I’m interrupting my series of columns on happiness to comment on a few current events that are on my mind.
I’m sure that most of you have seen excerpts from the Maine debates last Thursday. And…wow. They divided the debate into two tiers; one debate featured the four leading candidates – those who had previously held statewide office, and/or had respectable-looking qualifications – and the other included four long shots.
The first hint that there was a problem? If you tuned in and saw the top tier group, you would probably assume that your remote had failed you, and you’d mistakenly tuned in to the bottom tier group. Because they were charmless, damp washrags in human form. They had the mental dexterity of Adam Schiff, combined with the charisma of…Adam Schiff.
None of them could give a straight answer, and the moderators had to interrupt them several times to remind them that their responses were off topic. (My favorite was when Maine’s current Secretary of State rambled on a social security question until she complained that we now have the first American trillionaire, at which point the moderator said, “Okay, I’ve got to jump in, because you’ve gone 35 seconds, and you haven’t given any specifics.”)
But when they got on-topic, they were even worse. Because they all robotically repeated the same leftist talking points: Trump is Satan, rich people suck, abolish ICE, the rent is too damn high, we must demand (but not pay for) Medicare for all. And did we mention that Trump is Satan?
So after watching a few minutes of that, you would have smacked your remote vigorously against the closest hard surface while muttering obscenities that usually cause technology to work better– What’s that? That’s just me? Okay, sure. Fine.
Anyway, once you found the lower-tier debate, you would gradually realize that there was indeed a subterranean level beneath those other four. And these four were it.
None of the four had any prior political experience at all, which, after I’ve watched politicians for the last four decades, is not necessarily a drawback in my eyes. But the total lack of experience was actually this group’s strong suit. Just like the first group, none of them could answer a direct question.
One guy had held a job for over 25 years. Another one had opened a brewery. The one female on the dais – she said that she’s running because she “cares about climate,” unlike those of us who would like to drink benzyne and support making our air unbreathable — reminded me of my ex-wife after a horrific divorce. And I’m still happily married to my first and only wife!
Am I saying that this gal whom I’d never even seen before somehow gave me PTSD from our nonexistent toxic past? That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Rounding out the group was a poor, disordered fellow with a linebacker’s body and a CTE vibe. Oh, and he was wearing a dress, and calls himself “Ashley.” Bless his heart.
So, yeah. We finally have the answer to a vexing question, asked by political observers all across the fruited plain, after the slow-motion immolation of Graham Platner’s campaign: “Was Rapey McStormtrooper REALLY the best candidate whom Maine Democrats could come up with?”
And the answer is, “Apparently so.”
Shifting gears, I’m sure you’ve seen at least some of the pro-America videos from foreign tourists here for the World Cup. So many of them have gone viral, largely because those of us who love the country are naturally happy when we see that foreigners appreciate it too.
Sure, some of those videos go a little too far, and a portion of that might come from tourists tossing out some red meat for lots of clicks from appreciative Americans. But I think that the vast majority are heartfelt, even if they sometimes exaggerate. For example, one couple on Miami beach marveled that they hadn’t even seen any overweight people, let alone obese ones!
Annnndddd…I’ve got to throw a flag on that one. (Not a red card, like the ones the refs hold up when a grown man shamefully fakes an injury from the slightest physical contact. Soccer. Bah!) Look, you can’t spend half of your videos pointing out the amazingly huge portions of food you get in American restaurants, and simultaneously believe that we aren’t collectively carrying around a lot of extra lbs.
And some of the compliments are ultimately more an indictment of their home countries than praise for ours. (The fact that Europeans can’t get air conditioning in their homes, or ice in their drinks, or free water at restaurants in their first-world nations should make them demand better when they get back home!)
But I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for those videos, and I’ve been happily watching a ton of them. And if I weren’t such a stoic, tough-as-a-two-dollar-steak Midwestern male, I’d have even gotten emotional at the sight of so many people so enthused about things that we take for granted about our amazing country.
Those reactions demonstrate that the legacy media of Europe must be as corrupt and biased as our own. Because in video after video, Europeans preface their adorably giddy reactions to America by admitting that they had terrible prejudices about what America and Americans are like: we’ve got too many guns, our streets are dangerous, our people are surly, we only eat terrible fast food, our culture is shallow, etc.
Here is where I hate to bring up politics, but it’s the elephant in the room. Because while those negative stereotypes about America don’t come out of nowhere, they do (mostly) come out of big, leftist-run cities.
Our streets ARE too dangerous…in soft-on-crime, no-bail blue cities. Much of our culture is shallow and degraded…especially in blue cities. Our people are often surly…but not so much if you’re in smaller towns in red areas, and if you’re not acting like an arse.
And we do have a lot of guns. But in the rural areas where there are the most guns per capita, the rates of gun crime are much, much lower than in…the big blue cities.
