Alright I'll admit this is partially Seagoon venting...
I started off the day reading an email update from a missionary who lives with his family in a village in a Muslim nation [I am not allowed to tell you were.] He has lived there for several years. Before he arrived they had no electricity or clean water or medical facilities or school. Since he has been there, he managed to get a pump with a rudimentary but effective filter installed, they have a clinic visited by a medical missionary on semi-regular basis, and he and his wife have established a school. They still do not have electricity. The villagers have suffered enormous persecution for their faith over the years, if I told you how, you might be able to guess the nation, so I'll let it go at that. The point is, in a material sense they have nothing, their government and most of their countrymen wish they didn't exist, and yet they do not complain about their lot, do not feel they have less than they deserve and while they don't enjoy persecution, they are by and large happy. I know of several similar stories.
Then I had to do about an hour and a half driving, during which time I flipped between news stations and talk radio. The overarching theme was one of continuous whining. Here were people from the richest and most free nation on earth constantly complaining about their economy, their healthcare, their politicians, their jobs, etc. I couldn't help but be struck by the contrast, between their life in the village and ours in the USA.
* They have to deal with constant persecution, we haven't suffered a major terrorist attack in 5 years... but we are the ones constantly complaining either about not being safe or what being safe requires and never stop to realize that there are people out there who have never been safe from attack for their entire lives, and never will be
* They live under a government that does nothing to help them, wishes them harm and which they have no say in and cannot effect or change, we live in a Republic where we have the opportunity to change the administration every 4 years via a peaceful organized and heavily monitored voting process and where entitlement programs make up the largest part of the budget... and yet we are the ones who constantly compare our leaders to "Hitler" and act as though we were the ones living under a brutal dictatorship
* The only healthcare they get is rudimentary and provided via donated assistance from this country and could be permanently terminated at any moment... We have the highest standard of healthcare on earth and yet we act as though we're hopelessly hard done by because there are still a few diseases out there we can't yet cure.
* They have a subsistence economy and live hand to mouth, if you can't get it out of the ground by your own sweat, you don't have it. None of them have even seen a flush toilet. The poorest members of our society live like kings by comparison, and our economy is constantly improving, our consumption growing and our technology leaping ahead. Yet to listen to the conversation in the media, you'd think we are only a few steps away from needing the UN to ship rice to us while Sally Struthers asks in Swedish "Can't you do more to help these poor starving Americans???"
It seems to me that we have become like the spoiled child sitting in a room amidst an ocean of toys and screaming "I have nothing to play with!"
