American Superiority

   I write this in 2021, on the auspicious and rather hopeful day of the inauguration of Joseph Robinette Biden, our newest president of 46 in U.S history, who is succeeding the hard to describe in one word, Donald J. Trump.

Exacerbating. Psychophant. A windstorm, some others would go with "poop" storm, with the courser word for excrement. A whirlwind, a wealthy dynamo. A stirrer of emotions. Others have said a lot more about the Donald, for much better and much worse. Hard to find others in between, any moderate descriptions or depictions.

    But this post is more about the greatness of the country, not just a person. The aforementioned president, number 45, is a product or by-product of the United States of America. A superior nation. Let me count the ways...

 

1. Military - We have the greatest, or most powerful military in the world. That is not to say that we cannot be beaten in small conflicts or even larger ones, but the capabilities and out reach of the United States armed forces are so great that everyone respects our military might. May places only can count on us to intervene when threatened. We have many, or the most, allies when it comes to military cooperation and interdependence. NATO and other multilateral treaties make the U.S. the overwhelming world power in realpolitik.

2. Economy - Despite the former growth of World War II rivals Germany and Japan, and the current surge of China, the United States has the wealthiest, most robust economy in the world. This certainly enables the volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, and other service branches and the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement to stay strong. You could say one compliments the other.

3. Government - The local, regional (often county), state, and federal governments in and for the United States have many problems, plenty of poor politics, infighting, back biting, corruption, waste, excess, and sometimes de

4. Diversity - The penny says, "E pluribus unum", which I believe means "from many, one". This applied to the 13 original colonies in the 1700s: some free, some slave, some Catholic, some Protestant, some rural, some more urban, some flat with sea coasts, some mountainous with rivers, with the people who work in each environment to match.  Now we have a very diverse population of European descended whites, of all hues, blacks, some 10th generation and others immigrated from the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, or even the South Pacific. Spanish speakers are rampant, as well as all types of Asians and others. We have linguists native to the United States who speak Persian Farsi, Urdu, Hindi, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Bislama, Oromo, you name it. We have restaurants and stores and all the human-based traffic that caters to the whole world. This provides strength and abilities that is hard to match by any other country, even those that have 4 times more people, like China and India.

5. Geography - The United States grew and expanded to large areas in North America, by settlement, purchase, and war conquests. Not only does it contain huge portions of North America within he middle of the continent, but it also owns territories in the Caribbean bordering the Atlantic, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and islands dotting the Pacific Ocean, with the obvious Hawaii Islands, American Samoa, Guam and Mariana Islands. We have bases in and around the Pacific Rim, too, which goes back to military positioning, power and might. And then there is the variety of climates, topography, and the abundance of agriculture.

 

6. Religion - This is a land of many religious traditions and practices, where the freedom of expression, assembly, and worship are certainly let free reign. There is Constitutional and other rule of law guarantees, to include tax breaks and credits, that allow religious denominations to flourish. Despite the trend of more secular believers, or non-believing "nones" (those not belonging to any faith), the United States is powerful in the realms of practitioners, missionaries, priests and priestesses, churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, shrines, and other holy sites. The diversity of beliefs pushes the American people in ways that many, like me, would call synergistic and dynamic, a positive thing overall. The organized religions and groups under them stimulate more power and growth, that interacts with the rest of the world to smaller or bigger degrees. This seems informal and less substantial than some other more direct links to each other and the world, but I posit this is a large reservoir of the strength of our county and peoples.

7. Sports - There are a lot of sports around the world, but I cannot think of a country where organized sports is more dynamic, popular, and lucrative. The "big" sports played in the United States (a bit in Canada and visiting neighbors) seem to trump most of the rest of the world, although there are some tennis and footballers (soccer players) and few others that make a ton of money around the world. But if you want to make the most in basketball, for example, other than a couple guys in China or Europe, the U.S. is the place to come. And many foreigners keep coming. No other country has the high paid American football, plus the country dominates in golf tournaments, and the highest level of baseball and many women's sports. The scholarship system creates a unique format for many otherwise less privileged athletes to get ahead, too, whether it is in sports or another career through advanced education.

8. Entertainment - Hollywood and Broadway. One based in Los Angeles and the other in New York City. Should I say more? There is more than this as far as the arts and film and television and acting and song and dance, but it is hard to beat these. Money, talent, and continual production of what goes around our brains and eyes, which translates to influence, money, and power. Oh, yeah, we have Las Vegas, too, which combines gaming and entertainment and sports and other things... Disney has its centers in Anaheim and Orlando, with amusement parks raking in their billions in multiple states of the republic.

9. Academia - We do not have Oxford or Cambridge or St. Andrews, nor the London School of Economics, but we have a lot of amazing universities and colleges in the United States, many of them have major sports programs, and many have minor sports departments, but have super elite and powerful budgets and professors and research departments and on and on... The lower level education may not be so great for many of the youth, where more privatized schools are more superior, but this country makes available a lot of chances to achieve great education. The military branches afford a lot of this, too.

10. Science - Some or a huge proportion of the best and the brightest in the world reside in the United States, developing all types of the sciences, in all aspects. Some are not from here but the money and opportunity call them to the American shores. Some experts and scientists are more academic in nature, to expand the mind and knowledge, where others who perfect these endeavors are very capitalistic. Both ways, the U.S. is a juggernaut in most of the sciences, technical, medical, social, environmental, etc...

11. Law enforcement - Police brutality and "defund the police" were large topics of discussion and debate in 2020; charges of systemic racism and "white superiority" were also en vogue when men, primarily, but also Breonna Taylor, were killed tragically in different circumstances due to the ways of American law enforcement. A large part of who we are as Americans is how we police ourselves and how we police them. There are a lot of men and women who make decent wages as law enforcement and security. There are others who fight the law, or fall prey as victims to it, and thus is the dance of our land when playing on the edges of the law.

12. Transportation - The United States uses planes, trains, and automobiles to move a lot of people and equipment to and fro. There are also, boats, ships, space ships, missiles, bicycles, motorbikes, and a few other odd conveyances to makes things and persons go from here to there. We have many roads and freeways and other means and ways to get things around. Now we have drones... Which are performing package drops, so I hear...

13. Technology - Some countries, most of them economically blessed and advanced, have better systems of technology than the width and breadth of the United States, for maybe the average or common person of their populace, like in Sweden or Japan. Disparities of access to better or higher advanced technology does not happen for many Americans, particularly in places like the rural Appalachians, or many isolated Native American reservations, or many inner city neighborhoods, where poverty is hard to overcome. But as a nation, between the Silicon Valley of Central California or dozens of other 

14. Social struggle for empowerment - Throughout the sad but productive history of the United States, since the inception of the European settlers and the subsequent governments and colonies that arose from their presence, which inevitably expanded across the North American continent and elsewhere, there have been many unequal and unfair, even cruel, relationships between those that wielded power, to include better immune systems, against the native populations of the tribes scattered across the Western Hemisphere, largely unknown of and untouched by the outside world for thousands of years. Many people hark back to 1619 as the initial year of the African slave trade, which brought millions of more people under a harsh hand of subjugation and inhuman treatment. 

    This is not to say that there were not European, white Americans who did not have their hardships of sickness, poverty, and servitude to varying degrees, but things were much harder in general for people of color over the course of the American experience, and these disparities have been highlighted up till the present day, especially with the modern Black Lives Matter movement and awareness of police brutality and unfair practices of law enforcement. By the way, I believe that there are many parties to blame, where our society has too often put burdens upon regular police, like treatment for the insane, in positions where they do not belong, and increasing the chances of lethality (getting hurt or killed) and poor treatment for all involved.

     Despite the unfair past and present for peoples of all stations during its past and present history, the United States still offers great opportunities and upward mobility to millions of its citizens, and the immigrants from around the world keep coming, clambering for chance visit, study, work, immigrate, and naturalize in this land of so much growth and potential, might and blessing, risks and curses.

15. Legal powers - I once had an older roommate overseas (in 2012) who was convinced that everything was "run by the judges", which might be an indication, I have thought, that the culmination of our country and our society is how the law is met upon us through economic and legal means. Those with power are interested in holding on to it, and those with less wealth and advantage try to learn and to enter into the realm of wealth and prosperity.

 

16. Journalism - We have a free press and there is a lot of competing voices out there; some of the news people and organizations are more interested in the bottom line of money, which for many makes the world go round.  Others truly care to share the truth beyond some lobbied or paid agenda. I think that the United States have the best and worst journalists in the world. A country of extremes, for sure.

The United States has all of these things: opportunity, legalism, power, wealth, poverty, inequality, influence, talent, competition, racial issues, political strife, open journalism and freedom of expression, rule of law and regularized law law enforcement, and seemingly endless opportunities to grow professionally and financially.

 American Superiority

 The headliner with the above term is a misnomer and a tease. The United States, while mightier and so much more dynamic than so many other countries in so many aspects, is not superior in many ways, and falls behind other countries and societies in many ways.

    But I think that the main message is that we are still in this, and we are trying, and we have the capability or capacity to arrive at where we want to be, which is not to be superior in all the things mentioned, but to be good and whole.

    The United States does not have to be superior to the detriment of its neighbors or competitors, allies and enemies.

 

Being superior, in the end, means being a good society and people, and the U.S. is trying to get there.