Christine M. Flowers: Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for what we don't have

BEING A BIT of a contrarian (what, you're surprised?) I tend to approach Thanksgiving week in a slightly unorthodox way. Instead of tallying all those things that I'm grateful to have, I ruminate on those I don't. This is not to say that I engage in some Occupy Depression mentality, where I long for things that belong only to the 1 percent (including Demi Moore, Michael Moore and Ivana Get Moore). No, it's more of an attempt to remember why life is so good in my part of the world by thinking about how much worse it could be.

For example, we don't have a Congress or president who seem to be able to get along on the most basic issues, including health care, the deficit, immigration and our military preparedness. It's a bit of a challenge, as we saw earlier this week when the guys in Washington failed to resolve the budget crisis. But imagine that we lived in North Korea, Iran or, as it now turns out, Egypt. We wouldn't have any of those silly problems that come from democracy, in which all voices - including the rather crazy ones - are heard and all ideas vetted. No, we'd have a Supreme Commander who'd force his advisers (that's a joke) to do what he told them to do or else. The "or else" involves a veto, the kind that separates your head from your torso. Or, we might have a military junta that gets fed up with some unruly protesters and sprays them with bullets, not pepper spray.

Which brings me to another thing I don't miss: a Fourth Estate that takes its cues from the government. Sure, there are some conspiracy theorists out there who think the press is owned by either the Koch brothers or George Soros. Some also think that the atheists pose a substantial threat, making sure that the mainstream media purge God from the public square. But, even though they try, they're pretty ineffective propagandists. Whether they like it or not, God is here to stay.

For all the criticism it gets, the media isn't beholden to any particular interest group. Or rather, it's beholden to a lot of different ones, so you can find the news that you like simply by changing the dial or switching subscriptions. We are not a Pravda nation where you get only the party line, the "official story." If that were the case, we wouldn't see the folks on MSNBC screaming about how fascist the police at the University of California-Davis are for spraying those scholarly protesters with a nonlethal substance which, yes, is a pain to get out of your clothes. Or, we wouldn't see Fox's Sean Hannity make everything that President Obama does (including his bowel movements) into a betrayal of America. No, we'd just have the Supreme Communicator on television all the time telling us that everything was coming up guns and roses.

Another thing that I'm really glad not to have is a congenital sense of entitlement. We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where even the protesters of economic inequality can camp out in thousand-dollar, fully-equipped tents and still garner sympathy. Many people are angry that the system has, in their view, given them the short end of the economic stick. But the vast majority of Americans see the truth: that equality is in the eyes of the beholder, and the beholder is fully capable of getting a job even if it's not exactly the one that his liberal-arts degree prepared him for. Americans are also capable of criticizing the criminals on Wall Street (and they are there) without wanting to "redistribute the wealth" to the masses. Capitalism is a good thing, and most people understand that. The whiners, while camera-savvy, are in the vocal minority.

And, finally, I'm glad that I don't live in a country where human life is expendable. Yes, we still have legalized abortion, which is a scar on our national character. But, at least we don't think that it's OK, as they do in China, to actually force women to kill their unborn children. And at least we don't think that it's fine, as they do in India, to destroy female fetuses because they're less valuable to society. And at least we don't think that murdering third-term, viable fetuses is a necessary medical procedure, Kermit Gosnell notwithstanding. We may still talk about a woman's "choice." But a growing number of young people think that human rights start in the womb. Which is a triumph.

So, now, when I look at all the things that we don't have in this magnificent place I call home, I consider myself incredibly blessed. So should all of you.