Because free ice cream is good? I remember a local bank would give out free ice cream one day a year during a promotion, and it brought the whole town out. Musicians would come and play for everyone, and we’d all just sit and enjoy the day with some ice cream. Sounds like a much more amazing change for a government to make than taking away yet another established right from their population.

It’s saying that it’s really bad that America has fallen so far lately.

Abortion rights are gone, voting rights are being messed with, a racist misogynistic president has a significant chance of winning the next election, gay rights are in peril. America isn’t bad, but it’s actively getting worse, so when a news article comes about about it, it’s generally noting that downward trend. The news specifically talks about changes in things, not their current state. It also talks about big-ticket items, so smaller good things that happen don’t get on the news when there’s a bigger bad one going on. And there are a lot of big bad ones going on right now.

Americans aren’t America. I’m an American, and I staunchly oppose just about all major changes that have happened to my country in the last decade. I understand that I am not my country, and the actions of my country are not my own. I love my country in the same way that I love my drug addict cousin; he makes me very uncomfortable and embarrassed right now, but I really hope he comes around eventually, because I have great memories of who he used to be. I’m doing my best to help him change, but it’s not been enough.

The constructive criticism is that America should try to be less of a country where someone expects to hear bad news, and more of a country where someone expects to hear good news.

People can’t think, or read between the lines, for you.

Don’t be a sea lion.