9 basic concepts Americans fail to grasp
A lack of worldliness is clouding our vision on everything from sex to economics, and the proof is in our policies
Alex Henderson, AlterNet
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Topics: Affordable Care Act, AlterNet, Economics, healthcare, Religion, Sex, Politics News
9 basic concepts Americans fail to grasp
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
AlterNet
To
hear the far-right ideologues of Fox News and AM talk radio tell it,
life in Europe is hell on Earth. Taxes are high, sexual promiscuity
prevails, universal healthcare doesn’t work, and millions of people
don’t even speak English as their primary language! Those who run around
screaming about “American exceptionalism” often condemn countries like
France, Norway and Switzerland to justify their jingoism. Sadly, the
U.S.’ economic deterioration means that many Americans simply cannot
afford a trip abroad to see how those countries function for themselves.
And often, lack of foreign travel means accepting clichés about the
rest of the world over the reality. And that lack of worldliness clouds
many Americans’ views on everything from economics to sex to religion.
Here are nine things Americans can learn from the rest of the world.
1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
The
modern-day Republican Party would have us believe that those who
promote universal healthcare are anti-free enterprise or hostile to
small businesses. But truth be told, universal healthcare is great for
entrepreneurs, small businesses and the self-employed in France, Germany
and other developed countries where healthcare is considered a right.
The U.S.’ troubled healthcare system has a long history of punishing
entrepreneurs with sky-high premiums when they start their own
businesses. Prior to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare,
many small business owners couldn’t even obtain individual health
insurance plans if they had a preexisting condition such as heart
disease or diabetes—and even with the ACA’s reforms, the high cost of
health insurance is still daunting to small business owners. But many
Americans fail to realize that healthcare reform is not only a
humanitarian issue, it is also vitally important to small businesses and
the self-employed.
In 2009, the Center for Economic and Policy
Research published a study on small businesses around the world and
found that “by every measure of small-business employment, the United
States has among the world’s smallest small-business sectors.” People in
the Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Belgium and other
European countries are more likely to be self-employed—and the study
concluded that universal healthcare is a key factor. According to CEPR’s
study, “High healthcare costs discourage small business formation since
start-ups in other countries can tap into government-funded healthcare
systems.”
VIDEOObama: Trade deals will help American workers
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
For
decades, social conservatives in the U.S. have insisted that
comprehensive sex education promotes unplanned pregnancies and sexually
transmitted diseases. But in fact, comprehensive sex education (as
opposed to the abstinence-only programs that are common in the American
Bible Belt) decreases sexual problems, and the data bears that out in no
uncertain terms. Public schools in the Netherlands have aggressive sex
education programs that America’s Christian Right would despise. Yet in
2009, the Netherlands had (according to the United Nations) a teen birth
rate of only 5.3 per 1,000 compared to 39.1 per 1,000 in the U.S. That
same year, the U.S. had three times as many adults living with HIV or
AIDS as the Netherlands.
Switzerland, France, Germany and many
other European countries also have intensive sex-ed programs and much
lower teen pregnancy rates than the U.S. Still, far-right politicians in
the U.S. can’t get it through their heads that inadequate sex education
and insufficient sexual knowledge actually promote teenage pregnancies
and sexually transmitted diseases instead of decreasing them.
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
No
matter how severe the U.S.’ decline becomes, neocons and the Tea Party
continue to espouse their belief in “American exceptionalism.” But in
many respects, the U.S. of 2015 is far from exceptional. The U.S. is not
exceptional when it comes to civil liberties (no country in the world
incarcerates, per capita, more of its people than the U.S.) or
healthcare (WHO ranks the U.S. #37 in terms of healthcare). Nor is the
U.S. a leader in terms of life expectancy: according to the WHO, overall
life expectancy in the U.S. in 2013 was 79 compared to 83 in
Switzerland and Japan, 82 in Spain, France, Italy, Sweden and Canada and
81 in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Austria and Finland.
