Other Countries Are Nice

Other countries have their problems, also, too, and as a tourist or even short term visitor it's easy to focus on the nice things while the problems - some similar to our own, some different - are obscured. But a big chunk of the population of the greatest country in the world (that's us!) really does seem to believe that every other country in the world is a tyrannical shithole. Even people who manage to travel a bit - the weeklong tour bus or cruise ship visit - seem to think they're just visiting the museum part of the country, that the bits where people actually live are shitholes. But other countries do have nice things - some similar to ours, some different, and, yes, some much better. Life in England or France or Sweden or Italy or Spain or the Netherlands is recognizable and pretty good (I focus on Western Europe because that's mostly where I've been). Those places all differ from each other and from the US, and even I prefer some things about this great land of ours to some things about those countries, but lots of people have nice lives in them and mostly people have easier lives in them, and not just because of the better social insurance and worry-free (financially, anyway) medical care.