Spiritual guidance:

In Denmark, where recent studies have shown its population in general is happier and more content than any other country’s, citizens have clear moral values based generally on common sense and the golden rule instead of on the dogma of specific (and frequently conflicting) religions.

The Danes are also more considerate of their fellow citizens, accepting a high tax rate for the common good. There is little economic difference between the poor and the wealthy. Good health care is available to all. Life expectancy in Denmark and many other countries is significantly greater than that of the United States

And in some European countries, the terminally ill who are in serious and continuous pain, and have no prospect of their condition improving, may, if they wish, get a doctor’s help to have a painless and easy death.

All of that makes sense to humanists, as it should to most thinking people.

Compare that to the United States, where corporations and the wealthy are able to avoid most taxes by using tax havens or accounting tricks; where little is done to help the poor, and health care can be a problem; where public schools are not properly funded; from where our youth are sent out to fight and die in an unnecessary and disastrous war; where business managers pay themselves bonuses for having cut workers’ wages during recessions.

And where the politicized government ignores our constitution, breaks our laws, does improper and illegal things, and then gets new laws passed that make it so that it cannot be held responsible for what it has done, and so that much of what it does must be never made available to the public.

No wonder America is well down on the happiness scale. How did we let Jefferson’s dream of the pursuit of happiness in a new nation get bogged down in a corrupt political autocracy?

JERRY PARKS is a member of the Humanist Assn. of Orange County