Sad state of our National Parks-II

MDKMDK wrote:
You are the luckiest people on the face of the earth, to live in your country with the vast amount of personal freedoms you enjoy. Just look to your north to see what happens to a country when they can't see the forest for the trees. We started out at roughly the same time as you all, but chose to keep the European/British style of government, instead of adopting your federal constitutional republic with 3 separate and equal segments of government methodology. Over the years, while we stumbled and agonized over what was wrong with our system, you developed into the greatest bastion of personal freedom on the planet, bar none. You flourished while we struggled, and now you're a giant compared to most countries on the planet, us included. While you may have had some speed bumps along the way, and arguably aren't a perfect society overall, you overcame them all, and haven't missed a major beat since your birth in 1776. I wish we had joined you back then and shared a common legacy going forward, but it was not to be. That's why we've lived in your shadow for over 240 years, and depend on you far more than you might ever depend on us. In population alone, you dwarf us, with or without immigration, and that speaks volumes about how different our paths have been, since we all began moving forward from our common ancestry. Economically, there's no comparison either, so don't get me started. If it wasn't for us living next door under your protective military umbrella, I think we'd already be speaking Mandarin or Russian by now. Thanks for that, as I had to learn to speak French all those years ago, and I don't want to learn a 3rd or 4th language any time soon. :B

I thank you for your post and recognizing that, although we are not perfect, we are the best that there is. We have spent trillions of dollars helping other countries, saving the world and Europe from extinction twice, and sacrificed the blood of countless Americans to do so.