Michael Moore, often seen as a controversial figure, has made another documentary, and it is something Americans need to see. The film, Where To Invade Next shows some of the comparatively better social ideas of European countries, where people's quality of life is improved upon, not worsened, by government. He discusses the film with Stephen Colbert on CBS' The Late Show.
Here's the film trailer:
During the interview, Michael focuses on things that we as Americans should also enjoy: free (University) education, child care, maternity leave, paid vacation, health care for all. Problems aside, European countries have these things and the price it comes at is worth it for the people. Education is key to all investment, and European nations are educating their populations much better than we are.
As a documentarian, Moore is set with the task of finding the flowers, not exposing the weeds. He interviews a pair of police from Lisbon, Portugal and discusses their policy, that has been active for fifteen years now, of decriminalizing the possession of illegal drugs. It has done wonders for Portuguese society, and could work here as well.
He touches upon the voting issues in this country. When you are released from prison in Europe, you can vote. As it stands now, 1/3 of all Black men in the state of Florida can't ever vote again, due to convictions and the antediluvian laws of the voter-restrictive Republican state. This is not beneficial to society, and it makes for disenfranchised voters, obviously. Hopelessness that you can't enact any sort of social change is detrimental to the well-being of a population. Colbert and Moore touch on Trump's anti-Muslim nonsense and put that to rest with the fact that it's illegal and un-Constitutional.
The one thing Europeans envy Americans for is our choice of consumer goods, more specifically the 150 plus brands of breakfast cereal that our supermarkets carry. But honestly, the purpose of this film is to educate Americans about some of our nation's original ideas that have been perfected by the European nations and how we too could learn and benefit by their implementation here.
Moore is very optimistic that a President with the middle name Hussein has miraculously enacted things like legalized gay marriage, and legalized marijuana in some states. These accomplishments make him strangely optimistic that more education can help Americans live better lives. Of course he's right, but the anti-education crowd will call this a Commie film and eschew seeing the movie.
Maybe a few unexpected people will see this worthwhile documentary, as I will, and teach others who desperately need an eye-opening view of other countries, ones that are not this American Exceptionalist paradise. I look forward to it.
