable home must have some correlation to mental illness—dunno—but mental illness is used loosely. Seems to me, many of these active shooter cases are connected to mental illness or, single parenting or way to laissez-faire, suburban parenting. Our anger culture—more on that later. And here I mean specific to how we treat each other, lack of civil debate.
Our shoot’em up culture–here I mean Hollywood and Video Games.
And of course our intractability on gun reform. It is not like any steps are being taken on the supply side—our only steps are in the ‘duck and cover’ category: train teachers, add metal detectors, cameras on street corners….cameras on doorbells… and contrary to supply limiting: arming ourselves to the gills—You talking to me?
This rash of shoot first accidental address deaths is astounding. Sudden coincidence or another exponential notch in the graph? Hopefully another straw on the camel’s aching back. Dystopian image: SWAT outfits–in case of wrong address– for pizza delivery boy, UPS, door dash, postman…etc….

Democracy 2nd link: No criteria or sources to inspect. Out of Germany—so that added some objectivity—for me. Not much from me on this one. Yeah, our democracy is in disarray, both:
Structurally—Wyoming gets same representation as California in the Senate (and Costa Rica gets zero)…gerrymandering is so vile….Mitch McConnell hold up of SCOTUS nomination and Ruth’s mistake have made SCOTUS “not blind” as justice should be…and
Culturally: The petty, anger infused, downright evil things the world sees out of Florida, Tennessee, Texas. Embarrassing to be merican.
Now, I’ve mentioned—too often, (sorry)—that this anger craze started with Gingrich—others have written books about this. The Pat Buchanon episode. MM added Rush Limbaugh effect—in this regard. New thought yesterday when I saw that Fuck Cancer bumper sticker, maybe it is bigger than Newt. Marketing learned group cohesiveness goes up with a common enemy and this can translate to sales, cancer und raising, votes…you name it—find a villain, bash the hell out of it, stay negative, get everyone to jump into the mosh pit and in a decade or so you’ll have a culture of quick trigger anger. Mother T and Gandhi would take a more zen approach to cancer: Love cancer, get to know cancer, give it some love, give it some space, respect cancer—then, when you know it entirely, kill it, kill it good.
The third link—Safety: Most complex, lots of sub indexes.
Surprised to see Oz so low. I have a US friend there and he notes their low homicide rate due to no guns. And they are an island country and everyone is required to vote. You are fined if you don’t vote.
I’ve already commented about guns relative to fragility index, but will join in and observe how depressing SF was on a recent visit. I get there somewhat regularly—son lives there. The homeless state is dire. That and the “ORC Invasion” (organized retail crime—blatant theft of deodorant and other easy to internet sell items from Walgreens—mentioned prior). I can see why people derate the US as a place to visit. I’m happy my son—now expecting one of his own, is moving back to MSP. I used to vote for him staying out there–try a new horizon, not live “yet another” mid-west life—but the fragility/safety/lapse of exceptionalism of SF is exactly what makes me sigh in agreement at their return to the Midwest. This just in, yesterday the Times had a story detailing this re Whole Foods closing its doors in a part of town known as the tenderloin.
This link/list, based on a ton of data, is complex/ambitious…too much to unpack.

Before I go, here’s the deal: We can’t control where we’re born. We can emigrate (flee) if somebody is trying to kill our race—I get that (Armenia, countless others) We could be born in the inner city, to a single parent, who is a drug addict and die before we reach 17. Or we are lucky like us. With that comes responsibility, so we all have an even bigger cross to carry. The cross of entitlement. This is the type of talk you get from Bernie, Hillary, AOC…and has a knee jerk rxn from that portion of haves who just want to watch Sunday football. It is these recalcitrant haves we need to keep plugging away at—but in civil fashion. The one party I have zero patience for is the whiner party. The ones that are entitled, see the drop off in exceptionalism, and bolt to Canada…or wherever. Hate to sound like a football coach, but those are quitters.

-D.

There’s a lot to unpack there!

But I want to second your assertion on immigration, diversity, and safety. The US faces a much bigger challenge integrating its diverse population into a cooperative union. We are not racially and ethnically homogenous like Iceland, Japan, and Sweden. It makes a huge difference.

