What I Like the Most about the USA, and what I Dislike the Most about the USA

WHAT I LIKE THE MOST ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND AMERICAN SOCIETY:

---The United States is one of the handful of nations in this entire world where English is the official state language. Since English is my primary language, I'm grateful to be residing in a nation where I can actually make use of my English-language skills.

---clever innovative new health-food and healthy-beverage products.

---the great lead that the City of New York has taken in prohibiting the sale of any foods or beverages containing trans fats inside any restaurant or cafe or coffeehouse in New York City, New York.

---the phenomenal variety of cuisines to choose from.

---the greater availability of the poultry meat turkey than in any other nation of the entire world, cooked turkey being one of the most delicious of all meats that can be eaten by human beings.

---the respect for Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Association (as well as the corollary Freedom of Non-Association) clauses of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution.

---the massive growth in the energy-conservation and environmental-protection industry in the private sector.

---the respect for each adult individual's right to set his own course in life.

---the belief of many new immigrants to the United States that they enjoy a greater range of freedoms and opportunities after having moved here from a foreign nation.

---the opportunity to contact local-government and state government and federal government officials and express public-policy-related concerns, complaints, and suggestions, with some of those government officials actually taking the time on occasion to then write and mail or E-mail a reply letter to oneself in regard to those stated concerns, complaints, or suggestions.

---the access to records of government-owned institutions that the American legal system permits, with the Texas Open Records Act being an example of a wise and enlightened public-policy measure approved by the State Government of Texas that permits anyone to submit a public-information request to any state-owned or local-government-owned institution or agency in Texas and then obtain a photocopy of all requested documents, with any failure by a government agency or institution in Texas to comply with that public-information request being a basis for legal appeal to the Office of the Attorney General of Texas state agency.

In my own life, I will always be grateful for the Texas Open Records request of mine in a recent prior year to the Travis County District Attorney in Austin, Texas, that prompted the Attorney General of Texas state agency in Austin, Texas, to write a follow-up legal letter carbon-copied to myself that ordered the Travis County County Attorney's Office on behalf of the DA's Office in Austin to provide me with photocopies of dozens of pages of tentative criminal-law evidence on file with the DA's office in Austin that each directly referred to individuals in Texas, Minnesota, and Massachusetts who each allegedly have exhibited harmful intent or criminal intent in a context victimizing myself, John Kevin McMillan.

Among the cited criminal-law issues in that massive criminal-law pre-prosecution file on my own behalf and citedly for my own benefit that was officially established by the Travis County District Attorney's Office in Austin, Texas, in January of 2006, are: ongoing and year-round and multi-year as well as multi-decade noise pollution and accompanying anonymous unwanted communications and verbalized death threats against myself in Austin, Texas, that have been determined by a nationally renowned ear, nose, and throat medical specialist in Austin, Texas, Dr. David Tobey of Austin (this through statistical data and accompanying medical records that Dr. Tobey has meticulously and diligently obtained from examining me in person several times over a multi-year period inside his ear, nose, and throat medical clinic in Austin), to be significantly and permanently injurious to my own hearing capacity and medical health.


---the massive increase in the percentage of all Americans who write reports and letters and observations and reflections of theirs several times per week, the Blog-writing and Internet E-mail era contributing to a demystification of writing and democratization of the avocation of writing throughout this country. "In America these days, everyone is a writer," our national leadership might as well proudly declare. "And the fearlessness of the Blogs and E-mail notes being written by Americans each day serves as a further reminder that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion rights are greater in the United States than in the vast majority of the other nations of the world."

---the many admirably conscientious and vigilant Whistle Blowers of American society who find the courage to contact the government and report significantly illegal conduct that they have directly observed at their own workplace.

---the admirable and urgently-needed trend toward prosecuting attorneys, including in Austin, Texas, filing criminal charges in a court of law against individuals with the HIV virus who allegedly infected one or more other human beings with the HIV virus.


WHAT I DISLIKE THE MOST ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND AMERICAN SOCIETY:


---the failure of our national leadership to adequately emphasize the need to make our nation as morally strong and morally defensible as possible.

---The failure of American society to adequately praise and exalt true gentlemen and true ladies of valor and nobility and wholesome moral values.

