This is just cowardly defeatism, a trend all too common these days in American public policy. Too many ideas which are provably sound as borne out by their implementation by other nations (cf universal health care for another example), waved away as &quot;impossible&quot; (or at least, impossible <i>in America</i>) by much of the electorate.<p>Too many Americans like yourself are too quick to grasp for any excuse they can which will allow them to perceive a real weakness (shitty health care is the big one, but also failing institutions generally) as an imagined strength. You can fool yourself for a very long time, but you don&#x27;t solve any real problems that way.