Appreciating Our Situation

For John, BLUF:  The President sometimes says what he means and describes reality as he sees it, rather than as some idealize it.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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What I Learned in the Peace Corps in Africa: Trump Is Right

Note that this article is from two years ago.  But it is still true today.

From The American interest, by Former Peace Corps Volunteer Ms Karin McQuillan, 17 January 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town.  Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health.  That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, "a fecalized environment."

In plain English: s--- is everywhere.  People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust – onto you, your clothes, your food, the water.  He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water.  Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause organ failure.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country.  Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism.

Last time I was in Paris, I saw a beautiful African woman in a grand boubou have her child defecate on the sidewalk next to Notre Dame Cathedral.  The French police officer, ten steps from her, turned his head not to see.

While President Trump was impolitic, I think he captured a truth.  While some of us may idealize people from less capitalist, less democratic nations, those idealized people may not, in fact, be better off than we are, and may not represent an ideal we should ascribe to.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff