North American Idiosyncrasies

Have the luxuries in North America managed to make the people here soft in the head?

This is the kind of question many in Africa or the Caribbean may ask themselves on hearing some of things Americans and Canadians, for example, complain about. And to be honest, as an editorial board mostly made up of Afro Caribbean born individuals, we cannot help but shake our heads in utter shock. What are the Americans complaining about now? Well … It seems as though one of their own – a man called Snowden – has gone and betrayed his country, dumped documents to say that the U.S. National Security Agency is listening in on conversations and reading people’s emails.

If this happened in a place like Papua New Guinea or Angola, the vast majority of people would have a right to be suspicious. Those in China have, in fact, become so used to the government surveillance and censorship. But in the U.S. – in a land which is truly free – paranoia is, simply, stupid. Many Americans worry about ‘black helicopters’ and even the cognoscenti write articles ominously salted with the question: Can You Trust Your Government?

Inadvertently, what will shock many or any Afro Caribbean adult, or in this case, “Chinaman” is the fact that many in the U.S. oppose universal health coverage. Americans do not want the government to ensure that the everyone has access to affordable health care especially because they are suspicious. Yes. Americans are suspicious that their own government will take away their liberty. If they give their government too much power, they believe, that very government will take away their rights – their rights to own guns, their rights to criticize their leaders and also, to decide what the government deserves in taxes.

To this last point, there’s currently a non-scandal going on with the Internal Revenue Service. Long vilified by the conservatives and the Republican Party – they do not think the federal government should be collecting money – the recent so-called targeting of conservative groups seeking tax exempt status has brought its own level of hand wringing. Almost laughable is watching all these ‘targeted’ groups testifying to Congress or on one of these conservative news channels. If the ones questioning them were not so sympathetic, one would realize how hollow the complaints against the IRS are. Some had to wait for over 24 months to receive a special status. Other had to grapple with additional questions and extra scrutiny. And because of this, they are afraid that their government is after them. They do not even stop to ask whether there was a backlog, if the IRS was not suddenly suspicious with the number of organizations suddenly demanding special status …

On the other hand, the U.S. government can, actually, abuse its powers. During George W. Bush’s administration, the U.S. went in front of the UN Security Council and willfully misled the world on the weapons of mass destruction. Ronald Reagan had his Iran Contra scandal; and Bill Clinton bombed a factory in Sudan. But in this day and age, Obama is neither a George Bush or as Orwellian as many would like to think. From the beltway, some of our colleagues report that there’s money to be made to protect the status quo. Even with an excellent police force, more guns must be left in the hands of the people. Although many people are dying from obesity or ending up in the emergency rooms because they have no insurance and only wait until its too late to seek medical attention, the insurance companies need to make money and many American companies make profitable sweet things.

And so, without looking behind the big black curtain, many Americans are suspicious. They worry about government – and yet, they have no qualms about questioning a woman’s need for privacy when she wants to correct a mistake she may have made in the heat of passion. Surely, they have gone soft in the head!

The Habari Network Editorial Board

June 11, 2013