Letter to the editor: What is happiness?

The United Nations sponsors a poll every three years to rate how well people view their governments. Averaging the results allows us to discover, in a vague way, where we may find “happy” populations.

Top of the list, for the 10th year in a row: Finland. Check out their education system, and their lack of homelessness (then climb down 24 rungs to find the United States).

Curiously, the top three nations in the happiness equation are also ranked as being the most liberal nations on earth.

We’re constantly being told that leaning too far left is a sure way to fall. Countries that honor humanity over wealth should be, at the very least, as miserable as countries that honor wealth over humanity. What’s up with that?

So what makes these idiots in Finland (No. 1), Denmark (No. 2) and Sweden (No. 3) cast a blind eye to the horrific predicament they’ve created for themselves? Has this world gone mad by labeling them “the happiest people in the world?”

I perceive that maybe Finns derive satisfaction in the fact that their tax dollars are going to help people, rather than to kill them. Swedes may like the idea that it’s perfectly fine to get along with their neighbors rather than being constantly told to hate and fear them. Maybe Danes are satisfied that it costs them nothing to go see a doctor, or that the government actually pays them to seek higher education.

Evidence for No. 24: Maybe Americans are not ecstatic about the constant abuse of the word “we.”

“We’re going to raise hundreds of billions in tariffs. We’re going to become so rich, we’re not going to know where to spend that money.”

“When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”

But “it takes money to kill bad guys: Tacking on an additional $200 billion” (to the trillion dollar budget of Department of Brief Excursions) “is a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy top.”

And, on the “tippy top” of all that, “we” now learn that: “The greatest enemy of America is the Democrat Party.”

Be happy? When we are at war with ourselves and the world at the same time? Be happy with the fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 10 million? How can we be happy when over half of our population is the enemy?

It’s time to use our God-given common sense and strike out “E. pluribus Unum” from our currency —  and from our hearts and souls. I’m sure that will score us some points.

Oh, by the way, despite our 20 years, $2 trillion and the sacrifice of more than 6,000 American lives in the successful project of restoring the country’s rank as the world’s top producer of opium, Afghanistan rates at the very bottom of the happiness roster.

But don’t forget in these dark times, that America is No. 1 in having the most billionaires.

They’ll fix it all, won’t they?

Dennis Shain

Centralia