Tucker Carlson Is Wrong. Russia Is A Third World Country With Nukes and Oil

 David Harsanyi, over at The Federalist has an article today entitled Tucker Carlson Is Wrong About the Moscow - And The United States. Harsanyi opens with:

At the World Government Summit, Tucker Carlson told a gathering of world leaders that Moscow “was so much nicer than any city” in the United States. “It’s radicalizing for an American to go to Moscow,” Tucker went on. “I didn’t know that. I’ve learned it this week, to Singapore, to Tokyo, to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, because these cities, no matter how we’re told they’re run and on what principles they’re run, are wonderful places to live that don’t have rampant inflation.”

He goes on to note that Carlson is way off in his assessment here, and I agree with him. Now, I haven't been to as many places as Carlson, or Harsanyi. But I have been to a few, and none of them beat living in the USA, even now. I've been to Panama, Costa Rica, Germany (briefly), Denmark, Norway, Sweeden and Finland. I could have gone to St. Petersburg, Russia, but at the time I was employed by the Navy. They had pretty strict rules about going there.

We lived in Panama for several years, and the people are nice, friendly, but no more so than people back here. But what locals could read, what books were available, was all heavily controlled. As Americans living on an American Naval Station, we had access to news, books, and other entertainment from home. But not so the ex-pats who lived in Panama. I really liked coming home. As an aside, we often asked my Mom to tape shows for us with the commercials, because we missed them.

We also took a trip to Scandanavia with our church. We went to see the how the Scandanavian countries uniquely implimented the construction of churces there. Unlike elsewhere, where there were stone cathedrals, the Scandanavian churches are wooden affairs. But we discovered that few people actually attended them, unlike back home. A five star hotel in Bergen, Norway would be on par with a typical Holiday Inn here. The famous Tivoli Garden in Copenhagan is about like a local city park here. Nothing really special. There is a lot of travel by bicycle, because people can't afford cars.

Here's the bottom line: The conditions under which the average person live in all these places was worse than back home. Sometimes, much worse. Now, I understand why many of these people resent us, for it is true that but for the grace of being born here, we too might be one of these people. We are fortunate, not only because we are here, but because of a unique set of laws that have made us prosperous and free, though our enemies are trying to change that. We are also fortunate because we are a child of Britain, where our ideas about government and the rules of laws not men were born. We should be grateful to God and should be humbled by that realization. We should seek to be the shining city on the hill, not trying to burn the place down.

As for Russia, Harsanyi notes:

There probably isn’t a single quantifiable economic measure in which Russia bests the United States. None of this is even to mention that Russia is an extraordinarily corrupt place, the price of which is embedded into virtually every business transaction. I’m not sure Americans appreciate how little graft they deal with in their everyday lives. Then again, Russia ranks in the vicinity of Uganda and Togo on the corruption indexes.

The only thing more pervasive than bribery is alcoholism and suicide. Russians have far worse medical care than we do. Far smaller homes. Fewer things to buy. Fewer places to see. Less mobility. Less innovation. Less meritocracy.

Not everything is about money, of course. Religious commitment? Around 50-65 percent of Americans claimed religion was important to them (depending on the poll). In Russia, it’s at 16-34 percent. The Russian divorce rate is at 74 percent, the highest in the world. And even though we’re headed in the wrong direction, we still have more children. But sure, crime has fallen over the years — though it is still higher in the Russian capital than most American cities.

I’m a big fan of Russian culture — Dostoevsky, Shostakovich, Tarkovsky, and so on. But that doesn’t change the fact that 20 percent of Russian households don’t have indoor plumbing. Or that a third of Russian hospitals don’t have running water. If you think infrastructure is bad here, I have news. Russia ranks 52nd on the Human Development Index. It’s basically a third-world country with nukes and an enormous reserve of oil and natural gas but little else.

I really don't know what Carlson was thinking. Perhaps his surroundings made him feel as if telling it like it is would not be well received. I don't know. But he got it wrong this time.