As an international student I am often asked: "Why are you here in the U.S.?" This is a natural question, and usually it takes me some head scratching and a minute to figure out why I am 12 time zones away from home. What makes us aliens flock to the land of the free? Is it the allure of a fine education? The aroma of Milwaukee's Best? Perhaps, but getting an education here implies that America is somehow "better" than other places such as our home countries or good ol' Britain.
I love America because there is no responsibility. Let me give you a little "nugget," which by now has become a textbook example: person purchases coffee at McDonalds. Person burns tongue, because person chugs hot coffee. Person consequently gets weird tingly feeling on tongue. Person is mighty angry now, because all subsequent food tastes funny on burnt tongue. Now in other countries you have to deal with the psychological torment (maybe you lose your friends, your marriage goes on the rocks, food tastes funny etc.) of a burnt tongue. However, in America you can sue McDonalds for hot coffee! That's brilliant! You can look the defense in the eye and say "I didn't know the coffee was supposed to be hot." The jury will then nod vigorously and award you many millions! I wish I could do that back home. I would be fabulously wealthy -- so wealthy in fact that every time I went to McDonalds I could super-size my meal with an extra large coffee. The best part, though, is that this unique process not only redistributes income from large cruel corporations to, pardon my french, the dim-witted, but also fuels the whole caution label cottage industry. It helps the sticker and packaging industry, because they have to work overtime to supply all the caution labels.
So this whole responsibility thing, is in fact, twice as good as I had first suspected it to be. Also, America has the courage and will to disprove Darwinian evolution, for society does not weed out the weak. In fact, I suspect there is reverse Darwinian evolution in process here; the intelligent (those who can fathom a world with hot coffee) lose out, because they don't have the heart (and apparently the brains either) to sue other people and firms. Now, I must add a strong disclaimer to the above paragraph. I am by no means advocating you to sue other people and/or corporations, but I am just airing my opinions, a fact that leads me to the second part of my answer.
The second thing I love about America is its affinity for political correctness. In other countries you can get away with snide remarks, a distastefully funny joke and drunken blabbering (which more often than not can be offensive). In America, however, such activity is generally frowned upon. Perhaps it is because political incorrectness is like those hard Q-Tips. It hurts the ears. Or maybe not. Either way offending people is quite overrated, and the sanitization of speech saves a lot of grief for all parties involved. I think it really strengthens the social atmosphere when everyone takes themselves very seriously and indirectly monitors everyone else's speech. After all, if you aren't allowed to say what those voices in your head tell you, how can you possibly offend anyone? Personally, I think any kind of distasteful humor should be banned outright, especially at Dartmouth. In fact, I propose that the Student Life Initiative install listening devices in the place of taps at all Greek houses. The Administration should divert funds from that whole wireless computing network they are setting up to purchase sophisticated "bugs." This intelligence gathering would be precisely what the school needs to determine how we rank among the other Ivies. The Administration could establish once and for all how much "intelligence" is out there, and all individuals with dissenting views that do not pass the mark of being "intelligent" would thus be Parkhursted. Or they could be forced to sing "Oops ... I Did It Again" in front of the whole school.
In conclusion I would like to note that I take no responsibility for my opinions and I would be grateful if you would direct your bitter complaints to either your roommate or Poopythreats@Dartmouth.edu.
