HALF TIME THOUGHTS, EPISODE 26: LAND OF THE FREE?
Episode twenty-six??A half year of Half Time Thoughts already??Wow.?Time really does “slip through our fingers like grains of sand” (Robin S. Sharma).
Although some of the preceding twenty-five posts have touched on current affairs and made mention of the political landscape, I’ve shied away from writing an all-out op-ed.
This week, however, I’m taking the plunge and exposing some of my observations and feelings about life in the United States.
My central theme is the fiercely defended but often deeply misunderstood concept of freedom.
The Origin Story
The first verse of the Star Spangled Banner, national anthem of the United States, closes with the line, “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Those words were penned by Francis Scott Key in his 1814 poem called The Defense of Fort McHenry.?
The battle at Fort McHenry represented a turning point in the War of 1812, with the British failing in their attempt to capture the crucial port city of Baltimore.?The two sides reached a peace agreement later the same year.
It also represented a significant escalation in British aggression against the United States, following the defeat of Napoleon which had freed up significant British forces.?
The Americans who defended McHenry – and the United States – must certainly have exhibited great bravery in defense of their fledgling freedoms.
To this day, the country prides itself on the freedom and bravery of its citizens.?
I have nothing to say about their bravery; we bear witness to countless examples of heroism each day.
The question at hand is: how free are its citizens, really?
Eight Flavors of Freedom
There are many threats from which it is good to be free.?Some are existential, others merely inconvenient.?
The eight flavors I will explore are far from an all-inclusive list, loosely following Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
We will discuss freedom:
I could write an entire article on each of these points but instead I’m going to keep my remarks brief and try to paint an overall picture.?
Access to the Basics
The United States is, by most measures, the wealthiest nation on earth.?According to a 2021 analysis by Credit Suisse, when ranked by national net worth (assets minus liabilities) the US owns a 30% share of global wealth.
And yet many of its citizens lack access to sufficient food, clean water, shelter, heat, cooling, and healthcare.
Food
Last week, I read an alarming statistic.?Over 17 million children in the United States are struggling with hunger, 6 million more than before the COVID pandemic.
Child poverty (and malnutrition) occurs in every nation – even the wealthiest and most developed – but the US is not faring well.
On average across OECD countries, about one in eight children live in relative income poverty.?One the low end, only 4% of children in Denmark and Finland live in such disadvantaged conditions.?
With around 20% of its children experiencing relative poverty, the US only ranks better than Chile, Israel, Turkey, Romania, India, Costa Rica, Brazil, South Africa, and China according to the OECD analysis (last updated in August 2021).?
That’s hardly illustrious company.
Children are slightly more likely to live in poverty than the general population but there’s a strong correlation between the two levels.?
So, it’s reasonable to conclude that Americans are not free from poverty or hunger.
Water
According to a report by the US Water Alliance, Closing the Water Access Gap in the United States, 2 million Americans lack access to running water, indoor plumbing, or wastewater services.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #6 calls for universal access to potable water and sanitation by 2030.?As reported by Nature in The Widespread and Unjust Drinking Water and Clean Water Crisis in the United States, the UN estimates that 99.2% of the US population has access to potable water and 88.9% has access to sanitation.
Although the relative percentage of households that lack access to these services (which include hot and cold water, a sink with a faucet, and a bath or shower) is low, the absolute number of households is still troubling.
There is a growing body of evidence showing that a far greater share of the population is affected by poor water quality.?
The American Society of Civil Engineers has repeatedly given the country a “D” grade for water infrastructure and a “D-“ for wastewater infrastructure, citing massive shortfalls between available funding and much-needed investments in water supply and sanitation.
Shelter
In 2020, there were about 600,000 people experiencing homelessness in America.
About 70% of them are individuals. They live in every state and reflect the diversity of the overall population.
The number has risen every year since 2016 and the situation is likely much worse today, exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.