And now a side note. Mass shooters are typically not “mentally ill”. Angry, isolated, alienated, yes. But not crazy. I jump in with this minor objection because it makes me want to scream when I hear the gun apologists blame “mental illness”.

Wow. That video is bizarre on so many levels – it’s a lot to unpack.Thanks for sharing –haha “That’s a lot to unpack” just might become my new go-to phrase –it works for so many things!

Yeesh…talk about the power of suggestion… (had sent a Dennis only note, but recent events merit full ‘bot deployment….)

I had to refresh self on what the Castle Doctrine is after you, (Dennis), used it recently…then the snip below popped up and then yesterday the story from upstate NY—near Vermont border where some gals mistakenly drove up a wrong driveway and a sixty-something (“good guy, respectable contractor” said the local cop interviewed….), came out firing—killed her—high school cheerleader.) And sure enuf on the NPR story they used the term Castle Doctrine—but apparently it has evolved (devolved) with different interpretations depending on if one’s life is threatened, in one’s home, etc…with but of course, different laws per state. I also wondered, did this good guy contractor have anything else going on?—something to hide, something in his house he knew people might come after? Probably not…just rural paranoid. I think it was at night…dark and there may have been 2 or 3 cars in this group of kids. But who knows, maybe more will come out.

And just to top it off, There was another wrong address death last week…I think in New Mexico. Not Castle Doctrine but these coincidences are cause for pause—re gun proliferation. In this case—ICYMI—cops are responding to a domestic abuse call, get the wrong address (they don’t know this—just a door or 2 off No answer at the door so they call the dispatcher to ring the person that called, then, someone comes to the door (with a gun—cuz this is an innocent house the dude is thinking WTF?…who the f is banging at my door?…(I think it was late afternoon, not a crazy hour which is relevant detail…as is the neighborhood and tons of other details before one passes judgment). The cops meanwhile think the call worked and fear a perp is coming to the door, see the gun and shoot the unknowing dude dead. Wait, it gets worse…his wife picks up the gun and returns fire!…. No one else hurt. Crazy. All of that from memory, so apologies if I got any of the details wrong.

But a couple comments:

Jumping to conclusions: When it first came out, many thought, F! dam cops…shoot first, ask questions later….then you learn it was probably just an f’d up mistake. Humans do make mistakes—why we need Robocop. (I shouldn’t joke…but…???). I think I heard that domestic disputes are one of the most dangerous scenes for a cop. Makes sense to me….you are walking into a cauldron…people are insane with rage and…everyone’s got a gun these days. So again some slack for the coppers.
Common themes: Wrong addresses and too many guns: Pizza delivery folks, door dash folks, uber eats….time for hazard pay.

-Dave

Castle Doctrine is such an interesting term. The “castle” analogy is pretty telling. Most of what we now consider castles were actually fortresses built in the Middle Ages as protection against marauding knights. These knights were often essentially mercenaries for hire by feudal lords with a grievance against some neighboring feudal lords. These were the Dark Ages where the common serfs were powerless against mounted knights in armor and would flee to the stronghold of their (authoritarian strongman) feudal lord’s “castle” for safety until the threat moved on.

The analogies to today make the mind reel. Ironically, it was the introduction of gunpowder and firearms that eventually eliminated the threat of the armored knights.

MarkO

Since D. first addressed this issue, there have been at least three other incidents. A young girl was shot after pulling into the wrong driveway. Two cheerleaders who accidentally got into the wrong car were shot, and a couple of kids who were chasing a basketball into a neighbor’s yard got shot. This is not about defending our lives and limbs, or—more importantly—our property. It’s about lashing out, reacting with deadly force to any new or unusual situation. Not that a lost stranger knocking on my door or pulling into my driveway is all that unusual. I’ve never had a bevy of cheerleaders enter my car under any circumstances, but I suspect I’d be okay with it.

Have we turned into such a nation of cowards that we blindly try to kill anything or anyone unfamiliar to us? Why are we reacting like neurotic Chihuahuas—albeit Chihuahuas armed with deadly force—when confronted with the unknown? Where is the courage and grit and ingenuity and hospitality that is part of the definition of American exceptionalism?

Who are these gun-happy worms afraid to stand up to the unknown? Courage isn’t carried in a holster. Neither is patriotism. This behavior cannot be tolerated. These people should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Then—a la Andy Partridge—let’s melt down the guns.