I am, to a degree, patriotic. I enjoy being American and I take my civic responsibilities seriously. I follow politics and, unlike the majority of Americans, I know who the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is (it's John Roberts by the way). However, I do a lot of thinking and questioning when I hear people say things along the lines of "our democracy isn't perfect but it's the best system of government in the world." I'm paraphrasing but I hear sentiments like that all the time on MSNBC from people like Joe Scarbrough and Chris Matthews. I'm sure it's said frequently on Fox News as well.
In the months after 9/11 when our country was rounding up allies to be counted in the war against international terrorism and for the impending invasion of Iraq, France balked. This led to freedom fries and an intense hatred for all things French except for Cartier, Michelin, and any other luxury items. This hatred has abated somewhat since France elected a conservative and since the average American's memory doesn't account for that many news cycles. That's not really where I'm going with this though. Yes, at the video store in which I work, there are still very conservative customers who unquestioningly poo poo anything French for the same reasons I wouldn't have anything to do with Ted Nugent; it's purely political. These same people won't have anything to do with George Clooney or The Dixie Chicks.
The issue at which I'm looking is, ironically, the French concept of chauvinism. Patriotism is one thing; I don't see anything wrong with loving your country and wanting your country to be successful and powerful. Hopefully, as a patriot, you wouldn't lash out at others who want to try to improve the system where they see fault. Chauvinism is the love of country to the extreme of "my country right or wrong". The term comes from the name of a soldier in Napoleon's army, who may actually have been fictitious, named Nicholas Chauvin. He was the kind of soldier who would slaughter an infant if an officer told him to because the officer represented his country. It would be impossible for him to conceive of his country doing wrong or being on the wrong side of the argument in anything. His patriotism was to the extreme where to question his government in any matter would make him a traitor.
This feeling was obvious through much of the aftermath of 9/11 in America. It's still alive and well in certain elements of the Tea Party and on Fox News and other right wing media outlets. If you question the actions of our government, unless it's questioning Obama, then you might be a terrorist. But, again, that's not really what I'm after here.
You'll frequently hear people say that America's is the best system of government, best workforce, best legal system, best creative minds, best colleges, best healthcare system. You're not meant to question this; it's all rhetorical. Rarely is a balanced comparison given in which the statement is proven or even argued successfully. So, I frequently ask myself this question, "What if I were French?". Seriously, other than food, scenery, language, etc., if I were French, how would my standard of life be different?
I'm honestly not sure of that answer. I know that the French healthcare system was called "best performing system in the world in terms of availability and organization of health care providers (by comparison, the US ranked number 37)," according to the Wikipedia entry attributed to the World Health Organization. Of course that's the UN which is the Devil where I live. I know that in America I can't afford health insurance so I haven't had a physical in years.
I know that America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. I know that O.J. was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend. I know that French people enjoy a pretty high standard of living as do we in America. I guess the matter of freedom, personal freedom, comes into play. So I have to ask myself what freedoms I enjoy in the U.S. would I not be able to enjoy in France? I honestly don't know. I think everything I'm doing right now I could do there as well. I don't think I could own an assault rifle in France but I don't own one here either. I think that, being relatively poor, I would have better healthcare over there. I might not have access to Popeye's fried chicken though! Since I'm diabetic, however, that luxury really isn't available to me here either. Of course, here, I recently had to stop taking my insulin because I can't afford it. Thanks to WalMart though I can still afford to buy my Metformin pills. I might not be able to enjoy going to the WalMart in France.
So, as far as personal freedoms go, I started to think about my first amendment rights as an American. Those rights aren't always in effect. I'll provide an example of this. When I lived in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta I worked at a Starbucks near the Country Club of the South. This is a very exclusive gated and guarded community of homes all well in excess of $1 million in value. This is where Bobby and Whitney lived. This is home to athletes, CEOs, organized crime figures, etc. They were my customers. The parking lot would see its share of Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Porches, Mercedes, Maybachs and the lot. Georgia is a "right-to-work" state. You can look that up on Wiki but it basically means that employees can be fired without reason. I also lived in the area and shopped at the Kroger that was also frequented by my Starbucks customers. Let's say I'm at the store and one of my customers, we'll use one of my Russian mafia customers for this example, comes up to me and wants to talk about football. I say to this person, "you know, I'm sorry, but I have huge problems with the way you make your money, you know, the human trafficking and prostitution and all that, and would prefer not to speak with you outside of our customer/employee relationship at Starbucks." If that person mentioned that to my boss at Starbucks I could be fired without reason given or a reason could easily be trumped up if absolutely necessary.
Basically, working in retail as I do now as well, I have to be careful with my words and actions outside the workplace. My wife had to sign a social media clause for her job and this is standard procedure in many places in America now. You can actually be held to account for what you say outside the workplace. It's generally accepted that you can't behave any way you want at the workplace. Now, I have to be cautious even in my own home typing as I'm doing now.
Here's another little bit of irony. I just saw a list of the fastest production cars in the world that are supposedly street-legal in the U.S. Number one on that list is a French made number: the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. The car is capable of speeds in excess of 250 m.p.h. That's almost 4 times the highest speed limit anywhere in America. The car costs in excess of $1 million and reportedly you have to send the car to France to have the tires replaced at a cost of $70,000. So, in America I have the freedom to buy a car that can break the law by close to a factor of four.
Here's the rub; in the U.S. most penalties associated with speeding are set fines. Let's say I'm in my Bugatti in the state of New York and I'm only doing 100 m.p.h. If I get pulled over by the police and can't get my attorney or country club buddy to fix the ticket for me the fine would be up to $600. We won't go into the hit to my insurance, just pure, simple math. If I can afford a Bugatti I'll say I'm making like $100,000 a week at least. That means that the $600 fine is less than 1% of my weekly income. Now let's say that I do the same thing in my Jeep and I make $300 a week. That makes the fine 200% of my weekly income. If I'm living paycheck to paycheck like most Americans, there are many other things that will have to be put off in order to pay the fine meaning additional late fees and that sort of thing. The punitive element here is exponential. Both drivers in question were doing the exact same thing wrong but the punishments are dramatically different. For me the collateral damage is immense. For the Bugatti driver it's barely a scrape.
I'm sure this scenario is similar in the U.S. and in France as is the scenario of me brushing off a wealthy customer outside the workplace. So again, I ask, what am I free to do here that I wouldn't be free to do in France? To me it seems that the whole world is basically divided along the lines of wealth and class. If I'm wealthy then I have freedom to spare. If I'm poor then my liberties are severely limited. All of the talk of America being the best at this and that is merely a distraction. It's rallying people around the flag so they don't worry about the real problems facing them like financial inequality and the curtailing of liberties.
If you haven't read Animal Farm by George Orwell then you should. It's an excellent read and it also speaks to the argument of inequality in language that anybody, even Glen Beck or Sarah Palin, would have trouble disputing. The best quote from the book is this: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Animal Farm was written to question what was happening in the Stalinist Soviet Union but, I ask you, in America or France today, are some animals more equal than others? I don't think it's unpatriotic to ask.
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