I agree that the aggregate standards and quality of life are much improved over 20, 40, or 60 years ago, but I don't share your satisfaction with the status quo. I would prefer we made some changes that enabled the poor to be housed and receive more than emergency room reactive access to health care. No man is an island, and a devotion to meritocracy can blind you to the reality that the accomplishments attributed to merit and hard work are often simply correlated to the ZIP code where you spent your childhood.

In a nation with as much wealth as we enjoy, it is shameful how we relegate our neighbors to defecating on sidewalks, living in tents with no heat or plumbing, and raving in the streets due to lack of mental health care.