The place is all right
a SUIT column by Chris Jungle

I don't know if it's plain old fashioned holiday spirit or just the fact that it's social acceptable to cause small to moderate explosions in the backyard, but I'm feeling good about where I live. Sure, I bad mouth the government and its policies, scoff at the flaws of society, and condemn the contradictory group think that goes on in this united assembly of states, but there's a lot of cool stuff about this country. I can state my opinion about anything and everything with an educated (and sometimes not so educated) viewpoint.

I'm not in Hong Kong where I have to hope (pretty please) that the government in power doesn't decide to slip on the brass knuckles. Nor am I in Hebron where bloodshed occurs because they don't want two different churches in the same town. I'm not even in the Netherlands where--oh wait, I would like to check out Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the United States is way hip in a lot of ways.

It's the country that had a president who thought it'd be a good idea to preserve some of the cooler wilderness areas, and thanks to big Teddy there are national forests all over the place showing off how cool nature can be. This is the country that invented baseball, and if there's a better sport to watch in the summer for three plus hours while consuming nachos, hot dogs, peanuts, soda pop, and beer, I'm not aware of it. It's the country that has it written in official documents that its citizens have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I have no idea what that really means, but it sure does sound sweet.

It's not like people have the option to pick where they are born, and most citizens of a country go along with whatever goes on inside its boundaries. People are expected to be Muslim in Iran, communist in China, and hockey fans in Canada. In the United States, the citizens are supposed to be free. Of course, freedom has a price. With everyone thinking and making decisions on their own, there are a lot of disagreements. Part of the fun, though, is figuring out how a country can survive and thrive with so many different viewpoints.

Yes, this place was started by a bunch of rich white folk who had ulterior motives to freedom (mainly they wanted to make more money), but they at least included all of the people on the freedoms. Well, except for the Indians and the slaves and the Mexicans and the Chinese. Okay, regardless of what was really going through our forefathers' heads, it eventually came true that all people in the country were to hold certain truths to be self evident. While it is obvious that many people still don't see everyone as equal, the country as a whole is going in the right direction.

Every democracy has do deal with a few nasty things. We have Mafia influences, and now, so does the Soviet Union. We have ignorant, racist boobs, but we also have enough intelligent people to keep them in check. We have more hand guns than could possibly be needed on the streets, but that also guarantees no country will try to take over this country. Who wants to try and be in charge of an angry armed public?

People may whine that there isn't enough freedom in the United States, and they're right. It can be a bit stifling at times. But even though every citizen must pay tribute to a government that's not always firing on all cylinders, this country has more options for lifestyles than any other in the world.

There's no other country in the world that contains all of the following: patriots, rebels, militia men, Texas oil men, hippies, beatniks, punks, strippers, 9-5 workers, democrats, republicans, greens, libertarians, engineers, English teachers, folks working on missions to Mars, construction workers, rappers, DJs, home brew makers, ravers, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, those with religions for one, people who play nothing but jazz, Mountain Dew drinkers, marathon runners, rock climbers, players of ultimate, backyard barbacuers, basketball stars, shoppers of anything and everything, billionaires, millionaires, thousandaires, and those in debt way over their head.

There's even room for a guy who sits up at three in the morning listening to Santana and writing a column which goes out over E-mail. That guy may not be doing a popular pastime, but at least he has the option to do what he wants.

Chris Jungle promises to return to whining, complaining, accusing people of bringing down the human race as a whole, and doing everything else that makes him American next week.

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