People experiencing chronic homelessness – either continuously homeless for at least a year or experiencing homelessness for a total of at least a year over the past three years – account for about 1/5th of the total homeless population.
Contrary to what you might think, military veterans only represent 6% of the people experiencing homelessness.
Less surprisingly, historically marginalized racial groups are far more likely to experience homelessness, as are those from communities with higher unemployment rates, lower incomes, limited access to healthcare, and higher incarceration rates.
It is difficult to compare homelessness between countries because the definitions of homelessness vary widely.?Some nations include those living in emergency accommodation and accommodation built specifically for the homeless.?Others include those living temporarily with friends or family due to a lack of housing.
What we can say is that at a rate of about 18 homeless people per 10,000, the US is faring better than many OECD countries but is far from exemplary.?
Healthcare
If there’s a topic that’s sure to prompt heated debate, it’s whether Americans have access to affordable healthcare and how the standard of that care compares to other nations.
I frequently hear people saying that the US healthcare system is “the best in the world”.?Sadly, there’s abundant evidence to the contrary.
The US does fund 44% of the world’s medical research. Consequently, it leads all nations by a wide margin in terms of overall impact on medical innovation and routinely develops therapies for previously untreated diseases.
According to the World Index of Healthcare Innovation, the US ranks 4th behind Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.
However, among the 32 developed nations surveyed, the US only ranks:
Citing research by the Commonwealth Fund, the Washington Post recently reported that the United States has “the worst healthcare system overall among 11 high-income countries, even though it spends the highest proportion of its GDP on health care”.
The research tracked 71 performance measures under five themes: access to care, the care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes.
High performing countries stood apart from the US in providing universal coverage, investing in primary care to reduce inequities, minimizing administrative burdens, and investing in social services for both children and adults.
Basic support for younger adults is seen as a critical initiative to reduce the chronic disease burden affecting older populations – an especially acute issue in the US.
It’s a bleak picture.?The US has consistently ranked last in the seven reports the fund has published since 2004, notably in areas related to access to healthcare and patient outcomes.
That last part really matters.
Even for those of us who have privileged access to the system, patient outcomes fall far below what we might expect in another high-income country.
For those who lack insurance coverage (about 35 million people, or 11% of the population), the situation looks even worse.
Are Americans free from the risk of disease??Clearly not.?The COVID pandemic has killed them at a far higher rate than citizens of other countries, their health care is the least affordable, and they experience the largest disparities between income groups (the haves and the have nots).
Physical and Emotional Safety
Much is made of Americans’ propensity for gun ownership and the proliferation of mass shootings, especially those affecting children.
No matter whose estimate you read or whether it refers to small arms or guns in general, the US consistently ranks far ahead of other nations in the number of civilian-held firearms.?
The number of firearms in civilian possession is greater than the total US population.
The citizens of most developed nations possess between 7-30 weapons per 100 persons, compared to 120 in the US.?In England it’s only 4.6.
The US murder rate of about 5 in 100,000 is below the global average of 7.2, but that includes every war-torn, anarchic country on the planet.
It compares much less favorably with nations like the UK (1.2), Germany (0.95), Australia (0.89), Italy (0.57, in spite of the mafia), Indonesia (0.43), and Japan (0.26).
Those rates include every intentional homicide, irrespective of the method or weapon chosen. This refutes some Americans’ claims that tighter gun control would simply lead to a proliferation in other types of violent crime, such as knife attacks.
Emotional safety refers to a condition where people feel safe to express their opinions, be themselves, and enter into relationships where they are open and vulnerable.?
In today’s context, this includes hot topics such as sexual orientation, gender expression, and religious beliefs.
While all 52 states have now legalized same-sex marriage, homophobia and other forms of discrimination are rife.?
领英推荐
Conservative Christians, although a shrinking minority (less than 50% of Americans participate regularly in a church, mosque, or synagogue), exert tremendous pressure on both the legislature and the judiciary.
An imminent ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States is widely expected to gut, if not overturn, the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that protects a woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion.?
