Let’s Talk Turkey
By Sean McVeigh
If you could go back in time to any point in history, when and where would you go? I enjoy this question. It can tell you quite a bit about a person and their interests. You’re not going to go back to the Ides of March in 44 BC if Julius Caesar doesn’t pique your fascination. And you’re certainly not going to choose to go back to the Ardennes Forest in the winter of 1944-45 unless you’re something of a World War II buff.
While taking a trip to Jerusalem around 33 AD would certainly clear up a few things, my answer will always be the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia beginning in May of 1775. The Second Continental Congress has always tickled my fancy. A small group of men in a stuffy room arguing over what would become the foundation of the greatest, most prosperous country in history. It began with arguments over whether or not to overthrow the government they and their families had known for generations and ended with the unique situation of having the opportunity of choosing their own form of government — one that would govern them and their children and their children’s children.
While we know a great deal about the proceedings of the Congress from journals and diaries kept by those in attendance, there is no transcript of everything that was said. To be in that room with those extraordinary men would be, in a word, priceless.
I would be like a kid in a candy store … for a while. I have a feeling it would not be long before I’d be begging to make the trip back to the present. Late 18th Century America was full of political enlightenment and revolutionary fervor, but it was also full of sewer-less streets, smallpox and electricity was still 100 years away. Summers in Philadelphia were flush with disease. Most of the country was, too; at least where there was more than one person. Living conditions were putrid compared to what we are familiar with now. I would need to be very specific with my time travel dates because I doubt I would last much more than a week before I had had enough. There was no refrigeration, no modern medicine, almost primitive forms of transportation and definitely no air conditioning for the summer months or heat, other than a good fire, for the winter. The future first president of the future United States was walking around with wooden teeth in his mouth for crying out loud!
The initial question is where you would like to go back to … to visit, not to live. The latter wouldn’t be a fun question at all. Who in the right mind would want to live anywhere else, in the history of the world, then right here, right now?
People talk a lot about decline these days, whether that be as a nation or as a civilization. Whoever you voted for a few weeks ago, they were both trying to convince you that things were worse than they’ve ever been, and if their opponent won, they would drag us further into oblivion. But as Second Continental Congress member John Adams famously said, “Facts are stubborn things.”
I don’t think I am surprising anyone when I say that the United States is an extremely wealthy country. But just how well-off are we today as a nation? Comparing ourselves with the United States of times past, according to the IMF (that’s International Monetary Fund, not Impossible Mission Force, just so we’re clear), in 1980, the United States GDP per capita (which is GDP divided by the country’s population and therefore a good estimate, on average, of how much income the economy produces per person) was under $13K. The most recent metrics have our GDP per capita at over $86K. And when we compare ourselves today with the rest of the world, we see a similarly stark difference. France is a perfectly fine place; one most would consider a well-to-do country on par with the U.S. But by recent measurements, France’s GDP per capita is just a little more than half of what ours is. Similarly, some of our closest allies in the United Kingdom and our Canadian friends to the north do not have numbers much better than France and are still more than a third behind us. Sure, there are several small countries who have better numbers than the United States in this department like Norway, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, but the population of Norway is less than 6 million people. The population of the United States is almost 335 million!
I know, I know, these are just abstract (and really boring) numbers. They don’t make the groceries or the mortgage any cheaper each week. Point conceded. But even when we are struggling, we are still the top dog in the park. When we are hurting, you can rest assured that the rest of the world is hurting just as bad, if not worse. Since the pandemic (remember that?), inflation rates among other developed economies were very close to lockstep with the United States. None of this is to say that we are perfect — obviously there is plenty of room for improvement. It is only to point out that, as a nation, we have it about as good as it gets at the moment.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Here’s a radical idea: how about we try to be a little thankful, to have a little gratitude, that we live in the greatest country in the history of mankind. It all started two and a half centuries ago in an assembly room in Philadelphia. There were plenty of bumps in the road along the way and there will be plenty more to come. But despite the obstacles, we have managed to remain the envy of the world. We spend 364 days of the year complaining about what is terrible and wrong — I’m no exception; you can usually count on finding 600 words giving you an example right here every week. Let’s take one day to put all that aside and be grateful for all we have as a nation, as a community and as individuals. I promise, we can get right back to the squabbling the next day. Lord knows one day with a little gratitude isn’t going to kill us.
Happy Thanksgiving.
