Things Aren't That Bad

I'll take the problems of America over the alternative.

Ben Sasse at Florida

At the end of last week, the University of Florida announced that it had settled on a finalist to become its new President: current Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse. It will probably come as no surprise that I think Ben Sasse is one of the best Senators in the country and his resignation from the Senate will be a huge loss. It won’t shift the balance of power, as Nebraska’s Republican governor will appoint another Republican, but it is a loss for principled conservatives committed to fighting back the tide of populism rampant in the Republican Party.

While I may have been disappointed by Sasse’s resignation from the Senate, some students at the University of Florida were outraged that Sasse was set to become their new president. At an open forum on Monday, students at the university protested the appointment of Sasse citing his criticism of the Supreme Court’s 2015 same-sex marriage case Obergefell as disqualifying. Other students cited Sasse’s opposition to abortion as not representative of the students that attend the University of Florida.

Now, this reaction to the appointment of Sasse as President of the University of Florida is profoundly dumb. Sasse’s stances on the constitutionality of Obergefell and the morality of abortion have no impact on his ability to be a successful university president. If Sasse begins to enact actual policies that discriminate against LGBT students at Florida, then the students have a cause for protest. Until then, protesting someone who simply disagrees with you is childish and decidedly non-tolerant.

However, this incident with Ben Sasse stood in stark contrast to some of the other news stories that I read about from around the world. It made me realize that even some of America’s worst problems are significantly better problems to have than what many parts of the world have to deal with.

World Events

Ukraine

For almost all of 2022, international news has been dominated by coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Regardless of one’s opinion about America’s involvement (I’ve made my opinion clear), it is fair to say that nobody in America would want to trade positions with the people in Ukraine. The amount of death, devastation, and suffering that has taken place since the invasion is incalculable and won’t be fully understood for a long time.

In fact, it seems that every time Ukraine has success against Russia they are forced to deal with more suffering. While the last month or so of fighting has been full of Ukrainian success in reconquering territory, it has also been full of consistent revelations of atrocities committed by the Russian army on the Ukrainian population. Mass graves that contain hundreds of bodies, many with signs of rape and/or torture, are being routinely excavated and investigated in eastern Ukraine. In the past week, Ukraine successfully destroyed part of the Crimea Bridge which is a significant part of Russia’s supply route (technically no one has taken credit for it, but it was almost certainly orchestrated by Ukraine), only to experience some of the worst rocket attacks throughout the country since the war started.

I would say imagine what it must be like to live in Ukraine right now, but I think it is safe to say that no American can possibly imagine.

Iran

Meanwhile, the Iranian people have been protesting for weeks now with the protests increasing in intensity and spreading nationally. The protests started when a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a hijab. The Iranian regime has responded to the protesters with extreme force. Several videos have emerged of Iranian police beating protesters, often women, with abandon. According to some estimates, 244 protesters have been killed, 898 injured, and 5,974 arrested.

This brutality has only fueled the protests more as they have expanded beyond women protesting in the streets to oil workers going on strike. The people of Iran already live under economic sanctions imposed by the rest of the world and now many are willing to suffer even more economic consequences by striking. These are actions taken by people who are desperate for basic freedoms that Americans take for granted every day.

Ethiopia

All the while, the New York Times ran a piece this week detailing the continuing war in Ethiopia. Essentially, the Ethiopian government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, has been at war with the Tigray region, a northern state within Ethiopia. Eritrea has joined the Ethiopian government’s side which has led to increased fighting and more destabilization of the region.

Tigray and Ethiopia have both been credibly accused of war crimes, such as massacres and sexual assaults, but the Tigrayan people have been suffering the most recently. The Ethiopian forces have been credibly accused of using starvation as a method of war. On top of the deaths from fighting, Ethiopian drone strikes have hit an elementary school and a refugee center leading to the deaths of countless civilians.

All of this has largely been taking place in the dark as the Ethiopian government has the vast majority of communication lines including the internet and telephone. This means the outside world is still ignorant of the totality of the suffering taking place right now in Ethiopia.

Problems at Home

It may seem weird to pair the story of Ben Sasse with these stories of suffering from around the world, but I think it speaks to a powerful truth about our country: we have it pretty good.

I don’t mean to downplay or negate the real suffering that does take place in the United States. Deaths of despair (suicide and drug overdoses) are rapidly increasing particularly among men, the percentage of young people who are anxious and depressed has drastically increased over the last decade, and rising polarization has intensified division. These depressing but broad-based trends don’t even illustrate the individual suffering from the death, sickness, and tragedy of this broken world.

But, the societal problems of America pale in comparison to the societal problems that dominate other countries. Americans simply don’t have to worry about their apartment building or house getting hit by a rocket. We don’t have to worry about daughters being taken, raped, and killed by invading men. We don’t have to worry about deciding between work and fighting for basic freedoms. We don’t have to worry about access to food due to a government that is using starvation as a tool of submission.

Let’s think about the situation at the University of Florida. The protesters are angry that their potential new leader disagrees with them. He has not taken any discriminatory action against LGBT people, and he certainly hasn’t used violence against them. Nonetheless, these protesters are able to freely express their beliefs about the character of Ben Sasse with no consequences. Meanwhile, LGBT people in Iran and Russian-occupied Ukraine (I don’t know about Ethiopia) would likely be executed with zero hesitation or recompense. The protesters could use some perspective.

On the other side, those who denounce these “radical leftists” as the end of a free America also need a perspective change. Protesters that cross the line from free expression into violence or other law-breaking are usually handled by law enforcement and punished via the justice system (yes, even many of those who committed crimes during the George Floyd protests were arrested). Even if the protesters’ demands are met and the University of Florida withdraws Ben Sasse from consideration, Sasse would likely have legal recourse for discrimination based on his political views.

Unfortunately, politicians and the media are incentivized to portray a doomsday scenario instead of providing perspective because negativity attracts more attention. This makes keeping perspective across the board extremely difficult. With that said, perspective is vital to maintain because it provides a sense of gratitude for the blessings that we have.

Gratefulness leads to a recognition that there are blessings that ought to be appreciated and cherished, not sacrificed on the altar of the ideal. It is easy to identify flaws with America when we compare it to a fantastical “ideal.” Having perspective and being grateful for America does the opposite: it compares America to the reality in other countries and serves as a warning against too much change. In other words, it’s inherently conservative.

That’s not to say that change is always bad, but change is not always good either. We should try to address the many problems that plague America, but we shouldn’t be so focused on our own problems that we don’t acknowledge the potential downsides of changing America. Sometimes, the best approach is to do nothing and just enjoy what we have.

God Bless,

Hunter Burnett