This flies in the face of public opinion, where a 59% majority say abortion should be legal in “all or most cases”.
I decided not to include “freedom of choice” in my list of topics, but this is clearly one area where it would have been up for debate.
Do I feel safe in my Houston urban enclave??Yes, I do.?But there are neighborhoods barely two miles away where vehicle theft and assault are common.
Do I believe my children are safe on their college and high school campuses??Yes, mostly.?But only mostly.?
They’re attending safer-than-average institutions by virtue of privilege and choice, and yet there’s still the nagging possibility that some kid will go rogue with an AR-15 and catch them in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Do I feel safe to “be myself”??Not entirely.?
I’ve run into conversations with conservatives where my beliefs have turned the atmosphere decidedly frosty.?I know that several colleagues at one company barely ever spoke to me again after a particular situation conflicted with their (conservative) religious beliefs.
Financial Means and Wealth
There are two levels to the money discussion: having enough to get by and being able to accumulate wealth.
Many Americans barely have enough to get by.?As discussed earlier, too many live at or below the poverty line.?
Many more live from paycheck to paycheck (or from one social security payment to the next), just keeping up and never able to climb any higher.
The concept of a social safety net, prevalent in the progressive societies of Europe and Scandinavia, is glaring in its absence.?
Worse, it’s viewed by many as a harbinger of socialism, the last step before communism swallows the country whole.
Movement Conservatism – a core doctrine of the pre-Trump Republican party and still central to many of its tenets – works relentlessly to lower taxes on the wealthy and undermine social security.?
Trickle down economic theory, known colloquially as “Reaganomics” after the president who championed it most vociferously, is still advocated despite a chronic lack of evidence to show that it works.
Upward mobility has stagnated, the middle class has eroded, and wealth is increasingly concentrated in hands of the infamous “top one percent”.
This is a great place to make and accumulate money.?
Starting a business is simple and even a bankruptcy or three doesn’t stop someone from trying again.
There are many incentives and small business resources, and to be an entrepreneur is to live a piece of the American dream.?You’re viewed as a hero, not as an oddball.
Sadly, there’s no guarantee that successful individuals will pay anything back to society.?
The wealthy pay relatively low tax rates and it’s socially acceptable to be wealthy without practicing philanthropy.
Perhaps this last point is changing.?
Billionaires like Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Bezos and his ex-wife, Mackenzie Scott (the third wealthiest woman in the US), Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett have pledged to give away the majority of their fortunes.
That’s admirable, but will it benefit society to the same degree that might have been possible had their income been taxed more significantly along the way?
I’m a beneficiary of the American system.?I worked in venture capital, I joined an early-stage company, I bought in at the founder’s share price, I vested my stock options, and I made enough when the company sold to consider myself financially secure.
Nowadays, my wife and I own and run a business.?We make a good living but we’re not going to be billionaires.?That’s not why we do it.?
We’re earning our way toward a financial situation where we don’t have to work to live.?Where we can give freely of our time toward impactful and creative endeavors.
The business building part is straightforward but achieving a financial position where we can confidently “retire” is not.
The specter of future living costs – not least, for health care – looms large.?
Who knows what medical care will cost in 20-, 30-, or 40-years’ time??
The current trajectory is unsustainable but I’m skeptical whether we’ll see the fundamental changes necessary to make it affordable.?Our “nest egg” must be calculated and nurtured accordingly.
Opinions and Votes
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and petition.
I’ve already hinted at the religious biases that impact all three branches of government and play a role in day-to-day life.?
Thankfully, not all of America is as impacted as the southern region where we live, known as the Bible Belt. Stretching from Texas in the west to Virginia in the east, this is where socially conservative Christianity plays its strongest role in society and politics.
Freedom of expression is more widely accepted than in any other country.?
A Pew survey of 38 nations found that Americans are among the most supportive of free speech, freedom of the press, and the right to use the internet without government censorship.
This includes a higher tolerance for offensive speech than people in other nations.
