Letters from Home: Talking Politics, Economics, Trump, Righties and Lefties With my Cousin

Occasionally I end up having lengthy message/email exchanges with one of my cousins back in Denmark... just as a way to catch up with what's been going on in our respective lives.

He used to work pretty high up in the Danish Ministry of Agriculture (now retired), spent a lot of time as an attaché to the EU government and so we often end up segueing into social/economic/political discussions. These are not really debates as much as they are just a sharing and discussing of perspectives, and learning how things work, across cultures.

One of the inevitable questions he asked was whether people in the US felt "different/relieved" as a result of Joe Biden being elected President.

I had to admit to him that I was going to withhold any kind of opinion about that until Biden had actually been sworn in as President... reflecting my resignation to feeling a reality that politicians really don't run politics in the US, lawyers do... and lawyers have a way of keeping everything mired down in eternal litigation and curveballs while the rest of the world rots.

His next sentence started with "But surely, people WANT...?" which I headed off at the pass by pointing out that what people want tends to have only a marginal connection to what actually happens.

We had a bit of a laugh at the fact that many people I know in the US still jump to the automatic conclusion that I am "a socialist," simply by virtue of the fact that I was born and grew up in Denmark which is "a socialist country."

I always get a good giggle out of that... for no greater reason than it's a ridiculous generalization. Like assuming "everybody in America" loves Donald Trump because he happens to be President.

We both agreed it's kind of funny, though... and arrived at the conclusion that the only people in the world who actually believe Denmark is a "Socialist State" are Americans who don't really know what socialism is.

Venezuela is socialist. Cuba is socialist (sort of). North Korea is... well, it's own thing. Viet-Nam is also "sort of" socialist. Denmark is 90% free-market capitalist, but with a strong social safety net. Denmark is not socialist.

As a point of reference, the Danish communist party shrank to so small that it ended up being absorbed as part of the left/socialist leaning alliance generally referred to as the "Red/Greens," formed in 1989, and the combined alliance still gets less than 8% of the popular vote during national elections. Move on, nothing to see here...

Of course, it's always different to actually live in and be native to a culture than it is to be on the outside of the fishbowl, looking in, while wearing those fun-house mirrored glasses of your own preconceived notions.

My cousin — seeing as how he's into all that stuff — had to point out that Denmark typically ranks higher than the US on the annual "Ease of Doing Business Index."

Then he pointed out that what's not easy in Denmark is being some huge multi-national corporation who wants to come in, have laws changed to suit them and do things their own way and throw their weight around, just because they are a 600lb gorilla who wants to crush everyone. What's different in Denmark is that it's harder to bribe the "referees" in the business game to "look the other way" on sketchy behavior.

In Denmark that's called "protecting the well-being of society," in the US the same thing would probably be called "unwelcome socialistic government interference."

Which, of course, leads to one of my own personal observations after living in the US for many years and traveling back and forth between Denmark (as a native) and the USA on a fairly regular basis:

The entire nation of the United States of America is essentially founded on a mistrust of government; it's practically bred into our genes here... the ostensible "founders" were often trying to escape repressive and abusive governments. Danes, on the other hand, are far more likely to believe their government serves their well-being.

As a "generality," of course... but there's no shortage of data to serve as supporting evidence.

In the end, we concluded what we often conclude: most of the differences between Denmark and the US are societal rather than economic or political. Meaning... that the comparison is actually quite difficult because what's important to the average Dane isn't necessarily what's important to the average American... and vice-versa. So the whole "Why don't they just...?" as a root argument to change things in either nation can perhaps most accurately be answered with some version of "Because they don't WANT to because that's not what's IMPORTANT to them!"

Which reminds me of one of my early lessons when I arrived in Texas, in 1981 to go to college, fresh off "the boat" from Europe... and a young woman in one of my classes exclaimed "you must be some kind of COMMUNIST!" because I asked why there were so few buses on the local public transit system. Clearly, not making "owning a LARGE car" my highest priority made me a communist.

In retrospect, it's just a funny anecdote... but it does point to the differences in core values we often find it challenging to bridge.

Just to clarify, though, I am neither a "rightie" or a "leftie;" I believe strict adherence to either wing is born out of a fear of something... whether it's the fear of "not being taken care of" or the fear of "having something TAKEN from you."

I suppose I might call myself a sort of "selfish idealistic-philanthropist:" I'm willing to pay into a system that provides a sound social safety net for fringe dwellers and the mentally ill... not so much because I care about them, but because if they have care and a place to go, they're less likely to break into my place and steal/break my shit. Which, in turn, means I can spend my hard-earned money on good food and vacations, rather than firearms and security systems.

We ended out Christmas exchange with Jesper reminding me of a popular Danish political truism, that loosely translated goes something like this:

"If you're not a Communist when you're young, you have no HEART! If you don't STOP being a Communist as you grow older, you have no BRAIN!"

And with that, thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day!

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Created at 20201227 16:54 PST
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