This is a really great article by Rick Steves, travel writer, about changing one’s perspective of the world as an American. It tells the true story about how if one hasn’t traveled outside the United States, one’s outlook will remain one-dimensional. Not your fault, necessarily, but the fault of our insular, isolationist, and simplistic national media and government. I found that travel (especially traveling poor and staying in people’s homes rather than at hotels) outside the US definitely opened my eyes to people and places that I could never have imagined.

It’s kinda long and even a bit depressing, but read it anyhow.

It compels me to leave this country and not return.

Excerpt:

Spending half our nation’s discretionary budget on the military while stripping down our society and reshuffling wealth into the richest families is a tough sell. And it gets tougher and tougher. It requires fear (an enemy as big as communism — like terrorism), a distracted dumbed-down electorate, and a narrowly held media. A government looking out for the little guy only gets in the way, so a disdain for government in general (and taxes in specific) must be sold to the populace.

Travel in Europe puts you in touch with societies who believe in good government. In Scandinavia you sip your coffee on town squares where the city hall rather than a church is the centerpiece. The city hall bell tower stands like a steeple…an exclamation mark declaring communities can work together and care for all. Inside the city hall, you enter what feels like the nave of a church and are surrounded with murals extolling the beauties of good government and the sorry consequences of bad government. Citizens pay high taxes in expectation of a high-service government.