America could be better, but it’s still pretty good

This Thanksgiving, too many people are eager to talk up America's shortcomings, real or perceived. In many instances, "perceived" is winning the day.

We would all do well by taking to heart the punch line of Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff in describing the United States: "What a country!"

Seriously. Consider recent news:

— Last week, managers in the U.S. Labor Department's Center for Civil Rights threw a football-themed tailgate party for staffers. They gave no thought to wasting taxpayer money, but they at least made sure to ban Washington Redskins jerseys. What a country!

— Speaking of bans, how about those coddled college students railing against the First Amendment and more? Some of them attend the nation's most prestigious institutions of higher learning, yet they agitate about the need for safe spaces and trigger warnings, and they rip capitalism — via Twitter, on their iPhones, of course. As outspoken, controversial British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos recently tweeted — and it's ironic that it takes a Brit to defend our Bill of Rights — "Students: your safe space is the western liberal democracy you live in. It provides you freedom to speak your mind, however empty it may be." Indeed. What a country!

— Bette Midler, in a tweet last week, wrote: "People, #CaitlynJenner says she is STILL voting GOP in 2016. Regardless of gender identity, I guess she identifies most as 'uninformed.'" If that's Midler's biggest concern, then … What a country!

— Pundits are pointing out that GOP presidential front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson lack the experience necessary to be president. Some of these same pundits had no problem getting behind a young, vastly inexperienced first-term senator back in 2008. And they did it again in 2012. Now inexperience is a problem? What a country!

— Climate change alarmists never cease blowing hot air about the coming doomsday. Meanwhile, air pollution levels are at historic lows, primarily because of the development of cleaner ways to obtain and burn abundantly available and inexpensive fossil fuels. I just paid $2.20 a gallon for gas for my partial-zero-emissions car. What a country!

We think about the needy every Thanksgiving, but in doing so we must also recall that U.S. poverty rates have been relatively stagnant since the so-called War on Poverty began in 1965, despite taxpayers pouring more than $22 trillion into the battle. Imagine how much worse off low-income earners (and many other Americans) would be without cheap energy, which affects the cost of everything else?

Indeed, as reported by the American Enterprise Institute, among the households of the 46 million people classified as poor by the Census Bureau, 80 percent have air conditioning, nearly 75 percent have a car (31 percent have two or more) and nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.

More importantly, the report noted that 96 percent of poor parents said their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they couldn't afford food, and that 83 percent of poor families have enough to eat, according to a Department of Agriculture survey.

Now, is that good enough? Of course not. We all know people who have been hit hard by the Great Recession and haven't bounced back, and we see and hear about the plight of the poor every day, despite what those government statistics say.

But Americans are inherently good and charitable people who never settle for good enough. So don't settle for it today. Volunteer your time, your talent, your treasure. And don't forget how good America truly is. In fact, give thanks for that. What a country, indeed!

Patrick Everson (peverson@reviewjournal.com) is an editorial writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Follow him on Twitter: @PatrickCEverson