It remains to be seen whether the recent pushback against under-regulated social media platforms leads to any new boundaries.
And what does “freedom of the press” even mean in an age where hundreds of websites, many of them grotesquely biased in one form or another, expound their version of the “truth”??
It’s hardly the same as when a handful of printed newspapers competed for circulation numbers by reporting marginally different accounts of the day’s events.
The denigration of “mainstream media” by certain political factions has fanned the flames of bias and censorship.?
Hopefully we will see that pendulum swing back to a place where unbiased factual reporting is once again rewarded.
Which brings me to my last topic for today: voting and social participation.
Americans are an ill-informed, easily persuaded, conspiracy-prone lot.
Unlike other developed nations where it is everyone’s civic responsibility to vote and the government is obliged to maximize the citizenry’s ability to do so, Americans must fight for the right and overcome obstacle courses to exercise it.
Those who do care (and succeed in navigating the process) often vote along party lines, without heed to the candidate’s record, policies, or platform.
Much has been written about voter suppression, white privilege, and the blatant steps some state politicians are taking to cling onto power in the face of shifting demographics.
I highly recommend Stacy Abrams, Our Time is Now, which providers an insider’s view of these forces at work and offers a blueprint for empowering citizens to take back control of their country.?For maximum impact, listen to the audiobook since it’s read by the author.
Sitting in Texas, I’m witnessing first-hand the gerrymandering and political gamesmanship being applied to keep the state red (Republican) in the face of an increasingly blue (Democratic) populous.
I’m not sure what the 2022 mid-term elections or the 2024 presidential election will bring.?I suspect it will depend as much on externalities (COVID, inflation, oil prices, and the behavior of foreign powers) as any domestic agenda or political strategy.
I hope that the country can avoid becoming any more polarized but that will require candidates and elected politicians on both sides to dial back the rhetoric.?A ticket filled with “baby Trumps” won’t make that a likely outcome.
I also hope that democracy will prevail.?
It is under threat at the state and federal level and, unless the general population wakes up to those threats, we may witness something that I – like most people, I suspect – would never have expected: an American dictatorship.
The Freedom to Leave
When I landed in the US in 2001 on a 4-year assignment, I had every intention of finding a way to stay longer.
It marked the fourth stop – indeed, fourth continent – on a global journey.?A stop that I could not help but view as the pinnacle.?To move anywhere else from here would mean heading back down.
That view stayed with me for more than a decade.
I left my international employer, secured a residency permit (my “green card”), started a family, and settled into the American way of life.
I eventually left employment altogether and started my own business.
Until quite recently, the prospect of once again living outside the US never entered my mind.
Today, as you can tell from my less-than-glowing assessment of the issues I’ve covered, I’m beginning to have my doubts.
More than one American has pointed out that if I don’t like it, I’m free to leave.
They’re overlooking a few things – it wouldn’t be an experience entirely free of stress, cost, or sacrifice – but, in the sense that no one is going to stop me, they’re right.
How the balance has tipped!
Twenty years ago I could imagine no better place on earth to live than here.?Now, I’m seriously weighing the pros and cons of living in other nations against the dwindling advantages of staying in America.
Of all the freedoms that I see eroding, perhaps the greatest is freedom from stress.
Life in America used to be straightforward, world-leading, predictable, affordable, and rewarding.?These days it feels complicated, uncertain, expensive, and losing ground to other nations.
Hopefully Americans are brave enough to stand up for their freedoms and for the changes their country must make to preserve its illustrious position as a flagship for democracy and human rights.
The next few years might be some of the most critical and interesting in this great nation’s history.?I hope it remains “the land of the free”.
Photo by Hanna Zhyhar on Unsplash
Energy Resources I Subsurface Technology I Production Engineering I Geomechanics
2 年great article! it echoed my sentiments..
Energy Trading & Risk Management expert driving efficiency and profitability
2 年Thank for sharing your perspective and I look forward to (continuing) to debate some of these points with you over a pint!