However, I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, and I give credit where it is due. I was happy to see how graciously Americans in big blue cities – New York, Boston, LA, Philly – behaved toward the tourists, too!
One political issue that always irritates me, though, came up in a number of the videos – not as a complaint during the visit, but as another one of the negative preconceptions about America. And that was that we don’t have socialized health care, which is a common criticism in European interviews over the years. “Americans have no NHS here! You don’t get medical care unless you pay for it!”
I don’t want to re-hash all the health care arguments here, beyond pointing out that everyone gets health care here if they are in an emergency, and that everyone in socialist countries pays for health care too. They just pay by way of extortionate tax rates that make them all poorer, and too often they also pay with their lives, e.g. when it takes so long to be seen that the cancer that could have been treated has now metastasized, etc.
I’ll just say that the aggravating thing – and one subtle clue that illustrates how conservative I am – is how wrong it feels to me to be basically arguing, “The government won’t take care of me in the US the way that it does here in Europe!”
You’re a grown-ass adult! The government should provide some safety net, but that should be a last resort, and for the vast majority of people (able-bodied and of sound mind), not the first place you turn. The two analogies that popped into my mind years ago, when I was listening to some pro-socialist/leftist acquaintances at the university, were both negative ones.
The first was children. You’re SUPPOSED to be dependent on others when you’re a child. (Even then, those others should be your parents, family and social network/community, not some bureaucrat.) You’re supposed to need to be fed, and housed, and have your behind wiped when you’re a child.
But if you’re a grown human, and you still need government to be your daddy – to feed you (with SNAP) and to house you (with Section 8) and to give you an allowance (cash welfare benefits) – you are doing life wrong. The first step to solving a problem is to recognize that it IS a problem. And being dependent on someone else for everything is not a blessing that you’re entitled to, it’s a curse that’s wrecking you.
The second analogy, though more potentially offensive, might capture the danger of overweening government even better: a hooker to her pimp. The pimp doesn’t love the hooker; as soon as she earns something, he shows up with his hand out. “Beeyotch better have my money!” He decides how much she keeps, and she has to take what he gives her. (In Canada’s system in 2024, that equated to waiting an average of nearly 8 months to get care after you’ve been referred to a specialist! In the UK’s NHS, average wait times for an MRI are from 6 weeks to 4 months!)
Here in America, most of us really do want to carry our own weight and pay our own way. We don’t want to be dependent on the tender mercies of a government checklist. We’d like to pick our own doctor, and our own health plan. We don’t need mommy and daddy, or a Sugar Daddy, or Bishop Don Magic Juan (famous pimp reference for $100, Alex!) to take care of us. Most of us can do that better than the government can. Because we’re Ameri-CANs, not Ameri-CAN’Ts!
Okay, rant over.
One final pattern in the tourist videos that I’ve especially loved is their discovery of how patriotic Americans are. Everybody mentions the profusion of flags everywhere, which they’ve never seen at home. Not that many foreigners weren’t also patriotic about their homelands. For example, I couldn’t see the boisterous Scots and their proud “tartan army” without remembering the old SNL skits with Mike Myers saying, “If it’s not Scottish, it’s crrrrap!” The Norwegians too, with their charming “rowing” routines, proudly hailed their Viking heritage.
But the amount of American pride they saw made an impression on them, and should be heartening to us. Yes, patriotism can sometimes become jingoism, and can potentially be exploited by immoral leaders. But I think that a realistic, clear-eyed and grateful love of your homeland is a sign of the basic health of the nation.
Many tourists ended their videos with tears in their eyes and a newfound appreciation for America, and many also declared their hopes of one day becoming Americans themselves. And I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming difference between these cheerful, admiring, America-loving tourists, and the millions of foreigners the Democrats cynically allowed to illegally pour in through our anti-democratically opened borders.
Many of those are openly hostile to the idea of assimilation, and praise their homelands while criticizing us. Too many of them wave their own flag while burning ours, or at least tolerate their countrymen doing so. They broke our laws to get here and break our laws to stay here, and eagerly accept taxpayer support even as they resent any attempts to limit or end that support.
Once we are done with the arduous process of enforcing our laws and deporting the millions of illegals now in our country, I know which kind of foreigners I’d like to see be allowed to try to prove themselves worthy of becoming Americans.
I mean, AFTER we find a cure for their inexplicable love of soccer, and convert them to the one true sport of actual football, of course.
And yes, the fact that so many of our lefty fellow citizens’ attitudes toward America more closely resemble the hostility of the illegals rather than the admiration of the World Cup tourists is a problem. But it does offer me a transition to discussing the ways that political ideology affects happiness.
Which will be the focus of my next column.
Que Mala/Crockett, 2028!
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Martin Simpson 