You Know It's Bad...

So, this past Friday, I was sitting in World Political Systems listening to the oh-so-interesting lecture on England's political system. More specifically their strict party discipline. Then my professor opened it up to discussion. Why is it that England has this system? Is it good or bad?

Almost immediately the hands shot up.

"It's terrible. They don't have the ability to choose what they believe in."

"They don't have any choice."

"They're stuck!"

The obviously American voices clucked on, not believing for a second that a political system that doesn't strictly adhere to the US's could be better in anyway.

But one student among them had the audacity to lay it on the line, to tell everyone what England was obviously missing.

"I think we're looking at it from this perspective because in the US we have more moral....umm, character, I guess, in our politics and the UK has none."

Ladies and gentlemen, I was stunned. So stunned I could not utter a word. I could only laugh. Loudly. Yes, I laughed at this boy. Long and hard.

Some people looked at me knowingly. But what really shocked me was that I actually received icy stares from some people. As if laughing at the complete ignorance of a person is somehow more taboo than being a xenophobic ignoramus with the nerve to indict an entire country's political system, which he has very little knowledge of outside of what he was told in the lecture.


The nerve of some people.

But, if that class taught me anything, it taught me the need to leave this place as soon as I can. New York, DC, Seattle?


Paris?


...London?