4. Adequate Mass Transit Is a Huge Convenience
When
it comes to mass transit, Europe and Japan are way ahead of the U.S.;
in only a handful of American cities is it easy to function without a
car. New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC are
among the U.S.’ more mass transit-oriented cities, but overall, the
U.S. remains a car culture—and public transportation is painfully
limited in a long list of U.S. cities. Many Americans fail to realize
that mass transit has numerous advantages, including less air pollution,
less congestion, fewer DUIs and all the aerobic exercise that goes with
living in a pedestrian-friendly environment.
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
Christianity
in its various forms can be found all over the developed world. But the
U.S., more than anywhere, is where one finds a far-right version of
white Protestant fundamentalism that idolizes the ultra-rich, demonizes
the poor and equates extreme wealth with morality and poverty with moral
failings. The problem with hating the poor in the name of Christianity
is that the Bible is full of quotes that are much more in line with
Franklin Delano Roosevelt than Ayn Rand—like “It is easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25) and “The love of money is the root of all
evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
In
the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries, becoming proficient in
two or three foreign languages is viewed as a sign of intellect and
sophistication. But xenophobia runs so deep among many neocons,
Republicans and Tea Party wingnuts that any use of a language other than
English terrifies them. Barack Obama, during his 2008 campaign, was
bombarded with hateful responses from Republicans when he recommended
that Americans study foreign languages from an early age. And in the
2012 GOP presidential primary, Newt Gingrich’s campaign ran an ad in
South Carolina attacking Mitt Romney for being proficient in French.
In
February, an eighth-grade girl who was studying Latin in Vermont
received equally clueless responses when she wrote to a state senator
suggesting that Vermont adopt a Latin motto in addition to its
English-language motto (not as a replacement). The wingnuts went
ballistic, posting on the Facebook page of a local television station
that if the girl wanted to speak Latin, she should move to Latin
America.
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
In 2014, a
Gallup poll found that 53% of Americans approved of labor unions while
71% favored anti-union “right to work” laws. Union membership is way
down in the U.S.: only 6.6% of private-sector workers, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, belonged to unions in 2014 compared to
roughly 35% in the mid-1950s. The U.S.’ overall unionization rate
(factoring in both public-sector and private-sector workers) is 11.1%,
which is quite a contrast to parts of Europe, where overall union rates
range from 74% in Finland and 70% in Sweden to 35% in Italy, 19% in
Spain and 18% in Germany. That is not to say unionization has not been
decreasing in Europe, but overall, one finds a more pro-labor,
pro-working class outlook in Europe. The fact that 47% of Americans, in
that Gallup poll, consider themselves anti-union is troubling. Too many
Americans naively believe that the 1% have their best interests at
heart, and they fail to realize that when unions are strong and their
members earn decent wages, that money goes back into the economy.
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8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
The
U.S. continues to lag behind the rest of the developed world when it
comes to maternity leave. Paid maternity leave is strictly voluntary in
the U.S., where, according to the organization Moms Rising, 51% of new
mothers have no paid maternity leave at all. But government-mandated
maternity leave is the norm in other developed countries, including the
Netherlands (112 days at 100% pay), Italy (140 days at 80% pay),
Switzerland (98 days at 80% pay) and Germany (98 days at 100% pay).
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive
In
February, the Emnid Polling Institute in Germany released the results
of a poll that addressed economic and political conditions in that
country: over 60% of the Germans surveyed believed that large
corporations had too much influence on elections. ThE survey
demonstrated that most Germans have a healthy distrust of crony
capitalists and oligarchs who take much more than they give. Meanwhile,
in the U.S., various polls show a growing distrust of oligarchy on the
part of many Americans but with less vehemence than in the German Emnid
poll. A 2012 poll by the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research showed that
while 62% of American voters opposed the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous
Citizens United decision, only 46% strongly opposed it. And in a 2012
poll by the Corporate Reform Coalition, most Americans agreed that there
was too much corporate money in U.S. politics—although only 51%
strongly agreed.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
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