Be Thankful

Like Louis CK did in his rant on Conan, everything is incredibly amazing in these times we live in, but no one seems to appreciate it or be enjoying it. Everyone should travel to the third world early in their lives to appreciate all we have in this country. I've been to Djibouti, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama. I have seen what true poverty is. If you are not living in a rock hut with a dirt floor selling pineapples by the road, then you are doing just fine.

A friend of my wife just had premie triplets. All barely one pound. But thanks to our free market, capitalist system that rewarded thousands of people's efforts and risks to find new technology to help these kinds of babies, two of them are off ventilators already. Think about it! 10 weeks short of in-womb time and these babies are living, and have a decent prognosis.

Or me and my immediate family as 'average Americans'. I've got two laptops, a desktop, everyone has cell phones, there are at least two digital cameras in the house, I've got a GPS in the car plus two handhelds, and I'm about to post a 'blog' on 'the internets' that literally anyone in the WORLD could read as soon as I post it. Is that amazing cool or what? People used to be amazed when you could get something from one side of the country to the other in a matter of days instead of weeks. Now we communicate and send information around the world in seconds. Just yesterday at work I was involved in an online conference between three sites. The advantage of seeing the data manipulated real time on my computer (I was actually watching my bosses desktop, which he had shared over the link) was invaluable.

And you know what, it's really hard to think of anything great that I can attribute to the government. The space program is about the only thing besides the military, and I think space is about to go commercial and we'll get the government out of that area.

All that still leads me to believe if we get the government out of our way, and protect our freedom to pursue our own happiness and fulfillment, then all of our personnal production combined makes everyone better off.

Kepe smiling, America is still the best country on the face of the earth. Ever.