Keeping A Little Perspective

Things aren't going so great here in the US of A, I don't think that's a secret.  Unemployment, venomous partisan politics, bankers blatantly stealing, food manufacturers blatantly poisoning... there's a lot that needs fixin'.
  But we 'Mericans still got it pretty damned good.  There are things people in other countries have to worry about as a matter of daily routine that we never even think about.
   For instance: I share an office with two other contractors.  Both are from India, and one of them just traveled back there for the first time in five years.  It's a schlep, I know, but he's been playing it safe with his work visa.  Now, however, he has to get it renewed.  The other contractor has been back within the last five years, and as the first one made his preparations I overheard them talking about how much an acceptable bribe at customs should be.
  Let me say that again:  they were discussing the current going rate for a bribe to the Indian customs agent to let a traveler through.
  Now, I understood intellectually that this sort of thing happened all the time in other countries - I do live two hours or so from Mexico, also a bribery hot spot.  But to have this so matter-of-factly discussed really brought home to me how much different the rule of law is for other countries.  A bribe in India - or Mexico - is the way things are done, it's a necessary but odious part of life there.  No one likes it, but no one does anything to change it.  Maybe it's because it's really difficult to change a system from the inside, or maybe it's because no one really gives enough of a damn to want to make the change, or maybe it's because the people who would make the change take the biggest bribes.  I don't know.  But I do know that I never had to carry enough cash on me to bribe a customs agent to get back into the USA.  I also know that if I had tried to bribe a US customs agent they would have arrested me and put me in big boy prison.  They take that stuff seriously here.
  I could go on, there are a lot of things right with the US that other countries get wrong, like, say... building codes, and religious tolerance,* and freedom of expression, and (mostly) free and fair elections.  The really big stuff we tend to get right, and I think those things we take for granted.  Our society stands by the Bill of Rights.
  Sure, our society could be better - it needs to be better - but think from time to time we should remember that things are not nearly as bad here as they are elsewhere.


* I know it may not seem so tolerant, especially when you're faced with some crackpot fundamentalist who hates anyone not exactly like him, but trust me, other countries are waaaaaay behind on this one