It truly takes a village (as Hill Clinton once wrote) to raise a child. And in the America of all our dreams, families and children grow and thrive; along with other American families they work together and go on picnics and form supportive communities that span the fertile prairies, the rolling hills, majestic mountains and blossoming deserts. These American families proudly display the national flag on each and every holiday and sing altogether The Star Spangled Banner, the words of which they learned by heart in grade school… There is something lush and romantic–almost Teutonic!–and so inspiring about this idyllic America, this memeplex that the whole World looks up to (like it were actually real and not just a Norman Rockwell painting on a garage calendar) and the world yearns to emulate it, to make itself a much better place by America’s shining example. But then [cough cough] there is this…
