Cutting U.S. in Thirds

     I read an interesting article on Facebook last week stating that Barak Obama's perspective is that of the third world.  That could explain the infamous "You didn't build this" gaffe.  My only personal experience with a third world country was last year's visit to Guatemala, but I was unable to get in touch with the man-on-the-street mentality because I didn't want to be robbed or killed by the man on the street.  Most of my knowledge of third, or possibly fourth, world perspective comes from time spent with my college friend Chuku.  He was from Nigeria, a country whose economy is based entirely on check cashing scams.  Chuku was from the Ibo tribe whose scam-impaired people owned and ran many business.  From time to time another tribe or Muslim group would decide "Hey, you built this, but I want it", so they would kill or drive out the owners and take it over.  Within a short time the businesses were no longer profitable and the buildings in bad repair.  What the occupiers did not realize is that the wealth did not come from the business, and certainly not the building, it came from the enterprise of the workers.
     The third world perspective was further explained to me by a missionary to the primitive Bantu people of Africa.  The Bantu believe the world has a finite amount of goods.  If I have more than you do, I have stolen your share.  From that perspective I can see why other nations would resent American wealth.  We are hoarding the money.  In other beliefs they are just like us--they believe in vampires.  Okay, except for a resurgence in the entertainment industry, most of us don't believe in vampires, but the Bantu do.  Not the blood sucking kind, but the life force suckers.  Not only are foreigners stealing their wealth, but their fellow countrymen are stealing the energy that might bring them wealth and influence.
    They also believe nothing happens by chance, if something bad, like sickness, happens someone must be punished for it.  That makes Africa a very dangerous place to have a car accident, because it was obviously a car intentional and the car, driver, or both must pay.  I would laugh at this primitive, superstitious view of the world if we didn't do the same thing here.  The difference here is that we have more lawyers, so instead of beating on people, we sue them.  In America there are no accidents, it is someone's fault that there was no warning label telling you not to eat your toothbrush, or that coffee is hot, or not to sleep in the refrigerator.  Of course we are not motivated by primitive superstition, we are motivated by greed. Even before court tv and "American Idol", our nation was full of people willing to admit they were morons if it might get them money.
     But I digress.  One of the reasons people from all nations have been willing to die to get here is to pursue the American dream--that by hard work you can achieve anything.  The wealth that we can't share with the third world is that vision.  I hope election 2012 doesn't change that.