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The U.S. gets over its problems and becomes a better place. Slavery? -> Civil War, slavery over. Jim Crow laws? -> Civil Rights protests, the Supreme Court finally realizes what the Constitution really says, and Jim Crow is over. Prohibition causes gangsterism and mafia? -> the whole country did not get corrupted by it, and eventually the mafia got taken down. And so on. Maybe not every problem, but there's a lot of big problems that have been overcome. And all the while not falling into various traps. For example, the Great Depression led to the Nazis getting into power in Germany, and Latin America was quite marked by the economic disaster that was the Great Depression, but the U.S. failed to get a Hitler or Perón -- that's huge. This is made possible by a number of things, some of which are ideas, and some of which are accidents: - geography
- luck: having brilliant founders!
- a brilliant Constitution that splits power not
just three ways, but also over N States (currently 50)
- mutual distrust in the early days of the nation
- a British background and fresh memories of the
British civil war
This means that freedom -yes, freedom- has been available to many, and eventually to most/all Americans. The original ideas were made too aspirational by the stain of slavery, yes, but in the end it all worked out decently enough, even if it took time to get there.This surveillance-state thing? Who knows, we may not overcome it. Or maybe we will. But are there large countries you'd bet will do better at getting over their problems? China? Brazil? Russia? Really, compare to other countries. |