How can we lag sooo far behind?
"Same-sex couples also were granted more rights in the two-issue referendum, marking the first time the issue has been put to a national vote in Europe."
I read little snippets like these and further wonder what we stand on when we say we are the greatest country on earth. Personally I do feel this way, much the same way that I once felt my highschool football team was the greatest on earth, emotionally. I'm a grown up now and I feel the shame of knowing that what we are is sub-par to what we could be. The Swiss, I gather, think homosexual rights are extremely worthy of public debate, and a vote at the national level. We vote on this topic at the local level with about as much thought as whether or not we want pig lips removed from our sausages. We are not leaders, we dominate the food chain and nothing more. We set no standards that we ourselves uphold but rather skirt those cosmetic standards in order to create market gaps and profit while telling the developing countries, "Keep at it, you'll get the hang of it. Freedom's on the march, democracy is hard work. Perhaps you'd benefit from one of our multimillion dollar civil engineering package that we'll loan you the money to purchase."
The journal "Science" recently reported on the state of physics in this country (US). One of our last remaining high energy (HE)physics labs is closing and by 2010 we will have a negligable national high energy physics program. Delay was quoted as saying that "We" would love to continue our research in (HE) physics but we don't have room in the budget. Maybe if we weren't losing billions of dollars in Iraq (on top of what were spending, we might have room in the budget).
We teach little, if any, sophisticated art in public schools now because there's no room in the budget.
Half the country has no insurance because it's not in the budget.
Am I wrong? Everything about our culture is suffering from lack of funds (in part because we place so much importance on funds). We are broke, just ask China. The US has become the idiot in the SUV with the spinner rims, heading to check and go for our payday advance so we can continue to pretend we are something that we are not.
sorry for spelling errors, I went to a public school.