Yesterday, while I was surfing, I stumbled upon an interesting site. So interesting in fact that I disabled the pop up blocker of Firefox, hoping for some further information. Up came a green window with shrieking red letters. It offered me assistance in obtaining a green card so that I could come to and work in the US. And something about "making my dreams come true".

The people so generously offering me a green card, without knowing me personally must know that I live in Belgium, if only because they target certain countries by IP adress. My dreams are many, but none involve emigrating to the United States. I mean, are you mad? Or do you think that I am mad? Seriously? They must be joking.

Let me clarify. I live in a country with a public health system that is one of the best in the world. We have an unrivaled social security. We don't have religious fundamentalists and state and church are separated. I mean, once in a while they interview Godfried Cardinal Danneels, the Catholic prelate, on TV on some social issue. He states his point of view modestly and is mostly ignored. Or criticized. Let me add that he is a very charming man, but his opinion has no political weight and that is as it should be.

Gays can and do marry, but certainly not all of them. The leader of the Walloon Socialist Party is gay but not married. This is public knowledge and has been for years. By the way: the Socialist Party is the leading party of Wallonia. One of the commissioners of the police force of Antwerp is gay and married. Nobody thinks that this makes him less of a policeman. We have laws that forbid discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religious beliefs and sexual preference. Abortion is a matter decided by the pregnant woman. This law is decades old and abortions have remained at more or less the same level throughout. Euthanasia is a bit of a work in progress, although the right of the individual to end his life is recognized.

And guess what? The wrath of god hasn't fallen upon us and neither has the sky. Nor has Belgium become a pool of sinful lust and depravity. Even heterosexual marriage has managed to survive.

I think that once and again our politicians lie to us, but not to the extend that they put our lives in immediate danger. Being a small country has its benefits: it absolves you of the obligation, real or perceived,  to invade other countries (although we could take Luxemburg easily, I suppose). All in all, it makes you good at diplomacy and cooperation with other nations.

My government can not pluck me from the streets, call me a terrorist an lock me up without having very good reasons to do so and demonstrating those reasons. Even then they must prove that their allegations are true, they must inform me of those allegations and they must allow me to have legal representation. In no way can I be physically or mentally harmed. If even the slightest indication of abuse were to become public, the indignation of the press and the population would be so great that heads would roll (figuratively). Torture is totally unthinkable, let alone debatable. It is a barbaric practice found only in backward, uncivilized remote corners of the world with dictatorial regimes.

Of course, a lot of things go wrong here and many could be improved upon but certainly not nearly enough to emigrate to, of all places, the US. And certainly not while the patients are running the asylum. If Josiah Bartlet were president though, I could be tempted to reconsider.