Several recent news developments told you almost everything you need to know to explain the United States to a visitor from another planet.
In the United States, human beings think they run things, but they don't. They couldn't control the floods that were devastating the heartland of the country or the heat that had brought pain and death to its East Coast. Humans dabble around the edge of the rivers and the seas and try to insulate buildings and make them strong, but when Mother Nature decides to remind them who's running things, man stands in awe. He is not as powerful as he pretends to be.The visitor from another planet would be favorably impressed to see how humans help each other when Mother Nature decides to beat up on them. The visitor would marvel at the sight of National Guard troops working alongside convicts in a common effort to help neighbors they don't even know. In this country, natural disasters are the common enemy, and men, women, children, families and complete strangers work shoulder to shoulder like a colony of ants for the greater good of the colony.
Like a colony of ants, however, they turn upon anyone from outside. You don't have to be invaders from another planet; China or Haiti will do. Last week it was China's turn. As U.S. citizens in the Midwest were going all out to help their neighbors, other U.S. citizens, some in the uniform of our Coast Guard, were going all-out to make sure 659 Chinese on three ships about 80 miles off the Mexican Coast didn't get to breach the levees we raise against the tide of immigrants always crashing against our shores. A visitor smart enough to get here from another planet would figure out in no time that there aren't any rational policies on whom we help or don't help. It certainly isn't based on need. The people sitting on those Chinese boats needed help at least as much as the people of Des Moines. More than a million Mexicans come across the river, over or under the fence illegally every year, but we're asking the Mexican government to keep 659 Chinese out of here?
We would be hard put to explain to the interplanetary visitor how the humans who originally walked here from Asia were displaced and decimated by people who came in boats. The people who came on the early boats think they're better than the people who try to come on the late boats, so they try to keep the later arrivals out. We ignore the Mexicans because, like the Mississippi, the flood is higher and stronger than the levees. The Mexicans help us with the 659 Chinese so we'll be nicer to a million Mexican illegal aliens and Congress will pass a trade agreement the Mexicans want.
Finally, in another chapter of the sad and endless story of the debacle of the savings and loan industry, five very wealthy bidders bought six very expensive golf courses from the Resolution Trust Co. in an auction last week. Total cost to the wealthy bidders, $395.4 million. Profit to the Resolution Trust Co., $10.8 million. Profit? Well, sort of. The Resolution Trust Co. took over the properties when a savings and loan bank went belly-up. The savings and loan banks were established by Congress to provide financing for average families so they could buy average homes. They were not established to finance golf courses for the super-rich, or even housing for them.