The country of the free

I am not assuming anything about the number of people that actually get to read my posts. But assuming that there are some out there who don't know me who do read them, there may be some that may be irritated by what I am about to write. This post will openly criticize the United States of America.

This does not, by any means, mean that I am anti-American, pro-Russian (or whatever other pro you consider to be anti-American), anti-civilization, or whatever other terms you want to use on me (some have already been used on me so feel free). What I am is anti-sweeping things under a rug and pretending nothing is wrong just because there are not many better answers out there to the question"which country should lead the world?" (my answer would be "why does any country have to lead the world" but our civilization is not that advanced).

One last thing before I start: this post by no means implies that I don't think there's anything good about the United States of America. But it will focus on the negative because I think that what is good about this country is constantly advertised everywhere while the bad is just, as I said above, swept under a rug.

That will be my first point: advertisement. In every movie (and yes, most movies that are available out there are of American origin and most of them are focused or located in USA), the USA are advertised as "the land of the free", where "all can be achieved". Lines like "this is America" said before something daring is about to be done, repeated over and over in movies and TV Shows, give the impression that that is the land where wanting something is enough to get it done, ambition being the key. Which, from what I could tell, is something most of the Americans I have met believe. But here's the catch: this works only when you want something that is considered "OK to want".

American society (this is a generalization, exceptions exist and I have met them so no need to take it as a personal offense) is focused a lot on convenience. Many towns no longer have sidewalks because people have cars and drive everywhere. This could be taken as a sign of prosperity. For me, for whom walking is not an inconvenience but a relaxing and efficient way to stretch my limbs, this is an annoyance. Yes, having the option to drive when you are in a hurry is a good thing. That being the only option is not. I have been looked at funnily for wanting to walk to the store (just 1 or 2 km which for me is not that long a walk) plenty of times to realize that this is just not something people perceive as an option.

I understand that apparently American culture is not too bothered with global warming and so I am not even going to go into the subject of pollution. Gas is also extremely inexpensive compared to Europe so if you are doing fairly decent (not rich), gas costs will not be an issue. But I find it ridiculous to have to drive somewhere when I want to take a morning run (when the whole purpose of the morning run is exercise, is walking really so bad?!). 

Also in the convenience subject, there is way too much focus on fast food. Even at fancy restaurants, more than two thirds of the menu is filled up by options that I would consider fast food. Sandwiches, deep-fried food, pasta, pizza. This is what I eat when I don't have time to focus to much on the cooking (or when I want to order something fast). When I go to a fancy restaurant, I expect properly cooked food to be available. And while I understand that some food of the deep-fried/sandwich variety is OK on the menu for people who are into that, the fact that it makes up so much of it and I have to read carefully every description to make sure that I am not getting deep fried fish when I want to eat some properly cooked fish (which is supposed to be healthy, except you know, it's deep fried), ends up with me feeling frustrated most of the time.

So home cooked meals should be the answer, right? Except, you know, ingredients that are supposed to solve that problem for you are filled with hidden traps. Like for example low-fat replacements for butter or "healthy" "real salt" with less sodium included. This sounds wonderful until you actually check the ingredients. In order for the butter to still taste like butter, the fat is replaced with tasty chemicals and the low sodium salt contains dextrose. In case you just don't feel like clicking on that link, we are talking about pure sugar. In salt. Now imagine you are a diabetic and you want to eat as little sugar as possible. Would you consider that the salt that has "healthy" written with huge letters on its label contains pure sugar? Wouldn't you imagine that that's something that the producers would have to advertise in other ways than in very small letters in the ingredients section? (also the fact that they use the word dextrose instead of glucose which would give away its meaning much faster is rather disturbing)

Healthy options are available if you buy from farmers. Or at least I think they are healthy. The farmer-bought fruits I ate actually tasted like fruits instead of tasteless plastic (which is what the supermarket tomatoes were) and a pear actually started going off after three days, which I assume means that it was not sprayed or injected with preservatives. But most people don't want to take the time to drive to farms (the farmers' market I visited, while available, is open during the week only at hours where most people work and has exactly five people selling) and the drive-through at McDonalds' is way more convenient. 

I am no health freak by any means. I know people who eat pollen and yeast because they are supposedly healthy. I have not checked to see if that is so, but even if it were so I probably wouldn't go there unless my life depended on it. But the fact that the healthy options are so out of the way is a serious issue that is directly related to the fact that at every trip I took to the store I saw at least one or two obese children (and while I am all for loving yourself as you are and all that crap, obesity is a health issue, not a superficial "oh my God, I am ugly" issue).

One last thing that I would like to mention is the American obsession for air conditioning. We flew with United Airlines and I seriously regretted not having a jacket on me. Everyone, every store, had the air conditioning set somewhere between 69 to 72 Fahrenheit (approx 20-22 Celsius) and most of the time I had to wear my autumn clothes, despite having gone in summer with summer clothes packed. I had to do that because I was forced to spend most of my time inside (house/store or car cause, you know, walking was not much of an option) so I just varied between a very limited number of clothes. Also, shockingly, I like breathing fresh air, which air conditioning is not really.

But, by far, the most disturbing aspect, were the looks I got when commenting on the subject. America may be the "land of the free", but you're definitely not free to share your opinion when you want to eat healthy food, walk or, God forbid, stop the air conditioning, even if it's a perfect 23C degrees outside (approx 73 F). 

I am not even going to mention the politics cause I tried to avoid the subject although it was occasionally forced on me. I am also only briefly going to mention the lack of recycling (I understand it's not like that everywhere) and by-the-way comments like "we should nuke the entire North Korea" (despite that making you just as bad as Kim Jong-un) because I would like to believe that not everyone shares the same views on this. But I am disturbed by the fact that expressing views that are against the above-mentioned way of life is perceived as "un-American" and therefore bad. I am disturbed by the perception that I got that some of the people I interacted with regarded some things were wrong just because they were different from the way it is done in the States (like, for example, building houses out of bricks rather than on a wooden structure) and the perception that the USA is best at everything and everyone else is just jealous (and while my country is not the best at everything so maybe I am not one to talk, the best at everything is definitely not the US and it just takes a quick look at statistics about life quality to tell that). 

By far the most important side of free speech, if you ask me, is the freedom to criticize. A country or people that does not accept constructive criticism is not free.