AMERICA RULES - STILL!

On the way home today, I was listening to NPR; they had a story about Native American basketball players. They spoke about the special problems that seem to follow Native Americans. Ok, Native Americans is too long for me to type, they will now on be referred to as Indians. When Indians move off the reservation, like when they get full scholarships to college, many of them quit and move back to the reservation. They move back to terrible economies and high alcoholism, sacrificing the opportunities offered to them, often free of charge (just play basketball, like you have been doing for ten years).

I got to thinking; why is that? What makes a person give up everything he has always wanted, free of charge, to go back to unemployment and no future? I then began to think about the immigrants who did the same thing when they came to America. Many Irish immigrants left America to move back to potato-famine infested, under the thumb of the British, Ireland instead of sticking it out here. Italians were even worse; many Italian men never intended on staying here, they made some bucks and moved back to Italy. My guess this was not limited to the Italians and the Irish, many immigrants did the same cut and run maneuver.

That got me to thinking… I have often said America is the best country in the world and this is one of the reasons. Nobody was forced to come here (like a penal colony) or people are free to leave; to go to the reservation or back to the father-land. This insured that the early settlers were the best every country had to offer, we got the cream of the crop, the self-starters, those independent can-doers that made this country great.