---the lack of healthy shared non-partisan or bi-partisan values that could help to lend unity and a greater sense of purpose to American society.

---the failure of the United States Congress and the President of the United States to officially endorse and officially approve the long-term goal of zero population growth for the United States and American society.

---the failure of American society to generously share recycling technology and environmental-protection technology with Third World nations.

---the alarming failure of the U.S. Congress during the Obama Administration to officially and fully approve an international treaty designed to prevent further depletion of the ozone layer and prevent further annihilation of the global environment resulting from the Global Warming Effect.

---the widespread incidence of crime and violence within the USA.

---the permissiveness by the local and state government (and this is particularly the case here in Austin, Texas, and the State of Texas, from what I have observed) toward non-stop and year-round background noise pollution that has been determined by an ear, nose, and throat medical specialist to be permanently and significantly harmful to the hearing capacity and medical health of any person subjected against his wishes to that very unwanted noise pollution.

---the fear of criminals and would-be criminals that terrorizes the vast majority of all law-abiding Americans of today.

---the failure by American society to adequately and generously reward the noble Whistle Blowers of American society who reported to the government factual evidence of major illegal conduct at their own workplace that they directly observed.

---the large number of Americans of today who earn their "livelihood" as illicit-drug-dealers or sexual prostitutes, so much so that a true and fully accurate "Alternative Census" of Americans of today would produce shockingly large numbers in each of those categories that demand immediate action by our nation's political leadership.

---the widespread contempt by much of popular culture toward law-abiding and honorable and wholesome youth groups, a contempt that has played a role in the growing number of illicit youth gangs in American society. Those illicit youth gangs equate masculinity and "honor" with wielding a knife or a gun: those illicit youth gangs make it dangerous for a law-abiding person to walk along the street in Los Angeles, California.

---the contempt by popular culture in the United States toward non-sexual or strictly platonic personal relationships, with Hollywood movies incorrectly implying that when a woman and a man are interacting with each other, only two possibilities can result from that involvement: his attempting to force himself upon her and have sex with her, or his asking her to go out on a romantic date with himself.

---the perverse exaltation of obscene speech and profane speech by American popular culture, so much so that it is rare to watch a Hollywood movie these days in which all of the language is clean, and "rap music" and "punk rock music" and "rock music" produced by Americans are riddled with profanely misanthropic language.

----the unconscionable exportation to foreign nations of gratuitously violent movies and gratuitously violent and misanthropic musical recordings that were produced in the United States, this type of "export" being pervasively injurious to other nations as well.

---the very high injury rate to football players that occurs in college football and professional football games in the United States, with permanent neurological damage to football players resulting from head injuries they sustained being particularly alarming.

---rampant urban sprawl and accompanying unattractive chaos and wastage of fossil fuels.

---the glaring fact that nearly all cities and towns of the USA of today are not designed to serve pedestrians seeking to walk within a reasonable amount of time from one end of that municipality to the other end.

---the high percentage of all Americans who because of their addiction to alcohol or tobacco or marijuana or other illicit drugs destroy their own and others' lives.

---the enormity of the tobacco and alcohol industries in the United States, and the outrageous manner in which those industries based in the United Stats are being permitted to export the "hell" they inflict on their victims to foreign nations as well.

---the shockingly high incidence of unwanted pregnancies in the United States, and particularly among American women and American female youths under age 20.

---the alarmingly high percentage of all Americans of today who either flunk out of high school or drop out of school without obtaining a high school diploma.

---the failure of our national leadership to call our entire nation's attention to the massive loss of cropland and pastureland and ranchland that is occurring each year because of urban sprawl and unjustifiable intrusion on agricultural and ranching land throughout this country. The U.S. Government should be providing our entire nation with a fully publicized monthly, bimonthly, semiannual, and annual report that cites the total number of acres currently being used for agriculture or ranching in this country, by category, and how that number compares with one year ago at that time, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and 50 years ago.

---the growing reliance of American society on Third World nations for agricultural produce that is then offered for sale inside American supermarkets, it being very difficult inside H.E.B. chain supermarkets in Austin, Texas, these days to find ANY avocados for sale that were produced in California or any other U.S. state, if applicable.