This is an excerpt from a longer essay published here on The Stream.
Recently while social media, hours after the horrible Dallas police murders, asserted that America was on the verge of a race war, I met a colleague at an urban courtyard. On a balmy evening children of all races laughingly played together around a fountain. Adults of all races sat on benches or sipped their drinks at outdoor cafes. My colleague, looking on, with understatement observed that the hyperbolic headlines did not match the reality before us.
As an American there’s no other time I would prefer to live than now. But I would say the same for virtually any other country, perhaps excluding North Korea, which has been dreadful for 70 years, and was no bed of roses beforehand under Japanese occupation. Human rights in Iran are worse under the mullahs than under the Shah 40 years ago, but still there are better living and health standards. Saudi Arabia remains a dark place, but when was it not? Arguably there are some baby steps toward incremental freedoms. Certainly materially they are better than ever.
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