HAPPY BIRTHDAY U.S.A.

by Bob Walsh

The United States, while not perfect, is still a pretty darn nice place. We have an awful lot of freedom as well as a system that works most of the time. People still risk their lives to come here. People who live here tend to like it here, and they are free to leave if they don't. Our little experiment in Representative Democracy has worked out pretty well.

Our government officials are not massively corrupt for the most part, and are, generally speaking, reasonably competent. Our police are (again in general) both honest and competent. Our people participate in the government to the extent they feel like doing so. All things considered, it works for us.

The very first government system for the European settlers who came here and managed to stick it out was, I suppose, the Mayflower Compact. It was essentially a Socialist-Communist government. That didn't work for them, and they ashcanned it after about a year. They found out people worked harder and had more success if they worked for themselves.

After the Revolutionary War that separated us from Great Britain we tried The Articles of Confederation. That also didn't work. Too little power to the central government, too much fragmentation. It was a very rough conglomeration of 13 sovereign governments rather than one government unit. It didn't work. So we changed it about eight years later and we got our current Constitution.

What we have now has been with us for close to 230 years now. It works. It has dealt successfully (though slowly and not smoothly) with the abolition of slavery and a civil war. It has guided us thru a westward expansion into being a continental power (at the expense of the indigenous people), two world wars, a cold war and into our place as the only global super-power.

Like I said we are not perfect, but all things considered we have done OK for ourselves and our people. Our founders were smart, forward-thinking individuals who did reasonably well with the situation they had to work with. I think we came out OK.

EDITOR'S NOTE: God bless America!