I certainly agree with Señor Mañana’s views below about the new Save the Children report on U.S infant mortality rates. It is obscene that the only industrialized country we’re beating out is Latvia.
However, I think our host actually lets the U.S. off a little easy. America has favorable conditions matched by no other nation that’s ever existed. We’ve suffered less than almost any country from armed conflict, even given the ferocious devastation that was the War of 1812. Meanwhile we have an extremely helpful, temperate climate and natural resources coming out of our noses. By contrast, Japan has 1/3 the infant mortality rate of ours, with no natural resources and sixty years after it was burned to the ground and nuked. Europe is also far better, after it almost obliterated itself twice within the past century.
In other words, not only should we have the highest level of average health in the world, it shouldn’t even be CLOSE. How far we’ve fallen short of this says something extremely unflattering about us.
For instance, here’s how Canadian malcontent John Ralston Saul describes America in his book The Doubter’s Companion:
