A Country?

I don't know of any country which can take glowing pride in that it -

has no unemployment;

has very decent minimum wage;

has no more than an optimum population;

is honest, quiet, clean, safe, protected;

harps on progress not in just economic terms alone;

emphasizes that acquisition of material goods does not lead to greater measures of happiness;

respects private affairs as long as they do not violate individual rights;

acknowledges and accepts the fact that all human beings cannot and will not be equal - no matter what the opportunities, and realizes that human beings differ greatly in terms of talent, natural aptitude, and interests (apart from certain other attributes) - that these differences neither mean that some human beings can be used or abused or disregarded nor that some human beings who possess qualitatively higher attributes should suffer;

fosters a system of education which allows children to learn and master the basics while teaching them the value of reading, thinking, questioning, introspecting, understanding, retaining, connecting while also teaching them the value of ultimately being able to make their own choices;

'cultivates the Good, True, and Beautiful' in humanity' (Albert Einstein);

sees science as a means of knowledge building and uses technology to make life easier - less cumbersome, more reliable (when that’s possible) while delegating more and more unpleasant tasks to machines (cleaning sewage systems, disposing garbage, working near furnaces, building or fixing of roads in extreme weather conditions are some) - yet also full-well knows that science, medicine, and technology can never fix everything;

respects the arts and the sciences and is able to see the genuine value in both;

has strict laws for the maintenance of peace, security, cleanliness, and civil behaviour;

fosters communication and engages in communication for what it is meant and not for purposes of obfuscation;

never uses violence but as the very last alternative;

understands that the environment while it needs to be protected at a material level also needs to be protected and preserved because of reasons that defy material and even purely aesthetic reasons alone;

protects animals, and as many as it can, because they exist...;

appreciates the merit of humour and music;

acknowledges that there are matters of the mind and heart which must be dealt with as a society but that some parts must be left well-alone for they are private and personal and individual;

recognises that there are matters of the spirit, which we, the common people, can only sense sometimes in fleeting bits or as a continuous yet unnamable presence, and can articulate very little of, yet also realizes that these aspects make them no less real…..