{"id":894,"date":"2008-11-07T10:15:06","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T18:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simonburrow.com\/\/?p=894"},"modified":"2008-11-07T10:16:08","modified_gmt":"2008-11-07T18:16:08","slug":"why-i-am-an-optimist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/?p=894","title":{"rendered":"Why I am an Optimist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What a great country.\u00a0 The election of Barack Obama (I just added Barack and Obama to my on-line dictionary) and the gracious acceptance of defeat by John McCain are evidence how great it is.\u00a0 Although in the margin I supported McCain I understand the desire of so many people to vote for Obama.\u00a0 We are making history.<\/p>\n<p>If President Obama can govern half as well as he could campaign, he will be a great President.<\/p>\n<p>I am almost always optimistic and now is no different.\u00a0 The financial markets are not finished finding a new level yet and in terms of overall prosperity we may go backwards for another five years.\u00a0 But the trend line for the US and the world is very good.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The growth of population is slowing rapidly (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rationalimmigrationmovement.com\/dev\/content\/view\/104\/57\/lang,en\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fewer by Ben Wattenberg<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Prosperity is increasing around the world<\/li>\n<li>Starvation and disease are being conquered<\/li>\n<li>Technology continues to making living less brutal and short<\/li>\n<li>Freedom is increasing and despotic regimes are more beleaguered than ever<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is hard to see these trends through the fog of the crisis of the day news reporting.\u00a0 There is a way to confirm that I am right.\u00a0 All you have to do is the hundred year test.\u00a0 Ask this question: How many people alive today would trade places with someone in their current occupation 100 years ago?\u00a0 Would you?<\/p>\n<p>We are making remarkable progress in improving the human condition and there is every reason to believe the progress will continue.\u00a0 Of course there is lots more to be done.\u00a0 Lets keep working at it.<\/p>\n<p>John McCain in his concession letter that I received this morning said:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We urge you to join us in not just congratulating Senator Obama, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together as a nation. Whatever our differences may be, we are all fellow Americans.<br \/>\nWe are truly blessed to live in this great country and call ourselves Americans, and we will forever be her loyal servants.<br \/>\nToday, let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Democracy works and progress continues.\u00a0 What a great country!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What a great country.\u00a0 The election of Barack Obama (I just added Barack and Obama to my on-line dictionary) and the gracious acceptance of defeat by John McCain are evidence how great it is.\u00a0 Although in the margin I supported McCain I understand the desire of so many people to vote for Obama.\u00a0 We are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-simon-says"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99jGb-eq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1039,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/1039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}